Tag: Fort Wayne

Hitting the Road — The Soods Embark on Midwest Fall Tour This Week

Jason Roy of The Soods. Photo – Matt Ten Clay

The Soods are ready to hit the road.

The indie-rock collective is embarking on a short Midwest tour, which runs October 11 to 16.

The tour includes shows in Grand Rapids and Lansing, Michigan, as well as Chicago; Davenport, Iowa; and Fort Wayne, Indiana. It will also celebrate a milestone for one of The Soods’ side projects—Elroy Meltzer.

“This one will just be Steven [Meltzer] and me,” said Jason Roy, frontman and co-producer for The Soods, who’s based in Grand Rapids.

“It actually marks 10 years this year since we started Elroy Meltzer together, so we actually will be doing some songs off those first two albums. Steven still actively writes, records, and performs as Elroy Meltzer and has an album coming out on October 10 called 9 Out of 10 Ain’t Bad that people should check out as well.”

For its tour, The Soods have prepared an extensive setlist filled with new songs, old favorites, and covers.

“I think we have rehearsed about 25 or 26 songs, five covers ranging from Bruce Springsteen to Gorillaz, and then a pretty even split of Soods songs and the aforementioned Elroy stuff,” Roy said. “We’re pretty excited to play five unreleased ones as it’ll be the first time we played a few of them.”

I recently spoke with Roy about the collective’s tour and recent releases.

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Dynamic Duo — Jan Krist, Jim Bizer Bring Their Midwest Urban Folk for Farmington Civic Theater’s Friday Night Live

Jan Krist and Jim Bizer will perform Friday night at the Farmington Civic Theater.

Jan Krist and Jim Bizer will bring their Midwest urban folk songs to Farmington tomorrow night.

The folk singer-songwriter duo will perform as part of the “Friday Night Live” concert series at the Farmington Civic Theater, 33332 Grand River Ave. in Farmington, at 8 p.m. Friday with special guest Mark Reitenga.

“I think we’ll pull from all of our experiences of working together and songs that we’ve written together, songs that we’ve done solo, songs that are cover tunes, songs that we’ve performed and recorded, and maybe have some new stuff, too,” said Krist, who’s recovering from a broken shoulder. “I have a couple of new songs that I’m hoping we’ll be able to play.”

Together, Krist and Bizer will perform as part of a fun, formidable duo where the sum is greater than the already substantial parts. Their performances mesh and interlock with lyrics and melodies that interweave in surprising and intriguing ways.

Originally hailing from Detroit, the duo has played together for more than 40 years and first crossed musical paths as teens during the burgeoning singer-songwriter movement of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. Krist absorbed Joni Mitchell’s folk, rock, jazz and pop-inspired tunes while Bizer studied James Taylor’s catchy folk rock. They also developed an affinity for the Motown sound coming out of Detroit.

“Both of us had independent careers and achieved a bit of notoriety on our own, and then we decided it would be fun to tour together,” said Bizer, who started out playing cover songs in local bars and restaurants. “We’d perform as a duo and take turns performing each other’s songs. We got more and more developed into that kind of show, and we started writing together, and the songs became more crafted for a duo, which is where it really got fun.”

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