Tag: The Grateful Dead

Outside the Lines — Manchester’s Jonathan Doyle Follows His Own Creative Instincts and Is The GIG 2026 Featured Poster Artist

Jonathan Doyle with wife Brooke Doyle in 2022. Courtesy photo.

Editor’s Note: Lori Stratton is on the board of GIG: The Art of Michigan Music Foundation.

For one of his latest posters, Jonathan Doyle decided to step outside his musical realm.

The Manchester, Michigan, graphic designer and poster artist took an architectural approach and drew a picture of the Chelsea Clock Tower.

“I love that building, so I took a couple of pictures of it, and I just drew it,” said Doyle, who owns JK Doyle Art & Design and creates concert posters for the Manchester Underground Music and Art monthly concert series.

On the poster, he created a majestic blue-and-purple version of the clock tower against a light blue and white mandala background.

“I tried to keep it as fun as possible, and I didn’t want to go full psychedelic because it’s Chelsea,” Doyle said. “But at the same time, I didn’t want to go mayonnaise, so that’s where I ended up.”

Doyle’s artwork is the featured poster for GIG: The Art of Michigan Music, an annual event showcasing the creations of visual artists, graphic designers, and concert photographers who work in music.

This year’s edition of GIG takes place July 24-25 in Chelsea as part of the city’s Sounds & Sights Festival. Doyle is one of 20 artists featured at the event, which is spearheaded by Ann Arbor residents Chuck and Brenda Marshall.

“Being a musician and an artist, I have been in both realms, and it’s the only place I’ve ever seen where those two groups of people are brought together,” he said.

To support that community, GIG includes a gallery of artwork and photography by the featured artists, a music market filled with prints, photos, records, and merch, and workshops focused on mental health, websites, graphic design, and photography.

“I’m kind of a hermit, and a lot of my artist and musician friends are hermits, so there’s nowhere for us to go,” Doyle said. “The community inside the community [at GIG] is really big for me.”

I recently spoke with Doyle about his background and work as a graphic designer and poster artist.

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Bring to Mind — Danny VanZandt Examines the Emotional Connection Between Senses and Memories on “Proust in the Kitchen With the Wooden Spoon!” Album

From left: Randy Favot, George Jr., Anton Filyayev, Andrew Benjamin, and Danny VanZandt. Photo – Spencer Isberg

For Danny VanZandt, distinctive smells, tastes, and sounds trigger vivid memories.

The Detroit singer-songwriter explores those sensory experiences and the powerful recollections associated with them on his new album, Proust in the Kitchen With the Wooden Spoon!.

“It’s that concept of the Proustian memory that’s in one of his books where the character eats a cookie and has a flashback to a memory,” said VanZandt about his indie-rock release. “That—I think—is such a real thing and such a weird phenomenon that happens.”

As part of that phenomenon, he reflects on a gamut of emotions, ranging from gratitude to longing to anticipation, that arises when cooking and eating his late mother’s spaghetti and listening to music with friends.

“For me, my mom passing [away] was when I started thinking about that kind of stuff,” said VanZandt, who lost his mother in 2020.

“When she first passed away, the emotions wouldn’t come up on their own when just dealing with that, but then it would get reflected through a movie or a song. Then, I could process it and see the totality of it and that’s the way that I would deal with it.”

VanZandt processes everything through 11 emotive tracks on Proust in the Kitchen With the Wooden Spoon!. His sentimental lyrics and evocative instrumentation transport listeners to a special time, place, or feeling.

Each track feels like a magical short story soundtracked with elements of Americana, folk, rock ‘n’ roll, and alt-country.

“I remember listening to Spotify on shuffle and ‘Freak Scene’ by Dinosaur Jr. came on, and I had forgotten that song existed. I also had forgotten that Bug as an album existed and it reminded me of a CD a friend had burned for me in high school,” he said.

“It was such a faraway memory that I had not thought of in years, and I could see the color of the CD. When that stuff happens, that’s so crazy to me and so is the idea of how music can be a vessel that holds memories.”

I recently spoke with VanZandt about the album and the inspiration behind it.

Continue reading “Bring to Mind — Danny VanZandt Examines the Emotional Connection Between Senses and Memories on “Proust in the Kitchen With the Wooden Spoon!” Album” →

Eaux Claires Music Festival Brings Emerging Talent, Legends to Upper Midwest

I can’t imagine a better place for a music festival than the upper Midwest.

Eau Claire, Wisconsin’s wide open spaces and rolling green pastures are a welcome relief from the cramped city parks and perfectly manicured polo fields.

The rural Wisconsin city is also reminiscent of my own hometown, which is actually about 560 miles away near Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Luckily, I have Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon and The National’s Aaron Dessner to thank for my two-day Midwestern musical escape along the Chippewa River to Eaux Claires, an indie music rock festival situated in Eau Claire.

The festival boasts some of the most popular names in indie rock – Bon Iver, Beach House, Jenny Lewis, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, James Blake and Phosphorescent – and many emerging artists ranging from Little Scream to Tuskha to Alpha Consumer.

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