Robert Downes

Music Robert Downes Summer produced a bumper crop of new CDs from local musicians this year, most of which are well worth a listen. Check out the following discs at musician-friendly venues, with many also available online from the performers’ websites or through cdbaby.com.



Funny Dog
Susan Gilbert & Plastic Duck

No one in Northern Michigan outdoes Susan Gilbert when it comes to experimental music. Her Frankfort-based band employs instruments such as the musical saw, a tin can drum kit and “various animal and vegetable noisemakers.”
On this CD, however, the music seems more accessible than past efforts -- dare we say, even mainstream? But no more so than you’d expect from the likes of Kate Bush, who offered the same sort of quirky lyrics and melodies in her ‘80s heyday.
Gilbert performs on keyboard and vocals, with “perpetrators” Richard Curtis on flute and alto sax, Nate Bynum on bass and saw, and Bill Wagner on percussion, conga and the aforementioned animal/veggie effects. There’s also an assist from Amanda Strong on harmony and Don Julin on mandolin.
This is imaginative, whimsical music, sometimes with a stream-of-consciousness sense of freedom, as on the poppy “Girlfriend.” And please note: sometimes experimental music types have an inclination to grind out depressing dirges, but that’s not the case for Susan Gilbert; her music is upbeat and optimistic, like a “bag of cheerful humor

Random Thoughts Robert Downes Whoops -- looks like Rick Coates‘ story on nude beaches in our Super Summer Guide had an all-too predictable result. When you visit Otter Creek Beach in Benzie County these days, you see park rangers roaming up and down the beach, presumably looking for outlaw weenie roasters.
I feel sorry for the rangers -- they‘re dressed in full uniforms that look terribly hot in a polyester sort of way, and it‘s got to be tough wading through the sand in your Florsheims in search of elusive nudies. Also, I‘ve seen some of the Otter Creek nudists, and it‘s not a very pretty sight. There ought to be extra compensation -- like combat pay -- for putting the rangers through a thankless task.
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Features Robert Downes College students in search of a major might want to give a heads-up to the infinite potential of outer space, where career opportunities are literally firing up with a bang.
Astronomer Michael Foerster notes that the field of space is wide open to college students with opportunities at NASA and the private sector ranging from aeronautical engineering to space tourism and hotel management.
“There are a lot of space jobs out there,” he says. “Not just as astronauts on the shuttle, but with the tens of thousands of people on the ground who make the space missions possible.”

Music Robert Downes Mike Sullivan, guitarist for the Song of the Lakes folk band and The Turtlenecks jazz trio, has been the hardest workin’ man in showbiz over the past few weeks, rounding up talent to perform at Traverse City Film Festival parties and before the films themselves.

Random Thoughts Robert Downes May I have a word with you?
Some of you who are regular readers of our Letters to the Editor page probably scratched your heads last week at the letter, “No cherry for the slice of pie I’m holding,” from Don Swan, who has a penchant for Capitalizing many Words without any Rhyme Or reason, much In the Style of the German Language.
I happen to know Don -- a local musician who heads up a band called The Company. I ran into him a few days before we ran his letter and said, “You know, Don, you might want to clean up the grammar in your letter because it’s not proper to have all of those capitalized letters.”

Music Robert Downes If you’re looking for the best new acts on Michigan’s acoustic and jam-band music scene, then don’t miss the Hoxeyville Music Festival, which has spent the past five years cultivating some of the hottest -- and youngest -- artists in the state.
Packing more performers than ever -- 26 and counting -- the event takes place this weekend, July 27-29, at Coyote Crossing Resort, a few miles west of Cadillac.
“It gets bigger every year -- last year we had 200 or 300 people attending from Kalamazoo alone,” says founder and creative director Jake Robinson. “We kind of call it an ‘away’ home game.”
The Kalamazoo-Cadillac connection is key to the success of the festival. Robinson, 29, is a native of Cadillac who graduated from high school there in 1996. He’s since created a career as an acoustic guitar maker in Kalamazoo and has tapped into that city’s rich musical talent to supply Hoxeyville with top-notch entertainers.

Random Thoughts Robert Downes On the Road, Revisited
I’m always amazed by how many high school and college students have read “On the Road” by Jack Kerouac. The rambling, stream-of-consciousness book celebrates its 50th anniversary this September.
Of course, these young people tend to be those who enjoyed studying literature in school. But still, it seems pretty cool that “On the Road” still has some legs 50 years after it was written.
I read “On the Road” three times at a similar age, from 17 to 19, and couldn’t make a lick of sense of it. It’s America’s version of James Joyce’s “Ulysses,” which is a completely unreadable book about a single day’s events in Dublin.
“On the Road” is much the same. It’s basically an autobiography of Jack Kerouac’s seven years of bumming around America in the 1940s in search of a new “hip” way of life, inspired by poetry, jazz, drugs, casual sex, and living rough on the streets.

Random Thoughts Robert Downes Maybe it‘s the nature of the beast, but it sure seems like the National Governors Association (NGA) comes up with some snoozy topics for their annual meetings.
With the war in Iraq consuming our nation‘s resources, New Orleans still a wreck, and the breakdown in the rule of law in the White House and U.S. Justice Department, you‘d think that there would be a historic meeting in Traverse City this week when the NGA comes to town. You‘d think our nation‘s governors would be spreading some hellfire and brimstone.
After all, Michigan is in the fight of its life with a deficit of $800 million, and last week, Pennsylvania‘s financial woes required the shutdown of much of the state‘s government. There are crying domestic issues in America that demand action from our nation‘s governors.

Music Robert Downes Rudy Williams is a member of the first generation raised entirely on hip-hop. Growing up, the pop music and rock that many teens listened to in the past barely made a dent. “I was born in 1985, so ever since I was born, hip-hop has been the biggest musical genre,” he says. “It was music I could always relate to.”
Rudy Williams, 21, is the stage name of Kyle Christunas, who graduated from Traverse City Central High in 2004. This weekend, he and his partner Max Garcia will be performing as Trackmeat at Beats by the Bay. The event will feature over 20 acts on Friday and Saturday July 13-14 at Streeters Ground Zero in Traverse City.

Random Thoughts Robert Downes You have to wonder if it was Detective Tom Heller’s guardian angel who put his finger in the barrel of the shotgun that misfired outside of a court in Montmorency County a couple of weeks ago.
Heller had a .20 gauge shotgun fired at his chest at point-blank range, and it failed to go off.
Don’t know if anyone heard the flutter of wings when the gun failed to fire, but it wouldn’t surprise me.
The Grand Traverse County detective was chasing Robert Becker, who had just been convicted of first-degree criminal sexual charges for molesting a 14-year-old boy. Upon hearing the jury’s verdict, Becker bolted from the courthouse and ran to his car with Heller and a sheriff’s deputy on his heels. Becker pulled a loaded shotgun from his car and fired at the detective, who wasn’t wearing his bullet-proof vest.
It’s easy to snicker at the idea of a guardian angel, but this case sure offers some food for thought. Many religions believe in some sort of protective angel, hovering around in the background like Invisible Woman Sue Storm of the Fantastic Four, ready to warn you away from the tainted chicken salad or the car flying through a red light.
Guardian angels are said to be especially attentive to children, keeping them from falling backwards down the steps and such. And some religions believe that the ghosts of ancestors step in from time to time to lend a protective hand. Or, as noted in the Encyclopedia Brittanica: “other spiritual beings that have been placated by sacrifices or other rituals, assist man in achieving a proper rapport with God...”
Of course, you only have to look in the weekly “News of the Weird” column in the Express to note that a lot of guardian angels must be sleeping on the job, if they really do exist. But in Det. Heller’s case, there is reason to believe that his supernatural sidekick deserves a departmental citation.

Music Robert Downes I’ve been a Dylan geek since my college days, when I found a stash of his songbooks in the attic of our student co-op. After learning to play a few on guitar, the lightning struck: Bob Dylan is the Bill Shakespeare of our time.
Since then, I’ve found that there are two types of people in the world: those who think that Bob Dylan is the cat’s ass, and those who just don’t “get” him and haven’t a clue as to what the fuss is all about.
Let me explain it to you. The guy has poetry in his bones. Old test-of-time stuff, riddled with a wry wisdom, like what‘s in the Bible. He‘s got the same thing Ernest Hemingway had: “A built-in, shock-proof bullshit detector“ that comes through in his music. He‘s a reed, channeling songs from a divine source, with his feet planted in America‘s distant past -- he hears echoes of the Civil War and the murmer of our country‘s soul. Listen to his radio show and you learn that Dylan knows most everything about American music that matters, and then some.

Art Robert Downes Peer beyond the elegant storefront windows of Benjamin Maier’s gallery in downtown Leland and you’ll find a contemporary landscape of swirling colors, captured in clay.
The gallery walls are filled with Maier’s creations, ranging from Oriental teapots to vases, cups, dishware and stoneware pots, all imbued with a dreamy sense of style and color. It’s clear at a glance that Maier, 29, has a singular vision that brings out the best of what clay has to offer, draped in a sublime range of glazes and colors.
Maier’s celebration of the earth happened by chance. After graduating from Traverse City Central High School in 1996, he attended Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, completing a degree in political science with a minor in economics.

Random Thoughts Robert Downes There were more horror stories in the Detroit Free Press last week about the continuing meltdown at Northwest Airlines. Of course, this meltdown has been going on for about 20 years now, so it’s just more business as usual for the airline which is one of our chief flight links here in Northern Michigan.
One story was of a passenger who waited more than seven hours for a 60 mile flight from Detroit to Flint that was eventually cancelled.

Music Robert Downes Practicing six hours a day is nothing new for rock guitarist Michael Dargis, who approaches his art with the seriousness of a classical musician as the axe man with The Conspiracy heavy metal group.
Founded in 2001, the Traverse City-based band is releasing its second CD this week, “The Dark Journey,” which will be showcased at a release party on Friday, June 29 at Streeters’ Ground Zero.
For Dargis and his bandmates Jim Steele on vocals, Pete Henry on bass and Matt Richmond on drums, the album is the culmination of thousands of hours of painstaking practice with an excruciating attention to detail that suffuses every aspect of their act: from their stage show to their marketing effort, to the CD production values and presentation. They are perhaps the most professional band in Northern Michigan, even though their gigs are relatively few. Yet what drives The Conspiracy is far more than a hobby; it’s more like an obsession.
For Dargis, that means keeping up to speed with the machinelike precision of the current masters of metal while also trying to find his own groove in a genre that can be slavishly imitative at times.

Random Thoughts Robert Downes Recently, we got to talking about ageism at the office -- meaning people who are discriminated against because of their age. A co-worker said she heard that Northern Michigan was a tough place to find a job if you were older -- even if you have far more skills and experience than a younger worker.
That’s no surprise, because it’s tough finding a job most anywhere once you’ve passed a certain shelf life. For instance, we took a pass on hiring an older worker for a position at the Express years ago. The job applicant had plenty of experience, but seemed to be mostly interested in looking for an easier job -- a place to coast until retirement.
Coasting doesn‘t move a business forward. We hired someone with less experience, but much more drive -- who happened to be younger.
So, memo to older job-seekers: use those streetwise years of guile and experience to look like two sticks of dynamite in an orange juice can, ready to explode with energy and ideas to solve every problem your potential employer might have to get past the roadblock of ageism.