Kristi Kates

Features Kristi Kates So. You’re retired, you love Northern Michigan in the summertime, and you still “have enough energy to do something”… but what exactly do you do? Well, if you’re Nancy Vollmar and her husband, Jerry, you take over a restaurant, of course.

Features Kristi Kates “I read in Popular Science that ruby was made from aluminum oxide and chrome oxide,” he explains, “And I had noticed that the sandpaper my father used was covered with aluminum oxide. So I scraped some of it from the sandpaper and put a small piece of chrome from a car bumper in with it, and put it on a firebrick. I used an acetylene/ oxygen torch to melt it, and presto! At the age of 12, I had made my very first red colored ruby. It wasn’t clear like good ruby - but it was ruby.”

Dining Kristi Kates It was opened earlier this year by Jan Breithaupt and her son Scott, and it’s still going strong even as the leaves turn. It’s true - sweet treats know no season, especially when those treats are yogurt concoctions as good as those being offered at the new Mitten’s Frozen Yogurt Bar in Charlevoix.

Features Kristi Kates Petoskey is regionally famed for a lot of things, including its ‘million dollar sunsets,’ Gaslight Shopping District and the Odawa Casino Resort, to name a few. But now, one man and his ambitious small company are aiming to be the Next Big Thing out of P-town. Keith Schmidt and New Focus Creative are calling themselves “Northern Michigan’s only iPhone, iPad, and Android developer"...

Features Kristi Kates

While paying homage to the man considered to be Michigan’s greatest writer, it’s worth noting that the organization behind the Little Traverse History Museum has been around longer than Ernest Hemingway himself.

Features Kristi Kates You can celebrate Christmas Celtic style this year by traveling across the water to the Emerald Isle – without going near the Atlantic Ocean. “An Irish Christmas in America” celebrates the heritage of Ireland on Beaver Island Dec. 18. A 15-minute plane ride or two-hour boat trip from Charlevoix, Beaver Island is called “America’s Emerald Isle” in reference to its Irish roots.

Music Kristi Kates Various Artists - America: A Tribute to Heroes - Interscope
Big-scale concerts - especially those with a long list of equally big names - can take up to a year to organize. But when duty calls, musicians and organizers can definitely step up to the plate and deliver, as they did with this heartfelt and surprisingly subdued presentation, which took place on September 21, 2001. Broadcast commercial-free by all four major US TV networks, the event took place on a stage lit by hundreds of candles, and featured moving performances by Neil Young (John Lennon’s “Imagine”), Wyclef Jean (“Redemption Song”), Bruce Springsteen (“My City of Ruins”), and U2’s emotional medley of “Peace on Earth”/”Walk On.”

Modern Rock Kristi Kates Tony Bennett, vintage pop/jazz singer and comeback king, just celebrated his 85th birthday a few weeks ago, and shows no sign of slowing down musically, appearing on such current shows as Late Night with Jimmy Fallon and collaborating with a surprising range of today’s pop singers. Bennett’s upcoming Duets II album, due out on September 20, finds the singer dueting with everyone from those perhaps expected (Norah Jones, Michael Buble, and Andrea Bocelli) to less traditional pairings such as Sheryl Crow, Carrie Underwood, and Lady Gaga, who appropriately croons with Bennett on “The Lady is a Tramp.” One of Amy Winehouse’s last recordings, a duet with Bennett on “Body and Soul,” will also be on the set…

Music Kristi Kates Born in Cuba, influenced by the likes of Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, and now a naturalized U.S. citizen, jazz trumpeter/pianist Arturo Sandoval is bringing his Latin jazz/classical fusion to Mackinac Island for a performance that’s sure to be a standout.
If you don’t already recognize Sandoval’s music, you might recognize his personage from the 2000 TV movie For Love or Country: The Arturo Sandoval Story, in which Sandoval was portrayed by actor Andy Garcia (whose co-stars in the film included Gloria Estefan and Scarface actor Steven Bauer.)
The movie told the story of Sandoval’s life up to his emigration to the U.S., as he became a fixture in Cuba’s jazz scene and solidified his own career. Sandoval’s mentor, Dizzy Gillespie (whom he is most often compared to), took the musician on the road with him early on for concerts in Cuba and across Europe.
His eclectic, fine-tuned musical stylings are part of why the Island’s Grand Hotel chose Sandoval to help close the summer season and welcome in the hotel’s fall events.

Music Kristi Kates Arriving in Chicago for the 20th Anniversary of the ambitious and now classic Lollapalooza Festival (August 5-7), this intrepid reporter - and 89,999 other music fans - were pleased to see that the Lolla grounds were sunny, expanded into more sections of the park than previous years, funkily decorated, brightly colored, and all ready to go for a weekend’s worth of fantastic music, food, and fun.
So what would the fest’s highlights be for 2011? One of the headliners, or would a second-stager or a newbie grab all the attention? Would Chow Town’s foodstuffs live up to the reputation of Lolla Culinary Director Graham Eliot? Would 90,000 people daily be able to co-exist in beautiful Grant Park without incident? And - perhaps most pivotally - would it rain?

Modern Rock Kristi Kates Take Two Documentaries About Beatles
Paul McCartney’s documentary, The Love We Make, which chronicles his experiences as he prepped for the Concert for New York City benefit show that was staged six weeks after 9/11, is now set to premiere on the Showtime network on September 10. Directed by Albert Mayles (who directed the classic Stones doc Gimme Shelter), the McCartney film was shot in black and white, and is said to be an “uplifting” view, complete with appearances from Eric Clapton, Stone Mick Jagger, and David Bowie…

Modern Rock Kristi Kates Sonic Youth - Hits Are for Squares - Geffen
Essentially a hits collection in defiance of the album’s name, this Sonic Youth best-of was put together in an interesting fashion - specifically, by a group of fellow artists personally selected by the band who in turn chose the Sonic Youth songs that would be included here. Given that the tracks were chosen by such a wide range of folks, it’s to be expected that the album itself is somewhat uneven, but it’s still entertaining - top picks include the Beck-selected “Sugar Kane,” the Radiohead-chosen “Kool Thing,” and the Mike D-dubbed “100%,” while Eddie Vedder, Chloe Sevigny, and Gus Van Sant picked less appealing Sonic Youth tunes.

Dining Kristi Kates “Local Fest TC 2011” is what Christopher “Wink” Winkelmann calls it - and fun is what both locals and visitors alike call it. It’s a free festival on the way to you and yours this Labor Day weekend - that’s right, free - and it’s set to be chock-full of music, food, vendors, and did we mention fun?
“This is a fantastic way to close out your summer and support your community at the same time,” Winkelmann enthuses.
Founded and put together by Winkelmann - who also fronts the local band Soul Patch - and friend Ryan MacManus (of TC’s Loading Dock), the event was conceived as a free festival “for the locals,” as Winkelmann puts it.
“At the time, I owned and operated Home Grown Organic Eatery and was doing the Soul Patch thing as well,” he explains, “so I told Ryan I would talk with my friends in the food/music/festival scene and put a lineup together of all Northern Michigan and greater Traverse City talent, and get everybody on board for food vendors. Ryan then added to the list and the idea. We put the final touches on and had a great all-day, free event for the community, by the community, in a very central location in our beautiful city. Every single musician, sound engineer, food vendor, and craft vendor is there on their own time and merit.”

Features Kristi Kates It‘s difficult to believe that Raven Hill Discovery Center has been around for 20 years. The Center in East Jordan is one of those places intrinsic to Northern Michigan; it just seems like it‘s always been there, yet it manages to stay fresh and find new ways to introduce visitors to new discoveries.
Celebrating their 20th anniversary this year, co-founder Cheri Leach (with Tim Leach) explains how Raven Hill Discovery Center has evolved.

Music Kristi Kates Guster set to blow Interlochen away
By Kristi Kates
Massachusetts alt-rockers Guster are on their way back to Interlochen for another show, and they couldn’t be more thrilled about it. The band - Adam Gardner, Ryan Miller, and Brian Rosenworcel, met back in 1991, and have played music together ever since, releasing their first album in 1995, and their most recent last year (2010’s Easy Wonderful.)
If you think you’re not familiar with Guster’s music, chances are you’ve heard it in stealth mode on such TV shows as The OC (or on a recent ad for The Weather Channel), or on movies such as Martian Child and Disturbia. If you’re intrigued and want to get familiar with their music, then their upcoming Interlochen show will be a great start, as the band is still breaking in the contributions of new touring member Luke Reynolds, and will be performing a wealth of music new and old.