Detroit Party Marching Band -- Photo by: Kelly Bennett
I hope everyone else had as much fun as we did.
I also wish I could've gotten out more. But it's done now. You'll have to tell me about that one bar and that one band and how it sounded. And all that. For now, it's done.
Ferndale's Blowout is done. Blowout 16 is done. Still getting myself together in these unkind early hours of an iridescent sunny Sunday morning.
Insomnia In Color.
Library's Saturday line up: Odd Hours / Rogue Satellites / Doc Waffles / (...Detroit Party Marching Band)
Why am I awake right now? Couldn't sleep. Not that I had to get up, compelled to share with you my idealistic, opinionated, deluded/profound ruminations upon the experience of Blowout and what it means and all the inspiring possibilities it portends for the music community.
Nope, none of that this morning.
Just, that, wherever you wound up last night, I hope it was a great evening enriched by yet-greater music from some hearty local weirdos.
And, as stated in an earlier post (by this writer,) most of my night was spent at the Ferndale Public Library (as that was one of the city's host-venues and as that is the place where I work, as an ostensible "day-job") and it felt pretty right to be rocking inside that joint.
Rogue Satellites -- Photo by: Kelly Bennett
Was it too much? Too many bands, too many bars? Too much of experiencing your live-music in a bar? What a fitting way, then, if in need of refreshing or re-imagining music as a live experience than to have it in a Library, of all places. Some of this enthusiasm we (the Library, that is) are feeling is likely due to the fact that, well, we've never been a venue (or a bar) before and maybe everyone feels this awesome about their own line-up or their specific venue's own unique experience/night during a Blowout. So, chock that up to wide-eyed naivety and overly caffeinated giddiness.
Rogue Satellites followed Odd Hours, performing some songs from their forthcoming album (out June 1). Here's an older tune of their's:
...and then we were felicitously stormed by the Detroit Party Marching Band. Twenty five glitzed up, uniformed marchers, with trumpets, tambourines, big banging drums and lots of swagger, sonorously rocking out inside our thrumming community room. The building itself grinned. The community, if it was coming together in some kind of musical celebration, felt represented in that explosion.
And then, Doc Waffles, the book collector, the literary linguist of rap, closed us out...bantering, coyly, of un-returned books and delinquent library card fines.
But as I said: It felt like the place-to-be. And if that's how it felt in the library then I can only hope it was augmented in every other venue, be it a record store or an artist market or on top of a pizza parlor. If not, then, kudos to the library. That's right, I'll wear my home jersey (er, my Library name tag) with pride. A library's a community center, after all, just filled with "public-access computers," dusty P.D. Wodehouse books, old Die Hard dvds and an ornery xerox copier machine.
We're also home to a commendably well-stocked LOCAL MUSIC COLLECTION (in the CD Section of circulation). Just about every band you heard, wherever you went during Blowout, likely has one (or more) of their CD(s) ready to be checked-out from the Ferndale Public Library. Maybe that's why it felt so right. We've always shown our support of Local Music, here - particularly through our LOCAL Monthly Music series (First Stop Fridays).
Loud, crazy rock bands, rappers, and marching bands; buzzy pedal boards and video montages and laser light shows, punk burlesque and...unfortunately...yes, some incredibly poor judgment by some to engage in what they thought was provocative (read about it on another blog, I don't want to repeat it).
It worked! Blowout-in-the-Library worked. Hopefully it worked everywhere? You tell me. We'll keep the whole discussion on live music experience or state of the scene going, on this blog, other blogs and at various shows-to-come.
For now, library concert fans: you're due back in about three weeks! First Stop Friday (JUNE 7TH).
