West Michigan's Arts & Entertainment Guide
Get those treadmills out of storage, everyone! By the time this Ok Go show has come and gone, we’re all going to be reenacting that infamous treadmill dance until somebody loses a digit.
Surf Best Bet: Los Straitjackets
Written by Emma Kat Richardson | Tuesday, 23 September 2014 16:05 |Despite what’s suggested by its name, Los Straitjackets is anything but tied down and restricted of movement. In fact, as one of the most innovative, retro-fitting rock outfits in the current game as we know it, this fearsome fivesome wouldn’t last too long in the sterile confines of a mental institution.
With a name like Eric Church, your destiny is essentially ordering you to become a man of the cloth. Or, failing that, a mega country music star. Luckily for us, the melodically-attuned parishioners, this Church made the right choice, and the CMT network is all the better for it.
Piano Pop Best Bet: Ben Folds/GR Symphony
Written by Lindsay Patton | Tuesday, 23 September 2014 15:55 |There isn't really anyone on this planet that can make a song about abortion as endearing as Ben Folds can. Likewise, Folds is one of a few musicians on this planet that can make the suburbs sound exciting. (The other being Arcade Fire.)
Oh, Ani. Fair-weather fan followers of the Lilith phenomenon may have long since stopped swooning at the sound of your name, but we, the faithful, have never wavered in our loyalty to our queen.
Any true-blue punk rocker worth his or her weight in metal-studded leather cuffs has to be trembling with anticipation over this most unlikely of reunions. Oh sure, seminal West Coast punk band X has been touring again as a united force since the early 2000s, but after a series of lineup changes and its eventual disbandment in the ‘90s, many hardcore fans had given up hope of ever seeing X’s original members ruling the punk-rock realm together on the same stage.
For such a tiny band, The Black Keys sure are capable of producing a massively huge sound. And that’s exactly the thing the group’s fans love it for – the keen, sly ability to create so much with so little.
With the obvious exception of anybody and anything associated with Justin Bieber and Nickelback, all Canadians are awesome. It’s practically a law of physics. (Call it the Kindly Canuck Theory of Charming Relativity, if you must.) That’s why we’re so excited for Owen Pallett’s forthcoming Calvin College show.
Comedian Mike Birbiglia has been on the roll to end all rolls for the last several years. It all started with his critically acclaimed one-man show, Sleep Walk With Me, and cascaded right into his current touring pièce de résistance, Thank God for Jokes.
One problem our planet faces every day is a definitive lack of truly great jazz keyboardists. Is this dearth of instrument-specific talent a greater threat to the survival of humanity than, say, the clean water shortage? Well, probably not, but still, it’s nice to look at accomplished members of our society to gauge just how far we’ve come as a species. And that’s where Chick Corea comes in.
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