What a loud, fun, gnarly night! Several members from a wide array of local punk bands stopped by the studio during my night shift to talk about the upcoming Spring Stunr Fest, happening this weekend at the Lager House!

This is the third annual Spring Stunr, and now that you’ve seen me write it stylistically twice, you’ll know it’s not a typo. But it’s going to be quite the “stunner” for sure when groups like 3 The Hard Way, Wild Shape and Lansing-based Rot Knot take the stage for this “DIY Femme-Punk Bonanza!”

I was joined, in full, by members of nearly every band on the line-up, including 3 The Hard Way, Meek, Sea Hag, Pillow Princess, and — driving all the way in from Lansing — Rot Knot; Wild Shape didn’t make it in-person but we did play one of their songs to close out the night.

On the show, organizer Jenny Lees described Spring Stunr as “an intersectional femme-punk fest showcasing Michigan femme-punks and anyone who supports them, and everyone is invited! It’s a really great event for anyone who is femme, or punk, or who loves them and who wants to support the scene.”

There will also be vendors, as well as all of these aforementioned bands, nestled into the Lager House, this Friday night, starting at 7 p.m. Find more info here. You can also follow Spring Stunr on Instagram.

Along with all of my special guests, I also looked ahead to the upcoming Corktown Music Festival, which will be hosted next weekend inside of several venues throughout the Corktown neighborhood, and particularly along  Michigan Avenue. This three-day festival showcases a wide spectrum of styles, with everything from punk to folk with a splash of country and a big helping of rock, indie, punk and beyond. Initially founded in 2022 with intent on filling what-was-then a bit of a void in the local music calendar, this ongoing fest has continually donated proceeds to a nonprofit, and this year ticket sales will benefit Passenger Recovery!

Other special tidbits on this week’s MI Local were premieres from local punk groups like Gerber & the Babies, the latest from longtime local rockers Mystery Math, and  new shoegaze and dream-pop from Ann Arbor’s Petalwave.

See the playlist below and listen to the episode on-demand for two weeks after it airs using the media player above.

MI Local Playlist for April 15, 2025

• “Attention” – Gerber & the Babies
• “Convenience Over Destiny” – Mystery Math
• “Vagabond” – Vampire Cowgirl
• “Secrets” – Kat Steih
• “Heat Dome” – Doogatron
• “Tightrope” – The Boreouts
• “Nothing to Say” – Fen Fen
• “Decomposer” – The High Strung
• “Wreck Lanes” – The Casper Fight Scene
• “If You Get Lost” – Petalwave
• “blight” – meek
• “Melted Numb” – Rot Knot
• “eventually” – 3 The Hard Way
• “Girlfriend” – Wild Shape

MI Local is the show where you can literally meet the local music scene! Each week, I’ll premiere new tracks from artists based all around metro Detroit and the greater Michigan music scene, but I love having the opportunity to invite songwriters into the studio for interviews!

Ann Arbor based singer-songwriter Lauren Blackford made the drive over to Detroit this Tuesday to visit the studio and talk about her recent EP, “The Loft Sessions” — the stripped down acoustic renditions of her debut EP, “One Too Many Times.”

Blackford is an up-and-coming singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist who began performing around the scene a little more than a year ago. Her effervescent blend of pop and indie-rock ballads produce tracks that bounce from pared back acoustic strums to glitzy electronic flourishes, all while bolstering dulcet vocals that soar into punchy choruses threaded with sweet melodies sure to get stuck in your head for weeks.

Blackford studied music production while in high school and taught herself guitar after graduation. Back in February, she performed an album release party for her debut at Ziggy’s in Ypsilanti, and just this week she’s celebrating her latest release, “The Loft Sessions.”

Blackford joined MI Local in-studio to perform one of her songs live for WDET listeners, titled “Reset Button.”

She told listeners about how her drive to teach herself not only how to play guitar, but also how to start DIY at-home production, to begin recording the songs for her debut release. She’s been singing and playing music (starting on piano) for much of her life, and started writing songs as a teenager.

Now, fresh out of college, she’s essentially hit the ground running when it comes to making her way into the Michigan music scene.

Along with sharing stories behind some of her candid, heart-aching lyrics, Blackford also shared the anecdote behind the titular “loft” where she recorded songs from “One Too Many Times,” live. Speaking of live, WDET listeners were also treated to a live performance by Blackford, in-studio, during MI Local, performing “A Good Thing,” on acoustic guitar.

Blackford will be headlining The Blind Pig in her hometown of Ann Arbor on Thursday, April 24; she’ll also be performing, as Madonna, at the annual Detroit X Detroit showcase happening on Saturday, April 26, at the Loving Touch in Ferndale.

Along with this feature, we played the latest from the Detroit/LA-based indie-pop duo JR JR, and the newest song from Detroit/LA-based pop-singer-songwriter Chloe Moriondo.

We also explored some more eclectic flavors, including some new electro-space-jazz musings from Justin Walter, and the latest from Detroit-based electronica artist Darren Shelton.

Plus, we sampled some folk songs from Detroit’s own Mike Ward, who performs this Saturday at the Trinity House, and a new song from Ann Arbor folk singer Ananda Murari.

Oh, and if you stick around for the whole show, you’ll find out what my favorite White Stripes song is…

MI Local Playlist for April 8, 2025

• “Back to the Land” — JR JR
• “Abyss” – Chloe Moriondo
• “When We Were Young” – Justin Walter
• “Quangarang” – Okra Veer
• “Ego” – Darren Shelton
• “Crooked Road to Truth” – Ananda Murari
• “The Heart Must Pay the Price” – Mike Ward ft. Tery Birkett
• “White Hot Vision” – Sun Astros
• “Enzuiguri” – Swanton
• “Blue Orchid” – The White Stripes
• “Grandy’s” – Kamau Washington
• “Reset Button” – Lauren Blackford
• “A Good One (live in WDET studios)” – Lauren Blackford
• “Games” – Lauren Blackford

David Lynch is one of my favorite filmmakers of all time, and I know I’m not alone in that regard. In fact, WDET’s own Amanda LeClaire joined me in studio, along with musician/artist Renee Willoughby to discuss the late director whose name has been adapted into its own aesthetic adjective, because they’ve organized a multifaceted tribute show, happening at The Ghost Light in Hamtramck this Friday night!

• “In Your Life” – Same Eyes
• “I Cry” – Johnstonsons
• “West Branch” – Strange Witch
• “Powerstation” – Jonathan Weier
• “It’s My Day” – The Goings Gone
• “Collecting” – Spencer LaJoye
• “Knots” – Kyle Joe
• “Zopilote” – Marbrisa
• “Cloud Platform 8” – Deastro
• “Prime” – Mike List
• “Chance Encounter” – Magdalene
• “The Theme” – Justin Walter
• “On Train, On High” – The Glass Path
• “Grief” – Renee Willoughby
• “Mind of the Ocean” – Gwendolyn Dot

“There’s always so much good music coming out of Detroit!” Now, I didn’t actually say these exact words on this week’s MI Local, but they’re words I’ve often said aloud during my coverage of the scene here on WDET, and the latest show is emblematic of that, of course!

This week, we checked out the latest from dream-pop duo Bluhm (“The Ghost Between Us”), a groovy indie-dance/rock vibe from Elephant Den (“Apple”), and a brand new single from NW-Michigan-based folk singer May Erlewine (“My Speed,” from the forthcoming album “What It Takes“), which kicked off the show.

We also heard a new single from Detroit-based power-pop auteur Ryan Allen (of Extra Arms), from his new solo album (out in May), titled Livin’ On a Prayer on the Edge. Kalamazoo-based indie-rockers The Go-Rounds also have new music out, dropping a brand new full-length album on the same day that MI Local aired, titled “Donut.”

Tonight’s feature was an in-person interview with metro Detroit based singer-songwriter and music educator Taylor DeRousse, who stopped by the studio to discuss her new full-length album (out this Friday) titled “Running Back To Me.” There are already a couple of singles from that album that are available to download, but here on WDET, we were able to get a sneak preview of an unreleased track, titled “Red Sweater.”

During our interview, DeRousse discussed her approach to lyric writing, and being able to lean in to an unyielding heart-on-the-sleeve candor, while also shouting out Traverse City-based producer/musician John Piatek (who provides backing vocals on “Red Sweater”), as well as collaborators at Bird Fight Records, Tom Mihalis and John Katona, and local musician Bryan Pope.

On the show, DeRousse revealed/announced the date and details of the release party for “Running Back to Me,” which is set for May 10 at the Loving Touch in Ferndale.

Meanwhile, if you want to learn more about DeRousse, you can swing over to Tailored Harmonies, a music company store based in Waterford providing lessons and so much more!

See the playlist below and listen to the episode on-demand for two weeks after it airs using the media player above.

MI Local Playlist for March. 25, 2025

• “My Speed” – May ErlewineAnxious All The Time – Ryan Allen
• “Let There Be More Light” – Ethan Daniel Davidson
• “Too Cold For Company” – Stanley & Quiggle
• “Suburban Boredom” – Ancient Language
• “Ghosts Between Us – Bluhm
• “Apple” – Elephant Den
• “Tworailsmeet” – Conor Lynch
• “Diamond” – The Go Rounds
• “I Wanna Be Like Jesus” – Dick Texas
• “Red Sweater” – Taylor DeRousse
• “Zombie” – Taylor DeRousse

MI Local is your source for new and exciting music coming out of Detroit and all across the state of Michigan! Each week, this show connects you to the latest releases by local artists and informs you about all of the upcoming opportunities to see them perform live. Quite often, too, it’s the place where you’ll be able to hear exclusive sneak-preview spins of songs that actually aren’t even released yet — how exciting!

This week, singer-songwriter Christian Ohly stopped by to share his latest single, “Bring You Back,” which he recorded with producer Jake Rye. Ohly creates evocative indie-pop ballads that poetically wear the proverbial heart right out on the proverbial sleeve, and this track follows up his recent full-length “Miracle.” Ohly talked about his songwriting process, the experience of working with producer Jake Rye, who’s studio, sadly, just sustained a fire (follow @socialrecordingcompany on IG).

We also premiered a new song from the versatile indie-rock ensemble Elspeth Tremblay & The Treatment, with “Tragic,” coming off their forthcoming EP, “Cut Your Losses” — out this weekend — capped off by a release party at the Old Miami this Saturday night!

Neo-psychedelic-indie-rock songwriter Jeremy Waun, of WaunBand, dropped a new song the same day that MI Local aired (March 18) titled “Comes A Whisper.”  You can see WaunBand live this Friday night at the Lexington in Woodbridge!

We also premiered a new vibey-instrumental track tapping into ambient Americana, from the duo known as Moonrisers, titled “Circle of the Seasons,” and we heard the latest from the versatile songwriter and producer Jessie Berkshires, with the new-wave tinged “Lonely Wolf.”

All of that, and so much more, along with check-ins with other scenes around the state, with brand new sounds coming out of Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo, too!

See the playlist below and listen to the episode on-demand for two weeks after it airs using the media player above.

MI Local Playlist for March. 18, 2025

• “Alright” – Toboggan Man – Alright
• “Kinda Like the World” – The Remnants
• “Lonely Wolf” – Jessie Berkshires
• “Tragic” – Elspeth Tremblay & the Treatment
• “Killer Diller” – Carry On Dub
• “Euphoria” – The Fever Haze
• “Crystal Ball” – Slizz
• “Waited” – Duende
• “Comes a Whisper” – Waunband
• “Ring of Salt” – Former Critics
• “Circle of the Seasons” – The Moonrisers
• “Rain in the Cinema” – The Lasso
• “Ceti Alpha Six” – Disc System
• “Bring You Back” – OHLY
• “Maybe It’s You” – OHLY 

“As an independent artist, you have so many limitations, but I actually enjoy them…”

Ann Arbor-based singer-songwriter Elisabeth Pixley-Fink is describing that ever-uphill feeling countless artists know all too well, appreciating how necessity breeds invention and how lacking the luxury of certain resources spurs a fruitful spontaneity. This particularly applied to the filming of Pixley-Fink’s new music video, as she and director Pia Lu only had four hours in which to film it. 

“We filmed it in my parents’ backyard while they were out for an afternoon,” Pixley-Fink said, referring to the captivating visuals for her latest single, “Fearless and the Pure,” which premiered last Friday. Utilizing interior vestibules, driveways, austere fields, and even a cautiously shattered mirror, they were able to effectively finish just around sunset. 

“Fearless and the Pure” is featured on Pixley-Fink’s latest full-length album, “Heartskin,” which dropped on Feb. 28. This is her second full-length album since emerging into the Michigan music scene more than a decade ago, along with four EPs (which you can find on bandcamp). Pixley-Fink is known for gracefully shifting from richly resonant and melodic ambient folk ballads to gritty garage rock gusto.

Inspired by a masterful blend of riot grrrl, ambient stillness, and the work of queer Spanish poet Federico Garcia Lorca, “Heartskin” is 12 songs of a heart shedding its own skin. Pixley-Fink admitted, “…it’s a hard album for me to talk about because it came from a process of experiencing heavy, painful growth and transformation.

“…the title comes from this poem by Lorca, ‘Corazon Nuevo,’ which conjures this image of a person holding their ‘heartskin’ in their hands, like a serpent shedding its skin, ‘…full of honey and wounds…,’ so it’s the love and sweetness and the pain. That’s what the album is about — the sweetness and pain of being in relationships with other people, whether it’s romantic or not. I also think of heartskin as a membrane that we all have over our chest. It’s how we connect with other people — how we can create loving boundaries, but also how we shut people out.” 

Pixley-Fink said she wanted a key visual element of the video to be about “reclaiming the color red, as an exploration of femininity, of purity and seductiveness, or sexuality.”

“I also love performing live, and I’ve loved the experience of coming alive while performing for an audience, so I wanted to use a microphone and mic cable as my main prop,” she said. “I wanted it to be pretty playful and endearing, but also serious.” 

The video, which was edited by Detroit-based artist Phillip Carel, effectively captures the beautiful messiness of how we navigate our way through any relationship; it’s often imperfect and impulsive and can not only break our hearts but wrack our brains. The sonic aesthetic of the song also taps into that singular angst we encounter when navigating relationships.

“I wanted (the music of ‘Heartskin‘) to be as live as possible,” Pixley-Fink said, noting that she recorded it to two-inch tape at a Detroit-based studio known as The Deli. 

“‘Fearless and the Pure’ is a live take of me singing and playing guitar. And because we recorded to tape, there were literal limitations of how much (tape) we had — so I had to make choices in the moment and stick with them. I had to stick with any imperfections in the music, as a testament to how we show up in relationships with other people.” 

Pixley-Fink regularly performs around the state, either as a solo artist, or with her five-piece band, informally known as EPF the rock band. She has a show set for May 31 at the North Star Lounge in Ann Arbor, and is currently planning a Detroit show, with no set date yet. Music-wise, Pixley-Fink said she’s excited to get back into the studio, as she’s already got more than enough songs written to fill her next album, whenever and whatever that will be.

Find Elisabeth Pixley-Fink’s music on bandcamp, and follow on Instagram for more! 

MI Local with host Jeff Milo exposes diverse emerging artists, bands and acts local to Michigan. Listen every Tuesday from 9-10 p.m. ET, or catch the re-air Saturday from 1-2 a.m. ET on 101.9 WDET FM or stream on-demand at wdet.org.

I love having the opportunity to feature a local artist live, in-studio, to chat about their latest projects; even better if they’ve got new music to premiere! With MI Local, one of the goals is to literally introduce you to the local music scene, and that’s why I was excited to invite stoop lee to join me this week for a conversation about his latest collaboration, and to give listeners a sneak-preview of a new song that drops on March 7.

Lee, a.k.a. Ade Olaniran, is a very driven, prolific, and often infectiously upbeat artist and human being, keen on drawing a lot of love and attention toward — and about — the Detroit music scene. Lee’s been releasing music and performing around the region for a little more than five years, with a handful of stellar EPs available on his Bandcamp. This week, on MI Local, he talked about a new project, collaborating with MUNCH and Datsunn known as Local Organic, as well as setting us up for a preview of their first single, “UR World,” which comes out next Friday.

Also on this week’s show, we heard a debut single for a new project known as Verlaine, featuring Gavin Becker and Josie Palmer, “Try My Luck,” a softly ethereal ballad in the vein of Cigarettes After Sex and Beach House. Speaking of the dream-pop subgenre, we also heard new music from local duo Bluhm, with their song “When You’re Gone.”

On the punk and indie-rock side of things, we heard a new raucous track from the trio known as The Antibuddies, with Cordelia Chase (an homage to Buffy!?), and a poignant yet bracing ballad from Wally Dogger, “Your Expiration Date Is Approaching.”

See the playlist below and listen to the episode on-demand for two weeks after it airs using the media player above. You’ll hear my interview with lee begin around the 10-minute mark. 

MI Local Playlist for Feb. 25, 2025

• “When You’re Gone” – Bluhm
• “Try My Luck” – Verlaine
• “Roaring Golden Sunrise” – Magdalene
• “UR WORLD” – Local Organic (stoop lee, Datsunn & Munch)
• “hurt people hurt people” – falooshh
• “Burn Out” – The Dream Scream
• “Cristal Peak” – Twinn
• “Keroscene” – Ness Lake ft. David Daignault
• “Your Expiration Date is Approaching” – Wally Dogger
• “Swept Away” – Speed Circuit
• “You’ll Always Love Me” – Rose St. Germaine
• “Cordelia Chase” – The Antibuddies
• “Elf Heaven, Dwarf Hell” – Child Bite
• “Sunset” – Basic Comfort

This week on MI Local, we had a fun mix of new and old tracks, from indie-pop to hip-hop and even a zesty hybrid of punk and metal coming out of Ann Arbor.

We kicked things off with a brand new song from a brand new project (sort of), with Kelsey., otherwise known as Kelsey Detering, an Ann Arbor based singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and music educator; having previously recorded and performed around the scene, Detering unveiled her new moniker with the single titled “Throw The Stone.”

We also heard a new song from veteran songwriter Tom Alter with “I Need a Ghost,” from his new album “Under the Firmament.” But, on MI Local, you get every genre under the sun, so we also checked in with local hip-hop artists like Brizzle and Illingsworth, who both just released new EPs on Bandcamp. Oh, and then there’s Mazinga, coming out of Ann Arbor — the four-piece metal/rock group just released a new album and you can see them live on Saturday at Ziggy’s in Ypsilanti.

Check-in with MI Local each week, heard Tuesdays from 9-10 pm here on WDET, and I’ll always provide you with a comprehensive round-up of local artists you can catch performing at venues around the region.

See the playlist below and listen to the episode on-demand for two weeks after it airs using the media player above.

MI Local Playlist for Feb. 18, 2025

• “Throw The Stone” – Kelsey.
• “Let Me Down” – Lucas Powell
• “Knuckle Man” – Illingsworth
• “High on Life” – Brizzl
• “Just Like Heaven (Cure)” – Pancho Villa’s Skull
• “I Need a Ghost” – Tom Alter
• “The Process” – Sunil Sawani
• “Super Karate Monkey Death Car” – Mazinga
• “Brought Me Here” – Macho
• “Didn’t I Try” – Elisabeth Pixley-Fink
• “Northern Lights” – Mountain Babies
• “Dancer Road” – Judy Banker
• “Doorway” – Tunde Olaniran & Yo-Yo Ma
• “Semester in Japan” – Tommy Fleece
• “‘Ssippi Sludge” – Sonic Smut