We’re at that point in winter where we really could use a good party! January lasted a year and dropped a lot of snow on us (and significantly dropped the temps), and now the groundhog has seen its shadow, so we’re left with the long trudging march toward…March. What we need is a laid back yet kinda wild extravaganza, or perhaps, if you will, a festival! With lots of live local music and art and, frankly, positive vibes.

Cut to: Sled Season. This Saturday night at the Tangent Gallery, the twangy indie-rock quartet known as Toboggan Man is partnering with étude Productions to arrange a lineup that features classes and workshops, an interactive art installation, live performances, local artisanal and food vendors, DJs, and a stylish themed photo booth experience.

But this is MI Local, so we’re naturally focusing on the live local music, like Toboggan Man and past WDET guests like Pia The Band, Rose St Germaine, and Checker, along with TY, New Entertainment, and Lee Cleveland & the Lefthand Band.

Toboggan Man formed during the wintertime a few years ago, which played into the naming of their band (it just beat out the next contender for a name, ‘Ski Lift Fist Fight’). Listen to the show and you’ll meet this charming band and hear a couple live renditions of their songs, a charmingly scrappy blend of garage-pop stomp and alt-country clamber through a sweetly smiling indie-frayed lens.

Before we get to the interview with Toboggan Man, you’ll hear new tracks from the local artists like the Detroit electronic duo ADULT., and the power pop maestro Nick Piunti, both of whom have new albums coming out this season. We also heard a dazzling electronic-acid-jazz track from Alice Sun, new noise-rock out of Ann Arbor from Dancers, and a pair of my favorite hip-hop artists, Leaf Erikson and Noveliss.

This week also marks my second anniversary of hosting this show! Onward to year three of MI Local! Thanks for listening!

Meet Starlings! Or at least half of Starlings. My guests this week were Nick Chevillet (guitar/vocals), Adam Liles (guitar), and Darren Shelton, (keyboards). You can see Shelton on the far right, up top, who immediately joked that he “only has one look” when it comes to photos, otherwise, his energy is significantly mirthful, ebullient even, and certainly exuding lots of encouraging energy toward his bandmate, Liles (he’s the tallest one in the picture) just released his debut solo album “Slow Pony” this week.

During the last segment of this week’s show, I spoke with Liles about his new album, including debuting a song from it, “Heart Attack Machine.” Then Liles treated WDET listeners to a live acoustic version of another song, proper for these chilly winter nights, titled “Silver Letter.”

Liles has been in several bands over the last decade, including Pia The Band and The Indigo Curve, but he’s also been working on solo material, albeit a bit more quietly, for just as long, having released demos in the late 2010s, along with a solid single, “Ripcord.”

Chevillet shared a charming anecdote about how Liles came to join Starlings. This six-piece band grew out of a collaboration that Chevillet started, somewhat on a lark, with singer-songwriter Adam Padden. Chevillet and Padden were already well-acquainted after years of playing together in another indie-rock group, Handgrenades.

Starlings started as a bonding creative project during the quarantine days of Covid, when both Chevillet and Padden had just become new fathers and were eager to fill some of that precious quiet time when their newborns were napping; naturally, they filled it with songwriting.

Liles is a natural fit for Starlings, since Chevillet and Padden’s initial batch of songs matched his own sensibilities for propulsive mini-ballads of melodic brooding post-punk mixed with pedal-augmented guitar phrases, welded over sophisticated compositions that support and sweeten (or bitterly sweeten) the lilts of poetically heavyhearted lyrics.

Shelton had previously set up an impressive recording space Downriver, where Chevillet revealed he’s been working on a slew of new Starlings tracks for future recordings; their debut EP, “Try Hard Town,” was released last year. Liles, in turn, also admitted that while he’s eager to continue recording and performing with Starlings, he’s also got plenty of solo material that could fill a follow-up to” Slow Pony” soon.

Also on tonight’s show, I looked ahead to this weekend’s annual Ann Arbor Folk Festival, a fundraiser for that city’s musical mecca of roots music, The Ark. I featured tracks from two artists performing on Saturday at Hill Auditorium: the versatile Americana-folk-rock ensemble The Crane Wives, and Rabbitology, who weaves a heartwarmingly witchy brew of atmospheric folk that sounds like it’s building her up to be the inheritor of the torches of Kate Bush and Florence Welch.

Also on this week’s show, a track from Tony Mugg’s solo project, DUDE, a dazzlingly jazzy-indie-rock instrumental from Seth Bernard, and a swooning ballad from Annie Bacon. We even found some time to flash back to 2016’s world of local music releases, with two seemingly long-lost music projects known as Real Ghosts and The Good Things.

I’ve had this theory that local scenes go through waves or phases lasting about 7 years. Don’t ask me to do the math or show my work or explain the science—I’m just saying that it feels like a certain vibe solidifies amongst a current crop of highly active local musicians at a given time.

I don’t want to over elaborate my hackneyed outline on this, come find me and I’ll give you the full pitch for what might become a book (?) but suffice to say that 2005-2012 really felt like a bit of an era, a moment, a fantastic wave of local music and I wanted to tap into that a bit on this week’s show.

We flashed back to the year in local music, 2011, for a few reasons: Firstly, how is 2011 already 15 years ago? Secondly, with that time distance, now, it’s fascinating to listen back to what the local music scene sounded like “back then,” and interesting, too, that many of the artists I played tonight are still active today. 

We heard “No Silver” from Chris Bathgate’s “Salt Year”, “The North Side of the Road” from Timothy Monger’s “New Britton Sound,” and “In Line with the Brokenhearted,” the title track from The Blueflower’s 2011 full-length album.

We also heard some blasts from the past from groups that aren’t together or aren’t as visible, the former being Prussia, a long lost indie quirk-pop band that would please any fans of Animal Collective; and Zoos of Berlin, an absolutely sonically sumptuous art rock ensemble that still periodically releases new music even if they don’t perform live.

Along with those flashbacks, we heard brand new music from The Ethan Marc Band, from their new album, “Stay This Way,” along with a new operatic darkwave single from Crune, and a funky jam from Chirp, off their new album, “Torque.”

As often happens, I had a guest in-studio! Singer-songwriter Carmel Liburdi came by to promote three upcoming shows. One of them is tonight at the Ghostlight; Liburdi is performing at a variety show, dubbed ‘The Basement Show’, a comedic variety show blending storytellers, stand-up, and sometimes music!

Liburdi is also going to be at the Paris Bar this Thursday, Jan. 15 for a line up of live music benefiting the ambitious facilitation of the expansive and immersive House of Tarot group show happening at the Boyer-Campbell building in Detroit’s Milwaukee-Junction Neighborhood, on Jan. 31 to Feb. 1.

Liburdi contributed an art installation to last year’s inaugural House of Tarot show, and will be back again, contributing to another piece and performing live.

You can hear the full rundown from Liburdi during our interview, including details of tarot’s connection to another annual art event: Imbolc, with Detroit artists of various mediums embracing an ancient Gaelic celebration welcoming the start of spring!

While in-studio, Liburdi treated WDET listeners to a live performance as well!

And, stay tuned for next week’s show, when I’ll share more details about NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert, including some flash backs to previous events produced by WDET, the Sounds Like Detroit Showcase, which is essentially our version of the “Tiny Desk” where we shine some extra spotlights, with extra brightness, upon local talent!

Check the playlist below and listen to the episode for two weeks after it airs using the player above.

• “Independent” – The Ethan Marc Band
• “In My Own Way” – Chirp
• “69 Forever” – Crune
• “Where To Begin” – Origami Phase
• “The North Side of the Road” – Timothy Monger
• “No Silver” – Chris Bathgate
• “Tamarind Sound” – Zoos of Berlin
• “In Line with the Brokenhearted” – The Blueflowers
• “She Turns On” – Jo Serrapere
• “Sister” – Prussia
• “Two Moons” – Ancient Language
• “Haze” – Android Automatic
• “69” – Carmel Liburdi
• “The Truman Show” – Carmel Liburdi

On MI Local, you’ll often hear in-person interviews with a wide range of local artists. We also get quite a bit of live music on the air!

Many of my guests have been stopping by to talk about an upcoming album release, or maybe a big concert they have coming up. While WDET listeners are able to hear some Q&A where we hear about their origins and their creative process, these guests also tend to bring in acoustic guitars, sometimes saxophones, sometimes even drum kits, and perform live during the show!

It’s just one week in to the New Year, so I thought I’d take one last look back at 2025 and listen to some of the recorded performances. The headline up top says “best of,” but it was honestly so hard to choose! What you’ll hear on this episode is roughly 60% of the live performances I’ve featured throughout the year, including Stef Chura, Lyons Lane, Metal Bubble Trio, The Whiskey Charmers and The City Lines.

Stay tuned, because I already have some guests booked for this year, including return visits from Checker and The Ethan Marc Band. We’re also looking forward to Jackamo stopping in ahead of their upcoming album release! Stay tuned, and find the full playlist for this week’s show, below!

Thanks for listening!

Check the playlist below and listen to the episode for two weeks after it airs using the player above.

• “Universal Themes” – Metal Bubble Trio
• “Green Cement” – Phabies
• “Hell’s Bathroom Floor” – Carmel Liburdi
• “Aerosol” – Checker
• “Out Loud” – The City Lines
• “Black Hole” – Former Critics
• “Chapels” – The Idiot Kids
• “Good Thing” – Lauren Blackford
• “Song For Joe” – John Freeman
• “Everything That I Love” – Mara Wanna
• “You’ll Always Love Me” – Rose St. Germaine
• “All I Do Is Live” – Stef Chura ft. Deleano Acevedo
• “Love Potion # 9” – Lyons Lane
• “Departures” – Corazon Szell
• “Full Moon” – The Whiskey Charmers

This week, I spun just some of my favorite songs released by artists based around metro Detroit and all across the state of Michigan. Emphasis on some, hah! Because there’s just so many to choose from and, for me, so difficult to narrow it down, but I did my best.

I’ve been covering the local music scene for 20 years, and more than eight of those years have been here on WDET. Each year I’ve found myself giving a similarly-worded year-end appraisal: more and more (and more) amazing music keeps coming out of Detroit! Music that is engaging, experimental, impressively produced, catchy-as-hell, and frankly, inspirational!

Spin the episode above to hear more of my thoughts, and look below to find a list of my top 10 favorite songs of the year!

Fav Songs of 2025!

1.) The Bloodletting – Phabies

2.) Jesse – Danny VanZandt

3.) The Middle – Na Bonsai

4.) Fearless & The Pure – Elisabeth Pixley-Fink

5.) Black Cat Operator – Rogue Satellites

6.) Wildflower – Nancy Friday

7.) Fast Food Napkin – Low Phase

8.) Looks Like We’re Alive – Spencer LaJoye

9.) Do It All – The City Lines

10.) Anymore – Mirror Mask

And stay tuned for two more episodes of MI Local in the year of 2025: 

Tuesday, Dec. 23: Highlighting original holiday music by local artists, plus in-studio guests include members of local rock groups Strange Witch and The City Lines, both of whom will perform original Christmas music and a classic cover!

Tuesday, Dec. 30: I’ll run through a bunch of great songs released during the year of 2025 that I nearly missed, plus in-studio guests Emily Rose and Audra Kubat will hang out to perform some original songs live, as well as a cover of Auld Lang Syne!

Happy New Year & Happy Holidays! Thanks for listening!

This week on MI Local, we ran through some of the latest releases by artists based all around metro Detroit and southeast Michigan, including the dream-pop duo, Bluhm, and the garage-goth six-piece known as Mirror Mask!

We also caught back up with the latest from singer/songwriter Corazon Szell, an Ann Arbor-based artist who was recently featured at WDET’s Sounds Like Detroit Showcase in August, at Batch Brewing! The aforementioned Mirror Mask has a show coming up next week at the Magic Stick with Protomartyr, and we also looked around to other notable shows happening, including one at the Ghost Light with the alt-folk indie-rock group Burning Ponies.

Our in-studio guests this week included singer-songwriter and poet Drew Bardo, who recently released the blues-funk fusion track “Wicker Boa.” Bardo has been around the music scene for a couple decades, with a range of previous projects and collaborations, but his recent release marks a return from a roughly five-year long hiatus!

While in the studio, Bardo talked about the latest album he’s been working on, an upcoming single that and music video that he’s dropping this Friday. We wrapped up our segment with Bardo performing another new song, “A Fool’s Dream,” live with Ella Kulik on violin and backing vocals.

My other in-studio guest this week was Stacey MacLeod, one-half of the “punk”-rock duo known as Dear Darkness!  I put punk in quotes because that subject comes up during our interview. This dynamic duo of musicians, singers and visual artists have a new album, “Gold, Guns, and More”, out this weekend, with a release party on Friday night at the High Dive in Hamtramck.

While drummer and vocalist Michelle Thibodeau couldn’t make it in, MacLeod and I chatted about the group’s origin, their unique sound, and we checked out the title track from the album, which was inspired by strip malls. After that, MacLeod treated us to a special live performance of her original Christmas song, “At The Mall.”

Check the playlist below and listen to the episode for two weeks after it airs using the player above.

• “Slow Rewind” – Bluhm
• “Anymore” – Mirror Mask
• “Don’t Make Me Cry” – Barelyon
• “Meet Me On Mars” – North Ingalls & Corazon Szell
• “Good Friends” – The Burning Ponies
• “Wicker Boa” – Drew Bardo
• “A Fool’s Dream” – Drew Bardo & Ella Kulik, live in WDET Studios
• “Gold, Guns, & More” – Dear Darkness
• “At The Mall” – Stacey MacLeod (Dear Darkness), live in WDET Studios