Musical ramblings from the manager
“The Lake, it is said, never gives up her dead, when the skies of November turn gloomy”. If there is a more haunting lyric about Lake Superior than this, I have never heard it. This is the second line in the first verse of the song he wrote about the sinking of the Edmund […]
If there are tasks that breed procrastination more than cleaning closets, I can’t think of any. When one views this process as a form of exploration, however, there is a plus side. Our long neglected linen closet recently yielded a source of entertainment that had not seen the light of day for at least […]
The first time I remember telling my buddy Mitch about Uriah Heep he was either half listening or he was pulling my leg when he responded, “You’re a heap? A heap of what?” Heep’s hit Easy Living was playing on the radio and I had commented how much I would like to learn this song […]
It never ceases to amaze me that some people are shocked and horrified when the headlines blare out the fact that (gasp) many countries engage in spying, surveillance, and other covert operations. We like to think the fate of the world depends on world leaders exercising their diplomatic skills to sort things out, but […]
Would the Porcupine Mountain Music Festival’s 13th edition prove to be a convergence of bad luck? For people who suffer from triskaidekaphobia, it would seem that PMMF # 13 would have been the one to avoid. For those of us who harbor no such fears, we would have found that the unnatural fear of […]
During the two years I played in Knockdown, we only played for one frat party. We had our regular monthly three nighter at the NCO club (guitar player Ray was a Sergeant in accounting, so we had an inside track with the NCOs), numerous party dates at both the NCO and the Officer’s club, company […]
There are many categories of band gigs: teen dances, wedding receptions, private parties, and bar gigs make up the normal mix for most bands. To my personal list, I could add playing in a tent at the U.P. State Fair and gigs in churches (both in the basement and the sanctuary). Again, bands from just […]
“Let Trees and Children Grow Together” was emblazoned on the sign in a photo attached to an article sent to me from the MTU archives. The article recounted the dedication of the MacMillan Township School Forest that took place in the late 1930s. The State of Michigan routinely granted local governments and school districts […]
Having recently finished reading Woody Woodmansey book Spider from Mars – My Life with Bowie (St. Martin’s Press 2016), it seemed appropriate to update his story a bit. We had passed along some information on his newly released book in April of 2017 based on a brief review of the book and a short […]
A quick quiz: How many different types of mines have there been in Upper Michigan? This is a question I ask my sixth grade Geography – Earth Science students at the beginning of the Geology unit we cover that includes U.P. mining history. Everybody comes up with “copper”, and a few might remember “iron”, […]