Win Back All Their Fluttering Eyes

In the bottom two preceding posts, I interviewed two singer/songwriters at crossroads - one making a concerted effort with his latest efforts, a "big" swing, if you will, with what could be his "last band"  and the other deciding that he needs to take some steps back to figure out to where, exactly, he should swing next.

Steven McCauley (of The Walking Beat) spoke about buckling down and focusing with this band - a course adjustment from his last band, Scarlet Oaks' having jumped out to play too many live engagements too swiftly, without shoring up some proper recordings.

Jesse Shepherd Bates joked over how some Facebookers wondered if he was "retiring" when he said he didn't want to just play around in bars anymore... but Bates, like McCauley, just wants to be that much more sure of things...of creative commitments...

...which is what I'm about to do with this Blog. I'd said this out loud about six months - that I was only going to come back up on this thing for special/epic/personal rants or profound interview/features - and I think now I'm ready to try that... taking a step back, for a minute, buckling down and making just that much more sure of all the other stuff.

Vague eh?

But anyway, those two interviews got me thinking is all...

In the meantime, you can find ramblings here...
Like this Cover Story on Ypsi singer/songwriter Matt Jones in the Metro Times...(seen above, stabbing an exercise ball with an authentic Medieval dagger...
...-Jones is putting out a new album in a matter of days titled Half Poison / Half Pure which is going to sound, to one extent, like this:

...or another playful rant revealing the newest works of Detroit rapper Doc Waffles - How To Shoot Quails.

Or there's more ramblings to be found [here] - where some way-west-siders (like, Washtenaw County!) share their favorite things about the Metro Times Blowout.

[Weird cosmic slap back down to keep my nose at that grindstone was hearing Pedro The Lion's 
"Magazine" come on the radio mere minutes after I picked up a copy of that^... ...since Matt's getting a lot of shine, he and I both felt it would be proper to show a less flattering side of him... So, here you go, local music fans.]

But I'll be back up on this ol' thing likely -at-least once-a-week, unraveling mad musings on local music...

Until then...

[Photos above by Gregory McIntosh 
Hot Dog photo by Shelley Salant]