Friday Five highlights music by Washtenaw County-associated artists and labels.

This week features retro-futuristic vaporwave by Kawsaki, droney folk-blues by Laurel Premo, synth-pop by Same Eyes, environmental sounds by Safa Collective, and indie-folk by marto.matic.

Friday Five highlights music by Washtenaw County-associated artists and labels.

This week features glitchy R&B created entirely on bassoon by i-sef u-sef, a disco mix by Zippy Bop, acoustic songs by Brian Seabolt, a pre-club mix by Chien-An Yuan, and a massive compilation of tunes recorded at Ypsilanti's Fundamental Sound Co.

Friday Five highlights music by Washtenaw County-associated artists and labels.

This week features soul jazz by the Anest, Kendrick & McKinney Organ Trio, eclectic jams by Booker & Bridges DaLight, grindcore by Smiles Like Sewage Fires, hip-hop by Mista Midwest, and house/electronica by Adlai.

Friday Five highlights music by Washtenaw County-associated artists and labels.

This week features electronica by Rohn - Lederman, a house mix courtesy of DJ Seance, dark ambient by G.B. Marian, two mixes via Sean Curtis Patrick, and demos from Fred Thomas.

George Frayne, better known as country-rock pioneer Commander Cody, died in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., on Sunday, September 26, at age 77 as the result of cancer.

Best known for the Ann Arbor-spawned group Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen, Frayne was also a fine artist who graduated from the University of Michigan with a bachelor's in design in 1966 and a master's in sculpture and painting in 1968. In between those two years is when he formed Commander Cody and the group became mainstays of the Ann Arbor and Southeast Michigan music scenes, known for their marathon live shows that mixed country, rock, Western swing, and boogie-woogie.

Frayne was born in Idaho but grew up in New York City and Long Island. He came to Michigan to go to college, and because Commander Cody's formative years were in Ann Arbor, many folks in town still associate the band with the city even though the group moved to Berkeley, California, in 1969 and didn't release its first album, Lost in the Ozone, until 1971.

Cody, who was never for a loss of words, was more ambivalent about his place in Ann Arbor's history.

Friday Five highlights music by Washtenaw County-associated artists and labels.

This week features punk-glam by Static, techno by John Beltran, hip-hop from Jevon Alexander, electronic weirdness by dollyzoom:universe, and pop-punk by Killing Pixies.

Friday Five highlights music by Washtenaw County-associated artists and labels.

This week features rock and pop from Kat Steih, New Orleans jazz by Alex Belhaj's Crescent City Quintet, dance mixes by Loamy and Luca Miel, and emo-shoegaze-soul via Cashmere Washington.

I spent a lot of time in downtime Ann Arbor on Friday and Saturday, and the town was buzzing with energy for the second Michigan Wolverines home football game of the 2021 season.

The streets were full of students clad in maize-and-blue casual wear as countless khaki-shorted, running-shoe-wearing Michigan Dads carried M Den bags.

I was excited to watch the game, too, but not necessarily for the football. It was because I read a story on September 8 titled "Michigan Marching Band commemorates 20th anniversary of 9/11 with ‘most spectacular halftime show to date.'"

I wanted to see the band, which has only performed twice at a football game since 2019 due to the pandemic, put on a huge show, full of pagentry and making full use of this being one of the few U-M football games to happen at night.

But instead of showing the halftime tribute at the stadium, the TV broadcast featured commercials plus highlights of games by, like, Southeastern Northern Alabama State College vs. Eastern Christian Southern Methodist Commonwealth University as loud men talked loudly over the video clips.

Thankfully, the marching band's spectacular presentation—which included remarkable choreography accompanied by lasers, glowing orbs, and high-powered flashlights—is now on YouTube.

Friday Five highlights music by Washtenaw County-associated artists and labels.

This week features punky shoegaze from Big Vic, live jams from Ma Baker and Stormy Chromer, grungy rock from Jeremiah Mack & the Shark Attack, and meditative percussion by David Matthew.

Friday Five highlights music by Washtenaw County-associated artists and labels.

This week features sophisti-pop by Hannah Baiardi, hip-hop from Druzi Baby and Atlas the Kid, comedy-rock from Tom Smith, and a sax-synths-drums improvisation by Bennett / Endahl / Sutherland.