➥ AADL 2025 Staff Picks: Homepage
➥ AADL 2025 Staff Picks: Words
➥ AADL 2025 Staff Picks: Screens
➥ AADL 2025 Staff Picks: Pulp Life

AADL 2025 STAFF PICS: AUDIO
Music, podcasts, CDs, records, and more:

➥ AADL 2025 Staff Picks: Homepage
➥ AADL 2025 Staff Picks: Words
➥ AADL 2025 Staff Picks: Screens
➥ AADL 2025 Staff Picks: Audio
 

AADL 2025 STAFF PICS: PULP LIFE
Games, apps, sports, outdoors, and any other kind of hard-to-categorize cultural and life activities:

The Radar tracks new music by Washtenaw County-associated artists and labels.

This week: Vulfpeck, 3Steez, RVRISS, Daniel Morris, Fangs and Twang, Bunkerman, Kalron, Dylan Charles, and a Moroccan music mix by Jib Kidder.

The Radar tracks new music by Washtenaw County-associated artists and labels.

This week: David Barrett, Skinned Knees, Omo & Delos Prismatic, Defy Modern Theory, VaporDaze, Studio Lounge, Future Holograms, and Latimer Rogland.

Like semesters, student groups come and go at the University of Michigan. Concrete Canoe team? Seems to be on hiatus. Photonix, the Glo-Stick choreography ensemble? Also seems to be taking a break.

But if you're a student interested in diabolo, aka the art of the Chinese yoyo, then Revolution is the group for you—and it's still around, as it has been since its 2009 creation.

The troupe blends a traditional Chinese pastime with modern music and captivating choreography to promote Asian American and Pacific Islander culture. 

On November 23, 2025, Revolution came to the Ann Arbor District Library's Downtown location for a 30-minute performance followed by 10 minutes of Q&A with the audience. 

Below, watch the videos of Revolution's recent performance at AADL as well as the group's presentation outside Hill Auditorium in Ann Arbor during the 2020 COVID year.

The Radar usually tracks new music by Washtenaw County-associated artists and labels.

But for this edition, we wanted to shine a light on some arts- and culture-related podcasts from the greater Ann Arbor area.

This week:
KyLex Voice Adventures, Every Horror Movie on Netflix, Fans With Bands, My Brother & Me, The Frequency Exchange, Sonixcursions, I Love Your Stories, Creative Currents, Sunday Sesh, The Seven Series, Acoustic Alternatives, Cinema Chat, Living Writers, and numerous AADL-produced podcasts.

"Anywhere in the world, farmworkers are always at the bottom of the social strata," Narsiso Martinez told PBS News Hour in 2004. "In my art, I just hope to shine a light to these people."

Martinez's new exhibit, Best Used By, is at the University of Michigan's Institute for the Humanities Gallery through December 19. He creates textured, detailed portraits and muralist-style pieces to honor these workers, incorporating real-world products from the food industry and mixing the materials with his drawings. (Above, you can see the illustrations are atop flattened cardboard boxes, a metaphor for the way the food industry treats its workers as disposable.)

On November 13, Martinez helped launch his exhibition with a talk at the Michigan Theater, which you can watch below, as well as read what curator Amanda Krugliak said about Best Used By.

Detroit's Pavan Kanekal and Salem, Oregon's J.J. Gregg teamed up for an evening of tabla and sitar duets at the Ann Arbor District Library on October 3, 2025. They've been playing together since 2018 and have released two albums: 2024's Ease & Flow and 2022's re-cycling.

Gregg studied in India with Ustad Usman Khan, a sixth-generation musician and third-generation Hindustani classical sitar player who started his studies at age 7. 

Kanekal also began his tabla training at age 7, in Bangalore, India, and continued his studies after a family move to the San Francisco Bay area.

In a performance that lasted about an hour, with introductions from Gregg, the duo transfixed the audience at AADL's Downtown location with a hypnotic performance of South Asian Classical music. Watch their concert and listen to Gregg and Salem's two albums below:

The Radar tracks new music by Washtenaw County-associated artists and labels.

This week: Ellen Rowe Quartet, Ed Dupas, Dreadmaul, Scotty Karate, Will Kaye, How to Draw Monsters, Alison Albrecht, Jib Kidder, 14KT, North Ingalls, Queso Tone, Lovepark., and Post Eden.

The 49th edition of the Ann Arbor Folk Fest will have a stripped-down feel.

Rather than two evenings of multi-performer concerts, the opening night will now feature one headliner, and the second will follow the traditional format of bigger-name artists at the top of the bill and exciting up-and-comers warming up the crowd. The booking change was based on audience feedback.

The annual fundraiser for the Ann Arbor nonprofit venue will still be held at Hill Auditorium.

Greensky Bluegrass will open the fest on Friday, January 30. The long-running Kalamazoo ensemble mixes in a jam-band spirit with its traditional twang.

The Saturday, January 31, concert will feature folk-soul songwriter Amos Lee at the top of the bill along with folk-rockers Dawes, Grand Rapids indie band The Crane Wives, Ugandan-born singer-songwriter Jon Muq, and folk-tronica artist Rabbitology (U-M student Nat Timmerman), with guitarist-singer Ryan Montbleau handling the MC duties.

You can buy tickets here and check out a selection of songs/videos from the artists below.