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

This week: Intrusion, Louie's Feeder, Pluot, Whereisjah, BigPlanet, and Towner.

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

This week: VIRID and David Minnix, deegeecee, Marissa Conniff & The Starter Packs, Porcellan Hammer, Stephen Rush, KUZbeats, Mei Semones, VaporDaze, Bill Edwards, Sam Watson, Kid Jay, Acid Lab, Riot Course, Kelly Moran, Premium Rat, Pale Gallery, Vladimir's Universe, Post Scriptvm, Sigidy, A Church Made From Burnt Churches, and Michael Armstrong.

Dead media is alive and well in my house.

My husband, Brian, and I have an affinity for various types of discontinued and outdated media from the 1970s and 1980s. It’s everything from 8-tracks and LaserDiscs to VHS tapes and retro video game consoles.

There’s something fun about revisiting old media from your childhood or experimenting with now-obsolete technology that was popular before you were born.

I want to highlight some of my old media as a way to celebrate Dead Media Day, which is October 12 at Ann Arbor District Library’s downtown location.

The inaugural event pays homage to retro media, entertainment, and ephemera, and features vendors selling vintage and rare items.

It will also have exhibits, hands-on demonstrations, and crafts for fans who want to step back in time and honor all things old and once forgotten.

Here’s a look at five types of dead media that continue to thrive in the Stratton household.

The Kerrytown Concert House’s annual Edgefest has long prided itself on scouring the globe to bring some of the foremost artists making avant-garde music to Ann Arbor.

But the 29th edition of the four-day festival will have a decidedly more localized bent, with several artists hailing from Detroit and Chicago gracing the lineup.

This year’s festival, entitled Edgefest 29: Speaking OUT, takes place October 8-11 at Ann Arbor's Kerrytown Concert House, featuring several artists from the two Midwest cities, including Kenny Green and his Cosmic Music Collective, which is composed of members from both Detroit and Chicago.

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

This week: Loamsy, DASHpf, BigPlanet, Mei Semones, Chris DuPont, DJ Myint, Hemmingway Lane, Hey Look Listen, Latimer Rogland, Modus Operandi, and G.B. Marian.

If you've ever been in the Chip Davis Technology Studio at the University of Michigan, you know it's not a large space. It's an amazing room, filled with music-making and music-reproducing tech that will melt your brain, but it's not the kind of space that could host a music festival featuring more than 25 artists over two days.

Except when it does.

Again.

The second Spaceout International Ambisonics Festival runs October 16-17 at the Chip Davis Technology Studio, featuring an international and local cast of creatives who make music in a 3D audio format.

The studio's 32-speaker immersive audio system allows performers and presenters to envelop your ears, turning sounds into hallucinatory spectres that attack your cochleas from all angles.

Over the course of three concerts across two days, artists from Japan, Turkey, Italy, Chile, Brazil, Norway, Canada, Germany, India, the USA, and more will perform ambisonic compositions that incorporate multimedia, cybernetics, collaboration, system theory, and cutting-edge technology.

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

This week: Hey Look Listen, Spiralic label compilation, two AGN7 label releases, Pastland, Adam J. Snyder, Richard Root & The Fancy Band, Mark Zhu, Darrin James Band, Brooke Steele, FLYDLPHN and Hayden Mesnick, Loamsy, Alison Albrecht, and Median.

For the next two weeks, several free or mostly pay-what-you-can music fests will dominate the schedules of adventurous Washtenaw County listeners.

In addition to the A2 Jazz Fest (September 27-28) and Refugia music fest (September 28, all day) in Ann Arbor, Ypsilanti will host two events that lean into experimental sounds and indie/punk rock: Totally Awesome Festival (September 25-28) and Freak Fest (October 3-5). And if an one-evening-only fest is more your speed, there's the Fred Thomas-curated "Three Mirrors: Excursions in Collaborations" in association with UMS on September 27 at the Ypsi Freighthouse. (Plus, there's the pre-Zach Bryan festival Down on Main Street in Ann Arbor on September 26.)

Totally Awesome—celebrating its 20th birthday—and Freak Fest—now in its third year—have sprawling artist lineups (and more) in various venues; below you can see the full schedule with links to as many artists as we could find so you can plan your visits. (You can check out Pulp articles on A2 Jazz Fest here and Refugia here.)

Additionally, on September 24, WCBN's Local Music Show did a spotlight on this year's artists at Totally Awesome, Three Mirrors, Refugia, and Freak Fest.

A record was broken at Michigan Stadium on September 7, 2013, when 115,109 people watched the Wolverines defeat Notre Dame. It's still the most attended college football game of all time.

​The Big House is ready for another record-breaking performance.

​Country singer-songwriter Zach Bryan and pop-rock singer-songwriter John Mayer are headlining the University of Michigan’s first concert at the stadium on September 27. The show is expected to have over 112,000 fans in attendance. 

​“That total means Bryan is poised to break the all-time U.S. record for a ticketed concert by a single act, which was set by George Strait at Texas A&M’s Kyle Field in 2024,” wrote Brandon Champion in a February 15, 2025, article for The Ann Arbor News.

​However, this isn’t the first time U-M has tried to have a concert at Michigan Stadium.

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

This week: Ancel Fitzgerald Neeley, Sacha, Levona, The City Lines, Bekka Madeleine, Mark Zhu, Normal Park, Gee Floyd, The DayNites