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.

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.

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.

Andrew Rogers was an improviser. Not in a strict jazz sense, but as someone who accompanied silent films without sheet music, much of what he played was composed spontaneously in response to what was happening on screen.

“The thing about doing silent films," he told Pulp in 2023 for an article about theater organs, "I’ve got the outline in my head, and I’ve got the certain themes, but how I knit it together each time I play it could be different. If I played a film for you now and then played it for you tomorrow, it wouldn’t be exactly the same.”

Rogers was the lead organist at the Michigan Theater, where he had performed since 2008 in addition to other vintage movie houses in the state and elsewhere. He died on November 13. Rodgers was 74 years old. You can read his obituary here.

There will be a memorial concert at the Michigan Theater on December 4, according to Rogers' friend Maria Calabrese, though it's not currently listed on the Marquee Arts website.

You can read Marquee Arts' lovely remembrance of Rogers here, and listen to a short remembrance of him on WEMU. (Update: MLive published a long story about Rogers on November 19.)

Below, you can watch Rogers' virtual concert at the Michigan Theater for Memorial Day 2020, and read his bio:

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

This week: Disciples of Noise, God Gotti with Prod. P, Blou Reed, Atlas the Kid, Frontier Ruckus, Tymbals, How to Draw Monsters, Darrin James Band, John Beltran, Orka Veer featuring Zakoor, Cloudburst, and Stephen Kemsley.

When an opportunity to open a pair of sold-out shows in Chicago for the English band Dry Cleaning came up for Fred Thomas’ Idle Ray project in 2021, it was an easy “yes.”

There was only one slight problem: The Ypsilanti songwriter’s latest alias for writing and recording lo-fi indie rock was a solo project, not an actual group.

“It was, ‘Yep, no problem, we'll be there,’ without actually having a band at all,” Thomas said. “It was just me, and I hadn't played these shows for a couple of years. So I just asked everybody whose instruments I'd been borrowing if they’d play with me at those two shows.”

More than three years later, the individuals Thomas found to play the shows, guitarist Frances Ma and bassist Devon Clausen, have taken on official roles in Idle Ray, with each providing their own unique contributions to the band’s two 2025 record releases.

The Ann Arbor area is flush with great jazz concerts right now. High-profile artists hosted by UMS and Blue LLama; excellent shows at intimate venues such as Kerrytown Concert House and Ziggy's; third-space concert venues across Washtenaw County, such as Mothfire Brewing, the Elks Lodge, and Rancho Tranquilico, hosting gigs and jam sessions; plus the excellent student bands at U-M and EMU—plus whatever famous guest musicians sometimes join them—performing regularly, as well as annual events such as Edgefest and A2 Jazz Fest.

All this jazz wasn't the case 50 years ago, according to Michael Grofsorean in the September 10, 1976, issue of the Ann Arbor Sun: