Did you catch the game last night? How about that halftime show? Did you applaud when the marching band finished their set? For many Flushing students and family members, the main attraction of the Friday night game is watching the band perform at halftime.
I met The Plastic Bears at their studio in East Lansing, MI, and from the beginning of our conversation, their love of eclectic music was on display. “Check this out,” said drummer, Drew Duncanson, as he laid down a collection of old-school pop photos of the Jackson 5. He rifled through a stack of frameable images of Michael and his brothers, and picked out one of the group posing next to a rainbow of colored Ferraris. “That’s the one, right there,” said Duncanson. And everyone agreed. Collectively, The Plastic Bears are a collage of musical talent, influences and genres. Their tastes are many and timeless. Anything from R&B to punk, from the 60s to now, is fair game. And that wide-ranging style is reflected in their music.
Happy Curmudgeons is a project a long time coming. Dave Hamilton (lead singer, guitarist) was playing in a band in the 80s called the Angel-Headed Hipsters, and during that time, had the opportunity to meet the legendary Lou Reed of The Velvet Underground. “Lou Reed had told me, ‘You’re a very good songwriter. Keep doing what you’re doing and believe in yourself. If you stick with that, you’ll end up doing something’,” says Hamilton. He took Reed’s words to heart and did just that. “About twenty years later, I decided to get back to it,” he says. Hamilton was still playing music and doing session work during that time, but knew he wanted to put out his own music. He spent a year in California, returning to the Flint area in 2008, where he ran into Jeff Warner (guitar), who has also played with Gene Pool and the Pole Barn Rebels, as well as his current band, The Outfit. The two began writing and soon brought on Amy Dixon-Lavery to contribute additional vocals. Thus, Happy Curmudgeons were officially born on August 1, 2015.
Never ones to shy away from their beliefs, Flint hardcore punk group, Braidedveins, released a statement immediately following the 2016 election that began with those words. “Don’t allow the monstrous and cruel to become normal. Interrupt and resist violence and domination. Interrupt and resist the logics of violence and domination,” the statement goes on to say. It was at this point when the band decided that all proceeds made from their music would be donated to various progressive social movements, the first of which was Black Lives Matter.
Steppes began last year as a solo project of lead singer/guitarist Joshua Kemp and has since become a full-fledged indie rock/alternative group. Kemp was writing and playing shows as a singer, but knew he wanted to expand on the sound and work with other musicians. Drummer, Austin Holicki, and lead guitarist, Caleb Doering had played alongside Josh before, including with their church’s band, so Kemp asked them to fill in for those bigger shows. Their experience playing together made the transition easy, and the three clicked right away. “I remember asking the guys, ‘Hey, do you want to make this an actual band?’” says Doering. They did, and Steppes was formed.
Greet Death has been busy. In 2017, the band released their debut album Dixieland through Flesh & Bone Records, started touring regularly and in new places, and even changed their name – snuffing out their old moniker, Pines, and being reborn under their new, ominous one. “It seemed like we weren’t doing enough,” says guitarist/vocalist Logan Gaval. “But, when we actually looked at what we’d been doing, it was about eight or nine weeks of touring in six months.” After getting started in the Greater Flint area as Pines in 2013, the Davisburg natives have now made fans all across the Midwest and East Coast.
