Kalamazoo's Ninth Street Bridge.

Ninth Street Bridge is one of the local bands in South West Michigan that is bringing Americana and Red Dirt music too venues throughout Michigan and beyond. With an appearance scheduled for this years Hoxeyville music festival up North in Wellston Michigan sharing the stage with artists like Todd Snider and Great American Taxi to opening for one of Red Dirt music's top five acts, Jason Boland & The Stragglers at Joe's bar in Chicago on August 26th and much more.
Here they cover a song by two of the best songwriters and musicians in the Red Dirt music scene, Brandon Jenkins and Bleu Edmondson with their cover of the song "Finger on the Trigger" at the Curve Inn off Blue Star Highway in South Haven Michigan.



Ninth Street Bridge plays a variety of covers ranging from Bob Dylan to Johnny Cash and Tom Petty as well as from other Americana and Red Dirt artists like Reckless Kelly, Robert Earl Keen and more but its the original songs they perform that make them unique and keep things looking forward for these guys. The band consists of core members Brett Riggins as lead singer and songwriter, mandolin, fiddle and guitar player, Scott Lehmer on guitar, bass and vocals and Marty Fine also on bass and providing more twang on the Telecaster. Multi instrumentalist Allan Bates on Dobro, Banjo, acoustic guitar, vocals, Lap Steel and more rounding things out. Gary known as GB has been filling in on drums and harmony vocals for a while now although the band could use a full time drummer. All together they are five guys who can incorporate over a dozen different instruments into their live show and in the studio. Look for more studio music to be released later this summer or fall and come catch a live show soon and become a fan on Facebook to keep up with the latest announcements. The first link in the article is their MySpace page and they also have this Reverbnation page as well as Twitter.

Kalamazoo's own Small Town Son.

Kalamazoo Michigan has had its share of country music bands and musicians and some like Frankie Ballard get noticed and get offered record deals and then make the big move to Nashville to start a new life. Though many bands in the area break apart or just can't make things work while trying to balance a day job with pursuing their musical dreams others arrive on the scene prepared to fill their shoes. Kalamazoo's Small Town Son seem poised to take the reigns as one of the top draws for live music through out South West Michigan and even further.
The band consists of Vocalist and rhythm guitarist Kris Hitchcock, bass player and vocalist Dan Anspaugh, Ian Szarafinski on vocals and lead guitar with fiddle player Susan Beliel and Bill Justice who also is part of the Frankie Ballard band on drums.
Kris has a good mid range singing voice well suited to cover songs by top modern country artists like Dierks Bentley and Montgomery Gentry as well as singing original material he has written himself. Ian has the talent to play a variety of stringed instruments and is especially gifted on the Telecaster guitar. Bill Justice is an intuitive and solid drummer that can pick up and hold a steady beat even if he hasn't heard the song before and Susan is a classically trained violinist who also is a member of the Grand Rapids Michigan symphony orchestra and she knows how to work both styles of music effortlessly. I have recently been out to a venue in Grand Rapids Michigan called the Intersection where i was photographing a concert by Justin Moore an up and coming major label Nashville country music singer and Small Town Son was one of the opening acts on the bill. I was impressed with their faithful renditions of current and past country music hits by artists ranging from Jason Aldean to Johnny Cash and there upbeat well written originals were easily as listenable and seemed to go over well with the sold out capacity crowd in attendance. I also walked into a local bar after a show at the Kalamazoo State Theater to see Small Town Son playing on a Saturday night to a packed and partying crowd that obviously knows these guys can entertain and entertain well. Talking recently to Kris he told me they have more shows in the works locally again at The Intersection and also at Kalamazoo's Wild Bull Saloon as well as a possible trip to Austin Texas and if their ambition and love for country music continues to guide them along, the opportunities will not only get bigger and better, they will take them where ever they want to go.

The Funkberry Jam (yeah it happened again)

So i get a call from my agent at 11 in the morning, he's on the other end babbling about this Frank guy and how i have to cover this show because when ever this guy decides to re visit his past by coming to Kalamazoo this "Funkberry Jam" happens and then they break up so they can have a reunion show the next time. Its been like that for quite a while, break up, then reunited. Anyway i decided to treat this like any other assignment i get and go with the hope that maybe they have changed. I was right this time, they haven't changed, the lead "singer" was still in his underwear, now i understand that this venue has a hunting cabin theme to it but this guy was like all Escanaba in the moonlight with his fuzzy hat and longjohns on. I know now what it was like to only photograph or film elvis from the waste up so i changed from my wide angle over to my zoom lens trying to catch his good side, there wasn't one. The Funkberry Jam usually consists of Jaybes as the lead singer, The guy all the girls show up for, Frank Ballard on drums and then they have a bass player. Another guitar player by the name of Shreddie Eddie sits in too but apparently he had some music to play. So back to this Frank guy. He was a complete contrast to the lead singer, wearing his beer distribution employee uniform complete with trucker cap flailing his arms about like an out of control Muppet, he attempted to keep time. All i could think about was that my Timex does a better job and it has a click track. The most talent in this group has to belong to the bass player, he was there. I saw him in the corner a few times when i thought i heard a bass note make its way through the drums and the shrieking of the guitar. Obviously the talent of the bass player exceeded the talent of the rest of the band as a whole.
I went to this show for two reasons, i was getting paid and two, i figured i could get laid (i will write a review on that later) so anyway, the Funkberry Jam to me is taking all that this town has been trying to do with establishing a respect for art and artists and just pissing on it, its like having someone urinate in your ear with these guys. The lead singer Jaybes is a white guy singing the blues dressed like he's stalking prey out in the woods of portage. You know that game musical chairs? well these guys thought they would play a game called musical instruments by having Frank, the guy that can play the guitar half as good as the guy that didn't show up (Eddie) play the drums and that's ok when he knows the songs but because they were trying to be all artsy fartsy he didn't know the set list. The days of bands dropping out of art school and being successful like that are over, do yourself a favor kids, drop out of art school and get a real job, you won't get anywhere doing that shit. I know the economy is bad and there aren't many jobs but using that as an excuse to start a band is just giving up to me. If it wasn't for beer and other alcoholic drinks i think the audience would have been forced to listen to these guys instead they were distracted by the multitude of photographers trying to get that one elusive photo of a guitar player sitting down behind a drum kit and wishing that Eddie guy would have showed up. Kalamazoo has better bands than this playing in better venues, i call on real music fans to support out of town bands at the classier joints like that one down by the wayside and that one near the firehouse cause these guys just need to move away and spend some time in Nashville or something so they can learn from the corporate artists down there and then we can have a reunion show on a bigger stage with real lights and stuff. This has offended some people and its not meant to be taken seriously, i was asked to write this and those that know that thought it was hilarious.