Singing about heartbroken monsters with Fangs and Twang, discussing the condition of Michigan’s roads with Representative David Rutledge, and reliving the horrors of Totally Awesome Fest… on episode 16 of The Saturday Six Pack

My favorite moment of this week’s episode happened within just the first few minutes. I was looking at State Representative David Rutledge’s face when Fangs and Twang performed the opening theme song that they’d written for the show, and he was just beaming. While I think he genuinely liked the song, which was admittedly pretty awesome, my sense is that he was responding to more than just the trio’s unique brand of mystical country. I’m pretty sure, based on the way he looked around the room, and what he said to me just afterward, that we was reacting more to the fact that a local band had gone to the effort of writing a song specifically for this little AM radio show of mine, and that made me really happy. He didn’t say it, but the look on his face gave me the sense that he was thinking, “Something uniquely interesting is happening here.” Of course the spell was broken once I started grilling him on the condition of Michigan’s roads, and what he intended to do about it, but, for that short moment, I got the sense that he felt as though we were all conspiring together to create something truly different and beautiful in downtown Ypsilanti… But maybe I’m just projecting.

Here’s Representative Rutledge explaining to me, and our listeners, why it was that he chose not to run against Debbie Dingell for Congress. [I asked if he’d been threatened. He laughed and said, “No.”]

I probably should have grilled him harder on school funding, mass transit, and the like, but I think we touched on enough policy stuff to make it a worthwhile conversation… I had a long list of serious questions for him, but I found myself drifting away from the script, as I often do, choosing instead to follow little threads and see where they might lead. A question about how he came to be living in Michigan, led to a discussion about having grown up in Tennessee, which, in turn, led to discussion about what it was like leaving high school, knowing that segregation would be ending with your graduating class. So, between our discussions of term limits and roads, we jumped around a lot, talking about his memories of attending a Martin Luther King speech with his father, and the jazz radio show he hosted while stationed at an oversees Air Force base in the 70s. I know that some in the audience probably would have rather that I stayed more in the present, asking him about specific votes he’d cast, and what he’s been doing to bring better jobs to Ypsilanti, but, when push comes to shove, I guess I’d rather talk about someone’s memory of his father having taken him to hear Martin Luther King speak, than ask about the finer points of the legislation that’s coming out of his office. And I think, being completely honest, that’s one of the bigger faults with The Saturday Six Pack. When you get right down to it, I’m more of an oral historian than a political reporter. Still, though, I think there was enough policy stuff discussed to have made it worthwhile… Or at least I hope you all got something out of it.

[If you missed the live broadcast, you can now hear the episode in its entirety on both iTunes and Soundcloud. Or, if you want, you can just scroll down to end of this post, where you’ll find it embedded.]

As I mentioned above, Fangs and Twang, wrote a song especially for their appearance on The Saturday Six Pack… or, to be more accurate, they rewrote the lyrics for one of their existing songs, substituting references to vampires with mentions of my “big ‘ol mouth“… Here are the guys in Fangs and Twang, who I talked with for quite a while between songs about life, love and monsters. So, if you’re curious as to why a bunch of grown men would get together to form a country band that only performs songs about monsters, or whether or not they feel at all limited by that self-imposed restraint, listen in. [I especially liked the exchange toward the end of our discussion when I asked if they’d consider writing a campaign song for David Rutledge should he decide to run against Debbie Dingell someday.]

And that, as they say, was just the tip of the iceberg… Non-motorize transportation advocate Bob Krzewinski came by the studio to tell us about Bike Bus Walk Week. Totally Awesome Fest organizers Patrick Elkins, Amber Fellows, and Ben Miller came by to share some of their favorite moments from the recently held 11th annual festival of beautiful weirdness, and play clips from the likes of Riverspirit, Autumn Nicole Wetli, Deadbeat Beat, and Danica Danger. [See Amber and Ben below, talking about pancakes.] We played a new song sent to us from Kenya by Dr. Peter Larson. We had another segment of The People’s History of Ypsilanti with Matt Siegfried. And, at the end of the show, local artist Cre Fuller came in to discuss the closing of SPUR studios…

It was a good, solid show. But don’t believe me…

Listen for yourself.

Thanks, as always, to AM 1700 for hosting the show, Brian Robb for running the board, and Kate de Fuccio for documenting everything in photos.

And do listen, if you have a chance. It’s a good episode, and this writeup really doesn’t do it justice.

[If you like this episode, check out our archive of past shows at iTunes. And do please leave a review if you have the time, OK? It’s nice to know that people are listening, and, unless you call in, that’s pretty much the only way we know.]