Stop, Look, and Listen: Sound and Film Conservancy and African American History [The following is a description of a panel to be held April 13th, 2018 in Sacramento at the Organization of American Historians Conference. Read more about the conference here.] This roundtable discussion imaginatively engages with the conference theme of “The Forms of History” […]
Has Detroit become a sonic desert? Musical expression has been a long-standing pivot point for debates about Detroit’s successes and failures. Though the Detroit area has a wide range of cultural expressions for which it is associated—including art, design, architecture, literature, and, critically, industrial production—music has been the dominant site for articulating exactly how Detroit […]
Our 2018 begins now. It’s been an incredible year. The Blue Bird Stage went to France, we turned five, John Lee Hooker got inducted into the Detroit Sound Hall of Fame, we have come up with a plan to restore the Club Heaven Sound System as a mobile legacy performance program, and we did acoustic […]
In celebration of the final night of Sound Diplomacy‘s Music Cities Convention as well as the deep sonic connections between Memphis and Detroit, Detroit Sound Conservancy presents an evening with Saturna, Carleton Gholz, and LeRoy. RSVP + MORE INFO HERE. Saturna, Memphis Saturna is a Memphian, a singer, and a deejay of two decades who […]
This summer, I consulted for Oakland Avenue Urban Farm which had just purchased the abandoned Red’s Jazz Shoeshine Parlor located at 9148 Oakland Avenue. The business itself still exists further south at 8348 Oakland. Our friend Jean-Louis Farges and his team, working on behalf of the farm, had discovered a stage in the back of […]
On Monday September 11th, the property management company Bedrock Detroit publicly announced their plans to demolish the National Theatre and move a portion of its façade to serve as a pedestrian walkway. We are deeply concerned. On August 24, the first public kickoff meeting for Bedrock’s proposed Book Tower and Monroe Block development projects was […]
Batch Brewing Company and Detroit Sound Conservancy partner during September for Feelgood Tap Fundraiser and Event Batch Brewing Company in Corktown continues to develop local philanthropic partnerships through the Feelgood Tap, an in house initiative that became a 501c3 in late 2016. In September, participating Feelgood Tap establishments get to focus on a local partner […]
Calling all designers! In preparation for our Blue Bird Stage Homecoming Celebration on August 26th at Detroit Public Library and our upcoming #DETROITSOUND4 conference on September 9th we are looking for a few good designers to take a crack on remixing the Blue Bird Stage backdrop in 2D. Our goal will be to pick the […]
On July 16th, Detroit Sound Conservancy partnered with StoryCorps to activate a session between our adviser Curtis Lispcomb (in photo on left) and his longtime friend Damon “Magic” Percy to discuss their shared history in Detroit dance culture generally and the Club Heaven Sound System in particular. A report from Magic: “We discussed how music […]
We just got a great message from United Sound Systems: Greetings United Sound Supporter! We are very excited to announce that United Sound Systems Recording Studios has been deemed a Historic site by the Michigan Historical Commission! We invite you to celebrate this great milestone with us on Sunday, June 25, 2017 from 4pm-6pm at […]