Barnaby took some records from his pep-pep to play at WCBN and this gem was among the 45s. Being the great friend that I try to be, I offered to make an MP3 of the 45. Here it is!

I present to you, Back to Ypsilanti by Lee Osler. Recorded in 1983 for Mustache Records.

You can learn more about the song, here! They also have a MP3 of the song, but I think my recording sounds better; the vocals are less washed out in mine and it doesn’t sound as 2D and flat.

Thanks Barnaby!

If you live in the Detroit area, you’re prolly feelin’ what I’m sayin’. Click this!

While bike enthusiasts in most urban areas continue to have to fight for their place on the streets, Detroit has the potential to become a new bicycle utopia.

Michigan Central Station in Detroit. This is a sad story.

I’m listening to J Dilla’s album, Donuts, for the second time now, and I’m so impressed. J Dilla seems like such an overlooked hip-hop ambassador and it’s sad that I (and many others) didn’t know more about him while he was alive.

This music is so good. I almost feel proud of Detroit for being the home of a talented hip-hop artist that’s not Eminem.

catbird:

Detroit’s Beautiful, Horrible Decline

Sometimes I think that if American auto-companies simply had better design and marketing that they’d be just as successful as all these great foreign companies.

This is a poster I got at the 2009 International Auto Show from Ford. This looks like an ad for a monster truck show in 1997 or something… not for a cutting edge automobile in 2009. I know that big trucks have a demographic consisting mostly of tough guys that like monster truck rallies… but they’d appeal to so many more people if they’d just get with the times artistically(or at least not appeal exclusively to tough American working men.)

The car designers and the marketing/ad designers in these companies need to cooperate together to make cars that can appeal to everybody. The pamphlets and cars I looked at from every other company besides the Big Three were so innovative— technically and artistically. It’s frustrating to see the Chinese car companies that are just starting out to be so full of innovation and optimism while our own domestic companies with the most money and influence are stubbornly sitting on the same throne they were sitting on decades ago!

I’m going to the Detroit Auto Show tomorrow and I’m excited to see all of the Chinese car manufacturers. Last year I got a free Geely Automobile hat. The cars are usually really cheaply built, and some of them looked like they were lame sedans from the 90s. Others looked like futuristic concept cars from the 1950s. Maybe this year they’ll be better and actually on the show-floor as opposed to the basement with all the other poor cars.