This week’s music news round-up at Local Spins revisits a well-known West Michigan performer who’s back from a Western stint and updates the status of a pair of recording projects.
At Home in Ionia: Lindsay Lou & The Flatbellys (Photo/Anthony Norkus)
Wyoming Rancher: Brant Satala
AFTER WYOMING STINT, SINGER BRANT SATALA RETURNS TO GRAND RAPIDS
After releasing his last album, “The Summer Thief,” respected Grand Rapids singer-songwriter Brant Satala decided he “needed a change, needed to live a little.”
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Ultimately, that meant picking up stakes and moving, of all places, to a ranch in Wyoming where he served for two
summers as a maintenance foreman and “kept everything running” at the foot of the Teton Mountains. (He also spent time in Washington and Colorado along the way.)
As he puts it, there’s “more to the world than cubicles and bedroom towns” and he
“needed life experience” to write new music. “Got it, good and bad,” he conceded.
Now, he’s returned to Grand Rapids to perform, record, work to get songs published and otherwise pursue his music career once again. Satala will play One Trick Pony on Oct. 25, along with Cole Hansen and Joe Cartoon.
Why did he move back?
“The music scene here is the best I’ve seen across the country, and I’ve always been part of it. I missed it terribly, and all my friends. And I missed the trees and northern Michigan and the lake,” he said.
“There is a near perfect balance in Michigan with mild city life and a short drive to Michigan wilderness. Best of both worlds. I love it here. Nowhere is perfect. But this is the best I’ve found so far.”
BRANT SATALA, “Falling Is Not Flying”
Lindsay Lou and The Flatbellys at Founders Brewing. (Photo/Anthony Norkus)
LINDSAY LOU AND THE FLATBELLYS RECORD NEW ALBUM ‘IONIA’ IN IONIA
Lindsay Lou & The Flatbellys have played upwards of 200 concerts each of the past two years, toured the United States from coast to coast and rapidly risen up the ranks as one of the region’s leading bluegrass powerhouses.
The band – Lindsay Lou Rilko (guitar, vocals) and husband, Joshua (mandolin, banjo, vocals), Mark Lavengood (resonator guitar, cajon, vocals) and PJ George (upright bass, vocals, cajon, harmonica) – has endured “long hours in the van and not ever being home long enough to sink into a home life or a routine,” Joshua concedes.
The group will even embark on its first international tour, traveling to Germany in November and, later, to the United Kingdom. “This year, we are probably logging somewhere between 175 to 200 shows, and that is even including two entire months that we took off to travel abroad,” Joshua tells Local Spins.
But that crazy, hectic schedule hasn’t slowed down the band’s recording projects. Amid all of its travels over the past year or two, the band recorded a four-song EP while in Boston and Lindsay Lou and Joshua released a duo album under the name Time and Luck. And just this month, they dived into recording the band’s third full-length album in Ionia.
Lindsay Lou and Joshua moved to house in Ionia last June, and the band is recording the new album there after a successful Kickstarter campaign to fund the project.
“Our love and gratitude goes out to everyone who contributed as well as those who will buy the album when it’s finished,” Joshua says. “The record will be aptly named, ‘Ionia.’ We have a husband/wife team of professional engineers essentially bringing a portable studio into our home. That’s their specialty.”
All of it reinforces the band’s reputation as one of the region’s hardest-working acoustic outfits, touring their Michigan-styled bluegrass from Boston to San Francisco.
“We get to meet so many diverse people from all over,” Joshua says. “We’ve played in bars for young folks in Portland, Ore., and we’ve played in barns in the middle of nowhere, Nebraska, for a group of small-town farmers and everything in between. It’s great to know that our music has the ability to bring happiness and inspiration to people no matter how old they are, where they are from or what their political beliefs are.”
LINDSAY LOU & THE FLATBELLYS, “The Fix”
WilsonWhitley
WILSON WHITLEY PULLS PLUG ON ALBUM RELEASE SHOW
The new Grand Rapids duo of Lucas Wilson and Hannaniah Whitley, known as WilsonWhitley, has canceled its upcoming CD-release show on Oct. 24 at SpeakEZ Lounge.
Wilson told Local Spins that there were “just opposing views on the best way to move forward, so for now we’re holding off on the release.”
Whitley also announced recently that she’s moving to Chicago.
The harmony-laden pair of singer-songwriters already had released a single from the new recording, “Feels Like Love,” that had earned raves from fans. Wilson said the duo hopes the album eventually gets released, “but for now it’s on the back burner.”
WILSONWHITLEY: “Feels Like Love”
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