Month: March 2017

For those who don’t  know, I’ve recently entered World of Beer’s, “Drink It” internship contest to find people to travel the world sampling brews from different counties. As a person that started a blog dealing with beer, you can imagine That I jumped at the chance to once again enter this contest. Last year, I decided to write a verse about one of my favroite seasonal brews, Bell’s Oberon. This year, I decided to do something a bit more clever. You can check out this year’s video here

as well as last year’s video in this link

Hopefully you guys share these around and we can take Beats And Brews, worldwide!

In America, St. Patrick’s day is known to be the second biggest bar day in the country(first being the day before thanksgiving) so you can imaging, I have been planning my bar hopping route out all week. The night before St. Patrick’s day I ran into an old friend and he informed me of this bar in Ypsilanti named Powell’s Pub that was opening their doors at 5 am to St. Patty’s day participants so naturally, I decided that this would be my first stop of the day. Since I’m a man who appreciates his sleep, I didn’t wake up the next day till about 7 and I ended up getting there about 10 a.m. We pay the $5 cover and the room was packed shoulder to shoulder with college students looking to party, outside there were pitchers of green beer and beer pong; gotta love beer pong before noon. I ended up staying there for a few hours until I ventured to my default spot, Downtown Plymouth. As expected, the place is packed with a mixed crowd of 20-somethings and people in their middle age. We ventured between 336 Main, Post Bar, Penn Bar & Grille Hermann’s Old Town Grille throughout the course of the night, all of theses places I frequently go to on any given weekend. It’s funny because of social media outlets such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram because I post about this blog all the time, I happen to be running into a lot of people,from friends I haven’t seen in awhile, to local musicians I’ve met as an artist to bar staff that starting asking questions about this blog so I’m grateful that the word is getting around and blessed to have the backing from all of you.Overall, my St. Patrick’s day was pretty great, good food, good drinks, good friends can’t really complain. If you’re reading this, I hope you had as much fun as I did.

While scrolling through my Facebook feed, I noticed that someone on my Facebook news feed posted that funk artist and bass player, Thundercat was coming to town on 2-26-17 to the Magic Stick in Detroit. After hearing the single, “Friend Zone” and his previous album, “Apocalypse” it peaked my interested enough to check him out live. His fourth album, “Drunk” was released on Friday so in preparation for the concert, I decided to dive into the album. Almost instantly, I got the vibe that he stayed true to the soul of funk, and having high profile features from the likes of Kendrick Lamar, Michael McDonald, Wiz Khalifa, Pharrell Williams and Kenny Loggins with production credit from Flying Lotus. The 23 track album is sure to impress even those new to the funk genre and bares a slight comparison to artist, Childish Gambino’s “Awaken My Love” that was released in December.

At the concert, a friend and I were on our way to the venue to purchase tickets when we got the news when we ran into a woman who was selling their tickets because two people from their group couldn’t attend. We gladly paid the tickets and headed to the bar across the magic stick  to “pregame” before the concert. About an hour later, we get back to the magic stick where we find a huge line wrapped around the door of the venue, “good thing we scalped them” he said as we were informed the concert was sold out. We get inside grab a few drinks and await the first act, Zach Fox. Until this night, I’ve never heard of him so I didn’t know what to assume but he gets on stage and does a quick bit of stand up comedy to warm up the crowd. His bit ranges from telling Mormon jokes in Utah to police, overall it was a pleasant surprise to hear someone some charismatic and funny without expecting it. About 30 minutes goes by and Thundercat finally gets on stage and absolutely kills it. I’m not sure how many lead bass players there are in the world, but he has to be one of the best ones, period. He revealed that his song, “Tokyo” was about the death of soul songwriter, Leon Ware who passed on 2/23/17 at the age of 77. Thundercat also performed Kendrick Lamar’s “These Walls” which is featured on his second album, “To Pimp a Butterfly” in which Thundercat has a credit on. Overall, the concert was a pleasant experience, he closed the show with, “O Sheit it’s X” which is my personal favorite song under his catalogue. If you haven’t seen him live or heard any of his music, I highly recommend you change that.