Recycled Ayr

Michigan Music. Writing & Resource.

[recycledayr-blog]

By Jake Rzeppa

At just past 7 p.m, the hallways of Lake Superior Hall are half-lit and nearly silent besides the humming of vending machines and the occasional fluorescent bulb. During the day, the annular building serves as the hub for Grand Valley State University’s School of Communications but now, it’s cleared out and powered down, along with the rest of the campus. If it weren’t for the unlocked doors, the building would seem completely closed.

Upon entering, the only sign of life is a faint murmur diffusing through the single circular hallway that wraps around the building’s ground floor. Following the sound, the volume increases with every corner turned. The shuffling of feet, quiet voices, then almost faint shouting begin to be heard; all emanating out from two baby blue doors propped wide open.

Inside: Students, rushing up and down the aisles of a lecture hall that doubles as a screening room. Many are moving around, calling out to friends and climbing over seats while others texts, quietly. They are all waiting for it to start, the “2017 GVSU Film and Video Showcase”.

Most, if not all, of the attendees are majoring in film at GVSU and tonight they have gathered, for 2 hours, to see their work placed alongside their peers, up on the big screen. All of the 24 selections were created by students in 100-300 level classes. After a few quick words for the events organizers, and the rush to procure pop and pizza a mix of professors and upperclassmen, the screenings begin.

They ranged greatly in length, content, and quality. From the 30 second South Park-esque animation of “Wudterd”  to a 10 minute long documentary on the Grand Rapids artists behind the indie comic “Sampop and Gavsby” (“Gnar Up”) as several original horror films, the students showed a diverse .  The most persistent theme of the night, however, seemed to be the P.S.A, or “Public Service Announcement”, style of video. As many as 8 of the videos featured in the showcase operated in the P.S.A style.

A film student struggles to with a pizza dilemma 

While they ranged on the specifics, the fact that one-third of all videos presented were in this style, gave the night an undercurrent of activism and social awareness.  Kirie Ritichie, 18, who’s P.S.A submission, “Two Names”,  

[recycledayr-blog]

By: Jake Rzeppa

With the furniture removed, light stands stacked in the corner,  amps against the wall and half-assembled drum kit blocking off bathroom access, the ground floor of the compact two-story house gives a skeletal impression; a space waiting to be filled. It’s the kind of tableau that begs question like “When?” upon entering, while the scenery silently responds, “Soon.”

At just past 9 p.m on a snowy Jan. 14th in downtown Grand Rapids, friends, friends-of-friends and fringe guests have started to filter through the foyer. As they arrive they are guided up a side staircase to an upstairs common area to hang and goof off while the downstairs is rearranged. In most ways it’s normal house party.

Everyone’s vaguely familiar with each other, sitting around, laughing and picking at a couple communal boxes of PBR. A piece of printer paper taped to the wall reads “Must be 21 to drink” in big red sharpie. But it’s not just a party they’re here for.

While the party simmers upstairs the band and crew bring in the last of the cameras, lights, laptops and assorted materials they need for the shoot. This is the set of, Grand Rapids rock band, Antighost’s first music video.  The song they will be performing is “Ugly Dogs”, the first single and opening track off the band’s debut E.P, “Wolves and Sheep” released earlier this year.

For the event, the band has enlisted the help of nearly 40 of their closest friends, classmates, and fellow filmmakers. As the band’s frontman and GVSU film student, Sean Sheppard, 21, steps through the door, toting brown paper bags full of chips and assorted snacks he only has time for quick greetings before cutting a path to the kitchen, which is now doubling as a room to stash gear. From here he’ll begin conferencing with the video’s director, Sheppard’s fellow film student, TJ Leutz, 38.

Despite their age difference Leutz and Sheppard are close friends, both disposed to speaking highly of each other. Sheppard recalls how the two bonded across classes and semester over shared taste in music and movies and how he was “always impressed” with Leutz’s work in and out of their major

.

While Leutz says he’s worked on other shoots and even occasionally directed videos for smaller bands in the Detroit and Plymouth area, he designates this shoot in particular as his most ambitious to date. As Leutz explains, this party is actually one of two shoots he’s doing with Antighost, the first being in the band’s practice earlier the same day.

“It was supposed to be two days,” Leutz says, in reference to the shoot’s original timeline, “but when you’re fueled on passion rather than grade or  pay, you gotta make some sacrifices.”  That sacrifice being the hope of any downtime or rest for Leutz and the band.

In the crush to move from shooting all morning to preparing for a party, Leutz says the feeling was, “No doubt, intimidating. Working with that many people, some drinking and trying to control that within a time frame.” Leutz frames the dilemma as an effort to ensure that attendees are able to both enjoy themselves and that he and his crew are able to get the material they need.  

In an hours time, however, Leutz’s concerns would subside. With the band ready to play around 11, the guests poured down the stairs to fill the living room and foyer, all hovering at just the right level of intoxication for an ideal atmosphere of drunken enthusiasm and respectful anticipation.  

In total, the band would only shoot 4 times. Across the different takes, the band and crowd were able to easily maintain and match their energy. The only minor difference between the takes being the almost-too-polite distance the crowded afforded the band on the first playthrough. The problem was quickly remedied when Sheppard urged everyone to close in with a promise that he “didn’t smell bad, yet!”

With the crowd pogoing and screaming along, friends jumping on the mic and everyone doing that thing that looks like clapping combined with jumping jacks, it seems difficult for the shoot to go much better.

The next day, as Leutz and Shepard reviewed footage of the practice space in Shepard’s kitchen, the pair seem to feel good about the show as well. Luetz describes the overall experience as “great” with Shepard stating that “all the footage turned out amazing” while recalling how even after the main event ended, everyone stuck around to keep the night going.

“Our bassists had to get outta there, he had stuff the next day,” Shepard says, “so we had our friends fill in to play covers...we kept saying ‘This is our last song,’ over and over again, so we played for a while but when we ran out of ideas...we switched to do karaoke.” This would allow Shepard and the band to tear down the set while the party continued.

With editing of the footage starting immediately and the momentum of a more than memorable night behind them Shepard says that he hopes to have the video out as soon as possible while taking care not to put out simply a“good video, when we could have a great video.”

“We’ll take our time,” Shepard says, “but we’re all really excited to get it out there.”

You can check out the lyrics video for Antighost’s “Skys” Here  

And you can catch them at their next show at The Pike Room in Pontiac, Feb. 10th    

[recycledayr-blog]

Audio Scrapbook: April 2016

Here it is! The second addition in my audioscrap book series. I'm proud to say this is both the biggest and most diverse one yet. This one spans the gamut from Jazz masterworks Charles Mingus to the nordic punk of Iceage to serene unease of Grouper. It also is the one year anniversery of the project and you can check my Spotify Profile for my last 12 months in music. You can also hear last months playlist here. Enjoy! 

[recycledayr-blog]

Black Box Sessions Brings Stripped Down Studio Performances to GVTV

GVSU students, Joey Parks and Sean Shepard come together to produce and preform in the series’ first episode

Sean Shepard, 20, wants to capture what he calls a “raw performance.” Black pants, black shirt, minimal lighting. Just the artist and a microphone. These are all the elements, simple and sparse, that combine to create the new GVTV performance series, “The Black Box Sessions”.

“We bring them in and focus on the performance,” Shepard says, “There isn’t a light show, they aren’t dressed in anything crazy...so you can focus on the music.”

The first episode of the show, currently streaming on Grand Valley TV’s Youtube channel, fully reflects Shepard's minimalist vision. Standing seemingly alone against a backdrop of pitch black, Joey Parks, 20, begins to sing. “You can have Manhattan, I know it's for the best. I'll gather up the avenues and leave them on your doorstep.” Parks’ only accompaniment is a lone piano which he plays himself.

Though the song, titled “Manhattan” and originally by California based singer-songwriter Sara Bareilles, is a cover, Parks makes it his own. His textured croon and warm, fervent piano keys strip the song of its original pop sheen and the whole performance recalls a more smokey and somber style of lounge music. It’s the kind of sound you hope to hear as you cry, alone, into your spaghetti and meatballs, in the dimly lit back corner of an italian restaurant.  

Parks, a film and video major here at GVSU, is not only the show’s very first performer, but also the its co-creator.  “I met Joey through taking film and video classes last winter semester,” Shepard says. Shepard transferred from Oakland Community College to GVSU in the winter of 2015. “I was pretty immersed in the film and video major,” he says, “I knew that was what I wanted to do.” The two met in class and quickly realized they shared “the same goofy sense of humor and similar interest in music,” Shepard says.

In addition to being involved in the Film major, Parks is also deeply involved in working with GVTV, producing his own his show called “Post-Secondary”. Parks say while filming a half hour musical episode for his show in the Fall of 2015 he noticed an abundance of “cool audio equipment in the GVTV studio” that wasn’t getting used because, “nobody does a lot of high intensity audio production.” In an effort to utilize the equipment and taking inspiration from performance based video series’ such as Seattle radio station, KEXP or BBC One’s in-studio session, Parks pitched the idea for “Black Box” to the network. However, due to his own busy schedule he was unable to produce the show himself and began shopping the show around to other students.

“Just as I was putting it out there, Sean was telling me about his music blog and I know he’s always been really interested in music, recording and writing,” Parks says. “So I said, ‘Hey would you be interested?’ and he jumped right on it.”

While Parks is caught up in his busy schedule and says that Shepard runs the show, he describes himself as the shows “grandfather.” “I helped Sean create the logo and the graphic identity,” he says, while the audio recording and bringing in talent is left to Shepherd, of which there seems to plenty lining up.

“As soon as the idea came out everyone got really excited through word of mouth and started coming to me and I started getting emails from djs and local performers,” Shepard says. He also has found people just walking around campus. “They’ll be out playing a guitar when the weather is nice and I’ll just walk up and say ‘Hey are you a performer, do you want to perform on the show?”

As of the beginning of April, Parks and Sheppard have recorded three episode of the show and have at least 20 performers lined up for future episodes. The show’s second episode features Shepard himself accompanied by his roommate, Lucas Negen, covering Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” on acoustic guitar and banjo. The video went up  April 18th on Youtube   

Both Parks and Shepard have plans for the show to grow when the pair return for their senior years in the Fall. Shepard is looking to “nail down his format” and create a “safe space for the artist to preform while still being able to capture what it’s like to be in that room.” Shepard is committed to presenting the performances captured in their “rawest form” allowing a viewer to truly judge it for what it is. For his part, Parks wants to establish  the show so it can be continued long after the pair graduate.  

“I want to make sure that it lives on,” Parks says. While other shows on GVTV may come and go Parks says “Black Box” is not, “vision specific...it’s a style that is universal. Music and live videos are something that everyone subscribes to...I think it is something that with the right people in charge, it’s easy to keep it going.”

View the first episode below 

[recycledayr-blog]

Detroit Indie Punks, Mover Shaker, Prepare to Drop Explosive Debut

Click here to hear Mover Shaker’s New Single “No Backyard” and check out the article below.

Detroit, like most cities in the U.S, is a place with its fair share of big name contributions to the pool of pop culture. Though the touchstones may be obvious, Barry Gordy’s founding of Motown, Iggy Pop rolling around on broken glass, The White Stripes penning a Jock Jam Anthem to end all Jock Jam Anthems, they are obvious because they mattered.

 Detroit’s role in the greater history of American music has been as prolific as it has been sporadic, as influential as it is insular. Now, after decades of several different kinds of decline Detroit seems to be entering a new era of growth, both economically and creatively.

Coming up in the middle of it all are indie punk four-piece, Mover Shaker. A band who, now only a month out from the release of their debut full length, is as aware of the city’s past, present and future as they are of their own.

“You think about it a lot,” says Jack Parsons, one of the band’s two vocalists/guitarists, “You think a lot about any place that you live but Detroit is a very interesting place with a strange and turbulent history.” Parsons, who’s been living in the Detroit for the past couple years, has personally witnessed the changes the city has only recently gone through.

“There is a lot of growth,” Parsons says optimistically before provisionally adding, “for better or worse.”

“Detroit is a city with a really long history of racial tensions and I’d be lying if I said it isn't still there,” he says, “ I'm weary of the opportunity that is being cultivated within the city not being made to people who had been living there the longest.”

Despite his weariness, the opportunities, especially for artists and musicians like Parsons and Mover Shaker, are abundant. Parson describes how “There are five or six things to do on any given night, not just weekends”. He cites the city’s techno scene and especially its garage rock scene as being particularly alive and well saying, “That [garage rock] scene here hosts three or four events every night of the week.”

Just to be clear, that means anyone could go see between 21 and 28 local shows in the span of just a week.

With a non stop circuit of live music available, one might assume that Mover Shaker would be perpetually playing out. On the contrary, Parsons describes the band as “sort of hermits,” when it comes to their activity in the Detroit scene. He says that instead of playing out, Mover Shaker has been much more focused on the writing of their new album.

“I don't know if we really fit into what happens in Detroit.” Parsons says, laughing a little. “Not because we don’t want to play with those bands, but I came up in the punk scene in Detroit and center line, when there was a string of small house venues in Warren.”

In the earlier half of the decade, while Detroit was nurturing its garage rock scene, the city’s surrounding suburbs, like Warren, had a related but different scene going on, one that focused primarily on more suburban strains of punk and hardcore. It would be there that Parsons and the other members of Mover Shaker would come together.

“I only played in one serious band before Mover Shaker,” says Gabriel Miller, Mover Shaker’s other Vocalist/guitarist. “It was a pretty generic scene-y post-hardcore band. I was 15, I think. I only had played 4 shows with them before they kicked me out.”

Around the same time, Miller was scrolling through Youtube when he found a channel of drum covers by Mover Shaker’s future drummer, Colin Shea. “I sent him some guitar demos,” Millers says. “He dug it and invited me over to jam with him and his brother. We were kind of instant homies.” Miller met Parsons, who was then bass player for the punk band, The Flaks, shortly after. “They were all from the same town; all part of the same general group of friends,” Miller says. The two would not become close however, until the Flaks dissolved in February of 2014.

“When you’re in a band in high school it becomes your entire social circle...if you’re serious about it,” Parsons says of his time in The Flaks. With his old band broken up, Parsons says relationships became strained and that’s when he started to see more of Miller and the Shea Brothers, who were then the rhythm section in local post-hardcore band, Grace Harper.  

“I was kind of set in not being in another band but I found pretty quickly that I couldn’t do that,” Parsons says. Mover Shake would form shortly thereafter with Parsons on guitar, Miller on bass, Colin Shea on drums and Grace Harper frontman Liam Rush on vocals.  The band would play their first show on May 22nd of 2014 and would go on to play periodically throughout that spring and summer before being approached by friend and audio engineer, Thomas Dobbins, to record an E.P.

Mover Shaker’s “Living Standards” E.P would be recorded in Dobbins’ basement on a budget of a few hundred bucks and Parsons says and the band was, “really happy with how it came together.” The record would be released online that September to what Parsons called a “Positive, albeit small reception” and even received attention from (now SXSW certified) D.I.Y music blog, Funeral Sounds, who praised the band’s “hauntingly poetic” lyrics and “raw, emotive” sound.

With the momentum of Living Standards behind them and a booking at the Holland Mi.’s annual Bled Fest ahead of them, the band decided to once again work with Dobbins, now relocated to Rax Trax Studio in Chicago, for the recording of a debut full length in April of 2015. The band booked two days in the studio and worked between 16 and 20 hours, recording seven full songs instrumentally, on both days but hit a roadblock once the time came to record vocals,discovering that final lyrics had yet to be written.

Out of time, the band was forced to head back home to regroup and tighten the bolts before Bled. By this point, Miller had switched from his initial position as bass player to guitar where he was more comfortable, with the band bringing on Colin’s brother, Ryan, to play bass. As Miller says, “Doesn't it kind of just make sense for our rhythm section to be, genetically, the same person?”

Not long after the festival, which despite the band's smaller staging drew a room full of passionate fans moshing along, Parsons says, “Things came to a head...Certain people in the band wanted to be in different roles.” Ultimately, this led to parting ways with Rush as a vocalist, a decision that was mutual.

Rush, a visual artist who Parson calls “a bit of a boy wonder,” has stayed on working as the band's visual creative director and put together the art for the band's single and upcoming album.

With the slot of front man now left open, both Parsons and Miller stepped in on for vocal and lyrical duties, something that was new to both, and headed back down to Chicago in October of 2015 to finish their album. This time booking three days and once again working longs hours through the day and into the early morning. In-studio, the band managed to pen two entirely new songs and lay down the remaining lyrics and vocals. “It came down to the wire,” Parsons says,“We had to find our voices all while it was coming down to a point where we’d have to say,’If you don’t write this line in the next 45 seconds, we aren’t going to finish the record in time.”

Thankfully Miller’s writing style, which he self describes as “poppy, simple, oftentimes meaningless” fused well with Parson’s more “cryptic...rhapsodic” songwriting tendencies allowing the band to finish the album, now titled “Michigania”, within the allotted time.

With the album fully tracked, the band would drop its first single, “No Backyard” through a premiere on Funeral Sounds. The site declared the band’s new direction to be reminiscent of preeminent noise-rockers, Sonic Youth, as well as Philadelphia’s recently defunct emotive math rockers, Marietta and praised how they, “traded in their clean-cut rhythms and catchy hooks for pulsing feedback, harsh delay, and intricate time signatures.”

With a refined sound, label deals on a physical release and a tentative tour all in the works Parsons says he is heading back to Chicago this weekend to mix and master the record with Dobbins. Despite canceled tours, lineup changes and all other set backs, Mover Shaker is finally poised to release their debut.

“Michigania” is out this month

[recycledayr-blog]

Audio Scrapbook: March 2016

Every month we will be posting an eclectic curated playlist of the best new and old (and sometimes really really old music) that we’ve been jamming this month. This one is a bit early and will probably see some additions before the end of the month.

This months features: Kendrick Lamar, King Krule, Mitski, Frankie Cosmos, Open Mike Eagle + more

 Full track list and link to subscribe below

1.Ugly Casanova- Barnacles 2.Why?- Good Friday 3.Black Eyes- Deformative 4.Archy Marshall- Swell 5.Santigold- Casting Shadows 6.Mitski-Your Best American Girl 7.Pity Sex- White Hot Moon 8.Xiu Xiu-Apistat Commander 9.Wavves- My Head Hurts 10.Tiny Moving Parts- Happy Birthday 11.The Ramones- Somebody Put Something In My Drink 12.Frightened Rabbit- Get Out 13.Margaret Glapsy- Somebody to Anybody 14.Hop Along- Horseshoe Crabs 15.Kendrick Lamar- Untitled 02 16.King Krule- A Lizard State 17.Kenny Segal- Procrastination 18.Fhin- But Now A Warm Feeling Has Ended 19.Shallou- After 20.Dntel- Breakfast in Bed 21.Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young- Ohio (Live) 22.Mc5- Come Together 23.The Byrds- My Back Pages 24.The Kills- Doin’ It To Death 25.Eskimeaux- Broken Necks 26.Into It. Over It.- No Eq 27.Frankie Cosmos- On The Lips 28.Jamie XX, Popcaan, Frisco- There’s Gonna Be Good Times (Remix) 29.Neon Indian- Polish Girl 30.The Lawrence Arms- Cut It Up 31.Open Mike Eagle + Paul White- Admitting The Endorphin Addiction 32.Iglooghost- Gold Coat (Feat. Cuuche) 33.Can-Mushroom 34.Disclosure, Lorde- Magnets (A-Track Remix) 35.Clarence Clarity- Those Who Can’t, Cheat 36.Diamondstien- Nat Sherman Arpeggiator   37.Braids- Letting Go 38.Okkervil River- I’m In Love With Susan Smith 39.Flake Music- Spanyway Hits 40. Death Cab for Cutie/Tycho- The Ghost of Beverly Drive (Tycho Remix) 41.The Hotelier- Piano Player 42.Mark Pritchard, Thom Yorke- Beautiful People 43.Okkervil River- Another Radio Song 44.The Smiths-Still Ill 45.Teen Suicide- The Big Joyous Celebration  46.Nirvana- Blew (Live & Loud) 47.Frightened Rabbit- Lump Street 48.Museum Mouth- Incubus Tattoo 49.Ben Folds Five- Song for the Dumped 50.Jamie xx, Romy- Seesaw

Enjoy

[recycledayr-blog]

Detroit Rises From Bankruptcy as Magnet for Millenials, Art and Industry

The current story on Detroit is a conflicted one. On one side there is a seemingly widespread view that the city is a underpopulated, bankrupt wasteland. As evidence they offer how the city filed for bankruptcy in 2013. They point to the former mayor who is serving 21 years in jail for corruption and the almost eerie lack of people in the city’s streets that can make it hardly feel like a city at all. 

The other side of the arguments says that while Detroit may have long been a city in decline, it is also a city that is rebuilding and reinventing itself at this very moment. It is a city with rising neighborhoods like Corktown, unspeakably cheap and beautiful housing and is a magnet for young artisans and entrepreneurs.

Whatever the case may actually be, Detroit does have one thing going for it: for the first time in a seemingly long time, it is place where young people want to go. Whether it is because they see the city as “hip” and affordable or they want to aid in restoring the city through programs like U of M’s “Semester in Detroit”. For young people fresh out of college, Detroit is a place to be.

One such young person is Grand Valley State senior, Jaclyn Ermoyan. Although she goes to school on the west side of the state now, she lived in Detroit till she was eight and still has deep family ties to the city. “My parents grew up there and they lived there their entire lives,” she says. “All the stories they told and all the family pictures, every time we got together it always went back to the city.” Ermoyan says that the moving away from the city at a young age and then her subsequent move to the west side for college has only strengthened her desire to return after finishing her degree and take part in the city’s restoration.

After graduation Ermoyan plans to live within the city, rather than live with her parents in the surrounding suburbs. This is kind of move is encouraged by what is called a “Live, Work and Play Initiative”

“There are a lot of employers in Detroit who have been given a grant by the government,” Ermoyan explains, “they provide an incentive to live in the city…not just the suburbs and outskirts.” If she were lucky enough to get a job that provided these incentives, Ermoyan says should would love to live in downtown.

“All the stories they told and all the family pictures, every time we got together it always went back to the city.” - Jacklyn Ermoyan, Student, Grand Valley State University **

“After graduation…I’m looking to get an internship with the Greening of Detroit Project,” Ermoyan continues. “They focus a lot on bringing trees into the city…urban gardening and making sure that the city is coming back in a sustainable way,” Ermoyan says, “I’m in Advertising and Public relations so I would be doing promotional work…and shine light on what we are doing and what the city is doing.”

Nonprofits and programs like Greening of Detroit have long been popular and effective ways of both bringing new people into the city while simultaneously fixing it up. Even schools like the University of Michigan are involved with their “Semester in Detroit” program.

Matthew Bazzo, a student at U of M and Assistant Director at Semester in Detroit explains how the program got started.

“It was actually a class here at the university,” he says.  “There was this professor… who taught an Urban and Community Studies Class in the residential college and at some point… 3 or 4 of his students came to him and proposed the idea of doing a ‘semester in Detroit’. The program began in the winter semester of 2009 and had 14 students participate and last semester we had around 25. We like to keep it small.”

Students who take part in the Semester in Detroit program live in co-op style housing within the city and take a curriculum written around Detroit and its history. Students also pick from a long list of nonprofits that the school is partnered with and intern there to help students participate and become part of the larger community.

“I personally did the Mosaic Youth Theatre.” Bazzo says. “We put on musicals and plays for the community every week…it’s where I met some of my best friends. You become close fast in that type of environment.”

Bazzo, who grew up outside of Detroit in the city of Plymouth, feels that he would be willing to move into the city. “Actually, we have a couple alumni that went on to work with their nonprofits and moved into the city after the program. Some of them are still working here too. One of them is my boss.” he says.

Bazzo also stresses the importance of respecting communities when it comes to moving into the city whether for a semester or a more permanent stay. “When students are on the trip we tell them to be mindful that they are guests and that this someone home. Especially for someone like myself, who is a privileged, white male.”

As a city that once had an unemployment rate of 20.9 (66 times the national average), Detroit and it’s citizens have struggled financially in recent years  and Semester in Detroit is aware that once a city becomes a “cool” place for the more affluent to live it can drive up property prices and drive out the lower-income communities that were there before. This is widely known as “gentrification”. It has also lead to shirts with slogans like “Don’t Brooklyn My Detroit” finding their way onto the internet.

One community that has not only thrived but could possibly be credited with giving the city some of its new found appeal is the artistic community. Detroit is home to prestigious attractions like the Detroit Institute of Art and schools like the College of Creative Studies. Austin Rivera, a student at CCS who now lives in the city explains what he thinks artists and young people see in Detroit,  

“There is a high retention rate for the creative field here…it’s the rawness of the city because if you look at it, you can see the potential and the hardship that it is going through and as a designer, maybe creating a cool remote is one thing, but being given the opportunity to hop on this experience of revitalizing the city is something that I want to be a part of.”

Rivera says that students at the school aren’t waiting for graduation to start restoring the city either. “There is a lot of tasteless graffiti in the city…but there are also groups that will go out and paint murals over them or sometimes freshmen artists will come out and they’ll paint a whole street.”  

“There is a high retention rate for the creative field here…it’s the rawness of the city...”

-Austin Rivera, Student, College for Creative Studies **

According to Rivera, this kind of vigilante art is exactly what the city needs to grow. “Detroit needs people who are optimistic… and the artistic community, I believe, is one of the most optimistic because they are not bogged down with worrying about ‘the realistic scope’…the artists can create the inspiration that will draw other people in. That’s what I’m most excited about.”  

Community, art and hard work are the themes that permeate not just Detroit’s image but also the words and ideals of it’s current and future citizens. This is what is drawing in not just fresh-out-of-college millennials but artists and industry who see it as a city filled with opportunity.  

As for why specifically millennials are interested, Ermoyan says this,

“Millennials are really big on change. We are really big on adventure and working hard. So those are the type of people who see what is happening  and they want to go there. That’s why the city is rebuilding. Because it has been given this opportunity and the people who want to do those things are still going and they are the people that we need.”

All photos by Jake Rzeppa

[recycledayr-blog]

I swear I will figure this shit out