Cliffs Riffs - Stuph n Nonsense

 In the couple days leading up to a great night of music and stories, Michigan warmed us up and cooled us off with the old Spring in Michigan Sucker Punch. Walking around in a t-shirt one day and digging out your sweaters the next. That being said, it was a Hot Time in Sound Check Saturday night. Once upon a time, Josh Rose was kicked out of the Upper Peninsula for putting too much ketchup on his pasty. That worked out well for Lowell and West Michigan. When he takes a break from making music, you can find Josh teaching chemistry to Lowell school kids. Anyhow, Josh loves to make music and hang out with songwriters and he had the brilliant idea to bring some of his friends to Sound Check for an evening of story swapping and music making. Let me chase a Sound Check rabbit here a bit - if you have never been there, you need to go. Sound Check is a purpose built room just made for musicians and audiences. It seats about 100 people and there is not a bad seat in the house. (Me, I grab a...

Originally Published in The Lowell Ledger It has been said in the best of circles that you meet the coolest people at Lowell Arts. This truth was driven home in a delightful fashion to a near capacity crowd at the latest Gallery Concert: Love and Other Songs last Saturday night. The evening was a songwriter showcase put together by local musician Josh Rose (speaking of cool people yours truly met at Lowell Arts). Josh Rose When he isn’t teaching Chemistry and AP Chemistry to his students at Lowell High School, Josh is perfecting his songwriting and performing skills. Well, according to him, he is always composing songs in his head. “Writing songs is what I do. Constantly. When I am teaching classes, there are songs running though my head. No matter what I am doing, there are songs being worked on in my head,” Rose told the audience. Annie Bacon Josh gathered three of his songwriting friends and treated the audience to a rotating selection of their work in the style of a songwriters in ...