No, we’re not talking about the Police album or the Arthur Koestler book they cribbed their ideas from. We’re talking about the many hardworking people who never get the same adoration as the bands and DJ’s that comprise a music scene. People like our booking duo Vince Hernandez and Stella Magadelen, who have put in countless hours getting Club Above rolling again. Or Brent Truex and Dan Pettit, who helped us secure and set up a great new sound system, and helped us hit the ground running, with a great crew of sound guys (by the way, we wouldn’t mind having a sound WOMAN, if you know one!). And especially Joe, the owner, for deciding to make a commitment to presenting live music again, which – as any sane business person knows – is a dicey proposition.

And while we’re at it, let’s not confine our thanks only to Club Above staff. The local scene owes a lot to people like Randy Tessier and Claudia Leo, who have done a lot to keep things humming, and it may sound strange for us to say this, but we have to say thanks to other local venues like LIVE, the Blind Pig, and The Grotto, for doing their part to keep a scene alive in Ann Arbor. While in the dryest business sense we’re all competitors, in a way we really aren’t at all. In a couple of separate casual conversations with Randy Tessier and Brent Truex recently, we all agreed that the MUSIC is the main thing, and that it’s a simple fact that if one local club is presenting blues or jazz on the same night as another local club has EDM or punk, they’re very unlikely to be drawing the same potential guest for the evening! And that all the local clubs have their own weak and strong points.

We’re committed to keeping a vital live music scene thriving in Ann Arbor, and it takes a lot of often thankless hours of work to make it happen.

Let’s say thanks to the people who do that work!