Detroit Music Awards | that damn redhead

Music Monday | New video by Carolyn Striho – “Sing it to Me”

Back in April I wrote a preview post of the 2010 Detroit Music Awards for Detroit Unspun and interviewed my friend Carolyn Striho, who was nominated for twelve DMAs, the most of anybody this year. She ended up taking home three, including Outstanding Rock/Pop CD for Honesty. Carolyn has collaborated with a slew of amazing musicians in the past, including punk legend Patti Smith, but she’s an amazing songwriter/singer/performer in her own right.

Nothing exemplifies this more than her new video, “Sing it to Me,” a sultry, Spanish-sounding single with a film noir vibe that is slightly reminiscent of Madonna’s “Like a Prayer” video (minus the controversy). At the time I interviewed Carolyn for my DMA story, she mentioned that the following day she was going to be shooting a new video, and this is the product of those shoots. It was directed by Mark Kinnunen of Tears of Nimbus Films, and I’ve gotta say — it’s the best effin’ video of any local artist I’ve ever seen, no matter the scale of the artist’s fame.

I feel very fortunate that I know such a wide variety of talented people, and this kind of awesomeness is a constant reminder.

Find more of Carolyn Striho on ReverbNation & MySpace, and support this amazing Detroit musician by purchasing the award-winning album “Honesty” on iTunes or CD Baby. If you’d like to read more about her, there’s a great feature on Carolyn in the June 17th edition of the Detroit Free Press.

The obligatory Future Midwest post

If you’re in metro Detroit (and even if you’re not), unless you’ve been living under a rock and completely off the grid, there’s this “social media” conference coming up in Royal Oak starting tomorrow called Future Midwest that some good people I know have been working their butts off trying to put together.

I’m not going to get into too much detail about all of the events they’ve got lined up, because Dave Murr did a great job of it himself, so I’ll send you there.

Everybody and their brother has been publishing their own posts on what they hope and expect at this conference. This isn’t one of those posts. I’m just writing this to tell you where I’ll be and what Ill be doing. My hopes and expectations align with those of Sarah Worsham, however.

I had nothing to do with the planning or promoting of Future Midwest, but I will be covering it for the Detroit Regional News Hub.

It’s going to be a crazy next few days, to say the least.

Tonight I’ll be picking up my friend Beth Harte, one of the speakers, from the airport, then we’re headed directly to TechCocktail, where I’ll be doing a few interviews and a podcast.

DMA poster Friday I’m pulling a double header with Future Midwest coverage all day, live blogging, interviews, yada yada yada, then heading over to the Detroit Music Awards to hang out with some old friends and cover that, too, for the Hub.

A couple days ago (with a little help from my friends Carolyn Striho and Kathy Vargo) I published a preview article on the DMAs and how they keep Detroit on the map, go check it out.

Saturday, so long as Friday doesn’t kill me, I’ll be back at Future Midwest.

Sunday, so long as Saturday and Friday don’t kill me, I’ll be sleeping. Then later that night, I’ll be found on my couch watching my hero Reba McEntire host the Academy of Country Music Awards.

(And to think I used to party with rockstars all the time, now I’m not sure I can even party like a geek trying to party like a rockstar.)