The elevator at The Ark is out of service while technicians make repairs. Attendees for this show will need to be able to walk up and down the stairs to the second floor of The Ark where the show takes place. The Los Angeles Times calls Leo Kottke "an American legend in the guitar world, and a king of his own private musical world." If you haven't heard Leo Kottke for a while, though, you may have missed how one of the fastest 6- and 12-string guitar players around has also become one of the most innovative and least musically classifiable. His music encompasses influences from all over the world, and players from outside the folk world closely follow what he does. Leo Kottke is a legend of the guitar who's still full of surprises after all these years. His shows are displays of captivating mastery of a sort that's rare in any genre of music.
Kasey Chambers is an Australian country music artist whose distinctive voice, heart-felt lyrics and world-class performances have earned her the rightful position of one of the most popular and acclaimed artists of her generation at home, whilst winning a devoted cult following around the rest of the world.
When Grammy winner Dave Alvin and Grammy nominee Jimmie Dale Gilmore made the album Downey To Lubbock together in 2018, they wrote the title track as a sort of mission statement. “I know someday this old highway’s gonna come to an end,” Alvin sings near the song’s conclusion. Gilmore answers: “But I know when it does you’re going to be my friend.”
For over fifty years, Asleep at the Wheel’s Ray Benson has been traversing the globe as an ambassador of Western swing music and introducing its irresistible sound to generation after generation. More than 100 musicians have passed through the Wheel, but Benson remains the front man and the keeper of the vision, in the process racking up more than 30 albums, ten Grammy awards and literally millions of miles on the road.
John Craigie has mastered the art of creating live shows that feel more like intimate conversations than performances. Infusing humor, wit, and poignant storytelling, his shows are a space where audience members feel like old friends. Whether he's headlining solo or sharing the stage with longtime collaborators, Craigie’s ability to make his crowd laugh, reflect, and connect is second to none.
Songwriter Vienna Teng re-emerges this fall with her mashup song pair We’ve Got You - her first new music in over a decade - but her fans have been here the whole time. They’ve packed concert venues even in years between releases, crowdfunded an ambitious music video in hours, and joined by the hundreds when she launched her “music x climate action” Patreon in 2022.
It might’ve even been last night, but Steve Poltz just played the greatest show of his life. Guess what? The next show will be even greater, making that show the greatest show of his life. Are you starting to notice a trend? He isn’t shy about it either. Even after most likely thousands of shows (but who’s counting?), he hits the stage with the same amount of energy and always makes sure to declare, “This is the greatest show of my life.”
Baby Man, the new album by Fruit Bats, is like nothing else in Grammy-nominated songwriter Eric D. Johnson’s catalog. Little in the arc of his career—including Fruit Bats’ evolution from home recording project to rollicking roadshow, his solo output, and his work with Bonny Light Horseman—points the way to this album, in which his only accompaniment, aside from the occasional blush of synthesizer, is a guitar, banjo, or piano. Save for producer Thom Monahan, reuniting with Johnson for the first time since Fruit Bats’ 2019 breakthrough Gold Past Life, it’s just Johnson in the room, meaning that when the turntable’s needle meets Baby Man’s groove, it’s just him and the listener, mutually in for a reckoning.
S.G. Goodman returns from the Western Kentucky bottomland with her latest full-length album, Planting by the Signs, Available June 20, 2025 on her very own Slough Water Records via Thirty Tigers. Composed of songs inspired by love, loss, reconciliation, and the aforementioned ancient practice. Eleven tracks highlighted by the critically-acclaimed and award-winning artist’s singular voice and her penchant for juxtaposing vulnerable folk music with punchy rock ‘n roll, replete with chiming guitars, ethereal atmospherics, and her DIY ethos.
For 18 years Erin Zindle has been curating an epic annual musical celebration inspired by the themes of the holiday season. Each December, this event is a warm hearted lift-off to the holidays that has become an indispensable tradition for families in the greater Ann Arbor area and far beyond.
The tradition that started two decades ago at the Bell House in Brooklyn, New York, and now is a much-anticipated event also in Los Angeles and other cities, is coming back to Ann Arbor! Fifty of the area's up-and-coming and veteran comics come together to tell the first jokes they've written for the new year, kicking off the 2026 comedy scene in the most righteous way possible! It's fast, it's fresh, and above all it's funny.
Lemonade 20th Anniversary Tour with special guest MAKUA G. Love & Special Sauce is an American Hip-Hop Blues band known for its unique fusion of hip-hop, blues, funk, and soul. Formed in 1993 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the band originally featured Garrett Dutton, aka G. Love, as the lead vocalist and guitarist, Jeffrey Clemens on drums, and Jim Prescott on bass. The trio quickly gained attention for their laid-back, groovy style and G. Love’s unique vocal delivery, blending rap-like spoken word with bluesy singing.
