Devendra Banhart//Michigan State

Hey all you OSS readers, a little business before we start the week:

1. Ed Park, author of the book Personal Days and of Believer fame, gave us a shout out in his blog. Very cool. Thanks, Ed!
2. I’m going to be taking a few days off at the end of this week/beginning of next to attend a wedding and see some friends in the glorious state of Michigan. That said, no need to worry, as I will still be delivering the usual songs-to-days ratio for the week.

With all this in mind, I’m going to get a little theme-y in honor of that great mitten-shaped water winter wonderland that I used to call home. That’s right, friends: it’s Michigan Week. Lucky for you, this means you get a week packed with upper Midwestern creative inspiration combined with fun facts about that ever-pleasant peninsula! Let the games begin!

What could be a better track to kick it off with than Michigan State by Devendra Banhart?

I remember when I first heard this song. I had just moved in with Ali at Debs Co.op (named after labor leader Eugene V. Debs, of course) on East University in Ann Arbor. This was our first off-campus summer living situation—a big red house with 22 other college-age individuals and graffiti all over the walls left over from a previous tenant’s acid trip. Still, I was living with my best friend, my rent was cheap (under 400 dollar/month!), my extremely part time job covered all expenses+, my girlfriend’s house was a quick bike ride away and all my friends were “just hangin’ out” drinking cheap beer on porches all over town. Oh, the beauty of the simple Midwestern summer…

Ali and I made a joint mix tape that summer, mostly off of our combined record collection. This song made it on for a few reasons: 1. It’s awesome. 2. We were listening to it multiple times every day because this weird poem-to-music-on-a-broken-four-track jam spoke to our daily existence—lazy partying in the summer heat, pretty trips to pickerel lake and a whole lotta Michigan, Michigan State.



Michigan State.mp3

I don’t know much of what freak folk icon Devendra Banhart is up to these days, besides this crazy CELEBRITY GOSSIP!



Michigan Fun Fact #1:
In Michigan, people call liquor stores party stores. Use in a sentence: "I'm crusin' by the party store to pick up a few kegs for tonight's blow out." Seriously, Michigan, I love you, but WTF is up with that?


Oh, Michigan, Michigan State,
How I'd love to live in you.