Mittenfest 2008 at the Elbow Room, Ypsilanti, MI

Mittenfest is a fundraiser for 826Michigan and my only reason to stop in Ypsilanti, MI in my eight years of scouring in the Northern Ohio/Southern Michigan area for the best local musicians. I did not attend, nor know of, the first two Mittenfest celebrations, but I feel comfortable in noting the attendance Friday night was probably the largest showing the festival has seen.

No one arrives early as my photographer and I arrived mid-set of Patrick Elkins, a silly local outfit who tried to convince the few who came earlier that it was warm enough for sunglasses and basketball shorts. Elkins did its best to get the early birds to feel safe standing within five feet of the stage, but everyone kept their cautious distance. The band eventually had to spray themselves with squirt guns because they couldn't reach the crowd.

Fields of Industry bored the hell out of my photographer by playing shoegaze, which is understandably dull to watch without any psychedelic visuals or high-powered light show. She truly captured the moment with this sullen guitarist photo. Fields of Industry impressed most with its song "Fiction Writer." It may translate verbatim as Lou Reed drenched in reverb, but where's the problem in that? Fields of Industry seems to be toying with a few styles, trying to pinpoint what type of band it is, but on the strength of "Fiction Writer" the band proves to be conceptually solid songwriters.

Lightning Love was the first band to feel the warmth of an increasingly dense crowd. Lightning Love sprinkles its bashful whimsical words over über-catchy indie pop sounds, delivering an entire set's worth of potential iPod commercial jingles. Personally, I never feel the social ineptitude that most indie-pop girls tend to share, but I will keep this criticism to myself since everyone is enjoying the choruses about missing friends, doing handstands and opening umbrellas indoors.

I hardly trust Creaky Boards as far as I can throw them. I distrust its Brooklyn humor. Did they really write that riff, that melody before Coldplay? I can't call it after watching a set full of slanted humor songs and pointless stories about dancing in Ypsilanti's Elbow Room bar back in college. I just get the aching suspicion Creaky Boards is a band full of compulsive liars.

I traveled to Ypsilanti mostly to see Deastro. Lately, I can't get enough of music that sounds like the cloud world in Mario 3 or a bonus coin level with rock drums. The Rock City prodigy has fleshed out his fantasia pop bedroom recordings into a fully-realized band. Lead singer and brainchild Randolph Chabot was in the holiday spirit with his elf hat and possibly drunken antics. At times he was the overly sauced uncle you hope won't break anything in the china cabinet, as Randolph danced around the stage and audience, knocking over his pitcher of ice water, disengaging a mic stand and ritually unplugging his microphone as he tugged it around the space. He eventually worked stage right into a mini-frenzy as he and his guitarist took to the people, inciting a jump and grind fest, presumably to combat any chills that might sweep in from an open door.

Does anyone remember the movie Little Giants? Don't you be talkin' bout my momma!

Anyone?

Anyone? Man, I need to rent that movie.

Fred Thomas was billed as one man and that's how he kept it. Plugged in, his trusty pedals at his feet, Thomas can play his ass off. It takes an exceptional performer to entertain with only a guitar and a voice. Thomas sang in tender tongue-twisters, esoteric and serene and told a funny story about listening to Slanted & Enchanted on his porch at age 16 and plotting to steal the neighbor's shish kabob, but chickening out -- now he's vegan.

I don't care for the Pop Project. Things could be said, but then I'd have to listen to their Myspace page again and recall why I hated them so much. Let's just agree to disagree that closing with the theme to Family Matters was a good decision.

Much like writing an article about eight bands in one night, watching eight bands in one night is tiresome. Canada filled the stage, filled the room with group choruses, excessive instrumentation and a puppet show. It was folksy Americana at its finest. It was a grand closing for the night.

Shout out to DJ Dustin Krcatovich for playing Biz Markie's "Pickin' Boogers."