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Arts
Thursday, March 26, 2015 — 5A

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ACROSS
1 Big name in
ATMs
4 Ten to twenty?
8 On fire
14 Worldwide
workers’ agcy.
15 On __ with
16 Brooklyn Bridge
features
17 “The Matrix” hero
18 Utah lily
19 Delivers an old
standard,
perhaps
20 *Last president
who was a
Founding Father
23 Not from a Scot
24 Fifth-century
leader
succeeded by his
son Ellac
25 __ Aviv
26 Tent holder
27 Sportscaster
Andrews
28 New Deal org.
29 Hustles
31 Smith students
33 “If only __
listened!”
34 Memo words
35 Smartphone buy
36 *Limp cause
40 Hold ‘em tell,
maybe
41 Ingredient in Off!
43 Top-row poet on
the “Sgt. Pepper”
album cover
44 Remains at the
campsite
46 Misses the mark
47 Party person
48 Spillane’s “__
Jury”
49 Org. that
produces the
magazines
Highroads and
Journey
50 The past, in the
past
51 Risk being
caught off base
54 Grisham hero,
often: Abbr.
55 Fixer-upper,
perhaps, and a
hint to the
answers to
starred clues

57 Only reigning
pope to write an
autobiography
59 Tiny bit
60 Gun, as an
engine
61 Most irritated
62 Emptiness
63 T size
64 Baby’s outfit
65 Luncheon ender
66 Patriotic gp. since
1890

DOWN
1 Turtle in a 2014
film
2 Soccer shoe
feature
3 *In the low 70s,
usually
4 Bit of sibling
rivalry
5 Hypothetical
primate
6 Titicaca, por
ejemplo
7 *Feature of most
cars nowadays
8 Honor
9 Charge for a ride
10 Wall St. news
11 *On one’s own
12 Varied mixture
13 To be, to Ovid

21 Cork’s location
22 Opposite of
attract
26 Chi follows it
30 “Just a few __”
31 Dwyane of the
Miami Heat
32 Mathematical
process
37 Good thing to
have before a
meal
38 Dinero

39 Winning football
coach’s surprise
42 Airport screening
org.
45 Persian for “king”
48 “Of course!”
52 Greek finale
53 Piano keyboard
component
54 Lhasa __
55 Spanish ayes
56 Warning sound
58 His, to Henri

By Frank Virzi
©2015 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
03/26/15

03/26/15

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

RELEASE DATE– Thursday, March 26, 2015

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle

Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

xwordeditor@aol.com

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By BRIAN BURLAGE

Daily Arts Writer

The first thing you should 

know about English lecturer and 
renowned Ann Arbor musician 
Randy Tessier is that he’s full 
of life. He’s probably more 
passionate than you. He’s also 
got probably got a better sense of 
humor than 90 percent of people 
on campus — and he’s intelligent 
to boot. But the second thing 
you should know about Randy 
Tessier 
is 
that 
he’d 
never 

make you feel like you’re being 
preached to. He cares about his 
students too much for that — and 
more pointedly — he cares about 
their deeper understanding of 
books, language, music, college, 
the world. If there’s one thing 
Randy Tessier seems to say 
with his thoughts and actions, 
it’s this: Don’t be afraid to 
experience things.

Tessier is as much a part of 

the Ann Arbor music scene as 
he is a seasoned, well-respected 
lecturer at the University. He 
curates and facilitates the music 
of several venues in the area, and 
he fronts a handful of talented 
bands, like the Joe Cocker Trib-
ute Band and FUBAR. A gifted 
bassist and vocalist, Tessier 
can play anything from R&B to 
jazz, and he does so with twice 
the flaming, hypnotic energy of 
musicians that are half his age. 
Michael Betzold, in review-
ing a FUBAR performance for 
the Ann Arbor Observer, noted, 
“Seeing FUBAR is like sitting in 
on a jam session among discern-
ing pop-rock veterans. They play 
with energy and skill that would 
be the envy of far-better-known 
bands.” Betzold later added, 
“Tessier is a wild man – like a 
caged animal shaking his cell 
bars – and he’s put together a 
band of musicians’ musicians.”

On 
both 
Tessier’s 
group 

and 
solo 
albums, 
a 
keen 

eclecticism emerges, the kind 
of resourcefulness and respect 
for music history that’s fading 
in the medium. The sound of 
’60s heavyweights like Love, 
the Yardbirds and the Kinks 
can be heard in his carefully 
arranged horn sections, rhythm 
progressions and themes. Above 
all, his group of musicians seems 
to play with a preternatural 
understanding of one another’s 
tendencies and strengths and of 
the music they cherish, exuding 
chemistry and cohesion. Many 
of the songs are upbeat and full 
of sound, distinguished in their 
romping grooves that make you 
want to move a little (or a lot). 
This sense of buoyant optimism 
isn’t limited to Tessier’s music, 
however: He’s built his life 
around it.

After being expelled from 

high school in 1968 for creating 
and publishing an underground 
news 
publication, 
Tessier 

traveled around the country and 
lived the counterculture. He 
came to Ann Arbor to play music 
and be active in politics. When 
he had a son, he decided at the 
age of 36 to get his GED. And so 
he did. From there, he attended 
Eastern Michigan University 
in the hopes of going to nursing 
school. But the science courses 
disillusioned him, so he chose 
English 
instead. 
With 
the 

grades and ambition to back 
them, he applied to English 
Ph.D programs all around the 
country. 
Michigan 
accepted 

him, and five years later, at the 
age of 46, Tessier earned his 
Ph.D and was given a position 
in the English department. He’s 
been here ever since.

The Michigan Daily: We’ll 

begin with a general question. 
Where did music start for you?

Randy Tessier: Well, you know, 

the cool thing would be to say that 
I listened to Bo Diddley and Chuck 
Berry. But I found I could learn 
about those guys by listening to 
the Beatles in 1964. They changed 
everything in our generation. 
My love for music really started 
with them, the Rolling Stones, 
the Kinks, Animals, the British 
Invasion. 
Although 
my 
mom 

had records like jazz and easy 
listening, and there was always 
music around the house.

TMD: 
You 
mentioned 
the 

British Invasion. I felt like when I 
was listening to FUBAR especially, 
I heard the huge influence of the 
Rolling Stones. Do you see that at 
all, or what do you see in FUBAR?

RT: I do, and FUBAR likes to 

do obscure stuff, too. Danceable 
songs. But not stock stuff. No 
“Stairway to Heaven,” and if 
we were to do Led Zeppelin, it 
would be from Physical Graffiti. 
But there are a couple songs we 
do by Love, Arthur Lee’s group. 
There’s a difference between being 
derivative and being influenced, 
you know, so we try to do a range 
of things. I love the ‘60s sound, and 
I love songs that are complicated.

TMD: Joe Cocker’s influence 

has a place there, too, right?

RT: Well, I love Joe Cocker, but 

someone came to me with the Joe 
Cocker Tribute Band idea. And he 
said my voice suited it well. I can 
also sing Creedence Clearwater 
Revival, Rod Stewart, there are 
a few voices in my wheelhouse, 
so to speak. But the Joe Cocker 
idea fell into my lap, and it’s been 
a gas. That’s something you can 
practice in the car. Each time I 
listen, I understand his nuances 
a little more, and I’m getting it 
down. We’re going to be playing 
again soon, you’ll have to come 
see us in town.

TMD: Absolutely. I actually 

wanted to touch on your live 
performances and the talent you 
bring to a venue. Do you have a 
strategy when you play?

RT: I actually don’t like to sing 

a song the same way twice, in any 
capacity or over any amount of 
time. I like to improvise with my 
voice. Improvisation just grooves. 
When I think about it within the 
rock genre, I think about the very 
best – “Dark Star” by the Grateful 
Dead, Frank Zappa’s Hot Rats, the 
Allman Brothers. It’s grooving. 
I love to mix it up between jam 
songs and tight two-or-three-
minute songs.

TMD: How important is it to 

engage with the audience?

RT: The audience feels like 

part of the band, especially with 
FUBAR. I don’t see the audience 
and band as separate. I know a 
lot of musicians that don’t make 
that distinction. When I play, I’ll 
go out into the audience, I’ll have 
people come up to play, stuff like 
that, you know. It’s a tribal, primal 
stomp that everybody participates 
in. I don’t want to sound like Jim 
Morrison, but it’s got cadences and 
all that jazz.

TMD: Do you think that alters 

the music?

RT: Well, Ann Arbor’s always 

been known for its counterculture, 
so in some ways no. It’s always 
attracted public intellectuals with 
things to say and who love music. 
It’s a very savvy audience, a very 
savvy scene.

TMD: How do you balance 

your love of music with your love 
of academics?

RT: It’s the perfect fit, really, 

it’s not too difficult. I teach 
writing, and we read stuff about 
music and social issues and 
things like that. Music shouldn’t 
be didactic in that sense. If I had 
to travel and juggle music with 
teaching, though, it might be a 
bit of a struggle to balance the 
two, but that’s the same with any 
job. It’s been a good blend. I’ve 
never really trumpeted my music 
within the University and I never 
felt like I had to. Music is the most 
immediate universal language.

TMD: It’s really interesting 

to hear an English professor 
describe 
music 
as 
more 

immediate than language.

RT: It’s true. I mean, the best 

language is musical.

TMD: Agreed. I’m hoping we 

can change gears a bit here, if 
that’s OK with you?

RT: Certainly.
TMD: The first time you and 

I met, I remember you told me 
that in the early 2000s you had a 
serious bout with cancer.

RT: 
Yeah, 
2007. 
Non-

Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Recovered 

in full, it’s been gone for eight 
years.

TMD: I wanted to ask about 

the song “Chemotherapy” on 
your solo CD, Hold Me Close. 
What has that song meant to you?

RT: Well, I decided I wanted 

to write a song about my 
experience, and I wanted it to 
have disturbing, real lyrics with 
an up-tempo sound to reflect 
the disconnect I felt. You have to 
listen to the lyrics to understand 
it. It’s about me sitting there in 
the hospital bed observing the 
people around me – a beautiful 
woman, a diva, a guy without an 
eyelid, someone who’d broken his 
ribs by rolling over in bed.

I never play it live. And I 

thought I’d write more songs 
that came out of that experience, 
but there’s a period in it where 
you’re 
not 
doing 
much 
of 

anything. Just dealing with it. 
Cancer changed me in many 
ways. I come from that old “Mad 
Men” generation, insensitive, 
Alpha Male, you know. Cancer 
took it away, all that control, and 
that was good. The important 
thing is that I never thought I 
was going to die. And now I’m in 
the best health I’ve been in in a 
long time.

TMD: How did it affect your 

music?

RT: I play better now than I 

did before I had it, how cool is 
that? That’s one of the beautiful 
things about music, something 
I really love. With practice, 
dedication, and time, you can be 
better at 60 than you were at 30. 
And that’s how I hope to stay.

ARTIST
PROFILE

IN

VIRGINIA LOZANO/Daily

Randy Tessier is a noted Ann Arbor musician.

A2’s musical legacy

By GREGORY HICKS

Daily Arts Writer

“Everybody’s in shorts? That 

sounds like Ann Arbor.”

The city is hitting the 50-degree 

mark, and Martin Kierszenbaum 
knows just how University of 
Michigan students react to the 
slightest hint of the new season.

Kierszenbaum is the Grammy-

nominated producer and song-
writer known as “Cherry Cherry 
Boom Boom,” the founder of Cher-
rytree Records, the senior A&R 
executive of Interscope Records 
and, most importantly, a fellow 
Michigan Wolverine.

Well, perhaps not most impor-

tantly. That’s quite a list of achieve-
ments to compete with, after 
all. The alum has done A&R for 
Enrique Iglesias, Sting, Marilyn 
Manson and produced nearly one 
third of Lady Gaga’s first record, 
The Fame, which was released on 
his label, Cherrytree Records.

Cherrytree Records — home to 

artists Ellie Goulding, LMFAO, La 
Roux, Sting and more — celebrated 
its 10th anniversary this past year, 
and while the label has officially 
been up and running for more 
than a decade now, the concept 
began many years prior, right here 
in Ann Arbor. While at the Univer-
sity, Kierszenbaum earned a triple 
major in music, communications 
and Spanish literature.

Of those three degrees, music 

sits at the forefront of the all-
star alum’s career. At the age 
of eight, Kierszenbaum met the 
musical instrument that would 
lead him to his interest in the 
industry: the piano.

“I was lucky that I grew up in 

East Lansing and had a great piano 
teacher in the neighborhood,” 
Kierszenbaum 
recalled. 
“She 

required us to take theory concur-
rently with our piano lessons, so I 
had a theory class and playing class 
every week ... I started to under-
stand the building blocks and how 
it all related to each other. That got 
me into writing music, and I was 
really drawn to pop music.”

Kierszenbaum’s achievements 

could easily be credited to his 
parents for tolerating the hectic 
household that became something 
of a musical tornado alley for the 
children of the family.

“I don’t know why, but my par-

ents let me set up my band and 

the equipment in the living room, 
and they didn’t care if it was there 
for months. They were super cool 
in that way. They were scientists 
and worked at Michigan State, but 
they were really tolerant. My sister 
was usually with a quartet in the 
basement, while I was there in the 
living room with a drum kit — lit-
erally there for three months.”

Rather than set up his own 

music conservatory, the Cher-
rytree Records founder began 
developing an interest in the com-
mercial music business — even if 
only to initially preserve his own 
musical merits.

“I was a musician and a song-

writer, so I quickly started to 
realize in high school when I 
was organizing a band that it was 
really easy to get ripped off by club 
owners. I was like, ‘You know, 
this feels bad. I’m writing a song, 
I’m rehearsing and then the club 
doesn’t pay us. I’ve gotta figure out 
how this all works.’ ”

That was when Kierszenbaum 

began digging for clues.

“So I wanted to find out more 

about where the interaction of 
music and business is because, if 
not, I was going to be at the mercy 
of whomever as a musician and a 
writer,” Kierszenbaum continued, 
“and then I thought, ‘Well, it 
seems like the center of it all is the 
record label,’ you know? They’re 
the ones that take a chance on the 
artist and invest in them … So I 
thought, ‘I think I want to be in a 
record label.’ ”

A wise thought, surely, but with 

one major obstacle: There were 
no record labels in Ann Arbor for 
the then-college student Kierszen-
baum to join. Then, Kierszenbaum 
decided to create his own record 
label in the city — Arb Recordings.

“We started (Arb Recordings), 

and were recognized with an 
office in the Union, which meant 
we could post banners on the Diag, 
and we basically used all students 
to run our label.” Kierszenbaum 
said. “We had photographers from 
East Quad, recording engineers 
and we used the East Quad musi-
cal studio … We’d record stuff 
there and in our dorm rooms.”

The label became home to 

Kierszenbaum’s own rap group, 
Maroon, as the label sprouted on 
campus. After Maroon released 
its first record on Arb Recordings, 
door after door began opening for 

Kierszenbaum, having acquired 
this newfound knowledge of label 
foundation and management — 
knowledge that is still applied to 
this day at Cherrytree Records, 
according to Kierszenbaum.

And the label was covered 

from head to toe with Ann Arbor 
memorabilia.

“I remember naming it Arb 

because it was kind of like an ode 
to Prince’s Paisley Park (Records) 
and I was a big Prince fan, so I was 
like, ‘You’ve got Paisley Park, we 
have the Arb, that’s our park.’ ”

The logo creation for Arb 

Recordings was not a story to be 
ignored either.

“Do they still give out tickets like 

crazy in Ann Arbor?” Kierszen-
baum asked. “I used to get ticketed 
all the time on my car senior year 
… so I just took the tree from inside 
the logo on the ticket, and I made 
that the first label. And then we 
started getting some attention and 
I thought we might get in trouble 
for that … so we changed it to look 
like a very kind of generic, iconic 
tree.”

There truly is an idea hiding 

around every corner — or in this 
case, slapped to every car wind-
shield. And despite being such a 
small idea initially, the tree con-
cept grew into Kierszenbaum’s 
future platforms.

“Really that’s kind of the gen-

esis of the Cherrytree (Records) 
logo. When I started the Cherry-
tree label I thought it was kind of a 
continuum of the stuff I learned at 
Arb (Recordings), so I made it look 
like that.”

Kierszenbaum started Cherry-

tree years after developing a solid 
musical footing here in Ann Arbor. 
He took many of the same courses 
that University students take now 
(be it History of Opera or Java-
nese Gamelan Performance). He 
walked through the same Arb. He 
posted fliers on the same Diag.

He probably lost a fortune in the 

same parking fees.

In his current music and busi-

ness, you’ll find these bits and 
pieces of Ann Arbor because 
Kierszenbaum 
planted 
many 

ideas here — some that he took 
with him, and others that he left 
behind. And in this past and pres-
ent, Martin Kierszenbaum has 
quite a lot to be proud of, and 
Michigan is proud to have been a 
part of his venture to success.

