events. He specifically mentioned some 
organizing of the movement to stop a pro-
posed visit last semester by white suprema-
cist Richard Spencer — referred to online 
as #StopSpencer — was done on the same 
couches on which we were sitting during our 
conversation.

“How can we best have this be a space 

where people who care about chang-
ing the world for the better know 
that they have a home here?” Lukens 
asked. “On the one hand, there are 
these big expectations that come 
from (the history) but, on the other 
hand, there’s also this allowance for 
whatever you come up with which 
might be completely wild and out of 
left field and that’s totally fine, let’s 
do it.”

Lee faced similar challenges when 

he became the concert coordina-
tor for Canterbury. Nowadays, Lee 
is constantly commuting between 
his final year of classes at the Music 
School, facilitating concerts at Can-
terbury and playing with various 
jazz combos in Detroit. According to 
Lee, the position is typically passed through 
the Jazz Department.

Before accepting the job, Lee was told by 

the previous coordinator he would make “X 
amount of money for six concerts a semes-
ter,” but was quickly informed “every con-
cert coordinator ever has put on at least 30 
concerts a semester.” Knowing he wasn’t 
going to get paid for the amount of work 
he put into the job, Lee still accepted the 
responsibility of cultivating the music scene 
at Canterbury.

When he stepped into his role, he hit the 

ground running, acknowledging the musical 
legacy of the coffee shop and, perhaps more 
fitting for Lee’s musical palette, Rush’s Jazz 

Mass. However, he said the pressure to live 
up to the past pushed him too far his first 
year out.

“My first year as concert coordinator, I 

booked way too many things, it was like four 
nights a week of music which is just crazy 
and I was freaking out because I couldn’t 
practice, I couldn’t study, I couldn’t do any-

thing and I was just here,” Lee said. “I slept 
on that couch so many nights … My second 
year … I wasn’t going to make those efforts 
anymore because I don’t need to do that but 
that resulted in (me seeing) the musical com-
munity shrink a bit … This year is my final 
year as concert coordinator and the year is 
just beginning but I feel like I’ve got it down.”

Like many who have come through 

Canterbury’s doors, Lee was not raised in 
an Episcopal household. With “an atheist 
Berkeley hippy father and … a Shinto Bud-
dhist (mother) from Japan,” Lee under-
stands the skepticism from touring bands 
who don’t know how, as Lukens described it, 
“fluid” a space like Canterbury can be.

“I’ll get emails and calls from people 

like, ‘OK we don’t know if we want to play a 
church’ or whatever,” Lee said. “Canterbury 
House is the first religious space that I’ve 
ever felt comfortable in … I think getting that 
question like, ‘What is Canterbury House,’” 
I still use (former Chaplain Reid Hamilton’s) 
answer all the time: It’s the home of left-

wingy causes.”

Lukens acknowledged this disconnect 

between social activism and religion that’s 
commonly expected to exist today. While 
Lukens said, “Christianity has such a repu-
tation … for not creating welcoming spaces,” 
Lee said Lukens’s being in the position of 
Chaplain as a gay man and the activism and 
music that has always inhabited the walls of 
Canterbury no matter where in Ann Arbor 
they resided should speak to the one-of-a-
kind magic of Canterbury House.

“It’s common knowledge that this place is 

on the right side of history,” Lee said.

A

fter taking out my earbuds and 
reveling in the recording samples 
of Mitchell, Odetta and the oth-

ers found by the Michigan History Project, I 
couldn’t help but think about those annoying 
YouTube comments made by middle school-
ers on Rolling Stones and Jimi Hendrix lyric 
videos.

“I was born in the wrong generation lol 

XD,” the children would whine.

I am not proud to say I was one of those 

middle schoolers. Now, it’s endearing to say 
you listened to classic rock and folk with 
your parents growing up. You already have 
the musical palate of an indie movie. Back 
then, you were obnoxious and pompous if 
you wanted to kick Ke$ha to the curb instead 
of Mick Jagger. One time, I almost blew a 
gasket because my friend said Bastille was 
better than The Doors. I refused to embrace 
any music from the past decade.

Much to Middle School Matt’s delight, 

these tapes give us a gateway into the musical 
incubator Ann Arbor was during this influ-
ential time in music history. But if I could tell 
Middle School Matt anything, it would be to 
get your head out of your ass and look around 
at the local creatives taking what was being 
made at Canterbury in the ’60s and building 
upon it. The same goes for political organiz-
ing. Innovation is the key to discovery. How 
would singers like Joni Mitchell, Neil Young 
and Dave Van Ronk have come to be if they 
hadn’t taken the Harry Smith Anthology of 
American Folk Music, learned what they 
could and move forward?

Canterbury House has been an institu-

tion in Ann Arbor for more than a century 
now. As long as people like Middle School 
Matt embrace what it has to offer, it should 
be around for another century and maybe 
more.

Wednesday, October 17, 2018// The Statement 
 
7C

Alec Cohen/Daily 

Hannah McPhillimy performs at the Canterbury House Thursday, October 4.

Alec Cohen/Daily 

Chaplin Matthew Lukens with the Canterbury House dog, Bear.

“But if I could tell Middle School 
Matt anything, it would be to get 
your head out of your ass and look 
around at the local creatives taking 
what was being made at Canterbury 

in the ’60s and building upon it.”

