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We asked, and you answered. Here are more of your nominations for the Best from the Midwest. Any current band or performer with Midwest roots is eligible. (More suggestions? Post them in Comments.)

From Chicago and Illinois:

Kanye West is from Chicago, Illinois. He’s already received 14 Grammy awards, and often asserts that he deserves even more.

Rapper Common is also from Chicago and also has a couple of Grammy awards under his belt, as is Lupe Fiasco.

Songwriter and multi-instrument player Andrew Bird also hails from the Windy City, as does Steve Goodman. Illinois also gets the credit for American country/folk singer John Prine, from Maywood.

Cleveland and Ohio:

The home of rock and roll — and home city of Changing Gears partner ideastream is also well represented in this latest round of Twitter and Facebook votes. Among the best known is the industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails founded in Cleveland in 1988. They have earned two Grammys, plus an additional Golden Globe and an Oscar for front-man Trent Reznor (along with Atticus Ross) for the score of The Social Network.

The group that produced the ultra catchy song I Know What Boys Like is also from Cleveland – that would be the new wave band The Waitresses. Recently reunited power pop group The Raspberry’s are Clevelanders, as is the band The James Gang. That latter group is perhaps best known for their guitarist, Joe Walsh, who later went on to become a part of The Eagles. Musician, DJ and politician Michael Stanley is also from the Cleveland area.

Detroit and Michigan:

One Changing Gears fan noted that we would be remiss not to mention musician and activist Ted Nugent, from Detroit Michigan. Bob Seger of Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band was born in Dearborn and grew up in Ann Arbor, home to partner station Michigan Radio. You can catch Seger on tour now.

Indiana:

John Mellencamp, best known for his heartland rock, was born in Seymour, Indiana.

And then there’s Prince…

Though the Changing Gears coverage area is generally Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana and Wisconsin, we’re bending the rules for some notable exceptions this time around. Michelle Norris, co-host of NPR’s All Things Considered, nominated Prince from Minneapolis, Minnesota. Prince has earned himself seven Grammy awards , one Golden Globe and an Oscar for Best Score too. American musician, poet and painter Bob Dylan calls Duluth, Minnesota home.

We also had a few nominations for musicians who aren’t from the Midwest but still had a big impact on the area’s music scene. Chief among those is McKinley Morganfield, otherwise known as Muddy Waters. He’s from Mississippi but is better known as the Father of Chicago blues.

[YOU TUBE VIDEO]

 

Posted in BizTechEntrepreneurialismNewNewsSarah Valek

Lakewood is getting collegiate. A University of Akron satellite location is scheduled to open in Lakewood in Fall 2011. The 11,000 square foot facility will be located at the corner of Detroit Avenue and Warren Road in the Bailey Building. “Today’s workplace increasingly requires continued skill enhancement. The University of Akron’s programs will provide Lakewood’s citizens [...]

Posted in ArtsAudioBenefitBikesBizTechCivic AffairsComedyDanceDrinksEatsEntrepreneurialismFashionFestivalFilmFreeHealthyHelp WantedHistoryHotLiteraryMusic: ClassicalMusic: PopularNewNewsOperaOutdoorsPartyPerformancePetsPoliticsSarah ValekScienceShopLOCALSportTheatreTravelVideoWorkshop

The Cool Cleveland iPhone app is ready & waiting to be downloaded onto your iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch. Check it out. Now you can view the coolest happenings in town without being tethered to a computer. You can even forward news, events and videos to your Facebook and Twitter accounts, and send [...]

Posted in BizTechGreenNewNewsSarah Valek

It’s here: A ginormous wind turbine straight from Europe recently arrived at the Port of Cleveland. Lincoln Electric purchased the Kenersys Europe GmbH K100 2.5 Mega-Watt wind turbine to be installed at the company’s facilities in Euclid. How big is it? “The length of the blades is 165 feet and the nacelle is 278 feet.  [...]

DETROIT — Imagine trying to prove that thousands of people exist, when you have no idea who they are.

That’s the dilemma facing officials who think their communities were undercounted in the 2010 Census.  But for Midwest cities preparing to challenge those numbers: How do you find people the Census Bureau missed?  We went looking for answers in Detroit.

When Detroit’s numbers came out in March, Mayor Dave Bing quickly summoned the press.  The tone was crisis — as if a natural disaster had struck.  And in a way, it had.  Detroit had lost a quarter of its people over the last ten years.

As cameras whirred, the mayor explained that Detroit’s population now stood at 713,777. 

“Personally I don’t believe the number is accurate,” he said.  “And I don’t believe it will stand up as we go through with our challenge.”

Cleveland, Akron and Cincinnati are also considering challenges.  That’s because people equal money – as in funding from the federal government.  And as long as Detroit remained a big city with more than 750,000 people, state law allowed it to do things like charge higher taxes.  That brought in millions more every year.

“We are in a fiscal crisis and we have to fight for every dollar.  We can’t afford to let these results stand,” said Bing.

So now Detroit wants to find almost 40,000 more people and prove that the Census missed them.  That’s like finding the entire population of Muskegon or Moline inside Detroit.

But former Census workers like Mark Dancey already know they missed people.  Detroit is hard to count. 

“I had the situation where I knock on the door and I see ‘em running out the back door,” he said.  Well, “Not running, just sneaking.”

Dancey worked his own neighborhood of Southwest Detroit for the Census.  He said people mostly cooperated.  But take this one building, The Barbara.  Forty-six units.  Dancey waited outside at least a dozen times, until someone let him in.  Then he’d knock and he’d knock.

“Either people would say, ‘No, I won’t talk to you,’” he said.  “Or, they’d yell through the door, ‘Come back later.’  Some people would just open the door and just say, ‘No, I’m not going to talk to you.’  Slam the door.”

Silas White has lived in The Barbara for two years.  He said he never got a Census form in the mail, never saw a Census worker.

The building’s front door swings open freely.  That’s because the door handle and the lock have been busted off.  White unlocked an inner door to show me inside.

The Barbara, he said, is, “Kindof rough.  I mean, it’s a die -hard building, you know, but it’s not too much trouble.  But we didn’t get counted.”

There are more than 300 million people in the United States.  Census Director Robert Groves freely acknowledges that it’s hard to count them all.  When questionnaires didn’t come back in the mail, he sent enumerators to visit 47 million households as many as six times.

“But what we can’t do if you think about it is reconstruct the world as it was on April 1, 2010,” he said.

So, Detroit can’t just produce a list of names like Silas White and say, “Trust us, they were here.”  To challenge, cities and towns have to show processing errors.  Like, was a boundary inaccurate?  Did group quarters like prisons and nursing homes get put on the wrong block?  Groves said that in the 2000 Census, a lot of Michiganders did get counted in the wrong place. 

But, he said, “The net of a whole lot of changes was that the state added 36 people to its population.”

Illinois gained 354 people. Ohio added five. 

The results of the Decennial Census can be difficult to change.  It’s much easier for local jurisdictions to challenge the population estimates that come out between official counts.  The criterion is different, which is how Detroit added tens of thousands of people to its 2006 population estimate.  Only the official count is used for things like the reapportionment of the House of Representatives.

But the challenge isn’t stopping Detroit now.  Over at the planning department, they’re just getting started.  So John Baran’s been staring at a map showing population change across the city. 

He’s spotted an inconsistency right downtown.

“The census track 5172 which is very purple on that map there, lost 1,400 people, but only lost 60 housing units,” he said.  “The math doesn’t work out.  There weren’t 1,400 people in 60 housing units.”

He suspects the county jail was missed, or maybe a dormitory.  Big stuff.  But mostly, the city will have to go block by block and show that the Census made mistakes, like deleting housing units from its files that were actually still there.  So can you produce 40,000 people that way?

“It’d be quite challenging to produce 40,000 people through a housing challenge,” Baran said. 

But isn’t that the goal?

“The goal is to get an accurate count,” he said.  “And make sure everyone in the city was counted.” 

Still, somewhere close to 237,000 people left Detroit over the last ten years.  Why did they leave?  And what will it take to keep people here?  These questions will persist long after the Census’s Count Question Resolution Program begins accepting challenges on June 1^st.

Posted in BizTechCivic AffairsEventsFreeGreenSarah ValekScience

[ May 10, 2011; 2:00 am; ] Tue 5/10 @ 7PM Is Cleveland being left behind? Are we headed in the wrong direction? The City of Cleveland plans on developing a waste-to-energy gasification field... but would we be better off creating an ambitious program to recycle and recover waste? Join Neil Seldman, a national expert on recycling and economic development, for a community [...]

American 2050 reports:

A new study, “The Economic Impacts of High Speed Rail: Transforming the Midwest,” outlines the potential benefits of a high-speed rail system in the Midwest Megaregion with it’s $2.6 trillion economy, the fifth largest in the world, behind only the U.S., China, Japan, and Germany.

Download the executive summary.

Read more from the Midwest High Speed Rail Association web site.

Midwest High Speed Rail Association 2011 Economic Study Executive Summary

Who are some of the best bands and performers in the Midwest? The results are rolling in.

Before we list the nominees, though, here’s a reminder that our big event, “Living for the City: Reinventing the Region with Music and the Arts” at the Rock Hall in Cleveland is coming up next week.

In anticipation of that discussion, the Changing Gears team looked at what’s happening to the Midwest Music scene these days.

But we also wanted your thoughts on your favorite bands are from the Midwest, and you’re letting us know. There’s still time to send your suggestions, but in the meantime, here are a few of the most nominated Midwest artists.

Wilco from Chicago, Illinois is a big favorite. Fronted by Jeff Tweedy, the group initially formed in 1994. Now, only two of the original band members are still with the group — Tweedy and John Stirratt. The indie-alternative-rock group has two Grammy awards under its belt.

Cult favorite DEVO from the Kent/Akron area of Ohio also earned some votes. The group is most well known for their late 1970′s hit “Whip It,” though it is still active today and just released a new album.

Pere Ubu from Cleveland also got a couple nods. This is another group that’s been around since the mid 70′s, and though the band never really broke into mainstream music, they do have a loyal fan base and pretty steady critical support.

Listeners who prefer folk rock went for Shawn Colvin from Carbondale, Illinois. Wisconsin based Semi-Twang also has a fan among our listeners. Others noted that Chrissie Hynde, guitarist, song writer, lead singer (and only constant member) of The Pretenders is from Akron, Ohio. Akron is also the hometown of The Black Keys, the two-member rock band that snagged three Grammy awars this year including Best Alternative Album. Nearby Canton, Ohio is home to R&B group The O’Jays. Rap enthusiasts proudly boast that Eminem is from Detroit and Kid Cudi is from Cleveland.

You can check out the rest of the Twitter nominated Midwest Music favorite below. It’s not too late to tell us who we missed, let us know in the comments or on Twitter. Tag them #MidwestMusic.

 

Cleveland coined the term Rock and Roll. People still talk about Detroit and Motown. And, Chicago is known for the Blues. Yet, despite evidence that music can revitalize rust belt cities, that it can raise property values, and make these places more attractive to workers and companies, the music industry doesn’t seem to be a priority here.

“ Maybe the first two years we were open, we were miraculously making money,” says Cindy Barber, co-founder of the Beachland Ballroom, one of Cleveland’s top venues—and few venues—for live music. It’s an intimate place: the kind where you feel like you’re up close with the music. Yet, Barber just can’t make any money. She’s thinking of turning the Beachland into a nonprofit.

“You go to Beachland Ballroom, every one of those shows should sell out,” says David Spero. He’s been a producer, manager, and in the 70s, was one of the pioneering Cleveland DJs who introduced the nation to performers like David Bowie. Back then, the industry here was alive.

“Every label was represented here: Columbia, Atlantic, Warner Brothers, Capital, RCA,” Spero says.

It soon got too big and technology changed, and Cleveland lost its place as kingmaker for rock.

Today, Cleveland bands have to find labels and booking agents elsewhere.

About two years ago, the Cleveland band Cloud Nothings was nothing more than the tinkerings of Dylan Baldi, who was more interested in music than college.

“I’d just record songs all the time like when I wasn’t in class, or instead of going to class,” Baldi says.

He put his basement recordings on the internet and to his amazement, found himself booked with a show in Brooklyn and record deals with labels in DC and the UK. He had been playing all the instruments himself and had to scramble to find band mates. Now, he’s just getting used to seeing his name in the music press. And, Baldi says they always mention his hometown.

“They definitely write about that because it’s such a strange thing for a band people know about to be from Cleveland, which is too bad because there are a lot of good bands here,” he says.

One winter day, he was at the Beachland Ballroom celebrating the release of the band’s self-titled album.

There’s a sense that Cleveland and the Midwest are doing a poor job supporting their music industry, and a poor job benefiting from it. Richard Florida is an academic and the author of The Rise of the Creative Class, and he says these post-industrial cities have a lot of assets that could create vibrant music scenes, but it can’t just happen on its own.

“So the first thing we can do in Cleveland, and Pittsburgh, and Detroit, and Milwaukee, and Chicago, is to create real incubation assistance for young bands. I think the band is a better example of a start-up company than these high tech garage start-ups,” Florida says.

He recommends marketing assistance, help with business planning. Cities should make it easier for musicians: provide cheap housing and create incentives like Austin did.

And, the effects can be huge. Austin estimates its music industry contributes more than $600 million to its economy. A Cleveland nonprofit is currently studying how much the music business means here. Michigan has tax breaks for the music business but hasn’t bothered to promote them.

And, Chicago’s Music Commission did its own economic study and found it had the third biggest industry in the country, but no one knew it. But its new Mayor, Rahm Emanuel, wants to change that with his plan for Uptown Music District.

“Where arts and culture can be the engines of economic growth,” Rahm said.

Maybe Chicago, then, will become the model for this region.

 

 

 

 

Posted in ArtsBizTechCivic AffairsMusic: ClassicalNewNewsPreviewShopLOCALThomas MulreadyVideo

VIDEO: WCLV Returns Downtown New Home at Idea Center Robert Conrad has seen it all. They moved from their longtime home in the Terminal Tower in 1986 out to their digs in Warrensville Heights, which they dubbed “Radio Ranch.” Now they are in a “vortex of cultural activity” in the Idea Center, offering a new [...]