By Sylvia Benavidez
Walk the Beat performers filled Superior Street and its side streets Saturday, Aug. 29, with sounds ranging from pop to blues to rock ’n’ roll. There was something for everyone, including public prize drawings at each site and a $2,000 prize for the winning band.
Walk the Beat Albion raises money to provide instruments for children who cannot afford them. Its mission is to help build a sense of community and promote music and literacy.
The day’s top musical group was the horn-pop band Two Soups and the Salad Bar, or Two Soups for short, based in Michigan Center. The group can include as many as 10 musicians playing trumpets, trombones, alto saxophones, tenor saxophones and drums. On Saturday, the group at Walk the Beat Albion included founders and brothers Robert Janz on keyboards and Will Janz on bass guitar, Abby Dunn, Robert’s fiancée, on tenor saxophone, and Kait Webster on alto saxophone.
The name Two Soups is a joke between the brothers. Robert Janz got it from a YouTube video when he was in middle school. The phrase stuck in his head, and when the brothers got older and started playing the video game Guitar Hero, he thought it would be a perfect gamer name. When they began playing live gigs and Walk the Beat Grand Haven, they used it, and it stuck. Winning means a lot to the group, especially to Janz.
“As a music teacher, the organization itself and what they do for music literacy — providing instruments — means a lot to me personally, not only to play the festival again and play Albion for the first time, but to be able to win the whole thing is kind of out of nowhere for us. We never expected to win any of them. We keep doing Grand Haven specifically, and we were happy to finally be able to come to Albion this year because we have so much fun doing it. We have so much fun playing for people in cool areas that we’ve never played before. This one is specifically exciting because we had no expectation of winning it,” Janz said. The group will use the $2,000 prize money to archive its music digitally and for personal needs.
Aaron Riddle, a Walk the Beat board member, was responsible for inviting the bands to compete in Albion. “We had bands from Albion, Jackson, Homer, Hillsdale, Flat Rock, Grand Rapids, Morenci, a couple from the Detroit area,” he said. There were duos, individuals and groups taking the stage. The prize changed because of the advancement of home studios.
In addition to Two Soups, several bands were new to Walk the Beat Albion. Musicians from Albion performing at the event for the first time were Keys and Frets and Classick J.P. New bands from Jackson included Root Station, Bout 40 and Outsiders. Brooklyn Pollak is from Parma. Levitron traveled from Farmington Hills, and Blockhouse Valley came from Flat Rock.
Returning bands from Jackson included Legends, Artemis Fay, Attic Bats, Mateo Saucedo and Exit 51. Other returning bands included Agatha Haag from Morenci; Early Randall Wayne and the Rustbelt Rebels from Horton; the Flop Rocks from Marshall; Russ Kendrick Martin from Hillsdale; Lowell and Fred from Marne; K. Prouty from Saline; and Seth Tripp Band from Pleasant Lake.
Besides competing for prize money, some bands saw performing at Walk the Beat Albion as a way to share their love of music and contribute to a good cause. Ray Edward, who plays with the Outsiders, said he likes seeing a small city celebrate music. “This is awesome. This is great, and I love the small downtown feeling.” He especially wanted to participate to help get musical instruments into children’s hands. “That’s a big thing for me, so I wanted to give back that way.”
Providing local musicians with an opportunity to perform in a positive, well-run environment is also central to Walk the Beat Albion’s mission. Walk the Beat Albion Vice President Nancy Doyal said, “I was so happy that people came up and commented that this year ran very smoothly, and bands were great.”
Riddle also was pleased with how smoothly things ran and with the support Walk the Beat gets in Albion, citing an estimate of at least 500 people in attendance throughout the afternoon. “I appreciated that the community came out and supported live music without having any issues this year. Zero issues. Everyone had a good time. All the power worked. Everyone got into the groove of the event. … The bands had an easy time setting up, and the weather was fantastic. The after-party was great with the band Act Casual, who was a winner two years ago,” he said.
Photos by Sylvia Benavidez
