"Yooper Bars" Book Review!!

Hey guys, here's a special feature post to help add to the recent stretch of posts, and it's our fourth ever book review at The Sault Metal Scene, that being of "Yooper Bars"! Described as "a travel guide to Michigan's Upper Peninsula bars", it was written by Randy and Kevin Kluck, published by the Whiskey River Publishing Company in Sault Michigan, and released on December 22nd, 2011 after an 8 month journey of most of the U.P.'s bars, taverns, and pubs, many of which serve as concert venues. Clocking in at 234 pages long, the book costs $20 and can be bought online at this location and at various local storefronts, including (but not limited to) the Barnes & Noble bookstore at Lake Superior State University, but the store locator on the book's website is not updated. Given the nature of this book (it's a travel guide, not a narrative story or recollection), this will be a shorter book review than our past ones, and I'll try as I usually do to not give away anything too in-depth, as I want to encourage sales of the book. With that said, let's begin this review!

"Yooper Bars" is broken up into three sections based on geography, starting with the Eastern U.P. (anywhere east of Newberry), and then going west through the Central U.P. (between Gwinn & Gould City), ending with the Western U.P. (everywhere west of Negaunee), adding up to 109 bars in total. Each bar is given an equal space of two pages to be profiled on, with the first page of each including a short biography of the bar in question, ground rules and amenities there, the bar's address & phone number, and a check off box to denote which Yooper bars you've been to. The second page of each generally features fun facts and bits of knowledge on the bar, ranging from popular drinks & historical background notes to celebrity sightings & favourite jokes, along with recommendations from bar regulars. Both pages for each bar also feature scattered photos of the bar, it's staff, and it's patrons, including some occasional shots of live performers, food, and special events. This formula helps give each bar equal time and importance in the book, with the familiar layout helping connect everything and making it easier to read and follow.

In terms of "local" bars, the book covers 28 bars in Chippewa County (mainly in Sault Michigan and De Tour Village), 3 bars in Newberry/Luce County, and 9 bars in Mackinac County (mostly in Cedarville & Hessel), though Gould City and Curtis are counted in the Central U.P. section. Notable Sault Michigan hard rock concert venues like The Bird, The Satisfied Frog, and The Corner Pub are among the covered bars, along with Eastern U.P. concert spots like The Cozy Corners Tavern, Timmy Lee's Pub, and Dan's Place, among numerous others. In terms of metal/hard rock references, there are a few photos of hard rock performers in the Eastern U.P. section, including Half A Man, ex-Splitshot drummer Tony Hubbard, Scofflaw, and former Detroit Red Wings star Darren McCarty's hard rock band Grinder, and there's some interesting celebrity sightings of some rock legends to take note of!

The other chapters are laid out very similarly to the Eastern U.P. section, and as someone who doesn't travel west through the U.P. often, I can't reliably comment on those bars beyond what I've read, but they definitely intrigue me in many ways! A number of bars in cities like Marquette, Menominee, Ishpeming, Munising, and Escanaba are featured, and you're bound to have heard of many of them from your own travels or band associations, and yes, one featured tavern is the Gay Bar in Gay, Michigan! Notably, local favourites Nudge pop up in the section on Rookie's Sports Bar in Negaunee, and they join notable Yooper bands like Slave to Gravity among the later thirds of the book. Of course, whether any given bar in "Yooper Bars" lives up to the praise it receives from the authors is subjective depending on the reader and their own experiences, but if you go in with an open mind and expect the best, you'll learn a lot in advance of your own U.P. bar hopping!

Overall, I would recommend "Yooper Bars" to anyone who loves bars and concert venues in the Soo area and/or the Upper Peninsula! It lays out a ton of quality information and previews on each featured bar, and any novice to the 21+ scene or uncharted waters should find this book invaluable in their barhopping! That said, there are a few things I'd correct, including the book's size, which doesn't help the clarity or context of some photos, though the Yooper Bars Facebook page features many of the photos in larger versions. As well, given it's 2011 release, some entries are now slightly dated (i.e. Bullwinkle's Bar & Grill is now Todd's Tavern), but it's still mostly accurate from what I can tell. Most disappointing of all is that "Yooper Bars" isn't entirely comprehensive, omitting local bars like the one at Dondee Lanes and the bars at the Kewadin Casino branches, but I won't pass judgment as to why they're not in the book. It'd be nice to see a later pressing with added bars and updated references down the road, and maybe in a larger size, but other than that, I can't complain!

Definitely pick up "Yooper Bars" at the above links, and hopefully if you have a copy, you can begin your own journey throughout the U.P. to explore their bars and taverns, just like Randy & Kevin did, and kudos to them for their journey across all of these bars last year! Thanks everyone, and stay tuned for more news and notes this week!