Things to Do in Michigan

Since May 2008, Wheelhouse Detroit has been offering its customers a healthy and highly efficient new way to see Motown, with guided bike tours traversing the terrains and trails of Detroit. More than 80 bicycle tours are scheduled for the upcoming months, with new tours regularly added. On the Belle Isle tour on Saturday, May 21, pedaling explorers will cruise around Detroit's famed architectural archipelago, surveying sights such as the aquarium and Livingstone Memorial Lighthouse. Guides will discuss the history behind the area's famous statues, such as Alpheus Starkey Williams, who served as a Union general in the Civil War before tragically being turned to stone.

When John Antone founded Axis Music Academy and started developing his proprietary teaching method, the academy was a cramped four-studio Southfield office where he gave guitar lessons. Sixteen years later, Axis has blossomed into a quartet of spacious, well-lit facilities that have one specialty in common: turn individual musicians into bands. Supplied with 12 private studios and all necessary instruments and gear, students get to set their own goals and chart their own course to learning, composing, and recording music. Whether that journey starts with them working through their favorite song on the guitar or stubbornly trying to play the tuba with their ear, the teaching staff helps them reach their goals using the full benefit of their expertise. Budding virtuosos can then combine their strengths during a slate of rock bands, glee clubs, and other group activities.

Axis Music Academy is also currently Michigan’s only Apple-authorized training center, which saves prospective producers a trip out of state if they want to get certified and tested in industry-standard recording software such as Pro Tools, Logic Pro, Abelson, and Final Cut—all taught using a brand-new suite of computer stations and the industry-insider techniques of Charlie Grover, the former drummer of gold-certified rock band Sponge.

Lessons rarely stay confined to the classroom, since Axis lines up opportunities for students to show off what they've learned onstage at local venues, sports games, and even on air during the morning news. It also stays active in the Detroit-area community by participating in Wish Upon a Teen and other programs.

Perfect for ringing in autumn with the calming clack of lobster shells, the Back East Feast offers a taste of Atlantic seafare in the heart of Michigan. The feast itself starts at 5:30 p.m., so before getting in line to load up on corn on the cob, guests can stretch their hunger muscles while listening to the live tunes of Hidden Agenda Band and drinking one of the house wines or a Miller Lite.

Fueled by the passion of winemaker and obsessive-compulsive grape-stomper Lisa Berry, Vintner's Cellar offers several wines fermented in Royal Oak. During your tasting, you'll get to sample five different wines from a diverse range of red, white, fruit, and specialty libations. You'll also get to snack on cheese, crackers, grapes, and crackery grapecheese creations while soaking in the lively décor of intermingling dark and vivid tones like a sponge tuxedo. The wine tasting is good for two people, so buddy up or carefully wheel a frenemy's bed to the cellar before he or she wakes up.

Andiamo Novi combines the eloquence of upscale Italian cuisine with the spontaneity of live entertainment. Dinner in the Andiamo Novi restaurant starts around 8:30 p.m., and pasta-covetous guests can choose any entree from the dinner-show menu. Order the farfalle con bocconcini di pollo to find chicken tenderloin scintillatingly cloaked within bowtie pasta with wild mushrooms, or set course for seafood with the pesce bianco alla Sicilianna, a thinly breaded whitefish sautéed in olive oil. After they've filled up on Italian cuisine, diners can head to the upstairs theater for an evening of golden wits and guffaws, courtesy of the restaurant's Late Night Comedy Series. Each show lasts about 80 minutes and features a changing lineup of comics provided by Heffron Talent International. Even humor skeptics who proclaimed comedy dead when president/ventriloquist William McKinley was assassinated by his anarchist dummy should find ample opportunity to chuckle.

The Aquarium Shop unleashes an assortment of aquatic denizens on land-living lifeforms, like a garage sale held by King Poseidon to raise money for repairs to his seahorse-powered cruiser. Items include saltwater, freshwater, and pond merchandise, complete with pond fish ($5–$25), pond plants ($5–$25), pond food ($10–$50), tropical fish ($2–$30), saltwater fish ($5–$100), and live rock ($8 per lb.). Find actors for your all-koi version of Hamlet, pick up an African cichlid for prom-night punch-bowl pranks, or buy coral with which to dress up in doll's clothing and play tea party. The Aquarium Shop also has a large variety of tanks in stock for fish owners looking to update the digs of their deep-dwelling dorsalled doppelgangers.