Live Review & Photos: Roger Waters Plays The Wall @ The Palace of Auburn Hills
Sunday night Roger Waters brought his elaborate re-imagining of The Wall to the Palace of Auburn Hills. The current tour marks the 30th anniversary of the original Wall tour which lasted from February of 1980 to July of 1981. Check out “Outside The Wall” in the video below. Much like the classic 1980s tour, the…
NYT: Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. wistful like “Hall and Oates.” Wait, what?
The dwindling travel budgets here at MT insured without question that we not send a writer to cover the CMJ Fest in NYC this past week. So we figured we’d just eye yesterday’s New York Times wrap up in lieu ’cause we usually trust the word of critic Jon Pareles. His umbrella take of the…
Live Review & Photos: Dr. Dog @ The Crofoot
It’s always nice when you can stand at the back of a room and still feel the foot stomp shiver sent through the floor as the band pounds on the stage. That always seems to be with the case with Dr. Dog, who’s guitarist Scott McMicken we interviewed for our MC5 this week. The Philly…
Eddie Baranek and Alejandro Escovedo; plus, New Sights Album
Ove r the years the Sights have toured madly and in the process won lotsa fans along the way, and not just the usual suspects such as old what’s-his-from the Sopranos. We’re talkin’ other such relics as Robert Plant, Ian McLagan and U.K. music-biz suits who may or may not have schtupped Marianne Faithful back…
Hereafter
Hereafter GRADE: C+ Though it’s probably akin to critical heresy, I’ve never been convinced of Clint Eastwood’s insight as an artist. Though there’s little doubt that, as a director, he’s a serious craftsman who values taste and modesty, I’ve never found that his films have had all that much to say. Whether it’s Mystic River,…
Stone
Stone GRADE: C- Portentous, ponderous and downright pretentious, Stone is a film that works very hard to convince us of its serious intentions, though the filmmakers have neglected to tell themselves what those intentions really were. It’s the sort of meandering, talky and challenging "actor’s showcase" in which high-intensity stars, such as Robert De Niro…
(Update w/ photo gallery) – Interview with Umphrey’s McGee’s Jake Cinninger – The New Psychedelic Part II
For our second installment in our exploration in The New Psychedelic we had a chance to talk with Umphrey’s McGee guitarist Jake Cinninger, who talked about late nights spent at Tiger Stadium, some Detroit rock and metal, and how Pink Floyd influences Umphrey’s McGee. Cinninger who was born on the left side of Michigan in…
Tonight: Red Bull Big Tune Beat Battle
If you didn’t already know, tonight is the Red Bull Big Tune Beat Battle at St. Andrews Hall in Detroit. It’s actually organized by folks from Seattle — Vitamin D, Jake One, and J Moore — and they’re nationally hosting this competition in select cities around the country. In each, two producers take the stage…
14 KT’s New Video for “The Inside”
It’s always interesting to see the ways that Ann Arbor’s one-time powerful Athletic Mic League continue to grow as individuals. They’ve essentially all gone solo or found new creative endeavors but are still winning with most moves. The group’s lead producer, 14 KT, who’s actually from Ypsilanti, has made a strong name for himself in…
Willy Wilson’s Motor City’s Burning 99.1 playlist
Sweet to see the York Brothers “Highland Park Girl” get a spin … The Motorcity is Burning (CJAM 99.1 FM) Playlist for Wednesday Oct. 10; 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. Phil Ranelin & Tribe – Voices From The Tribe – Message From The Tribe – Universal Sounds Planet D Nonet – Interstellar Love Ways –…
‘Almighty Debt’ Explores Blacks’ Bondage to Almighty Dollar
After all this time, more than 400 years later, African Americans are slaves again. This time, however, the enslavement is largely of their own making. “There’s no question to me that debt is a bigger problem than racism,” declares Pastor DeForest “Buster” Soaries, the impassioned leader of First Baptist Church of Lincoln Gardens in Somerset,…
Mother, Daughter Rob House, Bring 2-Year-Old Along
This woman is not mother of the year. It has a gynocentric theme worthy of a Ma Barker yarn, a fool’s errand equally as sad and crazy. The cops called it “bring your daughter to work day.” Instead of an autumnal Saturday evening spent sipping heated milk, biting into Bartlett pears, reading Ten Little Labybugs…
Court expansion: Ferndale courthouse too small for pot case
How big is this medical marijuana thing? Well, in the case of an alleged dispensary busted by the Oakland County Sheriff, the Ferndale courthouse is too small to seat the nine defendants and their attorneys at the table for the upcoming case. Linda Carroll, the public information officer for the court, confirmed that the court…
Interview With Dr. Dog’s Scott McMicken – The New Psychedelic Part I
Dr. Dog singer/songwriter/guitarist Scott McMicken recently sat down to chat with MT Music Blog for this week’s MC5 . McMicken, aside from a few of his favorite things in Detroit, talked about the band’s always-growing catalog, their ties to psychedelic music and the creation of their own alphabet. The Philly quintet released their sixth studio…
New York Times does Slows Bar-B-Q
We at MT awoke this morning to some grub hubbub, what with The New York Times taking a 1,500-word-plus look at Slows Bar-B-Q and its most famous owner, Phillip Cooley. It was a pretty good article, and we were tickled that our restaurant reviewer Todd Abrams was quoted, and that the piece also gave some…
The great beer tour
11:15 a.m. My neighbor, photographer Marvin Shaouni, is washing dishes in his Hamtramck kitchen on a rainy morning when he sees me and two other bearded men gathering in the backyard behind my house. (Shaouni says later that he regrets not finding out what was up.) 11:55: a.m. With the caravan assembled, we are ready…
Trash cinema or schlock glories?
Trash cinema or schlock glories? Mike White brings it on in a new book and Burton Theatre screening by Michael Jackman In 1951, renegade French film critics founded the Cahiers du Cinema, a magazine that revolutionized film criticism. In 1994, Michigander Mike White founded Cashiers du Cinemart, a zine that openly mocked big-budget mainstream films.…
Raise the bar
Ashley’s 338 S. State St., Ann Arbor; 734-996-9191; 5150 Carpenter Rd., Ypsilanti; 734-528-9898: With an award-winning beer selection from the four corners of the earth, made-to-order food using fresh ingredients, and a genuinely hospitable attitude, Ashley’s is an excellent bar for beer-lovers. Think you’ve run out of new beers to explore? Better stop in soon.…
Power, grace, come in all forms
Learning can’t be separated from where it is found. Don Thibodeaux Sr. found it in a bump shop, where he wielded a torch every day. He found it in the boxing ring, where he threw his own punches and helped lead such Kronk fighters as Tommy Hearns to more than 40 championships. He was also…
Small’s plates
As we’ve noted before, after sharing his meals with Metro Times readers off-and-on over three decades, Mel Small is folding up his napkin. But when we listened to WDET’s Craig Fahle interview Mel on that subject the other day, we thought a) that we wanted to share some of that conversation with readers and b)…
Letters to the Editor
They broke it … I’m an educator with the Detroit Public Schools (DPS) and I read with great interest the article, "What’s Bobb up to?" (Oct. 13). Should the debt that Detroit Public Schools has amassed be forgiven? Unequivocally, yes! When former Gov. John Engler took over Detroit Public Schools in 1999, it had a…
Obama’s trouble
"Here’s my big bitch," a lady who lives in Dearborn Heights and has five kids wrote to me last weekend. "The socialized medicine that BO [President Barack Obama] was supposed to implement is an utter failure." Wonderful, I thought. Another person brainwashed by the insurance lobby and their front women, Sarah Palin and her mini-me,…
Just like honey
In a light industrial section of Ferndale is one of the city’s fastest growing businesses. This thriving enterprise is hidden away behind an auto supply warehouse off Wanda Street, and it’s filled with a half-dozen men churning out quality product in a room that smells more like a cider mill than a manufacturing facility. That’s…
Freeman’s 1 in 100
A Michigan man imprisoned for 24 years has become one of the estimated 1 in 100 prisoners who have habeas corpus petitions granted through federal courts. The petitions allow prisoners to demand that the government prove they are being legally detained. In the petition of convicted murderer Frederick Freeman, U.S. District Court Judge Denise Page…
Metro Retro
16 years ago in Metro Times: Children as young as preschoolers are taught the harsh realities of life in Alice Rhein’s "Confronting reality." At the Macomb County Office of Community Assesment, Kathy Rager is putting together a drug prevention program aimed at children between the ages of 4 and 6. If that seems too young,…
Pour vous
Up above Woodward Avenue, in a second-floor space in downtown Detroit, a new kind of wine shop is making gains. It’s Motor City Wine (608 Woodward Ave.; 313-483-7283), run by husband-and-wife team David and Melissa Armin-Parcells. Hundreds of bottles of wine line the walls, and on this Friday afternoon, a steady stream of customers comes…
Fetishizing stuff
It is primetime’s equivalent of a massive train wreck, like the spectacular crashes in the forthcoming Denzel Washington movie Unstoppable, only these disasters take place inside somebody’s home. And apparently, as with railway catastrophes, we find it almost impossible to look away. I’m talking about hoarding, the compulsive urge to collect — well, anything, from…
Mix Master
Mixologist is the fashionable term for a cocktail craftsman, but it doesn’t exactly describe Dave Kwiatkowski’s skill with the mixed drink. With nearly every shelf and ledge in his Corktown flat taken up by obscure specialty liqueurs and glass jars of homemade bitters, infused syrups and other homemade concoctions, some may even call it obsession.…
Vodka Visionary
Tucked away on a side street near Nine Mile Road and Woodward Avenue, Ferndale’s Valentine Distilling Co. is building out a distillery and tasting room in the former pool table manufacturing facility. Work began on the 5,000-square foot building in June, and the owners say they’ll move all production of Valentine Vodka to the space.…
Bobbing along
Detroit Public Schools Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb’s basic proposal to have the state forgive the district’s $332 million debt isn’t necessarily possible, Gov. Jennifer Granholm told a local radio station. "We can’t legally forgive debts," she told Paul W. Smith on WJR-AM 760 last Friday. But Lansing is interested in hearing what deal Bobb…
Beer is the new wine
This month, Roast celebrates two years of adding a bit of casual sophistication to downtown Detroit’s dining scene. The restaurant’s sleek modern interiors, casually dressed servers and inventive dishes (bone marrow, anyone?) are anything but fusty, appealing to a younger crowd of diners. That youth extends to the staff. Their sommelier, Joseph Allerton, was only…
Food Stuff
Bet on black — "Black wine nights" have returned to Ann Arbor’s Vinology, and it’s almost all sold out. Right in time for Halloween, it’s an all-black affair. You wear black, the space is dressed in black — even the wines are served in black glasses, so you may not even know if you are…
Big Daddy’s business
Anyone who thinks medical marijuana is just a nudge-and-wink cover for pushing legalization should speak with Rick Ferris, who has all the fervor and sincerity of a man who got a second chance in life. As Ferris tells it, he worked in construction for 20-plus years, about 13 of those as a foreman pouring concrete…
Carlos
Carlos GRADE: B As an epic chronicle of falling upward, this ambitious, breathlessly frantic and tightly wound film from Olivier Assayas (Summer Hours) is a fascinating depiction of how one man — Carlos the Jackal — turned a string of failed terrorist plots into larger-than-life notoriety. Or, at least, on the face of it, that’s…
Motor City Five
Dr. Dog recalls the ’60s woodsy soul of the Band tucked inside Beach Boys harmonies before it’s cycled through the ears of home-recording master R. Stevie Moore. Guitarist Scott McMicken gave us the five monomanias on why this Philly quintet loves heading back to Detroit. —Pietro C. Truba 5. The crowds: When we first started…
Power to the people
If you’re a fan of TV crime dramas, then maybe you’ve seen USA’s recent prime-time addition Covert Affairs. The show is decent enough, but, damn — that theme song’s catchy, in’nit? Well, you can thank Clinton Township’s Power for that. Back when the folk-flavored pop duo — composed of brother and sister Seth and Jax…
Spun
Kings of Leon Come Around Sundown RCA Fans who were into Kings of Leon before their 2008 breakthrough album Only By the Night may enjoy their fifth CD more if they played the new songs in reverse order. That way, it’ll begin on the great "Pickup Truck" and wind its way through a few songs…
Conviction
Conviction GRADE: B- A handsomely appointed, powerfully acted and slightly drab true-life drama, Conviction has one of those clever dual-meaning titles, referring to both legal procedure and the heroine’s relentless drive. As the indefatigable Betty Ann Waters, Hilary Swank displays more grit and pluck than a KFC in the Sahara, trudging on through years of…
Into the mud
With Election Day fast approaching, the watchdogs at the Michigan Truth Squad are up to their snouts in slime. As News Hits previously noted, the squad is a project of the Center for Michigan, a nonpartisan "think and do" tank founded by former newspaper publisher Phil Power in 2006. Using veteran reporters to examine the…
Northern exposure
It’s an unusually humid fall night in Seattle, and Canadian rapper-guitarist k-os is pacing, preparing to jump on stage. The 32-year-old is by no means nervous, but this show does kick off his, surprisingly, first-ever headlining U.S. tour. Sure, he’s a certified platinum-seller in Canada three times over, but he’s still got plenty to prove…
Why rye?
The first Irish and Scottish immigrants to America were no less thirsty in the New World. They gathered whatever grain was readily available, and in the model of the barley spirits they enjoyed in their homeland, formulated the first true American whiskey — rye. Especially prevalent in northeastern states, in particular Pennsylvania and Maryland, rye…
Cruel and selfish
Q: My husband and I have had an open marriage for the last two years. Up until five months ago, it was working beautifully. At that point, however, I was sexually assaulted by a former partner. Since that incident, I cannot stand sex with my husband. I completely flip out when he tries to initiate…
Cold gin
Cocktail Fact: A martini is made with gin and vermouth. So why is everything — from a mixture of vodka and sour apple schnapps to a whipped cream-topped and caramel-drizzled contrivance capable of causing adult onset diabetes — called a martini? It must be the glass. With its fine stem that allows the drinker to…
Weirdo Invites Women Joggers Into Van
From the Too Many Creeps dept: There are lots of red flags that signal some guy could be creepy; you know, like orange eyebrows, or living contently in mom’s basement at 35, or squirreling away “daughter” porn tubes on a belt-clipped mobile phone, and so on But you know a dude’s creepy if he A)…
Warn Defever remembers Marion Brown
Marion Brown, who passed away last week at age 79* in Florida, was a under-appreciated jazz visionary. He was a late-’60s associate of Archie Shepp and John Coltrane (he’s on the tsunami-like Ascension with Coltrane, as is Shepp) but also recorded in a less-driven free jazz mode (his Afternoon of a Georgia Faun), created almost…
