Cover Stories
John Ganis’ foul shots
John Ganis, a photography professor at Detroit’s College for Creative Studies, specializes in using his camera to focus attention on "places where land development and resource extraction have had an impact on the American landscape." Nearly two years ago, after oil from a ruptured pipeline leaked into Talmadge Creek and the Kalamazoo River, he made…
Crude awakening
For years, photographer John Ganis has been using his camera to record our impact on the environment. Which is why, in 2010, he found himself traveling along the Gulf of Mexico coast, photographing the fallout from British Petroleum’s Deepwater Horizon spill. Soon after returning to his Detroit-area home, Ganis — like the rest of us…
City Slang: The Carr Center announces summer jazz classes
The Carr Center has announced a jazz academy series of free classes. “The development of the Carr Center is the next step in the evolution of the Arts League of Michigan (ALM) and moves to establish it and ALM as major participants in the cultural life of our community and the nation. Named in honor…
City Slang: Dick Wagner back on tour in July
Former Frost and Alice Cooper guitarist Dick Wagner will be on tour through July, playing all over Michigan on the Maestro of Rock tour, and promoting his book, Not Only Women Bleed. His current band features: Ray Goodman, Skeeto Valdez, Robert Wagner, Dennis Burr, Grant West and Mark Nilan. Here are the dates: July 13…
City Slang: Whitey Morgan at the Machine Shop and the Magic Bag
Outlaw country locals and all-round bad boys Whitey Morgan & the 78’s will play the Machine Shop in their hometown of Flint on July 13 from 7 p.m. The very next night, July 14, the band will play the Magic Bag in Ferndale from 8 p.m. Cover for both shows is $10. “I’ve been through…
City Slang: The Midwest Rock ’n’ Roll Express hits DTE
I neither know nor care what “cool” means, but I sure as hell know that it isn’t a triple bill featuring REO Speedwagon, Styx, and the Motor City Madman himself, Ted Nugent. In fact, if a rock bill were to be put together specifically for the purpose of making the musically fashionable shake with laughter…
The Sights Tour Diary Entry No. 16: Shades & Eddie in the War Room, Fernando & Koontz Mend Important Tour Gear and Pops Throws a Billion Dollar Bash.
I am backstage at the Fillmore in Charlotte, North Carolina waiting to sound check. It’s been awhile since I’ve written, so here we go. Between the first and second legs we had a little over two weeks off. In that time we played two shows in Detroit and Chicago with Reigning Sound and tried to lay low.…
City Slang: Party-goer steals from Seger
20-year-old Andrew Thompson was arrested on Tuesday and charged with stealing from Bob Seger’s house during a party thrown by Seger’s 16-year-old daughter. As Gawker put it, what the hell was a 20-year-old doing at 16-year-old girl’s party? But anyway, Thompson is alleged to have taken some cash, a Rolex, a pair of sneakers autographed…
Ted
Ted C+ Ted is a heartwarming yarn about a 35-year-old chronic underachiever and his dope smoking, skirt chasing, potty mouthed, minor celebrity best friend, who also happens to be a magical living teddy bear. It’s exactly the sort of fare you’d expect from raunch tycoon Seth MacFarlane, who stocks his animated TV empire with a…
The Amazing Spider-Man
The Amazing Spider-Man B+ Having battled all forms of evil over the years, Spider-Man faces perhaps his toughest challenge yet: managing expectations. Just a decade since Sam Raimi first successfully brought the daring wall-crawler to the screen in a trio of creatively satisfying mega blockbusters, fortuitously named newbie Marc Webb has been tasked with re-birthing…
Magic Mike
Magic Mike B Steven Soderbergh offers up the hunky populist flipside to his lo-fi call girl depressive The Girlfriend Experience. Slyly commenting on the last decade or so of his Hollywood film career, he punctures the myth of the American Dream, and provides a little something for the ladies all at the same time —…
City Slang: Detroit Sound Conservancy to present tour of Detroit
On June 30, the newly formed Detroit Sound Conservancy will present the Detroit Sound Conservancy Music Tour, featuring a host of Detroit’s most notable music storytellers as guides to the city’s musical landmarks. The say, “The tour will also partner with and be logged by the DetroitWiki Project, a volunteer-driven effort to collect information about Detroit’s historical…
System failure
Two years ago, I committed election fraud, in a manner of speaking. Under our medieval election laws, you pretty much have to pretend you will be out of town to get an absentee ballot. For years, Oregon has sent everyone a ballot they can study, fill in, and mail back, and Washington state does now…
Ballot battles
Last week, when one of the News Hits crew appeared on Craig Fahle’s radio program over at WDET, the host asked what we thought about the Detroit International Bridge Company’s efforts to place on the ballot a measure that seeks to block construction of a publicly owned span downriver. We replied that, even though we…
Post-Jack White Thornbills
When the Thornbills got back from Nashville at the end of summer 2010, everybody and their brother had suggestions for what Jim Wiegand and Tamara Finlay’s next move should be; there’s a lot of pressure when your debut song is recorded with Jack White. That’d be anywhere, let alone Detroit. Coming off the Third Man…
Gentleman Johnnie Bassett
While nicknames in music should usually be taken with a pinch of salt, Johnnie Bassett, known to many as the Gentleman, has certainly earned his. Meeting with the 76-year-old bluesman at his Oak Park home and sitting on his porch on a gorgeous Michigan summer day, it’s impossible not to immediately like him. Bassett has…
Split shifts vs. love life
Q: My younger brother and I are close. He came out of the closet last year, although it wasn’t much of a surprise because everyone knew he was gay since forever. Everyone is happy he’s out because it kind of takes the elephant out of the room, and our immediate and extended family are all…
On a roll
Last week marked the 41st anniversary of President Nixon’s declaration of the War on Drugs — a policy so bad that not only has it failed, it has helped create thriving international crime syndicates. So it was very encouraging to hear about the upcoming Caravan for Peace, which will seek an end to prohibitionist policies…
Cool places
Bob Jo’s 4071 Fort St., Wyandotte; 734-282-6818: A fixture on Fort Street since the late 1950s (it was moved from Eureka and Fort, where it was founded in 1947), this Downriver roadside stand specializes in custard and yogurt, and patrons aren’t fussy. Most people seem to like their "twist cones," the familiar combination soft-serve treat.…
Letters to the Editor
Trillions for Detroit! Telling a robbed and beaten man to tighten his belt — that’s Jack Lessenberry’s "common sense" idea, in "Charting a Future" (June 20). Just what Detroit needs, another mugger armed with the "common sense" to steal the pensions from old ladies who are still "healthy." Jack had quite a laugh at Detroit’s…
Finished with that kidney?
The Undead: Organ Harvesting, the Ice-Water Test, Beating-Heart Cadavers — How Medicine Is Blurring the Line Between Life and Death by Dick Teresi Pantheon, $26.96, 368 pp. In his new book The Undead, science writer Dick Teresi paints a macabre picture of a booming organ-donation industry in which doctors and hospitals may be more concerned…
Danks for everything
Prometheus: The Art of the Film Mark Salisbury, foreword by Ridley Scott Titan Books, $39.95, 186 pp. If your vision of the future is gray and dreary, most likely you can give a good bit of the credit to Ridley Scott. Sure, dystopian fiction has been around for a long time. But even though…
It’s in the bag
One of the more interesting non-ice cream treats available at many roadside refreshment stands is the "walking taco." For the uninitiated, it is a small bag of corn chips lightly crushed, cracked open, and dressed with taco fixings that can include ground beef, shredded cheese, salsa, chopped lettuce, tomato, cilantro, onion, avocado and, possibly, much…
Dark star
Big Day Coming: Yo La Tengo and the Rise of Indie Rock by Jesse Jarnow Gotham, $18, 368 pp. Ira Kaplan closes his eyes tightly when singing — one faint strand remaining of Yo La Tengo’s tentative early history. The tale of polite Hoboken folk rockers becoming the indieverse’s beloved godparents is really about a…
Dirty white boy
Mickey Avalon could have escaped from the pages of a Bret Easton Ellis novel — Jewish, androgynous, hedonistic and possessing a discerning palate for good drugs, loose women and Smirnoff-sponsored parties. The world was not quite prepared for this scrawny, strangely pretty urchin back in ’06. And just as the world was beginning to warm…
Curry for the masses
Temptations 5260 Anthony Wayne Dr., Detroit 313-832-4449 mitempt.com Handicap accessible Lunch or dinner: $5.95-$7.95 Open 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday-Friday How can it be that Indian-Pakistani-Bangladeshi food has so small a toehold in Detroit? In the suburbs, yes, but wouldn’t you think an Indian buffet lunch would be a big hit with all those…
Linkin Park – Living Things (Warner Bros.)
If there’s one thing Linkin Park fans don’t want, it’s a politically charged concept album that’s every bit as pretentious as U2’s most bombastic work. They pretty much told the sextet this after the release of 2010’s A Thousand Suns, which still managed to hit No. 1 despite the general confusion with the record. So…
Johnnie Bassett & the Detroit blues
Brett Callwood’s City Slang column about bluesman Johnnie Bassett got us to thinking about some of the blues coverage in our archive, for instance Keith Owens’ 1998 account of going on the road with Bassett and the Blues Insurgents, Nate Cavalieri’s 2004 paean to the now-defunct Greektown blues spot the Music Menu , Michael Murphy’s…
Food Stuff
Garden path Summer is here, and garden parties at Detroit’s the Whitney are in full swing. This week’s shindig will feature the band Pink Lightning, as well as food and drink specials in the Whitney’s beautiful patio space. The parties will run every Thursday until Aug. 30 (with the exception of July 5, due to…
City Slang: Weekly music review roundup
Remember – if you send it, it will get reviewed. That’s the City Slang promise. It doesn’t matter what genre the music is – as long as it has a Metro Detroit connection, it’ll get in. Preferably, we’d like to concentrate on new releases but, while we’re getting warmed up here, feel free to send…
The Sights Tour Diary Entry No. 15: Champion Texting
Shades here. Eddie’s gonna be back here real soon to catch you up on the first few shows of the second leg of the Tenacious D tour, but in the meantime, please enjoy some more pictures of Jarrod texting. PREVIOUSLY… Photos by Shades
City Slang: Wayne State Literary Walk this Saturday
This coming Saturday, June 30, the Wayne State University Literary Walk takes place across the campus area. I will be reading from my MC5 and Stooges books alongside Susan Whitall and Kevin John, who have a fantastic book out on Little Willie John. Details are below: THIS SATURDAY @ Noon at Wayne State University Join…
