Tying the Windsor knot
In the eyes of Canada, Layton Dorey and Tim Gill are legally married. The Grosse Pointe Park couple wed last August in a Unitarian church near Leamington, Ontario. Their wedding reception, however, was held back in America, at the Detroit Yacht Club. As a member for many years, Dorey says the club was happy to…
12″ pop shots
Synchrojack “End of the Road” (Remixed by Kenny Dixon) Precession “Sandcastle” (Remixed by Mike Huckaby) Deep Transportation 02 Limited Hallelujah! This limited-edition picture disc featuring the remix skills of Mike Huckaby and Kenny Dixon Jr. (Moodyman) is, all told, something to behold. Though the remixes were originally released on the London-based Ferox “techno soul” comp…
Dear Tadd
Funny, Matthew Dear and Tadd Mullinix don’t look like members of a loosely confederated global electronic art-music posse with its sights set on conquering the world. Brushed by midsummer sunshine and a comforting breeze that finds them in this polite corner at the center of the University of Michigan campus, they affect an erstwhile undergraduate…
Discerning drag
Justin Moyer of Washington, D.C., isn’t your average drag queen. Yes, I know every self-respecting drag diva will insist she’s not your average drag queen — honey — but Moyer really isn’t. A soft-spoken, thoughtful, straight musician, Moyer decided to take a step in a new direction when he got fed up with the same…
Rhodes less traveled
This story is the eighth part of our Century of Sound series, tracing Detroit’s musical heritage over the last hundred years. Detroit in 1937 was, like the rest of America, still in the throes of the Great Depression. Nearly half of the work force was unemployed, food lines snaked around blocks, the upstart United…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): "Charles Baudelaire counseled readers to be drunk continually ‘on wine, on poetry, or on virtue, as you wish,’" wrote Kate Taylor in *The New Yorker.* "But he also thought drugs were a perversion of our taste for the infinite and that great minds could furnish their own intoxicants." I’m hoping you’re…
As you like it
Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer … something’s rotten in the state of Denmark … the course of true love never did run smooth … misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows: We all know at least a few of the countless famous phrases penned roughly 400 years ago by William…
Inside Outer
First of two parts Why do it? It is a good question that I can’t completely answer as I pull on my backpack and step off on a 44-mile hike along Outer Drive, preparing to traverse its entire span from the East Side of Detroit to Ecorse. Part of it, I’m sure, is the…
Niagara’s top 100 ever; Detroit rock ‘n’ roll loses yet another
Immortalized? It probably ain’t a stretch to say that Pat Benatar ain’t got nothin’ on Destroy All Monsters/Dark Carnival frontchick Niagara. If you think about it, the two couldn’t be more dissimilar: Niagara is the still-fetching art-skronk chanteuse who could outdo Nico doing Nico, and Benatar is the chipmunk-faced, mall-mom who lucked into a run…
Play it as it lays
Q: I’ve always had a fantasy of playing with the limp body of an extremely beautiful woman who is pretending to be dead. Real death grosses me out. I’ve never had a problem meeting girls, but sometimes I have to visualize my fantasy to stay hard. I achieved my first orgasm watching horror movies and…
Bopping to the top
“We find it hard to stay away from each other,” says Mark Byerly of his band, Bop Culture. The jazz trumpeter isn’t being facetious when he makes this statement; there is a genuine love connection between the members of his band — and no, there’s nothing romantic or seedy about that. It just seems as…
Food learnin’
My mom is a good cook, so I grew up eating well and developed a taste for fine food. In my early 20s, I left the family nest and found myself cooking to avoid restaurant prices. Never satisfied with the likes of TV dinners, I was forced into the kitchen, which I found to be…
Prisoners of convention
I have to admit two shocking things. First, I was wrong about something I told you about the Democratic National Convention, and also, for the first time, I find myself in sympathy with right-wing bashing of the broadcast media. No, I haven’t seen a vision or consumed alcohol out of the photocopying machine. Last week,…
N&D Center
Wednesday • 4 Gomez MUSIC Having maintained a status of relative anonymity in the American pop music market over the years, Gomez has had the luxury of being a band that answers to no one. In fact, it’s probably this gang’s average-Joe mien has kept it wavering in underground godhead limbo — but for anyone…
History of the mystery
It starts and stops and starts again. It runs north, south, east and west, twisting in long curves and turning in sharp angles. There are residential, commercial and industrial sites, sometimes all within a few blocks of each other. Outer Drive is one bizarre road, stretching more than 40 miles in a jagged horseshoe from…
Numbers game
Someone over at the Free Press apparently wasn’t paying attention. In an editorial titled “Oil, Cars, Jobs” the paper’s opinioneers last week reiterated a months-old Republican claim that Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry’s plan to raise fuel efficiency standards would cost Michigan 105,000 jobs. That assertion — first reported in April by various media, including…
Absolute power corrupts absolutely
We were fascinated to see Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick onstage with U.S. Sen. John Kerry et al. just after the nominee delivered his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention last week. The Kwamster, clad in one of his signature refrigerator-box custom suits, was chomping on a wad of gum and basking in the euphoria.…
Party on, Darryl!
Searching Detroit for wild times, but skittish about straying too far from the beaten path? Then look no farther than the former Henry’s Party Store, conveniently located at the corner of Philadelphia and John R, one block east of Woodward, in the city’s historic Milwaukee Junction neighborhood. Though the building has been out of commission…
Out of the Shadows
There was a time when a whole slew of albums would regularly come out with a jangling, feel-good positivism that would make you tap your toes and provide an enjoyable listen as you were getting from Point A to Point B. More often than not, these albums didn’t have anything important to say; their only…
Zo! Presents … Passions & Definition
Burgeoning local beat-conductor Zo! has been earning a name for himself of late. The Gorilla Funk Mob affiliate and self-described musical architect offers his newest instrumental project — the sixth installment of the Zo! Presents … series, Passions & Definitions — adding himself to the distinct group of Detroiters making waves within the blacktronica scene.…
Letters to the Editor
Run them out on a rail Re: “Moving to run” (Metro Times, July 28), Detroiters are outraged, and seriously disappointed in the establishment that continually helps to fuel this activity. While it is the right of anyone who qualifies to run, the voters in this district are tired of these antics and are expressing it…
Still quite a catch
Desserts, especially the peach cobbler, are some of the best features of this upscale yet casual fish place. Try the warm chocolate cake with ganache if you’ve got time to wait — it takes 17 minutes to prepare. Other excellent dishes include the salads, bouillabaisse and roast pork loin. A lower-priced lunch menu makes it…
Sonic Revolution — A Celebration Of The MC5
Reunions are too often a knotty proposition; nearly impossible when crucial members are dead. You can never recapture the past. Having said that, reunions work if the intent is to experience the moment, which in its own flawed way can be perfection (which is, after all, the nature of rock ’n’ roll). As Yogi Berra…
Meet the master
In mid-18th century Japan, Seibei Iguchi is a youngish samurai reduced to working as an inventory clerk. Against his will, he is sent to bring back the head of a rebellious samurai. This leads to the film’s tense and unpredictable climax. A crowd-pleaser of a romantic historical drama from an unsung veteran of the Japanese…
The Twilight Samurai
Along with 2002’s MC5: A True Testimonial, Steve Gebhardt’s 20 to Life: The Life & Times of John Sinclair provides a sorely missed piece in American cultural history. Like Terry Zwigoff’s Crumb, a documentary it very much resembles in tone and structure, 20 to Life takes a damn-near mythological public figure and manages to humanize…
The Manchurian Candidate
Would you remake The Godfather or Citizen Kane or Modern Times? No! So why did Demme remake The Manchurian Candidate? Now the enemies aren’t communists, they’re multinational corporations and conservative politicians who are exploiting a group of men unfortunate enough to have been taken prisoner in the first Gulf War. Starring Denzel Washington , Liev…
This So-Called Disaster
A modest documentary for those interested in playwright Sam Shepard, acting or the theater. Focuses on the rehearsals of a new Shepard play starring Nick Nolte, Sean Penn, Woody Harrelson and Cheech Marin. It’s a look at the creative process, but it’s also star-gazing. A somewhat fragmented film that offers glimpses of the process by…
The Village
The movie revolves around a 19th century settlement whose residents have a truce with mysterious creatures stalking the surrounding woods. Joaquin Phoenix, decides to test the deal. That’s when things should get scary. Instead, Shyamalan’s story falters, taking a fairly obvious path. Heck, this film isn’t as scary as some cell phone bills.
