Down tune
Boris Pink Southern Lord Records After eight years of destroying everything in their path, this Japanese band manages here to squish most of their expansive stoner rock-drone sound into 50 minutes. If you’re like most people and don’t know the band, think of them like this: They like to travel to other places when they…
What’s French for ‘air guitar’
Can you release a metal album in 2006 without being “thinking men” or “smirk merchants”? Montreal longhairs Priestess can, and have. Hello Master, the foursome’s RCA debut, presents 12 meaty, booming, acid-blues rippers with nary a wink, nod or prog-guitar-geek aspiration, aiming for the bullshit-less fuckYEAHness of a Motörhead, AC/DC or even a Molly Hatchet,…
Roy Nathanson
Roy Nathanson has been a true champion of new jazz songs, pieces that splice and dice the finger-popping aura of decades past with off-beat lyrics and contemporary touches. He’ll rhyme “reading Herman Hesse” with “my life is a mess,” and never look back. For 1994’s innovative In Love, he and the Jazz Passengers recruited artists…
Across the great divide
Gazing south from Ferndale, at the place where Eight Mile cuts across, there are two ways to look at Woodward Avenue. A visitor from Chicago or Dallas, Seattle or Charlotte, or any number of other American metropolitan regions thriving in the efficient, digitized, quality-of-life 21st century economy might liken the blur of buildings and 10…
Short-circuited?
It’s easy to see how the conspiracy theories got started. The commander in chief is an oilman. His vice president is an oilman. His former chief of staff was a former VP of General Motors. His secretary of state was on the board of Chevron. Is it really a surprise that oil industry profits are…
Sweet prince or stupid patsy?
Q: In my 26 years, I’ve had my fair share of relationships. I’m usually the one spooning up advice to friends hungry for wisdom. Sadly, I’m helpless to aid myself in my current situation. I met this girl four months ago, and she’s “the girl of my dreams.” If you met her, you would know…
Campaign hell
Well, Happy New Fiscal Year! The domestic auto industry eliminated another 47,600 jobs last week (not counting more we don’t know about yet). Michigan still has the worst economy anywhere in the nation, and the Federal Reserve just raised the interest rate, meaning your credit card payments will be going up again. If you have…
Let it Creem
Just when you thought most music journalism had been purged of the sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll that made it so much fun in the first place — that it’s become pure service “journalism” aimed to please publicists and advertisers and not many others — get fucked, drop a pill and think again: The…
Comics
The Boiling Point – by Mikhaela Reid The Perry Bible Fellowship – by Nicholas Gurewitch
Food Stuff
Full plates for local foodies.
Homeland absurdity
The Kingdom of Elgaland-Vargaland, Britnish Virgin Islands, Principality of Sealand, The New Free State of Caroline, NSK, The Kingdom of Fusia, The Empire Of Atlantum, Hutt River Province, Kymerica, SoS (State of Sabotage), Transnational Republic, Slipperica, Calisota, Winnemac, Molvania, Granstork, Narnia, Belka, Elbonia, Freedonia, Cockaigne. Newly formed pixilated states of unfamiliar origin with a Q-tip…
In a word
Four letters: Seinfeld’s “____, that and the other thing.” (THIS) Five letters: Wordplay charades category. (MOVIE) Five letters: Kind of queens. (DRAGS)
Jeffrey Morgan’s Media Blackout
MB1776: Love it or leave it! Neil Young – Living With War (Reprise) :: Commie. Dixie Chicks – Taking The Long Way (Open Wide) :: Pinko. John Wayne – America, Why I Love Her (MPI) :: Patriot. SIZZLING PLATTERS OF THE WEEK: Dave Rave – Anthology: Volumes 1 & 2 (Bullseye) :: One night I…
The Devil Wears Prada
Lauren Weisberger’s chick-lit hit The Devil Wears Prada read like one long extended commercial — Givenchy bags, Starbucks lattes, Mercedes convertibles — there was nary a page in the book that didn’t have a brand name splashed across it. Furthermore, it featured what seems to be the quintessential chick lit "heroine" — a whiny, self-obsessed…
Beyond pepperoni
The flavors at Crust are a revelation — not to mention the wines chosen to go along with them. Lots of people pick up a pizza after work, and maybe a six-pack. For not a lot more money, you can have more fun at Crust, where the “Naples classics” attest to the Neapolitan way of…
Our Cup runneth over
So are you soccer-mad yet? Or just pissed-off? World Cup 2006, the international sporting spectacle that enthralls everyone on earth but us Yanks, sprints toward its quadrennial conclusion at 1 p.m. Sunday with the championship match on ABC (WXYZ-TV Channel 7 in Detroit). And for the first time, American television has been force-feeding us with…
All’s fair
The phone calls and e-mails start coming in right after Memorial Day: Dear Ms. Doster, My band (or my small business) would like to participate in this year’s Fourth Street Fair. Can you tell me when this year’s event will take place and who I should contact? I wish I could say otherwise, but the…
Art Bar
American Life in Poetry by Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate, 2004-2006 Some of the most telling poetry being written in our country today has to do with the smallest and briefest of pleasures. Here Marie Howe of New York captures a magical moment: sitting in the shelter of a leafy tree with the rain falling…
Backslash
Plug it in, plug it in — Still curious about the fate of the EV1? You can learn (and bitch) more at ev1.org and saveev1.org. Both are chock-full of information, press clips, background, conspiracy theories, photos of crushed EV1s — it’s a crusty, granola-chompin’ tree hugger’s dream come true. If you’re itching to get off…
Fan the fire
In dramatic lyrics and narratives, Robert Fanning’s The Seed Thieves investigates both the mundane and the extramundane. In varying styles and voices, the poems cover a wide spectrum of imagery, including a man moved to prayer by fireflies, a teenage girl falling from a highway overpass, a drunk circling his lawn in a tractor and…
Head Cheese
The disco hot spots hold no charm for Brian Vander Ark. Older, wiser, and married with kid, the former Verve Pipe leader self-financed his second solo album and recorded it with friends in 11 days. Angel, Put Your Face On is also self-released, available online or at shows only, completing the picture of a guy…
Blacktop down
Environmental report holds bad news for Michigan.
White-in candidate
Candidate hopes to defend Macomb County from “black-power racial agitators.”
Software symphonies
Back in the heady days of the quarter-sucking arcade, video game addicts were enthralled by flashing lights and a steady stream of electronic bleeps and bloops. They were thrilled by the merest hint of music highlighting their digital fantasies. Those ancient cabinets could barely muster a few tinny notes, making for primitive-but-memorable tunes like the…
Night and Day
Wednesday • 5 Wild Summer Nights MUSIC It’s one of the few outdoor summer traditions that Mom and Dad love as much as the kids. Wild Summer Nights at the Detroit Zoo is more than an outdoor concert — it’s a chance for zoo lovers to experience their favorite summer hangout after hours, just when…
Letters to the Editor
Owning up Michael Jackman did an incredible job chronicling the history of the Frank Lloyd Wright house in Palmer Woods (“Wright or Wrong?” Metro Times, June 28), even digging up an architectural student who lived there in the 1980s. But he messed up on describing the new owners. While Norm Silk and Dale Morgan have…
Poetic perseverance
A few weeks ago, on a particularly dark and stormy night, two dozen die-hard fans of the local poetry scene dodged downpours and lightning bolts to take in the monthly reading at Zeitgeist Gallery near Tiger Stadium. Among the readers was Chilean native Mariela Griffor, the Grosse Pointe Artists Association poet-in-residence for this year. A…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Three years before Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code came out, my book, The Televisionary Oracle, was published. In it, I riffed extensively on Mary Magdalene’s role as Jesus’s consort, collaborator, and co-creator of Christianity — similar in ways to Brown’s themes. Sales of my tome are approaching 10,000, while Brown’s…
