CELEBRATING DETROIT WITH SONNY
Caught Sonny Rollins the other night playing his third Detroit-area show this century which is a good way to start any century. Rollins so towers above his sidemen that they can seem like mere foils, space-fillers. But if memory serves well, the group — perennials Bob Cranshaw on bass and Clifton Anderson trombone, plus Bobby…
WTF??
White Stripes cameras? White Stripes cameras??? Just make sure you don’t have one loaded with film near your bed when you’re planning to have sex… We kid, we kid! But I also repeat: White Stripes cameras???? (What’s next? Kid Rock crucifixes?) “Hey, Meg, do you think Doug Coombe will buy one?”
THE MUGGS GO HOLLYWOOD!
If you think you’ve seen commercials on TV lately that featured Detroit’s own Muggs … well, no, you’re not hallucinating. The band was recently picked from thousands of national musical groups to be one of the semifinalists on Fox-TV’s new The Next Great American Band show. Created by the same team that gave the world…
Prints of Persia
As the drumbeats for war against Iran intensify, the question arises, where can we discover truths about that far-off land? From Ari Fleischer and the pro-war moneybags at Freedom’s Watch? From Dana Perino? Get real. Better to gather input from Iranians, an option now auspiciously at hand in an eye-opening exhibit, Persian Visions: Contemporary Photography…
Expletives noted
A tale of two Thomases: Isiah and Clarence.
Putting on blinders
On gently breaking an autoerotic taboo.
Beyond the Rainbow
By now, everyone and their homophobic grandmother knows what to expect when they see a “gay film.” Odds are very good that you’ll encounter a bitchy round table of witticism-spouting guys sipping choco-tinis, a cabal of punky-haired girls strumming acoustic guitars, plenty of John Waters-esque ass jokes, and anywhere between two to 10 superfluous drag…
Bet you didn’t know this
The truth about that budget deal.
Capitol games
Broken Government: How Republican Rule Destroyed the Legislative, Executive and Judicial Branches by John Dean Viking Press $25.95, hardcover, 352 pp. It’s pretty telling that some of the most incisive and brutal criticism of the Republicans these days comes from one of their own. John Dean, former legal counsel to President Richard Nixon, worked in…
Sculpture surge!
As the fall exhibition season begins to unfold, Detroit has an eye-bending array of new public art. These outdoor pieces recently materialized in Detroit’s cultural heart — Midtown — and all are situated within 12 square blocks. Most are temporary installations, split between two- and three-dimensional works in a wide range of mediums — from…
Drag strippin’
The crowd begins to chant, “Diva, diva!” Their hungry screams slice through the vibrating thump of the bass. Red spotlights descend over a glittery black curtain at the back of the small stage, and their voices grow louder. They huddle around tiny, candlelit round red tables, an equal shake of black and white, with just…
Holy light
When the Rev. Charles Morris thought about illuminating his congregation at St. Elizabeth Catholic Church, he decided to do it with solar panels, a wind turbine, compact fluorescent light bulbs and a solar net. Morris, the priest at the Wyandotte church since 1993, believes the faith community has the responsibility to lead the way to…
Comics
The Boiling Point – by Mikhaela Reid The Perry Bible Fellowship – by Nicholas Gurewitch
Sonny’s time
He’s one of the last of the titans who came of age when bebop was young, and he still pursues music with a young convert’s passion. At 77, Sonny Rollins is busy establishing his own record label and Web site, and, most importantly, taking stages to defend his title as one of the greatest improvisers…
DIY Revisited
For a place with an economy in the toilet, Detroit boasts more local record labels than your average American city, with many of them approaching what could be described as “thriving.” And two interesting ones — Ponk Media and Elevation Records — have just recently made an appearance. It’s one thing to have a taste…
Jeffrey Morgan’s Media Blackout
Is that Quentin Tarantino mash-up out of control or what?
Head cheese
Erik Adams and Annie Moss pick their top five Michigan songs.
Food stuff
Full plates for local foodies.
Royal rumble
Revolucha 4 mixes it up at Royal Oak Music Theatre.
King of comedy
D.L. Hughley talks political correctness, Darfur and Isaac on The Love Boat.
New boob stuff
Your TV thinks you’ve been depressed lately. Iraq, Jena 6, Michigan’s fiscal disaster, Britney Spears — the real world has been generating stress relentlessly, and you look like you could use a healthy dose of escapism. That could explain why there’s virtually no standard cops-and-crooks procedural drama among the avalanche of new network offerings this…
Motor City Cribs
Paradime’s Redford bungalow.
The right at work
Rumors of a right-to-work referendum swirl.
Night and Day
Friday • 12 Vampire Lesbians of Sodom BLOODSUCKING VAMPS? NO … Pitted against one another from their first meeting in ancient Sodom, two buxom (in theory only — they’re fellahs in this version) and bloodsucking vamps catfight through the millennia. Ferndale’s over-the-top Who Wants Cake troupe tackles this latest incarnation of the madly popular off-off-Broadway…
No mercy
The mainstream media shines a light on Blackwater USA.
The Jane Austen Book Club
The Jane Austen Book Club falls squarely into the category of the chick flick. Although this label is rather dismissive, what it denotes is an optimistic worldview in which change, no matter how painful, will lead to growth and deeper happiness. And that relentless positivism infuses this Book Club, which follows a half-dozen Sacramento, Calif.,…
Letters to the Editor
Off the Marc I am writing to defend my good friend and fellow legislator Marc Corriveau who was attacked by Jack Lessenberry in his last two columns (“Our sorry state,” Metro Times, Sept. 26, and “Your leaders at work,” Metro Times, Oct. 3). Jack doesn’t know anything about Rep. Corriveau except what he heard from…
The Heartbreak Kid
After spending Valentine’s Day at his ex’s fairytale wedding, the marriage-shy Eddie meets Lila (Malin Akerman) when — in a display of Old World gallantry — he tries to stop a purse-snatcher. Soon, Eddie’s convinced that he’s finally ready to take the plunge by his randy, foul-mouthed dad (Jerry Stiller) and best friend (Robb Corddry),…
Bushwhacker!
Al Jourgensen hates the Bush administration so much that he’s devoted not one but three full-length Ministry albums to shredding Dubya and his minions. The Last Sucker is the final entry in this trilogy (the first two were 2004’s Houses of the Molé and last year’s Rio Grande Blood), and it’s also supposedly the last…
Pete Seeger: The Power of Song
A tireless performer driven to advocate social change through song, folkie Pete Seeger found that the only audience he was allowed to cultivate was children. So he pursued this vocation with the same fervor he’d used to help organize labor unions and support Progressive Party presidential candidate Henry Wallace. Seeger didn’t start a political revolution,…
Federico Aubele
On his sophomore album, Argentine singer-songwriter Federico Aubele revisits the dubby beats and tango rhythms, the melancholic bandoneon and folkloric guitar lines that made his debut popular with hipsters everywhere. In 2006, songs from his Gran Hotel Buenos Aires were as ubiquitous at the neighborhood café and chic lounge as the Diesel-wearing, Marlboro-smoking crowds who…
Way to go, Ohio
Walk into what appears to be a handsome long ballroom in an Italian villa, seating two hundred, and eat traditional classics, beginning with generously proportioned appetizers, and moving on to Milanese veal, gorgonzola lamb chops, lasagna Bolognese, five different cuts of beef or 10 imaginatively constructed pasta dishes.
North Star Deserter
Caught somewhere between the suburban sprawl of Godspeed You Black Emperor’s apocalyptic churn and Son Volt’s eternal midnight highway, the pale ghost of Vic Chesnutt continues to rove like a phantom troubadour. By degrees slightly darker in tone than some of his earlier work, North Star Deserter finds Chesnutt’s trademark sense of humor a little…
Bluefinger
Whatever you may have felt about the Pixies reunion, the return of Black Francis is a comely salve. Frank Black’s alter ego makes his solo debut — “because I couldn’t get the Pixies into the studio,” he sneers in his press clips — and delivers the best Pixies album since Doolittle … at least in…
Guilt by Association
There’s nothing wrong with a well-conceived gimmick. Pop music relies on them. And a good song is a good song. So the idea of taking a group of minor league artists with general critical success and letting them interpret the songs of platinum super-acts with schlocky pedigrees is an intriguing idea and certainly better than…
Venus Doom
Although it’s only starting to penetrate the consciousness of U.S. listeners, the past decade has seen Scandinavia become the not-so-quiet center of the hard rock and metal universe. Once better known in musical circles for the spate of early-’90s black-metal-related church burnings than for any actual music, today’s scene finds bands as disparate as Turbonegro,…
The Horseshoe Curve
Forget that this burst of jazzy free-form instrumentals, which fluently jumps from James Brown to Miles Davis to Herbie Mann to Stereolab, will make you ever forget Anastasio’s decade-plus participation in Phish. No, what’s really important about The Horseshoe Curve is that this is the first iPod Nano-cognizant album ever made. Shrunk down to a…
Turn My Teeth Up!
Once widely hailed as a visionary, hip-hop producer, Prince Paul has lately gone searching for his missing muse. Aside from his second Handsome Boy Modeling School collaboration with fellow producer Dan the Automator in 2004, Paul’s 21st-century output has been riddled with crippling bitterness (the ill-conceived concept album Politics of the Business) and meager tunes…
I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With
I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With is that rare film that shows its insight by what it doesn’t say and do. Jeff Garlin, a gentle, funny, unpretentious bear of a guy, has a film loaded with his friends but a sketchy plot. Oddball characters and narrative detours undermine the film’s modest ambitions. From Dan…
Mescalito
Country music’s true American heritage has recently found itself lost somewhere between American Idol and the commercial hierarchy in Nashville. The modern troubadours are dead. Or are they? Steve Earle just released a spectacular new record. And now, spiritual heir Ryan Bingham is making headway with his Lost Highway debut. Bingham’s definitely a new troubadour,…
The Last Winter
Director Larry Fessenden mines environmental issues to craft a topical story about a research team in Alaska’s Artic National Wildlife Refuge. The team — there to scout oil drilling sites — is leader Ed (Ron Perlman), his former lover and second in command Abby (Connie Britton), newbie Maxx (Zach Gilford) and loopy mechanic Motor (Kevin…
Lifeline
Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals have never gotten their due, even after releasing last year’s exceptional double-CD, Both Sides of the Gun. That release played like an 18-track soundtrack to modern America in which Harper pitted the ideal world he desired for his family against the cynical reality of the Bush administration. Alas, nobody…
Into the Wild
Sean Penn’s adaptation of John Krakauer’s debut novel, following Chris McCandless (Emile Hirsch), a 24-year-old Emory University graduate who dropped out of society, lived as a free-spirited vagabond and ended up starving to death in the Alaska wilderness in the spring of 1992. To some, Chris will come off as a likable but spoiled brat,…
Crisis of conscience
Anne Sundberg and Ricki Stern’s scorching but heartfelt documentary The Devil Came on Horseback not only inspires me to upload my review copy to the Web (I wouldn’t) but to also burn thousands of copies and hand them out at shopping malls and grocery stores. I want to send the film to anyone who’s complained…
The Short Films of the Quay Brothers
Twins Stephen and Timothy Quay, now 60, have been at the vanguard of stop-motion animation since the 1970s. Their movies have a creepy elegance that Tim Burton can only dream of, and eschew narrative niceties for a surrealism that taps right into the unconscious. Certainly, there are times watching a Quay brothers film that it…
The Seeker: The Dark is Rising
The clunky plot centers on extremely average teen Will Stanton, played with extraordinary blandness by Alexander Ludwig. Shortly after his large yuppie family relocates to merry old England, middle child Will discovers he’s actually the 7th son of a 7th son, and as we know from countless stories and heavy metal lyrics; that’s a very…
Three from the Vault
The verdict on the Grateful Dead has been in for years, and it’s one that makes any argument pertaining to the cultural or artistic merits of the band, its music and its fans a moot point. The verdict is this: You get it, or you don’t. Sure, fan conversions happen, but they are a product…
GET WELL SOON, STEVE
Some troubling news. We just received word that Grammy-winning Detroit producer Steve King (best known for his work with Eminem … which, of course, is how he scored the Grammy) has been admitted to St. John Hospital with severe pneumonia. King (who is also a guitar-playing member of the current lineup of seminal Detroit punkers, the…
LAGER HOUSE UPDATE
It looks like the demise of the Lager House as a legendary Detroit rock venue may have been greatly exaggerated, to skewer an old cliche. In fact, the following post appeared on the Corktown club’s MySpace page as of yesterday (cut and pasted below in its entirety with grammar and punctuation as it appears on…
