TIME RUNNING OUT FOR RECORD TIME
It’s been hard for “Mom & Pop” record stores to keep afloat in this modern era of iPods and illegal music downloading (or even legal downloading, for that matter!). Hell, it’s been hard for the major chains to keep afloat, as last year’s closing of Tower Records and this year’s closing of several Virgin Records…
THE BLOIDS GET BLENDERED
Congratulations to the Bloids, the Ann Arbor duo that recently competed in Blender magazine’s recent national “Battle of the Bands.” The band actually won the damn thing, with their entered song, “Breakdown Calling,” receiving more than 5,000 votes. The winning band was awarded a headlining slot at this year’s South By Southwest music festival in…
TERRIBLE TED MEETS ELMO…
…but all for a good cause. We’re not always the biggest Ted Nugent fans around here, but fair is fair – and occasionally the Motor City Madman does show his humanitarian heart. The Terrible One has donated his time (he’ll be taking someone hunting – no comment) to JJ & Lynne’s All New Radiothon to…
Motor City Cribs
Found Magazine founder’s Ann Arbor home — and van.
Free heart
“When it comes down to it, I got to make music. It’s something inside of me. I’m going to play it at home or in a club. It doesn’t matter,” says saxophonist Skeeter Shelton lounging in his southwest Detroit home, surrounded by instruments imbued with great sentimental value. His greatest treasure is a set of…
Rocky vs. Rambo
The year 1977 was a good one for old Sylvester Stallone. Rocky had blown up the box office after its release the previous year, offering a saccharine-sweet response to the dark, often nihilistic movies of the time. For Sly’s hand in it, he was nominated for two Academy Awards, Best Actor and Best Original Screenplay…
‘Those who are doing it’
Think for a moment of being 16 or 17 years old in Detroit. Imagine the drudgery of taking a DDOT bus to school and home again every weekday, of returning most afternoons to meet the responsibilities of family life, of finding time to complete your homework while preparing for life after graduation, wherever it takes…
Winter’s here — surf’s up!
Surfing, that sexy sport of washboard abs and bleach-blond hair, sunny blue skies and palm trees, has gotten the proverbial makeunder. Picture instead a head-to-toe Neoprene wetsuit and cloudy gray skies, and you’ve got the picture of Great Lakes surfing. Michigan, having the nation’s second-longest coastline after Alaska, seems a natural place for fresh water surfing…
CREEMed
Last week, we examined the Detroit origins and early history of CREEM, "America’s Only Rock ’N’ roll Magazine." This week, we take a look at a controversial new CREEM book, which has resulted in a battle over the magazine’s legacy between its original ’70s staffers and the crew that ran the magazine in the ’80s…
On the road
Sandra Svoboda is a Metro Times writer. Contact her at 313-202-8015 or [email protected].
Comics
The Boiling Point – by Mikhaela Reid The Perry Bible Fellowship – by Nicholas Gurewitch
Puppy love
Man just can’t help loving dogs and needs advice.
Responsive lovers
1. What’s love got to do with it? Love has nothing to do with it, other than telling your partner that you love what he or she is doing right now! … Nothing at all — love does not exist. It is a fantasy that we tell children, to sell big fluffy gowns and overpriced…
Spaced out
Wyandotte parking ruling raises legal suspicions.
Food Stuff
Full plates for local foodies.
Ritter here
Former UN weapons inspector and Iran expert to speak in Ferndale.
The Bradley effect
Despite Obama’s success, it seems white America still won’t vote black.
CREEM in court
In the civil lawsuit involving Jacob J. Kramer, the son of CREEM magazine’s late founder, and the corporation that now owns the rights to the magazine’s “intellectual property” — articles, photos and illustrations that appeared in the magazine over the course of its 19-year run, as well as the name CREEM itself — one fact…
Jeffrey Morgan’s Media Blackout
Our speed critic thinks fast.
Day-glo prophet
It starts with a buzz — the low drone of an idling amplifier, the steady thrum of a Casiotone. It builds, pulsing, picking up chunks of structure, loose bits of texture, rhythmic silt and pieces of garbled syntax like flotsam. Eventually it breaks, releasing an ecstatic rush, carrying everything ashore over the course of a…
Burning issue
With its lease up next year, environmentalists eye Detroit’s incinerator.
The Awakening
Last summer, Melissa Etheridge looked out at the crowd gathered for the U.S. portion of Al Gore’s Live Earth concert and said, "America, what happened to us?" Coming as it did in the middle of an incredibly moving set, Etheridge’s emotions were palpable. The reactions from the audience ranged from tears to disgust; clearly she…
A Creem editor remembers …
An excerpt from the new CREEM anthology book, America’s Only Rock ‘N’ Roll Magazine There are loads of CREEM stories to tell, such as the time I answered the editorial phone and Billy Joel was on the other end, angry about a caption (“Dating a moron? Why I am!”) that had appeared under a photo…
Letters to the Editor
A taste of the past Just wanted to say that Bill Holdship’s article “Sour Creem” (Metro Times, Jan. 16) was fantastic! His recollection of his first encounter with CREEM magazine and the high value he placed on it while growing up brought back many similar memories for myself while growing up. CREEM remained cool and…
Fast forward
The Best of Gallagher Volume 3 Starz/Anchor Bay For many, the notion of a Gallagher “best of” would seem to be a contradiction in terms. Kind of like “Bob Hope Special.” But admittedly, for thousands of actual fans of the dimpled, mime-outfitted G-man (and, with three volumes out now, he presumably has “best-ofs”), the material…
Turkish delight
Highlighting Turkish fare, diners should find plenty of new choices in this underrepresented cuisine. Try the “mixed Turkish plate,” which includes kadinbudu köfte, hunkar begendi, eggplant kebab and chicken shish. Hunkar begendi is described as “veal stew on a bed of mashed grilled eggplant with béchamel sauce and mozzarella” is smoky and creamy. Kadinbudu köfte,…
Lo-Fi goes hi-tech
Jens Lekman has finally become a professional. After years of churning out lo-fi, sample-heavy pop — and dealing with the legal fallout when people actually started listening to his songs — he’s graduated to the digital age. Gone are the crackling, dusty sounds that imbued songs like "Maple Leaves" with extra charm; now he attaches…
The Bluegrass Sessions
First off, this isn’t a bluegrass record in the traditional sense of the form. No heel-kickin’, white lighting-soaked romps here — just soulful, sad pickers that feature mountain country instrumentation. The Hag makes no attempts to hit the high notes or speed up the licks. No, The Bluegrass Sessions simply remains calm and comfortable throughout,…
The Alchemist
These days, we’ve got plenty of hipster bastards regurgitating ideas from ’70s rock, even though their youthful enthusiasm and $40 haircuts can’t save their worthless bands from falling into a deep abyss of kitsch garbage. But every couple of years, a band comes along that can actually re-create the feel and power of real rawk.…
Cassandra’s Dream
Scotsman Ewan McGregor adopts a proper Michael Caine cockney accent with much greater ease than his Irish co-star Colin Farrell. One is a mechanic who fancies the dog track and the poker table, and the other a restaurant manger with wanderlust and a taste for flashy cars and ladies above his station. Both are in…
Mad Money
The unshakable Diane Keaton stars as would-be thief Bridget Cardigan, breezing through the storyline with a free ease that only comes with years of experience, and large piles of box office receipts to back it up. In support are comedy vets Ted Danson, as Keaton’s laid-off white-collar husband Don, and Queen Latifah as Nina, her…
Persepolis
Teamed with French animator Vincent Paronnaud, Satrapi adapts her two-part graphic memoir into a politically astute yet personally intimate portrait of love, life and rebellion under Khomeni in 1970s Iran. Using 2-D, black and white hand-drawn animation (a rarity these days), the film captures the spirit of its source comic while remaining fluid and expressive.…
27 Dresses
Story features glamour kitten Katherine Heigl and her colorless yuppie pals, nailing all the wedding-fetish points in a predictable, flowery matrimonial fantasia. Thanks to Anne Fletcher’s flat, amateurish direction and limp script by Aline Brosh McKenna, 27 Dresses avoids outright disaster thanks to the appealing cast, headed by the very likeable Heigl, as Jane, a…
Beast of burden
This “Blair Godzilla Project” is a first-person record of a giant monster attack on New York City via “recovered” video footage. Handsome, rakish Rob (Michael Stahl-David) is about depart for a new job in Japan and his hipster pals are sending him off with a fabulous Manhattan loft party. His dopey but sweet-natured best friend…
