D-TOWN CELEBRATES JORDAN’S 100TH
One of the forefathers of rock ’n’ roll and R&B is the subject of a salute here in Detroit on Monday. We’re talking about Louis Jordan, who with his group, the Tympani 5, streamlined big band swing into a flashy combo style that sold in the millions in the 1940s and 1950s. Chuck Berry may…
Letters to the Editor
Firearm fracas I can’t begin to express the joy Jack Lessenberry gave me upon reading his diatribe concerning the recent ruling of the Supreme Court (“Shooting straight,” Metro Times, July 2). Whoa, dude! How do you really feel about those evil inanimate objects called guns? Fact No. 1: At the time the Founding Fathers signed…
Winning loser
Company with Michigan connection heads up 2008 corporate Hall of Shame.
Comics
The Boiling Point – by Mikhaela Reid
Celebrity skin
Dave Pounder is many things: a local boy who made a name for himself nationally; an entrepreneur who left the corporate world to follow his passion; a guy smart enough to stay one step ahead in arguably the dirtiest, riskiest end of the entertainment business. Dave Pounder, see, is a pornographer. And no matter how…
The Don Was Detroit Super Session
Don Was no longer requires an introduction in these pages. One of Detroit’s most successful musical expatriates of the last two decades, the producer and Was (Not Was) co-leader returns this week to front an All-Star Detroit tribute at the Concert of Colors. METRO TIMES: So tell us about the origins of the Don Was…
Color us impressed
From Thornetta Davis to Michelle Shocked, from Sista Otis to Brave Combo, the Concert of Colors is a smorgasbord of delights (though there’s bad news in the late cancellation of the Master Musicians of Joujouka). Below are some staff picks for “don’t miss” musical moments. Machito Orchestra 20-Year Reunion Back in the ’50s, when mambo…
Stem-cell spin
Jack on lifting Michigan’s stem-cell research ban.
Night and Day
WEDNESDAY-SATURDAY • 16-19 ANN ARBOR ART FAIRS AIN’T YOUR MAMA’S ART FAIR Sure, the words “art fair” can be worthy of cringes, but it’s not all beaded bags and ceramic geese accoutrements. An amalgamation of four art fairs, this annual event hosts 1,200 artists from around the world and draws more than a half million…
Running a recall
Three women — one white, one black and one Hispanic — lean over a Google map of southwest Detroit that they’ve printed out, marking streets with a yellow highlighter. As the trio devise a plan of attack, five others stand nearby, waiting for their marching orders on a recent Sunday evening. One is a retired…
Smell the sludge
In scandal-plagued Detroit, only the lawyers win.
Pants suit coming?
Flint police’s panties in a bunch over exposed undies
Jeffrey Morgan’s Media Blackout
This is your brain on Jeffrey Morgan’s Media Blackout #180! Alan Davey — Captured Rotation :: (MVD Audio/Hawkwind) :: Hawkwind meets power pop on this catchy pop rock meisterwack. Astralasia — The Hawkwind Remixes (MVD Audio/Voiceprint) :: One good head deserves another and, boy howdy, do they ever find each other in spades on this…
Food stuff
Full plates for local foodies.
Motor City Cribs
Tim Caldwell’s history-crammed Hamtown pad.
Couch Trip
Payday Fantasy Films If you know Rip Torn at all, it’s probably from his genius turn as the profound, profane, blustering producer Artie on the unequaled Larry Sanders Show. And while that sacred bit of TV genius is still pretty much part of the pop culture vernacular (though the HBO show left the air in…
C’est cool!
For Sandra J of the Montreal folk-pop band You & Me, impressions of the Windsor-Detroit divide come from the film Bowling for Columbine. “It’s funny, Michael Moore, I have him in my head. He’s standing in Detroit looking over at Windsor saying, ‘Let’s go over to Windsor! People are so friendly and don’t lock their…
Hooking up
The wages of chastity, falling in love with sex workers, and more.
Wine is fine
Stocking more than 100 bottles, 50 of them for sale by the glass, and serving Italian- and Spanish-influenced small plates designed by chef Nina Scott. The choices range from fresh and chunky gazpacho to the “Cutting Board,” an assortment of salami, prosciutto, chorizo, olives, roasted peppers and cheeses.
Devil’s advocate
If you recall from the last film, macho, cigar-chomping, beer-swilling Hellboy (played by the perfectly cast Ron Perlman) hooked up with his pyrokinetic babe Liz Sherman (Selma Blair) after saving the world from assorted demonic nasties. Well, marriage hasn’t been easy for this mismatched pair, and Liz’s secret pregnancy has her reconsidering their future together.…
My Brother is an Only Child
It’s the volatile 1960s, and hotheaded young Accio Benassi (Elio Germano) is looking for something to believe in and belong to. Smart but violently contrary, In contrast, older sibling Manrico (Riccardo Scamarcio) is the dreamy apple of everyone’s eye. Limited and unreliable but gifted with a silver tongue, he becomes a militant leftist hero while…
All mod cons
Produced by hot beatmaker Danger Mouse and bearing an ominously portentous title, Modern Guilt raises expectations that its creator, Beck, has no interest in living up to. A moody run-through of the thematic preoccupations that have consumed Beck in this new century, Modern Guilt is the shortest album of his almost-15-year career, and the betting…
Meet Dave
When Dave Ming Chang makes his first appearance, crash-landing ostrich-style on Liberty Island then taking his first tentative steps like a marionette being jerked in a dozen different directions. See, Dave is a vessel for Lilliputian aliens who have come to locate an ocean-draining orb that’s fallen into the hands of gawky Josh Morrison (Austyn…
Stay Positive
Rock Aficionados have almost run out of ways to describe the Hold Steady. The Brooklyn (by way of Minneapolis) band is on its fourth disc of brain-y rock, which has referenced everything from Springsteen to Kerouac, with Gibson Les Paul’s cranked to 11. Coming off the terrific one-two punch of their first two albums, the…
Journey to the Center of the Earth
Trevor Anderson (Brendan Fraser) of the Maxwell Anderson Center for the Study of Plate Tectonics is a creature of the lab not fond of scientific fieldwork. But when his sullen teenage nephew Sean (Josh Hutcherson) comes for a visit, Trevor’s forced to confront his lethargy by the memory of his risk-taking brother, and they commence…
COLOR US CONFUSED
First, our State Department banned that possible terrorist Boy George from entering our country last month (hit the link to the video below for a spit-take – literally – from the State Department’s rep at a press conference when the conversation goes from the serious topic of Iraq to the Boy!). Now, they’ve also banned…
CLASSIC DETROIT PUNK IN FRANCE
Detroit expatriate photographer Sue Rynski – now a resident of Paris, France – recently opened a show at the Galerie Nivet-Carzon in that city, spotlighting her classic photos from the Detroit punk scene of the ‘70s, with a special emphasis, of course, on Bookie’s 870. You can watch a video of Ms. Rynski and the…
REUNION FEVER
Black Market — often praised over the years as Detroit’s best reggae band — will reunite for the first time in three years on Saturday, July 26th, at Mario’s in Troy (1477 John R Rd., Troy; 588-6000). All of the band’s original members will be on hand to celebrate the release of two new products…
