LOCAL TIDBITS…
So the Gories reunion — which was rumored to take place at the Ron Asheton tribute at the Music Hall Saturday night — didn’t take place after all. Seemed like a pretty far-fetched rumor to begin with (one wonders how these things get started)…but then former Dead Boy/Rocket From The Tomb guitarist Cheetah Chrome didn’t…
Hotel Blowout
Best news I’ve received all day: Maria Stella’s hard work getting hotel deals for the Blowout has paid off. The lowdown is as follows (per Maria Stella): Holiday Inn Express on Michigan and Washington (Detroit) are going to block off rooms for anyone who wants to stay there for Blowout AND they are going to…
The cult of Snuggie
As we retreat inside for the winter each year, huddling around a nice warm television, there always seems to be one low-budget commercial for mail-order junk that bedevils us night after night. Over the years, we thought we’d seen it all: Clappers, ShamWows, Flowbees, Ginsu knives and Aqua Globes. What we’d give to have all…
MIKE WATT’S RONNIE PHOTOS…& “SECRET” NEWS
Got these via e-mail last night from Stooges’ bassist Mike Watt. Thought they’re definitely worth sharing with our readers. No captions or photo descriptions necessary, at least not in Detroit: Also, it didn’t run in the paper version of this week’s Ron Asheton tribute cover story… but since Tommy Ramone mentioned it in the piece…
Free Press jitters
Folks at the Freep had about 90 minutes of jitters and gallows humor Wednesday after they received an e-mail about Gannett-wide furloughs from CEO Craig Dubow: Today Gannett is implementing a furlough program across all U.S. divisions and at corporate headquarters. This means that most of our U.S. employees — including myself and all other…
TO HELL WITH THE ROCK AND ROLL HALL OF FAME!
Despite what we wrote in this week’s cover story — and despite what nearly everyone with taste and a brain belived — the Stooges did not get into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this year. We repeat, just in case you missed it: THE STOOGES WERE FUCKED BY THE ROCK ‘N’ ROLL HALL…
Oral hex
I was going to start this post with a quip about warning liberals with blood-pressure problems to make sure they’re well-medicated before picking up the February issue of Vanity Fair. But as I thought about it more, it became clear that the health warning needed to be extended to all those who consider themselves to…
Good sports
With its ambitious menu, the Broadcast Booth is more of a restaurant that is also a sports bar. Yes, the busy lounge is dominated by a huge U-shaped bar and scores of TVs; but other areas are sedate and smoke- and TV-free. Only $8.95 will score a “Hat Trick” appetizer composed of four buffalo wings,…
Short Order
Highlights of downtown Detroit’s dining scene
If we rebuilt war-torn Europe … Why not Detroit?
A ‘Marshall Plan’ for Detroit could get things moving
The Wrestler
Rourke’s astonishing turn as Randy “The Ram” Robinson is one of those Halley’s Comet moments, when an actor and role become so intrinsically and profoundly linked that the line between reality and fiction is all but erased. Washed up and living in a trailer in New Jersey (when he’s not locked out for missing the…
Bride Wars
The battling brides at the heart of this matrimonial dramedy aren’t grown-up mean girls, but the kind of codependent best friends whose personality ping-pong would drive a long-running sitcom. Control-freak corporate attorney Liv Lerner (Kate Hudson) and pushover elementary school teacher Emma Allen (Anne Hathaway) have little in common, outside of an obsession with all…
‘Come on, Ronnie, tell em’ how I feel!’
IT WASN’T ALWAYS THIS WAY. Years ago, TV commercials and film soundtracks didn’t feature the guitar sound Ron Asheton pioneered with the Stooges. Even in Michigan, I vividly remember people saying about the Stooges back in the day: “Those guys can’t play!” In fact, when soliciting photos for this piece, we discovered there really aren’t…
Night and Day
THURSDAY • 15 LOCAL NATIVES POMP & HARMONIES If you like the to be the one that heard them first, then check out emerging indie Local Natives. The band’s dulcet tones are arousing much chatter in its native L.A., spurred on by radio play and blogger blow jobs. With rich harmonies, bombastic sound and sparkling…
Comics
The Boiling Point – by Mikhaela Reid
The Unborn
Ann Arbor native David S. Goyer specializes in comic book and horror scripts, with big hits (The Dark Knight) and big misses (Jumper), but as a director he’s 0 for 4, with this latest effort being the rare movie that can rightfully be called an abortion. It’s also rare in its use of Jewish folklore…
Revolutionary Road
Sam Mendes adapts Richard Yates incendiary 1961 novel, re-teaming Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet as Frank and April Wheeler, the seemingly quintessential young ’50s couple, golden and perfect in all ways except those that matter; there’s a glittering facade rotting from within. We get a brief, intoxicating glimpse of their meeting at a party, where…
Lola Montès
Max Ophüls’ overstuffed, magnificently plumed creature Lola (Martine Carol) is a self-made creature, an alluring Spanish dancer known more for her love affairs and ability to stir controversy than for her artistic abilities. Ophüls (Letter from an Unknown Woman) envisions her last act as the star attraction of the Mammoth Circus, a regal yet approachable…
Motor City Cribs
Awesome Color’s Derek Stanton at home
Thug life
One of the film’s producers is Notorious B.I.G.’s mother, Voletta Wallace (played by the always excellent Angela Bassett); another is his manager. Sean “Puffy” Combs (played by Derek Luke) is its executive producer. So Notorious certainly has its, um, point of view (even if one of the funniest lines is when Voletta asks her son,…
Tracing greatness
To help mark the 50th anniversary of Motown Records, we’ve pulled together some of our best pieces ever about the house that Berry built, with pieces about the Funk Brothers, Holland-Dozier-Holland, Dennis Coffey, Renaldo "Obie" Benson, Maurice King, Howard Richard "Pistol" Allen, and more, including Motown’s lyrics, how many of the songs have become standards,…
Wednesday’s child
Standing in his sprawling Hamtramck home and workspace, artist Graem Whyte, 38, is thoughtfully thumbing through a worn blue volume of tiny handwritten lettering. The book’s notes tell the story of Whyte’s brainchild, the This Week in Art series, a weekly event he has curated at Detroit’s Motor City Brewing Works for the last four…
The fossil show
Detroit’s auto event goes on amid dark days
Idol thoughts
By today, most everybody in TV America knows what a Kara DioGuardi is. The fourth, newest, and most inexplicable judge of television’s most popular part-time series, American Idol, made her debut Tuesday as the singfest returned with its hilarious, can’t-miss "cattle call" audition phase in a two-night premiere that concludes tonight (8 p.m. Jan. 14,…
Warren words
Rev. Rick Warren and the ‘saddleback’ saga
Still rolling out
You can’t blame Rochelle Lampkin for being wary.During the campaign to gain public support for the Michigan Medical Marijuana Act, the Detroit grandmother was willing to step up and reveal that she would take a toke or two to deal with the excruciating pain she sometimes experiences as the result of an eye condition associated…
Letters to the Editor
On living without God and schools in crisis
Flip flop flip
Two convicted in questionable verdict fight for a new trial
Still smoldering
Incinerator may not be dead yet
Food Stuff
Full plates for local foodies.
Second to none?
When Kwame a River, the show out at Second City-Novi, opened Dec. 31, local reviewers were understandably enthusiastic. Second City’s reputation for local topical comedy got a boost from the amusing spoof of Kwame Kilpatrick and the text-message scandal. But, lost somewhere in the glowing coverage, was the fact that this is not a Second…
