Jack White’s now a Nashville ambassador
Former Detroit haircut and hit-maker Jack White gets named ambassador to Nashville. The honor is real-deal worthy according to Music City mayor Karl Dean, who presented the award to White on Record Store Day outside his Third Man Records spread. Jerry Lee Lewis (with Jim Keltner, Steve Cropper) played the event. Each year the Nashville…
Awards R us
When it comes to local institutions, the Detroit Music Awards isn’t always the most appreciated. Accused of being insular, cliquish, out of step with the Detroit music scene and, in these pages last year, just not very De-troit, there are plenty of flaws that certainly didn’t disappear at this year’s 20th anniversary event. But the…
Live Review: Black Angels w/Sisters of Your Sunshine Vapor and Suuns. Saturday, Apr. 16 at the Magic Stick
Saturday night served as the gathering place for all the armchair space cadets in the city as Sisters of Your Sunshine Vapor, Suuns and the Black Angels brought the Magic Stick a little bit closer to space. Kicking off the night were Sisters of Your Sunshine Vapor. Sisters are among Detroit’s finest psychedelic bands. Taking…
Live Review: All-Girls Boys Choir/the Banana Convention, Choking Susan and the Questions. Friday, Apr. 15 at PJ’s Lager House
For those who spurned the Detroit Music Awards last night (or those whose wallets couldn’t meet the price) the rest of the city offered, well, just what it offers every Friday night; rock n’ roll furor fermenting around every corner. At least, that’s how it was at PJ’s Lager House. Surprisingly packed considering the wealth…
Detroit Music Awards: And The Winner Is … Nobody Cares
Apparently, a whole lot of bands and artists walked away from tonight’s Detroit Music Awards with, well, awards. I know this because I heard people give muffled acceptance speeches from the stage, and I bumped into Ty Stone who was sat at a table drowning in the five awards that he had hauled up to…
Students, faculty take over Detroit school in protest
(Posted by Heron, written by Simone Landon) About eight students, several faculty members and supporters have taken over Catherine Ferguson Academy in a attempt to save the Detroit public school from closure. Students began their occupation at the end of classes Friday, as the school was let out for a week-long April break. Speaking by…
Le Quattro Volte
Le Quattro Volte GRADE: C+ As an object of cinematic contemplation, Michelangelo Frammartino’s four-handed pantomime is lovely to look at, interesting to ponder, and, ultimately, less profound than it seems to thinks it is. Men, trees, goats and charcoal become stand-ins for the cycles of nature, and we’re asked to watch each in a series…
Meet Monica Velour
Meet Monica Velour GRADE: C+ Monica Velour (Kim Cattrall) was a major adult starlet back in the glory days when porno films had plots and budgets; her finest work probably played in a seedy pre-gentrification Times Square theater seen in Taxi Driver. Of course, in this era of streaming hot-and-cold running smut featuring anal 18-year-olds,…
Scream 4
Scream 4 GRADE: B- "You’ve overthinking it!" "Am I? Or is the person writing this underthinking it?" —Anna Panquin and Kirsten Bell in Scream 4 The original Scream, still the best in the series, is one of those films that’s not quite as witty and clever as it thinks it is (the second act plods…
The Conspirator
The Conspirator GRADE: B- You may be surprised to know that Robert Redford has only directed eight features over the last three decades; though that shock becomes milder when you consider what colossal, thudding bores almost all of those pictures are. In retrospect, it’s easier to admire a film like say, The Milagro Beanfield War,…
Rio
Rio GRADE: B- Fun, sweet-natured and filled with brilliantly colored visuals (apt for its Brazilian setting), Rio is predictable and weightless fluff, a kiddie flick that’s instantly forgettable but far from regrettable. With a handful of Latin-inflected song-and-dance numbers, wonderful aerial sequences (enhanced by 3-D), and a spectacularly exotic setting, the latest kiddie CGI-fest from…
Don Mayberry’s funeral arrangements
Don Mayberry, extraordinary Detroit bassist, died of a heart attack on Monday, according to an e-mail circulated by his friends and collaborators Spencer and Barbara Barefield. The bassist, 60, played frequently with Spencer, and appeared the Palmer Woods Music in Homes series the Barefields have coordinated for a number of years. In a synopsis of…
New D12 Mixtape + Marshall Mathers News
One gets the sense that D12 and Shady Records are gearing up for a big year in 2011. Eminem just released a fire-y single with his old friend and current labelmate Royce Da 5’9″ called “Writers Block” that gained a decent buzz on the internet. And Royce’s Slaughterhouse group, which is signed to Shady Records,…
Monogamously correct
Q: My wife and I click on just about every level — parenting, money, religion, politics, etc. — except for sex. After our last child was born, my advances were increasingly rejected. In an attempt to avoid pressuring her, I stopped initiating. One week passed, nothing. A month passed, nothing. A year passed, nothing. Depression…
Countdown for Detroit
The numbers are in. The 2010 census sets Detroit’s population at 713,777, about a 25 percent drop. The only other big city to lose a higher percentage of its population is New Orleans, which clocked a 29 percent loss with the help of Hurricane Katrina. We are now the 18th (formerly fourth) largest city in…
Flower power
She unwraps the pink lilies and lays them gently on the table. With a knife she trims one stem at a time, and the discarded pieces fall to the floor. This used to be where she and her family ate together. Now it’s where she works. Patricia Duff and her husband Nat spent a lifetime…
Great expectations
Miguel’s Cantina 870 S. Rochester Rd., Rochester Hills 248-453-5371 eatatmiguels.com The excesses of suburban strip mall restaurant franchises have succeeded in lowering dining expectations. One or two gloomy meals ordered from a glossy and colorful multipage menu is enough to sway anyone with functioning taste buds from taking a chance at suburban dining. So it’s…
I Saw the Devil
I Saw the Devil GRADE: B- Revenge movies follow a fairly elementary arc: Something heinous happens to someone innocent, and then a basically good person is forced to return the evil enacted on them tenfold, at the cost of their own humanity. Hemmed in by structure, such movies follow a curiously reductive double path; the…
Stack ’em high!
$=$5-$10; $$=$10-$25; $$$=$25-$50; $$$$=$50+ Amer’s Deli 312 S. State St., Ann Arbor; 734-761-6000; amersdeli.com; $: For more than 20 years, Amer’s Deli has attracted hungry Ann Arborites with its quality sandwiches and salads. In a coffeehouse atmosphere, you can enjoy their Reuben sandwiches, for which all-kosher corned beef is cooked, sliced and trimmed in-house; the…
Stooge power
On April 19, Iggy & the Stooges will play a benefit in Ann Arbor for late and loved guitarist Ron Asheton, who died in January 2009 at his Ann Arbor home. The reference to the band as "Iggy & the Stooges" is to differentiate from "The Stooges," a band with a sound defined as much…
Hometown heroes
The Detroit Music Awards celebrates a 20th anniversary this week. Determined to mark the occasion, this year’s event will see performances from Mayer Hawthorne, the Insane Clown Posse, Dennis Coffey, the Vandellas, the Polish Muslims, Annabelle Road, Jessica Hernandez & the Deltas and the Motor City Players. Comedian Joe Nipote hosts. No one can argue…
Cheat Code
Killzone 3 Guerrilla/Sony PlayStation 3 Off the bat, this game pushes the limits. It’s a breath of fresh air too, and a reminder that it’s 2011 and time to start living in it. This Killzone, this absolutely violent fun-fest, is killing me, in the best way possible. Blending the correct amount of tactics and features…
They’re not laughing with you …
For three decades we have conducted a massive economic experiment, testing a theory known as supply-side economics. The theory goes like this: Lower tax rates will encourage more investment, which in turn will mean more jobs and greater prosperity — so much so that tax revenues will go up, despite lower rates. The late Milton…
Super
Super GRADE: C With Kick Ass’ unsuccessful attempt to simultaneously deconstruct and pay homage to the superhero flick, it makes twisted sense that someone would try to push the genre into Taxi Driver territory. Too bad Jamie Gunn doesn’t have the postmodern chops to pull it off. Frank D’Arbo (The Office’s Rainn Wilson) is a…
Hash Bash to 420
A long and arduous journey, beginning in London on Feb. 6, has carried me from Amsterdam to Madrid; Barcelona; New Orleans; Oxford and Holly Springs, Miss.; Little Rock and Fayetteville, Ark.; Memphis and Chicago to Detroit just in time for the Hash Bash in Ann Arbor. My colleague Larry Gabriel’s excellent report in last week’s…
Mad at you
Is someone in the boardrooms of NBC Universal still mad about you, Paul Reiser? In the ’90s — as a contemporary of "the greatest television show of all time," according to TV Guide — your sitcom, Mad About You, was kind of a "Seinfeld Lite," a successful, whimsical series set in New York about the…
Awards for MT, Beer & Politics
Regular Metro Times contributor Detroitblogger John was named Journalist of the Year last week by the Detroit Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. The judging committee said Detroitblogger (real name John Carlisle, an editor for the C&G suburban papers for his day job) was responsible for "stories … that no one else bothers to…
Food Stuff
Booze hunt — This week, 29-year-old St. Clair Shores resident Alex Chepeska is off to look for a case of Canadian Club whiskey. Between 1967 and 1991, Canadian Club hid cases of whiskey in some of the harshest and most breathtaking regions of the world, from Death Valley to Loch Ness. The game is called…
Letters to the Editor
Divided we fall In "What the Numbers Mean" (March 30), the usually decent Jack Lessenberry unfortunately stumbles into clearly racist and separatist advocacy. How can Mr. Lessenberry directly imply that "killing Chinese in Korea, not buying cars from Koreans and borrowing money from the Chinese," even partially characterizes Detroit’s "modern-day zenith?" Perhaps Mr. Lessenberry forgets…
In the round
Iggy & the Stooges Raw Power Live: In The Hands Of The Fans 180 Gram Vinyl The vinyl-only Raw Power Live: In The Hands of the Fans captures Iggy & the Stooges’ September 2010 show at the All Tomorrow’s Parties fest in New York. It’s a rather odd situation because, as the title suggests, competition-winning…
Wax prophetic
Last week at the College for Creative Studies Taubman Center for Design Education, a multifaceted event venue, Detroit played host to the Rust Belt to Artist Belt conference. You know, the plotting of our future as — gasp! — artists would have it? More than 400 plugged-in thinkers showed up. Founded in 2007 by a…
Unfair share
Elsewhere in this week’s issue, you’ll find David Cay Johnston’s eye-opening look at America’s tax system. It’s a subject that the beleaguered workers here at News Hits have been giving a lot of thought to lately. It’s a given that life isn’t fair, and we don’t expect that to ever change. What we keeping hoping,…
Jazz Fest 2011: Around the world, out in space
There was a hint of things to come back in January when the Detroit Jazz Festival crew let out a few preliminary names for the 2011 festival, names like Davie Holland, Vijay Iyer, Ivan Lins, Amina Figarova, and triple-dose vocal collaboration of Angelique Kidjo, Dianne Reeves and Lizz Wright (saluting Miriam Makeba, Abbey Lincoln and…
Apollo Brown + Oddisee “The Times”
Detroit producer Apollo Brown has a knack for connecting with other artists and crafting beats that suit their personalities just right. He’s done it numerous times with rappers like Boog Brown, Black Milk, Kool G Rap, Has-Lo, and of course his own group, The Left. This time, he recently connected with Washington D.C. producer/emcee Oddisee…
Bing: Bobb should go
Robert Bobb may — or may not — want to stick around and continue to run Detroit’s public schools. But that’s not what Mayor Dave Bing wants. During a wide-ranging interview last week, I asked him about the controversial emergency financial manager. "He’s made some hard decisions that had to be made, and I respect…
