Tossing seeds
An array of Detroit-area DIY promoters have taken the lead in growing noncommercial culture beneath the big-league radar….
Fidel and fastballs
I. It’s hard to imagine a better place to bear witness to history than in the grandstand at Havana’s Estadio Latinoamericano. It’s the bottom of the eighth inning of the Baltimore Orioles’ exhibition game against the Cuban national team, the tying run is at third with two outs, and the mighty Omar Linares Izquierdo is…
Seething and signifying
Two revolutionary dramas resurface at the Zeitgeist Theatre….
Cross-pond traffic
Gomez’s funky ruminations leave Brit-pop in the dust….
More violence against gays
Although crimes against gays decreased in general last year, there was a jump in the number of violent attacks against them, the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs reported last week. The NCAVP, compiling information from 26 community groups across the country, found 2,552 crimes against gays in 1998 compared with 2,665 in 1997. But, the…
Outer space productions
Here’s how one-time fans become music promoters, all for the love of the art….
In one ear
Hell Hath No Fury At last, a band that lives up to its name! The Blaise Sherman Fury furiously rocks out as the star vehicle for outsider-rock maniac Blaise Sherman. Though certainly an unknown quantity in "the scene," ask any Volebeat or member of the Wildbunch and they’ll tell you that Sherman was the original…
The Dreamlife of Angels
Isa and Marie are no angels – they’re just two working-class young women who meet at their job as sewing machine operators in a sort of genteel sweatshop in the French city of Lille. Isa (Elodie Bouchez) seems to be the one to worry about – a gawky waif we first see on the street,…
Feeling uncomfortable? Good.
Very few of us — liberal, conservative, whatever — like having our comfort zones shaken, do we now? Hobbits, Tolkien noted, liked books full of stuff they already knew, set down in print to validate their preconceived notions. Apart from the hair on our feet, we aren’t much different. Recently I wrote a column —…
Netropolis
Date: Spring 1999. Location: The USA The update: At the dawn of the 21st century, genuine Year 2000 bug concerns remain curiously underreported. Instead, traditional media outlets step up their news-lite coverage of Y2Kmart opportunists and the ’50s-style bomb shelter packrats these entrepreneurs inevitably attract. Meanwhile, pro-Web security types brave the storm of the Melissa…
Pitch’d
MY NAME IS … MUD? Well, you can’t make all of the people happy all of the time. Rave promoters BTM Productions have been catching after throwing the Eminem-featuring "True Masters" party a few weeks back — the online backlash has been pretty vehement in calling the party out as nothing more than an Eminem…
Destiny
If you’re looking for a genre-bender about the tribulations of a famous medieval philosopher, chock-full of improbable heroics, ripe melodrama, Socratic dialogues and splashy musical numbers, then Destiny is your film. Concocted by Egyptian writer-director Youssef Chahine, the movie centers around the Andalusian philosopher Averroes who, you may recall, was the author of The Incoherence…
Food Stuff
PUPPY PIG-OUT Quick – name a made-in-Detroit food company that prominently features pig meat. Kowalski’s, right? Or maybe Oinkers, Inc., which has three plants in the Eastern Market area. Oinkers’ "president and head hog" Miles Handy says his top selling item is pig ears. They’re slowly smoked and dehydrated to provide a tough, tan product…
Go
During a 24-hour period, as Christmas Eve slides into Christmas Day, Go follows an interconnected group of young Los Angelenos as their ragtag but comfortable existences are turned inside out. Written by John August and directed by Doug Liman (Swingers), Go is all about forward motion, even when being still might be the best option.…
Guerrilla video
The sharpest critic of any prophecy is time. And "the revolution will not be televised" is shaping up as a keeper. Despite its many telegenic flashpoints of violence and mayhem, history is an evolutionary, not revolutionary, force. For every dream of a new tomorrow like the fall of the Berlin Wall, there is a nightmare…
Ready, set, sustain
If you aren’t familiar with the term "sustainable development," get ready. You’re about to become immersed in the concept. During the first week in May, an estimated 3,000 people from across the country will converge on Detroit for the National Town Hall Meeting for a Sustainable America. Co-sponsored by the President’s Council on Sustainable Development…
No ifs, ands or butts
The tobacco industry’s ongoing targeting of teens got its biggest boost in years from the movie Titanic. Sure, it was historically accurate to show Leonardo’s character puffing away, and Kate Winslet using cigarettes to defy her mother. The message to teenagers? Smoking equals freedom – a windfall for tobacco marketing execs. Today, April 14, is…
Doubts about dump
Despite public outcry, the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality has relicensed a Gibraltar industrial landfill that critics say threatens the Detroit River. The DEQ and the company involved admit there are problems, but say they do not threaten residents or the environment, and that the problems are being addressed. The Gibraltar Landfill, which activists fear…
Never Been Kissed
Never Been Kissed takes the archetypal approach to the high school movie, although it starts off with a premise gleaned from a specific real-life example: journalist turned filmmaker Cameron Crowe’s Fast Times at Ridgemont High, an undercover expose of teenage mores first published in Rolling Stone. Written by Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein, Never Been…
Whose business is it?
Should a property owner be able to refuse to rent to unmarried couples because it violates his or her religious beliefs? As interpreted by the Michigan Supreme Court last December, the Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act bars most Michigan landlords from turning away couples simply because they aren’t married. But attempts to change that are under…
The Green Mile
There are two important points to consider when looking at Frank Darabont’s The Green Mile. The first is that, for some reason, it’s really tough for American movies to be morally instructive and poignant without turning into mundane Hallmark cards. The second is that Stephen King’s large pool of titillating but one-dimensional novels is hardly…
Savory soba soup
Take Sushi is tiny and busy, squished between a Blockbuster Video and a barbecue place in a strip mall. Several varieties of Japanese beer come in 22-ounce bottles and cost $6 each. In the Japanese manner, no desserts are offered. There is takeout.
Twin Dragons
So, let’s see: Under what – ludicrous – circumstances might you go and see Twin Dragons? 1) You’re in Hong Kong during some Great Festival whose name you can’t pronounce and whose significance escapes you, but whose magnitude makes it impossible for you to find a hotel room, so you go to the first drive-in…
Re-Envisioned Davis
Vocalist Cassandra Wilson has reached the apex of her musical brilliance on her new recording, Traveling Miles, a beautiful tribute to Miles Davis that captures the pulse and spirit of his genius. For this date, Wilson wrote lyrics to classic Davis compositions. It’s these lyrics and her eclecticism that make Traveling Miles unlike the typical…
Armenia: Heavenly Duduk / Japan: Master of Shakuhachi
Within the sumptuous tapestry of world music traditions, a thread of solo wind instruments stands out, including the Arabic ney, the shenai from India, the Armenian duduk and the Japanese shakuhachi. Though centered in cultures separated by thousands of miles, the deeply meditative, centuries-old melodies played on these tubes of wood are shot through with…
Raw Rocker Revival
How often does a veteran artist entertain and challenge his audience — and himself — with the style and grace of Alejandro Escovedo? From his 1982 cowpunk cameo with Rank and File, to the rock-cathartic Texas duende of the True Believers, to his willful endurance as a solo artist, Escovedo has carried himself with earnestness,…
Same As It Never Was
Even more of a flight from his avant-garde, wunderkind roots than Bad Timing, Jim O’Rourke’s latest finds the Chicago jack-of-all-musical-trades increasing the level of sophisticated pop in his lush, cinematic arrangements. This record features more of O’Rourke’s singing than previous records, and his voice, combined with his guitar, piano and sensitive ear for session musician…
Fall of Man: Calypsos on the Human Condition, 1935-1941
If your conception of calypso is rooted in the sanitized version of "The Banana Boat Song" that hit the charts back in the ’50s, then this album is bound to be a wake-up call. Calypso music, as in any music of the underclass — be it blues, rebetica or rai — originally dealt with gut-level…
Resolutions
There’s a reason why dance music producers release records under myriad aliases. Artists like, say, Detroit’s Carl Craig, release sometimes disparate, but equally accomplished tracks under different pseudonyms because the DJ-driven dance world counts on certain names to deliver specific styles. Todd Terry, for instance, is the world’s most accomplished remixer, having twiddled knobs on…
Songs From My Funeral
With her husband, Belgian guitarist Michel Delory, Anna Domino leaves her solo artist days behind and embarks on a journey of rediscovery and reinterpretation of classic folk ballads on Songs From My Funeral. These are classic songs: "Tom Dooley," "Black Girl," "Rising Sun" and "This Train I Ride." This, Snakefarm’s debut, is an admiring testament…
