Cover Story
Metro Times Blowout
It’s that time of year: when some of the most talented performers in Detroit music descend on our metropolitan streets to take the stage at various venues and rock us silly. But this year it’s bigger, longer and better than ever. So we put together a few choice profiles of some of the bands that…
City Slang: Weekly music review roundup
Send CDs, vinyl, cassettes, demos and 8-tracks to Brett Callwood, Metro Times, 733 St. Antoine, Detroit, MI 46226. Email MP3s and streaming links to [email protected]. Despite the fact that he’s still battling with health issues, Bootsey X has a new album out, Women’s Love Rites (Jett Plastic Recordings). Backed by Ricky Ratt of the Trash…
City Slang: School’s in for summer
The Detroit School of Rock and Pop has a camp planned for the summer. They say, “For those who have not been, we spend three “three-week” sessions learning to play in bands, recording in our studio, shooting music videos, learning music theory and arranging, and preparing a show with our bands. At the end of…
Blowout thoughts (and poetry)
Guest blog by Paul Clos (Thursday/Saturday), Anthony Anonymous (Friday), Ryan Roy (haikus) Thursday was a good start to the days of fun ahead of us. It was a good change for me, instead of having practice and drinking until I was in a stupor I got to see other people play until I was in…
Firsts: Blowout
The first time Noah from the Craycrays pinball-punched his body with wild abandon out from the floor-level “stage” inside the Polish National Alliance lounge and into the crowd, it was brief, as a lightning strike, and didn’t cause too much of a mosh-ish dust-up. The second time…during the last song… I’m pretty sure he clocked…
Saturday At The Hangout-The Story Of My Second Blowout w/ Sponge
CrayCray’s at Blowout 16 For my second Blowout, I better understood the happenings in Ham-Town, and (sort of) had a plan to catch as many bands as possible. Arriving at the Polish National Alliance (PNA) hall just short of 9 o’clock, I was able to jump into the middle of Deadbeat Beat’s set, a…
The ladies are painted at Blowout Day 3
It’s very strange to think that the Saturday evening of Blowout is done, and we’re only halfway through this great beautiful thing. Apparently, some people still can’t get a handle on the whole expansion thing and have been clinging to the idea that Blowout is ditching Hamtramck. This weekend proved that nothing could be further…
The Hounds Below on Blowout Day 2
By Will A. Shattuck and Jason Stollsteimer (of The Hounds Below) Paychecks smells like puke And poop. I think the giant pile of orange cones outside the front entrance indicates a recent plumbing malfunction. (Will) Now on to the bands: Nam kook and the typhoon were great. The venue for some reason decided to spend…
Mathias Aduke on Blowout Day 2
My band #2, All The Wild Children played at the Whiskey in the Jar. It was a decent turn out, mostly close friends up front, and definitely a good energy. The sound was rough, as it was just a tiny “vocals only PA”, but we made it work. We played a new tune, tentatively titled…
Riffs, rap and bellies at Blowout day 2
The best laid plans and all that. When I get to the PNA tonight at 9pm to see out-of-towners Hunters, the first noticeable thing is that they aren’t in fact a two-piece, as I wrote in the blurb guide in the paper. Doh! To be fair, their press pics are deceiving and so many bands…
Film Review: The Numbers Station
The Numbers Station| C John Cusack has always radiated an air of detached, cynical wit, like he’s constantly preparing a lacerating quip and a swift exit from any situation. In the curiously nondescript The Numbers Station, Cusack exudes little more than undisguised boredom, as if he was waiting for the drab material to catch…
(Running on ) Renewable Energy: Blowout 16
I don’t know what came over me, but by the end of the set I was hanging off the edge of the stage. Bars of Gold — Photo by: Kelly Bennett Part of that was due to the fact that there was no where to stand. Another part of it was that the music was…
Blowout 16 is on
Guest Blog by Frank Woodman (Caveman Woodman) I’m driving down 94 at 90 miles an hour. Just got out of work an hour early and I have Blowout fever. Trying to make Loretta Lucas, I fly up the back stairs of the Majestic with my backpack and have my first beer open before I reach…
Big Guns at Blowout Day 1
Holy crap, last night was good. It’s Blowout time, ladies and gentlemen. It’s the time of year when we get to wallow in Detroit’s gloriously diverse and consistently awesome music scene like pigs in poop, pounding down tune after tune, fearing no consequence. We get to be greedy, gluttonous even, and certainly debauched. The Blowout…
Film Review: Pain and Gain
Pain and Gain | C I SUSPECT THATsubtlety is a word Michael Bay has never stumbled across. Certainly nothing in his film career suggests it. Since his 1995 debut with Bad Boys, the director has been remarkably consistent with his amoral, more-is-more style of filmmaking. Ever-present military hardware, offered as the ultimate expression of…
Film Review: The Company You Keep
The Company You Keep | B- Where’s a Sidney when you really need one? Either Sidney Pollack or Sidney Lumet could have easily injected Robert Redford’s old-fashioned thriller with some much needed snap and suspense. It’s not that The Company You Keep’s mix of ’60s radicalism and crime isn’t solid —in fact, it’s the…
And so it begins
Bars of Gold – Photo by Doug Coombe Hustle and Bustle… The Metro Times’ 16th Blowout Festival kicks-off tonight at the Magic Stick with a fitful, blurring band summit: 20-ish minute sets from 25 bands. Bars of Gold 10:40 PM to 11:00 PM @ Magic Stick – Stage 2 Spread across three stages (including down…
City Slang: DSO tickets on sale
Tickets are now on sale for the Detroit Symphony Orchestra’s summer season, headlined by the “Salute to America” concerts. Other presentations include appearances by Bill Cosby, Natalie Merchant, Yo-Yo Ma’s exciting bluegrass project, and more. They say, “The 21st Annual Salute to America concerts will take place on Wednesday, July 3-Saturday, July 6 at 8:30…
Blowout 16
Kick-off Party – Thursday Night at the Magic Stick (and Garden Bowl) – 4120 Woodward Ave – 25 bands in one night! — Pictured: CAVEMAN LINE UP SCHEDULE VENUES TICKETS Welcome to Blowout… I woke up today wanting to write about it feeling as though there was substantially more excitement being generated by-and-throughout the…
Game of Thrones Power Rankings (Season 3, Week 4)
Episode 3:04 – And Now His Watch Is Ended As Cersei famously said back in the first season, “In the game of thrones, you win or you die.” With that spirit in mind, here’s your weekly look at who’s winning and who got served. Winning! 1. Daenerys Stormborn Targaryen In a…
No Problem
Dear readers: Last week was made of problems. The bombing of the Boston Marathon, the explosion that leveled a small town in Texas, the rising tide of antigay violence in France, the North Koreans being North Korean. And when I sat down to write this week’s column — while the manhunt was still under way…
When the Rizzle is Hizzle
LAWRENCE“KOPELLI” YOUNG thinks some people just don’t know what’s going on here. Sure, Detroit’s music scene is thriving, but the hip-hop emcee, whose nom de guerre on stage is Kopelli, thinks that the casual Blowout fan might be unaware that the “spirit of a new Detroit hip-hop scene has been bubbling for a while.” In…
Food Stuff
FOOD THOUGHT Now Eat This! Italian: Favorite Dishes from the Real Mamas of Italy — All Under 350 Calories by Rocco DiSpirito Grand Central Life & Style, $26.99 Who among us doesn’t love Italian food? And who makes the best? Mama, of course. Now Rocco DiSpirito has created the third in his best…
Grow-town
Detroit’s identity as the Motor City has become bent and rusted over the years. Folks once flocked here to work in the auto industry — that’s how my family got here. Now, young people who come to Detroit say they come because property is cheap, because they want to be artists, to start small retail…
Wolfgang Puck Steak
Wolfgang Puck Steak MGM Grand Detroit 1777 Third St., Detroit 313-465-1644 Handicap accessible Entrées: $31 to $70 Open 5-10 p.m. Sunday-Thursday, 5-11 p.m. Friday-Saturday. Guests must be 21 and older. According to one of the diners in our group, the MGM Grand Casino, in which Wolfgang Puck Steak is located, is the best of…
Film Review: Upstream Color
Upstream Color | B+ Writing about the plot to Shane Carruth’s Upstream Color is a bit of a crapshoot. It’s not because I’ll be giving away any spoilers, but because you will likely think it sounds ridiculous — and I’d hate for that to be your reason to skip this bold attempt to fuse…
Refusing to Rot: The Meatmen
Tesco Vee is not just a pioneer — the leader of the Meatmen made himself the singularity when it comes to shock-rock. Over three decades, this animated agitator ruthlessly discharged the crudest lyrics, with salacious stage shows and devastating satire. Nothing’s been off-limits: From lesbians to disabled children. Giant strap-on dildos adorn fur suits and…
Hamtramck’s humble culinary destinations
DUE TO this week’s Blowout, we’re presenting this handy shortlist of Hamtramck’s humble culinary destinations. They’re uncommonly cheap and sometimes open late. But they can lay the foundation for a night’s drinking, quell late-night hunger pangs, or nourish away that morning hangover. Al-Qamar Halal Pizza 10240 Conant St.; 313-875-5592; $: Even though Al-Qamar is…
Size Queen
Drew Podgorski of the brand-spanking new punk rock titans-in-waiting, Size Queen, is explaining where he and his group got the band name. “I guess it’s a term used in the gay community, a compliment,” he says. “It’s a dude into guys with a big dick. Like, ‘I don’t care what your face looks like —…
Sopping it Up with Sponge
Alt-rock band Sponge formed in ’91 from the ashes of local hard rockers Loudhouse, and they wasted no time in grabbing the attention of the MTV-soaked, grunge-loving, post-metal kids of the era. The ’94 debut album, Rotting Piñata, went gold in the United States and, sung by charismatic vocalist Vinnie Dombroski, the singles “Plowed” and…
Where the Wild Things Are
Take former members of bands like Sharky & the Habit, the Bobby Electric and Marco Polio & the New Vaccines, and the result is the bluesy punk noise extravaganza that is All the Wild Children. We won’t call them a supergroup, but this band has a rich enough local indie underground pedigree to fuel its…
Chest Thumping
Metro Times brought home 13 awards handed out by the Detroit chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists on Wednesday night., April 17, during its annual awards ceremony honoring the best in local journalism. Competing against the city’s major daily newspapers, the paper won first place in four categories. Jack Lessenberry — a former “Journalist…
Snyder’s Heart of Stone
ALMOST A CENTURY ago, Henry Louis Mencken blazed a trail as American journalism’s first great irreverent, wisecracking iconoclast. He was also a cheerfully flamboyant atheist. For a writer to be openly against God back then was as brave as denouncing the psychotic nuts of the National Rifle Association would be for your average senator today.…
The Pipes Are Calling, Danny Boy
Danny Kroha’s work with the Demolition Doll Rods, the Gories and the Readies has earned him a deserved reputation as one of the more fascinating and watchable guitarists in town. The guy’s roots might be planted in a classic, bluesy rock ’n’ roll style, but he’s able to pull and tug at those strings until…
Blowin’ Up!
It’s better. It’s bigger. It’s a lot longer. And it’s going to rock you, sear your eardrums, punish your liver and have you shakin’ your ass for two whole weeks. That’s six nights spread out over three cities and dozens of venues. All of which makes this year’s Blowout our biggest ever. But what makes…
The Rubber Stamp
IT’S NOT OFTEN that the commies at News Hits and the diehard capitalists at Crain’s Detroit Business find themselves in agreement, but that’s what happened last week. Credit for fostering this unlikely concord goes to Detroit Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr and his former law firm, Jones Day. Crain’s weighed in on the issue prior to…
City Slang: Trinosophes this week
On Wednesday, April 24, Trinosophes hosts Spires That in the Sunset Rise. They say, “Using a wide array of ethnic folkloric instruments, Spires That in the Sunset Rise perform psyche-folk with a broad, global awareness of other folk traditions. Covering ground from Appalachia to Morocco to Java, Spires delivers their charming original material in a…
