IMMEDIATE-AREA ARCHITECTURE BUSTED
Words written on a smoke break by grumpy proofreader Dennis Shea: Standing at the entrance to the Metro Times office, four styles of architecture clang like a millennium bell before you. The Greektown casino and hotel are actually attractive blue vertical blurs. The Blue Cross building and the Monroe Street parking structure are modern light…
What’s in a name?
OK, first of all, don’t blame us. It would seem that, in light of the controversy caused by my Hell Drivers feature from March 17th, the band have decided to ditch the Hell Drivers name completely and quit the “Motor City rock revue” format. Instead, they’ll be going out as the Rockets, the band that…
U-M gymnast finally gets Olympic medal
Elise Ray was alone in her living room when she heard the news: She’s an Olympic medalist. “We’re all thrilled, but it’s just wild that it’s a decade later,” says the University of Michigan alum, who was part of the women’s Olympic gymnastics team at the 2000 games in Sydney, Australia. The International Olympic Committee,…
DEAD WEATHER PERFORMS SOPHOMORE ALBUM LIVE ON MYSPACE THIS MONDAY
Jack White’s other band will be performing their second album, Sea of Cowards, in its entirety live on My Space this coming Monday, May 3rd. The band will perform the album front-to-back in the live room at the Third Man Records building in downtown Nashville, the same space in which they played their very first…
Immigration reform advocates march to Ann Arbor
Chanting “Education not deportation,” a dozen marchers set off from southwest Detroit’s Clark Park Thursday morning, heading to Ann Arbor, where President Barack Obama will speak at Saturday’s commencement. Jose Franco, a 22-year-old Detroit resident, literally wore his status on his T-shirt, which was emblazoned with the word “undocumented.” Brought by his mother to the…
31st JAZZ FEST LINEUP ANNOUNCED
The downside of attending the annual Detroit International Jazz Festival press conference is you have to listen to handful of uninspired speeches from City Council members, and corporate sponsors, babbling about why the jazz festival is relevant. The past two years, for example, a certain council member has recited the same speech, detailing how as…
PONDEROSA STOMP HONORS MOTOR CITY MUSIC, FROM MITCH TO THE GORIES, WITH “THE DETROIT BREAKDOWN”
Anyone who’s attended the Ponderosa Stomp — which used to take place in New Orleans the same week as the Crescent City’s Jazzfest — knows what a total blast it can be, sometimes even better than the Jazzfest itself! Many legendary performances have taken place under its banner over the years, including seminal rock ‘n’…
Metro Retro
24 years ago in Metro Times: "In a large and venerable old laboratory on Woodward Avenue, an experiment is being conducted which will attempt, through recombinant techniques, to graft two previously unmelded properties. They are both uniquely American traditions: bowling and rock and roll," Bob Gordon writes as he describes what was then the Garden…
Night and Day
WEDNESDAY APRIL 28 The Apples in Stereo HEY, JEFF LYNNE … One of the foremost ensembles of the Elephant 6 collective, the Apples in Stereo are revivalists and revisionists (in the best way) of sunny ’60s pop and psychedelia, creating joyful hook-heavy tunes that are both ambitious and accessible. The group released its seventh studio…
Oh, carp!
In the worst-case scenario, all that’s preventing Lake St. Clair from becoming a field of giant jumping carp is some poisonings, a few nets and an underwater Taser of sorts: electric "fences" in Illinois waterways designed to keep the invasive fish from reaching the Great Lakes. Because if they do, according to some scientists’ predictions:…
Out and about
It’s springtime in Michigan. You know the drill. Just when Mother Nature hurls an 80-degree-plus, bust-out-the-shorts day, she decides to plunge you back into the chill for another week. But as we begin our long, slow warming trend, it’s time to start thinking about where to dine al fresco. Don’t like the weather? Wait five…
Contemplating contempt
Although his name never came up, Detroit International Bridge Company owner Manuel "Matty" Moroun got slapped down big time by Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Prentis Edwards last week. The person who did get mentioned by name — DIBC President Dan Stamper — couldn’t have been too happy at the way things played out either.…
Southland
A bluegrass song plays on the jukebox. The banjo and fiddle duel it out. A biker named Spanky waits his turn at a pool game and loudly taps out the rhythm of a washboard beat on his pool stick along with the song. He’s pretty damn good at it too. The bar owner, an old…
Audio junkies unite
There is no mot juste for what drives an audio junky. For some it’s almost sexual, or like a crazy kind of toxic candy that hits the senses from inside the gut and rises slowly, collecting goose bumps along the way, until it sort of erupts in the head and transcends place and time. When…
Chip off the block
Vina Mills sits gazing out the window of the 19th floor of Southfield’s North Park Towers. Usually around this hour, this space echoes sounds of Mills and her backup dancers — the grunts and thrusts of performers rehearsing stage routines. But instead, she’s taking it easy on this Sunday evening, talking to a writer. Mills…
The Back-Up Plan
The Back-Up Plan is so lived-in and familiar that the animated title sequence feels borrowed from a Doris Day movie. Of course Doris Day never began a film with her legs in the air, while being inseminated with designer sperm, but that’s the scenario for J-Lo’s Zoe, a baby-crazy modern business gal with no time…
Snappy answers
Q: I read the letter from the woman who had cheated on her ex and now wants to patch it up. I have a similar situation, except it was my ex-girlfriend who cheated on me. We’d been living together for a few years — we were engaged — and then she suddenly moved out "temporarily"…
The Secret of Kells
Young Brenda (voiced by Evan McGuire) is a carrot-topped orphan living in the abbey of Kells under the care of his stern uncle, the abbot (Brendan Gleeson). Obsessed with protecting his community from brutal Vikings, the abbot has made his mission to enclose the village behind a great wall, and Brendan is forbidden to leave…
Knowing Jack
For Detroit, You Don’t Know Jack, the Kevorkian movie that was first aired by HBO last Saturday was not just a movie. It was a major happening, one especially welcome after the city had been savaged once again by Dateline NBC just days before. Indeed, two days before the saga of Jack the Dripper hit…
The Losers
The “Losers” are an elite black-ops unit who get stranded in Bolivia after refusing an order to waste a cartel hideout staffed with child labor. Left for dead, this smug crew of epic hardasses declares war on the whole C.I.A, and especially their corrupt handler Max (Jason Patric), who himself has gone rogue, trying to…
Going crazy on you!
On Friday night, April 23, the Wonder Twins went to celebrate the glory of arena rock at the Public Pool, although they were surprised to discover that they were neither in an arena nor a public pool. They were at an art space in Hamtramck! D’Anne: First of all, I’m really glad you talked me…
Mid-August Lunch
It’s as if Richard Linklater directed an episode of The Golden Girls in Italian. Simple, plotless and sweet, Mid-August Lunch is really more of a movie morsel than a cinematic meal, too light and insubstantial to offer much nourishment but spiced with just enough taste to be worth a try. It’s the heat of the…
Food Stuff
Big Ten — Ferndale’s Assaggi Bistro marks 10 years in Detroit dining with a special celebration running almost two weeks. May 2-14, you can celebrate 10 years with a four-course prix fixe dinner. It all happens at 330 W. Nine Mile Rd., Ferndale; reservations at 248-584-3499; $25 per person. Mae oui! — For the longest…
A spirited choice
This wine bar in Birmingham may be the best in our area. From its cool cream walls and ceilings, whose main decoration is a large mature grape vine from her vineyard, to the first-rate open kitchen to the knowledgeable and efficient servers, to the exciting collection of 150 varietals, this is all one could ask…
Scale the night(mare)
On a recent weekend night in Detroit, the stairs leading down to the cavernous Studio Theatre on Wayne State University’s campus might’ve appeared cinematically staged. Dank and dark, a chilly wind caressed theatergoers’ necks the whole way down, with soggy moss patches bubbling from the cracked concrete underfoot. After passing through a black iron gate,…
Baroque with backbone
Chamber pop may not be known thus far as Detroit’s musical calling card — but some area bands may begin asking themselves why they hadn’t thought of forgoing their electric guitars for a violin and a cello after hearing the self-titled debut album by the popular Ypsilanti quintet, the Juliets. Produced by Office’s Scott Masson…
Art Bar
Just recently established by 39-year-old Detroit-by-way-of-Japan photog Kyohei Abe (director and chief curator), in anticipation of its inaugural opening, the Detroit Center for Contemporary Photography named the Museum of New Art’s Jef Bourgeau as co-director, and local photographic auteurs, teachers and mind-benders Cyrus Karimipour, Monica Breen and Stephan Loginsky as curators: a promising and impressive…
Masque of Anarchy
The Romeo Flynns appear to have a Beatles dichotomy, even perhaps a bit of a Fab Four identity crisis, going on. The Southfield-based, power-pop trio is positively early Beatlesque in both their fashion sense and overall sound; in other words, their music owes a lot to the mid-’60s British Invasion. But singer-guitarist-chief songwriter Dorian Lawrence…
Drive-in theater
Some film-fests get all the glory. Cannes has glamour, Sundance has power … and Toronto? Well, they’re the largest North American fest and the most widely attended. But ask diehard sci-fi or horror fans what fest turns their cranks and it’s sure to be Montreal’s Fantasia. Started in 1996, Fantasia began with screenings of films…
Smooth Soul Café
This California-born, Detroit-transplanted crooner made a name for himself in 2007, with his self-released debut album, Strawberry Lemonade. With that, Kendricks quickly solidified himself as a soul-man to be reckoned with, and that says a lot considering his last name. With his sequel, Smooth Soul Café, Kendricks picks up where he left off with 13…
Cheat Code
God of War 3 Sony Computer Entertainment PS3 "It’s like God of War, but …" So begins possibly the biggest video game cliché going. That’s what happens when you’re best at what you do, and when it comes to action games, no one does it better than Sony’s premier series. There’s but one God of…
Enter the beard-o
French provocateur Catherine Breillat (Fat Girl) lends dashes of psychosexual anxiety, classism and feminist uplift to this airy remake of the musty old bedtime thriller, though a good dose of surprise and adrenaline might’ve helped. Quietly rebellious budding beauties Anne (Daphne Baiwir) and Marie-Catherine (Lola Creton) are recalled from their stern Catholic boarding school when…
Stronger than tea
Hey, Detroit, help’s on the way. On April 4, a group of progressive activists started out from Mississippi’s Gulf Coast, headed for the Motor City — on foot. They expect to arrive here in time for the June 22-26 United States Social Forum 2010. There’s a group pedaling here from Washington state on bicycles. Motor…
FSI: Fish Scene Investigator
The test that detected Asian carp’s environmental DNA, or eDNA, above the electric barrier in the Chicago waterways leading to Lake Michigan, was developed in the past year by New Zealand scientist Lindsay Chadderton and researchers at Notre Dame. They say this is the first time DNA testing has been used on such a scale…
Letters to the Editor
Bootman! Bootster! Bootmeister! Re: Your article on Bootsey X ("Ballad of Mr. X," April 14), the Boot! Oh, man, first time I encountered this rascal was on a beach on Lake Huron somewhere around 1970. He had his band honking up the street in Alpena. We began yakking about how we were crazed by the…
