‘Mike & Molly’ Star Billy Gardell, in Detroit April 12, Stunned by Sudden Success
One last chance. That’s all Billy Gardell was willing to give Hollywood two years ago before packing his bags and returning to the three rivers and Primanti Bros. sandwiches of his native Pittsburgh. Had fate not let him claim the winning ticket to a prime-time TV series, the surprising CBS hit sitcom Mike & Molly…
City Slang: IPO at Paychecks
From Thursday to Saturday, the Detroit leg of the International Pop Overthrow festival takes place at Paychecks in Hamtramck, celebrating the best in (mostly local) pop music. According to the website, “International Pop Overthrow (or IPO, as it has affectionately become known) is a pop music festival which has been held for the past fourteen…
American Reunion
American Reunion C When the first American Pie film became a surprise smash in 1999, the film’s creators thought that they had re-invented teenage sex, and the photogenic young cast was poised to be ruling sovereigns of the new Hollywood. Now, the crew returns a decade later with perhaps one decent film career between them.…
Great Reversals shred, scream; Autism Speaks
Yes, their guitars are aggressive, spark spurting buzz-saws, and the drums sound like zipping avalanches of steel girders, while the howled vocals are croaky, cathartic napalm phlegm and the bass is steeped to a swampy, gurgled murk… But Great Reversals isn’t typical gloom-thunder/destructo-death-metal, no, it’s more of a working man’s post-hardcore shred, amped up in instrumentation and ardent…
City Slang: Mike Watt has a book
I don’t care what anybody says – ever since Mike Watt started playing with the Stooges he became an honorary Detroiter and so he’s City Slang-worthy. He has a new book out, called Mike Watt: On and Off Bass. According to his publicist, “During his time off the road, at home in San Pedro, Watt…
City Slang: John Sinclair’s Music and Arts Festival
The 8th annual John Sinclair Music and Arts Festival takes place on April 20 at the Hastings Street Ballroom / Tangent Gallery, presented by Holice P. Wood. Doors at 3.30 p.m., and cover is $10. According to the release, “Now in its 8th year, the John Sinclair Music & Art Festival has proven to be…
Feng Strung – Reviewing the Review -with the High Strung’s new album
Cliché and hyperbole have drained the power of the music review, in terms of influence or insight. But the might of the music review was also punctured when most-every listener steadily attained the ability to hear most-any album before said-reviews were published – thus the listeners’ minds were already made up. Critics (do they still…
City Slang: Taproot, Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr., Don Was vids on the web
We’re bringing you a bunch of cool video clips today, to prove that it is a Good Friday. First off is the video for “No Surrender” from Ann Arbor nu-metallers Taproot. Watch it here. According to the press release, “Using Chicago as the backdrop, “No Surrender” was filmed by Eric Richter and crew at Victory…
The Raid: Redemption
The Raid: Redemption Written and directed by Gareth Evans. Starring Iko Uwais, Joe Taslim, Yayan Ruhian. Running time: 101 minutes. Rated R. In Indonesian, with English subtitles. B Squeezing a trigger? That’s like ordering takeout. —Mad Dog, Take the closed-set claustrophobia of Die Hard, add the gritty cops versus gangsters nihilism of Assault…
Upbeat Snyder touts deal on city finances
With the Detroit City Council’s 5-4 approval of a “financial stability agreement” with the state on Wednesday, Gov. Rick Snyder told reporters today that it is time to focus on the positive aspects of the deal. Flanked by state Treasurer Andy Dillon and Harvey Hollins III, director of the state’s Office of Urban and Metropolitan…
Guerrilla grammarian’s gripes
We were treated to an interesting tirade on our voice mail the other day. It referred to a small item in our March 21 issue entitled “Online? Sweet!” We were pleased to learn that Sanders Candy now had an online source for ordering. Apparently, this drove one of our readers bananas. He called in and…
Mark’s Carts roll again
Around dinnertime on April 3, only two of the Mark’s Carts food vendors were still toughing it out. But Nick Wilkinson, the owner of A2 Pizza Pi, said that at least a handful of food trucks had braved that day’s storm and the weekend cold to feed hungry customers in the open space just west…
Consider This – (Rock Lottery)
Take every word I write with a grain of salt. Soon enough, this blog post will flake away, lost in the Great Shuffle. (still hidden, somewhere, deep back in the archives, if the hyperlink doesn’t break over time…) I’m tired of being tired with the hyperbole of pundits. I’m not here to sway you, with misued grandiloquence, that…
City Slang: New Jack White video online now
The video for Jack White’s “Secret Saltines”, the second single from his forthcoming debut solo album Blunderbuss, in playing now exclusively at Vevo and JackwhiteIII.com. View it here. According to a statement, “Directed by AG Rojas, “Sixteen Saltines” is a 180 degree turn from the previous “Love Interruption” video, eschewing that clip’s seductive palette for…
City Slang: Chicks rock at the Ritz
The 1st Annual Chick’s Rock – Showcase and Music Festival takes place at the Ritz in Warren on April 28, celebrating female-fronted hard rock and metal band’s in the Detroit area. According to the press release, “There’s a great list of bands taking part in this show including; Cybertrybe, Stealing Betty, Mound Road Engine, Through Our Eyes,…
Rock n Roll Tacos
Other people are out their starting their work days, sipping watery-Folgers out of Styrofoam – and I’m getting metaphorical on greasy tacos. It’s seven in the morning, middle of the working week, and I’m skidding to a stop on sidewalks completely empty save for the garbage truck idling down the street. On my bike ride…
City Slang: “Suzi Quatro” revisited
Monday’s news that Detroit native and England resident Suzi Quatro has had to cancel her highly anticipated DMA appearance after falling from airplane steps in Kiev and breaking her knee and wrist was incredibly disappointing, and only slightly softened by the follow-up news that the Pleasure Seekers and Cradle would be performing without her, replacing…
Moratorium call spreads
News Hits wasn’t sure what to expect Saturday when we dropped in on a national conference being held by the folks from the group Moratorium Now!, a Detroit group fighting home foreclosures and utility shutoffs. Would this, we wondered, be an exercise in preaching to the choir? And there was indeed some of that. The…
Hashing it out
Longtime organizer Adam Brooke won’t be at the 41st Hash Bash this Saturday, but he will surely be in the hearts and minds of many as calls go out to end the prohibition against marijuana. Last year Brooke apologized to the crowd for getting busted. This year he won’t be addressing the crowd because he…
Get yer fanboy on!
Sure, we get a shitload of special-bash mini-festivals in a calendar year — bulging lineups of six or nine bands under one bar’s roof. But here’s one that’s both a birthday party for two singer-songwriters — each of whom split their time between multiple groups — and a mad celebration of Detroit indie rock scene. …
Great Lakes Swimmers – New Wild Everywhere (Nettwerk)
Anyone following Toronto folkie Tony Dekker’s beloved Great Lakes Swimmers project since its inception will face New Wild Everywhere, the first GLS album recorded in a conventional studio, with incredulity that he’d consciously issue something so spectacularly dull. Surely the refurbished lineup and polished setting were distracting him when he declared it complete — or…
From Club Bart to club smart
John D Bistro 22726 Woodward Ave. Ferndale 248-398-4070 johndbistro.com Handicap accessible Sandwiches & small plates: $7-$14; entrées: $15-$29 Open 4-11 p.m. Mondays, 4 p.m.-midnight Tuesdays and Sundays, 4 p.m.-1 a.m. Wednesdays, 4 p.m.-2 a.m. Thursday-Saturday According to its website, John D Bistro aspires to be a place where "liberal arts pioneers, forward thinkers, creatives, musicians…
The GOP’s toxic agenda
For months, while many of us have been understandably obsessed with Detroit, something else has been going on in Lansing, mostly overlooked by the press and people alike. A development, that is, with far-reaching and potentially ominous consequences for everyone in this state: the imposition of a fanatical right-wing agenda by the ideologues now in…
The union’s new face
The new president of the Metropolitan Detroit AFL-CIO, Christos "Chris" Michalakis, stopped by the office of this rag to introduce himself last week. That in itself is a first as we can recall. In our experience, organized labor in these parts has often viewed the media as part of the enemy camp. So Michalakis, who…
Food Stuff
Down the stretch! The Green Dot Stables Lounge was a quirky, horse-themed bar open only on weekdays. When it closed a few years ago, many mourned its passing. The good news is that it’s open again — if only for lunch right now. Jacques Driscoll tells us, "We just opened on Monday, 11 a.m. to…
Letters to the Editor
Media culpa Re: the column on Trayvon Martin ("Boys in the hoodies," March 28), this is the perfect opportunity for the media to ask themselves what they have done to contribute to the perception that young black males are dangerous and to be avoided. Every time I turn on the news, there is more coverage…
Pussy trouble (not that kind)
Q: I have an awesome relationship with an awesome guy. He loves me and takes care of me. I’m GGG and he’s vanilla. I only draw the line at poop, animals and children. But he’s never asked me for anything other than vanilla sex. Which is why I don’t know what to do. I went…
The Red Bird Girls – Very First Time in True Stereo: 1964-1966 (Real Gone Music)
Real Gone Music is a newly minted reissue label dedicated to unearthing the long-forgotten and coulda-shouldas (from the Petticoat Junction Girls to the Mark Lindsey singles), and they’re doing it up like obsessive music geeks. This comp heaves with girl-group beauty; an essential rundown of Leiber/Stoller’s indie Red Bird and Blue Cat labels, which, in…
Ballpark guesses
Just win, baby. That motto, attributed to legendary Oakland Raiders owner Al Davis, is everything a fan could want in a team owner. Despite hibernating during his first decade of baseball team ownership, these days that same motto can just as easily be attributed to Tigers owner Mike Ilitch. With the Tigers already a strong…
My favorite son
My favorite son A big kid and his dad talk baseball, Detroit and a new, Tigers-centric book Review by Scott Harrison The Summer of ’68: The Season that Changed Baseball by Tim Wendel Da Capo Press, $25, 304 pp. Finally baseball is back. The Detroit Tigers will face the Boston Red Sox moneybags. Yeah,…
Candy – Whatever Happened to Fun (Polygram/Rock Candy)
Candy’s 1985 major label album sounds now like a pop-song art project, all Saturday morning sugar highs, major-to-minor tear-jerk riffs and ironic rockstar gestures. Singer Kyle Vincent’s voice could’ve put flutters in girls’ jeans, to be sure, and it would’ve been a radio programmer’s dream — had it been the early ’70s. The band’s named…
Dog days
It’s spring. The robin and cardinal come winging our way. The sun follows us home from work. The crack and roar of baseball return to our town. And with them comes the cry of the hot dog vendor, a sure sign that spring’s in swing. Without fail, we look forward to the snap of a…
D-fining symbol
Chicago isn’t the C. Bostonians don’t live in the B. And if you’re in Philly, nobody’s gonna welcome you to the P. Yet it has become an affectionate nickname for the city of Detroit. And, whether you love it, hate it, or begrudgingly ignore it, the D, as in the very letter, has represented the…
Wrath of the Titans
Wrath of the Titans C+ Starring Sam Worthington, Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes, Edgar Ramirez, Toby Kebbell, Rosamund Pike and Bill Nighy. Directed by Jonathan Liebesman. Written by Dan Mazeau, David Leslie Johnson and Greg Berlanti. Based upon the characters created by Beverley Cross. Running time: 99 minutes. Rated PG-13. Absolutely nobody admits to liking the…
City Slang: Weekly music review roundup
Remember – if you send it, it will get reviewed. That’s the City Slang promise. It doesn’t matter what genre the music is – as long as it has a Metro Detroit connection, it’ll get in. Preferably, we’d like to concentrate on new releases but, while we’re getting warmed up here, feel free to send…
New Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. Video : “We Almost Lost Detroit”
Decked out in Tigers gear and cruising through local landmarks, shops and eateries, Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr.’s “We Almost Lost Detroit” premiered today. Can you spot any familiar Detroiters? “As Detroiters, we are born and bred with a civic pride that we are continually told is somewhat uncommon. We wanted the city, and the people…
