TOM FURTAW, R.I.P.: A FRIEND’S TRIBUTE
I guess this is what you could call “irony,” even though it is of the most tragic kind. Last Thursday evening, I received the following e-mail from the local band, Spitting Nickels: We’re really excited about opening for Blue Oyster Cult at the Renaissance Center on Friday (Aug 15th). It turns out that we’re going…
SUMMER SMASH RETURNS…
OK, back to the present…. The Contemporary Art Institute of Detroit (CAID) has announced the return (after a one-year hiatus) of Summer Smash — the popular local music festival that originated in 1999. The three-day event will take place at the CAID next weekend, August 21st through the 23rd, and will be headlined by such…
SUPER SUPERSTAR…
Since we’re on the subject of dead old rock guys, I may as well remain true to my image, and mention that tomorrow, August 16th, marks the 31st anniversary of the croaking of the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll. The only reason I bring this up is I’ve been looking for a reason to post…
FAREWELL TO A GIANT
Wow. We lost an important one today with the death of legendary producer Jerry Wexler, probably one of the 10 most important men in the history of popular music as we know it today (or at least as we knew it in the pre-American Idol era). If you don’t know who he is, do a…
LAND MINES & CONSPIRACY THEORIES
The Kwame Kilpatrick mess is a little like walking through a field littered with landmines. Every day, it seems, there’s another explosion — or two or three. Thursday morning is a good example. What was supposed to be a routine arraignment for defendants Kilpatrick and Christine Beatty to enter not guilty pleas erupted when Judge…
Schoolyard heroes
Joshua Pajak was born to rock. You can see it in the way he punishes his drum kit, throwing every inch of his body into the beat, his 8-year old legs straining to reach the kick drum pedal. The rock is in him, in his overbite — still years from the orthodontist’s fix — clamping…
Food Stuff
Full plates for local foodies.
Jeffrey Morgan’s Media Blackout
You have VHS answers! Jeffrey Morgan’s Media Blackout #184 has DVD questions! Toto — Falling in Between Live (Eagle Vision) :: Why does the singer look like Burton Cummings? America — Live in Central Park 1979 (Eagle Vision) :: Need proof that they’re better than Neil Young? Flipper — Live (MVD Visual) :: Beyond primitive…
Comics
The Boiling Point – by Mikhaela Reid
On the Download
Now that Deastro’s gone all big-band on the scene (with a rumored record deal), it seemed like an appropriate time to virtually visit with some of the ne’er-do-wells that populate that special place of DIY-by-yourselfness, aka the one-man band. (Sorry, ladies, there just aren’t that many examples of the kind of monomania outlined below to…
Body and soul
You can’t miss it. At the junction of I-94 and I-75, the hulking white structure looms mysteriously over the landscape, catching the eye of drivers streaming in and out of downtown. With clean lines, broken only by shattered panes of glass, Fisher Body 21, a former GM-owned factory, stands out. Who worked there? What’s going…
Couch Trip
This spring’s historic Democratic race saw the first front-running black and female candidates vie for the party’s nomination. But in the entertainment industry, such an election must seem like old hat. Progressive movies and TV shows have already given us worlds where African-Americans and women hold the highest office in the country, and nobody would…
Straight talk
She ran out and bought a strap-on, Dan, but I’m not gay!
Griddle fresh
The traditional French pancake gets an American treatment here. Each crêpe takes about two minutes or less, from first careful pouring to the moment it’s handed to the customer. Biggest seller so far among the savories is the “Sarah.” “Vera” combines bacon and spinach with Boursin, and two other savories pile on Black Forest ham.…
Hot-buttered Kwame
Get out the butter because the Kwamster is toast. Friday’s double-whammy of a total ban on travel outside the tri-county area and Attorney General Mike Cox’s announcement that new felony charges are being filed against Detroit’s mayor are the final nails in his political coffin. As far as we’re concerned, the question isn’t “Can he…
Hell Ride
With Tarantino signing on as Larry Bishop’s executive producer, the son of late comedian Joey Bishop gets to show the world that he is a true “grindhouse” filmmaker. Unfortunately, he’s not a very good one. As the writer, director and star of Hell Ride, Bishop skips irony and subtext to deliver a glossy, adoring tribute…
Who’s my daddy?
Larry explores his family saga in new book
American Teen
Documentarian Nanette Burstein tries to capture the complex, real-life dramas of America’s heartland adolescent. And while there’s much to criticize about her yearlong chronicle of Indiana high school seniors, American Teen finds enough genuineness and entertainment to be recommended. Burnstein follows a large group of senior-year teens in Warsaw, Ind., focusing mainly on five kids,…
Sum of our parts
On the media meddling in politicians’ private lives
The humor … the humor …
Tropic Thunder is Ben Stiller’s attempt to grab back some of the comic inspiration of his early cheeky years, taking pot shots at actors, sending up action flicks and mercilessly lampooning Hollywood in general. Stiller plays a solipsistic, semi-literate action movie star Tugg Speedman, who, after his career began to fizzle, disastrously attempted to branch…
Night and Day
WEDNESDAY • 13 THE DUKE SPIRIT BRIT SKIT NUMBER #572 Grungy garagesters from across the pond, the Duke Spirit serves up the rock ‘n’ roll with a touch of Brit charm (but not of the cynics-with-rotted-teeth kind). The band’s sophomore effort, Neptune, shows a primal and raw sound — but good — that has earned…
Up the Yangtze
This film is an incisive and humane look at the emergence of China as a world power through the eyes of those displaced by the enormous Three Gorges Dam. This monumental hydroelectric project is said to be China’s largest feat of engineering since the ancient Great Wall, and it too has great symbolic significance. To…
Spooked
DJ Spooky remixes in Detroit
What’s left?
D. Lawrence Lee is nothing if not ambitious. The package he’s put together for the debut album by his Detroit rock trio, the Romeo Flynns, is the kind of elaborate product (featuring a three-tier gatefold) that most bands don’t bother with in this age of the Internet. He even brought in a member of the…
Motor City Cribs
Some of the Detroit scene’s most spacious sounds have, ironically, been coming out of a modest Dearborn bungalow. Tagged often as “space rock” artists, married couple Windy Weber and Carl Hultgren have been making some of the most gorgeous, lush ambient music — heard anywhere — here for 15 years now. Most probably know them…
The Preface
Always one of the most talented emcees in the Michigan hip-hop scene, Elzhi’s substance-over-style approach has consistently deviated from the mainstream rap environment. When he initially joined Slum Village in the early part of this decade — after super-producer J Dilla went solo — the group was primarily regarded for its soulful backdrops and carefree…
Letters to the Editor
See the errata Since reading Frances Moore Lappe’s Diet for a Small Planet when it came out in 1971, I have wondered why we are still wasting so much of our plant protein on raising animals that may not be so healthy for us to consume in large quantities to begin with. So I eagerly…
Treat Me Right
This third elease from Charlotte, N.C., singer-songwriter Robin Rogers delivers both exciting original content and some well-placed covers. It makes for a cohesive mix of style, substance, soul and chops, something that’s obvious from the time the title track, a lesser-known B.B. King composition, kicks things off in a spirited manner. Rogers’ smoky vocals are…
Method to madness
The theater lights dim and a casual crowd in linen and sandals finds its seats, winding up conversations about cancer treatments that aren’t working and where they’re going for dinner. As rear ends wriggle then settle across the room, images flash onto a shabby curtain: a double-decker bus, anatomical illustrations, Orson Welles, a Chinese emperor…
Blast from the past
All things considered, Republican presidential candidate John McCain could have chosen a better spot than the Fermi II plant in Monroe to reiterate his support of nuclear power as a key component in reducing America’s dependence on foreign oil. Calling for the construction of 45 plants by 2030, McCain told reporters of how he first…
Mystery Meat
Way back in the wintry dawn of the year, attached to a print of the geriatric Rambo sequel, I happened to catch a peek of the trailer for a very intriguing horror picture that essentially screamed “cult classic”. Actually the footage revealed what looked to be a bloody, visually bombastic, but otherwise conventional hack and…
AMY VERSUS JACK!
As we noted a week or so back, Jack White recently wrote and recorded the theme for the upcoming James Bond flick, Quantum of Solace, doing it as a duet with Alicia Keys. The rumor for months, however, was that British rock trainwreck Amy Winehouse (whom we still love to death, as does, not so…
