Fogerty vs. Willie
IN THE FLESH John Fogerty with Willie Nelson Aug. 18, 2006 DTE Energy Music Theatre It was a nostalgia trip for both of them, but as it turned out, Willie Nelson handled it better than John Fogerty. Opening the evening with a headline-worthy set, Nelson indulged with a gentle retelling of “Always on My Mind,”…
Salve Regina.
If Jamie Kennedy can blow up, then Regina Spektor needs to explode. The singer-songwriter had been known for her downtown performances as part of NYC’s anti-folk scene, as well as for being a FOTS (Friend of the Strokes; she opened for them at the State Theatre a few years ago). But with Begin to Hope,…
Cazwell gets crazy with the cheezwhiz.
Cazwell’s so hot right now, Cazwell. According to the breathless publicity e-mail I just received, the NYC-based queer emcee’s new track “All Over Your Face” is the second-most watched music video on YouTube right now. I don’t know or care about all that, but I will say that Caz has come up with something pretty…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): I was at an airport bookstore. A businessman near me plucked Chuck Palahniuk’s *Haunted* from the shelf and said to his companion, "I’ve heard this book makes some people actually vomit. Listen to this passage." He read it aloud. It was about a guy who eats ten freeze-dried turkey dinners, and…
Ringing true
St. Albertus Fest isn’t your usual music festival. How often do you head to church to drink a few High Lifes, grub on some golabki and listen to hip hop, punk and bluegrass? The event manages to mix the old with the new, supporting and celebrating religion, ethnic pluralism and youthful exuberance while breathing life…
Food Stuff
French teachers — Ann Arbor’s slow-food eatery Eve continues its region-by-region wine tour of France, with an event celebrating the wines of Bordeaux. Subjects will include interpreting labels and delicious food and wine pairings. Wines will be complemented by seasonal delicacies. Led by special guest and local wine guru, Dick Scheer of Ann Arbor’s Village…
Adios, Trino
One night some years ago, when the Horizons in Poetry series was in full swing at Alexander’s, Trinidad “Trino” Sánchez Jr. stepped to the microphone. “Tell it from the panza, Trino,” a member of the packed audience yelled out. He bowed graciously, smiled broadly and proceeded to do just as requested. He read from deep…
Viner ripens
If only someone would write this generation’s Harold and Maude, Mr. David Viner could write the sound track. The 24-year-old Londoner hasn’t the same name cachet that Cat Stevens did back in the ’70s, but something suggests that it’s better that way. It’s easy to imagine Viner’s soft, penetrating voice and nimble guitar-picking guiding us…
Hoagie heaven
Sherri Abbulone, from South Philly, and husband Joey, from Woodhaven, have taken on the challenge of creating authentic Philly cheesesteaks Downriver. In their eight-seat storefront they display a testimonial from a retired Ford employee who moved here 44 years ago; he spent that time vainly searching for a real cheesesteak — until Joey’s opened in…
Head Cheese
On Be Where I Be, Judah Johnson’s latest, Daniel Johnson indulges every whim — unabashed romantic leanings, moody interludes, Bono resets — and still makes something weighty, since the album is so fully formed and gorgeous. It has something for the Tooth & Nail kids, devotees to Andrew Bird, Eno and anyone still trying to…
Making nice, giving advice
Q: I love your column, it’s always a good read. But don’t ya think last week’s column was maybe a bit … bitter? And the one before that? I think you should be allowed to get married, Dan. If a stand-up family guy like you isn’t allowed to marry the man that he’s been with…
Ideal Lives
Ideal Lives moves jauntily with clever hooks and swells, infused with the vivacity that makes post-punk so exciting (and typifies the Frenchkiss roster). But it still sounds like a concept album that wasn’t given enough time to fly. The New York trio has high points in spades — “10,000 Horses” is an anthem with its…
Luna returns to the penthouse
Best of Luna Rhino Lunafied Rhino Digital Tell Me Do You Miss Me Rhino DVD Luna never changed. The band members rotated — original bassist Justin Harwood and drummer Stanley Demeski left, to be replaced by Britta Phillips and Lee Wall — but the music, for the most part, stayed the same. The sound that…
Art Bar
Let Us Stop This Madness by Trinidad Sanchez The bullets from the guns that massacred the invalids in San Miguel, El Salvador, the bullets from the guns that killed the poet in Johannesburg, South Afrika, the bullets from the guns that kill the actors on TV, for no other reason than our own enjoyment, are…
Fly Like an Eagle (30th Anniversary Special Limited Edition)
Steve Miller is omnipresent on classic rock radio, but you probably couldn’t pick him out of a crowd unless he was wearing a Stratocaster and had “Fly Like an Eagle” tattooed on his face. Anonymity is part of his humble omnipotence, which Miller explains on the DVD portion of this anniversary release. Y’see, he needs…
Jeffrey Morgan’s Media Blackout
Treble treble, your bass is a mess! Treble treble, you’ve torn your MB82! Rae Spoon — White Hearse Comes Rolling (Washboard) :: You’ve got this critic in a whirl. I’m not sure if you’re a boy or a girl. Hey babe, you sound alright. Hey babe, you’ve recorded a countrified album that makes Harvest sound…
Backslash
Biking online — So, are you ready to ride? You can learn more about Michigan’s cyclist laws at m-bike.org, which is run by Todd Scott, director of the Michigan Mountain Biking Association. The site contains resources on bike pathways, updated info on new and proposed legislation, photo galleries and links to various Michigan biking e-mail…
The Intelligent Design of Joan of Arc
Obviously a collection of B-sides, bonus tracks, and other assorted odds and ends is the worst entry point for appreciating any group’s regular work. But for Chicago’s post-rock/laptronica technicians Joan of Arc, it’s the perfect litmus test of how much Joan you wanna own. The warble of singer, guitarist and mastermind leaves no room for…
In The Flesh
Fiona Apple is touring theaters this summer, happily removed from the furor that surrounded the leak, remix and eventual, actual release of 2005’s Extraordinary Machine, a controversy that always seemed to me to be driven mostly by Internet nerds. Live, however, Apple’s music is removed from the backstory. She gets ownership of it again and…
Comics
The Boiling Point – by Mikhaela Reid The Perry Bible Fellowship – by Nicholas Gurewitch
The fun in dysfunctional
Sunshine features a motley crew of lovable losers who embark on what seems to be a family road trip destined to rival anything National Lampoon’s Griswold family has endured. The family of misfits races to get their youngest member to the Little Miss Sunshine pageant — and you just know there’s no wee tiara in…
Fairer state
Regular readers of this newspaper are distinguished by a certain sophistication, united by a shared desire to be kept aware of the latest and strangest in the arts and politics. Yet no matter how alertly progressive, black-clad or bleeding-edge hip you may be, you are never, ever, too cool for the butter cow. Not since…
Lower City
Set in the poorest parts of coastal Salvador da Bahia, the film tells the story of childhood friends Deco (Lázaro Ramos) and Naldinho (Wagner Moura) — one black, one white —who make a living ferrying people and cargo up and down the river. When stripper and prostitute Karinna (Alice Braga) books a ride, she pays…
Night and Day
Friday • 18 Purlie THEATER The Mosaic Youth Theatre’s presentation of the award-winning musical Purlie, which is based on the legendary theater and film guy Ossie Davis’ play, Purlie Victorious, should be not only entertaining but edifying. Davis was quoted as saying that he wrote the play to “laugh segregation out of existence” with the…
World Trade Center
Oliver Stone’s true-life, against-all-odds tale of 9/11 survival illustrates the director’s inability to tell a compelling, true-life story without ladling on a million florid, speculative details. The first half of World Trade Center is a fact-based horror show, reveling in mundane details and slo-mo destruction. Port Authority policeman Will Jimeno (Michael Peña) and John McLoughlin…
Letters to the Editor
An expensive lesson I would like to thank Sarah Klein for the article “In too deep” (Metro Times, Aug. 9). I think that debt accumulation in this age bracket is, as the article pointed out, an epidemic. I myself have accumulated $8,000 in student loans in pursuit of an English degree at Wayne State University.…
Step up
Amiably fluffy, bouncy and almost proudly derivative, it seems the makers of Step Up want you to dance in your seat and don’t really care if you’ve heard the tune before, cribbing the too-familiar tale of forbidden love from across the tracks. Channing Tatum stars as Tyler, a tough Baltimore teen who specializes in acrobatic…
Giving up on democracy
Michigan had a primary election last week, and the voters evidently found it a real yawner. Eighty-two percent of us didn’t even bother to vote. Yet the election was significant, because it proved something frightening. Traditional democracy isn’t working anymore. That’s partly because so few of us give a damn about politics these days, or…
We Who Live on Land
“Tracks 6 and 8 are driven by variable-speed Fisher-Price popcorn popper,” the liner notes of Scavenger Quartet’s We Who Live on Land read. Assuming they’re referencing the percolating, wheel-mounted children’s toy, it’s an interesting choice for a combo that also features saxophone, flute, upright bass, Farfisa organ and the various implements employed by leader Frank…
Gag time
Michigan supremes sock it to free speech again.
Big Star Small World
Long ago, tribute records were cast as well-intentioned tributes (duh) to deserving but preternaturally obscure artists; nowadays, they’re just jack-off projects serving the egos of the producers and participants. This Big Star hommage du fromage doesn’t get let off the hook for having originally been assembled back in 1999 (for the apparently now-defunct Ignition label)…
Rail is right
The yellow-and-blue rail cars of the new Ann Arbor to Detroit commuter line slip into the transfer platform at the New Center station. On the other side are the sleek cars of the Woodward Avenue light rail line, with stops every mile or so, taking thousands of passengers to jobs, lofts and entertainment in downtown…
Let it roll
Ok, Detroit is, to utter the obvious, a city rich in car culture and celebrity, past and present. And we figured there’d be no better, simpler way to venerate said qualities than with a column called “Motor City Rides and Cribs.” This weekly piece — to be helmed by MT photographer Doug Coombe — will…
Bittersweet symphony
It sounds unfinished, and I guess that’s the saddest thing. You get engrossed in the brassy, funky “Love Jones” and then it’s over, a minute of inspiration left looking for an emcee. But even though some of it feels like a sketch, as the final proof of J Dilla’s artistry as a hip hop craftsman,…
Pedal power
On one of the most beautiful weekends of the year, Waterford resident Darwin Spaysky dragged his kayak on wheels up Nine Mile Road in Ferndale, bedecked in a snug neon pink life jacket and lime green slacks. Not far behind him, Royal Oak resident Joe Bavonese, who envisioned himself as “Mother Earth” for the day,…
Lee does a heckuva job
Can you believe it’s been almost a full year since Hurricane Katrina blew New Orleans — and our few remaining shreds of national arrogance — to smithereens? Happy freaking anniversary. As a funereal parade of liberal commentators have ruefully noted since the cataclysm, if the present administration can’t protect us from a natural disaster that…
Pep rally. No shirts allowed.
Shirts are a liability to guys like Yesod Williams. He’s the drummer for Pepper, a trio from Kona, Hawaii who’ve enjoyed some modest success over the past few years with Sublime and Bloodhound Gang-inspired singles like 2002’s “Give it Up” (“Why don’t you have some dirty hot sex with me?/It ain’t like I’m asking you…
