HEARTFUL OF SOUL
If any Detroit rock fan hasn’t seen this yet, well, it’s spectacular. Everybody on that stage is a rock star. Spotted this going through my YouTube “favorites” list to see what’s still there and what’s (sadly) gone… and didn’t think it was right to have Ted as the first thing on the blog at the end of a…
AREN’T WE PROUD…
…that Terrible Ted ‘s from our great state and so often associated with our fair city? This is kinda scary, actually. Ted likes to kill big animals to prove his manhood and speaks of “sucking” a bit too much in this video for his own good, no? Does the word “latent” mean anything to him? I wonder…
BETWEEN THE BUTTONS
This doesn’t excite me nearly as much…but Scorsese is often great, one of the best. He understands vintage rock ‘n’ roll as well as any director…and has put a ton of money in the Stones’ pockets via years of soundtracks (though he never bettered the use of “Tell Me” in Mean Streets). The band still sounds great live…at…
ZIMMY MAN
Must admit I wasn’t super-thrilled when I heard Todd Haynes was manning the Bob Dylan bio flick. Seems everything in his hands became a gay fantasy of sorts; some of it’s been very good (Far From Heaven, for one). But despite an amazing soundtrack, Velvet Goldmine, his last rock fantasy, was a fictionalized lost opportunity. It didn’t…
WORKIN’ IN THE LAB LATE ONE NIGHT
Detroit’s shock-rockers Crud are headlining the big after-party for the Festival of Fear horror extravaganza in Toronto this weekend. Which means they’ll be playing in front of a lot of heavy hitters in the horror industry. The band also plays Detroit’s own Erotica Ball on September 15th at Bert’s Warehouse Theater in the Eastern Market…
LOTSA LOVE
The online Detour Magazine is sponsoring its own local rock festival launch party September 20th through 22nd. Shows will be at the Magic Stick and Garden Bowl. Co-sponsors include Real Detroit Magazine and MyFox Detroit. Bands include Heroes & Villains, Noisettes and Ko & The Knockouts. The headlining band is the Go. We, of course,…
ROCK STEADY, MON
Pamela Welsh, former cohost of WDTR’s The Reggae Soundblast, starts her own online radio station, broadcasting the music of the Caribbean tonight. The station is scheduled to launch at 8 p.m. tonight…but I’ll be damned if I can tell you where because I just realized she didn’t include that info in her e-mail to me…So,…
AMY WINOHOUSE OR JEFFREY, THE SEER
Our Media Blackout columnist, Jeffrey Morgan (who revealed an infatuation with Dick in this week’s print-issue), wanted to remind us of this (although we truly hope that the 18 month scenario isn’t the punchline to this story; we love Amy…at least I do…) From Jeff: Remember, you read it here first on April 4, 2007:…
Guv picks a winner
Why choosing Ismael Ahmed was a good call.
American pie
Brick Oven serves Italian dishes tailored to American sensibilities, meaning lots o’ cheese, mammoth portions and thick salad dressings, alongside a number of quintessentially American items (burgers, mashed potatoes). Their wood-burning oven gets hot enough to cook their thin-crust pizzas in minutes, and they serve a tender, succulent New York strip covered in heavenly mushrooms.…
Night and Day
Thursday • 23 Dr. Sketchy DOODLEBUG CENTRAL The folks at Dr. Sketchy’s Detroit, the monthly get-together where pad-in-lap sketchers drop in, drink up and draw sassy models from life in saucy poses, is celebrating its one-year anniversary. The anti-art school showcases Detroit’s burlesque performers, belly dancers and charismatic cross-dressers with a three-hour session. Expect fun…
An Arctic Tale
National Geographic gets Disneyfied in An Arctic Tale: Amazing wildlife footage is edited into a kid-friendly narrative of anthropomorphized creatures growing up in the Great White North. It also functions as a cautionary tale about the startling effects of global climate change, made for a generation growing up green. It’s not hard to see that…
Motor City Cribs
Brendan Benson changed horses here.
Dazed and amused
Hollywood’s comedic flavor-of-the-moment, Judd Apatow, 25 year-old Seth Rogan (Knocked Up) and his writing partner Evan Goldberg take the played-out teen movie genre and turn it into something uproarious, insightful and genuine. The leads — shy Evan (Michael Cera) and motormouth Seth (Jonah Hill) — are geeky high school seniors who cling to their friendship…
Posters & posterity
For a guy who describes himself as “chronically unemployed and unemployable,” Gary Grimshaw keeps quite busy. The Detroit artist and former White Panther Party member has traveled in radical political circles since his early years, and is best known for cranking out posters for illustrious rock acts: Canned Heat, the MC5, the Who, Jimi Hendrix…
The Ten
You can’t look away waiting to see where this excitingly weird comedy is heading, even as it’s barreling toward catastrophe. Written by David Wain and Ken Marino and featuring cameos from the rest of the massive cast of former cult MTV sketch series The State, the movie plays like an extended and highly erratic episode,…
Head Cheese
Burning Brides bassist Melanie Campbell takes five.
The Invasion
Every decade or so, Hollywood feels the need to revive Jack Finney’s immortal 1955 sci-fi novel The Body Snatchers, about emotionless alien invaders who secretly replace the public; and sometimes it really works. But this attempt is politically jumbled, and stars the perfectly plastic Nicole Kidman, who carries the burden of keeping the last spark…
Jeffrey Morgan’s Media Blackout
Why our rock critic loves Dick.
Farking with you
Before the advent of eBay, sloughing off one’s unwanted junk on others was a considerably less profitable affair. No guarantees existed that anyone could unload vintage, unworn L.A. Gear hi-tops, California Raisin figurines and Dolly Parton vinyl via a newspaper ad or by setting up shop in a yard sale or on the flea market…
Glow job
Michigan congressman wants billions for nukes.
No End in Sight
A convenient toolkit for future historians, Charles Ferguson’s film shines the high beams on the buildup to war, and the utter chaos in the early days following the invasion. A staggering assembly of talking heads rattles off the mistakes, blunders and utter disregard for reason, logic or outside voices as the administration proceeded to tear…
Letters to the Editor
Corktown’s pitch Your News Hits item “Struck out” (Metro Times, Aug. 1) refers to efforts by the Corktown community to convert much of Tiger Stadium into condos and retail space. Metro Times readers should know that Corktown and its community development corporation, Greater Corktown Development Corpor-ation (GCDC), never gave up on that vision. It’s also…
Death at a Funeral
The humor in Death at a Funeral builds on the appalling circumstances of a funeral at which the wrong body is delivered, a mysterious midget shows up demanding a share of the estate and one attendee is dosed with a hallucinogen that causes him to insist that the coffin is moving. Each of Death at…
Applying for freedom
With his appeals in state court exhausted and a last-ditch motion lingering in federal court, Fredrick Freeman is hoping one other avenue could get him released from Michigan prisons: a commutation or pardon from the governor. He’s one of a skyrocketing number of Michigan prisoners requesting such action this year. Freeman, 44, is 20 years…
Going, Going…Gone!
My predecessor here reviewed this album when it was first released locally. But now that it’s available internationally, with the band recently embarking on a U.S. tour, it might be time for me to weigh in and say, unequivocally, that this is one fine collection of songs. With Howl…, the Go help Detroit to bury…
C’mon, Watusies me
The first time I ever saw Dan Mulholland, he was strolling through the parking lot at Ann Arbor’s Kerrytown shopping district, his long, rangy limbs swinging in a locomotion that suggested Ike Turner or Mick Jagger. It was the early ’90s, and although there were plenty of 40-ish white dudes walking around town that day,…
Bollywood nights
No vivid splashes of pink. No monsoon-drenched damsels. No lab coats, no spicy curry, no “Thank you, come again!” It’s a crowd of popped collars and kohl-rimmed eyes tonight, of diamond nose studs and hair gel en masse. Timid onlookers smoke cigarettes and drink in the scene; a few couples grind in corners, eyes locked,…
Mosaic Select: 28
You may not know the name, but chances are you’ve got Johnny Mercer bouncing around in your skull. “Anyplace I Hang My Hat is Home,” “One for My Baby (And One More for the Road),” “Laura,” “I’m an Old Cowhand,” “Satin Doll,” “My Shining Hour,” “Jeepers Creepers,” “Skylark,” “The Summer Wind,” “Blues in the Night,”…
Deep desire
Uncompromising like Newman’s own Cool Hand Luke, Pharoahe Monch stares down authority, overcomes obstacles and defies expectations. Emerging from an eight-year, contract squabble-induced hiatus, Monch came back with Desire in June, burning with a fresh attitude and renewed focus. He’s under no illusions; he’s been around long enough to have seen how the game works.…
Subcontinental drift
South Asians have been seeping into pop consciousness on this side of the globe. Here’s a refresher of some Western-world “milestones” from the past decade: • In 2000, Jhumpa Lahiri’s collection of short stories Interpretor of Maladies wins the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. The poignant stories center on the culture shock of Indians and Indian-Americans.…
Rap-Murr-Phobia (The Fear of Real Hip-Hop)
Featuring big, soulful beats, courtesy of EPMD’s Erick Sermon, and surprisingly strong guest spots from Tyrese and Method Man, hip hop’s long-standing tough guy throws himself fist-first back into the fray after a four year hiatus with Rap-Murr-Phobia (The Fear of Real Hip-Hop). Despite the title, this is not just another collection of unsubstantiated braggadocio…
Gruff, grouchy & grim
Woman shrieks: Men must earn my love!
A fest reborn
The Festival of India hits Hart Plaza again.
Down Below It’s Chaos
The Seattle quartet’s style of lyric-free, guitar-dense workouts may be labeled avant-rock, but such pigeonholing doesn’t do the band justice, especially for casual listeners who would probably prefer slicing off their own ears over hearing any more terrible avant-rock ever again. Over the course of nine years, the band has fed off feedback aggression and…
Growing trends
Papa Joe’s produce man Anthony Curtis gets fresh.
Comics
The Boiling Point – by Mikhaela Reid The Perry Bible Fellowship – by Nicholas Gurewitch
Cookies
Glasgow’s latest contribution to fun rock pop ‘n’ roll is this trio, which originated as the Yummy Fur, which also had future members of Franz Ferdinand in its ranks. Like Franz, the 1990s celebrate the fun of going out, being with superficial people and, most importantly, taking recreational drugs. Almost every song goes out of…
Ain’t no cure?
Let’s admit it: Summer ’07 has sucked. Few visiting international artists of note have come through town since Memorial Day weekend’s Movement Festival. There are a scant number of venues offering stimulating options for electronic dance music, and nothing earthshaking is being produced or played on the local level. As a result, the kids who…
American Life in Poetry
A poet waits for the subway train.
Heads of State
David Wain and Ken Marino have precision timing. They’ve been pals forever, the kind who finish each other’s sentences and, probably, sandwiches. This synergy helped them create the singularly weird new comedy The Ten, which Wain directed and co-writer Marino stars in. The film is a collection of comic sketches loosely based on biblical commandments,…
Serenity
Though Firefly fans may complain that the show’s beloved supporting players get pushed to the margins, Serenity is filled with enough personal moments, thoughtful plot complications and rambunctious charm that it overcomes its narrative missteps and thumbnail characters.
Food Stuff
Full plates for local foodies.
Girl talk
The air is spiked with a fruity, aerosol stickiness. A dozen or so club chicks are camped in front of mirrors, a midriff-baring, cleavage-boosting throng of highlights and hooker heels. A shelf littered with mouthwash, perfume, Q-tips and hair products sits along the sinks. The latter are a saving grace; flat irons and curlers were…
