City Slang: Motown legend Barrett Strong to be honored in Nashville
The Nashville Blues Society is to host A Tribute to Barrett Strong at BB Kings in Nashville on August 28 at 7pm. The lineup will include John Ford Coley, Sarah Buxton & Dave Pahanish, Markey, Eliza Neals, Jimmy Hall, Mike Farris, The McCrary Sisters, Maria Blues, James “Nick” Nixon & Chelson Strong, and other surprise…
City Slang Reads: Rockin’ Down the Dial
OK – I’m introducing a new feature to City Slang. Every Sunday (news-permitting), I’ll be reviewing a book about local music. As you can see, this will rather imaginatively be called City Slang Reads. The books won’t necessarily be new releases, although they will be where possible. But if, like me, you’re often hankering for…
City Slang: Whet at Smalls
Sometimes, you have to just stand back and admire the spirit of a band. Take Whet, a Redford-based rock outfit playing at Smalls in Hamtramck tonight, the second band on stage of a four band bill. When they take to the stage, the only people in the room, besides themselves, are the sound guy, one…
City Slang: Scott Asheton talks drums
In January of 2010, I wrote a feature on Scott Asheton of the Stooges for Modern Drummer magazine. Here it is in its full, uncut glory. WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT SCOTT ASHETON? With their first two albums, the Stooges redefined rock ’n’ roll and created the blueprint for punk, before slipping away into cult…
City Slang: New Mayer Hawthorne video
Mayer Hawthorne has pieced together clips from ‘80s local public access TV show The New Dance Show to create the new video for his “A Long Time” single, and it’s frankly hilarious. From the awesome wardrobe choices and dance moves to the blue neon in the background, the footage really is quite a find. The…
FlashClash
FlashClash is all ethereal electro pop, but there are hints of Robbie Williams and Phil Collins clashing, as it were, with MGMT, Animal Collective, and Ace of Bass. We spoke with their ever-flashy frontman, Yorg. Metro Times: This press shot promises spectacle. Do you deliver? Yorg: The whole point of FlashClash is to bring an…
City Slang: “Happiness is Being with the Spinners” revisited
The Spinners (known as the Detroit Spinners in the UK, incidentally) formed in 1961 and it was a full 15 years until this album came out. In that time, the band went through numerous lineup changes, they saw Motown leave Detroit and they saw funk emerge as a commercial force. The Spinners kind of adapted…
End of the road for Car City Records
A friend forwarded this message Wednesday afternoon, and a call to the venerable record store in St. Clair Shores confirmed it is closing next month. The e-mail reads: DEAR CUSTOMERS, FRIENDS, AND FANS OF CAR CITY RECORDS. WE REGRET THAT CAR CITY RECORDS WILL BE CLOSING SEPT. 30 AFTER A VERY LONG RUN OF NEARLY…
War and memory
When I was coming up in Flint at the end of the 1950s and beginning of the ’60s, I used to hang out at the legendary Sweetie’s Barbershop in the city’s north end. There my close pal Charles Leonard Boatwright Jr. — better known as Junebug — would be doing hair in the style then…
Teenage graceland
The Myth of the American Sleepover B Remember the impossible and wonderful eternity of teenage summers? Caught on the cusp of adulthood, days filled with torturous yearning, joyous possibility, and so much empty time, neighborhoods became endless landscapes, too small in their familiarity and, sometimes, far too open in their emotional experiences. It was a…
Court tilts right (again)
Michigan’s Supreme Court took the lawsuit filed by a woman raped by a deputy in the Wayne County Jail and used it to rewrite Michigan civil rights law, limiting its protection and assistance for victims. Critics say the ruling vividly demonstrates how the court’s renewed conservative majority is applying its political philosophies to cases they…
Born in Jersey, Made in Detroit
Last Sunday, at the corner of Cass Avenue and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in Detroit, musicians, poets, artists, politicos and friends by the hundreds convened under the very hot sun, to mourn their recently departed compadre David Blair — or, more often, just Blair. They carried instruments of all sorts: tambourines, kazoos, various hand…
Arms around the city
"Could a dream rise up through onion fumes … And yesterday’s garbage ripening in the halls?" —From "Kitchenette Building" by Gwendolyn Brooks If you feel the city lift into the air sometime Saturday, don’t worry. It’s not aliens transporting us to some distant planet. If the city begins to hover, it will probably be…
Too little, too timid
Detroit today has too few people spread too thinly across too many square miles, and not enough money to take care of their needs. Nobody disputes that much. The question is what can be done about it? There are now perhaps no more than 700,000 mainly poor, mainly poorly educated Detroiters rattling around in a…
Pour some sugar …
The Wonder Twins recently hit DTE Energy Music Theatre to relive some childhood joys and horrors with Poison, which celebrated 25 years of big hair/lesbian coifs, leather trou and glittering guitars, wearing more makeup than a gang of tranny hookers. D’Anne: It’s been a dream of mine to go to a straight-up hair metal show.…
Great fare in A-square
$=$5-$10; $$=$10-$25; $$$=$25-$50; $$$$= $50+ Afternoon Delight 251 E. Liberty St.; 734-665-7513; afternoondelightcafe.com; $: Open every day until 3 p.m., serving a variety of creative breakfast and lunch plates to an often — particularly on Sundays — out-the-door crowd. Catering service available. Anthony’s Gourmet Pizza 621 S. Main St.; 734-971-3555; anthonysgourmet.com; $$: The closest thing…
Gorilla’s in the cyst
Rise of the Planet of the Apes C- As a kid who rushed home to catch "ape week" marathons on the tube, I’m of a generation hardwired with a deep abiding love of all things involving talking primates. The original ’68 masterpiece, penned by Rod Serling, with its upside-down world of chimps on top…
Falling downer
As we go to press Tuesday, the U.S. Senate is poised to approve a deal that avoids the calamity of default by raising the nation’s debt ceiling. But the legislation that President Barack Obama is expected to sign before the midnight deadline only adds to the dread we’re feeling when it comes to America’s economic…
Beyond falafel
Yemen Café 8731 Joseph Campau, Hamtramck 313-871-4349 Restroom inaccessible Entrées: $5-$10 Michael Jackman, my editor at Metro Times, recently told me that he eats at the Yemen Café about three times a month. Why didn’t he clue me in? The dishes are different from the usual Middle Eastern fare, you can catch up on your…
A beautiful bore
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan C- Lovely yet tepid, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is as thrilling as staring at an ornate tapestry until your eyes begin to cross — an overload of beauty mingled with stifling boredom. Adapted from Lisa See’s book-club fave about the sanctity of friendship and intimacy, the film…
Gone fishin’
I’ve been writing about television in one form or another since gas cost 93 cents a gallon and The Cosby Show was America’s No. 1 hit. I have watched otherwise sane looking women attempt to beat each other to bloody pulps on national TV while a studio audience roared encouragement. I’ve looked on in horror…
Gorilla’s in the cyst
Rise of the Planet of the Apes Directed by Rupert Wyatt. Written by Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver. Starring James Franco, Freida Pinto, John Lithgow, Brian Cox, Tom Felton and Andy Serkis. Running time: 104 minutes. Rated PG-13. B- Back in 2001, actor Andy Serkis was shorted of a well-deserved Oscar nomination. Never heard of him?…
Trippin’
Hey, everybody: two things … First: Last week, the GOP officially "denounced" me. Because the nation is at peace, Americans are going back to work, and the climate situation is completely under control — so, hey, why not go after the gay dude who writes that smutty sex column and gives Rick Santorum fits? Second:…
Homicide city
Homicide city How come there ain’t more bands like Black Dahlia Murder from Detroit? Look up "death metal" in Wikipedia and it says "an extreme subgenre of heavy metal. It typically employs heavily distorted guitars, tremolo picking, deep growling vocals, blast beat drumming, minor keys or atonality, and complex song structures with multiple tempo changes."…
The Change Up
The Change-Up D+ Raunchy is as raunchy does, and The Change-Up announces its intentions straight away, launching a hot jet of baby poop right at poor old Jason Bateman’s mug in the opening minutes. If that’s not enough to stir you up from your seat, strap in, as the parade of naughty giggles and…
Hold on to yourself
Terri B When making a movie about teenage misfits, it can be tough to steer clear of indie cliché. A well-developed subgenre, there is no shortage of oddball savant stories littering Sundance’s and IFC’s film library. Remarkably, director Azazel Jacobs has delivered a modest and affecting portrait of quirky adolescent alienation that avoids the typical…
Food Stuff
Markets are up The first week of August is National Farmer’s Market Week. While we think a lot of these "commemorative designations" are silly (International Cat Day?), we must admit that early August is a prime time to hit the farmers’ markets that abound in metro Detroit. Not only are the summer crops up and…
Letters to the Editor
Suburbs can’t save Detroit Re: "Titanic’s dance band" (July 13) and Jack Lessenberry’s proposal to merge Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties as a way to save Detroit is creative but unrealistic. Suburbanites have been living near the rotting core for decades with little complaint, and outlying communities — whether cities or counties — have their…
Top 10 Selling Albums at Dearborn Music
The top 10 selling albums last week at Dearborn Music. 1. REM – Life’s Rich Pageant 2. Howling Diablos – Ultra Sonic Gas Can 3. Three Doors Down – Time of My Life 4. Amy Winehouse – Frank 5. Alkaline Trio – Damnesia 6. America – Back Pages 7.…
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…
The old Cass Tech: Leveled to rubble (animation)
The deconstruction machinery — like a long-necked raptor — tore into the last standing ruins of Cass Tech late into the night Monday and beyond midnight into Tuesday morning. The tallest standing remains were an eight-floor section at Cass and the Fisher Freeway. When the supports for the remaining top floor were removed, it crashed…
