City Slang: Weekly music review roundup
Send CDs, vinyl, cassettes, demos and 8-tracks to Brett Callwood, Metro Times, 733 St. Antoine, Detroit, MI 46226. Email MP3s and streaming links to bcallwood@metrotimes.com. The Seatbelts’ Joy Ride (Super Torque) contains no surprises for anyone already familiar with the band or indeed anything that guitarist Rick Mills has put his name to in the…
Detroit’s Pension ‘Nightmare’: Salon’s Take
Detroit plays a featured role in a newly posted Salon article appearing under the headline: “Don’t take my pension!: The looming public worker nightmare.” As that headline indicates, the piece by Georgetown University law professor Adam Levitin strikes an ominous tone. Here’s how Levitin sums things up: “What happens to a municipal worker’s pension when…
Engaging Minds, One Dinner at a Time
Meet Leon Johnson | Amber in the City … Meet Leon Johnson. For the past 25 years he has been an educator and an artist – teaching at universities all over the world, including in Maine, Oregon, and Berlin. He came to Detroit three years ago to be the chair of Fine Arts at the College for…
City Slang: Battlecross to tour with Death Angel
Detroit metal heroes Battlecross will tour the country with veteran thrash band Death Angel, says Metal Blade Records. According to a statement, “Battlecross are about to return home from their summer of touring as part of the Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival, but won’t be idle for long. The Michigan-based upstarts will be performing at…
Touch The Clouds – ‘Ara’
“…I see the fading summer light…” Summer’s almost gone and all the big albums seem like they’ve dropped. But, we found one more potential anthem for you before August exits. “Nomads,” off of Touch The Clouds latest EP, finely frames that nervous-energy incited by how fleeting the season’s sweltered, spurring magic can be; edgy…
City Slang: eBay takes down Vile’s Crisco
OK, so apparently the story of former Boners man Jerry Vile’s Crisco can art at Joe Louis’ fist has got legs to go with that big, metal arm. The update is that an auction was placed on eBay to sell the offending Crisco can that the City of Detroit had confiscated like teachers with a…
Film Review: Planes
Planes| C- Movies are made for different audiences, and for a host of reasons, and films that please everyone are rare indeed. I tried to keep that in mind while gazing blankly at this colorful, sprightly and utterly vacuous merchandising catalog in animated form. While I was bored beyond comprehension, my little screening buddy next…
City Slang: DSO going to NYC
The Detroit Symphony Orchestra is going to be performing at the Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall, New York, on September 22. This show follows two triumphant performances at Carnegie Hall during May’s Spring For Music festival. According to a press release, this show is devoted solely to symphonic and vocal works of Chinese-born composer Xiaogang…
Water Woes
“It’s like we’re all on the SS Titanic and there aren’t lifeboats for everyone.” That chilling quote comes from a Detroit resident interviewed for a new report that delves into the issue of water rates and how they are affecting urban dwellers. Titled “Tapped Out: Threats to the Human Right to Water in the Urban…
The Price that Dares Not Speak Its Name
At a medium-scale restaurant recently, our party was asked if we wanted bread. “Yes,” we said, eyebrows raised. Outside Indian restaurants, which charge for naan and papadam, very few places that serve bread don’t just bring it automatically. “It’s to avoid waste,” our server explained—a welcome idea, but one I can’t say is a trend,…
Film Review: Elysium
Elysium| B- Though many pin the blame on the whiz-bang success of Star Wars, Hollywood science fiction films (or, more despairingly, Syfy movies) have long had a preoccupation with spectacle over ideas. Social commentary, high-minded intellectualism and the exploration of what it means to be human tend to be the exception rather than the rule.…
City Slang: Battlecross crashes Billboard
Local metal-heads Battlecross have seen their War of Will album debut at number 134 on the Billboard Hot 200 chart, number 118 on the top current albums chart, number 2 on the heatseeker chart, number 15 on the current hard music chart, number 16 on the hard music overall chart, and number 32 on the…
Film Review: Prince Avalanche
Prince Avalanche| B “Can we just enjoy the silence?!” screams Paul Rudd’s uptight Alvin in David Gordon Greene’s minimalist comedy Prince Avalanche. It’s shouted in reaction to Lance (Emile Hirsch), the feckless brother of his long-term girlfriend, whose very existence is an intrusion on Alvin’s psyche. At first blush, it’s an easy laugh line, but…
Film Review: Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters
Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters| B- While it may not have the incredible roster of top-shelf British thespians that graced the Harry Potter films, this second installment in the Percy Jackson series makes the savvy choice to fill its supporting ranks with dependably entertaining character actors. Stanely Tucci, Nathan Fillion, Anthony Stewart Head and Ron…
City Slang: Cherie Currie talks Detroit
Cherie Currie is best known as the brash, youthful front girl with teen punks the Runaways. She was 15 when Kim Fowley pulled her into that band, and the “Cherry Bomb” single remains a bona fide classic, as does the self-titled debut album. The Runaways split in ’79 and talks of a reunion have been…
Detroit Election: Numbers that Don’t Add Up
By now, anyone who cares at all about Detroit’s mayoral primary knows that Mike Duggan pulled off the improbable and stomped all the competition, even though he ran as a write-in candidate. Given the obstacle he had to overcome, the fact that Duggan easily beat second-place finisher Benny Napoleon would seem to bode badly for…
Logix Plays Lykke Li
Friday, August 9th, 2013 Trinosophes Eastern Market 1464 Gratiot Doors – 9pm ($5) STUDIO REPORT: Eddie Logix Plays Lykke Li Metro Times sat in on a pre-production meeting for a music video shoot, held in studio half-satirically named “The Viper Room,” Eddie Logix’ loftspace studio in Eastern Market, listening to cameraman/director J. Walker…
‘Dumb, Lazy …’ Detroiters
Once the mangy dogs here at News Hits begin chewing on a bone, it can be hard to let it go. Which is why, after last week’sMT cover package about the fishbowl effect Detroit is experiencing as the result of its historic bankruptcy filing, we’re still gnawing on how outside media are portraying the city…
A Haunted House party
Saying that Haunted House writes and records songs is a bit like saying that van Gogh drew sketches — it just doesn’t do the end product justice. You have to delve a little deeper if you, the listener, are going to get everything you can out of the Haunted House experience. Listen to “Shredder (Secret…
Millions for Ilitch but not a penny for Detroit.
Back in the 1970s, we had a governor named William Milliken who understood that Detroit’s prosperity and Michigan’s prosperity were inextricably tied together — and, despite sneers he was the “ghetto governor,” Milliken successfully pushed the state legislature to help the city. And he was a Republican! Today, Detroit is in much worse shape, but…
Letters to the Editor
Dear Editor: RE: “Double Standards, Singular Repercussions”; [Higher Ground, July 31-Aug. 6, 2013] The drug war has been waged in a racist manner since its inception. The Harrison Narcotics Act of 1914 was preceded by a wave of anti-immigrant sentiment. Opium was identified with Chinese laborers, marijuana with Mexicans and cocaine with African-Americans. Racial profiling…
MC FIVE
It’s a marvel Kommie Kilpatrick made it this far! If the local quintet’s music were a car, it’d be an Ed Roth Finkmobile, wreathed in flames, spewing black smoke at 95 miles per hour with its wheels wobbling off the axles, no windshield and certainly no brakes, with suspect steering and the back seat full…
Brothers’ keepers
Q: I’m a 25-year-old male. After a tragic set of circumstances, I am now the legal guardian of my 15-year-old brother. He’s gay. Fortunately, our parents took care of “the talk” and taught him how to use condoms. Unfortunately, he has started dating a senior at his school who is about to turn 18 and…
A Poem for Dreadlock Mike
We were saddened to learn last week about the death of Dreadlock Mike, one of those iconic street people who entertained crowds around Comerica Park. He and another street person, James Van Horn, widely known as the “Eat ’em up, Tigers!” guy (for his mantra cheering on our home team), were reportedly killed by a…
The Detroit Narrative
“There are 8 million stories in the Naked City.” That quote was the tag line for a television cop show that ran from 1958 to 1963. By that kind of reckoning, there should be at least 700,000 stories in the Motor City; but, sadly, there seems to be but one narrative when it comes to…
T-Bones Steak & Seafood
T-Bones Steak & Seafood 23018 Greater Mack, St. Clair Shores 586-776-0062 t-bones.biz Handicap accessible Entrées: $10-$40 (most less than $20) Open 11 a.m. to 10 or 11 p.m. Monday-Saturday and noon-10 p.m. Sunday. A restaurant in St. Clair Shores that’s not on the water doesn’t sound like first choice for a person who doesn’t live…
Food Stuff
SIDE DISH Uncorking in Corktown — There are big changes in the works for our favorite downtown wine shop. Motor City Wine has been in the space above Foran’s Grand Trunk Pub on Woodward for several years now. The shop’s emphasis on wines with reasonable prices and big flavors is a hit, as well as…
The house that Red Bull built
When news broke last year that Red Bull, the Austria-based energy drink giant, was opening an art gallery in Detroit’s Eastern Market, the general reaction seemed to be … huh? Here was a brand more often associated with attaching itself to extreme sports like snowboarding, motocross and other stunts. What did any of this have…
The Fairytale of Tony Roko
A chronicle of Tony Roko’s art career should perhaps begin with the words, “once upon a time” because of the unlikely way it started. At the age of 19, Roko went to work on the assembly line for Ford Motor Company. As a kid, he was always painting and drawing, a habit he took with…
City Slang: New Wolf Eyes vid
A new video from Detroit noise punks Wolf Eyes has been made available via NPR. The video is for the song “Born Liar”, and it can be seen here. According to a press release, “In April, Wolf Eyes released their latest offering of nuclear waste, No Answer: Lower Floors. The album showcased the Michigan’s collective…
‘To Catch a Predator’ TV Newsman Chris Hansen Caught, Released by NBC After 20 Years on the Air
It’s possible that Michigan-born network TV reporter Chris Hansen could have a song stuck in his head today from legendary Motown tunesmith Smokey Robinson: “The Hunter Gets Captured by the Game.” Multiple news sources reported Monday (Aug. 5) that Hansen, a former street reporter for Detroit’s WDIV (Channel 4) and WXYZ (Channel 7) best known…
Film Review: 2 Guns
2 Guns | C Generic, by-the-numbers buddy-action flicks don’t come much more generic than this forgettable project. Aside from the ample chemistry of its stars, this film is as disposable as the bountiful stream of shell casings ejected in the movie’s perpetual crossfire. Somewhere under the haze of gun smoke and burning rubber are the…
