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Where to celebrate New Year’s Eve 2019 in Detroit
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The Surrealist Ball is Detroit’s most mysterious New Year’s Eve celebration
“Welcome to your Ultra Self.” No, this isn’t a tagline for an unnamed Blade Runner project: It’s the theme for Detroit’s most mysterious New Year’s Eve celebration. Enter the Surrealist Ball, brought to you by the beautiful minds of local party royalty Jon Dones and Ash Nowak, aka Haute to Death, and the historic Schvitz…
Atheneum Suite Hotel’s Motor City Gala is a stylish way to ring in 2019
Bid adieu to 2018 in style with the Motor City Gala. Located at the Atheneum Suite Hotel in the heart of Greektown, the hotel’s 18,000-square-foot, three-story grand ballroom and wrap-around mezzanine make for the perfect backdrop for an evening suited for the word “gala.” Hors d’oeuvres, martinis, and a bubbling Champagne station will serve as…
The Fillmore’s Resolution Ball welcomes 2019 with a full-blown circus
Get ready to throw inhibitions to the wind because 2019 is coming in like a wrecking (Resolution) ball. Returning to the newly restored Fillmore theatre, the Resolution Ball promises a Vegas-style spectacle complete with a full-blown circus. In addition to the NYE mainstays (televised ball drop from Times Square, Champagne toast, midnight snacks, etc.), expect…
Detroit’s Masonic Temple celebrates first-ever Motown Countdown for New Year’s Eve
If you’ve ever been to the historic Masonic Temple, then you know that it is made for partying — and party you shall with the epic Motown Countdown. Three grand AF rooms will each serve up a different vibe for your final mood swings of 2018. The Crystal Ballroom spans two levels and boasts sky-high…
Detroiters with a bedtime can celebrate the New Year early at Beacon Park’s NYE Kids Countdown
Unfortunately, Detroit’s popular Times Square-style New Year’s Eve event known as “The Drop” was canceled for its 2019 edition. However, DTE Energy’s Beacon Park, which hosted last year’s event, will once again host an earlier kid-friendly version for those of us with a bedtime. Amenities include lawn games, fire pits, a food truck, a heated…
Snyder signs bill that makes citizen ballot initiatives nearly impossible
Gov. Rick Snyder has signed a bill that makes citizen ballot initiatives nearly impossible. The law was among the more controversial floated by the GOP-controlled legislature during the lame duck session, and Democrats and Republicans outside the state capitol urged Snyder to veto it. Though Democrats used citizen-led ballot initiatives to pass progressive legislation in…
Gov. Snyder vetoes bill to strip power from incoming Democratic attorney general
Gov. Rick Snyder vetoed a bill that would have stripped power from Democratic Attorney General-elect Dana Nessel. The proposed legislation was among the most controversial introduced during the GOP-controlled legislature’s lame duck session. It passed the state Senate and State House largely along party lines in December. House Bill 6553 would have granted the Republican-led…
Did Netflix use fake Twitter accounts to make ‘Bird Box’ memes? Is anything on the internet real?
By now you’ve probably figured out that Bird Box is not some sort of monthly mail-order subscription service but rather one of the most talked about Netflix releases of the year — thanks, in part, to a recent flurry of memes. Based on the novel by Michigan author Josh Malerman, the film version of Bird…
Aretha Franklin owed millions in back taxes
The IRS is auditing Aretha Franklin’s estate for millions in unpaid taxes. On Thursday, TMZ obtained legal documents from the IRS that reveal that Franklin owed more than $6.3 million in back taxes between the years 2012-2018. David Bennett, who represents Franklin’s estate, told the Associated Press that the IRS submitted a claim in county…
DeJ Loaf drops long-awaited EP ‘Go DeJ Go Vol. 1’
DeJ Loaf has stayed relatively quiet in 2018, save for an ultra-feel good collaboration with Leon Bridges. As a belated holiday gift to the world, the Detroit rapper broke her nearly five-year streak of teasing singles, mixtapes, and collaborations with the release of her latest EP. Go DeJ Go Vol. 1, which dropped at midnight,…
Cyberbullying is now a crime in Michigan punishable by jail time
We’ve got bad news for you, Metro Times trolls: Cyberbullying is now a crime in Michigan. On Thursday, Gov. Rick Snyder signed into law a bill sponsored by Rep. Pete Lucido, R-Shelby Township that formally defines cyberbullying as a misdemeanor. Public Act 457 of 2018 will take effect in March. The law states cyberbullying is…
Bluegrass wunderkind Billy Strings gears up for three-night New Year’s Eve run in Pontiac
The words “bluegrass” and “prodigy” are not often found in a sentence together but when it comes to describing Michigan-born Billy Strings, it’s not merely music critic hyperbole, it’s a fact. Now, at the age of 26, Billy Strings (born William Apostle) has garnered praise from Rolling Stone, Huffington Post, and PBS, and will ring…
It’s too late to stop Rick Snyder
With just days left in office, Gov. Rick Snyder now has 300 bills to consider signing in to law following the lame duck legislative session. Among those are bills meant to weaken the power of the incoming Democrat officials — part of a GOP power grab seen in other states that experts say could very well be…
Free Press: Give the state’s rich more of our tax money!
Detroit Free Press’s self-described “liberal-minded” business reporter and columnist John Gallagher is once again doing a not-so-liberal-minded thing — asking Michigan taxpayers to cough up more money to help the state’s wealthiest residents get even richer. In a Thursday column, Gallagher calls for more tax breaks for wealthy developers, arguing the state should revive the…
Electro-funk duo Chromeo visits Deluxx Fluxx for end-of-the-year DJ set
If there are two people you can entrust a sweat-inducing DJ set with, it’s our electro-funk neighbors from the north, Chromeo. Since 2002, longtime friends David “Dave 1” Macklovitch and Patrick “P-Thugg” Gemayel have released five studio records under their Chromeo moniker, each one leaning harder and harder into their Hall & Oates-inspired house groove.…
Jennifer Hudson, Celine Dion, and others to honor Aretha Franklin with televised tribute
What better way to honor the legacy of 18-time Grammy Award winner and the late Queen of Soul Aretha Franklin than to enlist an ensemble of music’s heaviest hitters? “Aretha! A Grammy Celebration for the Queen of Soul” will take place on Jan. 13 at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles. The details of the…
You can thank Michigan author Josh Malerman for the last great meme of 2018
When Netflix began teasing the trailer for its latest original film Bird Box, we would have never been able to predict that the film would become the last great meme of 2018. Based on the novel by Michigan author (and the High Strung frontman) Josh Malerman, the film follows its pregnant central character Malorie (played…
Chicago’s Noname is the rapper we need now and she’s performing at the Majestic Theatre
If you walk away learning one new name from 2018, let it be that of Chicago rapper and poet Noname. A compelling storyteller, Noname took her time releasing a follow-up to her critically acclaimed mixtape Telefone (2016) — a project in which she manages to deliver both a melancholic song about abortion, “Bye Bye Baby,”…
Greta Van Fleet wrap hallmark year with sold-out run at the Fox Theatre
If you rolled into 2018 not knowing what the fuck a Greta Van Fleet was, we highly doubt that is the case for 2019 — and maybe we’re to blame. Sure, we at Metro Times sucked upon the Greta Van Teat, but it’s pretty hard to ignore the gifted young rockers that are tirelessly compared…
Mittenfest returns with 21-bands and annual weekend-long fundraiser in Ypsilanti
Three days, 21 bands and one hell of a good cause can only mean one thing — Mittenfest is back. For its 13th iteration, Mittenfest (formally S’mittenfest/Ypsituckyfest) returns with performances by seven local bands and artists per night to bid a proper adieu to the past 12 months. Once again, all proceeds go to support…
Third Man Records’ Holiday Comedy Spectacular is your antidote for the post-Christmas blues
The time has come to gleefully cart your out-of-town relatives to the airport and let out some silent screams into throw pillows as they take their damn time getting the eff out. As a post-holiday therapy session, Third Man Records delivers its annual Holiday Comedy Spectacular. Hometown anxiety hero Zach Martina once again joins a…
Tee Grizzley to share stage with ‘Big Show’ headliner Lil Wayne at Little Caesars Arena
It’s been a long time since Lil Wayne was a lil’ deal, which might be why he’s been tapped to headline the Big Show. For years, the New Orleans rapper held the title of most Billboard Hot 100 entries of any solo artist — beating out the King himself, Elvis Presley. Since dropping on the…
Detroit techno club The Works to host final events before Jan. 1 closure
On Monday, Dec. 31, it all comes to an end for one of Detroit’s longest-running techno clubs. The Works nightclub, a fixture in Corktown for more than 20 years, announced in November that it was vacating its current home on Michigan Avenue after the building was recently sold. Although club owner Tammy Wilcox-Steelman confirmed that…
The top 10 movies of 2018, according to us
1. Eighth Grade YouTube phenom-turned-director Bo Burnham makes a bold statement about our growing alienation and uncertainty in an unblinking social media reality, but in the funniest, sweetest, most relatable way possible. 2. The Favourite Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz engage in an acid bath of insults and fake niceness as they jockey for position…
After 42 years, ‘Queen of the Bronx Bar’ Charleen Dexter retires from iconic post
The times are a-changin’ — after more than 40 years of serving drinks and profanities, the “Queen of the Bronx Bar” is stepping the fuck down. At 69-years-old Charleen Dexter will serve her last drink Wednesday following a 42-year-long stint as Cass Corridor’s sharp-tongued matriarch, citing health concerns as the reason Dexter has had to…
Whitmer says she will bring back free water bottle delivery to Flint
Governor-elect Gretchen Whitmer says she will bring back free water bottle delivery to Flint when she takes office next month. Gov. Rick Snyder cut the state-funded program in April, citing decreasing lead levels in city tap water. In recent months, 90 percent of Flint water samples have tested at or below 6 parts per billion…
The best things we ate in Michigan this year
Some of the best things we ate this year: Lamb shank at Sullaf. (814 W. Seven Mile Rd., Detroit; 313-893-5657) Most of the Chaldean population that lived in the area around Seven Mile east of Woodward for decades has moved out, but thankfully, Sullaf still stands. There’s no menu — the chef simply asks you…
Savage Love: My lover has told his wife that he will not let me go
I’m a thirtysomething straight woman married for 16 years. Eighteen months ago, I met a man and there was an immediate attraction. For the first 15 months of our relationship, I was his primary sexual and intimate partner, as both sex and intimacy were lacking in his marriage. (My husband knew of the relationship from…
The best music of 2018, according to us
It’s time to give 2018 the “thank u, next” treatment. From the resurgence of the entire Queen catalog to the “Cash Me Outside” girl’s debut, it’s been a wacky year in music. We took a trip to Astroworld and newcomer Mitski taught us that girls make the best cowboys. While rock took a backseat to…
Horoscopes (Dec. 26-Jan.1)
ARIES: March 21 – April 20 Things are a little nuts, but what else is new? This is better than you’ve had it in a long time. Without leading you to think that this will hold steady, at the moment, you are on a roll, and it’s time to get out there and work it.…
Those who died in 2018 that you might not have realized
With the nationally broadcast send-off for President George H.W. Bush only just in the rearview mirror, and with the calendar’s impending turnover to 2019 just a few days ahead, it’s that time of year when the notable deaths of 2018 will be aggregated and slideshow-ed for consumption on your favorite mobile device. You will read…
The 2018 Dooby Awards: Special lame-duck edition honoring Michigan’s most dubious
At each year’s end, it’s tradition around here for the Metro Times staff to look through its back issues in search of “the most dubious, foolhardy, baffling, hilarious, or just plain bad stories” to give them a special recognition. Though 2018 was by all accounts a raging dumpster fire from start to finish, it burned…
The people who died, 2018: Ursula K. Le Guin trailblazing speculative novelist
More than 20 novels, not counting several of her earliest works that remain unpublished. A dozen books of poetry. More than 100 short stories, collected throughout multiple volumes. Seven essay collections. Thirteen books for children. Five volumes of translation, including the Tao Te Ching of Lao Tzu and selected poems by the Chilean Nobel Prize…
The people who died, 2018: Mark E. Smith, irascible frontman of the Fall
“If it’s me and your granny on bongos, then it’s a Fall gig.” A young Mark E. Smith started the Fall in the Manchester suburb of Prestwich after that legendary 1976 Sex Pistols show in Manchester that inspired the majority of attendees to start bands the next day. It was the only time in his…
The people who died, 2018: Gary Burden, essential album cover artist of the 1970s
As an elder millennial, I sort of straddle two worlds: the analog and the digital. I didn’t have a cell phone until I was a junior in high school, but I’ve been downloading music since the days of Napster and Limewire. That being said: I remember what it felt like to hold a CD, tape,…
The people who died, 2018: Vladimir Voinovich, Soviet dissident and dystopian satirist
By the time of his death, Vladimir Voinovich was never mentioned without some variation of his title: satirist. Sometimes it was “famed satirist” or even “master satirist.” But the Russian writer, who spent his life alternatively fleeing and critiquing his homeland’s leaders, told interviewers that he found the label exasperating. He saw himself as a…
2018 was a year of weed wins… but what is Nolan Finley smoking?
Taking a look back on 2018, it was a great year for marijuana supporters in Michigan — and literally the entire North American continent. Either adult use or medical marijuana is legal everywhere on the continent except in 17 U.S. states. If you add up the populations of the states along with Canada and Mexico,…
The people who died, 2018: Mary Carlisle, ‘Baby Starlet’ who made more than 60 films in a decade
A radiant 1930s film ingénue known for her fresh face, porcelain skin, and blond hair, Mary Carlisle appeared in more than 60 films in the course of her short career — everything from Bing Crosby crooners to B-movie horror films, the last of which was the low-budget vampire thriller Dead Men Walk, released in 1943.…
The people who died, 2018: Arnie Lerma, ex-Scientologist who became Scientology’s fiercest critic
Ever heard the story of Xenu, the genocidal alien dictator who, when faced with overpopulation troubles 75 million years ago, brought billions of his subjects to Earth to execute with a lethal combination of volcanoes and hydrogen bombs? Their disembodied spirits to cling to humans and their removal can only be achieved through the teachings…
The people who died, 2018: Chief Wahoo, Cleveland Indians mascot and racial flashpoint
Chief Wahoo, the racist red-faced symbol that has adorned the sleeves and ballcaps of the Cleveland Indians’ uniforms — not to mention the apparel and doodads of Cleveland baseball fans — since 1947, has succumbed at last to his inevitable fate, possibly timed to Cleveland’s imminent date in the national spotlight with the 2019 MLB…
The people who died, 2018: Hamiet Bluiett, progressive jazz titan
Hamiet Bluiett, a master of the unwieldy baritone sax as well as the more nimble clarinet, served as a living bridge between blues-based, pre-bebop traditionalism and progressive improvisational jazz. Bluiett came into the world in similarly significant liminal territory — he was born in St. Louis, Missouri, but raised directly across the river in Brooklyn,…
Mulenga and the red hat
I bumped into Mulenga Harangua coming around the corner of Grand River and Livernois Avenues. Literally bumped into him and we both fell over, scattering the contents of a sack he carried over his shoulder. “Mulenga are you still playing Santa Claus?” I asked. Looking up at him I realized he was wearing a MAGA…
The people who died, 2018: William Shearer, immunologist and physician to the so-called Bubble Boy
It was 1979 when Dr. William Shearer first met 7-year-old David Vetter, the Texas boy who was born without an immune system and lived in a series of NASA-designed plastic bubbles. Many years later, Shearer recalled that first meeting on his blog. “He immediately put his arms in the gloves extending from his plastic isolator…
Life at the speed of Trump
My plan for this final column of 2018 was something like a Year of Donald Trump in Review, but then, I thought, holy shit, where would one even begin? Remember back in September — just three and a half months ago — when a senior administration official wrote an op-ed in The New York Times…
Review: The jerk wings soar at Detroit’s Coop
Chef Maxcel Hardy has expanded from his deservedly popular River Bistro in Rosedale Park to a stall at Midtown’s Detroit Shipping Co. food hall. Whereas the emphasis at the Bistro is on soul food, Coop’s inspiration is a Caribbean food truck. Familiar island favorites jerk chicken, rum cake, and ginger beer do make room, though,…
The people who died, 2018: Emily ‘Mount Fiji’ Dole, pioneer of female professional wrestling
In the late 1980s, to reach the peak of women’s professional wrestling was to be among the cast members on the hit sports show GLOW: The Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling. Hitting the airwaves in 1986, the all-female wrestling program consisted of women assigned flamboyantly cartoonish alter egos that couldn’t have been further from political correctness,…
The people who died, 2018: Glenn Snoddy, recording engineer and inventor of the fuzz tone
Glenn Snoddy’s contribution to the world of music wasn’t a song or a style of playing. It was more like he helped discover a new color. A recording engineer in Nashville in the early 1960s, Snoddy helped capture and re-create what is commonly called “fuzz tone,” the distorted, overdriven effect that helped shape the sound…
The people who died, 2018: Thomas Bopp, amateur astronomer and discoverer of Comet Hale-Bopp
Thomas Bopp wasn’t looking for a comet when he peered into a telescope on Saturday, July 22, 1995. By day, the 47-year-old worked for a cement company, where he made a passing mention of his interest in astronomy to Jim Stevens, who ran an auto parts store in Phoenix. It was a hobby started when…
The people who died, 2018: Ted Dabney, electronics engineer and co-founder of Atari
In the beginning was a word. And the word was pizza. Pizza parlors, to be exact — the ones lit by the blinking screens of arcade cabinets and populated by animatronic critters. In the mid-1960s, such establishments only existed in ambitious schemes cooked up by Ted Dabney and Nolan Bushnell, two friends then employed as…
The people who died, 2018: Dorcas Reilly, inventor of the green bean casserole
She may not be a household name, but Dorcas Reilly is a household staple: Her iconic Campbell’s Soup green bean casserole is served in more than 20 million American homes each Thanksgiving and, the rest of the year, acts as a quintessential comfort dish that can be popped in and out of the oven in…
The people who died, 2018: Mike Arnold, owner-operator of St. Louis’ Gus Gus Fun Bus
Mike Arnold, a tireless booster of the St. Louis food and drink scene, was run down on June 21 by a stolen Ford F-150 in downtown St. Louis. A pair of carjackers, fresh off pepper-spraying two women, apparently saw the bearded 54-year-old filming them with his cell phone, veered off the road, and intentionally slammed…
Review: ‘Vice’ reminds us that we don’t know Dick
Adam McKay’s dark satire about the 46th vice president of the United States plays like an exhausting catalog of the depravity of unchecked ambition — the perversity of its subject matched only by the perversity of even making a biopic about Dick Cheney, quite possibly one of the most polarizing and uncharismatic politicians of the…
