Remembering J Dilla on His Birthday
Happy Birthday J Dilla. Today is February 7th, and for those that have that date permanently etched in their brains like myself, that means it’s J Dilla’s birthday. The legendary Detroit producer and emcee would have been 37 years young today. It’s hard to believe it’s already been five years since he passed away at…
Eminem’s Super Bowl Commercial for Chrysler
In case anybody didn’t see Eminem representing the Motor City during last night’s Super Bowl, here’s the full commercial. It’s an ad for Chrysler entitled: Imported From Detroit, and the video footage does a good job of showing some choice scenery from around the city as Eminem drives the new Chrysler 200. There isn’t much…
Hard Lessons + Baby = Hiatus
The Hard Lessons announced via their tumblr page some news: Korin and Augie are expecting their first child in July. That’s impending rock ‘n’ roll maternity leave for HL fans. “To all who have supported The Hard Lessons over the last 8 years and 700 shows in 6 countries, we would like to share the…
Footage of Big Sean’s Toronto Performance
Detroit rapper Big Sean was recently performing in Toronto for the first time in his career and not surprisingly, he got lots of love. Here’s some footage of the globally revered underground rapper making nice with folks in the T. Dot while encouraging people to follow their hearts.
Live Review: Disappears w/Gardens and Dan Kroha and the Darleans. Thursday, Feb. 3 at PJ’s Lager House
It was a night of pure rock n’ roll and minimalistic Krautrock jams at PJ’s Lager House Thursday night. Chicago’s Disappears touched down in the city supported by Detroit’s own Gardens alongside Dan Kroha and the Darleans. Kicking off the night was Gardens. At face value, you might see them as just another Detroit garage…
Tonight! MOCAD Opens 2 Shows w/ DJ Spooky & Aux-88!
Curated by the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit’s Luis Croquer (the museum’s impeccable director and chief curator) come two wondrous exhibitions to consider — one solo and the other a carefully plucked orchestra of artists. One show runs thru March and the other until April’s end. But tonight is the night to gaze upon and interact…
Vision
Vision GRADE: B- As far as résumés go, Hildegard ofBingen was definitely an overachiever. She composed music, was a mystic, and wrote poetry, plays and books on philosophy, medicine and human reproduction. And she happened to do all this in the 12th century while serving as a Benedictine nun. Actually, she was the abbess. Which…
Sanctum
Sanctum GRADE: D Claustrophobics, aquaphobics and those with an intense fear of mediocre Australian actors are advised to avoid Sanctum, a waterlogged underground adventure with B-grade horror-movie instincts. This soggy film follows an expedition into a majestic, uncharted South Pacific cave system that turns disastrous when a typhoon sweeps in and threatens to flood out…
“Tetsuo: The Bullet Man” at the Burton Theatre
Here’s one for the cyberpunks. Japanese filmmaker Shinya Tsukamoto is so cyberpunked-out that even his computer-free material, such as Tokyo Fist (the most vicious and bloody/sweaty/teary boxing film since Raging Bull), is hyperkinetic to the point of being overwhelmingly futuristic. This weekend, the Burton Theatre will be showing Tsukamoto’s Tetsuo: The Bullet Man. Allow me a moment…
The White Stripes call it a day
Early this afternoon via their website The White Stripes announced the “band has officially ended and will make no further new recordings or perform live. The reason is not due to artistic differences or lack of wanting to continue, nor any health issues as both Meg and Jack are feeling fine and in good health. …
Lincoln Center group cancels: Snow beats swing
A morning note from our friends at the University Musical Society: Just a heads up: The Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra has canceled their UMS concert this evening due to travel delays. Sadly, the band is stuck in Toronto. For a consolation prize, however, we can give you a YouTube link.
It’s about the fans, man
It’s hard to pigeonhole a band whose disparate cover songs run the gamut from ZZ Top’s "Cheap Sunglasses" and Talking Heads’ "Making Flippy Floppy" to Dr. Dre’s "Xxplosive" and Snoop Dogg’s "Ain’t No Fun." But that’s standard for this Chi-town sextet. They also pull from more than 150 original tunes that are similarly cross-pollinated, on…
The Bill Bondsmen are pissed off
The Bill Bondsmen are not happy gentlemen. Not happy at all. Just one look at their faces is enough to confirm that there’s no small amount of barely suppressed rage boiling just beneath the surface. Of course, that’s the way it should be for a Midwestern hardcore band. History, in the shape of Negative Approach…
Sounds of disharmony
There is one effect the four-month-old Detroit Symphony Orchestra strike has had. Folks are hearing our good musicians elsewhere. For instance, bassist Alex Hanna has worked with the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra and the East Coast Chamber orchestra, and he’s got work lined up with the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra. "Any orchestra that has an open spot…
Public interest …
News Hits has reported on its fair share of legal issues over the years, but before last week we’d never witnessed anything quite like the presentation made by attorney William Seikaly in Wayne County Circuit Court. Seikaly, one of the stable of lawyers used by the Detroit International Bridge Co., has served the owners of…
Phil Ochs: There but for Fortune
Phil Ochs: There but for Fortune GRADE: A- Quixotic, troubled, joyful and haunted, Phil Ochs was among the most tragic casualties of the collapse of the ’60s idealistic dream, because, deep down, nobody believed in it more than he. A protest singer back when that actually meant something, Ochs was a flamethrower with a poet’s…
Gerald Cleaver: Uncle June – Be It as I See It
Gerald Cleaver: Uncle June – Be It as I See It Fresh Sound New Talent Since moving to New York permanently in 2002, former Detroiter Gerald Cleaver has had an impressive array of sideman gigs — David Torn to Miroslav Vitous — but he’s also establishing himself as a captivating composer-bandleader, calling on a likewise…
Fix our highest court
Five months ago, when I was much younger and better looking, I wrote about the shenanigans at the Michigan Supreme Court. The news then was that Elizabeth "Betty" Weaver, who was roundly hated by her fellow Republican justices, had suddenly resigned, after working out a deal with then-Gov. Jennifer Granholm. Weaver, who had grown sick…
Border crisscross
Working in East Africa and writing critically about the armed fundamentalist militias that control parts of Somalia, the threats Abdulkarim Jimale faced were all too real. So many of his journalist colleagues had been intimidated or killed that he and other reporters lived in a compound in Kenya for self-protection. He didn’t expect that when…
… and civil rights
With Macdonald’s verdict due at any time, a new court case involving the DIBC is just gearing up. On Monday, attorneys for Rita and Dean Aytes, owners of the Lafayette Bait and Tackle Shop, filed suit in U.S. District Court. The suit claims the Aytes’ civil rights were violated and their business destroyed when the…
Howl
Howl GRADE: B For as much lip service as the beat generation gets from the ink-stained hordes, try finding a beatnik costume on the shelves come Halloween time, when bellbottoms and Afros easily outnumber bongos and berets. The flower-power movement traipsed barefoot down the paths blazed by the beats, and stole much of the credit,…
Spare us normals
Q: I read your column every week, mostly out of abstract interest. My thoughts reading your advice are usually some variation on, "Wow, that’s a lot of work to do, just to have a sex life." So reading you, I came to the conclusion that I was asexual. I liked this conclusion, as it was…
Another year
Another year GRADE: B If exquisitely rendered, slow moving slice-of-life cinema isn’t your thing, Mike Leigh’s latest, Another Year, isn’t going turn you into a convert. An uncanny chronicler of the ordinary, Leigh’s movies are often plotless exercises in miserablism, creating complete little worlds that focus on the successes and disappointments of everyday people. They…
Beats, rhymes and live
The seventh annual Hip Hop Congress Midwest Summit at the University of Michigan has quietly become one of the most constructive hip-hop experiences in the Midwest, if not the country. It’s also an event that’s free of BET/MTV-styled stereotypes, MySpace emcees armed with wack demo CDs, and big-name artists who never show up. Previous years…
Esta Vivo – Together We Step
Esta Vivo – Together We Step Self-released The debut EP (eight songs clocking in at around 25 minutes) from Chicago’s Esta Vivo is a folky, sleepy affair with a tropicalia tinge, wispy as a spider’s web and just as sticky. In the studio, Esta Vivo is a one-man jam (Bearries’ Ryan McMahon) and it sounds…
Fire it up!
Over the last year, it seems barbecue joints have cropped up everywhere, from downtown Detroit to Royal Oak and Berkley, even out in New Baltimore. All these new restaurants prove that metro Detroiters are hungry for the smoky, sweet and savory flavors of classic barbecue — ribs, sides and all. Of course, that’s no surprise…
Read the news … oh, boy
I said goodbye to Amsterdam after a long and productive winter spent living and working in the bosom of my extended family at Radio Free Amsterdam, serving as poet in residence at the 420 Café and daily enjoying the freedom to smoke marijuana at will whether one is sick or not. Arriving at the London…
Motor City Five
Nervous but Excited Coffeehouse folk heroines Kate Peterson and Sarah Cleaver are Nervous but Excited. Maybe their name describes how they felt sharing stages with Ani DiFranco or Iron and Wine, or when the Indigo Girls, with whom they share more than one note, sang their praises. On stage, you’d never know if their nerves…
The best laid plans
The Super Bowl is an American institution. It’s the one day of the year where Americans come together and focus on common loves: Golf, tattoos, pole dancing and porn. What? You thought football, commercials and halftime shows? Not if you spend your Super Bowl weekend at Larry Flynt’s Hustler Club, where two of America’s most…
Let it blow
Of course, it’s the music that matters. And the Hamtramck Blowout music festival, which turns an unruly 14 years old this year, is a mad collage of genres that matter right now. The whole thing is celebration by design. Hundreds of bands and thousands of Mitten State music fans — including others from such faraway…
For the sake of the song
For 15 years, the Concert of Colors has celebrated much of the musical diversity that the Detroit area can offer, and it has become a highlight of the city’s summer schedule. In recent years, the climax of the event has been the Don Was Detroit All-Star Revue, which sees the Was (Not Was) man assemble…
Cheat Code
Dead Space 2 EA Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Windows Dead Space 2 returns with Isaac, the man himself, and all the jump-from-your-seat action that followed him. And while DS2 keeps some favorites from the original, and the same basic control scheme and actions, we’re introduced to a new arsenal and new interactions with the environment.…
Letters to the Editor
A joyful noise What an awesome article Detroitblogger John wrote on Peacemakers International ("Desolation angel," Jan. 26). I have known Pastor Steve for 20 years. You could not have picked a better guy to put out there. He is as true-blue as they come, and he is of a special breed! He was my pastor…
Iron & Wine – Kiss Each Other Clean
Iron & Wine – Kiss Each Other Clean Warner Bros. The polished ’70s AM sound of Sam Beam’s fourth album wasn’t imposed by his new label, Warner Bros.; that deal was inked after recording was completed. Still, WB marketers should be delighted: This is readymade for teen drama cues and moody car ads. As Beam’s…
Bardo Pond – Bardo Pond
Bardo Pond – Bardo Pond Fire Records Bardo Pond has perfected the art of being Bardo Pond. On the group’s latest, the Philadelphia sextet unfurls seven monumental songs in 74 minutes, and I’ll be blitzed if, 22 (?!) years on, BP hasn’t put out its finest record yet. Album opener "Just Once" begins all folk-bluesy…
Exurban legend
The Metropolitan Café 52969 Van Dyke Ave., Shelby Twp. 586-991-6104 themetroshelby.com As though sculpted from a monolith of tan brick, the intersection of 24 Mile Road and Van Dyke Avenue doesn’t look a whole lot different from the intersections a mile or so north or a mile or so west. But if the sprawl of…
Tennis – Cape Dory
Tennis – Cape Dory Fat Possum The most unhip band to make indie waves these past few years, Tennis is a Colorado husband-and-wife team whose debut album reminisces about spending a year sailing along the Eastern Seaboard. The theme is pervasive — songs like the woozily romantic "Waterbirds" and the haltingly yearning "Take Me Somewhere"…
Spun
FRIGHT FROM THE BINS Kansas Point of Know Return (1977) One of the sadder aspects about being older than dirt is that when a legendary rock figurehead like Don Kirshner passes away, you have to go through layers of qualifiers just so your hot young girlfriend knows who in heckness you’re talking about. Tell her…
Food Stuff
Let’s go crazy — If there’s one place it’s almost impossible to go to and not have a good time, it’s the Dakota Inn, the German-style beer hall that hangs on stubbornly along a fading stretch of John R in Detroit. And the next month is going to be a barn-burnin’ good time for all.…
