Cover Story
Glossed Over
In these days of Bandcamp, Soundcloud and Facebook, it’s easy to forget that … well, things weren’t always like this. If you were a hardworking local band a decade or more ago, needless to say, you didn’t generally just hit up your local alt-weekly with an email directing them to your sound files online and…
City Slang: Second Bestest Concert Ever
The Second Annual Bestest Concert Ever will take place Saturday, March 23, at the Royal Oak Farmer’s Market between 5 p.m. and 8 p.m. Performers will include the Howling Diablos, Candy Band and students from the Detroit School of Rock and Pop. According to the press release, activities include: McCourts Musical Petting Zoo, Golfing with…
City Slang: Orion Festival lineup announced
The lineup for this year’s mega Orion Festival, taking place on Detroit’s Belle Isle on June 8 and 9, has been announced and there are a few local bands on the bill. Metal-heads Battlecross, rock ‘n’ soul dudes the Dirtbombs and punks Death represent Detroit. Also on the bill are the Red Hot Chili Peppers,…
City Slang: Trick Trick coming to the Stick
Rapper Trick Trick will be performing at the Magic Stick on May 9. Tickets are $10. According to a statement, “A member of Detroit’s hip-hop elite, Christian Anthony, better known by his stage name Trick Trick, is an American rap artist and member of the hip-hop group Good Sqwad. He picked up his love for…
City Slang: Jamaican Queens at the Blind Pig
The Jamaican Queens play the Blind Pig tonight, Saturday, February 23. The band is performing Wormfood, its debut album. It also has a video out for new single “Water”, which can be seen here. “Ryan and Adam were formerly in the band Prussia, and teamed up to record Wormfood last winter, mixed by Christopher Lazlo…
Film Review: Snitch
Snitch B- Dwayne (don’t call him “the Rock” anymore) Johnson is really a better actor then his résumé might suggest, and, no, I’m not trying to pull your leg. Johnson did get his start literally pulling people’s legs, as a cartoonish pro wrestling super star, and his movie career has mostly been an exercise in…
A.M. Survey
Sequestration. SXSW. Emergency Financial Managers. Bonnaroo lineups… Sporting world scandals. Thurston Moore’s new band… It’s another busy, crazy, noisy week. It’s all blurring by me, as I try to move my shit from one house to another. It’s like the world’s being put on hold while I crouch down and get screws out of the…
Audionics’ The Big Note -3.2.13 –
With combined resumes conjuring kaleidoscopic-pop types, fx-clouded experimentalists and world-music-tapping progressives like THTX, Immigrant Suns XD Wei and Waka Jawaka… With their intriguing and effective implementation of an octave-divided saxophone’s low-gurgling sizzle, African talking drums marching under Indian hammered dulcimers… With their altogether creative compisitional rewiring of affecting the rhythmic grooves of their non-existent “bass” player and…
2013 Oscar Predictions!
Here we go folks, it’s Oscar time! There are 24 statues up for grabs, and since most of you probably only care about five of them, allow me to suggest how to place your bets for the other nineteen. As always, the goal is to go 20 for 24, and one of these years,…
City Slang: Movement lineup revealed
The lineup for this year’s Movement Festival has been revealed, and there is plenty on there to excite lovers of all types of electronic music. All of the info can be found at the official site, but highlights include local heroes like Adult (an event in itself, surely), Derrick May & Kevin Saunderson’s Hi-Tech-Soul Project,…
City Slang: Alice Cooper cruise cancelled
Shock news from the shock rocker. Apparently, Alice Cooper’s Ship of Fear Cruise, due to sail from Miami to the Bahamas on October 28 for 5 days of fun at sea has been cancelled due to slow ticket sales. A statement from organizers reads, “After careful consideration, we have decided not to continue with The…
Foreclosures, fraud & the big fight
Two events held last week appeared only tangentially connected — at first glance, anyway. The first was a rally held by a coalition focused on helping homeowners fend off foreclosure and eviction. The other was a press conference on the fifth floor of the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center, outside the offices of the city…
Food Stuff
Wine down after work — Are you curious about wine but a little intimidated by the choices and prices? There’s a little shop downtown that can help. It’s MotorCity Wine, and they’re hosting their monthly tasting this weekend. It’s no hurry, no pressure and promises an array of at least 18 quality, reasonably priced wines.…
The sorrow and the city
The night before Mayor Dave Bing gave his latest, and possibly last, state of the city speech, I went out to dinner with one of Detroit’s homegrown cultural icons, John King. King, an authentic natural eccentric, is the founder, creator, president and occasional janitor at John K. King Books, the main branch of which inhabits…
Built that way?
A programming note: I hosted a live taping of the Savage Lovecastin Seattle on Valentine’s Day, and it went great — thanks to all who came (especially to the five boys who left with butt plugs in their butts) — but i made the mistake of having a drink or five afterward, and i’m so…
Public park-ing
Hyde Park is a tidy little space in the Greenacres neighborhood. It is teardrop shaped and about a half-block long. There’s a gazebo, a couple of picnic tables and benches there, some flower beds and a little hill where I tried to teach my daughter how to ride a bicycle some years back. The neighborhood…
Little Z’s BBQ
Little Z’s BBQ 22428 Greater Mack St. Clair Shores 586-585-1000 littlezsbbq.com Sandwiches: $8-$10 Dinners: $10-$18 Open 11 a.m.-8 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Friday-Saturday, and noon-8 p.m. Sunday. If you thought the profusion of new barbecue joints must have finally sated the regional taste for smoked meats, think again. And the best news of…
Film Review: Barbara
Barbara| B+ It’s 1980, and Barbara (Nina Hoss), an icy and unsmiling physician, is exiled to the East German provinces for an unexplained crime. She works at a rural hospital, is brusque with co-workers, smokes a lot and, when no one is looking, hoards money in hopes of buying her way out of the DDR…
Erotic Poetry Festival
Audra Kubat is a striking woman when first you meet her, and she is a mass of contradictions. Her height gives the impression that she might be ungainly, but rather she is delicacy personified. She has a tendency to glare, yet the lyrics to her mostly-acoustic tunes are pretty, poetic and subtle. More pertinently, she’s…
Breaking fast with Gold Tapes Fest
If you’re a local music lover who’s been thrown off by the shifted schedule for the annual Blowout, you can still get your fest fix this weekend thanks to Gold Tapes. An exceptional sampling of “interesting, quasi-punk Detroit music” will be showcased across four venues (in three nights), all thanks to a local record label…
Letters to the Editor
This, that and more I very much appreciated the cover article on the Andantes (“Beauty in the Background,” Feb. 13), written by Jim McFarlin; it’s a real keeper. I am also enthused by the information, given, in Jeff Milo’s article “The Producers,” that Belle Ghoul will be releasing more music this summer. Their first single,…
