VON BONDIES DO DAVE…
In case you haven’t heard, the Von Bondies will be appearing on Late Night With David Letterman tonight, Monday, February 9th,performing the single, “Pale Bride,” from the band’s new album, Love Hate and Then There’s You. Our review of the new disc will appear in the next issue of the paper. In the meantime, here’s…
25 Things about Matt Jones.
In honor of the latest Facebook fad of posting 25 things about yourself, we present 25 things about Matt Jones — live from Powell’s Bar in Ypsilanti. 1) Matt’s real first name is Richard. 2) Matt plays tuba every Christmas at church in Adrian. 3) Matt was homecoming and prom king in Adrian. 4) Matt…
Getting trashed
Just to make sure the lead doesn’t get buried ‘neath my ramblings, I’ll start with the bit of news that prompted this blog in the first place: A public forum looking at ways to divert trash from Detroit’s incinerator in favor of a new business model that creates jobs, protects the environment and saves the…
SHIFTLESS DECAY…
In case you haven’t yet heard, our friend Scott Dunkerly of X! Records fame has booked all the Thursdays at the Lager House for the rest of this month to promote the release of the Shiftless Decay: New Sounds of Detroit compilation that’s coming out soon…on X! Records, of course. Two bands that appear on…
LUX INTERIOR, RIP.
“Rock ‘n’ roll is so great that everyone in the world should think it’s the greatest thing that’s happening. If they don’t, they’re turds.” — Lux Interior (who passed away last night due to complications from a heart condition) Lux and Poison Ivy (surely one of the longest unions in all of rockdom) liked to…
Push-button humor
You know how morning radio jocks tend to pepper their banter with handy sound clips that enliven their on-air antics? Well, such entertaining buzz-bits are available to all of us in the form of soundboards. And, no, we’re not talking about the juvenile noises of the Fart Soundboard — because folks out there are coming…
Cherry picked
The first name mentioned in the State of the State speech last night was Lt. Gov. John Cherry. Sure, Gov. Jennifer Granholm mentioned a few other muckety-mucks and the obligatory fellow citizens and family before her nearly hour-long speech. But by starting with her lieutenant, we wonder if she was saying, “Hey voters. Here’s John…
Flip-flop flap
Wayne County judge recuses himself from shooting case
Hither tether
Man suspected in rape now at home with mother
Incoming
Deborah Drennan hopes there are better times ahead for the people she serves. As the interim director of Freedom House, a Detroit shelter for people who have applied for asylum here and in Canada, Drennan says America’s current immigration policy is both too focused on combating terrorism and too punitive. “Yes, when you cross into…
Food Stuff
Full plates for local foodies.
Couch Trip
The Minoru Kawasaki Collection Synapse Films The films of Minoru Kawasaki are unrepentantly silly. Featuring masked wrestlers, crazed monsters and soccer-playing crabs, Kawasaki has a flair for the absurd. Synapse Films recently unleashed three of Kawasaki’s most outrageous films on the American public: The World Sinks Except Japan is an update to the classic disaster…
Comics
The Boiling Point – by Mikhaela Reid
Stomping grounds
Owner José Montes has done his best to give this former diner a Spanish feel by arranging shawls on the windows and decorating it with blue-and-yellow tiles, not to mention having flamenco dance on Friday and Saturday nights. That convivial feeling charms diners, who can choose from a menu with significant accommodations to middle-American sensibilities.…
Motor City Cribs
Tony Moran’s souped-up living space
Merriweather Post Pavilion
Let’s be perfectly clear: Animal Collective is a gimmick band. It’s not that their particular sonic gimmick is bad — or that they’re not fine-tuning and enhancing it with each record — but listening to Merriweather Post Pavilion is to be reminded that these East Coast soundscapers aren’t going to be making a huge bid…
Great game
Cooking up everything from muskrat to African lion with ‘Dixie’ Dave Minar
New in Town
This soggy lutefisk out-of-water tale finds Renee Zellweger’s spunky corporate shark Lucy exiled from Miami to dinky, snow-bound New Ulm, Minn., where she’s hired to “modernize” a dairy processing plant, mainly through downsizing the workforce. The quirky townsfolk are on to her true intentions, but they’re such sweater-clad, “Minnesota nice” church folk that they attempt…
The gospel according to Prussia
Ryan and Drew Spencer are brothers with a musical knowledge that’s well beyond their respective 23 and 20 years. With a few like-minded musical partners, they are Prussia, a Detroit band that has gained momentum and earned critical praise over the past year. The brothers use their combined musical knowledge to create psychedelic pop that…
A kick-ass thriller
Liam Neeson’s black-ops super warrior Bryan Mills is in uneasy retirement to be closer to Kim, the teen daughter (Maggie Grace) he has neglected for years. He takes a security gig guarding a pop princess for the easy money and to get career tips to help his daughter’s singing dreams, and just maybe get back…
Shut down
For a dozen years, a local couple ran a little bakery on Detroit’s west side, building a loyal customer base and becoming a neighborhood fixture. There was a sense of community there, and people knew each other. Then one day a gunman walked in and changed everything. Up to that moment, the Shabazz Bakery, on…
Magic
It’s really hard to understand some of the early negative, even hate-filled reviews Bruce Springsteen’s new album has received in newspapers and on the Internet. To add insult to injury, he was snubbed by the Oscar nominating committee for his theme to The Wrestler (which concludes the new album), even though it won a well-deserved…
Art imitates life, again
Dr. Benjamin Carson asks, “Did you recognize some of the places in Detroit?” — his voice a mixture of excitement and quiet satisfaction. Carson, chief of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Children’s Center in Baltimore and arguably the world’s most famous brain doctor, returned to his hometown of Detroit to watch scenes from his life…
Cherish the Day
While incarcerations, record label drama and everything in between have rendered the female rapper as virtually dead, Detroit’s hip-hop scene is vitally different. Invincible’s substantial rhymes have earned her a reputation, both in her home state and nationwide, while Miz Korona’s tough, battle-ready rhymes have established her as a underground mainstay as well. But with…
Brother in Shaw
If someone outside this city knew nothing of its music scene aside from some of the anonymous comments one can find all over the Internet these days — especially when the last “major” rock ‘n’ roll event they may remember happening in Detroit, at least as reported on an international scale, involved Detroit’s biggest current…
The Uninvited
This, the inevitable American bastardization of a profoundly creepy and visually lush Korean horror gem, offers slightly more brain food than the average rampaging-madman-with-a-power-tool fare. The story’s your basic wicked stepmother, obsessed stalker scenario set within a haunted house. Emily Browning stars as the gamine Anna, newly released from the psych ward and trying to…
Coulda been me
About that body trapped in ice at the bottom of an elevator shaft …
Oscar baitin’
A strong slate of live-act ion nominees mostly avoids the surprise-ending crutch, but two likely contenders for the statuette are “New Boy,” which is based on a Roddy Doyle short story, is a poignant and humorous tale of a 9-year-old African boy’s first day at a Scottish elementary school, and Jochen Freydank’s “Toyland,” with its…
Night and Day
THURSDAY • 5 SHIFTLESS DECAY THURSDAYS PUNK DOUBLE SHOT To announce the release of their new compilation, Shiftless Decay: New Sounds of Detroit, with a bit of pomp and circumstance, seminal punk label X! Records is taking over PJ’s Lager House every Thursday in February for a night of rampaging Detroit punk rock. Neat! Every…
On the Download
Lost amid all the rightful praise and hullabaloo surrounding Randy Chabot’s Deastro project is the fact that dude’s got two other monikers under which he lets his freak flag fly. The first, Our Brother the Megazord, shared a CD release with Deastro proper, and makes the occasional public appearance. But the third side to the…
Comfortably numb
Why you probably shouldn’t put oral analgesics down there
Letters to the Editor
Rites and wrongs I am writing in strong objection to your portrayal of Tom Lynch (“Grave debate,” Jan. 21). We each only have one good name, and, if someone attempts to besmirch or defame it, they must be held accountable. I have read all of Tom’s heartfelt published writings and viewed the PBS special. Nowhere…
