Cover Story
Corktown Rises: Michigan Ave. Has a New Shine
Ten years ago, the mile-long stretch of Michigan Avenue between the Lodge Expressway and I-96 was at low ebb. Aside from a few bars, clubs and diners, some of them lively enough, the graying strip in the shadow of Michigan Central Station was a textbook case of urban disinvestment, with vacant storefronts clad in ancient…
17-year-old director debuts black history doc ‘MADMAN or Martyr,’ will host Q & A
There is a hot new Black History film director in town, and he is a 17-year-old white kid named Luke Jaden. Jaden’s documentary, MADMAN or Martyr, centers on the efforts of John Brown, a white abolitionist who is rumored to have provoked the Civil War, according to the film. “Brown was probably the greatest abolitionists of…
Judge Allows Challenge to Michigan’s EM Law to Proceed
(Source: Wikimedia Commons) A lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Michigan’s emergency manager law can move forward, a judge ruled last week. The Sugar Law Center says U.S. District Judge George Caram Steeh’s decision to allow the case to move forward clears “a major legal hurdle in the fight to declare Michigan’s Emergency Manager Law unconstitutional.”…
[MAP] Even Henry Ford Had a Fantasy Detroit Public Transit System
via Detroitography.com Even good ol’ Henry Ford had fantasies about could-be Detroit public transit systems. According to Detroitography.com, Ford had concocted an 81-mile rapid transit plan but recognized that feasibility and funding weren’t there. Detroitography also indicated that the main lines important for Ford were: Grand River-Schoolcraft Line “[…] conveniently located for the low-income low-auto-ownership…
Ye Olde Butcher Shoppe Closing
As was announced last week, Detroit’s Ye Olde Butcher Shoppe is closing after just 16 months of business, according to a press release. The store will offer 25 percent off all items until 8 p.m. today. Opened by brothers Peter and Michael Solaka, Ye Olde Butcher Shoppe was fraught with difficulties from the beginning, facing…
City Slang: Detroit by Detroit is coming
On Saturday, February 22, the fourth Detroit By Detroit show will take place at the Magic Stick in Detroit. The action starts at 8 p.m., and cover is $5 ($7 for under 21s). According to a statement, “In 2011, twelve Detroit bands were given the opportunity to cover twelve other Detroit acts in the inaugural…
Michigan RNC Candidate: GOP Should Consider ‘Purging’ Gays from Party
Mary Sears feels Satan is to blame for homosexuality. (Source: Schoolcraft County Republican Party website) Terri Lynn Land said last week she’d relinquish her role as a Michigan committeewoman for the Republican National Committee to focus more on her U.S. Senate bid. Her possible replacement? An evangelical anti-gay fanatic from Houghton County, who likely falls…
Film Review: Monuments Men
The Monuments Men | C War used to be fun, or at least the old Hollywood version, in which jocular, back-slapping he-men like Van Johnson made combat bravery and foxhole camaraderie seem like a hell of a ride. George Clooney’s star-studded throwback The Monuments Men is an attempt to recapture a bit of that jovial,…
Duggan to meet Obama, promises to shovel Detroit’s snow
President Obama is scheduled to meet Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan today in the Lansing area for lunch. Perhaps that’s why Duggan held a press conference this morning promising to remove any snow in Detroit the city may have, um, neglected to shovel in the first place: Residents are encouraged to first report their problems on…
Film Review: The Lego Movie
The Lego Movie | B+ At first, the idea of a film based on a pile of colorful toy bricks as its narrative launching point seemed patently absurd. Had Hollywood’s desperate need to find product tie-ins for every and any toy gone completely bonkers? What’s next? A big screen adaptation of Lincoln Logs? A Slinky…
City Slang: A brutal Thursday at Berserker Fest
How fucking great is this idea? Shawn Knight of Child Bite took the brave step of hosting a metal festival in Ferndale, and judging by the crowd on Thursday night (still a school night), his courage has paid off. Despite the snow, despite the fact that you have to pick up your wristbands in a…
DEJJ mixtape and Mister’s “Old Town”
Just a couple of things (a mixtape and a new music video) to start off your weekend. Dale Earnhardt Jr Jr (a duo Michigan-bred multifaceted pop-songwriters: Daniel Epstein and Joshua Epstein) are constantly experimenting – even out on their tour bus. They were busy playing with lots of loops and samples between shows, while…
Guyette: Detroit Claims Debt Is Illegal
Longtime Metro Times readers know the name “Curt Guyette.” That’s because Guyette headed up MT’s news department for an astonishing 18 years, breaking important stories and penning call-to-action pieces that inspired changes. Now Guyette is working at the ACLU of Michigan, where, thanks to a generous grant from the Ford Foundation, he’s working again as a journalist, this time…
Jennifer Garner can’t wait to get to Detroit
According to E Online, Jennifer Garner (aka Elektra) will be spending the summer in Detroit while her husband Ben Affleck (aka Batman AND Daredevil) films Superman Vs. Batman (aka Man of Steel 2), and she can’t freaking wait. “I’ll be there this summer,” she told Detroit sports radio channel 105.1 FM. “Yep, all summer…Batman is…
What’s the Williamsburg and Bushwick of Detroit?
From Gawker: What is your city’s Williamsburg? What’s its hippest—or formerly hippest—or sometimes just youngest—neighborhood, the one with the art galleries and the boutiques and the lines for brunch? (And what, for that matter, is its Bushwick, or “Next Williamsburg”?) If you don’t know off the top of your head, don’t worry. We do, thanks…
Meet Metro Times Interim Editor Vince Grzegorek
Metro Times interim editor (and Cleveland Scene editor) Vince Grzegorek was on WDET’s Craig Fahle Show Wednesday to discuss new ownership and direction. Grzegorek says he plans to commute to Detroit for two to three months to help hire new staff, move the office back to Detroit and restore investigative journalism to the paper. “It’s been…
New releases by Bayside, Nashville Pussy and more
Bayside Cult Hopeless Not to state the obvious, but are punky emo-types Bayside fans of the band the Cult? Not only have the boys from Queens named the new record Cult, but the sleeve art looks remarkably like the sort of thing Ian Astbury would dream up. Even the font looks identical to that used…
RANKED: Detroit Named One of the Best U.S. Cities for Singles
Photo via jessibibi, Instagram Valentine’s Day, the equal parts loved and hated “Hallmark Holiday,” is fast approaching, but Detroiters still looking for a hot Feb. 14 date may be in luck. The folks over at the consumer advocacy site Nerd Wallet recently conducted a study and found Detroit to be one of the best cities…
A brief chat with the Barenaked Ladies’ Tyler Stewart
The Barenaked Ladies play just across the river in Windsor tonight. We grabbed drummer Tyler Stewart and shot the shit. What have you been up to since you were last here? Actually, we played in Detroit in the summertime, on the “Last Summer on Earth Tour,” with Ben Folds Five and Guster. Obviously, our Grinning…
Residents, Groups Worry About Possible Return of Petcoke to Riverfront
Detroit Bulk Storage made a name for itself last year after the company was connected to the small mountains of petroleum coke (“petcoke” for short) that gathered on the Detroit River shoreline. Residents, local organizations and elected officials took issue with the possible impact of the coal-black material, a byproduct created when tar-like bitumen from…
City Slang: Movement Phase 2 lineup announced
The second phase of the Movement festival lineup was announced by Paxahau on Wednesday, with Kevin Saunderson, Claude Vonstroke and John Digweed just some of the big names on show. According to the press release, “The 2014 Movement Electronic Music Festival, taking place Memorial Day weekend (May 24-26) inside Detroit’s Hart Plaza, announces a loaded…
Deathlok on Agents of Shield
As we reported last week, the Marvel comics character Deathlok, a Detroit creation, appeared on the Agents of Shield episode called “T.R.A.C.K.S.” on Tuesday night. If you didn’t see it, SPOILER ALERT. Mike Peterson, played by J. August Richards, reappears following an explosion in an earlier episode, missing a leg and sporting a face that…
Detroit Free Press Publishes Celebrity Cleavage Survey, Receives Publicity
(Screengrab from Detroit Jalopnik) The Detroit Free Press generated little fanfare recently when features reporter Georgea Kovanis published a Celebrity Cleavage Survey to accompany last week’s advance of fashion at the Grammy’s, which declared “Cleavage Rules!” In its continued bizarre deep-dive into the allure of breasts, the Freep asked readers to chime in on celebrities’ cleavage, asking: “Who…
Republican Tax Cut Insanity
Our lawmakers want to give us an election-year tax cut. Gotta love ’em, especially the Republicans. They’re always looking out for us little guys. Take State Sen. Jack Brandenburg, for example, from Harrison Township. Boat town, in other words, up in Macomb County. Brandenburg has a bill that would reduce the state income tax by…
J. Baldwin’s, BlackFinn Get Remodeled, MOCAD Goes Vegan
Wraparound Turnaround — They had some bad luck last year at J. Baldwin’s in Clinton Township. An electrical fire left the crew cleaning out smoke fire damage that had destroyed most of the place. They then spent months rebuilding the ruined dining room, ordering new chairs, tables, dishes, glasses, silverware — almost new everything. The…
An Interview With Poet Jim Daniels
Jim Daniels’ first collection, Places/Everyone appeared in 1985. I was 19. I came upon this book by chance killing time at a used bookstore in Ann Arbor. Up until that moment, I thought I knew what a poem was, what a poem could be about. The poems in Places/Everyone were unlike the poems I’d been…
Film Review: That Awkward Moment
That Awkward Moment | C+ Sex, love, honesty, commitment and all that junk are the talking points in this amiably jumbled bromantic comedy about three guys struggling mightily to avoid maturity. Ostensibly this is a “chick flick” with an aggressively male perspective, which would be sort of novel if roughly 89 percent of all Hollywood…
Dildonics
Q: What is the best way to sanitize a latex dildo? At least I think it’s a latex dildo. I actually don’t know. I had a yeast infection a few months ago, and before I knew what was up, I used my toy. Now I’m afraid to touch it until I know it won’t reinfect me!…
Detroit Like Patterson’s ‘Indian Reservation’
With all these frigid temperatures and heavy snow caused by the polar vortex, I was wondering how my friend Mulenga Harangua was making it in his squatter house. Actually he’s been in there a couple of years, and I guess I should just consider it his house — until somebody shows up with a bulldozer…
Joey Santiago of the Pixies
Toward the end of 2013, the Pixies put out a couple of new EPs and hired a bass player, Paz Lenchantin (formerly of A Perfect Circle), to replace longtime member Kim Deal. Changes are afoot in the Pixies camp, and we’ll get to see the new lineup in the flesh when the band plays the…
Aaron Lewis: Staind Frontman Goes Solo
With the nu-metal band Staind, Aaron Lewis took angsty hard rock anthems onto mainstream radio, thanks to his overaffected and needlessly troubled voice — as well as some chugging riffs. Then Lewis put that band on hold for a while and embarked on a surprisingly successful solo country career. We spoke to him before his…
A talk With Ed Neumeier, Creator of RoboCop
Philadelphia has its Rocky statue. Chicago’s Navy Pier has a bronze Bob Newhart (along with his couch). This year, Detroit is slated to get a 10-foot-tall monument to RoboCop. “Wouldn’t you rather have fucking RoboCop?” asks Ed Neumeier, who created the character and co-wrote the hit 1987 film. “Nothing against Stallone, nice guy. Mr. Newhart,…
Film Review: Gloria
Gloria | B+ If you don’t think casting matters all that much, take a look at the work Paulina Garcia does in Gloria, a small, wispy little story and a role that might have vanished in less able hands. Garcia is in nearly every single frame, and she elevates a tale that could have easily…
Take a Look at Detroit’s RoboCop Statue
Sometimes, it seems like a work of art was just waiting to get made, its creation so seemingly effortless that it was just a matter of waiting for the stars to align and bring it to fruition. Detroit’s RoboCop statue appears to be one of those things. Not to discount the hard work of all…
Restaurant Review: The Clean Plate
The Clean Plate 45629 Hayes Rd., Shelby Twp.| 586-580-3293 cleanplate4u.com Handicap accessible Open 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Monday-Saturday, closed Sundays. Salads: $7-$12.50 Wraps: $9-$12 It’s a new year, with new frontiers in several ways: an all-vegetarian restaurant in meat-and-potatoes Macomb County, and, for the vegan chef of Cacao Tree, the experience of cooking with cheese and…
Metro Times Goes to Sundance
I meet Jean Lortie on the hour-long shuttle ride from Salt Lake City’s airport to Park City. For the last 10 years, the Sundance Film Festival (which came to an end last Friday) has been an annual pilgrimage for the Ottawa native. Each year, he plots and plans his festival schedule with an accountant’s eye,…
Q & A With Wolf Eyes
There’s no warming up to Wolf Eyes; one merely acclimates to their weirdness. The local trio’s music could be described as weird, provocative and certainly noisy. Some refuse to describe it as music at all. Founded in Ann Arbor more than 15 years ago, the group’s current creative “complex” is an abandoned factory space in…
Help us find Detroit’s worst tattoos
Do you (or a loved one) have a tattoo that you just regret? We want to see it! Send a photo to tattoome@metrotimes.com and tell us why you regret it. Hey, for what it’s worth, it might get you in an upcoming issue of Metro Times.
RIP Michael Millman
Michael Millman, bass player with Ryan Dillaha & the Miracle Men, died today, February 4. No further information is known at present. Everyone at the Metro Times would like to send our heartfelt condolences to Millman’s family and friends.
Detroit City Council Approves Next Piece of Arena Deal
The Erma Henderson Auditorium was packed Tuesday, Feb. 4 for a City Council hearing on the proposed Detroit Red Wings arena. The idea was that by waiting, a better deal would come. Former Councilmember JoAnn Watson and others felt it was prudent to delay a vote in December on the transfer of 39 parcels of…
Umphrey’s McGee Pays Tribute to Fallen Friend in Detroit
Last Thursday, January 30, Umphrey’s McGee guitarist Brendan Bayliss paid tribute to original drummer Mike Mirro, who died earlier in the year. The band played a bunch of songs from Mirro’s time in the band, and then Bayliss made his speech following a cover of Simple Minds’ “Don’t You (Forget About Me)”. See the speech…
City Slang: Weekly Music Review Roundup
Send CDs, vinyl, cassettes, demos and 8-tracks to Brett Callwood, Metro Times, 1200 Woodward Heights, Ferndale MI 48220. Email MP3s and streaming links to bcallwood@metrotimes.com. Lee Abramson’s The Bionic Mouth is a fucking weird album, in all the good ways. Abramson is wheelchair-bound with ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease), and yet he’s found a way to…
Conan O’Brien Spoofs Dylan Chrysler Ad
Conan O’Brien poked fun at the Bob Dylan Chrysler ad. The joke kind of writes itself: Let France make your water. Let Denmark make your cheese. Let India answer your tech support. Let Chile catch your sea bass. Let Mexico make your piñata. Let Canada make your dental floss. Let Costa Rica sew your cargo…
Blowout 2014 to be the biggest and best yet
The Blowout Festival will return on Wednesday, April 30, presenting four days of some of the best music that Detroit has to offer. While Blowout is returning to a one-weekend format this year, the festival is also adding the city of Detroit to the program (beyond the kickoff). The kickoff party will be on Wednesday,…
