Cover Story
Allow him to illustrate
An artist has an idea. He thinks it’s cute, pointless, utterly enjoyable: Sega’s video game icon. Sonic the Hedgehog, funnily running. He sketches it out and likes what he sees. Looking for a good excuse to test out new software, he turns this little drawing into an animated GIF — a rough, Web-ready animation. He…
Corporate personhood: Hightower, Colbert and MLK
Progressive columnist Jim Hightower gave us a cover story back in November that we billed as Up against the corporations: Here’s how real people can fight back. Now Hightower is advancing the case of human people vs. corporation people alongside The Nation editor Katrina vanden Heuvel, Ben and Jerry and others in a video humorously…
City Slang: Verve Pipe doing it for the kids
’90s chart-rockers the Verve Pipe have gone family friendly in a big way. Not only has the band put out a record called A Family Album, a collection of songs for kids, but the band is performing a family show at the Ark in Ann Arbor on January 21 from 11 a.m. According to the…
U.S. Supremes go 9-0 in Redford church-state case, but aren’t exactly clear
Last summer, MT reported on a landmark case headed to the U.S. Supreme Court involving a former teacher, Cheryl Perich, who was fired from her job at Hosana-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School in Redford. On Wednesday, the Court ruled unanimously in favor of the school’s firing, but left some court-watchers scratching their heads over…
City Slang: Welcome to the neighborhood, DSO
The Detroit Symphony Orchestra will be hosting a series of neighborhood shows, getting out and about in the Metro Detroit suburbs. For booking information, look here. According to the website, “DSO Principal Horn Karl Pituch performs Mozart’s delightful Fourth Horn Concerto while Hans Graf leads favorites by Carl Maria von Weber and Schumann’s stirring Second…
City Slang: Kathy Kosins is a lady of cool
Local jazz singer Kathy Kosins has announced that her debut album for Resonance Records will be called To the Ladies of Cool. The album will be available from March 13. According to the press release, “The new album, her fifth, is titled To the Ladies of Cool, and the songs all derive from the repertoires…
City Slang: FUR on TV, again
FUR just can’t stay off our TV screens. After getting two songs played during the first season of acclaimed Showtime drama Homeland (“Break Me, My Love” and “Pan/Op”), the premiere of a new Fox show called The Finder will feature the song “Here’s to the Angels”. That is quite an achievement. FUR is a fantastic…
Joyful Noise
Joyful Noise Director: Todd Graff. Starring: Dolly Parton, Queen Latifah. Rated: PG-13. Running time: 117 minutes. C- Occasionally, Hollywood execs remember that there is a vast, underserved audience that lives somewhere nearer to an apple orchard than an Apple store, and then they deign to release a film with a tree, a picket fence…
The Iron Lady
The Iron Lady C Though it probably feels like Meryl Streep has been winning Oscars every few years, the truth is she last took home the gold statue when Ronald Reagan was in office (it was for Sophie’s Choice). Streep sure gets nominated a lot (16 times so far), but her talents and dizzying array…
Contraband
Contraband Director: Baltasar Kormákur. Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Ben Foster, Kate Beckinsale. Rated: R. Running time: 110 minutes. B- A perfectly passable thriller, Contraband is an enjoyable burst of silly escapism coated with thin layer of lowlife grime, suggesting a darker reality than it’s willing to commit to. It’s kind of like cruising through a rough…
Beauty and the Beast
Beauty and the Beast Starring: Paige O’Hara, Robby Benson, Jerry Orbach. Rated: G. Running time: 84 minutes. A- The enchanted moat of the Disney dream castle is once again being dredged in search of resalable nuggets. After the remastered Lion King reigned supreme at the box office last fall, Disney took it as license…
Boog Brown and Apollo Brown Release a New Ode to the City
Just yesterday I was thinking how timeless Sammy Davis Jr’s jazzy “Hello Detroit” song is and how for 35 years now, people have been writing ditties about how Detroit is struggling yet absolutely beautiful. Now today, Detroit resident Apollo Brown and former Detroiter Boog Brown released a song with a similar message, albeit set to…
Billionaire Manuel ‘Matty’ Moroun jailed for contempt
Before Thursday morning’s hearing in front of Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Prentis Edwards, reporters and other observers were discussing whether 84-year-old billionaire Manuel “Matty” Moroun would actually comply with an order to appear in court to face contempt charges. The question now is, “How much time he will spend in jail?” The man who…
City Slang: Sponge to perform Rotting Piñata in its entirety
The Detroit rockers of Sponge will perform their debut Rotting Piñata album from beginning to end for the first time ever at the Emerald Ballroom in Mount Clemens on Jan. 28. Doors are at 8, and tickets cost $15 in advance. Support comes from Amy Gore & Her Valentines, plus others to be announced. Rotting…
Will Matty Moroun show, or no? Judge’s order looms
Wayne County Circuit Judge Prentis Edwards, ruling for the second time that the Detroit International Bridge Company was in contempt for refusing to complete its share of the southwest Detroit Gateway Project as agreed to in a contract with the Michigan Department of Transportation, last November said that he wanted to see bridge company President…
The ‘shocking’ take on Detroit’s fiscal crisis
Since returning to Detroit last year after a long absence, Metro Times founder and former owner Ron Williams has started happyfrogdetroit.com, a website for “Building Healthy, Just & Sustainable Communities,” as the homepage logo puts it. Particularly strong reading is Williams’ Jan. 10 posting, “Shocks, Hit Men and the Future of Detroit,” a connect-the-dots piece…
City Slang: “The First and the Last” revisited
The year was 1981. Stooges guitarist Ron Asheton and MC5 drummer Dennis Thompson had just played together in the LA-based band the New Order (nothing to do the Manchester band), but had seen that fritter away into nothing. Meanwhile, Radio Birdman was no more, and Deniz Tek, Warwick Gilbert and Rob Younger were looking for…
The secret primary
Well, the New Hampshire primary results are in, and I just know that you have to be counting the days until our exciting Michigan Republican primary, which is coming Feb. 28. Yessiree, if you were too busy standing in line at the soup kitchen, our fiscally prudent Republican Legislature last year happily voted to spend…
A local 10-band bill to bring the house down
Jeff Howitt says he has a cleaver in his hand. OK, so he’s referring to his hollow-body Gretch guitar, but still. "If you wanna know what this cleaver is about, come talk to me," Howitt says, "I want to sonically worry you." The chieftain of the Loco Gnosis multimedia collective (and Duende! singer) has a…
A haven off Hall
Sterling’s Bistro 13905 Lakeside Circle Sterling Heights 586-566-0627 Handicap accessible Apps & sandwiches: $7.50-$13 Entrées: $12-$24 Amid the endless sea of strip malls, mall-malls, big box stores and chain restaurants that line Hall Road in Sterling Heights, there is a gem hidden in plain sight for the weary diner. Next to Lakeside Mall and tucked…
Savaging Santorum
Q: I am writing to thank you. I remember reading your definition of "santorum" — "the frothy mix of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex" — when it first appeared. I remember thinking it was a cute way to make fun of a dickhead politician. I never thought it…
Letters to the Editor
New years past Hey, I loved the New Year’s Eve tales ("A night to remember," Dec. 28, 2011). It reminded me of my most memorable: My buddy was staying at a flophouse in Hamtramck while I was in 12th grade at the end of ’97. He and his roomies were having a party and, in…
Carnage
Carnage Directed by Roman Polanski. Written by Yasmina Reza, Roman Polanski; based on Reza’s play "God of Carnage." Starring Jodie Foster, Kate Winslet, Christoph Waltz and John C. Reilly. Running time: 79 minutes. Rated R. B Carnage is about the thin veneer that separates sophisticated adults from their savage instincts, and how quickly polite chitchat…
Guided by Voices – Let’s Go Eat the Factory (GBV Inc.)
Looking at Robert Pollard, you wouldn’t peg the Guided by Voices frontman as a nostalgic guy. But Let’s Go Eat the Factory, the Dayton band’s 16th album and first in eight years, is filled with fond looks back at the group’s glory days, starting with the reunion of the band that made the classic Bee…
Food Stuff
More traction The busy crowd at Ann Arbor’s Blue Tractor BBQ & Brewery will now have more elbow room. The restaurant has expanded its seating capacity, acquiring the adjoining space of Café Habana, which has a new downtown location all its own, even as the Habana Cellar Lounge remains open on Washington Street. Blue Tractor…
The Little Willies – For the Good Times (Milking Bull)
The second album by Norah Jones’ twangy side project bears all the markings of a full-time artist playing around with part-time sounds: a mostly faceless band, well-known cover songs, obscure cover songs, and an air of tossed-off effortlessness that pretty much guarantees a short shelf life. Still, Jones and the rest of the Little Willies…
Taking on pols at the polls
The No. 1 story about marijuana in Michigan in 2011 was the wrath anti-drug warrior Attorney General Bill Schuette unleashed on medical marijuana facilities and users. Schuette used his bully pulpit and legal resources to intimidate dispensaries, people who work at dispensaries, people who grow marijuana and medical marijuana patients — working with friendly county…
Workplace HIV story takes a twist
News Hits has seen its share of odd lawsuits over the years, but one filed in federal court in Detroit just before Christmas strikes us as particularly topsy-turvy. The case involves a guy named James N. White, a Roseville resident with the extreme misfortune to have contracted HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Adding to…
Bright lights big city
$=$5-10; $$=$10-25; $$$=$25-50; $$$$=$50+ 24 Grille inside the Book-Cadillac Hotel, 204 Michigan Ave.; 313-964-3821; spa1924grille.com; $$: Dark and sexy, with cushioned stools, Swarovski crystal and more create a sumptuous interior. Various nods to industrial design, right down to an exposed 1920s I-beam. Outdoor patio. Anchor Bar 450 W. Fort St.; 313-964-9127; anchorbardetroit.com; $:…
Jeffrey Ross is ready to ‘experiment’ on Detroiters
Jeffrey Ross is very nice guy who makes his living saying very mean things. A veteran of 20-plus years of slugging it out in the comedy clubs, Ross has dramatically raised his profile in recent years by reviving the musty old tradition of roasts, where celebrities are skewered right to their faces. Once the boozy…
Hot in the City
How to describe the City Club? To some it’s absolute heaven, to others hell on earth. For 28 years, the nightclub located in the ballroom of Detroit’s Leland Hotel has catered to fringe-dweller tastes, and has slowly evolved into the gothic-industrial-fetishist playground it now is. Remember that scene in Se7en, when Brad Pitt and Morgan…
The Black Keys – El Camino (Nonesuch)
The Black Keys El Camino Nonesuch The Keys have now officially graduated from the laid-back "folk-blues" recording style, and have slung into the Top 40. From the start, this 38-minute, 11-jam collection doesn’t catch on to the brilliance of 2008’s home run Brothers, but producer (du jour) Danger Mouse has had a major pop…
Soul kitchen
They stand in line so patiently, you’d never know some of them haven’t eaten since yesterday. The line’s so long it winds from the soup kitchen door along the wall and around the corner to the back, then curves down the alley and out to the street on the side. And no matter how hard…
Brian Jones and the Rolling Stones:No Expectations – Rock Report with Geoffrey Giuliano
Now that everyone is getting reacquainted with their favorite Natalie Wood jokes, let us turn our thrift shop attention to another shooting star who failed as a floatation device. Or as one of the men who supposedly drowned him puts it, "He weren’t at the bottom, but he weren’t at the top, he was,…
Headhunting… Saturday at the Park Bar
Jeff Howitt and I met up the morning before the New Year to talk about the Blues over bagels and bitter coffee. We started rambling about nostalgia and the inspirational-echo-chambers of music communities as we people-watched the suburban shufflers and scarfed-up peacoat professionals bluster in and bluster out for their morning fixes. There’s a concert…
City Slang: Weekly music review roundup
Remember – if you send it, it will get reviewed. That’s the City Slang promise. It doesn’t matter what genre the music is – as long as it has a Metro Detroit connection, it’ll get in. Preferably, we’d like to concentrate on new releases but, while we’re getting warmed up here, feel free to send…
Coachella Line-Up Announced — Detroit Gets Snubbed
If you haven’t heard already, the 2012 Coachella Music Festival line-up is announced. Somehow, someway, Detroit got totally snubbed. I could be missing something or maybe my eyes are bad. Judging by the poster above, Detroit musicians got stiff-armed this year and it makes no sense. No Danny Brown, no Dale Earnhart Jr. Jr., no…
Eric Lau and Guilty Simpson — “Yesterday”
Smoothed out British producer Eric Lau is currently in the process of releasing an EP entitled The Mission with Detroit emcee Guilty Simpson. Frankly I’ll say it’s the first 2012 release with Detroit roots that I’m anxiously anticipating. Their paring is an odd one: Guilty often raps some of the darkest material a person sitting…
