Party-time overdrive
PRESS PIG-OUT The overhyped and overblown North American International Auto Show has touched down once again for its annual pomp and circumschmaltz. Mother Nature took pity on Detroit, eschewing the blizzard and concomitant paralysis that accompanied the media preview week in 1999. More fun than the public show, the media preview week presents practically unlimited…
Got meaning?
Kid Rock shows up on the cover of CMJ cloaked in an American flag and sporting his red derby hat. The question “Does Music Matter Anymore?” zig-zags in white across his shirtless torso. It’s the question that nobody wanted to ask last millennium. But writer Michael Azerrad tackles the topic with grand illusions, footnotes, a…
News Hits
James E. Loewen’s Top 20 candidates for ‘toppling’ 1. "Perhaps the most hated monument in America is the only one I know that overtly praises white supremacy — the obelisk celebrating the White League in New Orleans." The monument honors an 1874 uprising by white Democrats against the state’s racially mixed Republican government; the battle…
Delight in deceit
"Your records are telling you lies!" opens Tigertown Pictures, Comet Gain’s more musically and emotionally adventurous take on riot grrrl’s Huggy Bear and Emily’s Sassy Lime. With tear / beer-stained sentiments and boy-girl vocals, this U.K. gang of four’s art-punky rickety rack explores why our most cherished music turns on us when relationships fail. Songs…
Food Stuff
IMPROVED INDULGENCE Anyone who’s tried to eat healthier knows that at some point, you rebel, pig out and say, "At least I’ll die happy!" Most of the nutrition advice-mongers don’t contest the idea that eating healthily means some hardship. Take this newsletter from the Center for Science in the Public Interest, good folks who have…
Glam misreadings
Nightlife, Cobra Verde’s second full-length since 1994 (after a hiatus to be Bob Pollard’s backup band for Guided By Voices), is a tight, concerted effort at marking out its own rock ‘n’ roll territory in American independent music. Unfortunately, CV’s musical problems do not lie in the band’s chops. Rather Verde, which is run by…
George’s hooptie
1. Under the hood “The best damn motor that GM ever made,” said Marion (my Hamtramck mechanic who’d been fixing cars since the ‘30s) when I first bought this ride from a friend seven years ago. Then there weren’t any liver spots of rust on the side panels and the power windows were still working…
Highway revisited
The third release by Ghazal, a trio marrying classical Persian and Indian musics, travels a now familiar route. As in its first two recordings, Lost Songs of the Silk Road and As Night Falls on the Silk Road, this intriguing ensemble combines the sound of the kamancheh (an ancient Persian "spike fiddle") with those of…
Shapes at the movies
What better place to while away midwinter afternoons than here in the dark, the curtain drawn? Poised for the dramatic, imagination straining toward spring with its bursting colors, quickening senses and the sensual brush of the first warm night’s breeze along bare shoulders. Think the elegance of Veronica Lake or Sophia Loren’s sultriness, with a…
Third chance
The famous sophomore jinx. Some have survived it – Smash Mouth and Bush come to mind. But for every Foo Fighters there are 50 Tonics or, even worse, 50 Spacehogs waiting in the wings. Even the most talented fall prey to media scrutiny for having committed the cardinal sin of failing to equal the success…
Bow for the new-media moguls
And so, early in the year 2000, it came to pass that visions of a seamless media web enraptured the keepers of pecuniary faith as never before. A grand new structure, AOL Time Warner, emerged while a few men proclaimed themselves trustees of a holy endeavor. They told the people about a wondrous New Media…
Time warp evolution
When, in such a time as this, it becomes necessary to look back and to make evaluations of the past and the various contributions that gave it shape, it becomes a fitting coincidence that the eminent Warp Records happens to be celebrating its 10th anniversary. To illustrate the point, they’ve come up with a three-part…
History to rubble
It is the afternoon before they go to court to try, once again, to save the Pontiac buildings, some more than a century old, that once housed some of the state’s mentally ill. Attorney Donald Rump, representing the historic preservationists pro bono, usually leaves the office at 3 p.m., but today he’ll be staying late,…
Peace and rice
Over a steaming vat of soup set up in a tiny triangular downtown park comes the invitation: "We’re having lunch – do you want to have lunch with us?" Each Saturday, members of Food Not Bombs, a direct-action collective, invite passers-by to join them for a midday meal. From a folding table at State and…
Legendary deli hangout
Lou’s has a friendly atmosphere where everyone seems comfortable. Diners can select from 41 different sandwiches with names such as Sherry’s Schtick (triple-decker of salami, coleslaw, Russian dressing), Felicia’s Chutzpa (triple-decker of ham, pineapple, cream cheese, lettuce, mayo), and Leo’s Yolk (two fried eggs, beef bacon, mayo). Open until 2 a.m. on weekdays, 4 a.m.…
Dancing drums
The infectious beat of Northern India’s Punjab region crosses oceans and highways to catch the world’s ear.
Girl on ice
People ask, "How did you get in there?" What they really want to know is if they are likely to end up in there as well. I can’t answer the real question. All I can tell them is, it’s easy. And it is easy to slip into a parallel universe. There are so many of…
All-male cast
Judd Hirsch cultivates the manly Art of camaraderie….
Blues stylin’
Anybody who’s seen Bobby Murray’s live shows already knows the man can bring forth the blues fire on command. Of course, with a band as strong as the one he’s got backing him up — Renell Gonsalves on drums, Tim Brockett on keyboards, Lonnie Motley on bass and Lenny Watkins on lead vocals — it’s…
Sympathy for the devil
A new bio presents a kinder Coppola….
Girl, Interrupted
Have you ever wondered if you were crazy? If so, James Mangold’s Girl, Interrupted might just get you harping on the question. His moving on-screen rendering of author Susanna Kaysen’s 1993 nuthouse memoir is an implosion – a shadowy swim through the mind and experiences of a young woman who spends a year in a…
Attention Span
HEAD ROOM Before marketing became such a big part of professional and college sports, athletic apparel was worn to signify allegiance to a particular team. While there are still die-hards representin’ their teams through thick and thin (how else can Lions jerseys be explained?), nowadays jerseys and caps are chosen like toothbrushes – by color.…
Angela’s Ashes
In the phenomenal success of Frank McCourt’s memoir, Angela’s Ashes, lies a paradox: that the specifics of an individual’s life can be seen as a universal story. Although few of his readers have firsthand knowledge of the harsh, unrelenting poverty of McCourt’s Irish-Catholic childhood in Limerick, he touches a chord of recognition by exploring the…
In one ear
IT’S A GREAT TIME IN DETROIT! You know, I’ve not figured out why that slogan hasn’t drummed up an avalanche of tourists in our fair city. Anyhoo … Oh, dear friends, there is so much we don’t know about the workings of the music biz. There’s so much activity bubbling behind the scenes of our…
Cradle Will Rock
Do leftists have a sense of humor? That’s just one of numerous questions writer-director Tim Robbins asks in the seriocomic, mostly true story, Cradle Will Rock, which examines the combustible mixture of art, commerce and politics during the Great Depression. A young Nelson Rockefeller (John Cusack) commissions Diego Rivera (Reuben Blades) to create a mural…
We’re having an election!
Yes, kiddies, this is indeed a national election year! Our deeply respected and devoutly loved major parties are about to begin the grand process of formally choosing presidential candidates, an event which so far, unfortunately, has created slightly less excitement than Melvindale’s annual "think stale!" bake sale. Largely that’s due to a complex mix of…
Sweet and Lowdown
With Sweet and Lowdown, Woody Allen returns, after the scattershot vitriol of his last two films – Deconstructing Harry and Celebrity – to the kinder and gentler mode of such anecdotal reveries as Broadway Danny Rose (1984) and Radio Days (1987). The movie purports to tell a series of vignettes about ‘30s jazz guitarist Emmet…
Visionary vehicles
Vrrooooming with excitement, the Lizard of Fun has donned a pair of black leather driving gloves and a bright NASCAR jacket with an M&Ms logo. "Whoo-hoo baby!" it shouts, waving a pair of Auto Show tickets. "We’re gonna go check out the latest models, scope the hottest bodies!" "I had no idea you were so…
My Best Fiend
Polish-born actor Klaus Kinski (1926-91) appeared in well over a hundred films, but is best remembered for the five he made with German director Werner Herzog between 1972 and 1988. Kinski was an alarming screen presence, even in small roles; with his large, disdainful mouth and huge, frightened eyes, he looked like a study in…
