A godfather of glam
You can hear the exact moment when Marc Bolan jumps the shark. It arrives in “Left Hand Luke and the Beggar Boys,” the closing track of 1973’s Tanx (the fourth T. Rex album and Bolan’s eighth overall since founding Tyrannosaurus Rex in late 1967). Amid a syrupy piano and strings gospel arrangement and excruciatingly shrill…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): I don’t take drugs or alcohol, but I love to get high. Astrologer Caroline Casey states my belief perfectly when she says that we all need regular doses of vastness. So how do I crack open the doors of perception? Engaging in extreme horseplay is one way. Recently, for instance, three…
Mood mode
It’s a fact: There is no city as musically incestuous as Detroit. But lucky for us, the strange bedfellows that evolve out of Detroit’s “I play bass in this band and guitar in that band” ethos are among the most interesting and successful in the biz. Take the Mood Elevator, for example. The band was…
Savage for a day
Q: My girlfriend of three years is a smoker. In the beginning of our relationship, her smoking didn’t bother me. I come from a family of smokers and I used to smoke. But now her smoking is a huge turn-off. I’ve also started a new job where I work with cancer patients and I see…
In search of a black girl lost
When Detroit native Aku Kadogo last worked at home, it was with a group of student actors at Wayne State University’s Black Theatre Program, in a production of Ntozake Shange’s For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf. It was 2002, and Kadogo’s indelible influence helped to spit-shine the talents of that…
Head Cheese
The Vandermark 5’s music is action-packed. Rhythms charge then retreat; instruments drop in and out; harmonies pulsate between sweetness and dissonance; solos rocket out of the ensemble. The youngest jazz musician to snag a MacArthur "genius grant," leader Ken Vandermark, 41, heads or collaborates in numerous ensembles, but the 5 is the center star in…
More blow, please
A sniff of Blowout We here at MT lift a smudgy glass of Stroh’s draft in salutation of our mottled livers and the myriad artists and bands in the greater Detroit area. See, our in-house Hamtramck Blowout music fest promoter, one Tony Blowout, is “announcing” the opening night pre-party bash lineup, which, you’ll notice, sidles…
Killer’s kiss
There are worse ways to kill an evening than at a musical about a serial killer. In Meadow Brook Theatre’s production of Douglas J. Cohen’s No Way to Treat a Lady, murder is, well, sort of funny. This show’s musical numbers are attractive, and the jokes, if not original, feel comfortingly familiar. Morris “Moe” Brummel…
I, breadbot
It’s almost certainly slipped your attention that January is Bread Machine Baking Month, declared so by the Bread Machine Industry Association. That obscure group has a vested in saying so. I don’t. But it’s reason enough to tell you a few things about life with a bread machine, and why you might consider making the…
Defever on Defever
On the split from 4AD: Having been signed to the same label for 13 years (which I understand is not going to get us in the Guinness Book of World Records), we had developed a sustainable system, but it also got a little boring. And it’s great to spice things up sometimes. It’s like being…
Of presidents and precedents
NSA case recalls 1970s Michigan trial
Detrola
Detrola is recorded proof that living well — or at least just living through it — is the best revenge. Detrola is the first full-length from His Name is Alive since parting ways (what a nice euphemism) with longtime label 4AD. And it’s a knockout. HNIA brainman Warn Defever has crafted a record of squiggly,…
Art Bar
Lola Haskins, who lives in Florida, has written a number of poems about musical terms, entitled “Adagio,” “Allegrissimo,” “Staccato” and so on. Here is just one of those, presenting the gentleness of pianissimo playing through a series of comparisons. To Play Pianissimo Does not mean silence. The absence of moon in the day sky for…
Snews break
Media players have big plans, but you’d hardly know it from reading their newspapers
Memphis Ninny
America’s favorite depress-you-to-impress-you babe doing a Southern soul record? It all but guarantees that the best thing you’ll hear from Chan Marshall this year is her vulnerable-voiced cover of “Hanging on the Telephone” for a Cingular commercial. The Greatest? More like The Disappointment. Recorded at Memphis’ Ardent Studios and utilizing such Hi Records legends as…
An all-new Low
Low guitarist and vocalist Alan Sparhawk is a busy man. Getting him on the phone from his Duluth, Minn., home has been difficult, but on the third try, a success. He’s a family man, and his two children (with his wife, band percussionist-vocalist Mimi Parker) can be heard creating a ruckus in the background. But…
Sartorial sarcasm
Calling out Oakland County Commissioners on their sneaky pay raise
Silk & Soul
Someone said that when Ella Fitzgerald sang that her man was gone, it sounded like he stepped out for cigarettes. And when Billie Holiday sang, you knew the cat was never coming back. So let’s talk about how Nina Simone sings it. Listen to her version of “My Man’s Gone Now” on Sings the Blues:…
In The Flesh
Slum Village & Kool Keith Friday, Jan. 13 BB King’s Blues Club, New York City Slum Village won over the crowd rather effortlessly in New York City late Friday night. Sharing the bill with Kool Keith — Slum (T3 and Elzhi), bedecked in matching Tigers garb, delivered a strong set featuring a mix of raw…
Hard time, long time
At Huron Valley women’s prison, conditions are still substandard
The Tomorrow Show With Tom Snyder: Punk & New Wave
Television and rock music have never been comfortable with each other. Live TV sound has mostly missed the point. The energy rarely transcends the awkward, small stages and the few minutes allotted for performances never allow the performers to warm up. The best moments on this two-DVD collection of punk and new wave rock appearances…
Chill out
Ten Words For Snow don’t see themselves as hip, and don’t really care if they aren’t perceived as such. “None of us look like ‘rock’ people,” drummer Dave Melkonian says, relaxing in the basement practice space and recording studio of his polite Madison Heights ranch. He’s implying that the world might not need another suited…
Proactive
Working for peace — The Detroit Labor Committee for Peace & Justice will be offering a view of the war in Iraq as “seen through the eyes of the working people sent to fight it, their families, the labor movement, and the community.” Among the speakers will be Mike Hoffman, co-founder of the group Iraq…
The Minstrel Show
Their profile jumped on the strength of producer 9th Wonder’s terrific work with Jay-Z (The Black Album’s “Threat”), Jean Grae and Destiny’s Child, but emcees Big Pooh and Phonte aren’t exactly milquetoast. The Durham, N.C., trio lead a crew they call the Justus League, and like their 2003 debut, The Listening, their latest is tied…
Adopting new rules
It all started innocently enough. While working as a social worker at a Toledo, Ohio, foster home in the early 1990s, Beverly Davidson fell in love with another woman. The two started dating, then moved in together. After two years, they talked of having children. They researched the process and decided that Davidson’s partner would…
Seeing stars
Writer and philosopher Manly P. Hall called the sun the greatest of natural fires and the most supreme of celestial bodies. Adoring the sun, he wrote, is one of the earliest forms of religious expression. Mounds, altars and temples have been raised to honor the deity of daylight. But in the art that jazz drummer…
Offbeat and on the road
As a final hurdle before gender-reassignment surgery, heroine Bree’s therapist (Elizabeth Peña) orders her to make amends with the son she fathered back when she was still a man, during an ill-advised college fling. Bree travels to New York City, where she finds the wayward, teenage Toby (Kevin Zegers) incarcerated for hustling and minor drug…
The Supremes & assisted suicide
Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision that was widely hailed as the first major victory for supporters of physician-assisted suicide since Jack Kevorkian was thrown in the slammer seven long years ago. Twelve years ago, Oregon became the only state to legalize assisted suicide in any form, when voters decided to let…
Motown falls
From: Cybelle Codish To:Brian Smith (bsmith@metrotimes.com) Date: January 23, 2006 1:04:30 PM Subject: Motown Building Demolition Hey Brian, After thinking about what kind of a quote would best describe the experience of seeing this beautiful landmark fall — a structure build by one of the most important architects of our time (Albert Kahn), but also…
Match Point
In this Woody Allen film set in London, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers plays Chris Wilton, a social climber whose lukewarm success as a pro tennis player prompts him to abandon the tour to give lessons at a posh English club. There he meets Tom Hewett (Matthew Goode) who takes an immediate liking to Chris and introduces him…
Night and Day
Friday • 27 Music of Miles Davis MUSIC All the acknowledged jazz greats inspire tribute bands and projects, but probably no one inspires so many different-sounding homages for different career phases as Miles Davis. This combo led by trumpeter Eddie Henderson tips its hat particularly to the Davis band circa 1959 with saxophonists Antonio Hart…
Comics
The Boiling Point – by Mikhaela Reid The Perry Bible Fellowship – by Nicholas Gurewitch
Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World
Albert Brooks drops the pretense of character and simply plays himself. Hired by the American government, Brooks travels to Pakistan and India to find out what makes Muslim people laugh, and to better understand Islamic culture. It’s a great premise for a comedy, and an abortive audition with Penny Marshall, Brook’s initial contact with the…
King Con
Reality is up for grabs, and it’s getting filmier by the day. The latest evidence is the exposure of best-selling author James Frey as a fraud, a wimp in warrior’s clothing who scammed his publisher, the Oprah Winfrey affirmation machine and the grieving families of some dead former schoolmates. And first among Frey’s roster of victims…
The New World
To the uninitiated, Malick’s style and pace can be like watching paint dry, and this film will do nothing to change that impression. The filmmaker tackles the legend of Pocahontas, with Captain John Smith played by Colin Farrell and Pocahontas played by newcomer Q’Orianka Kilcher. But the film isn’t a romance, it’s an exploration of…
Sad, hurt and out of control
I think you missed a crucial part in this weeks’ letter from WILLIE: "and it’s over in 15 minutes." Also he mostly complains about what he doesn’t get. My first BF was like WILLIE, and his critiques did nothing but make me less adventurous and less likely to suck his dick. WILLIE doesn’t say, "I…
Underworld: Evolution
If you liked the first Underworld film, chances are you’ll find this unnecessary sequel only mildly disappointing. For the rest of us, there’s very little evolution to be found, just more of the same … but not even as good.
Letters to the Editor
Personal best I enjoyed Curt Guyette’s article about Marsden Burger (“Rail break,” Metro Times, Jan. 18), whom I know and respect. I have believed for some time now that personal rapid transit (PRT) is ideally suited for airport applications. Last October BAA contracted to install the ULTra PRT system at Heathrow Airport. The system is…
Warm-up bands
This week, the city of Ferndale becomes a haven for pentatonic scales and hot licks. It’s the annual Ferndale Blues Festival, and it’s a Detroit blues bacchanalia. But rather than flapping our gums, we figured we’d direct your attention to the truly important information: Who’s playin’? Friday, Jan. 27 Club Bart (22726 Woodward Ave., Ferndale;…
