Lo’Jo
A French group that brings Europe and Africa together with the sweet strains of a seductive dance … a musical trance.
Blood & roses in high school
I’m not sure exactly where I was in my writing career at age 13, but it likely consisted of notes passed in class that read, “Do you like me? Check yes or no.” It was certainly nothing nearly as polished and promising as the vampire fiction of teen author Amelia Atwater-Rhodes. An otherwise average 15-year-old…
Free will astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Would you cover your eyes to shut out the darkness? Of course not. Would you close your mouth to protest injustice? Hell, no. So please, Aries, as your need to be touched grows to fever-pitch intensity, don’t stop reaching out. Don’t beg and grovel. But you will end up begging and…
The counterattack
A trio of anti-environmental groups and companies is launching an attack against the Rainforest Action Network — the group’s funders and IRS status have been targeted.
Showshane
Showshane constructs an instrumental wall of confusion, chaos and question; waxing and waning through spacious frontiers searching for some sense of clarity. It may not be the answer you would have chosen, but they succeed in figuring it out none the less, and perhaps that’s what’s so inventive about the band: They discard expected time…
Coming clean?
Q: As an aide (female, 26) in a nursing facility, part of my job involves bathing clients. Most often this is done while they sit or stand, depending on their health status. I wash them with a soapy sponge in my right hand while I hold a sprayer in my left hand for wetting and…
Money for nothing
High-quality sites like salon.com are now asking for subscription fees — it’s the latest trend sweeping the Internet. So what’s your favorite Web site worth to you?
Salute to pizza
The Majestic empire is expanding with this new pizza restaurant; already it has a following among the young denizens of the area. The Sarge’s managers are attempting to do a two-steps-up version of pizza — you can order flavored crusts or a specialty sauce like basil pesto or tapenade, and the specialty toppings include roasted…
Rai rebel
Algerian native Cheb Mami makes a return to the desert and breaks musical borders. calls him “one of the greatest voices in world music today.”
Activist for the animals
Gary Yourofsky thinks you need to know exactly where the meat for your sausage comes from, for the same reason you need to know about Auschwitz.
Hot damn
Taking one look at Ron Fountenberry, with his fitted dark denim jacket, striped knit scarf, thick-rimmed glasses protecting “really deep” thoughts and a short, perfectly picked, kinked and twisted afro, you might quickly peg the guy as another hip-cute-sensitive-Casio-toting-Brooklyn-bedroom-laptop-sound-collagist. He could pass for a cast member of Rent, with a look that sets a new…
Declare independence
As usual, American flags were flying in cities and towns all across the country on July 4th — but not all of them were the traditional Stars and Stripes that symbolize our nation’s independence and America’s historic commitment to liberty and justice for all. Instead, in more than 200 places — from Alabaster, Ala., to…
A capital crime
You can only build so many prisons, and killing innocent people just because they’re on death row is pretty hard to justify no matter how you look at it.
Embracing complexity
Fueled by inspiration from minimalist indie jazz-rock, postcollegiate malaise and a few cases of Hamm’s, Utah! is leaving us behind after only a few metro-area hellos. The Kalamazoo outfit is taking its highbrow, ebb-and-flow sound to North Carolina. No worries, though. With ’Zoo Sounds and Destructovision as its impressive debut and promising indie startup Arborvitae…
Graphically disruptive
Comics predators Donna Barr and Roberta Gregory stop in for a chat….
Orwell speaks in 2001
I dreamed I saw George Orwell last night. Alive as you or me. He’d been watching the news, and he was quite irate. “All this doublespeak about war crimes is appalling,” he said. “That chap Milosevic — I see the U.S. government wants him tried for war crimes." “Yes,” I replied. “All the pundits agree."…
Pleasure principles
In boxing, everything works off the jab; in jazz, it is rhythm that sets you up for the heavy and flashy stuff to follow. From the opening fanfare on Live: Gabriel’s New Orleans Traditional Jazz Band, the music comes out dancing with a streetwise, high-kicking rhythmic strut, announcing the joyous intentions of this septet of…
Building a better human
From the makers of Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within….
Creating community
An eco-friendly community where neighbors know one another by name, share meals and care for their homes and children together … Cohousing pioneers buy in on a new kind of living.
Blues on the menu
If you know about Thornetta, then, well, you know. Right? There really isn’t much else that can be said about her voice that your ears won’t tell you. Although capable of singing in a fairly wide variety of musical styles, there’s no doubting that the blues (and its close musical cousin, gospel) is where Thornetta’s…
Lágbájá
Lágbájá is a post-Fela phenomenon mixing elements of Afrobeat and drumming with Western pop twists.
Slammin’
The Kalamazoo Slam Team takes on word-wrasslers at Urban Break.
Songs by heart
Karrin Allyson is making me hear vocals again. Am I closed-minded? Guess so. Aside from the immortals — Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan — jazz singers don’t usually grab my attention. Oh yeah, there’s also Jimmy Rushing, Nat “King” Cole, Ray Charles, Mose Allison, Chris Connor, Sheila Jordan: Guess I do like an original…
Mixing the waters
World sounds mingle and flow across boundaries and borders at this year’s Concert of Colors.
Moonlighting
Cranbrook gets serious with its monthly nighttime fundraiser…
Surviving Elm Street
Troubled teen Beckett believes she is the “final girl,” the girl in the horror movie who knows what is going to happen before anyone else, who must suffer as her friends die one by one, leaving her to make the last stand against the killer. This is her nightmare, and she welcomes us to peer…
Burnt Sugar
Having updated Miles Davis with a multilayered mix of electric, dreamy funk, this ever-evolving jazz-session collective just keeps getting deeper.
Screenings
Celebrating the wunderbar welt of German cinema at Wayne State….
Pretend-moi
This very funny farce directed by Francis Veber (La Cage Aux Folles, The Dinner Game) would be as light as a soufflé if it weren’t for performances by Daniel Auteuil and Gérard Depardieu: A loser’s leap into the void is halted by a neighbor who also suggests that if the forlorn fellow were to pretend…
Amina
Defying categorization, this Tunisian Parisienne’s sensual and tender voice seems at ease floating between the worlds of drum and bass, jungle, Asian and traditional West African beats.
Beyond annoying
Why are Detroit police ticketing gay men in Rouge Park?
Big Eden
Director Thomas Bezucha’s Big Eden is a fairy tale, about a beautiful place (it was filmed around Glacier National Park) where well-intentioned people cook gourmet food, listen to good country music and think nothing of two men dancing in public. It’s a pleasant vacation, leaving behind pettiness, hatred, cruelty and bad taste for a lovely…
Los Lobos
Quintessentially American, this long-lived East Los Angeles-based combo mixes rock, ranchera and more with an authenticity that can never be questioned.
Mayoral nitty-gritty
The Detroit Urban League chooses its ideal mayor….
Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within
Every frame of Final Fantasy is inventive and stunning, but it takes too long in establishing the specific rules of its world. In both tone and style, it resembles Japanese anime, with director Hironobu Sakaguchi pushing computer animation beyond safe, kid-friendly fare.
Cibo Matto
Japanese-born master sound chefs who serve up an irresistible stew of funk, hip hop, hardcore, melody and fractured pop.
Measure of a man
Take an insightful hiking trip with David Bonier (a long shot for Michigan’s next governor?)….
Scary Movie 2
"Taking the piss out" of someone in British slang means draining them of their self-importance. Shawn and Marlon Wayans don’t so much take the piss out of a random sample of Hollywood ghost flicks. They piss on them while aiming not only streams of urine, but geysers of vomit and semen, at America’s commercial pop…
Poncho Sanchez
This Latin-jazz bandleader extraordinaire keeps the Cal Tjader flame alive with his Afro-Cuban pulsations.
Deep dung
The Sierra Club turns up the heat on large livestock farms (and the State of Michigan)….
Cats and Dogs
At once clever and shallow, this film takes the expression "fighting like cats and dogs" literally, pushing the pitched battle between felines and canines into James Bond territory. One of its funniest conceits is that animals must never reveal their true intelligence (or ability for human speech) before their two-legged masters.
Concert of Colors schedule
FRIDAY JULY 13 Main Stage 5 p.m. — Sainkho 6:30 p.m. — Los Lobos 8:30 p.m. — Femi Kuti SATURDAY JULY 14 Main Stage 2 p.m. — Khac Chi Vietnamese Ensemble 3:30 p.m. — Poncho Sanchez 5:15 p.m. — Cheb Mami 7 p.m. — Angelique Kidjo 8:45 p.m. — War Big Top Stage 2:30 p.m.…
Get out of my brain!
Datacarbon and Royce Music fit several great Michigan-related bands on two new compilations … Bump to the beat at A Dub Supreme … Get sloppy with lots of fun bands at the Mess Fest … & more.
Kiss of the Dragon
Visually, Kiss of the Dragon falls on its own sword. First-time director Chris Nahon’s quick cuts chop up Jet Li’s championship-winning Wu Shu martial arts action almost beyond recognition. Bridget Fonda’s acting skills are wasted.
Mark Eitzel hits back
After defining an entire genre, this American Music survivor-songwriter doesn’t want to set new trends — he just wants to rock.
Free shows abound
Chomping it up at the incredibly diverse and damn-hip Tastefest … Watching the Top of the Park’s grand finale go off with a bang … & hangin’ with that cool Ann Arbor icon, Shaky Jake.
