City Slang: Come see us at Ann Delisi’s Essential Music Listening Party
On Tuesday (July 19), I will be Ann Delisi’s special guest at the Majestic Café (4120 Woodward Ave., Detroit) for her Essential Music Listening Party. From what I can make out, Ann will be playing a bunch of songs, some chosen by myself, and then we’ll discuss the music with those in attendance. There’s no…
A Better Life
Like its beleaguered hero, A Better Life labors under heavy burdens; it’s a tiny, intimate drama in the midst of blockbuster season, directed by a guy known for making Twilight sequels, and also happens to be about one of the most explosive issues in American politics. Compounding matters is that this humble film is ostensibly…
Global Dance Fest Recap: Crazed Kids Rave Royal Oak
Global Dance Fest Saturday, July 16 in Royal Oak The last stop for the traveling Global Dance Festival was Saturday at the Royal Oak Music Theatre. Skrillex, Porter Robinson and Zedd performed to a packed crowd until about 2 a.m., finishing on “Happy Birthday” for Porter who’d just turned a sprightly 19. Despite a late…
City Slang: Odu Afrobeat Orchestra at the Concert of Colors
Part of what this whole City Slang thing is all about is delving into and discovering genres of music, little musical subcultures, that you, the reader, and I, the writer, may not have previously been aware of. Sometimes that will mean exploring one of the countless sub-sub-genres of rock or electronic music, and that’s great.…
Mr B: Beautiful finish, beautiful day! … thinking about New Orleans in 2012
(Saturday morning’s final thoughts on the Joybox Experess bicycle tour across Michigan.) I’ve just awoken, and I’m beginning to wade through all the many feelings summoned by the events of the last two weeks. Yesterday was strong affirmation that the heart of our project is strong, and means different things to different people. When I…
City Slang: Don Was’ Detroit All-Star Revue at the Concert of Colors
Don Was’ Detroit All-Star Revue at the glorious celebration of musical diversity and multi-culture that is the annual Concert of Colors is now one of the highlights of the musical calendar. Was really has to be applauded. Each year, he pulls together a selection of Detroit’s exceptional talent from all genres and across the eras.…
City Slang: Carmine Appice talks drums
Carmine Appice plays drums in Cactus alongside Detroit’s own Jim McCarty. Next Friday, July 22, Cactus play the Magic Bag in Ferndale. Here’s an interview I did with Appice for UK drum magazine Rhythm in 2008 to warm up for the show. He’s influenced everyone from Ian Paice to John Bonham, and now he’s playing…
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
“Words are our most inexhaustible source of magic.” —Albus Dumbledore In true mainstream media fashion, the last installment of Hollywood’s adaptation of the Harry Potter books is being heralded as the end, an apocryphal event of such magnitude that we must bid Harry, Ron and Hermione a tearful adieu. Nevermind that J.K. Rowlings’ final…
Local Global Dance
Young’un electronic up-comers are set to dish out hearing loss Saturday night. Zedd, Porter Robinson and headliner Skrillex announced the final stop of their Global Dance tour a few months back, so the day’s finally here for dub dudes and bass heads to do their thing in Royal Oak. Having played together for a portion…
Mr. B: Our last day … join us at the DIA
We have been receiving such a great welcome in Detroit. The warmth and strength of Detroiters is a beautiful thing to behold, we’re so very happy to be here with you. Yesterday we played a nice midday gig at the Scarab Club, raising funds for the Tiny Scarabs. Yesterday’s gig was a perfect example of…
Detroit’s Charlie Gabriel plays Letterman show Tuesday
Local jazz fans may have noticed that Charlie Gabriel hasn’t been seen much on the local scene these last couple of years. There’s a reason: Charlie, whose family roots go back to generations of Crescent City music makers, was recruited for one of the reed chairs in the esteemed Preservation Hall Jazz Band, headquartered at…
City Slang: Cult Hero Hiawatha Bailey talks Blind Pig
This Friday, July 15, Ann Arbor veteran garage punks the Cult Heroes play the Blind Pig in their hometown. Also on the bill are 60 Second Crush and Ola Ray. City Slang caught up with eternally youthful front man Hiawatha Bailey to discuss the past and the Pig. Give us a little background on the…
Mr. B: Rolling into the 313, saluting Boogie Woogie Red
Well, we’ve made it, 350 miles across the state, arriving in Detroit around 5:30 p.m. yesterday. We were followed by Channel 7’s Stephen Clark, who interviewed us, taped us playing a tune or two, and put cameras on our bikes as we rolled out of Livonia towards Grand River on 6 Mile Road. The urban…
City Slang: “The Space Age Playboys” revisited
Kory Clarke is apparently one of those dudes from Detroit who pissed off a bunch of people and then skipped town for pastures new. Back in the ‘80s, he was the drummer in arty local hardcore-ish band L7 (not to be confused with the all-girl ‘90s band of “Shit List” fame) alongside future Laughing Hyena…
Mr. B: Closing in on Detroit … and Cliff Bell’s tonight
Pianist Mr. B, aka Mark Braun, and his band, the Joybox Express, are cycling and gigging — hauling Mark’s piano and a full band’s worth of equipment – from Holland to Detroit, July 2-15th, with a finale as part of the Concert of Colors — and they’re sharing their adventures with MT blog readers. We’re…
The fixer
They’re swarming around him today — like they always do. And though he’s waiting for customers, he’s getting visits from everyone else. It’s a hot summer afternoon, and Gus Mills is seated on an overturned milk crate in a deserted parking lot. A hand-painted wood sign propped on the sidewalk announces his business: What it…
Booty bomb
You may have been born here and still live in the city of Detroit. Perhaps you moved here from some other community but consider Detroit your adopted home. Many more of you were raised here, have departed the city limits for whatever reason yet still claim Detroit as your birthright. Doesn’t matter. It could be…
Pie-eyed
Amar Pizza 11608 Conant St., Hamtramck; 313-366-0980; $: Hamtramck’s Bangladeshi strip is heating up with all sorts of interesting food choices. There’s even a Bangladeshi pizzeria. Yes, it’s true, and they serve it up round, square, even deep-dish-style. They even have a naga sauce they’ll put on the pizza, reminiscent of jalapeño but spicier and…
Court and Cross
As a teacher at a small Lutheran elementary school in suburban Detroit, Cheryl Perich had no intention of going to the nation’s high court to be part of a national church-state separation debate. When she wanted her job back after a six-month disability leave and school officials refused, she never dreamed her dispute could be…
Titanic’s dance band
Detroit has too little money, grinding poverty, a population appallingly ill-equipped for survival, a huge city budget deficit, a failed school system and many other enormous problems. Nor is there any sign that anything is likely to get significantly better anytime soon. It is impossible to dispute anything I’ve just said, regardless of your politics.…
Arabian barbecue
Sheeba Restaurant 8752 Joseph Campau, Hamtramck 313-874-0299 Handicap accessible Entrées: $5.99-$13.99 Our modern American society can learn a few things from immigrant communities. Besides breaking out from the blue fog of our basement media rooms to develop relationships with neighbors, we could also benefit from cooking meat while it is still on the bone. The…
Still spinning
At the end of Kwame Kilpatrick’s lengthy interview in the most recent issue of Don Diva Magazine — "the original street bible" with a "Parental Advisory Gangsta Content" label — there is a plug for the ex-Detroit mayor’s upcoming memoir. The blurb promises that Surrendered will reveal "the truth behind his meteoric rise in politics,…
Food Stuff
Fountain flows The Fountain Bistro at Campus Martius Park, which opened last June in the space formerly occupied by Au Bon Pain, is reopening this week after a three-month remodel. They have a fresh look and a new menu — as well as that all-important liquor license. Hoping to draw downtown Detroit’s workers for lunch,…
Letters to the Editor
Dutched Re: "Smoking out tourists?" (July 6), it would be good for Dutch legislators to think strategically before enacting social legislation to coerce a particular behavior. First, and most important, how will it be enforced? Overenforcing can cause more societal damage than the behavior itself, if left alone. In the event of such blowback, what…
Spun
Ashton Shepherd Where Country Grows MCA Nashville Ashton Shepherd is a 24-year-old rugged country girl, lives in Alabama, and sounds like she’d kick your ass for looking at her the wrong way. Like Miranda Lambert, Shepherd has a deep drawl and a bullshit detector set to 11, and on her second album she lets you…
Hot for Daddy?
Q: I’m a 20-year-old straight male, but this isn’t really about me. I was recently back home for a family event while my younger brother, age 14, was away on a mission trip with his church. My iPad died while I was home and my mother told me to look in the kitchen drawers for…
Daddy smooth
Detroit’s reigning King of Soul is recalling with some discomfort the time in his life when he hit his substance-afflicted bottom. "It was July 1990," he says. "I was sleeping outside on the streets of Detroit having done a stint on the Cass Corridor, eating out of trash cans, being in the rescue mission, in…
Higher Ed’s perspective
Ed Rosenthal has been the longest and strongest voice talking about how to grow marijuana over the past 30 years through his "Ask Ed" column in High Times and Cannabis Culture magazines. On top of that he has written and published more than a dozen books on the subject, with more than 2 million copies…
Jungle Boogie
If you’ve been paying attention to the music that’s risen out of Detroit in the last 30 years or so, chances are you’ve run across the Algebra Mothers’ "Strawberry Cheesecake" single. It’s a hot, post-punk-new-wave 1979 burner that represents the only recorded output of that short-lived band. The record’s resurgent popularity via word-of-blog in recent…
Identity Festival To Sell $20 Tickets For 20 Hours
The Identity Festival, a new traveling festival comprised of entirely electronic music will make a stop at DTE Energy Music Theater on August 12th. The acts change city to city, but coming to the Clarkston incarnation will be Kaskade, the Crystal Method, the Disco Biscuits, DJ Shadow Steve Aoki, and DJ White Shadow among a…
WTF?: Planned Parenthood, protesters and the Pontiac show
There was no lack of laughs at the performance of The Daily Show co-founder Lizz Winstead’s performance at the Eagle Theater in Pontiac last Saturday night, but the benefit to raise money for Planned Parenthood also had some unexpected poignancy. There was also some drama as scores of anti-abortion protesters staked out the sidewalk across…
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…
Mr. B: Livonia, here we come … Detroit, get ready
Pianist Mr. B, aka Mark Braun, and his band, the Joybox Express, are cycling and gigging — hauling Mark’s piano and a full band’s worth of equipment – from Holland to Detroit, July 2-15th, with a finale as part of the Concert of Colors — and they’re sharing their adventures with MT blog readers. Yesterday…
