Jul 25-31, 2001

Jul 25-31, 2001 / Vol. 21 / No. 41

Hip hop comes of age

If Russell Simmons’ recent Hip Hop Summit accomplishes even a fraction of its stated goals, it could prove to be one of the most revolutionary things ever in the popular music industry.

Metro Times editorial staff

America’s Sweethearts

A behind-the-scenes tale of stars juggling romance and PR, this frothy comedy could have made a statement about the pursuit of power in Hollywood. It doesn’t make a statement on much of anything. Stars include John Cusack, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Julia Roberts, Billy Crystal and Hank Azaria.

Serena Donadoni

Unfair use

The infamous Digital Millennium Copyright Act is back. And this time, it’s taking prisoners. Plus, a must-have item for those with $20,000 to spare.

Metro Times editorial staff

Below, not beneath

In a world after Juan Atkins does a Ford commercial, the search for imaginative, experimental electronic music can become so much fodder for cynics. Luckily, for the practical dreamers, there is BelowTheSurface, an album of underground producers who, as the liner notes succinctly state, are “dedicated to unity and collaboration … with the intent of…

Carleton S. Gholz

Stuttered style

Missy Elliott has always gotten by on skillz rather than sex appeal, so it’s a bit of a surprise her new album is front-loaded with R-rated stuff, getting its rocks off early with a string of risqué tunes culminating in the mondo bizarro “Get Ur Freak On.” Missy knows she’s no R. Kelly, of course.…

Christian Hoard

Free Will Astrology

ARIES (March 21-April 19): The Vagina Monologues is a book and stage show based on interviews with women all over the world. “There’s so much darkness and secrecy surrounding the vagina,” says author Eve Ensler, “like the Bermuda Triangle.” Sex-positive feminists have noted wryly that while Ensler’s work is a welcome breakthrough, the final frontier…

Metro Times editorial staff

Seminal moments

So you’re driving with your wife, reminding her that the young woman on the CD you’re hearing and the one who had the best song on the Shaft soundtrack, are the same person. She’s got a very sexy rasp in her voice and her music is pretty imaginative, for R&B. And she looks just like…

Khary Kimani Turner

Banging the boss

Q: I am a 40-year-old woman who works for a small company. I am married for the second time and have two children from my first marriage. Recently at a retirement party for one of the girls from my office, after a few drinks and after the guest of honor had gone home. I was…

Metro Times editorial staff

Moondance

At this point, I’m pretty much convinced that Ida could do nothing that would disappoint me. The New York three-piece (sometimes using four, five or more pieces) has added another exquisitely morose release to its discography of hazy gorgeous reflection. The Braille Night is the fraternal twin of last summer’s Will You Find Me, the…

Melissa Giannini

Teddy and Freddy

“I saw Siamese twins yesterday,” I said, and everyone at the dining table stopped what they were doing. Everyone, that is, except my wife Beverly, a psychoanalyst by profession, and thus seldom surprised by the curious, often disturbing diversity of the human condition. She simply swallowed her wine and smiled. The others gathered in the…

Metro Times editorial staff

Gospel groove

If your priest whipped out a Stratocaster and started wailing, this is how you’d feel, the same way you feel listening to The Word. The pews are shaking, the crucifixes are rattling on the walls, the holy water is sloshing, you are sweating in your itchy church clothes. You can’t believe it; you’re groovin’ to…

Joshua Gross

Where’s the treat?

Tricky made a grand entrance in 1995 with Maxinquaye, a combo of shadowy electro sound scapes and seductive vocals (courtesy of his collaborator Martine) that left scores of imitators in its wake. Five albums later, the 36-year-old Brit is touting Blowback as the “real” follow-up to his debut; all the others, he says, were bogged…

Christian Hoard

Floyidan slip?

When last we heard from our gallant Parisian producers Jean-Benoît Dunckel and Nicolas Godin (aka Air) they were plying the waters in the channel between soft-focus downer pop and eclectic, atmospheric electro experimentalism in the service of Sofia Coppola’s Virgin Suicides soundtrack. Those are dangerous waters and, to their credit, Air managed to keep the…

Chris Handyside

Tour de terror

This isn’t the brightest movie of the trilogy, and it comes up short as heartwarming family melodrama. But its artificial heart still pumps enough adrenaline to thrill and chill — with Sam Neill and Téa Leoni.

James Keith La Croix

Battle wounds

A hardcore battle at the Wired Frog … Princess Dragon Mom’s seventh annual Noise Camp … Eras end at the Gold Dollar and the Pirate House … plus, Atalaya, Baby Ambassador, Small Brown Bike & so much more.

Metro Times editorial staff

Made

Bickering friends since high school, Bobby (Jon Favreau) and Ricky (Vince Vaughn) become couriers for the mob and quickly get in over their heads. Favreau and Vaughn broaden the personas they adopted in the slight but lively Swingers (1996). But a flawed script keeps this effort down.

Richard C. Walls

Neckties and naps

There’s a bit of urban folklore that says: “Satan wears a suit and tie, and Satan never sleeps.” I’ve came across two recent news items that I think not only confirm the truth of this saying, but also indicate that Satan is winning against the forces of good. Item No. 1 comes from the Knight…

Jim Hightower

After that birthday bash

Detroit has massive problems, which everyone took great pains to downplay during the city’s 300th anniversary celebration. But we can make Detroit worth living in again, if we want to.

Jack Lessenberry

Jail Bait

by James R. Tomlinson Joshua Liddy swallows rat poison and rushes out the door to beat the high school bus to the corner of Samsa and Conner. Every weekday morning for the past eight weeks his wife places his poison on the coffee-stained tablecloth, next to his vitamins, next to his empty lunch bag, which…

Metro Times editorial staff

Letters to the Editor

No rednecks here Casey Coston’s column in the Metro Times of July 18-24 greatly annoyed me. His bashing of Sequoia was absurd. He made reference to Friday and Saturday; Sequoia was not there either day. I am the manager that booked Sequoia for the Thunderfest. None of the bands there were rednecks nor was there…

Metro Times editorial staff

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