Cover Stories
Florida’s attempt to scrub the voter rolls is un-American
Threaten to curb someone’s right to own a gun in the state of Florida and you’re likely to provoke a war — you’ll be threatened, castigated, called un-American. You’ll have to pry that gun from its Second Amendment-invoking owner’s cold, dead hands, and you’ll have to battle with legions of lobbyists and outraged citizens who’d…
Voting wrongs
Editor’s note: On Tuesday, after this week’s paper went to press, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder vetoed a package of three bills considered by critics to be voter suppression measures. In doing so, Snyder, a Republican, acted in opposition to the GOP-controlled state House and Senate. Snyder’s action was hailed by voting rights advocates. Todd Cook,…
City Slang: Maria Rose & the Swiss Kicks to headline the Blind Pig
Ann Arbor’s Maria Rose & the Swiss Kicks, fronted by pole fitness instructor Maria Rose, will play the Blind Pig in their home town on August 2 with Charlie Slick and Tunde Olanrian. Doors are at 10 and cover is $5. The band describes its music as having a “healthy heaping of sensuality spiced with…
Teen-a-rama- The Ben Blackwell Interview
Over the past month, I’ve been able to talk to Ben Blackwell, the so-called ‘Pinball Wizard’ at Third Man Records, the record label started in 2009 by Jack White III. Mr. White is a former member of The White Stripes, and member of The Dead Weather and The Raconteurs. Third Man holds true to the…
The Sights Tour Diary Entry No. 20: Congrats Philly, You’re the Home of the Cheesesteak
Congrats Philly, You’re the Home of the Cheesesteak… I am in Brooklyn feeling kinda sticky after just loading in. Yesterday was a jam packed day. We woke up in Hoboken after staying with friends and showed up late in Lake Como to our WRAT-FM session with Keith Roth. No worries, as we found out, ‘cos…
City Slang: Bloodline Riot with CD release show
Local metal-heads Bloodline Riot will play a CD release show at the Magic Bag in Ferndale on August 4. City Slang reviewed the band’s “Burn” single a few months back, and we said that it was “pretty damned good. Very ‘contemporary metal’, tailor made for WRIF, and there’s nothing wrong with that when the tune…
City Slang: Rogue Satellites collaborate with Alice V. Schneider
Electro-indie-popsters the Rogue Satellites are collaborating with Alice Victoria Schneider on a multimedia project. They say, “Detroit’s Corktown Studios, which is the rehearsal space for Rogue Satellites, will house this collaborative performance/installation in its exhibition space. The band will perform while completely immersed in an environment created by Schneider. The dark aesthetics of band and…
What’s a church without an organ?
The First Congregational Church in Saginaw is currently engaged in the revitalization of its historic E.M. Skinner pipe organ and it needs your help. They say, “This instrument, Opus 751, has been a vital part of our community’s culture since its dedication in 1929. Other than routine maintenance and cleaning, the organ remained untouched for…
The Sights Tour Diary Entry No. 19: Hello, We’re The Sights from Detroit and Damn Proud Of It
Hello, we’re The Sights from Detroit and damn proud of it… Surprise, I am in the back of Jerry Sprinter sweating out another entry. Jerry is sailing through New Jersey at the moment, on his way to Brooklyn for tonight’s club show. I feel good for a few reasons–first, I had 8 hours of sleep.…
Cinematic Titanic crashes A2!
In the not too distant future Talking back the movie screen, a practice once shunned by all good and decent folk, has been elevated to an artform of its own in recent years, largely thanks to the efforts of the relentlessly snarky squad of cinema snipers now calling them selves Cinematic Titanic, who will be…
City Slang: Blues man in hospital
Local blues musician Carl Henry is currently in hospital and the Detroit Blues Society is asking for your help. According to a source, Henry is “a veteran local blues musician with a heart of gold, always the first one in line to offer his services whenever the Detroit Blues Society puts on a benefit for…
The Sights Tour Diary Entry No. 18: Recreating Sherman’s March
Recreating Sherman’s March After our late night in Nashville we crashed at our pal Nick Lucassian’s, slept in the next day and ordered pizza. I asked for deep dish, and the pizza guy told me they don’t have that in Nashville. He did want to clarify that he was from Chicago and he understood my…
Pupils (Part One): Another View – Neurotic Beauty / Metaphysical Mayhem (7.8.12)
Somewhere between Siddhartha and rightfully-forgotten Ninja Turtles’ villains, striking profundity betwixt small storms of tangential-rants, seated in folding chairs over rain-soaked weeds sheltering threatening mosquitoes on a hot-ass summer’s night with amateur pyrotechnics jettisoning road-side-bought fireworks from the surrounding backyards of Ferndale, a band, Pupils, starts settling down, with ashy cigarettes and bubbly beer, and…
City Slang: Carolyn Striho new video and dates
Detroit’s own rock ’n’ roll songbird Carolyn Striho has a new video for the song “Sing it to Me” which can be viewed here. Striho and her band also have dates lined up for July. They say: “In July, we’ve got shows at super Short’s Microbrewery in Bellaire Michigan – Torch Lake, near Traverse City…
Snyder bucks GOP, protects voting rights
Republican Gov. Rick Snyder bucked his own party on Tuesday, vetoing a three-bill package passed by the GOP-controlled House and Senate. Critics said the bills would have suppressed voter turnout, especially among young people, senior and minorities — all groups that tend to vote Democratic. U.S. Rep. John Conyers, a Detroit Democrat, was quick to…
The Sights Tour Diary Entry No. 17: Bobman’s Knocking ‘Em Down
Bobman’s Knocking ’em Down I am in the backseat of Jerry Sprinter and it feels like a good time to write. I have no clue what state I am in, as I heard Shades and Skip up front talking about how we just passed through three states or something. I’m guessing we’re out of Virginia…
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…
Straight talk
Q: I’m a straight guy and I’m really into having my balls sucked — it’s one of my favorite things, and just thinking about it turns me on. But whenever I’ve had my balls sucked, it hurts, and ball pain is not a kink of mine! It hurts enough to override any pleasure, and I…
Beachwood Sparks – The Tarnished Gold (Sub Pop)
After a decade-long break, Los Angeles-based space cowboys Beachwood Sparks return with an expanded lineup and a skyful of stars in their eyes. The original quartet, which spent its time away working on solo and other band projects, is joined by three additional musicians on The Tarnished Gold, boosting the sound on their third album…
Various Artists – Café Con Música (Nacional Records)
It took about three years for Los Angeles-based label Nacional Records to convince Starbucks to sell a cool Latin alternative compilation in its stores. The result is a mostly solid bag of bands and solo artists signed or licensed by the label. You get heavyweights like Chilean rapper Ana Tijoux ("1977," from her eponymous previous…
Pat Metheny – Unity Band (Nonesuch)
It was starting to look like Pat Metheny was becoming a misanthrope. After all, it had been almost five years since the guitarist had played with anyone else on record, choosing to go solo with an acoustic guitar on 2011’s What’s It All About and, on the most extreme end, creating a virtual army of…
Your Sister’s Sister
Your Sister’s Sister B Low-budget and low-key, Lynn Shelton’s follow-up to her racy indie breakout, Humpday, doesn’t exactly push the envelope for dramatic invention, but it does cement the fluid, intimate and poignantly human approach of her improvisational style. The story is barebones simple. Jack (Mark Duplass) is scruffy, directionless and still grieving over the…
The Tallest Man on Earth – There’s No Leaving Now (Dead Oceans)
Twenty-nine-year-old singer-songwriter Kristian Matsson, who records as the Tallest Man on Earth, does little to dispel the dark, despairing stereotypes that hound his fellow Swedes. His terrific third album, There’s No Leaving Now, is filled with songs about crushed dreams, broken spirits, and that old no-light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel standby: death. Thing is, the music on There’s No…
Assault on democracy
When it comes to Michigan’s emergency manager law and the effort to repeal it, we here at the Hits are a little bit mystified. For the second week in a row, we walked away puzzled after spending some time over at the Court of Appeals, where activists, seeking to have voters decide the fate of…
Go to health
Last week’s Supreme Court decision that essentially upheld the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has been getting lots of play in the media. That’s an understatement when it comes to the right-wing media. That gang — Glenn Beck, Ben Shapiro et al. — has gone absolutely nuts. Blogger Shapiro wrote, "This is the end of America…
Kylie Minogue – The Best of Kylie Minogue (EMI)
Kylie Minogue has always been sorta like the Aussie version of Madonna. From her super-fluffy first singles in the ’80s ("I Should Be So Lucky") to her powerhouse hits years later ("Can’t Get You Out of My Head") to becoming an icon for millions of gay men around the world, Minogue’s career has practically mirrored…
The Fourth and our future
The other day, thinking about the state of the country, and the state of our own state, a ghastly image came into my mind from William Manchester’s book, The Death of a President, about the assassination of John F. Kennedy. In an especially riveting scene, the stricken president is in the hospital’s trauma room, all…
North by southwest
Woodward Imperial 22828 Woodward Ave., Ferndale 248-850-8060 facebook.com/imperialonwoodward Handicap accessible Tacos, sandwiches and sides: $2-$8 Hours: 11 a.m.-2 a.m. daily Husband and wife Perry and Sharon LaVoisne had a nice life in Los Angeles, where they had moved after a stint a decade ago as co-owners of Small’s, along with friends and music industry veterans…
Raw power
The Boy Wonders play the New Dodge Lounge on Friday, July 6, with Rex Antenna and the Paper Sound, at 8850 Joseph Campau St., Hamtramck; 313-874-5963 Last January, we published a cover story pointing out the fact that, at one point in the ’80s, an Aquaman-led Justice League of America had been based in…
The Offspring – Days Go By (Columbia)
Not much has changed since the Offspring’s mid-’90s peak. They’re still playing melodic SoCal punk with a shot of alt-rock self-importance. They’re still angry smartasses softened by occasional flairs of cheese. And they’re still skirting the line between muscular and meathead. Days Go By, their ninth album, and first in four years, makes the usual…
Feeling super!
As the official unveiling of DC Comics’ original Green Lantern (aka Alan Scott) as a gay superhero earlier this month demonstrates, there’s no longer any reason to speculate on what really goes on in the Batcave between Batman and Robin, or the sexual preference of Wonder Woman. These days, if a superhero is gay, there’s…
Girls on film
He first had sex with a hooker when he was 18. He’s been with hundreds of them since. And he’s put a video of nearly every one of those hookups on his website. "I just like bad girls," says the 36-year-old Detroiter who goes by the name John Juan, the persona behind foulfowl.com. "I’ve always…
Food Stuff
Wash it down, Washtenaw-style If Ypsilanti were a beer, what would it taste like? Thanks to the seasoned craft brewers at Arbor Brewing Company, the eccentric town is now available in a bottle. The brew is called Ypsi Gypsi, a lightly hoppy and moderately bitter American pale ale. It tastes like it was born between…
