Night and Day
THURSDAY JUNE 17 CocoRosie THE SISTERS WEIRD With CocoRosie, sisters Bianca and Sierra Casady have managed to achieve a cultish success while still retaining their fringe cred. The sisters’ unwavering commitment to eccentricity — toy instruments, distorted vocals, hip-hop beats and atmospheric electronica mashed together to create one freaky sound — has made them polarizing…
Cheat Code
Iron Man 2 Sega Xbox 360 (Review Copy) PS3, Wii OK, we have a predicament. Iron Man is cool, his movies are fun romps, and Sega is a top-notch game publisher, catering well to gamers’ tastes (try to tell yourself Bayonetta and Resonance of Fate ain’t geared toward the hardcore). So with everything going for…
Food Stuff
Brew light special — Whole Foods Market in Rochester Hills will host a beer tasting, featuring Michigan craft beers and local brewers. For two bits, they’ll give you a taste of one of 20 beers available. (Attendees must be 21 or older, natch.) It happens 2-5 p.m. Saturday, June 19, at 2918 Walton Blvd., Rochester…
Ban the boner?
Q: I’m a woman in my 20s, and I’ve been dating the love of my life for two years now. We are incredibly happy except for — guess! — we have different sex drives. When we first started dating, I initiated sex all the time and enjoyed it, but as soon as I started on…
Blinded by the arts
It’s hard to miss the bleeding rainbow cascading down the western wall of a nine-story building at East Grand Boulevard and Beaubien in Detroit. A few blocks east of the New Center area, and just west of the Russell Industrial Center, artist Katie Craig’s "Illuminated Mural" conducts a vivid orchestration of color that contrasts with…
Countdown to fun
June 20 and 25-27: THE DETROIT SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA The orchestra heads outdoors with a number of free concerts this month, beginning with a gig at the Detroit River Days fest at 7 p.m. Sunday, June 20, and continuing with the annual Harmony in the Park series at 8 p.m. Friday, June 25, at Kensington Metro…
Day Tripper
Sometimes, if you view the same vacated sightlines and crash the same potholes long enough, life in Detroit can begin to resemble a sound file of droning white noise, a kind of flat-lined, sense-dulling hum — particularly if your pockets are empty. So, to counter said mean reds, we’ve set up a little…
Life without cars
TAKING IT TO THE STREETS Hines Park along Hines Drive Running 18 miles along the Rouge River, Hines Drive stretches from Dearborn to Northville. Accompanying the roadway are extra-wide shoulders and a nearby paved path. What’s a bonus, though, for those of us on two wheels, is that from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. on…
Pointing to freedom
The story of African-American Detroit — with its initiatives and acts of resistance, victories and setbacks — is hardly a story unto itself. In the context of our mini-tours, it could easily have included any number of music sites (more than just music: Motown, for instance, was America’s No. 1 black-owned enterprise for years, and…
Up all night
Times have never been better to stay open late. With the economic stresses hitting the dining world, researchers are finding that keeping kitchens open late to serve off-peak diners can help make the difference. Take Denny’s: The open-all-night megachain knows that 80 percent of its customers dine between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. As a…
Sweat & struggle
Sweat and steel The Labor Legacy Landmark, a 60-foot-tall open steel arch in Hart Plaza, is the largest piece of public art in the country dedicated to working people. During the upcoming U.S. Social Forum, docent tours of the landmark are available between noon and 6 p.m., June 23-25. “Potato patch” Ping There are a…
A dejected dream
After those cherished higher-learning years wane (no matter how high you were during them), the winds of workplace ennui begin to blow. You first felt its slight breeze during your first summer job, but not until you were clocking in regularly did you actually feel it. Recent College for Creative Studies grads and product designers…
Mad music, media & DIY mayhem
Is the grand convergence of music and social media finally here? Music lovers can jump from blogs to Twitter to Bandcamp to Vimeo in the span of an hour, discovering more new music released that very day than any publicist could promote in a week. The savviest of today’s musicians, without a doubt, have already…
The roads less traveled
For many people, Detroit is synonymous with its downtown. But there’s a whole city outside there, one that’s wilder, weirder, a little less safe, but a lot more interesting. Whether called the "inner city" or simply "the neighborhoods," it makes for a great unplanned tour, with no itinerary other than finding unexpected gems — an…
Beer geek summer
So you’re a beer geek and you want to revel in it. Luckily, all you need is a vehicle and a designated driver, because it’s all here. Sure, you’ll find a lot of your standard craft beer brewing — your English-style ales, pale ales, IPAs, porters and stouts — but there are extreme brewers to…
Tattered elegance
Are you lucky enough to have a few finsters to spare, to blow on inexpensive "luxury" items for your place that’ll actually help get your soul singin’? You know, like, something beautiful? Well, here’s a day’s worth of ace vintage shopping in the best stores that mostly stock objects from some local home, hotel or…
The great movie resale!
You don’t have to wear sunglasses at night to notice the flood of old-school chestnuts — such as The A-Team and The Karate Kid — at your nearest multiplex. Everything ’80s is totally rad and gnarly-to-the-max in Tinseltown these days, with such cash cows as G.I. Joe and Transformers helping flick on the green light…
Tour d’art publique
If you look, you’ll notice that Detroit has lots of art that exists outside its own landscape. Detroit is a city where you can still catch guys hand-painting billboards on sides of urban businesses; it’s a city whose abandoned factories, schools and stores now stand as three-dimensional canvases for deft graffiti writers; a city where…
Metro Retro
22 years ago in Metro Times: In an article titled "Metallica’s splendid noise," Thom Jurek explores the metal quartet just two years after a European bus crash killed bassist Cliff Burton and the band hired Michigan bassist Jason Newstead. "To hell with the Scorpions and their wimpy vocal harmonies," Jurek writes, "and Van Hagar too…
Southwest schools
The lawsuits and other tensions between Detroit Public Schools Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb, the elected board of education and the Detroit Federation of Teachers — or at least a faction of it — play out in courtrooms and headlines every week. But supporters of one doomed elementary school pleaded their case in English and…
Tax the brewskis!
Everyone who knows anything about economics knows that Michigan’s only hope for the future is a better-educated workforce. Our old-fashioned muscle-based, assembly-line economy is gone. There will be virtually no more high-paying jobs for unskilled high school graduates, ever, and no hope for dropouts. That doesn’t mean everyone needs a four-year university degree. But it…
Solid gold
A week or so ago I mentioned the new TVLand summer sitcom Hot in Cleveland, with its all-star lineup of Valerie Bertinelli, Jane Leeves (Frasier), Wendie Malick (Just Shoot Me) and a resurgent, ageless Betty White, and asked the critical question, "Can this series possibly be as good as it sounds?" Well, since then I’ve…
Top Rahman
Indian cinema has long been known for punctuating melodrama with incongruous, showstopping song-and-dance numbers, which had elicited a collective chortle in the West — until, of course, 2008’s Slumdog Millionaire. The poignant Oscar-winner inspired movie masses to look east for a new sound, after hearing the film’s infectious Bollywood dance finale, "Jai Ho." Slumdog composer…
Hot topics
Two of the hottest Detroit topics — education and insurance reform — will top the agenda at a community forum at 6 p.m., Monday, June 21, at Second Ebenezer Church, 14602 Dequindre St., Detroit. Hosted by Rep. Bert Johnson (D-Highland Park), who will give his annual "state of the community" assessment, the forum is free…
Letters to the Editor
Total recall Re: "Three chords & the truth" (June 9), thanks to Brett Callwood and Doug Coombe for capturing the raw rock ‘n’ roll spirit of this Detroit music icon, who was an inspiration to many with his DIY ethic. After witnessing every incarnation of his career, it’s great to hear that he has no…
Modern movements
To understand the Allied Media Conference that is being held in Detroit this weekend, think 1960s activism meets 21st century technology. Consider that leafleting is now done by text message. Those speeches on soapboxes and capitol steps are now held on a YouTube channel where they can be played repeatedly around the world. Courting the…
Street signs
Legislation that would require road maintenance or construction projects to consider all users and not just motorists — a design approach known as "complete streets" — is winding its way through Lansing with opposition driven by the county road commissions. The House transportation committee, chaired by Pam Byrnes (D-Chelsea), a bill sponsor, had a second…
Summer Guide 2010
Summer is here and so are we. We’ll get out of town for a while, if we’re lucky. But the bottom line is that most of us will be mostly here. And what better time than these long days to reflect on what here means, what here offers? What’s here that we might see anew? …
A for asinine
As Hollywood continues drilling deeper and deeper offshore for exploitable properties, it’s not surprising that they’ve tapped a memorably trashy TV show whose explosive popularity fizzled nearly 25 years ago. The film update delves into the origins of the unjustly accused crack special-forces unit; Col. J. Hannibal Smith (Liam Neeson). Lt. Templeton “Face” Peck (Bradley…
The Karate Kid
In place of Ralph Macchio, we get runty superstar progeny Jaden Smith (Son of Will and Jada Pinkett Smith) as Dre Parker, a pre-teen dragged along for the ride when his mom’s Detroit auto firm transfers her to China. You’d think his cornrows, hip-hop style and pouty-lipped cool would make him popular, but he becomes…
Chinese cheer
Wah-Hoo is the latest enterprise of the Gatzaros (Fishbone’s) family. Opening in April as the special project of son Nico, the stylish restaurant features an extensive sushi menu, as well as a full complement of familiar Chinese dishes. It has two noisy dining rooms that seat 75 and the mezzanine that offers privacy to an…
TV Eyesore
Videocracy is a Swedish doc that shows Italy’s own obsession with fame’s idiot wind, and, in particular, television, and how celebrity, sex, gender, politics and power have all become horrifyingly intertwined in modern Italian culture. Director Erik Gandini — who also narrates — opens this doc with a zany archival clip from a call-in quiz-show…
Born in Flames
An early ’80s landmark of indie and queer cinema directed by Detroit-born Lizzie Borden, Born in Flames presents a fragmented narrative of the struggle of a disparate group of revolutionary women in a not-too-distant future dystopia.
Gone with the Pope
Lounge singer and writer-director-star Duke Mitchell created a glorious masterpiece of moviehouse craptitude, shot in 1975 but never finished (Mitchell died in 1981). Oscar-winning editor Bob Murawski invested 15 years chasing down every frame and puzzling together the film’s final cut. The result is an exploitation flick that has all the aesthetics of a home…
Detroit @ Bonnaroo Videos
Frontier Ruckus takes their backcountry show to the camp grounds of Bonnaroo and Mayer Hawthorne introduces the rowdy crowd to “Maybe So, Maybe No.” As I return from yet another exhausting Bonnaroo and attempt to recharge my batteries, it’s half heartedly that I say next year will be a tough one to attend. Each year…
Lightfootin’
From our grumpy copy editor, a guy who’s known to actually venture out from time to time, and brave other human beings …. Went to see Gordon Lightfoot at the Fox Theatre Sunday evening. He mentioned his first concert in the States was in ’65 at Masonic Temple, with Oscar Peterson and Vaughn Meader (a…
