Looking for a leader
What issues should be shaping the race for the next mayor of Detroit? Sixteen metro Detroiters offer their views on what the city needs most.
Paper heart pop heaven
Pop culture critic Sarah Vowell once described her personal religion as “a faith cobbled together out of pop songs” where something as seemingly insignificant as a well-timed Elvis song on the radio is as good as a sign from God. Sure, she knows that most people consider music to be “just … corny pop tunes,”…
Family tradition
Situated in Detroit’s historic West Village, Misha’s has a warm, welcoming atmosphere. Chef/owner Lillie Howard serves most of the entrées fried, grilled or sautéed — your choice. If you’ve never seen up close what “falling-off-the-bones tender” looks like, you’ll see it in Misha’s ribs. Portions are generous, and the barbecue sauce is nice and spicy.…
Blinded by whiteness
How racial privilege keeps us from seeing that school violence can happen here … or anywhere.
Then and now
Detroit jazz of the ’70s, as evidenced on these excellent Phil Ranelin reissues from the period, was healthy indeed. Trombonist, composer and leader Ranelin collaborated with players who were making things happen in the Motor City, most notably saxophonist Wendell Harrison, to form Tribe: “a band, a record company and a magazine publication” (as P.R.…
Letters to the Editor
It takes a thief Keith A. Owens’ column ("Sharpton for futility," MT, May 30-June 5) referred to Bush getting what he deserves and said “If you steal something." Do you mean Bush stole the election? Your editors let you write that? Are we ever going to hear the end of these sore losers whining and…
Hotlanta
Atlanta’s 9.17 Family dares to transform hip-hop’s dialectic sound barrier that de-originates the style of most Southern-based groups, tossing them all under the same Dirty South banner. 9.17 Family stands out as a collective of diverse artists whose familial ties explode on each track, unleashing a successful down-home blend of spiraling country grammar over rap,…
Goin’ down midnight
Bill Harris’ dramatic vision of bluesman Robert Johnson’s demise….
Kinetic poetics
After one listen, I was compelled to buy new monitor headphones that I could ill afford. After the second time around, I knew I made the right decision. Perhaps it would be best to stop the review here. But in order to quench any lingering doubts, elaboration might help. In 1997, Plaid (aka Ed Handley…
The city and its King
One of Detroit’s true jewels, John King is the most important bookseller in Detroit. But one has to wonder at his sanity for staying here — the city hasn’t made it easy.
Quiet riot
South London acoustic duo Turin Brakes comes on all quiet, hushed and impossibly catchy. Olly Knights and Gale Paridjanian — two dashingly scruffy blokes — weave their voices with strummin’ and a handful of instruments acoustic duos usually throw in for color (cello, harmonica, bass, etc.) to create a seemingly effortless folk-rock display of angst…
House on fire
Where did the innovators get their inspiration? In many ways, Detroit techno as we know it started as a harder, more technological variation of house.
Retro revival
It’s really easy to get completely fed up with what’s on contemporary radio. Everything sounds the same. Although this may be just a matter of one’s own opinion, the diversity of mainstream pop is limited to a handful of categories. They range from the white-male angst of metal-hip-hop (better known as “rape rock” since Woodstock…
A garden in Harmonie
The eclectic Whitney garden parties are back for the summer … More outdoor music at Harmonie Park … The impressive Grey Gallery … Why the French love Detroit … & much more.
One-man band
You love Keller Williams. You love his whimsical attitude. You love his toothy grin. You love his unexplainable need to make you smile, laugh and dance. Problem is, you may not know it yet. No big deal, just pick up Loop and you’ll realize your capacity for love. As you listen to this completely live…
Mythic jam
James Carter plays to a hot, packed house at Baker’s Keyboard Lounge….
Creampuff conquest
Interactivity: the chunky line that separates movies from video games. To paraphrase Syd Field, screenwriter extraordinaire, a good script has a beginning, a middle and an end. The audience watches; the credits roll. Yet, the idea behind gaming is to involve the audience, to make them the aggressive player instead of the passive onlooker. To…
Time out
The rest of the country tries to catch up with the White Stripes….
Bruised and famous
Truth and fiction seasoned with conflict are served up by Alan Cumming and Jennifer Jason Leigh, the writers, producers, directors and stars of this party and (as married Hollywood couple Joe and Sally Therrian) they’ll cry if they want to — or spar. The story, at its best, is a subtle satire of Hollywood values…
The plane truth
Searching for the latest trend? Air rage is in — but with cramped seating conditions and six-hour delays, who’s really to blame?
Guns and slots
Will the Michigan Supreme Court uphold the power of the people?
Atlantis: The Lost Empire
In this PG-rated tale about uncovering new worlds, directors Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise look to tried-and-true entertainment for boys — comic books and the large-scale action adventure films which Disney once produced — effectively blending manifest destiny with transcendentalism to create a distinctively American moral battleground.
Backyard purgatory
Show off some strange and silly stuff at your next hellish backyard gathering….
Freeway maneuvers
GM and Mayor Archer get their (high)way….
Lara Croft: Tomb Raider
Angelina Jolie may have found her niche. Looking like something that’s escaped from the mad lab of a 13-year-old boy’s hormone-addled imagination, she’s statuesque but cushiony and amused by the puny mortals around her in this fantasy flick — an interesting blend of the imaginatively picturesque and the cheesily fake — with Jon Voight.
Drowning with pleasure?
Q: I’m an Arab youth of 25. My girlfriend is an American woman of European descent. She’s a divorcee of 40 and has two teenaged children. We have had a very good relationship that started several months ago. However, there are problems that really bother me very much and may end our relationship. It happens…
Perfectly awful
Joe Knollenberg scores a zero in the public interest department….
The Law of Enclosures
Here’s a case of a good premise badly handled. Written and directed by John Greyson, this somber fantasy is about a couple whose older selves are living at the same time in the same city, each pair unaware of the other’s existence. Played out in a low-keyed naturalistic fashion, the conceit is easy to accept…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Contrary to conventional wisdom, you Aries folks are capable of deep introspection. I hope you’ll prove it now that you’re being called to reimagine where you’ve been so you can get a better bead on where you’re going. To begin: Return to your roots and thoroughly reinvent them. Or revise your…
Whine and win
Speak out against proposed solid-waste incinerator….
Bride of the Wind
What’s most interesting about this otherwise sluggish film is how fame and love are irrevocably intertwined. Director Bruce Beresford (Breaker Morant, Tender Mercies) may have envisioned Alma Schindler as the major muse in Vienna during the first decades of the 20th century, but she comes off as a high-culture groupie, one who sees talent as…
Guilty as charged
Examining the TV marvel "Witchblade": Is this pleasurable?…
Mooneuvers
Pres. Bush sees the full moon in Sweden (what will greet him in Motown?) ….
Sample case
Michael jackson has tried to stop you from hearing John Oswald’s music. So have the Doors. In 1989, the Canadian Recording Industry Association even filed legal action against the Toronto-based composer, demanding that he destroy the master tapes and all remaining copies of one of his recordings. But that same recording, a CD titled Plunderphonic,…
Portable power-up
Nintendo flexes some 21st century muscle with its newly born Game Boy Advance, which places PlayStation-quality visuals in the palm of your hand.
Blissful beginnings
Downriver rockers Bliss 66 construct a fantastic reality from scratch….
The Hours and the times
Stephen Dunn, winner of this year’s Pulitzer Prize for poetry, writes jeremiads–poems that play on the truth that we can’t have what we want, or we don’t want what we get, or we don’t understand what we are getting. Consider “Privilege,” included in the collection New and Selected Poems 1974-1994, in which Dunn laments: “Today…
Game Boy Advance forecast
Find a list of games available (and soon to be available) for Nintendo’s awesome new Game Boy system.
Greenstreet
A collective of hyperactive misfit musicians collides to form this jam-heavy ball of energy. Greenstreet breaks off a branch from the Rusted Root formula, but the band’s roots catch in rock-ier ground with a stronger emphasis on guitar, melody, song structure, vocal harmonies and rock-out solos, matching pleasantly with multiple sources of percussion.
Then and now
Detroit jazz of the ’70s, as evidenced on these excellent Phil Ranelin reissues from the period, was healthy indeed. Trombonist, composer and leader Ranelin collaborated with players who were making things happen in the Motor City, most notably saxophonist Wendell Harrison, to form Tribe: “a band, a record company and a magazine publication” (as P.R.…
