Summertime songs
Sweet street sounds in the open air market….
A taste of tradition
Moro’s is somewhat of a time-warp — including the fact that they offer old-fashioned (tuxedoed) professional service. Most entrees cost around $14 and include everything from soup to nuts. Owner Thomas Moro butchers his own veal, the specialty of the house included in 10 different dishes.
Mark Flash
Flamboyant house DJ representin’ Detroit’s southwest side.
Fun with a vengeance
It sounds like a thunderstorm is approaching, so I head to the front porch to put the fuschia plant out for a good soaking. But when I open the door, all I can see is the Lizard of Fun, a frown on its face and a rumbling growl coming from deep in its chest. "No…
Liz Copeland
Known first for her popular late night show on Detroit’s WDET-FM, this motor city favorite spins an eclectic mix live.
In one ear
INDIE CITY Although the lineup was largely Canadian, several metro-Detroit-based acts packed up their instruments and heavy gear to brave a not exactly duty-free border crossing and attend the fifth annual North by Northeast Music Festival in downtown Toronto June 10-12. With more than 400 acts performing at 28 venues across the cosmopolitan — and…
The General’s Daughter
Frustrating and beautiful, intense and slippery, dark and superficial, director Simon West’s The General’s Daughter is a constant source of contradiction. Rising above our tired expectations of the genre, the film succeeds where most military flicks tend to fail – in intensity and atmosphere – only to be “killed,” ironically, by the lack of heroism…
The newspapers and the city
Four years ago next month, most of Detroit’s newspaper unions destroyed themselves by smashing their bodies against the fortified walls of the management of the corporate newspaper combine. Thousands of jobs were lost, lives ruined, and hundreds of thousands of readers abandoned the "morning" product called the Free Press and the essentially identical "afternoon" version…
An Ideal Husband
“To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance,” quips Lord Arthur Goring, the dandy bachelor of Oscar Wilde’s An Ideal Husband. Goring continues to be marvelously witty and immensely self-absorbed in writer-director Oliver Parker’s version of Wilde’s play. But amid the sparkling dialogue, political intrigue, emotional blackmail and courtship games, Parker demonstrates that…
Pitch’d
EIN EST BERLINER BOOTY In this month’s finest when-worlds-collide moment, DJ Assault and producer Ade Mainor — responsible for the booty-quakin’ tracks “Ass ’n Titties” and “Tear The Club Up” — were in Berlin last weekend as guest lecturers (“first slide, please … This is the boo-tay…”?) at the Red Bull DJ Academy, a month-long…
The Red Violin
Having made a movie that was like an elliptical, slim volume of verse – 1993’s Thirty-Two Short Films About Glen Gould – the Canadian team of writer-director François Girard and co-writer Don McKellar have now devised one that resembles an oversized, coffee-table tome, chock full of gorgeous pictures but a little light in the text.…
Food stuff
HOT DIGGETY DOGS Jerry Mobley has the ideal summer job. Surrounded by a cloudless blue sky, the noontime sun shines bright enough to burn. As hints of cool breeze in from the Detroit River, Mobley stands at his hot dog cart parked on Jefferson near the City-County Building. He kicks back on a plastic lawn…
Pop!
England’s St. Etienne has spent the last eight years carefully crafting pristine pop music without drawing much attention to itself outside of the U.K. Formed back in 1991, the band members set out to copy the American guitar pop sound they loved — without the guitars. It is a formula that has served them well.…
Man of the people
John Sayles recently said, "If I’d known how hard it was to make a movie, I might not have started." Becoming a filmmaker was never a given for Sayles, who has generated controversy with the unexpected ending of his current release, Limbo. Born in 1950 and raised in an ethnically mixed, working- and middle-class factory…
Self-Explanitory
Originally recorded be tween 1964 and 1968, Standup Comic captures the legendary filmmaker during his formative years as an entertainer. At the time of these performances, Allen’s eccentric ramblings were still fresh and particularly unique. Nowadays, the pervasive influence of his self-deprecating, Jewish-neurotic shtick can be felt when listening to such contemporary funnymen as Richard…
Corners of the Market
Don Schneider is a world-renowned glassblower during the week, but on Saturday he is the Mushroom Man, known for selling all manner of fungi at Eastern Market. "Are these the ones that taste like butter?" a customer asks. "You’re thinking of chanterelles. I don’t have those today." Schneider, who has been selling at Eastern Market…
Optimistic Depression
After conversations with Mark Kozelek of Red House Painters about releasing some of the rare or demo versions of their songs, Badman Recording Co.’s Dylan Magierek came up with an even better idea. What about releasing 12 new, rare and favorite tracks from Red House Painters, Low, Hayden, Misc and Idaho, and then donating some…
Rainbow retrospective
If the closet door first swung open in 1969, then over the past 30 years, that same closet has been renovated, remodeled and turned into one of the hottest pieces of real estate in America. It’s replaced the doors with picture windows and added a patio with furniture painted a bright shade of lavender that…
Towers of Power
Frenchman Paul Paray’s reputation rests with his incisive interpretations of the French literature, notably Ravel, Ibert and Debussy. But Paray, who was the music director of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra from 1952-63, could also invigorate the Germanic repertoire with his strong rhythmic pulse and his scrupulous attention to detail. For evidence, one need only listen…
Thou shalt advertise
By now, you’ve probably seen the messages from on high – high above metro-Detroit freeways on billboards, that is. "What part of ‘Thou Shalt Not’ didn’t you understand? – God" "Let’s meet at my house Sunday before the game. – God" "You think it’s hot here? – God" As far as we can tell, the…
Jazz in Film
Terence Blanchard is not the kind of musician who cranks out a new record every six months. He is an expert craftsman who has paid close attention to details. In his playing, each note fits, and there’s always polished nuance flowing through his music. On his new record, Jazz in Film, we hear the juicy…
Lords and ladies and gayness, oh my!
Renowned for his infinitely quotable witticisms, Oscar Wilde, literary star of late 19th century London society, is in the midst of a resurgence at the end of the 20th century. Wilde’s career crashed and burned in 1895 when he was sentenced to two years of hard labor for "the crime of sodomy." The writer who…
Workin’ On Some Psych Moves
Here’s the latest offering from Norman, Oklahoma’s, favorite psychedelic sons. While Wayne Coyne, Steven Drozd and Michael Ivins remain artfully steadfast in their noncommercial pose, the new Flaming Lips album is as lush and beautiful as any rock record released this year. Using an imposing amount of fancy-schmancy production techniques, regal orchestrations, modern electronica and…
Criminal injustice
"How can we imagine an abolitionism for the prison-industrial complex in the way that 19th century activists imagined the abolition of the slave economy?" That question, in one form or another, provided the thread that wove through much of the three-day long ninth National Roundtable for Women in Prison that opened last Friday in Ann…
Earthly Musics
Proceeds from this CD go to the Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund’s campaign to save wild salmon, ancient forests and free-flowing waterways all across the land. The record has a strong blues feel and holds together as a unified piece of work. While this collection contains several older songs taken from other albums, there are original…
Restricting abortion
Pro-choice advocates are finding themselves on the outside looking in as a Michigan Legislature, dominated by anti-abortion forces, chips away at reproductive rights. "I don’t think the attack has ever been as voracious as it is know," observes Wendy Wagenheim, legislative director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan. Evidence of the Legislature’s pro-life…
Chisel Brothers
This is one of the best-known blues bands in the city, and for good reason; they’ve been around in one incarnation or another for close to 20 years and have won considerable local acclaim recognizing their considerable talent. With Roscoe on guitar and Thornetta Davis on vocals, it would require serious effort to screw up…
Primeval dead
Thomas Huck’s pop culture woodcuts from the Middle Ages….
Payment nightmares
A $70 million computer project to improve the city of Detroit’s payment to outside contractors has been a nightmare, leaving some companies and agencies unable to pay their own bills and employees. Difficulties with the system have resulted in as much as $15 million in unpaid vendor bills, one Archer administration official said Monday. Ironically,…
Disco D
One of the more heralded proponents of the uniquely Detroit musical export known alternately as booty/bass/ghetto-tech, etc. D has become a regular fixture on the Detroit party scene since cutting his chops at Ann Arbor’s “Solar” weekly event.
True deception
AWOL makes a sincerely artificial statement in C Pop’s new space….
Gas pains from SUVs
The environmental costs of the federal government’s lenient gas-consumption standards for pickups, minivans and sports utility vehicles continue to mount, contends a report released last week. While the Environmental Protection Agency grapples with the issue of emission standards, one gas not covered – carbon dioxide – is receiving increased attention as a greenhouse gas that…
DJ Shotgun
A world-class turntablist, DJ Shotgun is currently working with Atlanta’s Goody Mob (also affiliated with 12 Tech Mob).
13 reasons why
De La Soul is the most creative rap group of all time….
Willie D. Warren
Of all the old-time Detroit bluesmen, Warren is the one most deserving of the national recognition that he should have but never did receive. Warren has played in bands with the likes of acknowledged blues greats Otis Rush and Freddie King. It was Warren who taught Guitar Slim how to play guitar more than 50…
La Rock
Founder and director of Innovative Jocks record pool.
