MOTOWN’S CANDLELIGHT VIGIL IN PHOTOS
The Motown Museum played host to one of the three “official” or authorized candlelight vigils to Michael Jackson last night, Sunday, June 29th. The other two were in Jackson’s native Gary, Indiana as well as his adopted home of L.A. Not quite a thousand people showed up but there were certainly hundreds and hundreds. Radio…
As the world tweets
To those not paying attention to world news in the days leading up to the Iranian election, it appeared as if nothing was wrong, especially in the social-networking world. Twitter’s trending topics included Conan O’Brien and Jimmy Fallon, the iPhone and PETA. We all went to bed, only to wake up the next morning to…
OUTSIDE THE MOTOWN MUSEUM TODAY
ALL PHOTOS BY W. KIM HERON There will be a candlelight vigil for Michael Jackson in front of the Motown Museum this Sunday, June 28th, at 8 p.m.
THOUGHTS ON THE PASSING OF THE KING OF POP
Thoughts on the passing of Michael Jackson: 1) When my teenage son told me the news on Thursday, my first comment was about what a sad, unenviable life he’d led, even among the ranks of sad, unenviable star lives. Son proceeded to tell me that it was too early to start making jokes. No, no,…
MICHAEL JACKSON DEAD AT AGE 50
The mainstream press is reporting he was rushed to the hospital, not breathing and in total cardiac arrest…but TMZ is reporting that the former Motown Records child star and self-appointed “King of Pop” has died. Hate to say it ’cause we think Harvey Levin is the devil these days, but much like the print tabloids,…
Bridge battle — more skirmishes
First Ambassador Bridge officials complained that a dirt pile was slowing work on their Gateway Project. Then the Michigan Department of Transportation filed a lawsuit claiming breach of contract by the bridge company. MDOT, according to published reports, says the Detroit International Bridge Co., owned by Grosse Pointe Shores bazillionaire Manuel “Matty” Moroun, has made…
23 years after crime, questions about conviction
After spending nearly half his life in prison for the rape of a 9-year-old Detroit girl, a 54-year-old inmate is asking a Wayne County judge to release him because new lab tests purportedly show he could not have been the attacker. Karl Vinson’s attorneys this week filed a motion in Wayne County Circuit Court asking…
SO LONG, SKY…
Sorry to hear of the death of Sky Saxon, one of the pioneers of what became known as garage rock and one of the more colorful characters in all of rockdom, in Austin earlier today. He was supposed to play a show (with a new version of the Seeds) at the Magic Bag in August…
All mixed up
The Gories were as much a gateway drug for would-be amateurs willing to strap on, sit-down or let rip as they were for music-hungry heads looking for fresh veins of inspiration. To that end, the Gories jams that connect with said crowd are purely subjective. But, dammit (!), if push came to shove and I…
The power and the gory
This is how it ended the last time. The Bank, a club on Houston Street in Lower Manhattan, July 1, 1993. A 6-foot-3, slim, legally blind, black dude sporting shades, a blue iridescent suit and a beat-to-hell Fender Mustang six-string snarls the chorus of Suicide’s "Ghostrider" and the words, "America, America is killing its youth!"…
Motor City Cribs
There’s nothing much on the outside of Felton and Ida Williams’ modest Ecorse home to distinguish it from other look-alikes on the block. But what does set it apart, no doubt, is the treasure trove of gospel recordings stored in his basement. Inside, the tastefully decorated house is a veritable metro Detroit time capsule from…
Take your best shot
Back in 2006, Parisian indie filmmaker Vincent Moon (born Mathieu Saura) launched La Blogothèque, a website dedicated to exposing indie rock’s elite with intimate music videos. The site has since built a sizable cult following, thanks in large part to the popular Les Concerts à Emporter (Take-Away Shows), a catalog of stylish off-the-cuff productions featuring…
Looking up
Stepping into Re:View Contemporary Gallery, a relatively new and appropriately modern space on Willis Street in Detroit’s time-honored Cass Corridor, we were met with works in provocative portholes set high up on the walls. It was unclear whether we were peering up into the clouds or up at the sea — where the sun waits…
Food Stuff
Praise for pie — Props to Achatz Handmade Pie Co. of Chesterfield, for being recognized by a Michigan Senate Tribute as one of Michigan’s best small businesses. Despite tough times, the company is growing, giving Michigan a slice of relief from the economic doldrums. Learn more at achatzpies.com. Spirit raiser — Mind Body & Spirits,…
Goats head sloop
Stephen Hume feeds a strip of cloth into an antique sewing machine to demonstrate that it still works. It’s one of 15 he has scattered around the room, which is in the cabin of his huge tugboat, docked at a riverside yard filled with scores of sleek little sailboats, yellow school buses, and quaint old…
Ain’t seen nothing yet
Everyone who has been paying attention knows that the recession has meant a rapidly growing crisis for state government. Every month, Lansing finds that it takes in less revenue than the experts estimated. Down, down goes the spiral. But what few of us realize is that the very real pain many of us will feel…
Couch Trip
Philippe Garrel X 2 Zeitgeist There’s a moment in Philippe Garrel’s I Can No Longer Hear the Guitar that I’ll never forget, a single image so unusual that it all but defines the movie. While sitting on the toilet in mid-urination, Marianne (Johanna ter Steege) casually but passionately kisses her boyfriend Gerard (Benoit Regent). It’s…
Letters to the Editor
Insiders we trust Back when I had more hair and less sense, I might have said "Right on!" to the sort of ’60s tropes dusted off in News Hits’ item on the National Summit ("Tents and tense times," June 17). But now I wince at this "coverage" of a protest march: "The scene symbolized the…
A world of good
Co-owners Trish Ziembowicz and Ken Karustis have built a loyal clientele of downtown workers, mostly from the First National Building and its neighbors, who are partial to the six soups a day and to the house rules: everything from scratch and made in-house (except bagels). Maybe the moderate prices buy loyalty too. The basic menu…
Perfect rush
"Before I started rapping, I used to write a lot of short stories and compositions. So I write [rhymes] like I’m writing a short story. I write exactly the thoughts I want to get out there because if you try to fit lyrics in with [the music], you might miss a few words or the…
Monster mash-up
Ultra-deadpan and fitfully funny, co-writer, director and star Hitoshi Matsumoto’s Big Man Japan is the ultimate midnight movie, a wonderfully weird mockumentary that pays homage to the cheesy superhero vs. monster movies that dominated Japanese cinema during the 1960s and ’70s. The movie starts as a straight-faced doc following a long-haired, sad-sack loser named Masaru…
Night and Day
WEDNESDAY JUNE 24 Girl in a Coma REMBEMBER THE ALAMO This threesome of San Antonio punkettes adds some retro rockabilly to its punk, winning notorious fans in Morrissey and Joan Jett (who signed them to her label, Blackheart Records) among others. The trio is on a mammoth tour in support of its sophomore effort, Trio…
The Stoning of Soraya M.
The Stoning of Soraya M. is set in rural post-revolution Iran, in the grip of Islamic Sharia law. A woman accused of adultery must prove her innocence, and the penalty is death. A dutiful mother of six, the bright and resilient Soraya (Mohzan Marno) is deemed an “inconvenient wife” by her vain husband, who wishes…
Tricky kink? Try this.
Q: I am a fairly successful man. I don’t make bank like Wall Streeters back in the day, but I haven’t been hungry since college. My girlfriend is younger. We met when she was in grad school. Like many recent grads, she isn’t steadily employed, she’s in debt and she drives an unsafe car. So…
Guilt trip
The Proposal is a crisp and effective exercise in rom-com construction, sticking unfailingly to the blueprint down to the last rivet. Sandra Bullock stars as the sort of ruthless, no-prisoners ice queen that, according to Hollywood, the publishing industry is wholly comprised of. The snag in her pantyhose is a visa violation on a business…
Cheat Code
People can be so damn ungrateful. You’d think that if you defeat Nazi imperialists, save the world from Armageddon, and re-kill a resurrected Adolf Hitler, you’d never have to buy a drink anywhere you go ever again. Apparently though, in the "what have you done for us lately" world of Bionic Commando, its main character…
Year One
Jack Black and red-hot millennial Michael Cera play slacker cavemen who take a comedic stroll through biblical times after being banished from their hunter-gatherer tribe. Along the way this Cro-Magnon Abbott and Costello meet a galaxy of Old Testament stars, including a two-faced Cain (David Cross) and his quickly dispatched brother Abel (a wasted Paul…
No direction known
One year ago, it looked as if the question of what to do with Detroit’s garbage had been settled. A coalition of environmental and health groups had apparently succeeded in convincing the city’s leaders to stop burning trash at a municipal incinerator that produces steam and electricity; instead the city would pursue "a new business…
Pop delights
Nepotism is nothing new in the entertainment business in general … and the pop music biz in particular. But whereas the last two or three decades have seen the kids of rock and country stars following in their parents’ footsteps (although with few exceptions — ’80s Rosanne Cash, maybe Jeff Buckley, come to mind —…
Dirty dispute
The proverbial mudslinging got literal this week in disputes involving the Ambassador Bridge Gateway Project and proposed second spans there and further downriver in southwest Detroit. Speaking for the bridge owner, the Detroit International Bridge Company’s president, Dan Stamper, accused the Michigan Department of Transportation of dumping 10,000 tons of dirt onto a state-owned but…
The Eternal
After watching their contemporaries break up, burn out or otherwise lose traction over the last 29 years, Sonic Youth have easily earned the right to name their newest album The Eternal. Despite the lofty, self-confident chaos of their early ’80s output, it’s hard to believe anyone in the band anticipated they’d have such a solid,…
Comics
The Boiling Point – by Mikhaela Reid
Lone Survivor
Does anybody remember the Look? Formed during the summer of ’77, the Detroit rockers sat on the verge of major success for the better part of 15 years without ever getting the break that they perhaps deserved, touring with and opening for the likes of Bob Seger, Cheap Trick, John Cougar Mellencamp and J. Geils.…
Jeffrey Morgan’s Media Blackout
Unfortunately, Jeffrey Morgan’s Media Blackout #221 has the last laugh. Brian "Renfield" Nelson — The King of All VCRs (RIP) :: He may have handed out business cards which read "World’s Biggest Alice Cooper Fan" and he may have parlayed that claim into a 29-year career as Alice Cooper’s personal assistant, but for me, Brian…
Ménage à Tweet
With Facebook, Skype, Youtube, BlogSpot/WordPress and now Twitter, the world is experiencing the most rapid, significant technological shift in post-millennium modern culture. High school and college students, businessmen and women, politicians, Hollywood starts and local poets are in constant tête-à-tête with Twitter. Some criticize it as an electronic consortium for narcissists to dispose of their…
VOTE EM & A COOL SONIC YOUTH EVENT
Similar to their “Who’s the Greatest Rapper Alive?” poll competition last year, which Eminem swept hand-down (despite five years of inactivity), Vibe Magazine is currently sponsoring a “Who’s the Great Rapper Ever?” on their Website. Yeah, we think polls are kinda silly, too…but hasn’t hip hop always been about competiton — first on the streets…
