Those “no entertainment district” blues
Why doesn’t Detroit, the home of so many phenomenal blues and jazz (and rock and techno) musicians, have a major venue within the city limits where talent can be showcased?
Asking for it
Q: I am a 28-year-old male, married for three years. I am happy with our relationship but I am confused about our sex life. We have sex about once a week, sometimes more often but recently less so. My wife has been under a lot of stress lately with her job and I’m sure that…
Balancing good and bad
I’ve got some nerve reviewing new releases by Sticky Fingaz and KRS-One in the same piece. After all, the two only have three very distant things in common. Both are legendary for the trends they helped to pioneer in hip hop — consciousness and grime. Both are no longer with their original labels — Def…
We’ve got winners
The Metro Times receives six Excellence in Journalism prizes from the Society of Professional Journalists.
Summer pages
Summertime …and the readin’ is quirky.
Divine depression
What becomes of the broken-hearted? Well, some of them take names like Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Tindersticks and Antony and the Johnsons and create exquisite, 4 a.m. lounge pop for the living, the dead and the disconsolate masses in between. While the melancholy virtues of the former two outfits are well known by…
Letters to the Editor
Same old story Keith A. Owens, you’ve opened my eyes. ("Lies done gone" MT, June 13-19). All these years I thought what a nice life slaves had working on the plantations of the old South. Why, Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With The Wind was our history book when I attended all those white schools growing up…
Bodies electric
Processing the conundrum of artificial intelligence, cyborgs and the future of humanity.
Warped frog bowl
Sunshine and feel-good vibes at the Frog Island Festival … The tightly contested battle for a place on the Warped Tour stage … & an invitation to rub elbows with local semi-celebs at the charitable Rock ‘n’ Bowl Showdown.
Violet Skin
Only slightly out of breath, Katie Janness bounces distorted but determined lyrics with a no-big-deal attitude over the jumpy lo-fi art-punk of her Violet Skin sisters. The rhythms have crunch and the melodies will stick in your head, but the song structure is anything but conventional. The sound suggests that point right before realizing you…
Summer in the city
For 10 years one Detroit program has been guiding youth to change the world, one block at a time….
Monk’s brilliant corners
The old saw that writing about music is like dancing about architecture, attributed to many but first uttered by Frank Zappa in a late-’60s interview, is only effectively dismissive if you don’t know how subtle dancing can be. Or writing. Still, one gets the point — and if ever there was a musician whose corpus…
Real on-air obscenity
Why the FCC disses Eminem’s “obscene” lyrics and applauds the mega-businesses running modern corporate radio.
Everybody now
It didn’t seem possible the White Stripes could out-catchy themselves (OK, that neologism didn’t work). It didn’t seem the White Stripes’ infectious blend of pop, blues, punk and near-isolationist rumination could get any catchier. But they have. And it has. The White Stripes are an ongoing tale, told in public, of innocence lost and artistry…
Rough stuff
Detroit cops like to get physical….
Balancing good and bad
I’ve got some nerve reviewing new releases by Sticky Fingaz and KRS-One in the same piece. After all, the two only have three very distant things in common. Both are legendary for the trends they helped to pioneer in hip hop — consciousness and grime. Both are no longer with their original labels — Def…
God help us
President Bush and at least one church disagree….
Disco tech
Disco sushi Marie Antoinette samba squeak squeal Burt Bacharach ’70s polyester kitsch. I’m sorry if that makes no sense, but it’s very hard to describe Beautifulso I tried a little free-association experiment. Maybe it worked, maybe it didn’t, but I hope that gives you an idea of the strange, diverse and tongue-in-cheek nature of Fantastic…
Blowouts and rollovers
Ford and Firestone are still playing the finger-pointing game….
Keys to the kingdom
Though jazz, like any other public music, has thrived on greatest hits — recognizable styles and tunes you can whistle along with — its real goal has always been originality. A music of the moment, it privileges discoveries over reproduction of a familiar effect and commits itself to a fascinating challenge: to “make it new,”…
Crucible of extremes
Word alchemist Ron Allen explores the life and death of Detroit with theater that slaps you in the face as it hugs you. Eye-Mouth Graffiti Body Shop should not be missed.
Lick your lips
The DEA clamps down on the hard stuff (hemp oil cosmetics)….
Divine depression
What becomes of the broken-hearted? Well, some of them take names like Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Tindersticks and Antony and the Johnsons and create exquisite, 4 a.m. lounge pop for the living, the dead and the disconsolate masses in between. While the melancholy virtues of the former two outfits are well known by…
Echo-logical
Ian McCulloch prattles on and on about hot dogs, electronic music, life … and the Bunnymen.
Justice delayed
Police officer’s civil shooting trial still on hold, five years after Lamar Grable was shot….
Join the club
Everything in Victor Mancini’s life seems askew: a sexual addiction, a job portraying an indentured Irish servant at a historical preservation village, a dying mother responsible for his turbulent childhood, a morbid obsession with medical disorders, repeated fake chokings. But the point of author Chuck Palahniuk’s new novel, Choke, is that our struggle to create…
Needling high blood pressure
Medical establishment pinning down how acupuncture works….
In the hood
Go ahead, get historical about Detroit!
Poolside angst
Lean, mean and crackling with tension, Sexy Beast strips the British gangster film to its bare-bones, bare-knuckle basics. In a terse 91 minutes, director Jonathan Glazer and screenwriters Louis Mellis and David Scinto (Gangster No. 1) explore the psyche of professional criminals — with Ray Winstone and the immensely menacing Ben Kingsley.
Radical remedies
Alternative cures such as qigong and homeopathy, once scorned as quackery, make it to the University of Michigan’s medical school.
Goodbye to a griot
Family, friends and fans gather to mourn the loss of (and to offer thanks for knowing) jazz great Harold McKinney….
Baby Boy
To save his family, Baby Boy’s got to cut his apron strings and become responsible, taking the accelerated course to manhood. Director John Singleton hammers on the note of the young, black, urban male’s militant immaturity, but his message gets drowned out by the screams of his characters as they plunge down the roller coaster…
Do the right thing, Sandy Levin
State redistricting will probably make David Bonior a big loser. Could he possibly have a chance at a U.S. Senatorial seat?
Memories in the shade of blue
Blues legend John Lee Hooker touched many lives. In the days after his passing, Sarah Klein remembers how his music touched hers, in particular.
Songcatcher
The ballad "Barbara Allen" is sung three times in this blissful love letter to the old-time sounds which have the ability to haunt mountain folk and flatlanders alike, and the way it’s performed illustrates director Maggie Greenwald’s take on the place of folk music in America. Unfortunately, there’s a quaintness to Songcatcher that keeps it…
Boyz will be boys
A decade after Boyz N the Hood launched his career, writer-director John Singleton goes back to South Central L.A. and the music industry for more.
Shot through the heart
Stun Gun’s stunning debut album … A Bittersweet farewell … Lots of love for Adult. … Flier power from The Elbow Room … & Who’s got the funk?
The Fast and the Furious
This is a flick mostly about cars, women and the handsome grease monkeys who love them both. If the snarl of revving engines and the squeal of burning tires isn’t your idea of a love song, pick another flick at the multiplex. But if anything can take you for a ride in this muddle, it’s…
Dear Web diary
Web sites like Diaryland and the Makeout Club are helping a generation of previously marginalized kids realize they aren’t alone after all.
Free Will astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): You remind me of a hippopotamus floating in a river, the top of its head jutting up through water hyacinths. Why? Because you currently possess both brute strength and quirky beauty. You look dangerous but probably won’t hurt anyone. Like the hippo, which swims fast but plods along on land, you…
Dr. Dolittle 2
Even the easily pleased need a little variety. I was reminded of this while watching Dolittle 2 at a tot-stuffed matinee, the perfect audience, one would assume, for this combination of whimsy and doo-doo jokes. But aside from the stray giggle arising out of the white noise of continual candy crunching, the troops remained mostly…
