DYLAN HEADLINES ROTHBURY ’09; HARD LESSONS ALSO SCHEDULED
The lineup for Rothbury 2009, Michigan’s own big rock fest, was announced this morning — and it’s a much better and more eclectic mix than last year’s list. It almost makes camping outside for four days with thousands of pseudo-hippies sound appealing. Note we said almost… The festival runs July 2nd through the 5th –…
“DETROIT’S BEAUTIFUL, HORRIBLE DECLINE”…
Sometimes even decay can be art. But, hell, rock ‘n’ roll has known that for years now… From Time.com (click below): Two French photographers immortalize the remains of the Motor City on film Don’t know how I feel about this, actually…but the photos are awfully intriguing and, yes, beautiful.
JACK GOES “ELECTRO-POP”…
Just in case you haven’t visited any other music site on the Internet this morning: Jack White has a new band, although he’s just playing drums and singing backing vocals in this one. The Dead Weather also features lead vocalist Alison Mosshart of the Kills, guitarist Dean Fertita (Queens of the Stone Age, a touring…
WHAT IS DETROIT IF NOT THE CITY OF DREAMS?
Discovered this yesterday while Googling to find something else. Seems that a writer/columnist named Laura Barton in Britain’s great The Guardian newspaper actually celebrated (for a change!) our city’s car culture and how it relates to our wonderful musical heritage. It’s a tad late — the story ran on February 20th — but, on the…
THOSE STOOGES “RUMORS” & THE MT CONNECTION
In case you haven’t yet heard, Iggy Pop’s new solo album, Préliminaires, is due from Virgin Records on May 19th. The new disc is reportedly “softer” than what we usually expect from the Igster and it supposedly has a very strong jazz base to it, as recorded with Pop’s former touring bassist/now producer and co-writer…
WILL VELVET REVOLVER GO “DETROIT” WITH NEW SINGER?
Velvet Revolver — the hard rock band comprised of original and second-wave Guns N’ Roses members — denied earlier today that they’ve hired Canadian singer Gord Prior to replace original singer/douchebag Scott Weiland, who left the group last year. There have been rumors that Prior’s the new vocalist, triggered by a video of him singing…
NEW J. DILLA ALBUM DUE; EMINEM FINALLY SCHEDULES RELEASE DATE
Hey, Tupac and Biggie Smalls have both released more albums after death than they did alive — so why not a new release from one of Detroit’s favorite but now-deceased rappers? Sadly, unlike the aforementioned rappers who lost their lives tto gun violence, J Dilla — the founder of D-Town’s legendary Slum Village hip-hop collective…
Bridge banter
Lansing pols join fight over Detroit River crossing
Food Stuff
IRISH YPSI — For those seeking a taste of Ireland, but wishing it meant more than corned beef and cabbage, Ypsilanti’s Food Co-op might be worth a St. Patty’s Day visit. On March 17, the co-op will have Bailey’s coffee cupcakes, Irish soda bread, and caraway rye from River Street Bakery, as well as organic…
Comics
The Boiling Point – by Mikhaela Reid
Motor City Cribs
Sean Lynch’s downtown Milford digs
Irish eyes
Baile Corcaigh 1426 Bagley St., Detroit; 313-963-4546: Baile Corcaigh (pronounced “Bally Cork”) will not accept reservations for St. Patrick’s Day, though a crowd is expected, drawn by their shortened menu of Irish fare. Baile Corcaigh opens at 8 a.m. on Tuesday, St. Patrick’s Day. Eire America will be there Friday the 13th, live Irish entertainment…
Lit Up
Dream House by Valerie Laken Harper Collins Publishers, $24.95, 333 pp. In her debut novel, Dream House, Valerie Laken tells it like it is: Personal fulfillment can only come from within, not via corporeal means. Candidly reflecting on the sacrifices people make to maintain, achieve or, in some cases, avoid the American dream and all…
TV party
Bill Bonds may or may not be a classic, but there’s no denying he’s a doozy. “Got a second?” Detroit’s most legendary TV newsman asks, laying down his phone to riffle through some papers. “Here’s some names for you. Jimmy Hoffa. John F. Kennedy. Robert Kennedy. Ronald Reagan. George Wallace. Richard Nixon. Gerald Ford. Medgar…
Haley’s comet
The “serious” super-heroics that earned the billion-dollar Dark Knight’s Heath Ledger an Oscar (RIP, Joker) and repulsor-rayed Robert Downey Jr. back to stardom would never have been possible if Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ graphic novel masterwork, Watchmen, hadn’t gotten there first — more than 20 years before, in fact. Operating in an alternate 1985,…
Couch Trip
My Bloody Valentine: Special Edition Lionsgate Holidays suck. Single folk don’t want to spend them alone. People with big families don’t want the drama they cause. Then there are the parties to plan, gifts to purchase and the racks of cards to wade though in search of the right one. Yep, holidays can be scary.…
On the Download
Before the news blog sporting the adjectivally constructed URL version came online (and long before the current network of scene-adoring blogs), there was a site called, simply, motorcityrock.com. Dedicated to archiving the sights, sounds, ephemera and, yes, evidence of bad haircuts from Detroit rock days gone by, Motor City Rock has provided a valuable link…
Fusion power
Art deco chandeliers, marble tables, and high serpentine booths complement the attractive serpentine bar. The opulent decor and the wide-ranging menu evoke comparisons to Troy’s Mon Jin Lau. While the kitchen turns out a few Korean, Malayan and Thai preparations, China and Japan dominate. Peng Lai’s relatively small space, which can handle 80 indoors and…
Lustless marriage
Advice for a wife whose husband prefers his fist
Having a wonderful time, wish you were here …
Handsome furs don’t make albums as much as they make travelogues. Canadian married couple Dan Boeckner and Alexei Perry invest their electronic indie-pop with the energy of their surroundings — their 2007 debut, Plague Park, was the band’s down-in-the-mouth interpretation of their visit to Scandinavia, and their new album, Face Control, means to recapture the…
Calling her out
Monica Conyers’ ignorant, nasty antics pollute hopes for regionalism
Destroy Everything. Worship Nothing
Remember the Suicide Machines? The Detroit ska-punks spent 15 years (1991 to 2006) releasing albums of quirky punk anthems, playing numerous Vans Warped shows, and desperately trying to follow NOFX, Lagwagon, et al., into the “big time.” They didn’t quite make it, and the whole experience left a bitter taste in singer Jay Navarro’s mouth.…
Night and Day
THURSDAY • 12 FILM AND DISCUSSION: FINALLY GOT THE NEWS MILITANT CELLULOID Any history touching on Detroit’s late ’60s political firmament includes the League of Revolutionary Black Workers, which mobilized inside the auto plants against the Big 3 and the UAW alike, and likewise challenged the status quo outside the plants. Finally Got the News,…
Hordes of Chaos
Damn! Here you have a group of guys who are nearly 50 and who refuse to give into the notion that brazenly fast heavy metal is for the young’uns. On the contrary, there’s enough fury, anger and chops on Hordes of Chaos to wash the swathes of eager, fresh-eyed, young metal bands into a sea…
Home-grown $$$
Legalizing marijuana cultivation could infuse the state and city with cash
Heroes & villains
The landmark 1986 comic book series by writer Alan Moore and artist Dave Gibbons has now been made into a film by Zach Snyder, who has translated the “unfilmable” novel into a stunning, brutal, often brilliant and ultimately exhausting night out at the movies. Clocking in at nearly three hours, Snyder’s ambitious, brave, visually thrilling…
The young and uninsured
When you’re as excited as Jon Villasurda is to be a test subject for dental board exams, something is very wrong. Barely batting an eyelash at possibly becoming a failed exam at the hands of University of Michigan dental students, Villasurda was ecstatic the other day about the prospect of having his teeth filled for…
Timecrimes
Hector (Karra Elejalde) and his wife (Candela Fernández) have recently moved to the Spanish countryside. Alone for the afternoon, Hector spies a naked beauty in the woods with his binoculars. Intrigued, he investigates, and is soon stabbed in the arm by a strange man wrapped in pink bandages. Fleeing to the nearest shelter, he stumbles…
Blowed out, up and beyond …
The bad news is that Blowout only comes once a year. The good news is also that Blowout only comes once a year. Since most of us are wandering around the MT offices looking like lost and hungover zombies this morning, following four nights of musical mayhem ‘n’ thrills, the latter is probably a good…
Letters to the Editor
Weighing print I’m not entirely convinced of Mr. Lessenberry’s assessment of outcomes we will see in the decline of the printed newspaper (“What we’ll miss,” March 4). The landscape is changing, but not entirely for the worse. I think it is loaded with opportunities. The reality is that I rarely need to read my printed…
Jeffrey Morgan’s Media Blackout
Jeffrey Morgan has ways of making you read Media Blackout #209! Mel Brooks — The Producers: The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (RCA Victor) :: People tend to forget that back in 1968 songs like "Springtime For Hitler" really were considered to be virulently offensive by many. But, thankfully, our tolerant society has now evolved to…
Detroit News on endangered list
The Detroit News has showed up on a Top 10 list no one in my business can feel good about: newspapers most likely to fold or, at very least, shift to digital publication only. Posted on Time magazine’s website, the article is by Douglas A. McIntyre. He’s a partner in 24/7 Wall St, a company…
ALL HAIL JACKIE EARLE HALEY
I was a pup when I first saw Bad News Bears; developed a heady childhood crush on Tatum O’ Neal, as a matter of fact. Be that as it may, what really got me was the anti-heroics of 14-year-old Jackie Earle Haley — as Kelly Leak— the smirk-y, cigarette-pack-in-sleeve badass whose manner bucked all kid-’70s…
