A better-late-than-never reflection from Blowout intern Bill
Intern Bill is back and still can’t get over the set at the New Dodge Friday night. Here’s what he had to say: It started out like just another Friday night at Blowout. We got a chuckle about how a bunch of fools skipped on their gig the night before due to their bad attitude;…
What I Learned from Blowout 2010
In terms of a final (and late) report, I thought I’d share what I learned at Blowout this year: From Dale Earnhardt Jr Jr I learned that great musicians in Detroit can turn the cover song into an art form all its own. I also learned from Dale Earnhardt Jr Jr that the sound at…
So…About that Marching Band Last Night
So, you may have been hanging out at Small’s last night sipping a drink in the bar room waiting for the next band to start, or may have been hugging a wall in the hallway of the Gates of Columbus when, out of nowhere, you see…a marching band? Not part of the Blowout schedule or…
Anybody else’s feet feel like bloody stumps?
SATURDAY NIGHT: MILLIONS OF BRAZILIANS AT GATES OF COLUMBUS HALL.
Saturday Recap: Make Your Transition
DTR-001 and U.R.’s “Transition” After congratulating the Detroit Threads massive on their first 12-inch release, buying the 7-inch accapella [sic] of Underground Resistance ‘s classic Transition, and congratulating Terri “Whodat” McQueen on her new business cards (new record shop, Ya Digg, coming soon), my Brother and I finished our Blowout experience with seven bands at…
“Don’t try. I am sleeping with a big dog an ugly woman, two shot guns and a claw hammer.” (Saturday Recap)
And we’re done… We started off the evening at Jean’s for Jamie Register & the Glendales. It’s a tiny place and it was filled with folks. They sounded really great, busting out the kind of R&B funkiness that makes you want to move. That wasn’t really possible in this setting as we were all shoulder…
GERI ALLEN SALUTES CECIL, MCCOY AND HERBIE IN FREE SHOW
Geri Allen’s new album, Flying Toward the Sound (Motema), isn’t officially released until Tuesday, March 9, but you can get a preview for free (with a suggested $5 museum admission) on Monday. Better yet, it’s a live performance accompanied by a short film by the pioneering Carrie Mae Weems. The music, underwritten by a 2008-2009…
Everybody dance now…
First of all, some perspective. When I wrote my Blowout preview blog on Tuesday, I said that, on Sunday, I’ll be “crying into my mini-wheats at the prospect of 12 Blowout-less months”. However, as I sit here writing at 2.30am on Sunday morning, having just returned from the New Dodge, rather than feeling any sadness…
Friday recap: The Dance
Rock ‘n’ roll is delicious. It is sexy. It is heavy. It burns. It lilts the flowers in your Mother’s house while opening the flowers in your heart. The best of Blowout, for this long term fan, always comes down to the dance. Last night, it was the dream-like swaying that came with Bloodbird and…
Life Need Not Intercede
So, I had to get up at 7 a.m. Saturday to take my son to his final swim meet of the season. In Macomb, MI. Sigh. Naturally, I rang in 1:30 a.m. with Old Empire at Skipper’s after tolerating the Mantons’ CCR covers. Duhr. I had caught a serious case of Blowout momentum. Buoyed by…
Sonic graphical youth
Friday night, standing in front of the Painted Lady, the same building where Lili Karwowski once graced the punk rock nation by just being herself, no matter who were her guests: Iggy, Joe Strummer, Wayne Kramer, you or me. A sign directs us “hippies” to the side entrance of the club, really just a modified…
“When you’re in Hamtramck, man… You gotta bust out an accordion!” (Friday Recap)
Last night, because of a slight oversight, I experienced Blowout freedom. And it was good. After taking such a long time to plan out my very-diligently-selected Friday Blowout schedule, I forgot it at home. Oh. Shit. Now “going with the flow” and “seeing what happens” are not really strong parts of my make-up. Sure, they’re…
Floating through the Blowout
You know what the thing is about plans, Laura? They usually never work out anyway. Spent the weekend floating from show to show at the suggestion of others. Late start with CARJACK.’s dance party at Paycheck’s to catch him play guitar briefly with a toy robot. Bummed I missed The White Stripes cover. At Skipper’s,…
Jon Bon Jovi’s lesson in Blowout survival
Jon Bon Jovi once uttered the wise line and immortal line “I’ll sleep when I’m dead”. Now, old Jon Bon may not have always been a fountain of wisdom (he also once sang “on a steel horse I ride”), but that first sentiment makes sense around Blowout time. Feeling tired? Drink some damned coffee and…
Evolution of a scene
Tonight officially goes down as one of my all-time favorite Blowout nights…and I have been to all thirteen (Whah!?) of these suckers. Truth is, tonight was especially delightful. Not only did my young buddy Kyle McBee of Black Lodge confirm that he’s blossomed into a bona fide rock ‘n’ roll badass, but his perfectly crafted…
Friday Night Pop Pickle
With all due respect to Lightning Love (playing tomorrow night at the G of C Lounge), Friday night is the most packed night of the pop music of the Blowout. It’s the kind of night that makes you realize how far away some of these venues feel when you’re racing back and forth and back…
Blowout, Meet Jezynowka
By the way, sorry for not posting this yesterday. Dear Blowout, allow me to introduce you to the most Polish thing you can do while at the Blowout. A shot of blackberry-flavored brandy called Jezynowka (pronounced /Yezshy-znoo-vka/, or just /Yezshy/). If it’s a real Hamtramck bar, they’ll know what you mean when you ask for…
More like PANTS on Fire…
It’s no secret that some of the bands who perform at Blowout are not always personal favorites, but the truth is — music snobbery bores me and I have tried very hard in my adult life to be less judgmental about radio rock. When I first listened to Bat on Fire, it became obvious to…
NOT ESPECIALLY “MY” NIGHT…
So it really wasn’t my night. First, I opened the program to the wrong page and looked at Friday’s listings instead of Thursday’s — I mean, I should’ve known better since I edited the damn thing! — and headed to the GofC Hall, as I wanted to catch both Gorevette and the Octopus (who we,…
“We’re gonna drop a baby rock on somebody’s porch!” (Thursday recap)
So Day 1 of the official 3-Day Blowout bonanza is done… I started off at the Lounge to catch Matt Jones, but 8:20pm rolled around and nobody looked like they were even close to being ready to play. This being Blowout, schedules are tight, and I had a date with Modernlull at Baker’s at 8:40pm.…
How many fingers am I holding up? Thursday…
So, if Wednesday is the Blowout gathering of the tribes, a night of semi-valedictory celebration, then Thursday is what can loosely be deemed “Friends & Family” night. That is, the people out and about on a school night are part of either the first or second degree of connection to a band. Or they’re super-fans.…
Fawn-icated and Blown away.
Christ on a crap-stick, it was cold tonight, even when making the relatively short walk from the Belmont to Paychecks, which was the area I based myself in. The shuttle doesn’t work for me; I always seem to get there exactly ten seconds after one has just left, leaving me with a fifteen minute wait…
Wednesday? OK, Wednesday.
I figure it’s always a good omen when you start a Blowout by accidentally wandering into a backstage area. I totally forgot the Majestic wasn’t holding events (which, I might say, added crap-ton of energy to the shenanigans by condensing the action) and walked up to the usual box office door. Multi-insrumentalistabout-town Scott Michalski was…
The wanderer
Dion Fischer of F*ke Blood said it, I didn’t: “Danceteria 1985.” What a nice reference. I saw Howard Devoto there, in ’83. A mere shadow, but no matter. It was in between songs, not sure which ones. They all ripped like New York in the ’80s, Glasgow in the ’70s, Detroit in the ’60s. The…
ONE DOWN…
The best thing about Blowout — beyond the diverse music on display, of course — is running into so many friends, some of whom you may only run into several times a year… and always at the Blowout Pre-Party. (The worst thing about Blowout is all the fucking cigarette smoke, especially for someone who’s been…
Snortin’ Blowout
Scribbles of packed Magic Stick pre-party, from a rock ’n’ roll vantage The Sugarcoats, starring a Peter-Panish Joey Mazzola and his merry band O’ youngsters, lifted off of its own night (and city) buzz on the Magic Stick’s second stage upstairs; Stones/Band/Gun Club nods abounded, sort of, and you forget how a bit of age…
Stop the Clock! Great pre and post Blowout Hamtramck eats!
In Mr. Brett Callwood’s Pre-Blowout post on Tuesday, he made the following observation about this giant local music fest we’re all about to tumble into head first: “The Blowout is sort of like when you go to Appleby’s and order the appetizer sampler. You get to try small portions of a whole lot of different…
Blowout Day 1, what a fucking start!
Finally, the big day has arrived. All of the excitement has led up to this. Blowout, day 1. A few local notables are wandering around (Ty Stone, Bootsey X) looking every bit as joyful and full of life as this writer. The Blowout experience is akin to that of taking in a swimming pool full…
SMASH YOUR HEAD ON THE BLOWOUT.
So today’s the day. Or rather, tonight’s the night. Blowout kicks off in Detroit, before filling Hamtramck to the brim with local music of all shapes and sizes. It’s exciting, it’s overwhelming, and it’s something that no mental health professional would ever feel comfortable suggesting I “wing it” and just “see what happens.” That might…
Real to reel
Since opening last fall in a former Cass Corridor school building, the incredibly ballsy Burton Theatre has become a boon for the film-starved downtown landscape, and this week’s inaugural Detroit Independent Film Festival is further proof that cinema obsessives finally have something new to freak out about. Continuing in the sort of brashly audacious style…
Grave debate
As octogenarians, Ann Arbor residents Jean and John King are, not surprisingly, giving some thought to what will be done with their remains after they pass. But, because they live in Michigan, their options are limited. Jean King says they know they want to be cremated and have their ashes delivered to a family plot…
Judge a band by its cover
Computer Perfection We Wish You Well on Your Way to Hell Le Grand Magistery Computer Perfectionists and Pas/Cal-inites Gene Corduroy and Bem were living in Brooklyn when they met commercial illustrator Andy Taray (ohioboy.com), the man responsible for the art found on the cover and throughout the packaging of the Ferndale-based band’s debut record, We…
Bobbing for power
Although the debate wasn’t supposed to be about him specifically, Detroit Public Schools Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb was frequently the focal point Monday, when a Michigan House subcommittee on school district academic emergencies held a public hearing at City Hall. The question being considered is this: Should an appointed emergency financial manager also be…
Working man’s blues
Sometimes a lot of it just boils down to attitude. And it would appear that Don Duprie, aka Doop — the soft-spoken singer-songwriter-guitarist who fronts a band at the forefront of Detroit’s thriving Americana music scene — has a great one. To wit, this writer first saw Doop & the Inside Outlaws — with a…
Iraq action
As the U.S. House of Representatives last week was considering a resolution to help protect people in Iraq, Sister Beth Murphy was receiving tragic news pointing to the measure’s need. Murphy, the volunteer services coordinator at the Archdiocese of Detroit, learned that relatives of one of her Iraqi Dominican Sisters were brutally murdered in their…
Letters to the Editor
Heroes of the hood Regarding Detroitblogger John’s "Street Fightin’ Man" (Feb. 17): These are real, live heroes and they don’t bounce basketballs or have multimillion-dollar endorsements. This is the kind of black history I will tell my children. This story reads like an episode from Law and Order and had me on the edge of…
Blowin’ up!
Wow! So we’ve reached the lucky 13th of the largest and best all-local music festival in the country. Wonder if Chris Handyside ever envisioned how big the shebang would become when he kicked off this whole Blowout thing 12 years ago this month. As always, special thanks and much love to Eve Doster Knepp, Blowout’s…
Motor City Cribs
Much like the Zombies and Odyssey and Oracle, when Pas/Cal released its brilliant pop gem of a record I Was Raised on Matthew, Mark, Luke & Laura in 2008, the band had already imploded at the peak of its creative powers. Pas/Cal’s Belle and Sebastian-inspired, immaculate pop was largely the vision of leader-vocalist Casimer Pascal,…
Comics
The Boiling Point – by Mikhaela Reid
Loaded
Kenny Tudrick sits in the bar drinking a Pabst. Wisps of his cigarette smoke twist leisurely around his face, and, for a split-second, in the ashy evening light coming through the window, he looks sullen as all hell. He’s wearing a tightly fitted blue-jean jacket over a black T-shirt that reads, in near-irony, "Tough Guy…
Night and Day
WEDNESDAY MARCH 3 Lyman Woodard Organization Orchestra BIG BAND REVIVAL Here’s lost treasure being rediscovered: The late organist Lyman Woodard has a monumental rep as the leader of high-octane combos, but even most buffs who can chant "Don’t stop the groove" as a mantra aren’t aware of the short-lived Paradise Theater Orchestra of 1978-79, in…
The real deal
On the corner of Commor and Conant streets, in the extraordinarily diverse city of Hamtramck, there is not one dish on Aladdin’s menu that surpasses $8.99. In fact, a large mixed fruit shake costs more than any of the appetizers and even a few of the vegetarian entrées that include rice or naan. On the…
Blown away
$=$5-10; $$=$10-25; $$$=$25-50; $$$$=$50+ Because of this week’s Blowout, we’re presenting this handy shortlist of Hamtramck’s humble culinary destinations. They’re uncommonly cheap, sometimes open late, and are often off the beaten path. But at any given hour of the day, these joints are there to lay the foundation for a night’s drinking, quell late-night hunger…
Blowout Motor City Fives
AUGIE VISOCCI OF THE HARD LESSONS 1. What musical accomplishment of yours are you most proud of? Initially, our goal was to put out a 45 and maybe play the Magic Stick if we were lucky. I would have never imagined playing on a boat in Paris or getting lost on Highway 61 en route…
Metro Retro
25 years ago in Metro Times: In "Bringing up Super Baby," Leah Rosch investigates how Baby Boomers are raising their hyper-intelligent babies. Several psychologists are interviewed, saying that these children may be a generation of "hurried children," who are so pumped full of information that it will cause them undue stress at a very young…
Cop Out
Cop Out is Kevin Smith’s first work-for-hire assignment based on a script he didn’t write, and Smith seems determined to deliver an homage to the lost art of Reagan-era buddy-cop action comedies, but instead of Riggs and Murtaugh he’s saddled with the chemistry-challenged duo of Tracy Morgan and Bruce Willis. These mismatched partners and BFFs…
The family
Demetrius "Big Meech" Flenory and his younger brother, Terry "Southwest T," started as street-level cocaine dealers working out of their family home on Detroit’s southwest side in the early 1990s. With business genius, luck and the unquestioned loyalty of associates, they morphed into the Atlanta-based "Black Mafia Family" organization, which the federal officials who eventually…
Death’s a gas!
In Iowa, the sleepy hamlet of Ogden Marsh gets a very nasty wake-up call. After a government plane crashes in the local lake, the townsfolk quickly show symptoms of a weird infection, leading to extremely violent outbursts, insanity or death. It turns out the water supply has been contaminated with an experimental bio-chemical weapon, and…
Geek soul
Wrong Numbers guitarist Matt Thibodeau is gleefully reliving the time when members of his band were robbed at gunpoint in front of his house. "We had a gig at Northern Lights and, afterward, we had a little party," recalls Thibodeau, before adding a surprising laugh. "There were some members of the Party Stompers and a…
Little big man
Believed to be a divine entity, no less than the living heir of the sun goddess Ameratsu, his royal highness, Emperor Hirohito, (Issei Ogata) was, in actuality, an odd, inward-gazing eccentric, uncomfortable in his own skin, his lips quivering like a carp flopping around on dry land. Hirohito was Japan’s longest-serving ruler — his reign,…
The Blowout Schedule
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 3 (PRE-PARTY) AT THE MAJESTIC COMPLEX Garden Bowl 9 p.m.-close Keep on Trash Dance Party Three-one-three superstars Dave Buick (Italy Records) and John Hentch (Hentchmen/the Paybacks) will be spinning punk and rock ‘n’ roll classics as well as lost nuggets throughout the night — so there’s absolutely no need to go soft. Magic…
Fish Tank
An extraordinary little movie, Fish Tank is a fresh take on the sort of intimate, bleak “kitchen sink” dramas Brits are famous for, a worm’s eye view of desperation shot with such immediacy and truth you nearly forget the camera is there. It’s blazingly alive, a devastating portrait of a bright young girl trying to…
Who the fuck is SelfSays?
When this cat Charles Vann stepped onto Detroit’s rap scene last winter, newly dubbed as SelfSays, he arrived as a new face and a fresh voice. For some vet local emcees, DJs, promoters and hip-hop heads who’ve kept track of important and upcoming names and faces over the years, Vann’s move to Detroit was inevitability…
DIY mythmaker
You can’t mention Ann Arbor-area songwriter Tim Monger’s name without also invoking the name of the band for which he’s best-known, the acclaimed Northern folk-pop quintet, Great Lakes Myth Society. His plaintive, finely detailed, pop-leaning contributions to that band perfectly complement the work of his younger brother Jamie and guitarist Greg McIntosh’s compositions. But even…
Five years without …
Q: OK: Female, married 15 years, one young child. No sex with husband over last five years. Have tried therapy, talking, not talking, confrontation — you name it, Dan, I tried it. Lingerie, kink, porn. Seriously, everything. A year and a half ago, I got into a relationship with a married guy, a man who…
Food Stuff
Whiskey! Neat! — This month, Ann Arbor’s Blue Tractor Brewery has put together a bevy of Bourbon-inspired specials, including bourbon-cured salmon, smoked pork chop, with a Jack-and-Coke barbecue sauce, a hanger steak sandwich with bourbon-and-brown-sugar-cured bacon and bourbon-molasses sauce, and drinks made with Old Crow, Elijah Craig, Jim Beam, Maker’s Mark and more. Drop in…
MATTY GETS SLAPPED BACK; NEW BRIDGE SPAN HITS WALL
Big news today regarding the Detroit International Bridge Company and its attempts to build a new span adjacent to its Ambassador Bridge. In a letter dated Wednesday, March 2, the U.S. Coast Guard notified bridge company President Dan Stamper that it is returning the company’s permit application because it has failed to acquire a piece…
HELL YEAH – IT’S BLOWOUT TIME!
A year has past since Blowout 12, but it may as well have been a decade. For the entirety of March following last year’s festival conclusion, this scribe suffered from a serious bout of ‘Post-Blowout blues’. Freelance gigs came and went. Summer was nice. Christmas blah, blah, blah. The winter was as cold as everybody…
