Breaking stained-glass ceilings
It was June 1974 when Wilma Johnson heard the voice of the Lord telling her to do his will. "And that’s what I did," she says. "I knew it was a commandment. I had no choice, no questions." For Johnson, the Lord’s will was that she enter the ministry – a path which was then…
House Party Drum ‘N’ Bass
British-born drum ’n’ bass DJ DB has long championed the stateside jungle scene from his adopted home of New York. On his first mix CD for his and Astralwerks’ founder Andrew Goldstone’s label, f111, he brings drum ’n’ bass out of its dark ages of the last few years, a period when it got hamstrung…
Building in green
George Cronvich never considered himself an environmentalist. The housing development director for Cass Corridor Neighborhood Development Corporation swears his wife is the one who recycles, for instance. He never paid attention to such things. Until his most recent project, that is. The seven-story Architects Building in Detroit’s Cass Corridor, constructed in 1924, was once home…
Underground Blues
Bare-bones blues from straight out the ground is what this is. Uncut. Rough. Just like homebrewed whiskey from back in the woods. Restless white lightnin’ captured in a thick blue bottle. Or put it this way: If you like cream in your coffee, you should probably leave these blues alone. This stuff is full strength,…
Death penalty fight
A sometimes heated public hearing in Pontiac last week may signal what’s ahead as the Legislature considers putting a death penalty proposal before Michigan voters. Detroit activists in a newly formed coalition say they plan to give capital punishment advocates the political fight of their lives. Joint Resolution C, introduced to the Committee on Judiciary…
Strange and Fragmented Music
This is soundtrack music – Manny & Lo was the feature debut by Lisa Krueger; African Swim is referred to as "a film that no longer exists" – so one expects a certain amount of fragmentation, underdeveloped mood cues, that sort of thing. But with most of the cuts clocking in around the minute mark…
Cheers, apprehension
The same day James Hoffa Jr. was installed as the new president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, he took steps that pleased some and troubled others. Hoffa showed his commitment to the locked-out Detroit Newspapers workers’ struggle March 22 by increasing the Workers Justice Committee fund by 50 percent. WJC is a core group…
Snap, Crackle and Dub
Pole is this guy Stefan Betke who uses a defective audio gizmo – "pole" – to generate random squelches and pops that he then loops into these kind of skipping-record rhythm sections that he then dubs out with out-of-focus basslines and delay effects. Once you get past the sort of dub-science, metal-machine-music gimmick, you realize…
Public’s bite to know
Oakland County Commissioner Tim Melton says he will keep pushing to require restaurants to post local health department inspection scores if those scores fall below 70 on a 100-point scale. The resolution, which Melton co-authored with Commissioner Eric Coleman, was introduced in February and voted down by the county’s general government committee March 22. Although…
Melaudiophiles
After months of recording in the wilderness of upstate New York with Dave Fridmann, producer of Mercury Rev’s recent iconoclastic album, Deserter’s Songs, Glasgow’s indie-acclaimed Mogwai cements its reputation for creating uniquely beautiful contemporary guitar music with Come On Die Young, the follow-up to its 1997 debut Mogwai Young Team. If you can recall the…
Photo factory
The Detroit Publishing Company imagined America….
Polka-dot protest
As the city of Detroit makes plans to tear down another portion of Tyree Guyton’s Heidelberg Project on April 7, supporters are rallying to protect the city’s most famous piece of public art. "This case affects all artists," says Jenenne Whitfield, executive director of the Heidelberg Project "Currently there are no specific laws that protect…
New jail city
Downtown Detroit’s new holding tank sets the tone for a whole culture….
Perfect pescatore pasta
Cozy tables and flickering candles lend themselves to a warm atmosphere. Remember to convert to U.S. funds before you decide to pass up something due to the price. When you walk down Erie Street in Windsor’s Little Italy, there are so many restaurants, it’s hard to know where to stop. Now you know.
South of heaven
Detroit electro brings the 313 underground to Miami’s Winter Music Conference….
EDtv
What happens to someone’s life when you point a camera at it? Two very different movies tackle the same basic question and, in both cases, the motivation for turning an ordinary life into entertainment is desperation. “How many chances do guys like you and I get?” Ray Pekurny (Woody Harrelson) asks his brother Ed (Matthew…
Don’t take the bait
It goes without saying that in the 1998 media world of all-Monica, all-the-time, many important news stories were destined to get short shrift or to be entirely ignored. The corporate media, especially the broadcast media, gave us primarily infotainment and celebrity news, pushing more complex stories to the back pages or off the air. At…
Post Global Music
Here’s an atypical remix album by an atypical experimental artist. Dave Pajo, aka Aerial M, is a Louisville-born musician who has worked with intellectual underground post-rock bands such as Slint, Tortoise and Stereolab. Whatever. Allowing four particularly distinct music artists to take a crack at remixing his composition, "Wedding Song #3," Pajo exposes us to…
Millennium baby
Mixed with an overpowering aroma of men’s cologne is the unmistakable scent of baby powder. Clouds of it float around the room, dusting the floor like late-season snow. In the midst of it, the Lizard of Fun is preening in front of a mirror, humming its favorite Barry White tune. "Oooh, I’m gonna get lucky…
Day of the Beast
Imagine a mix of Luis Buñuel’s tongue-in-cheek blasphemy, Dario Argento’s stylish mayhem and schlockmeister Jess Franco’s what-the-hell inventiveness, and you’ll have some idea of the tone and texture of Spanish writer-director Alex de la Iglesia’s Day of the Beast. The film’s hero is a little Milquetoast of a priest (Alex Angulo) who is convinced that…
In one ear
GLORIOUS MISSES It started off optimistically enough – a freewheeling Saturday night promising a musical buffet within 15 minutes drive. I soon discovered, however, that no matter how fast I drove, no matter how good my intentions, there was just absolutely no fucking way I was going to be at the requisite four places at…
Forces of Nature
You know the story: The trailer’s taken care of that, as trailers do these days, careful to reveal every twist in the plot but the ending. The main protagonist of a wild bachelor party whose prize – a feisty stripper – is the cause of his grandfather’s heart attack, Ben (Ben Affleck) sets out on…
What is affirmative action?
"Well, I guess your social life is down the drain, since the only person you seem to like just got convicted of murder," one of my more affectionate readers hissed. Though I smiled bravely, truth is, Halloween this year just won’t be the same. Stumbling blindly out of the courthouse, staring moist-eyed at that shiny…
I Stand Alone
The butcher is dangerous. He’s out of work, his wife has left him and his strangely withdrawn daughter has been institutionalized. He’s left Paris and moved to the northern town of Lille, which he sees as a bleak and featureless backwater. He’s taken up with a woman whom he’s come to loathe even though she’s…
Netropolis
The new Star Wars film, Episode I: The Phantom Menace, is still weeks away, but it’s already setting records that are out of this world. One example: Web-savvy sci-fi fans across the globe gobbled down the recent online debut of the film’s second trailer (simultaneously unveiled at www.starwars.com and www.apple.com). The Web premiere set an…
20 Dates
What happens to someone’s life when you point a camera at it? Two very different movies tackle the same basic question and, in both cases, the motivation for turning an ordinary life into entertainment is desperation. "How many chances do guys like you and I get?" Ray Pekurny (Woody Harrelson) asks his brother Ed (Matthew…
Pitch’d
SPECIAL D For all the flak the Detroit party scene has taken, Saturday night’s Comin’ From tha D: Ghetto Tech party at One X proved that the city can party legally and, most importantly, still have fun doing it. Credit promoter Jon Layne and visual artists Crashbox with setting the it’s-a-party-not-a-rave vibe by breaking up…
Fuzzy, furious, furry pop
Lovably demented psyche-rock geniuses, the Welsh band Super Furry Animals, grace the colonies with the long-awaited American release of the 1997 UK award-winning album Radiator, the follow-up to their debut album, Fuzzy Logic. Infused with infectious melodies and irreverent rock ’n’ roll attitude, Radiator welds together punk rock, power pop, psychedelia, and the best of…
Food Stuff
GOOD FOR YOU The Food Bible by Judith Wills (Simon & Schuster, $25, 320 pp.) Healthy eating is important, or so echoes our conscience every time we unwrap another Whopper. But when it comes down to it, what does healthy eating really mean? Fortunately for the junk food aficionados among us, author Judith Wills has…
The all do it
It may seem a bit early in the year to talk about the best recordings of 1999, but this wonderfully bracing complete opera of Mozart’s comedy will almost certainly appear on more than a few lists. The reason isn’t because of the star power of any single vocalist, but of the whole conception and attitude…
Eternal Pat
Pat Buchanan The Beltway Washington, D.C. Dear Pat, I heard all your staff left to work for that dreadful moneybags, Steve Forbes. Tough luck, killer. Please find enclosed a check for $10. I know it’s not much, but it’s the thought that counts. And I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately. Like how nicely…
Roots Hoots
Sibling harmonies may be naturally sweeter, thanks to nature and nurture. Just ask anyone ever taken by the charms of the Everlys, the Louvins or the Stanleys. Amy Boone and Deborah Kelly, taking cues from those artists and other exponents of folk, bluegrass and old-time country, lend credence to that often misguided assumption on Half…
