New Video From Big Sean — “Hometown”
Here’s the latest video from rapidly rising Detroit rap star Big Sean. The tune is called “Hometown” and it’s a single off of his upcoming album, Finally Famous, dropping May 3rd. The mere fact that the album has a release date is good news to folks that have already watched video after video from Big…
A Brief History of ‘Smile’ Cancellations
Capitol’s official announcement via Billboard this week that the Beach Boys’ Smile will see release in 2011 — on the heels of a quickly retracted offhand remark by Al Jardine that gave the game away — is the latest in an eternal line of proposed releases for the troubled, long-delayed project that was intended to…
Snyder budget plan: Live and on YouTube
If you want to hear it without (much of) a media filter, a lively discussion about Michigan’s budget, tax plans and film credits is available for viewing on YouTube. Uploaded by CMN-TV, the public access cable station based in Troy that hosted the town hall-style program this week, the program includes questions from the studio…
Erin go bar-hopping!
Bailey’s Pub 22091 Michigan Ave., Dearborn; 313-277-3212; 1777 Canton Center Rd., Canton; 734-844-1137; 1965 W. Maple, Troy; 248-435-3044: The Bailey’s Pub triumvirate will be marking St. Patrick’s Day in style this year. The Canton location will open at 9 a.m., ready to party. If your group maybe loves hoops about as much as corned beef,…
Marwencol
Marwencol GRADE: A- If I tell people who I am and what I’m about, I’m true to myself. That means I’m not lying to myself. What they do with it is on them. —Mark Hogencamp America is filled with stories of second acts and second chances, but few involve a fictional town filled with Barbies…
Red Riding Hood
Red Riding Hood GRADE: D Which Hollywood agent talked Julie Christie into this turkey? Because, unless she desperately needed the cash, he should be fired. Three years ago, Christie earned an Oscar nomination for her role in the beautifully tragic Away From Her. Now, she’s Grandmother to Red Riding Hood. And there are moments here…
Even the Rain
Even the Rain GRADE: B- Movies with a social conscience are tricky. Most are overly didactic or presented as barely dramatic debates that are all too aware of the points they’re trying to make. Even the Rain, despite its opening dedication to Howard Zinn (leaving little doubt of the filmmaker’s political leanings), manages to do…
Battle: Los Angeles
Battle: Los Angeles GRADE: C+ A cinematic mash-up of Blackhawk Down and Independence Day, I have little doubt this $100,000,000 exercise in unadulterated war porn will rake in incredible box office dollars. It paints a big fat bull’s-eye on America’s fetishization of guns, machismo and black-and-white morality, then blasts away with as much firepower as…
Jack White To Debut Rolling Record Store @ SXSW
To celebrate the 2nd anny of his Third Man Records, Jack White and his team have unveiled their latest creation. From ThirdManRecords.com the mobile store will feature… A full menu of Third Man merchandise including 45s, LPs, just like our record shop in nashville, and all new (and exclusive to the truck) Rolling Record Store™…
Trailer Trash: Mars Needs Moms
Mars Needs Moms Disney Digital 3D Opens 3-11-11 I hate this kind of animation. You know, the type that makes you look twice because it looks so real, too real and very creepy. So some kid’s mom is abducted by a spaceship, which he chases, only to be snatched and taken to Mars. There he…
Public eye
Detroit Police Chief Ralph Godbee and Deputy Mayor Saul Green are sitting in a conference room on the 11th floor of the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center, patiently answering questions from a reporter about the consent decrees that have been the guiding force at the Detroit Police Department for nearly eight years. Godbee, with a…
Flightpatterns – Open Graves with Stuart Dempster
Flightpatterns – Open Graves with Stuart Dempster Prefecture Phil Spector had the wall of sound. Perfecture Records artistic director Paul Kikuchi and his associates have the well of sound, or maybe it’s the sound of the well. Phil Spector mastered the art of sound that slammed you even when it came out of a tinny…
All together now
What looks to be Michigan’s biggest medical marijuana expo to date is set for this weekend at the Suburban Collection (formerly Rock Financial) Showplace in Novi. Mostly sponsored by Michigan-based organizations — MINORML, the American Medical Marijuana Professionals (AMMP) certification clinic, Brighton Area Compassion Clubs, High Times magazine, and others — the Medical Marijuana Expo…
Cleared plate
A long-running dispute between the Andiamo restaurant chain and a small group of employees represented by the group known as the Restaurant Opportunities Center of Michigan (ROC-MI) was settled last week. It all started back in November 2009, when some workers at the Dearborn Andiamo and their supporters began staging weekly protests at the eatery.…
Motor City Five
Pat Jordache played with Tune Yard’s Merill Gebus as well as Islands, but he’s got a new combo and record that recalls a lo-fi TVOTR with Gogol’s punkish acoustic approach. Dig "Phantom Limb" on his new record on Future Sounds. What surprised you about making this new record? I learned that ska, drum and bass…
Shared sacrifice?
The staff at the Detroit Rescue Mission Ministries didn’t need economists to tell them how devastating the lingering effects of this recession have been. They see them every day, in the faces of the people they feed, keep warm and to whom they try to give hope. They see people who aren’t like the clients…
Pit stop
The dog charges forward like he could do this for hours. He’s on a treadmill made just for pit bulls, a contraption of slat boards looped in an oval. Thick muscled and big jawed, this dog is a thoroughbred champion, a winner of awards, a celebrity of sorts. He belongs to Michael Hodges, 31, who…
Gil Scott-Heron and Jamie “xx” – We’re New Here
Gil Scott-Heron & Jamie "xx" – We’re New Here XL Recordings More an affectionate monument than a remix album, We’re New Here is Jamie "xx" Smith’s retreatment of Gil Scott-Heron’s instantly beloved 2010 LP I’m New Here. The alterations vary between lush expansions — "Running" and "I’ll Take Care of You" get warmed up, while…
Cut Copy – Zonoscope
Cut Copy – Zonoscope Modular There’s a moment one minute into Cut Copy’s third album, Zonoscope, when the Melbourne synth-poppers will win over even those most jaded with the glut of ’80s dance and new wave revivalists: the warm, perfectly timed crack of Dan Whitford’s voice as he enters the chorus of "Need You Now."…
Food Stuff
First green — There’s a new healthful food spot in the Grosse Pointes. It’s called "Greengos," and it’s already doing a pretty brisk carryout business. Self-dubbed as an "ethno-world gourmet café," the idea is simple: fresh, healthy food for people with active lifestyles. The menu is "flexitarian" with an emphasis on vegan and gluten-free options.…
Couples’ night
Q: Long story short: I cheated on my boyfriend three years ago. I admitted it nine months ago, and we’ve been in couples counseling for six months. My BF is very responsive in therapy, where we’re working on his control issues, and he says everything the therapist expects him to during a session. Twenty-four hours…
Detroit Independent Film Festival
Despite the short-sightedness of Lansing’s new regime in ousting meddlesome big-budget Hollywood productions, there is, in fact, a Michigan filmmaking community. Small, proud, faintly parochial but fiercely resilient, local movie-making artisans are as scrappy as the rust belt soil they’ve sprung from. The full flower of their collective creativity and hustle blooms at the second…
Going local
Jess Daniel moved to Detroit in July, knowing only three people. In order to meet people, she invited her neighbors over for dinner. They liked the food and Jess liked feeding them and getting to know them. Then she began selling noodles from her house, telling her neighbors and putting up a website. On her…
Messin’ with Texas
There’s a huge list of major music festivals around the world that continually draw name bands and even larger audiences of musicphiles who need to hit at least one big fest before they die. Think Coachella, Glastonbury, Bonnaroo, Lollapalooza and even our own Detroit Electronic Music Festival. Most of said fests host the up-to-the-moment touring…
Cheat Code
Rift Trion Worlds, Inc. The bar for a good PC game has been set pretty darn high these days, especially for the large amount of MMO gamers expecting those fancy visuals and in-game additions. Rift cleverly leaves gameplay shots off its box cover, because the instant I finished installing, I was shocked and moderately offended…
Spun
FRIGHT FROM THE BINS How to Keep Your Husband Happy Exercise Along With Debbie Drake Epic Amazingly, this Mad Men-era exercise album stayed in print long enough to go head-to-head with Jane Fonda on the floor mat — my Goodwilled copy has the same dark blue Epic label as Thriller! Then, as now, I suspect…
High notes
Dirty Dog Jazz Café 97 Kercheval Ave., Grosse Pointe Farms 313-882-5299 dirtydogjazz.com Last week, you could have caught Jason Marsalis on vibraphone at the Dirty Dog Jazz Café — if you could have gotten a reservation. The café usually sells out when it hosts national acts, the likes of Mose Allison, Freddy Cole, Stanley Jordan…
Letters to the Editor
Hope lies ahead I read with great interest Jack Lessenberry’s article "How to save Detroit" (March 2). I’ve lived in Detroit for 58 years, having come here with my family at the age of 6 in 1953. Detroit was a thriving, bustling city. We were known as the "Arsenal of Democracy" and the "Motor Capital…
Hard-bob
A few weeks ago at a Charles H. Wright Museum show, drummer Jeff "Tain" Watts took a couple minutes to introduce his comrades on stage, all of them stars. He had the pianist Geri Allen, trumpeter Nicholas Payton, saxophonist Wessell Anderson and bassist Robert Hurst III. Hurst is one of the top bass men at…
Dr. Beans Bowles "Fingertips" The Untold Story – Dennis Bowles
Dr. Beans Bowles "Fingertips" The Untold Story – Dennis Bowles $20, 238 pp., Sho-nuff Productions Had he lived a few years longer, Thomas "Beans" Bowles might well have capped his career with a victory lap alongside the Funk Brothers, riding the revival that followed the movie Standing in the Shadows of Motown. For close followers…
MTV’s ‘Real World’ Casts About in Ann Arbor
People rarely think of Ann Arbor as the real world, but it will be this Saturday. Casting directors from MTV’s longest-running series, The Real World, will be in A-Squared from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. March 12 looking for fresh young faces to bunk together and ultimately create juicy reality-TV conflict for the show’s 26th season. Representatives…
