Watch DAAS Choir Performing “Detroit State of Mind”
Every now and again a new music video hits the web and it immediately gives you a 1,000 watt smile. Watching students from the Detroit Academy of Arts and Sciences performing “Detroit State of Mind,” their own personalized remix of Jay-Z’s “Empire State of Mind” is exactly that type of video. It was part of…
BBC News Celebrates the 40th of Marvin Gaye’s ‘What’s Going On’
… In which Gaye briefly talked about his early days with Motown, ’62-’65, in a 1976 interview: “I don’t view them with a lot of happiness. Being young and not knowing the business a great deal and trying to figure it out.” And then he talked of the mind-altering, 1971 album: “I was incensed so…
Frank Beckmann vs. Mitch Albom
It is a rare pleasure indeed, listening to two people we’re not particularly big fans of hammer away at each other for a half hour. But that’s just the sort of treat we got listening to Saint Mitch Albom and conservative demi-blowhard Frank Beckmann — both of whom have shows on Detroit’s WJR radio station…
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides GRADE: C Stranger than what? Let’s face it, after taking in more than $2.6 billion, the only thing the makers of latest Pirates of the Caribbean movie needed to do to was phone in their request for more box office millions. And that’s pretty much what they did.…
Forks Over Knives
Forks Over Knives GRADE: C This intriguing new pro-vegetarian screed is for technical purposes labeled a "documentary," mostly because they don’t hand out Oscars for outstanding achievement in polemics. Essentially one long piece of advocacy for a "whole-food, plant-based diet," Forks Over Knives is a compelling argument housed in a deathly dull package; the kind…
The Beaver
The Beaver GRADE: C+ While his judgment, faith, sobriety and sanity remain dubious; Mel Gibson’s talent has never been in doubt. That abundant skill is obvious in this mawkish yet oddly compelling drama, which finds Gibson playing an essentially decent man who has run out of ideas for making his life work. While it’s usually…
ACLU slams Michigan’s public defense system
“Michigan’s public defense systems are widely considered an embarrassment. Although the constitutional obligation to provide the indigent with defense counsel rests with the states, Michigan long ago delegated that responsibility to its 83 counties and then turned its back. Without state oversight, most counties never provided their public defense attorneys with the tools they needed…
The untold story of Detroit hip hop and potentially embarassing Eminem footage
Public Enemy mastermind and mouthpiece Chuck D narrates this trailer of an upcoming film about the halcyon days of Motor City rap and it shows, among other things, hilarious shots of a very young Eminem picking his nose and hanging with then-tutor Champtown and sporting a mini high top fade. The five-minute trailer also claims…
Live Review: Guitar Wolf w/Gorevette and Cheap Time. Wednesday, May. 18 at the Magic Stick
The ever perceptive and extremely hardworking Black Iris booking brings another amazing show to the Magic Stick. Japan’s completely bonkers trio Guitar Wolf unleashed their leather-clad brand of punk rock on an extremely receptive crowd Wednesday night. Detroit’s Gorevette opened the night with a set of bouncy, sneering rock. The quartet is one of a…
Union-label marijuana: The theme song
In this week’s Higher Ground column, Larry Gabriel writes about the unionization of compassion clubs in Michigan’s thumb region, following earlier unionization in California and elsewhere. The column begins: Good old union-label marijuana. That notion may seem a bit fantastic. When union members and marijuana come up in the same sentence it’s usually embarrassing to…
Crank
The Elected Bury Me in My Rings Vagrant 3 Stars Riffing: Not really "mid-century West Coast pop" but gentle hooks ache like a Silverlake sunrise. Lots of beauty. Reference points: The gentle "Jailbird" is as melancholic a girlfriend-in-jail-song as the Zombies "Care of Cell 44." "Babyface" reprises beautifully the pure-pop "she’s a run-around" line-motif! If…
Cheat Code
Dragon Age 2 EA Xbox, PS3, Mac OS, Windows XP Here’s a quintessential RPG for the hack-and-slash RPG connoisseur. Several pleasant surprises popped early and changed my entire perspective on this bad boy. In fact, one killer tidbit that completely got me was the party-combat system; no more of that flying solo nonsense we see…
Food Stuff
Fair play — Ann Arbor-based Fair Food Network head and author Oran B. Hesterman will appear at Eastern Market to sign his new book Fair Food: Growing a Healthy, Sustainable Food System for All. The book takes a critical look at Big Food’s emphasis on efficiency, centralization, high yields and profit, and offers principles to…
One for the Teamsters
Good old union-label marijuana. That notion may seem a bit fantastic. When union members and marijuana come up in the same sentence it’s usually embarrassing to the union. But change is in the air along with the marijuana smoke. As the business of medical marijuana burgeons across the country — last week Delaware became the…
Sizing up size queens
Q: I suppose you are going to call me an asshole once you have finished reading my letter, but I hope you have some advice for me regardless. I am a 45-year-old heterosexual male. My last relationship lasted nearly seven years. I am currently single. I am discouraged. One of the reasons for my discouragement:…
Godzilla and the Great Lakes
As News Hits walked away from a weekend conference that focused on this region’s nuclear issues, we weren’t sure what should be worrying us the most. Is it the proposed underground repository in Ontario, where low- and intermediate-level nuclear waste would be buried within a mile of Lake Huron? Or the plan to ship radioactive…
Pom Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold
Pom Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold GRADE: B+ Is corporate watchdog Morgan Spurlock selling out? That’s the probing question behind this amusing, skillful doc, as Spurlock postulates that by embracing the influx of corporate money in media, he can expose its insidious influence. To do that he proposes the meta concept of a…
The party at the end of the world
In what appears to be a fading, sleepy industrial building in the back of the Russell Industrial Center, a group of artists are raising a dragon. The beast is 22-1/2 feet tall and a little more than 69 feet long, weighing in at 8 tons. It’s an "art car," built onto the frame of an…
Fire down below
Smoking Typewriters: The Sixties Underground Press and the Rise of Alternative Media in America John McMillian $27.95, 304 pp. Oxford University Press In Smoking Typewriters, his exhaustively researched and meticulously footnoted study of the underground press, John McMillian does a fine job of constructing a journalistic wayback machine. He delivers the reader to the world…
Snyder house rules
Well, Governor Rick Snyder pulled it off. He got the Legislature to enact his massive tax cut for business and slap a tax on future pension income. This will be paid for — in part — by shortchanging education at all levels, from elementary to graduate school. Film industry tax credits are out the window,…
Meek’s Cutoff
Meek’s Cutoff GRADE: A- Existential, bleak and unafraid to push its characters and the audience past the breaking point, Meek’s Cutoff is an extraordinarily brave and confounding work, bound to start the sort of dinner-table fights that most of Hollywood is terrified to provoke anymore. A period piece in form and a throwback in every…
Horse power
Since 1995, the sweaty, hairy, monolithic blues machine called Five Horse Johnson has been dragging its overexposed ass across the globe in search of like-minded beer swillers in an attempt to spread the gospel of Midwestern heavy-as-fuck retro hard rock. In that time, the band has released six albums, toured with stoner rock legends Clutch,…
Various Artists – Our Favorite Beres Hammond Songs
Various Artists – Our Favorite Beres Hammond Songs VP Records In the world of reggae, it’s universally acknowledged that Jamaican crooner Beres Hammond is the king of lover’s rock. His is one of the most romantic and recognizable voices in all of Jamaican music. So of course the VP Records folks announced they wanted to…
Extreme makeover
The teacher has her work cut out for her today. Betty Henderson’s students look as though they’d rather be somewhere else. One girl sits with her eyes closed. Another’s cell phone rings, and she eagerly leaps up and leaves the room as she talks to the caller. Others giggle at not-so-funny things at the wrong…
Burger heaven
$=$5-$10; $$=$10-$25; $$$=$25-$50; $$$$=$50+ Anchor Bar 450 W. Fort St., Detroit; 313-964-9127; anchorbar.com; $: Enjoy waxed-paper-wrapped burgers, sandwiches and bar food with chunky crisp steak fries and creamy coleslaw sides. Among other items on the menu are Reubens, a steak sub, buffalo wings, popcorn shrimp and, for the few kids who wander in with their…
Bubbling up
It’s about 10 o’clock on a Wednesday night and the members of Telecollision are watching scenes from Shin-Chan, an absurd Japanese cartoon, and dissecting the intricacies of Kung Fu godhead David Carradine’s death. They’re in the living room of a cozy Eastpointe home, slouched on couches, working on pizza slices and breadsticks. It’s not hackneyed…
Letters to the Editor
Cutting business taxes is not a panacea I read with interest Jack Lessenberry’s article, "True colors in Lansing" (May 11). I didn’t vote for Snyder, but I was under the impression that, akin to Gov. Milliken, he was a moderate, not an ideologue, but he either fooled us or the politics changed him. I totally…
A fresh direction
Majestic Café 4124 Woodward Ave., Detroit 313-833-9700 Restaurant reinvention poses unique challenges, not the least of which is confusion for potential customers. So it’s understandable for Majestic Café to undertake the comfortable approach they describe as "Modern. American. Classic." A departure from the eclectic mishmash of years past, the new menu is replete with Michigan…
Spun
FRIGHT FROM THE BINS Richard Simmons Reach (Elektra), 1982 Beach Boy Brian Wilson once toyed with the idea doing a musical physical fitness album — but it was left to the world’s most annoying talk-show guest to come up with rock’s first "exercise album for the ears." Reach is nothing less than Stuart Smalley’s disco…
Belita Woods benefit: A few pics
R&B and funk performers and fans were out in force Sunday night to raise funds for the ailing P-Funk singer Belita Woods. We arrived at the event at Bert’s Warehouse late, and got the news that we’d missed, among others, Cash McCall, Ortheia Barnes, Motown Tim, Roger Tucker and members of Woods’ former band Brainstorm.…
Passalacqua’s “Words With Friends”
Are you a fan of the popular play-on-your-phone game Words With Friends? Have you ever thought to yourself, “I get so much enjoyment out of this game. I wish there was a rap song about it.” Well, your wish is Detroit hip-hop duo Passalacqua’s command. Too bad you can’t play “Passalacqua” in Words With Friends.…
