It ain’t Tommy, but …
Manny and the Mirror is a homegrown rock opera, a psychedelic psychological trip into the closets of the mind fortified by a sound track that runs the gamut from acoustic folk to rocking seedy cabaret. The piece of musical theater captures the universal appeal of storytelling and the art of sound. Toga-clad and tennis-shoe-wearing musicians…
Van Lear Rose
It’s too seldom that a record can wreck your head. Too uncommon for a record, on first listen, to obliterate your prejudices and reach for the throat, to make everything that seemed so good yesterday seem just all right today. At best a person can only hope one or two of those a year. For…
Salvaging Southfield
Brenda Lawrence, Southfield’s charming and hard-working mayor, was in her mother’s womb half a century ago this week, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that forcing different races to attend separate schools was unconstitutional. Brown vs. Board of Education is perhaps the most famous court decision in our history, one of the few most Americans…
Throw Down the Reins
Yeah, I know. The cover sucks. Absolute worst cover I’ve seen on a record in ages. Just appallingly abhorrent. But, hey, when’s the last time you looked at the cover of the Velvet Underground’s Loaded? Which is exactly the point because Panurge’s Throw Down The Reins is every bit as good as Loaded is, in…
When three’s a crowd
Q: I am in a fairly new relationship. We’ve been together a year. The sex is great but I worry that my guy will never be satisfied with just me. In his last relationship he had lots of girl-girl-guy threesomes. I am no prude and am glad that he had a great time with his…
Enter the Mowo!
Like scores of hip-hop samplers and French lounge turntablists before him, DJ and producer Adam Dorn has turned to jazz to help elevate his own style of electronic dance music. On Enter the Mowo!, Dorn, who performs as Mocean Worker, has incorporated saxophone, electric and acoustic piano, upright bass, trumpet solos and gorgeous vocal snippets.…
N&D Center
19 WED • MUSIC NOMO — While touring with their band, Saturday Looks Good to Me, saxophonist Elliot Bergman and poetic songwriter Fred Thomas found themselves hitting the rewind button on the van’s tape deck a lot. Enraptured by the Afro-beat sounds of Fela throughout the duration of their tour, by the time they made…
Reubens Accomplice
Reasons to be cheerful, Pts. 819 through 821: The Good Ship Emo, before taking on major label and “Nick At Nite” water, jettisoned a handful of refugees, among them Reuben’s Accomplice; “growing up” means no longer feeling compelled to whine out lyrics cribbed from your big sister’s diary; and brainy, well-crafted pop remains timeless irrespective…
Out of their triage
Shaminika Proctor was having trouble breathing. Her grandmother, Rita Proctor, found the 13-year-old in her bedroom, opening the window, trying desperately to force fresh air into her lungs. Rita tried to soothe the hyperventilating girl, who had recently been diagnosed with bronchitis, begging, “Shaminika, please, try to slow your breathing down.” She grabbed her own…
Funky Funky Detroit
For collectors of vintage soul and funk, now is the time to be alive. From high-profile releases like the Soul Jazz label’s Miami Sound (a 1967-74 TK Records anthology) and under-the-radar collections such as Jazzman’s Texas Funk (featuring a sleeve note introduction penned by DJ Shadow), to outrageously addled artifacts (Jones Records’ Chains And Black…
Power of pollination
Last year, when we covered the first D Pollen music festival, we surveyed the sojourn of founder-slash-promoter-slash-comedian-slash-actor-slash-attorney (no joke) J. Kim Welch from the ghetto to the good life. Reared in the impoverished Cass Corridor of the ’70s and ’80s, the son of a widowed Korean immigrant, Welch was the perfect example of a kid…
Al-Ajami
Al-Ajami is no worse than, but no better than, a slew of other Middle Eastern restaurants, with uneven quality to its cuisine and cleanliness. So what does Al-Ajami do right? It’s less expensive than La Shish. Chef and co-owner Stephan Ajami offers 15 seafood dishes. Also good are the chicken lemon, which combines grilled chicken…
‘I Am Malo’
Muhamer Malo’s oil paintings are idyllic, inviting, even a bit sentimental. One features a charming building on a cozy street at dusk in winter. Streetlights and windows glow warm and golden on a street you’d swear was cobblestone, beneath a blanket of snow. At first glance, the painting looks like Europe. Yet at second glance…
Sad is sweet
It’s a comedy, it’s a drama, it’s a joke, it’s a fever dream, it’s very serious, and it features Isabella Rossellini playing a legless beer baroness. Set in the Depression, it’s the story of a contest to find the saddest of all songs. And with a screenplay by novelist Kazuo Ishiguro it’s Canadian director Guy…
Film frenzy
Roman Polanski said cinema should make you forget you are sitting in a theater. Alfred Hitchcock said drama is life with the dull bits cut out. John LeCarre said having your book turned into a movie is like seeing your oxen turned into bouillon cubes. Having said all that, cinema could be considered the most…
Super Size Me
Despite a central thesis that blames the corporate victimizer and absolves the consumer victim, this documentary about a man on an all-McDonald’s diet was recommended with gusto by a reviewer of certain libertarian leanings. Director Morgan Spurlock (who plays his own human guinea pig) took a "Directors Award" at Sundance Film Festival for this.
Who’s lying now?
News Hits continues to keep a close eye on developments in the case of Janice Williams, a Detroit resident murdered in 2002. Williams’ killing was the subject of a Metro Times exposé (“Confessions & recantations,” Jan. 21, 2004), which raised questions about the Detroit Police Department’s handling of the case. Thanks to Detroit P.D. Detective…
I’m Not Scared
In this story of a pivotal summer in the life of a 10-year-old Italian boy, innocence is lost with the discovery of a naked, bleeding boy stuck in a hole. Which leads to further dark discoveries in a tiny village. A beautiful, poetic film by Italian director Gabriele Salvatores.
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): *Wabi-sabi* is your guiding principle this week, Aries. It’s a Japanese term for a kind of beauty that’s imperfect, transitory, and incomplete. In his book *Wabi-Sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets and Philosophers*, Leonard Koren says *wabi-sabi* differs from the Western notion that beauty resides in things that are "monumental, spectacular, and…
Long, hot summer
Senior citizens at the Kemeny Recreation Center on Detroit’s southwest side are hot and bothered — literally — and they want to know if the city cares. They say they’ve complained to Kemeny employees, who have told the Recreation Department about the need for air-conditioning in the 46-year-old building for four years. The city, they…
Secret Things (Choses Secrètes)
Fired (to put it mildly) from the club where they worked, a stripper and a bartender end up bound together against men as they dive into the world of sexual dares. Sort of a distaff answer to In the Company of Men with echoes of Mulholland Drive, Eyes Wide Shut and Secretary to boot. Unfortunately,…
Payton’s place
Nicholas Payton refuses to be part of any music industry fads. And listening to the 30-year-old trumpeter-cum-bandleader talk about his musical evolution gives the impression that he has always been somewhat of an anomaly. He has a reputation for being the kind of musician who makes unorthodox choices, unfazed by the prospect of becoming an…
More war
It’s like crack to the political junkie. We keep sneaking off at various times of the day for another quick hit, then wander back to the task at hand, our brains filled with the heady smoke of information. We’re talking about “War Room ’04,” a daily roundup of news stories related to the presidential campaign…
Troy
The story has it all. Adultery. Politics. Epic battles. Ponderous monologues. CGI. Homer. Das Boot director Wolfgang Petersen. Brad Pitt, Diane Kruger, Eric Bana, Brian Cox, Peter O’Toole. And much more in 163 minutes.
A road not taken
Several notable studies have been published recently indicating that segregation in America’s public schools is worse now than prior to the historic Brown vs. Board of Education decision in May of 1954. Numerous pundits — myself included — have speculated about how this reflects on racial attitudes and how relatively little seems to have actually…
Wall faller
The Abandoned Structure Squad (known far and near by the acronym that graces these pages, ASS) thought we would take a minimalist approach to mark the return to this space. Hence, for the first time, we offer you an Abandoned Facade of the Week. It’s only a matter of time before a brick (or several)…
Dragnet Girl
Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu paid homage to Warner Brothers gangster flicks and Josef von Sternberg’s romances in this 1933 silent film. It shows a lot about what he liked and offers glimpses of the cinematic genius he would become.
Penny’s lane
Penny Wells has a lofty goal for her debut album Shine. The 33-year-old, jazz and R&B vocalist wants to sell 10,000 copies fast. Her friend Kem, the neo-soul crooner, sold as many in a year (a record that is nearly gold now), and she’s confident that she can hit that number in six months. A…
The United sound
It would be difficult to overestimate the importance that Detroit has had on the history of recorded music. The city has been a creative force in soul, blues, gospel, rock, funk, jazz, pop and so on. We all know that. Yet, what you may not know is United Sound System studio has undeniably been a…
Life beyond Proof
It’s a warm Sunday morning on Detroit’s East Side. If you listen closely to the streets you can hear echoes of teenage boys trying to formulate perfect rhymes, and street corner battle rap competitions. While hip-hop artists such as D-12, Slum Village, and Eminem catapulted from these streets to lucrative careers, others like 5ELA —…
May comes through
So the good news is this: The Movement Festival is still happening this year on Memorial Day weekend. And that’s great considering that, as of a few weeks ago, it looked doubtful to the outside world that it would go down at all. At a May 11 press conference, Movement organizers announced a partial lineup…
Where pizza is love
In American Pie, My Search for the Perfect Pizza, Peter Reinhart explores Rome, Liguria, Naples and Florence, New York, Chicago, Phoenix and New Haven, Conn., mining for a slice of heaven. He even checks out California, where so-called gourmet pizza is said to have originated at Alice Waters’ Chez Panisse. Reinhart declares that among the…
Letters to the Editor
Nader deserves support Re: “Nader’s evaders” (Metro Times, May 5). There are differences between Bush and Kerry. But when people say that Bush is the worst president they’ve ever seen, they are mostly referring to measures that were supported by Kerry: the Patriot Act, the war in Iraq, etc. Some blame Nader’s candidacy for electing…
Poise your pen
As a child growing up on Detroit’s northwest side, Bonnie Garvin loved to eavesdrop, eager to extract juicy details from other people’s stories. Eventually, her covert hobby paid off. Now a successful Hollywood screenwriter, Garvin says the simplest part of developing a script is coming up with the dialogue. “The writing is the easy part,”…
