BO DIDDLEY 1928 – 2008
Sorry to report the death earlier this morning of the legendary Bo Diddley, one of the founders of rock ‘n’ roll and one of its most important musical forces and architects. His influence is awe-inspiring and can be heard in everything from Buddy Holly’s “Not Fade Away” (covered by the Rolling Stones — who also…
DETROIT POLICE BUST FUNK TERRORIST CELL
Back in the techno days, the Detroit gang squad would frequently pull up en masse at raves and legitimate parties, throwing their weight around because kids with pacifiers in their mouths dancing and giving each other back rubs has always been a huge problem in the D. That’s why any smart party thrower had a…
FOR THE BENEFIT OF E-DOG
When he was around town, everyone knew about Scott Petersen the saxophonist. What everyone didn’t know was that he suffers from cystic fibrosis, and that taking up the sax as a kid was, at least in part, a way to deal with the congenital lung-clogging illness. Now 51 — and after a dozen years as…
What’s in a face?
Original prime-time programming on cable has come so far in terms of quality and pizzazz that it’s hard to remember when every channel’s schedule seemed to consist of I Love Lucy reruns. And nowhere is the improvement more praiseworthy than on USA Network. Tony Shalhoub’s Monk (back for its seventh season July 18) is classic…
Comics
The Boiling Point – by Mikhaela Reid
Motor City Rides
I, Crime guitarist’s Bradley GT Kit Car.
Jeffrey Morgan’s Media Blackout
Sitting on a park bench! Eyeing Jeffrey Morgan’s Media Blackout #173 with bad intent! Jethro Tull – Draculung (Chrysalis) :: They all laughed when Ian Anderson announced that he was going to write a progressive art rock opera about a rummy child molesting vampire. Well, they’re not laughing now. The Bangkok Five – We Love…
Letters to the Editor
Median rage This is in regard to Larry Gabriel’s article about the Livernois Avenue median (“Traffic jam,” Metro Times, Feb. 27). I am just now getting a chance to read it. It’s funny how I found it. I was at work talking with a co-worker of mine about how the city has basically screwed up…
One of a kind
Although not even close to being vegged-out, Traffic Jam and Snug restaurant has some pretty interesting food of their own, not to mention, much of it is made in house. The selection changes all the time, so don’t count on phony dogs anymore, but do enjoy any of Traffic Jam’s own brewed beers. If coney…
Night and Day
WEDNESDAY-SATURDAY • 28-31 GROWING PRETTY BILDUNGSROMAN As a 12-year-old girl, all Lucy wants is to hit the catwalks and strike a pose — but once introduced to a photographer named Jack, her interest quickly migrates to the other side of the lens. Growing Pretty, a play written by Michigan native Carey Crim, is a 19-year…
Art is Everywhere
Although the charred building is falling back into the earth, the colorful figures emboldening it inside and out give this body strength to stand. That’s what makes this abandoned home, located on St. Aubin, near Eastern Market, such a stunning larger-than-life-sized collaborative work of art. If our home is a representation of who we are,…
Looking for green horizons …
For most folks, issues involving garbage seem exquisitely simple: Wheel a load of refuse to the curb once a week, then let a truck roll up and haul it away. Just like that, it’s gone. Poof. Out of sight and out of mind. Little thought is given to where all that garbage goes, what it…
Tuning in
Listen. There are poets, and then there are poets. Ancestral Radio was written by a poet. His name is Edward Haworth Hoeppner, longtime English professor at Oakland University, whose first book of poems, Rain Through High Windows, published by New Issues Press in 2000, was a gorgeous and intuitive collection. Aptly titled, Ancestral Radio, his…
Reason for hope
The promising candidacy of Barack Obama.
Before the Rains
This adaptation of Somerset Maugham’s story of illicit love is a tepid, turgid and uninvolving melodrama. English plantation owner Henry Moores (Linus Roache) has just taken out a sizable loan from a British Bank to build a road to transport his teas and spices. He’s also indulging in a little hanky-panky with his beautiful housekeeper…
Bohemians like us
Over the course of just two short years, local bassist and concert promoter Joel Peterson has transformed his Festival of Jazz and Improvised Music into a not-to-be-missed annual event. The two-day music festival takes place at the Bohemian National Home, a community center for immigrants from Bohemia (now part of the Czech Republic) established in…
This Is Spinal Tap
They call “A Hard Day’s Night” the “Citizen Kane” of rock movies, but even that script wasn’t as entrenched in the rock lexicon the way the screenplay for “This Is Spinal Tap” was. When was the last time someone called their haircut “Arthur”? And yet thanks to David St Hubbins, Nigel Tufnel and Derek Smalls,…
Four to listen for
Choice picks from the jazz and improvised music fest.
13 Blues for Thirteen Moons
There’s really no topping the intro track to Silver Mt. Zion’s last release. “God Bless Our Dead Marines” featured not only several musical suites of orchestrated post-rock that were as damning as they were insistent and revitalizing, but also an exquisitely sad and hopeful refrain, “When the world is sick can no one be well?/But…
The color success
Detroit has produced some of the greatest music of modern time. Often, however, the folks who’ve been more successful behind the scenes don’t get the local recognition they deserve. Such is the case with the Detroit-bred Allee Willis, who left the D to go onto a life as one of the more important songwriters of…
A pop-head’s reclamation
If you’ve seen the Pop Project live anytime in the last year and a half (and chances are you haven’t, as the group remains one of the most underrated bands in Detroit), you’ve already heard songs off this album. The release of Stars of Stage and Screen was delayed, as the band has been waiting…
Exclusive! Interface jammage!
Champions of Breakfast and Hellmouth.
Raging skull
Bloated yet undercooked, the fourth installment in the serial, which began 28 years ago, suffers from too many ideas and not enough focus. Dr. Jones (Harrision Ford, of course) and his triple-crossing cohort Mac (Ray Winstone) are dragged by Irina Spalko (Cate Blanchett) and a platoon of Russkies into an Area 51 warehouse. They’re searching…
Alms & Tithe
From inside an old house in a bleak patch of the east side, Bilal Hajj delivers a message that proposes to transform the lives of the downtrodden. Whether or not anyone’s listening, or will ever listen, is another matter. He runs the Zakat Institute, on Willis Street near Mount Elliot, a house-turned-school-turned-grass-roots-Islamic-organization, named for the…
Look, up in the sky …
Daredevils in air race over the Detroit River.
This town’s on fire!
Tour Corktown by carriage.
Couch Trip
Karaoke Terror: The Complete Japanese Showa Songbook Synapse Films There ain’t a soul who hasn’t hit their local get-shitfaced watering hole only to have the night massacred by wretched renditions of “Free Bird” and “Wind Beneath My Wings.” Karaoke is a culture unto itself, of course, driven by the love of music, plenty of booze…
Caught in the act
Trouble ahead: Bishop-basher neglects fiancee.
Reading the hate-o-meter
Homophobic attacks on the rise in Michigan.
Food Stuff
Full plates for local foodies.
Sayonara, sister students
Decades-old exchange program gets quietly axed.
Digging the bones of Indy Jones
“How much of human life is lost in waiting?” asks Professor Harold Oxley (John Hurt) in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. In the case of the fourth (and newest) Indiana Jones installment, nearly 20 years have been lost since the action hero has graced the silver screen. That’s 20 years, folks!…
DEMF 08: KIDDIES OR GROWN FOLKS?
The crowd for this year’s festival might have been filled with “kiddies” but the history of Detroit music is full grown. So are the political-cultural ramifications of any “emergent” group for which this city has or ever will provide the stage. Nine years is no joke. I was reminded of the stakes as I took…
FREE THAT ASS AND THE MIND WILL FOLLOW
Ahem, yes, there was ass on display all weekend at Movement 08, and there was even more ass. Putting some kind of context behind this isn’t really hard if you’ve watched club and sleaze culture become more and more intertwined over time. Gone, it appears, at least for now, is the black & white and…
MOVEMENT 08 SUNDAY
Punisher at the Real Detroit Stage Ectomorph at the Red Bull Music Academy Stage Mr. De’ at the Real Detroit Stage Magda at the Beatport Stage Cool Kids at the Red Bull Music Academy Stage Girl Talk at the Red Bull Music Academy Stage Kenny Larkin at the Real Detroit Stage Richie Hawtin at the…
DEMF 08: MONDAY
Memorial Day Cassy on Main Stage Brian Gillespie at Red Bull
DEMF 08: SUNDAY
Punisher at Real Detroit Stage Paco Osuna at Beatport Detournement ’90s style Was the Left at the Packard in ’95? Magda at Beatport Kenny Larkin at Real Detroit Message from Detroit: Wendell Harrison and Carl Craig For Those Who Know: Billiebob of Underground Resistance at Alvin’s
