Powder Burns
Since debuting with the Afghan Whigs exactly 20 years ago, Greg Dulli has remained passionate but conflicted, with a twisted heart that thrives on lust, sex and suffering. He’s also a gritty soul singer who happens to make some of the most honest rock ‘n’ roll music ever. Powder Burns is his fourth album as…
Head Cheese
Whirlwind Heat has returned with a new album, Types of Wood, and a slightly tweaked sound. Now, instead of temper tantrums, the boys from Grand Rapids prefer the sly art of suggestion, cut with fuzz and ADD drumming. We thought the Heat might never grow up, but maybe it’s really happening. Here are their self-help-minded…
Doomsday duo
The word mord means “murder” in Norwegian. And appropriately, Christendom Perished is Scandinavian black metal in the traditional sense, with hurtling bone-saw guitars, barely human shrieks pealing low through the mix, and relentless, abusive drumming underneath it all. The two-man band — Necrolucas plays drums, Nordra everything else — blazes through eight tracks, each as…
Art Bar
Everywhere I travel I meet people who want to write poetry but worry that what they write won’t be “any good.” No one can judge the worth of a poem before it’s been written, and setting high standards for yourself can keep you from writing. And if you don’t write you’ll miss out on the…
Supergroups or superdupes?
“She may or may not be from the future, but she’s definitely from outer space.” That’s the hazy realization on “2012,” the moon-cheese pop nugget that falls midway through SSM’s official self-titled debut. Yes, the astro-girl in question is gorgeous. But there’s also the sense that she might’ve drugged the mash potatoes, because the motives…
Spin this
The DEMF annually shows the world that Detroit techno and the culture it has spawned remains one of the area’s most enduring if obscure exports. It’s capable of commanding the world’s attention without a hit single or recognizable star. A large part of Detroit’s more recent electronic music boom is Ann Arbor’s Ghostly International label,…
Broken Boy Soldiers
Jack White deserves kudos for squeezing his hefty record collection into the pliable ears of kids the world over, informing them of the American South, Son House, Blind Willie McTell, Zep, the Stooges, Detroit, etc. White Stripes records were, in many ways, pop-music history lessons. To coincide, White learned his media manipulation skills well, picked…
Fela’s children
In a current TV ad campaign promoting downloadable music for your cell phone, regular folks cut impromptu rugs to the latest pop hits. In one spot, a doughy middle manager frantically emulates the fluid hips of Colombian pop sensation Shakira, broken out of his workaday spell by the hitching rhythms of her hit duet with…
The X-factor
When a scientist develops a serum that reverses mutant DNA, Professor Xavier (Patrick Stewart) worries that mutancy will be regarded as a disease, while supremacist Magneto (Ian McKellen) views the government’s weaponized “cure” as a declaration of war. This sets the stage for a cataclysmic showdown between man and mutant, as Dr. Henry McCoy —…
Letters to the Editor
A Nobel cause Mr. Lessenberry: I enjoyed your recent column, “Why journalism is failing us” (Metro Times, May 10). I usually find The Detroit News slightly less insipid than the Free Press. But I was taken aback earlier this week when 60 percent of their front page was devoted to articles about Chauncey Billups and…
The Purple Rose of Cairo
Cecilia (Mia Farrow), a timid Depression-era housewife trapped in a marriage with a penny-pinching bum (Danny Aiello), finds sanctuary at the local bijou watching her favorite film, The Purple Rose of Cairo, again and again. One day Tom Baxter (Jeff Daniels), the film’s archeologist hero, magically steps off of the screen to be with his…
Adult Night at Skate World
You’d think it was an eighth grade dance, the way we stand shyly eying each other when the first slow notes sound for couples’ skate. A fifty-ish man in a striped headband and custom skates fit with blinking lights asks would I mind? So we roll from the worn carpet onto the glossy floor. One…
Down in the Valley
Plenty of indie filmmakers are indebted to the great American movies of the ’70s, but few wear their influences on their sleeve as blatantly as writer-director David Jacobson. In his striking, extremely well-acted new tragedy Down in the Valley, Jacobson lifts scenes from such classic tales of misplaced obsession as Taxi Driver, Badlands and even…
Backslash
Is Dorothy Parker rolling in her grave over the concept of chick lit — the cutesy nickname for fluffy, chick-penned novels that have been flooding the literary market for the past five years? Perhaps, but it looks like the genre won’t be fading into obscurity anytime soon — whether that’s a good thing or not…
Hitched up
Any given day, there’s not much to Milford’s Camp Dearborn: tranquil, man-made lakes and a cluster of trees here and there. But on a sunny May weekend, the recreational park has been transformed into a landscape of gleaming aluminum and space-age dream machines. This is the ninth annual Tin Can Tourists Gathering, a rally celebrating…
Comics
The Boiling Point – by Mikhaela Reid The Perry Bible Fellowship – by Nicholas Gurewitch
Rebel’s rhythm
When he took the Orchestra Hall stage in Detroit 20 years ago, it was part party and part political rally. Stripped to the waist, arms pumping in the air, he played sax and keyboards; he prowled the stage, spit out songs like calls to action, and directed the band and his 20-odd scantily clad, suggestively…
Taking DEMF in ’06
It’s done. Three days and nights of Detroit’s Electronic Music Festival are over, fittingly closed out Monday night at Hart Plaza by a big turnout (estimated at 4,000 to 5,000) on the Main Stage for Windsorite-gone-Berliner Richie Hawtin. But wait a minute: Hawtin’s entourage alone amounted to a few hundred local and international party people…
Needed: A third party
I woke up the other morning mad at David Bonior, which, if he is reading this, will probably puzzle him, since we’ve never had a cross word. Mainly, I was mad at him for not challenging Jennifer Granholm in the Democratic primary for governor, not that we’d ever discussed that either. However, I have a…
Jeffrey Morgan’s Media Blackout
That’s no chicken, son! That’s an MB72! Dozer — Through the Eyes of Heathens (Small Stone) :: I anticipated a side order of screamo but got a heapin’ helpin’ of bone-pulverizing thud rock instead. And because I do love my thud rock, that’s no bull. David Bowie — Heathen (Columbia) :: Every time I revisit…
License to pry
It’s called the Real ID Act, but the way things are right now, it might more accurately be called the Really No IDea Act. More than a year after President George W. Bush signed into law the legislation touted as a tool to combat terrorism, Michigan officials and their counterparts in other states still don’t…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): In all my years of evaluating your astrological omens, I have rarely seen a time so favorably disposed to the value and pleasure of variety. I’m tempted to conclude that the cosmos is conspiring for you to try all 32 flavors, 46 positions and 64 loopholes. For a limited time only,…
Pyramid scheme
Scott Hocking was standing on the side of a road in Detroit, next to his borrowed truck, the bed of which was full of decaying, muck-encrusted tires. He was filthy from transporting tons of the rubber from an abandoned lot on Detroit’s east side, where they were originally dumped, and tossing them on the front…
A consuming passion
Restaurateur Matt Prentice talks business.
Coo-coo-ka-shoot
Voters to determine the fate of dove hunting in Michigan.
One size doesn’t fit all
Q: I’m a straight woman who hasn’t had sex in five years. Why? Because every time I get close to a guy he’s shocked by the large size of my clit. I get, “What is that down there?” “It looks like a mini-penis,” and “I wasn’t sure what to think — guy or girl.” Is…
Food Stuff
Full plates for local foodies.
Holy lefties
Church group promotes promotes political thinking through scripture.
Exciting sites
Young artists are forgetting that bigger isn’t always better. Currently, at Cranbrook Art Museum and the Center for Creative Studies, galleries and corridors are cramped with space-hogging installations, welcoming the public into a world of ghettoized and glamorized kitsch. You can sit in a small wooden chapel and watch an artist act like a hick…
Fiery prose
If recent news is any sort of barometer, the best ways to get a best-seller banner stamped on your new novel are to write it as a fictitious memoir, land a spot on Oprah, be a plagiarist or glom on to some prefab controversy. Never mind the content. If the exulted and tortured soul of…
Going deep
None of the glitterati treks to Loui’s for its elegant décor or haute cuisine, and none of the regular patrons comes to see the occasional glitterati who wander in. This is a quintessential pizza joint — hundreds of straw-covered chianti bottles signed by diners fill virtually every inch of wall space, the tables are covered…
Night and Day
Thursday • 1 Garden Party Opening FASHION/MUSIC It’s a summer tradition in Detroit that’s made many a poor soul call in “sick” Friday morn, but Thursday evening Whitney Garden Parties are more than just an excuse to start the weekend early. The outdoor music-and-food affairs are a great place to mingle and enjoy some fresh…
