Matty the squatter
Imagine for a moment you or I decided we wanted to set up camp over at Detroit’s Riverside Park. Just went down there, put up a tent and started living at the site. How long do you think it’d be before the cops showed up and put a stop to things? So why is it…
JACK WHITE FINALLY RECORDS WITH DEX ROMWEBER…
The Dex Romweber Duo and Jack White teamed up last week to lay down some tracks. The result is a 7-inch single, scheduled to be released in late May on White’s Nashville-based Third Man label. White has pointed to Romweber — who was one of the two members of the great (and White Stripes/Black Keys…
OXLEY’S POP ROCKS!
“C’mon, get happy” What’s that from? Damn! I’m experiencing a total meltdown of my brain. I’m closing my eyes trying to think of where that wretched song is from and all I can see is Danny Bonaduce smiling ear to ear all hyped-up on whatever it is he’s hyped on and and I want to…
This year’s man
“Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash.” — Leonard Cohen February 19, 2009:Leonard Cohen’s set to appear on an American stage for the first time in 15 years. We’re in New York City — anyplace else would be blasphemous, right? The speculations about why…
Country fresh
The restaurant’s philosophy is slow and local. If that sounds pretty fashionable these days, note that chef and co-owner Alan Merhar is surrounded by farmers, making it easy to make the most of them for his produce, in season. His relationship with Mike Prochaska of Prochaska Farms, for instance (it’s four miles away), is such…
El zocalo
When I say el zocalo, I’m not talking about the restaurant on the southwest side of Detroit, although I have eaten there and enjoyed the food. However, I am talking about something Latino residents in the area may well remember from back home. The zocalo is a sort of a combination park and town square.…
Ghosts of Girlfriends Past
Matthew McConaghey plays an aging, self-obsessed but irresistible rogue, one so boyish and playful that ladies can’t keep their paws off him. He’s Connor Mead, a studly celeb photographer who’s so busy bedding one gorgeous actress or model after another that he actually arranges a video conference call to breakup with multiple chicks at once.…
Sons and lovers
Dating questions about my gay 14-year-old
Is Anybody There?
As the Amazing Clarence, an elderly magician facing one final disappearing act, Michael Caine’s every nod and grumble offering surprises beyond the limits of the predictable story around him. That story tiptoes on the precipice of treacle, as Caine checks into a creaky English country house, converted into a retirement community loaded with stock elderly…
Head first?
You always remember the first time — the first time you played in front of a sizable crowd, your first photo published, the first groupie tryst. OK, maybe you don’t remember that last one — maybe you wish you could forget … Detroit-based photog Patrick Pantano has not only been featured within Metro Times as…
Paris 36
Without an ounce of irony or insight, writer-director Christophe Barratier offers up a 1930s-style tale of a failing theater and the trio of misfits who come together to save it. There’s Pigoil (Gérard Jugnot), the head stagehand who loses his accordion-virtuoso son to a philandering wife, Milou (Clovis Cornillac), a womanizing leftist, and Jacky (Kad…
Night and Day
WEDNESDAY • 6 GHOST PSYCH GRANDADDIES Japanese collective Ghost defies simple explanation — its sound is mutable and ever-changing, exploring everything from free jazz to acid rock to folk to world music beats. Since 1984, the group has been at the forefront of Japan’s psyche-rock scene, improvising its fetching din at temples or abandoned warehouses…
Brand X, man
The movie kicks off with an intriguing but ultimately irrelevant opener focusing on Wolverine’s childhood before launching into a terrific credit sequence montage, where indestructible Logan and his psychotically feral half-brother Victor, aka Sabretooth (Liev Schreiber), do a headlong tour of duty in the Civil War, WWI, WW2, and Vietnam. Unfortunately, their combat experiences deliver…
Dead reckoning
Leaders needed to make hard decisions
Lymelife
Rory Culkin is Scott, the simultaneously innocent and brooding Caulfield-esque son of a philandering real estate developer (Alec Baldwin) and his stoic but unhappy wife (Jill Hennessey). While his parents’ marriage slowly disintegrates, Scott seeks the company of Adrianna (the wonderful Emma Roberts), the gorgeous and wise-beyond-her-years neighbor he’s always had a crush on. Little…
Weirdo beardos
A straight haul from New York City to Los Angeles — according to the folks at MapQuest — takes 42 hours, 16 minutes. And that’s a long-ass haul. Consider this: The drive from Vancouver, British Columbia, to Crazy Sarah’s back yard in Anchorage, Alaska, is 43 hours and change. Now consider this: Child Bite, the…
Men with broken hearts
Even taking rock ‘n’ roll and soul into account, perhaps no pop music has devolved or been more bastardized over the decades than mainstream country. It may seem odd to some that the co-leader of Los Angeles’ (arguably) finest punk band should be responsible for one of the best country albums of this decade. But…
Motor City Cribs
Cream of Beats’ Harper Woods home-studio
Funland
For a guy who once described himself as a “corndog from [San] Pedro,” Mike Watt’s had one of the most extraordinary careers any modern-day musician can lay claim to. From his pioneering indie-rock days in the Minutemen and fIREHOSE to a mid-’90s solo career (that found such folks as Eddie Vedder, Dave Grohl, Henry Rollins,…
Letters to the Editor
Mixed bag Correct me if I am wrong — and authoress Mattera (“Where the boys aren’t,” April 29) will be most happy — but it was 1980 at the University of Michigan and there was a crunch. Something had to go. Should it be Geography or Women’s Studies? Should it be one of the elements…
Bromst
Some traditionalist rock, pop and hip-hop fans hate “electronic musicians” for a very simple reason — that shit they make ain’t songs. For those accustomed to the smooth contours of classically structured popular music — some verses, a chorus, a hook along the way, some lyrics about love or whatnot — the experimental miasma of…
Why Di?
Reporter Diane Bukowski gets the book thrown at her
Fortunate daughter
Part memoir, part historical narrative, Lucky Girl journeys across borders, both literal and figurative — those of life, of countries, family, class and race, of language, culture, love and loss. Born in Taiwan, the sixth daughter of poor farmers who wanted a son, not another “worthless daughter” (the fifth sister’s nickname, Awan, means “no more…
Tangled up in cable
The 2006 lame-duck session in Lansing followed an election season in which candidates had collected an unprecedented amount of campaign cash from Comcast, the dominant cable provider in southeast Michigan. AT&T, ready to compete against Comcast and other cable companies with its new U-verse system, was also throwing its political weight around Michigan. Though competitors,…
Food Stuff
MOM’S MEAL — Long known for their inventive Mediterranean fare, Assaggi Bistro has come up with an excellent and relatively cheap Mother’s Day meal. Featuring such choices as grilled Scottish salmon, chicken Francese, grilled lamb chops and tiramisu, the whole shebang is $25 per diner; runs 1-7 p.m. Sunday, May 10, at Assaggi Bistro, 330…
Jeffrey Morgan’s Media Blackout
Jeffrey Morgan’s Media Blackout #215 is pain! Little Stevie Wonder — The 12 Year Old Genius (Tamla) :: Talent is an asset … FIZZLING PLATTER OF THE WEEK: Isaac Hayes — Black Moses (Stax) :: The good news is that they diligently duplicated the original multi-flap album cover that unfolds into a cross showing Hayes…
Railroad earth
These stories of love and heartbreak, suffering and survival on the Underground Railroad are rooted in oral history traditions. But with Betty DeRamus’ deft touch for prose and journalistic attention to historical records, they flourish as a modern, relevant book, Freedom by Any Means: Con Games, Voodoo Schemes, True Love and Lawsuits on the Underground…
Comics
The Boiling Point – by Mikhaela Reid
Breaking some eggs
Beverly Hills Grill 31471 Southfield Rd., Beverly Hills, 248-642-2355, $: For Sunday brunch, be prepared to wait at the bar for as long as a mimosa or two. But once you get your seat, you can choose from a half dozen scrambles, omelets and frittatas, from the humble vegetable scramble (mushrooms, leeks, tomatoes, spinach and…
Couch Trip
Pulling: The Complete First Season MPI Home Video The IT Crowd: The Complete First Season Remember when there was such a thing as “British humor”? TV comedy used to be a markedly different animal across the pond. The shows were broadcast in English, but it was a different language of funny. Labeling Monty Python’s Flying…
Speed, not sugar
There are very few bands that, when recalling the various gigs they’ve played over the years, can list both elementary schools and the Warped tour on their résumé. But the Candy Band is no ordinary band. These four rock ‘n’ roll moms decided that, in order to give their children a sound musical education sans…
We’ll have a gay old time!
Last Thursday, April 30, the Magic Bag in Ferndale hosted a night of freaky folk, indie rock and disco dance all in the name of love. Gay love. More specifically, Rachael Davis, Nervous But Excited, Chris Bathgate and My Dear Disco performed as part of the “We Are Michigan: Standing Up for GLBT Rights” music…
Wild Was Our Mercy
Although they’re more or less a Lansing band, the members of Flatfoot are no strangers to Detroit. Those keen on the local scene are likely to have seen them recently around playing with a diverse array of D-town mainstays. Named after a summer camp frequently attended by group founder Aaron Bales as a child, Flatfoot…
CROSSING 8 MILE WITH THE KIDS
photos courtesy of Jim West Hard to believe it’s been 13 years since the Mosaic Youth Theatre of Detroit first produced Crossing 8 Mile, the Detroit-ified version of Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors that garnered global attention for its stylish execution, keen social commentary and appeal to just about anyone, of any age, from any place.…
