Cover Story
Another Day Approaches
In the history of Detroit politics, no one has had a career quite like Kenneth V. Cockrel Jr.’s. At 32, having worked as a journalist (including a stint writing columns for this paper) and then serving on the Wayne County Board of Commissioners, the cum laude Wayne State University grad became the youngest person ever…
Thermals in Ferndale (5.17.13)
Covering Desperate Ground – The Thermals perform at the Loving Touch in Ferndale on Friday night. Here’s the new single: “Born To Kill” The notoriously energetic band with its notoriously propulsive Portland-bred pop style are upping the indie-cred of Ferndale by making the Loving Touch a tour-stop, supporting their new album on Saddle Creek records. While writing about…
City Slang: Boldy James interview
Detroit rapper Boldy James gave some insight into his life to SBTV at SXSW in Austin, TX. The clip can be seen here. Click here to join the City Slang Turntable community!!! Follow @City_Slang
Game of Thrones Power Rankings (Season 3, Week 6)
Game of Thrones Power Rankings Episode 3:06 – The Climb Last week’s rankings As Cersei famously said back in the first season, “In the game of thrones, you win or you die.” With that spirit in mind, here’s your weekly look at who’s winning and who got served. Winning! 1. Littlefinger…
City Slang: Pathetic Sounds of Detroit LP and video coming soon
A compilation follow up to the much loved Sympathetic Sounds of Detroit, amusingly titled The Pathetic Sounds of Detroit, has recently been completed and will be released soon. According to a statement, “In doing the project, we were looking for a way to showcase some of the best talent in the scene while also setting…
Destroy This Place – 5.17.13 – Lager House
May 17 Destroy This Place release an album called “Destroy This Place” Bellyache Records Performing at PJ’s Lager House, with: Touch The Clouds and Palaces and Braided Veins Watch: Destroy This Place – “Graves” You probably think you’ve heard this record before. But spin it again. This is just what it sounds like when it’s…
Saturday (May 25th) Looks Good To Me
Saturday Looks Good To Me – One Kiss Ends It All Polyvinyl This iconic Ann Arbor pop institution aren’t a normal enough band to be basely pinned the normal-“comeback” narrative, even if it has been six years since we’ve heard new recordings of their eclectic summery jams and rich, recondite…
City Slang: Destroy This Place release show
On Friday, May 17, Destroy This Place will play an LP release show at PJ’s Lager House. The bill will be fleshed out by Touch the Clouds, Palaces, and Braided Veins. Bellyaches Records say, “Destroy This Place – Men becoming more manly on their second LP, which is being released on this evening. More power,…
Film Review: Peeples
Peeples| D+ I will readily admit I am not the kind of guy who has been salivating at the prospect of a cheap, profoundly silly Tyler Perry-produced knock-off of Meet the Parents. There must be a market for this sort of thing, and if that’s you, then welcome aboard. Now kindly come in, have…
Film Review: The Great Gatsby
The Great Gatsby| C The phony quest for the “Great American Novel” has been a tired cliché, long casually tossed around in coffee shops and at cocktail parties; a kind of snooty last shot fired at the rising new world by a defeated colonial power. There are many who would argue that F. Scott…
City Slang: Rio and Striho
On June 15 at Callahan’s, Rio & Her Rockabilly Revival will team up with Carolyn Striho for an awesome female dual billing. According to the press release, “Headliner Rio Scafone’s rockabilly roots run deep. As the niece of rockabilly legend Jack Scott, she carries on the family tradition by serving up a heaping dose of…
City Slang: Frut for Mike Kelley at MOCAD
This Saturday, May 11, Grande Ballroom-era psychedelic rockers Frut (also known as Frut of the Loom) will perform at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit to celebrate the opening night of Mike Kelley’s Mobile Homestead exhibit. Admission is $6 or free to members, and the exhibition runs from 6.30 p.m. to 10 p.m. The music…
Pathetic Sounds of Detroit and Fest Season
Fest Season Has Begun… The Blowout’s done – but we’re just getting going, here. The end of May brings us X! Fest – a coalescing of caustic rockers rounding up the affably brotherly batch of new-neo-post-whatever-PUNK outfits in town. Call them whatever you will – they’re united by their inclinations towards the fast and the loud – speedy…
Why Brooks Patterson Was Right
OAKLANDCOUNTYEXECUTIVE L. Brooks Patterson has long been sort of the class clown of Republican politics. Once, to make fun of now-state Rep. Tom McMillin’s notorious obsession with gays, Patterson walked over and kissed him — on the mouth. He also loves Hitler jokes and references, and is even capable of putting himself down. Thirty-one years…
Atomic Dawg
Atomic Dawg 2705 Coolidge Hwy., Berkley 248-398-3294 facebook.com/theatomicdawg Handicap accessible Hot dogs, burgers, sausages: $3-$7 Hours: 11 a.m.-7 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday Chicago has Hot Doug’s and Denver has Biker Jim’s, gourmet hot dog joints that have been featured on cable food TV shows for their exotic offerings like rattlesnake or buffalo dogs and duck-fat fries;…
Film Review: The Reluctant Fundamentalist
The Reluctant Fundamentalist | B- If you think your job is tough, imagine the poor studio marketing shlubs tasked with selling an emotionally fraught character study about an enterprising young Wall Street hotshot turned intense Islamic militant — and pitch it in our current political climate. Such a sales job would be a challenge…
The Darling Buds of Mae
In 2009, the focus of the Detroit Music Awards was the one-off reunion of the Amboy Dukes, featuring Ted Nugent, and justifiably so. That band hadn’t played together in decades — Nugent making one ridiculous political and social statement after another in the meantime. The idea of seeing him playing with his ’60s garage band…
Leave That Bum
Q: I’m a 24-year-old straight, married female. I have been religiously reading your column in the Portland Mercury since I was 16. Thank you for explaining things that my parents wouldn’t and for helping me clear the hurdles of adolescence! I turn to you now for advice. Five months ago, I married the man of…
Home away from home
Only rarely is the public presented with new work from an artist who has been dead for more than a year. But that’s what we’re getting this week in Detroit, a sort of gift to our community from beyond the grave, presented by one-time metro Detroiter Mike Kelley. Kelley may be best known around these…
Food Stuff
Up on the rooftops —There’s a new venue in downtown Detroit. It’s called Sticks & Bones, and it’s atop Music Hall, where the rooftop restaurant is joined by 3Fifty Terrace, a new entertainment space. The eatery offers kebabs and sides, and the website hints at upscale sliders and hot dogs. They say to expect a…
An Unfair Portrayal of the EAA
In regard to your May 1 item about state Rep. Ellen Cogan Lipton’s [Freedom of Information Act] request to the Education Achievement Authority, the representative filed a voluminous [FOIA] request with the EAA at the end of March. [“Snyder’s Skunky Smell,” News Hits; Vol. 33, Issue No. 29.] The request was quite detailed and required…
Burn the Closet
When it was revealed this month that NBA player Jason Collins, most recently with the Washington Wizards, had written an article for Sports Illustrated essentially kicking open the closet doors while stating, “I’m a 34-year-old NBA center. I’m black. And I’m gay,” the response from the sporting world and the world in general was overwhelmingly…
Sex and Death During the French Revolution
The French Revolutionary setting of Marat/Sade — playing at the Hilberry Theatre through May 11 — may be unfamiliar. Even the Holocaust and the Cold War, events that prompted German-born Peter Weiss to write the play, have become distant memories. Yet the play’s central question — is change possible, and, if so, how and at…
Banging the banksters
Back in the 1920s, some clever marketing guy first came up with the catchphrase “The gift that keeps on giving” to help sell phonographs. As we here at the Hits sat in a meeting Saturday, listening to an analysis of the credit swap deals that are costing the city of Detroit hundreds of millions of…
Film Review: Mud
Mud | A- If Mud isn’t the best movie of this young year, it’s certainly the most instantly satisfying. Described by some as the best American movie at the most recent Cannes Film Festival, the drama by director-writer Jeff Nichols is getting a well-deserved wide release and is in theaters now. Nichols follows up…
‘Fest Season’ has Begun
Local festivals are akin to science experiments: Instead of different chemical reactions in a lab, you have the collaboration of different artists inside a venue. The results are often phenomenal — artists who would otherwise not cross paths meeting on tours and finding real success by complementing each other’s set. MT’s two Blowout weekends kicked…
City Slang: Groovebox and Carjack
We at City Slang would like to pitch in and thank Groovebox Studios for the stellar work done recording this year’s Blowout for posterity, some of which can be seen here. Huge congratulations to Carjack for winning the Ultimate Indie Band Upgrade. More info on Groovebox’s Blowout experience can be found here, but we’d like…
The Great Indoors Safe Again
We are relieved to learn that Michigan’s outpost of hunting and gun culture, Cabela’s in Dundee, is back open after a small electrical fire on Wednesday, April 24. The incident caused the store to close for cleaning and restocking. After working around the clock for more than a week, the outfitter is back open and back in business.…
