People try to take my soul away.
There’s an overhead shot in The Decline of Western Civilization Part II. Paul Stanley reclines in swaths of black silk, surrounded by 1980s high-hipped lingerie hotties, his luxurious weave splayed out across shimmering pillows. He’s not saying anything. He doesn’t have to. He seems to be speaking some silent language instead, and if only we…
Smoke Break vol. 2
Smoke Break is back. This time around there’s a lot of griping about Ray Manzarek, a little bit of dancing, and a special appearance by the Detroit People Mover. Smoke Break is still all talk and no action. But there’s no gutter this time; instead, Brian Smith and I are rocking the roof access. Roof,…
Queen of the nighttime world
From our story on the print side: “Word has spread across the Internet these past days about the death of Larissa Strickland, former guitarist for local legends the Laughing Hyenas and vocalist for L-Seven, an area post-punk group that released a single, shining 7-inch EP in 1982. The Hyenas (1985-1995) don’t get enough credit, locally…
PJ Harvey, live in your cube.
* I wrote about the new collection of PJ Harvey’s Peel Sessions, and if you’d like to hear the sick-awesomeness for yourself, you can visit http://www.myspace.com/thebooth to stream the entire thing. JTL Related: Here’s a live performance “Sheela Na Gig” where PJ sounds a lot like Chrissie Hynde at the beginning. *Photo courtesy of Island…
Gentleman of Swing
Ramsey Lewis 11/9/06 Orchestra Hall at the Max M. Fisher Center Detroit, Michigan Of the nine jazz concerts this season at the LaSalle Bank Paradise Jazz Series, Ramsey Lewis’ performance was the one I was least thrilled about attending. Lewis’s playing is dignified and polished, and that combination can sometimes be called outright boring. Not…
Lasting impressions
Ken Mikolowski remembers that it wasn’t easy getting his Alternative Press off the ground. Literally. When he and his wife Ann started the enterprise 37 years ago, they had to move a printing press from the Detroit Artists Workshop on West Forest over into the basement of their home on Avery Street. The press —…
Queen of the nighttime world
Word has spread across the Internet these past days about the death of Larissa Strickland, former guitarist for local legends the Laughing Hyenas and vocalist for L-Seven, an area post-punk group that released a single, shining 7-inch EP in 1982. The Hyenas (1985-1995) don’t get enough credit, locally or nationally. They did four albums on…
Stranger than Fiction
Director Marc Forster (Monsters Ball, Finding Neverland, Stay) has taken a self-conscious attempt to mimic the work of Charlie Kaufman and added grace, wit and style. Obsessive and solitary tax auditor Harold Crick (Will Ferrell) wakes up one morning to a woman’s voice narrating his every action, thought and feeling with alarming accuracy. Questioning his…
Compassion & conservatives
Q: I live in Colorado Springs, home of the right-wing conservative evangelical movement. As the nation recently learned, the founder of New Life Church, Ted Haggard, was fired after a male prostitute revealed that Haggard bought sex and drugs from him. It’s hard not to feel a bit sorry for him, even though I have…
Hidden pain
The woman we’ll call Asrar was just 17 when her estranged husband and his brother forced their way into her Dearborn apartment earlier this year. With his two young children in the room, the man raped Asrar while his brother allegedly pinned her arms down and covered her mouth. Despite the shocking nature of the…
Lunacy/My Dad is 100 Years Old
Czech director Jan Svankmajer’s new film is a fantasia that melds the work of Edgar Allen Poe with the Marquis de Sade, the film is told from the point of view of young Jean (Pavel Liska), a curly-haired, mentally unstable young traveler plagued by recurring nightmares of being hauled off to the loony bin in…
Bloody playthings
Gloomy Bear is soooo cute. Not just cute, but fuckin’ cute, Pokémon cute, the kind of wide-eyed, cheek-pinchy cute that makes your teeth ache from the sheer sweetness. That is, until you notice the blood dripping from his claws. A sort of homicidal, bloodthirsty version of Hello Kitty, Gloomy Bear doesn’t frolic in meadows or…
Letters to the Editor
Thoughts on Africans The only negative experiences that African immigrants have in America is with black Americans — if I am to believe your feature article (“The new African Americans” Metro Times, Nov. 1). I’m not surprised. Disenfranchised oppressed peoples, as a result of their brutalization, tend to be ignorant and blame other oppressed, disenfranchised…
Unknown
Five men (Jim Caviezel, Barry Pepper, Greg Kinnear, Jeremy Sisto, and Joe Pantoliano) awaken inside a sealed warehouse in the desert. With no memory of who they are or how they got there, the men — some wounded, some restrained — shift suspicions and alliances as they struggle to find a way out. Random clues…
Night and Day
Friday • 17 DJs Dave Shettler and Josh Dunn: Electro Party MUSIC So says DJ Dave Shettler: “There’s a void that needs to be filled, and seeing as I’ve spent a good amount of time trying to get my hands on every electro record that ever came out …” it’s about bloody time for electro…
American Life in Poetry
by Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate, 2004-2006 The Illinois poet, Lisel Mueller, is one of our country’s finest writers, and the following lines, with their grace and humility, are representative of her poems of quiet celebration. In November Outside the house the wind is howling and the trees are creaking horribly. This is an old…
Harsh Times
Christian Bale is Jim Davis, back after a tour of dark duty as an elite Army Ranger in Afghanistan. He has returned to his old Los Angeles stomping grounds. Anything but adjusted, Jim suffers post-traumatic nightmares and is itching to vent his residual hostility. So he dons a sharp suit and looks for police work.…
Good from the bad
They stay up late, working through the night on a canvas or a new song, heating their studios with the heat from their bodies because DTE shut the electricity off — and heating their bodies with hard liquor on their breath like gasoline. And for one night, they present The Dope Show, artistically exploiting bad…
Savage celebration
You would think I had single-handedly defeated Rick Santorum, judging by the thousands of e-mails I’ve received since last Tuesday. A sampling… You toppled a senator, Dan! And while Rick Santorum may be gone, the word for the frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex will live…
A Good Year
Russell Crowe’s latest flick is the Boone’s Farm equivalent of Sideways: At first, it feels pretty good, is really sweet, has some cheap thrills, and puts you in a good mood; but finishing the thing will likely result in a splitting headache. A Good Year is also a comic, romantic tale of a wayward man…
Coins in, art out
When cigarette machines are outlawed, cigarette machine owners become artists. Since 1997, the Winston-Salem, N.C.-based artist Clark Whittington has been converting abandoned cigarette vendors into self-contained galleries. He refurbishes each machine and stocks it with cigarette pack-sized artworks — each to be sold for $5. Artists send submissions from around the country. Two years ago,…
Comics
The Boiling Point – by Mikhaela Reid The Perry Bible Fellowship – by Nicholas Gurewitch
Choices & choice words
Since 1998, when the College for Creative Studies’ Woodward Lecture Series began, Center Galleries director Michelle Perron has given more than 50 inimitable introductions for art world personalities. Perron’s often-brilliant words occasionally embarrass the lecturers with insightful praise and humble them with heartfelt welcome. But her presentation, which has become iconic in the art scene,…
Push
For Alternative Press A rope ladder hangs down from a very tall tree, we climb up it to reach our offices. Each space offers a wide view of water, sand, boulders, contains two flannel-upholstered chairs and a sofa. In addition, each has a closet, dictionary, piano, guitar (and/or cello), potted tree, set of toe shoes,…
Backslash
Soul searching — For many of us, conducting an Internet search is a daily part of life; Googling has become as habitual and regular as your morning cup of coffee. With that in mind, two tech dudes — Ken and JJ Ramberg — created the site goodsearch.com, which contributes a portion of its revenue, per…
Food Stuff
Full plates for local foodies.
Saying farewell to fascism
The White House clearly realized the jig was up before the media did. The networks had yet to call a winner in the Senate races in Montana and Virginia when the president called Harry Reid, the man who will be leading the Senate, and invited him over to the White House. No doubt about it;…
Colorblind
Three albums in, Robert Randolph decided to release a set of songs in a more structured style. Colorblind still has the great, wailing pedal steel riffs that Randolph made his name on, but there are none of the exuberant, seven-minute solos that were found on his previous work and in his live shows. Instead, Randolph…
Motor City Rides
Lightshow Bob shows off his tour bus.
Dinner arrangements
The restaurant, which has a twin in Ann Arbor (2222 Hogback Rd., 734-971-5168), serves both sushi and an extensive menu of cooked foods. The standard Japanese meal includes soup, rice, pickles and usually three other dishes, each cooked a different way. Each dish is served separately and presented beautifully. You can choose from a list…
Painkiller
On the cover of Love, Not Reason, the Paybacks’ third album, vocalist-guitarist Wendy Case grips the fancy red top of a heart-shaped box, the kind with chocolates inside. And it’s on fire. “I had this big box of frilly hearts from when I was a kid,” Case says. “My boyfriends would get me them for…
That grrrl
“You snake you crawled between my legs,” PJ Harvey fumes on “Snake,” spite mixing with her tears. The choppy guitar progression behind her vocal helps elevate the Rid of Me-era track to a terrifying level — it’s blues, it’s religion, it’s stripped-down hardcore punk, and it’s live. Besides being a tribute to the late BBC…
Hang ’em high
Alain Leroy lives in 1960s Paris, where garbage men drink a glass of white on their lunch breaks, women haunt the streets in high heels with hair bobbed beautifully, and kids are “hopeless — good-looking, well-fed, elegant … like California oranges.” Leroy is in detox for alcoholism at a medical clinic that looks more like…
The Man Who Lives for Love
This one-off merger from Jon Spencer and the North Mississippi All-Stars’ Luther and Cody Dickinson was recorded in 2001, but it only saw a Japanese release. Fortunately Chapel Hill, N.C., indie Yep Roc stepped in to issue this 2006 domestic version, with remastering and bonus tracks to boot. (A muddy boot, definitely.) The platform here…
A joke, not a put-down
Though Detroit will never have the sparkling lights of Broadway or the bustle of Chicago’s State Street, there’s a theater culture just waiting to be found in the far-flung corners of the city. That includes a number of long-established stages, such as the University of Detroit Mercy Theater Company’s presentations at Marygrove College Theatre, where…
Givin’ It Up
Guitarist George Benson and vocalist Al Jarreau start out strong on Givin’ It Up, but the album soon morphs into a halfhearted guest fest with smooth jazz as its too-mild center. Neo-soul vocalist Jill Scott, Chris Botti, Patti Austin and Paul McCartney all appear. There are worthwhile moments, such as Patti Austin’s gorgeous voice melting…
Jeffrey Morgan’s Media Blackout
Includes the hit column “Jeffrey’s Got a Brand New MB94”! Jethro Tull — This Was (Chrysalis) :: Includes the hit single “A Song for Jeffrey.” Jethro Tull — Stand Up (Chrysalis) :: Includes the hit single “Jeffrey Goes to Leicester Square.” Jethro Tull — Benefit (Chrysalis) :: Includes the hit single “For Michael Collins, Jeffrey…
Head Cheese
Not only are they the pride of Taylor, but the Hadituptoheres also have one of the best handles around. And it doesn’t stop there. Head Cheese wonders what’s in the water (or beer) out in Taylor to make a band explode out of the gate with this much revivalist, chorus-heavy punk fervor — the Hadituptoheres…
Danava
There’s rarely a moment while listening to Danava that you don’t compare the Portland-via-Illinois four-piece to approximately 1000 other acts. Three minutes into opener “By the Mark,” you swear you’re listening to Bowie’s Hunky Dory; another few minutes, and you’re absolutely sure that you’re high off your ass on Kraftwerk. Yeah, Danava is a confusing…
Art Bar
Tell-Tale —Did your mom or dad make out with Iggy? Did you get sloshed with Bill Bonds? If so, Wayne State University wants to hear your killer stories. A WSU video crew will be hanging out at the Boll YMCA (1401 Broadway in downtown Detroit) to record whatever absurd anecdotes you’re ready to share for…
Mass confusion
SEMCOG study results baffle transit advocates.
Love on the rocks
This is the kind of crushing, emotionally draining anti-romance you don’t see in cinema anymore. In Paris of the early 1900s, self-satisfied, cigar-chomping Jean (Pascal Greggory) leads a life of safe, bourgeois comfort with his porcelain wife Gabrielle (Isabelle Huppert). When Jean arrives home on this particular day, however, he’s blindsided by a letter from…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Recently uncovered evidence seems to confirm the argument that Christopher Columbus was a cruel, stupid tyrant who paved the way for the genocide of Native Americans. But that’s not the part of his story I want to bring to your attention right now, Aries. Rather, I’d like you to meditate on…
Dysfunction junction
How distrust almost short-circuited wireless effort.
American Hardcore
Using the same regional approach as Steven Blush’s 2001 book of the same title, the cinematic version of American Hardcore is an even more effective document of hardcore music in the United States: From its fiery inception in 1980 — after punk had become a joke and just as Ronald Reagan started his first term…
