Don’t fence us out
I just got off the phone with Daniel Cherrin, spokesman for Detroit Mayor Ken Cockrel Jr. (man, it still feels odd typing the words “Detroit Mayor” without having them be followed by the name Kwame Kilpatrick). Cherrin says that the city’s Law Department is in the process of “going through the appropriate legal channels” to…
HE MEANS IT, MAAAAAN!
You still gotta love a guy who becomes a self-parody on purpose. There is a difference, ya know? Have a wonderful weekend…!
THE ELECTION…AND THE KID ROCK CONNECTION
Just because John McCain has given up hope in this great state of ours and will no longer campaign in Michigan, that still doesn’t mean you don’t have to vote in order to keep “the evildoers” out of the White House for the next four years. And if you watched that comedy special that was…
A GORIES REUNION?
It’s been a rumor — but it looks like it’s going to turn into a reality next summer, at least according to Greg Cartwright’s posting yesterday on the Goner Records message board. But let’s just allow our pal Chris Handyside to tell the story, since he does it better than I ever could. This was…
Is Hollywood Ripping You Off?
In the world of tax incentives, there are winners and losers. This week, City of Detroit approved a $135,000,000 tax abatement over 25 years for General Motors to build the Chevy Volt electric car at the Poletown plant. For that, GM says it will hire 550 additional employees. This is usually how it works: a…
The Harris Manifesto revisited
Detroit Auditor General Joe Harris delivered a message many officials didn’t want to hear. Given the collapse of the economy and the foreclosure crisis and the general gloom that seems to be hanging over us like cold October rain clouds, it was nice to see something in the news that actually made me feel like…
SATIN PEACHES TO JOIN ALEJANDRO
The Satin Peaches, “Motor City’s new favorite sons” (at least that’s what Britain’s New Musical Express recently dubbed them), just nabbed the opening slot on the upcoming tour by the great Alejandro Escovedo (check out his recent excellent Tony Visconti-produced Real Animal CD, if you haven’t already!). The Peaches recently released Morning Maid, a mini-album…
THE VIDEO…
Two years ago, our hero Bob Dylan “couldn’t keep from crying” as he was “wondering where in the world Alicia Keys could be…” Well, Zimmy, stop crying and look no further. Your pal Jack White has found her…and Alicia’s sounding strangely a lot like Jack himself these days…
Media madness
On February 9, 1972, performance artist Chris Burden was invited to appear on a local Los Angeles arts TV program. He arrived, engaged in some debate and then held his point-counterpoint foil, art critic Phyllis Lutjeans, at knifepoint on live broadcast television for four hours, threatening her life should they cease transmission. The standoff ended,…
Rattlin’ Bones
The title track that opens this collaboration between the Australian husband-and-wife duo is striking. With its reference to “dragging a bag of stone,” “Rattlin’ Bones” sounds like a country riposte to Fleetwood Mac’s “The Chain.” In fact, Chambers and Nicholson often come off as a rootsy Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham, trading vocals on “Monkey…
Pakistan beyond the headlines
Pakistan is a country of extreme contrasts. Buddhist and Hindu ruins deteriorate back into the earth with each passing day while Islamic architecture is pristinely preserved. Influences from neighboring China, Afghanistan and India add to the vibrant, complicated culture. Last winter, Washtenaw Community College humanities instructor Elisabeth Thoburn visited Pakistan, taking in everyday life at…
Double 7″ EP
John Brannon of Negative Approach/Easy Action recently remarked that the Muldoons are “the next wave of rock ‘n’ roll.” His reasoning is sound, even if the statement is somewhat exaggerated: Brothers Shane (11) and Hunter (14) Muldoon are extremely young and they certainly know how to make a racket. Since bursting onto the scene three…
Food Stuff
Full plates for local foodies.
Allah MadeMe Funny
The three stand-ups of Allah Made Me Funny set out to prove that Muslim comedy is not an oxymoron, and their sharp, observational humor more than proves their point. The bulk of AMMF documents an August 2007 performance by Mohammed “Mo” Amer, Bryant “Preacher” Moss and Azhar Usman before a large, enthusiastic, multicultural audience at…
Night and Day
THURSDAY • 2 THE WEDDING PRESENT AIN’T NO INDIE LIKE BRIT INDIE “Legendary” luminaries of the late ’80s/early ’90s UK indie scene, the Wedding Present found success with the simple formula of jangly guitars behind the droll, heartaching lyrics of frontman David Gedge. Its latest release, El Ray, tows the line, as evidenced by such…
A Girl Cut in Two
Though critics epeatedly compare octogenarian French director Claude Chabrol’s work to Hitchcock, his latest film comes closer to emulating late-career Woody Allen. Much like Match Point, his film shares the same melodramatic themes of misguided love and class warfare amidst society’s upper crust. But as strange as it is to say, it’s actually Woody who…
A snooper
A rift after mother-in-law finds a dom in the family
Couch Trip
The Anderson Tapes Sony In 1971’S The Anderson Tapes, just about everybody resembles a noirish heavy and talks like a ’40s thriller transplant — not in a way that resembles hat-tipping homage or sly subversion, just out-of-touch distraction. It’s one of many signs that director Sidney Lumet, who made masterpieces long before and long after…
Motor City Rides
Inside Khalid el-Hakim’s Black History 101 Mobile Museum
Aged to perfection
The main streets of the city are home to scores of little businesses with plain facades and no telling signage — so there’s often no way of knowing what’s inside. One such storefront on Detroit’s west side hides a sea of grand pianos, some hand-carved, all finely tuned, and each polished to a shimmer. The…
Comics
The Boiling Point – by Mikhaela Reid
Pakistan beyond headlines
Pakistan is a country of extreme contrasts. Buddhist and Hindu ruins deteriorate back into the earth with each passing day while Islamic architecture is pristinely preserved. Influences from neighboring China, Afghanistan and India add to the vibrant, complicated culture. Last winter, Washtenaw Community College Humanities instructor Elisabeth Thoburn visited Pakistan, taking in everyday life at…
Mussel-bound
The french fries (called “pomfrites”) are essential eating, along with another core element of Belgian cuisine — mussels. The original mussels ($15.95) are steamed in white wine and vegetables and accompanied by both clarified butter and a mustard-and-vinegar sauce. It’s difficult to imagine filling up on these small, meaty nuggets of the sea, but halfway…
The real thing
Small farmer Jim Genuwine keeps it real
Choke
Writer-director-actor Clark Gregg misses what makes Chuck Palahniuk’s work interesting — his mordant satire and stringent pathos — and instead translates the author’s weaknesses — his messy plotting and affected sense of perversion — to the screen. Victor Mancini (Sam Rockwell) is a med school drop out and sex addict who earns a living as…
Motor City outlaws
“The roots of country music,” Whitey Morgan says, “are despair, pain, sorrow and anguish expressed through song.”Since he hails from perpetually depressed Flint, it’s probably fair to say that Morgan has seen his share of despair — and it’s this “white man’s blues” approach to country that makes his raw, open and honest music so…
Eagle Eye
It’s not that an attempt to update Hitchcock is such a bad idea; it’s that we’ve seen many of Eagle Eye’s dramatic elements before. And in better movies. From its “War Games” political overtones to its “Enemy of the State”-style surveillance motif, Caruso’s ADD approach to the Hollywood paranoid thriller has only one good twist…
Letters to the Editor
Bitch back As vice chairman of the Free Press unit of the Detroit Newspaper Guild, I am not accustomed to defending my bosses. But Jack “Less ‘N Factual” Lessenberry’s latest jeremiad against the newspaper leaves me no choice (“Slow death of the Free Press,” Sept. 24). The old business model — subscribers subsidizing newsgathering —…
The Duchess
There’s a refined gentility to The Duchess, a regal reticence that mirrors the manners of the 18th century English nobility it so carefully undresses. Even in moments of immense emotional turmoil, director Saul Dibb maintains a cinematic rectitude, and always keeps the film on an even keel, smoothly sailing the British peerage through revolutionary waters.…
Mississippi snappin’
Old sourpuss McNasty refused even to look at Obama
Nights in Rodanthe
Pulp writer Nicholas Sparks specializes in light and fluffy romantic soufflés, yet somewhere between the airport paperback rack and the multiplex, his stuff tends to congeal into big gloppy bowls of butterscotch pudding. Which isn’t to say that given the right day or the right stomach, that sort of thing can’t be satisfying, though it’s…
Swinging at Matty
Blogger Joel Thurtell finds public land claimed by Detroit’s bridge baron
Battle In Seattle
Preaching to the choir may feel good, but it rarely creates good art. You can’t beat up actor-turned-filmmaker Stuart Townsend’s motivations for making his pro-demonstration, anti-World Trade Organization political drama Battle In Seattle. But you can bludgeon him for not doing a very good job. An admitted attempt to emulate Haskell Wexler’s brilliant Medium Cool,…
Why bail?
If you have a real story, you don’t have to make up phony stories. That’s pretty straightforward.I’ve heard lots of phony stories. Much of the country’s political and economic leadership has been running around raising the prospect of the Great Depression and a breakdown in the banking system (I actually had taken the latter seriously).…
Saints of war
An astute student of film history, Spike Lee knows that a war movie doesn’t live or die by its battle scenes alone. The lives of the soldiers, and the way they are affected by death, count as much as victory and defeat. Lee is on a mission of his own with Miracle at St. Anna,…
Captured for life
Every picture tells a story,” some dude sang ages ago. That’s certainly the case with Little Sonny Willis, the “new king of the blues harmonica” and one of Detroit’s most unsung musical legends, who’s documented damn near every facet of his life with photographs while, by association, also documenting the Detroit blues music scene of…
‘The Sound of Young America’
George Bernard Shaw said it best: “Youth is such a wonderful thing. What a crime to waste it on children.” Yet we all know somebody who has given up on something they love because it’s just not “practical.” So they sell their guitar, hang up their dreams, get sucked into a joyless job and “grow…
On the Download
So amid much fanfare last week, Rupert Murdoch’s minions launched MySpace Music — a long-promised overhaul of the social networking’s music functionality. Three of the remaining major labels are on-board at launch — a sure sign that, after years of foot-dragging, litigation, false starts and half-hearted embraces, the recording industry might just be seeing the…
Ultra Beatdown
Power metal gets a bad rep. No, it’s not all Dungeons and Dragons fantasy bullshit, as some cranky critics suggest. Sometimes — that is, sometimes — power metal is done correctly, bereft of ridiculous histrionics and overblown melodramatic nonsense. Of course, DragonForce has always reveled in being overdone, outrageous and blatantly ostentatious. And these guys…
