WHAT WAS IS ABOUT IN THE D
We headed off to see a big-deal record producer on Sunday, even though it was Don Was, who comes across as the antithesis of a big-deal, big-ego anything. There he was, sitting cross-legged on the studio floor, next to one band after another. He has an off-white Panama hat on his head, shoulder-length dreadlocks spilling…
ROCK FOR SUDAN
Just a quick reminder that the Jam for Sudan show is taking place tomorrow night (Saturday, Oct. 20th) at the Majestic Theatre. Some of our area’s hottest bands will be rocking out for a great cause in an effort to raise money for Darfur relief. The all-star lineup includes our friends the Go, the Sisters…
DESTROY ALL MORONS
Fucking idiots … I always have to defend my former hometown Chicago from my musician boyfriend and all his friends who insist that, aside from the jazz and experimental stuff, Chicago’s scene is super lame. But I can’t do it this time, not after reading Deanna Issacs’ recent piece in the Chicago Reader: “Second Rate?…
HOW’D YA LIKE IT IN JAIL?”
Speaking of Paris Hilton (as we were below), if you missed this, you missed one of the best bits of pop culture to hit the media over the last month or so. Sure, it has nothing to do with Detroit … but it’s still worth checking out for the pure entertainment value. “Is that someone…
FAMOUS LAST WORDS
Ironically, we just got a press release from Atlantic Records, reporting that Kid Rock’s new Rock ‘N’ Roll Jesus album is debuting at #1. No, the high chart position isn’t what’s ironic … but what Bob has to say about it sorta is: “I want to thank Punch Andrews for his guidance, friendship, and hard…
KID AND PUNCH SPLIT…
Kid “Hey, I’m a Rebel!” Rock has seen many of his relationships get left by the wayside over the last several months — a divorce from Pamela Anderson; a fist fight with Tommy Lee; a split from longtime guitarists/co-songwriters Kenny Tudrick (who left to resurrect his own band, Bulldog) and Kenny Olson (we’ve heard reports…
Best of Detroit 2007
We asked and you told us. The best highway trouble spot is the Lodge Freeway. The best college is Wayne State University. The best vegetarian restaurant is Inn Season. Wait … those are results from the first Metro Times Best of Detroit poll in 1986. A few things never change. Those are also winners in…
Two Gallants
This duo either fights for your losses with glory or drowns you in a whiskey-sea of rambling. Of course, it all depends on what life situation you personally bring to their timelessness. Let’s try and give them their own category — we can simply call it Punch & Twang. They punch you in the heart…
After dark, my sweet
James Ellroy: American Dog Facets Video Like P.T. Barnum and Charles Manson, James Ellroy has transcended his work, and has arguably become more of a show himself than are his writings. The glib, profane, darkly hilarious Ellroy of countless interviews, live appearances, and now two documentaries is a character far more memorable than any he’s…
Rocky Mountain low
Historian Scott Martelle talks class war in Detroit.
Beer & board
A highlight of the lunch and dinner menu is a plate of sliders. These little celebrations sport a heap of sweet caramelized onions and a side of au jus for dipping. For something slightly lighter, try the crisp cherry walnut salad – slightly lighter only because it’s topped by a mound of bacon bits that’s…
Getting the best cocktail
Walk into any upscale lounge these days and peruse the drink menu. Where there was once a solid roster of drinks with names like “Manhattan” you’ll instead likely find a “martini menu” filled with some of the most abhorrent drink concoctions since Prohibition — or 12th Grade. You might find a “Key lime pie martini”…
Healthy votes
News Hits picks its own best news.
We Own the Night
Set in 1988, on a seemingly ordinary night, Bobby Green (Joaquin Phoenix) visits his two families. Walking across the street from the jam-packed Brooklyn nightclub he manages, Bobby enters the warm embrace of owner Marat Buzhayev (Moni Moshonov) and his extended Russian clan, where he’s treated as a surrogate son. Later, he takes girlfriend Amada…
Conspicuous Consumption
WAKE ‘N’ BAKE Best Bakery – Local Avalon International Breads 422 W. Willis St., Detroit; 313-832-0008 A pioneer in the Cass Corridor rejuvenation, the Avalon continues to fashion a wide selection of healthy and always fresh artisanal bread, scones and cookies, not only for its fortunate walk-in patrons but also for several area restaurants and…
American gothic
Kid Rock Rock ‘N’ Roll Jesus Atlantic Bruce Springsteen Magic Columbia John Fogerty Revival Fantasy Talking to Entertainment Weekly, Kid Rock assigned some awfully lofty ambition to his then-upcoming Rock ‘n’ Roll Jesus: “If you just had to play one American rock ‘n’ roll album for somebody, this would be [the one].” But a week…
Lust, Caution
Director Ang Lee, having won his second Oscar with the gay-cowpoke romance Brokeback Mountain, seems determined to devote his energies to crafting lush, majestic, emotionally complex movies for grown-ups, just like the ones Bernardo Bertolucci and Philip Kaufman used to make. Here he focuses on a very Western archetype — the femme fatale — and…
Readers’ Picks – Conspicuous Consumption
Best New Restaurant Best Restaurant Under $15 Best Restaurant Under $50 Best Caribbean restaurant Best Local Chef (Robert Campbell) Irie 45580 Cherry Hill Rd., Canton; 734-844-8892 According to the online Rastafarian Dictionary (yes, there is such a thing), the word Irie means positive emotions or feelings, or anything good. And there’s no better name for…
Retrospection
Letting documentary subjects speak for themselves was a radical idea in 1960 when cameraman Albert Maysles joined a group of like-minded filmmakers to capture the Wisconsin primary battle between Sens. Hubert H. Humphrey and John F. Kennedy. Making use of new lightweight cameras and synchronous sound equipment, they created a startlingly intimate portrait of hands-on…
Hollow man
In Tony Gilroy’s directorial debut — a thriller as cool, calm and collected as they come — he and leading man George Clooney strip the veneer off the stereotype of the hotshot corporate shark, a figure we’ve been taught to envy since at least the early years of the Reagan era. Gilroy takes us into…
Food stuff
Full plates for local foodies.
Motor City Rides
The Deadstring Brothers’ ginormous van has room to stand.
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
It’s fascinating to watch Brad Pitt as Jesse James. Onscreen, he’s the prankster alpha male with a hair-trigger temper. Off-screen, he’s a producer and above-the-title marquee name. His Jesse is resolutely middle-aged, remorseful and openly questions the value of his exalted position. As Robert Ford, Casey Affleck makes Ford a swooning fan of the James…
Community Chest
Best way to see Detroit From the river Native Americans and European voyageurs paddled it. Slaves escaped across it. The city grew because of it. Now, freighters power through it. Industries have polluted it. Anglers fish it. Boaters play on it. The Detroit River is the single constant in our beloved — and challenged —…
Righting the wrongfuls
A national movement to prevent, reverse or remedy wrongful convictions has swept into Michigan’s Legislature this term with six bills that would reform police investigations, change DNA testing procedures, compensate those improperly imprisoned and clear their records. If passed, they could make Michigan among the most progressive states in terms of breadth and depth of…
Elizabeth: The Golden Age
Scrumptious but shallow, this glittering second chapter in the Queen Elizabeth franchise is unlikely to inspire the same level of Oscar enthusiasm. It’s 30 years after Elizabeth’s (Blanchett) ascendancy to the throne and every Catholic in England is considered a potential assassin. The Pope has declared a holy war against the Protestant queen and England’s…
The Glory of Capitalism
Best Smile-Bringer and Marketing Genius Carl Oxley III Buildings, buttons, pillows, patches, cookies, canvas, recycling centers, the cover of Metro Times, the Leno show — is there anyplace this guy won’t put a grinning cartoon monkey, bunny, bumblebee or giraffe? Hopefully not. No matter how many times you spot some member of his candy-colored menagerie,…
To live and die in dance
With distended belly and lice-filled hair, a starved, orphaned girl was transformed into a celestial nymph through dance. Sophiline Cheam Shapiro, who lost her father and brother during the bloody Khmer Rouge regime of 1975-1979, learned the courtly arts performed 1,000 years ago in the Cambodian empire of Angkor. And through this, in essence, she…
Quietly loud
What immediately pulls you in is the cover, which resembles one of those eerie portraits from the early 1900s, when people were forbidden to smile for photographers. Next, you’re gutted by the stark haunting sound, hinted at on such earlier PJ Harvey tracks as “In the Garden” (from Is This Desire?), but now fully explored…
Readers’ Picks – The Glory of Capitalism
Best Antique Store Dumouchelle Art Galleries 409 E. Jefferson Ave., Detroit; 313-963-6255 Persian brass daggers, ivory sculptures by Inuits, Queen Anne mahogany furniture, framed copies of Striptease starring Demi Moore … wait. What? Doumuchelle’s is all that you’d expect from a fine art auctioneer, open since 1927, and, well, just a little bit more. Maybe…
Night and Day
Wednesday-Saturday • 17-20 11th Annual Edgefest THE OPPOSITE OF SMOOTH JAZZ Ann Arbor’s Edgefest moves into its second decade this year with more of the improvised mayhem that’s made it a must for adventurous jazz fans. There are big names and elder statesmen (such as the Trio with Muhal Richard Abrams, Roscoe Mitchell and George…
Shine
You have to fight through a lot of obstacles to realize it, but Joni Mitchell’s first album of new material in nine years is often a lovely and graceful collection. But, oy, those obstacles! The pretentious cover image of ballet dancers in mid-leap wouldn’t be so bad on its own. But paired with her consistently…
Spend the Night
Best Gravesite for a Late-Night Ecclesia Nolan Strong Westlawn Cemetery 31472 Michigan Ave., Wayne; 734-722-2530 Sweet-throated Detroit R&B legend Nolan Strong — whose spine-ticklin’ Fortune Records classics include the 1954 stunner “The Wind” and 1962’s magical “Mind Over Matter”— has often been acknowledged by Smokey Robinson and lesser Motor City soul stars as a primary…
Letters to the Editor
Growing concerns Regarding Larry Gabriel’s “Life in the desert” (Metro Times, Sept. 26), if Detroit and other U.S. cities want to develop stronger, healthier and more secure food systems, they are going to need to court professional farmers, both home-grown and from outside their borders, with urban farmsteading programs that provide either affordable land acquisition…
You Follow Me
There’s a certain promise that comes from duos working within limitations. And it’s even more promising still if it comes from a man and a woman — i.e., Diamanda Galas & John Paul Jones; Jack & Meg; adult.; hell, even the UK’s Prinzorn Dance School’s minimal still-born blues rants have a certain conversational charm. For…
Readers’ Picks – Community Chest
Best Place to See Art Detroit Institute of Arts 5200 Woodward Ave.; 313-833-7900; dia.org You haven’t been able to actually see much in recent months due to its ambitious renovation and expansion project, but years of visits — starting with those school field trips for many of you — have taught reverence for an art…
Jeffrey Morgan’s Media Blackout
Jeepers, Mr. Kent! Jeffrey Morgan’s Media Blackout #141 just blacked out! Grant Morrison & Frank Quitely — All-Star Superman, Volume 1 (DC Comics) :: After 70 long years, you’d think that every possible Superman story angle had already been done to death, but you’d be dead wrong. Defying all odds and exceeding all expectations comes…
Hollywood babble
Wes Anderson isn’t an asshole. He just comes across as one. There’s something smugly superior about his tone, and about the way he answers questions. His choice in costume — blue-and-white-striped pants, brown shirt, and green blazer — doesn’t help since he’s either, a) as eccentric and/or weird as the characters he creates or, b)…
Not another poser
Dolores S. Slowinski is a Detroit artist and writer. Send comments to letters@metrotimes.com.
Amp fiddler
Bruce Egnater, friendly, big guy, white-bearded, looks more like Santa than a rock dude, but that’s just what he is — a 30-year veteran. As a leader in the amplification business, he’s built custom gear for the likes of Steve Vai, Bob Seger and countless other musicians in search of one thing: tone. If you’re…
Van Halen vs. Queens of the Stone Age
When making heavy music, nothing complicates matters like having a tiny speck of brainpower to question the accepted traditions. “Ummm, why are we wearing this festive garb again? And how does making these trudging sounds help me get laid?” It’s a lot easier, after all, if you just plug in and play duh rock. Why…
The poop on pee
Urine luck: A doctor’s verdict on drinking it.
Better than being president
Around the world, no living American gets the admiration and respect Al Gore does.
Getting scooped
Guernsey Farms Dairy’s John McGuire on the family business.
Detroit’s small gems
Detroit is a treasure trove of small restaurants and stores tucked deep inside neighborhoods, shops too small for advertising budgets or media attention. While hundreds of independently owned and family-operated businesses have closed their doors over the years, several places across town have kept going, getting by on loyal regulars and word of mouth in…
Readers’ Picks – Spend the Night
Best New Nightspot Best Bar for the Under-30s Bar for the Over-30s Best Place to Pick Up a Guy Best Place to Pick Up a Girl Best Bar to Pick Up Both or Other Best MultiCulti Nightspot Best Club to Hear Blues Best Bartender Buzz Bar 546 E. Larned St., Detroit; 313-962-1800 Buzz beer is…
Comics
The Boiling Point – by Mikhaela Reid The Perry Bible Fellowship – by Nicholas Gurewitch
