Gear gone.
Squirrely NYC proto-disco combo Men, Women & Children recently had their gear ripped off right here in Detroit. From the Reprise Records press release: For immediate release: October 23, 2006 MEN, WOMEN, AND CHILDREN GEAR STOLEN! Band asks local Detroit community, fans for help in recovering equipment Burbank, CA: Men, Women and Children are asking…
Sparkle and fade.
Sam’s Town may have been boxed out of a No. 1 Billboard debut by Evanescence’s Open Door, but the Killers are still guiding the word on the street. Types were talking about Brandon Flowers et al. around the bar at Northern Lights Tuesday night, and by zero hour for their Wednesday night appearance at the…
More like Number of the BEST
Iron Maiden 10/17/06 Palace of Auburn Hills Auburn Hills, Mich. If you’ve been watching Heroes on NBC, you were probably like me late last Monday night, when at the end of the new series’ fifth episode, its frustratingly fragmented storyline finally jelled. Hiro, the Japanese nerd who can shift time with his mind, confronted this…
Jeffrey Morgan’s Media Blackout
I have nothing to offer but MB91! Towers of London — Blood Sweat & Towers (TVT) :: If this were 1976, these sleazoids would be on Neil Bogart’s Casablanca label right next to Angel. Kultur Shock — We Came to Take Your Jobs Away (Koolarrow) :: Y’gotta love a satirical standup ethnic rock opera about…
Comics
The Boiling Point – by Mikhaela Reid The Perry Bible Fellowship – by Nicholas Gurewitch
Overlord
Stuart Cooper’s Overlord (the code name for the invasion of Normandy) is the tale of a young WWII recruit who barely makes the grade and never gets much better. This 1975 forgotten classic uses archival footage from London’s Imperial War Museum — cities on fire, spectacular aerial combat photography — to fuel a low-budget portrait…
Dump before his abuse gets physical
Q: I’m a 19-year-old girl, attractive, outgoing and ambitious. My boyfriend is 21 and shares the same qualities. We’ve been dating since January. At times he gets really moody and won’t tell me why, but I’ve noticed a pattern: 1. Me hanging out with my guy friends (guy friends that I’ve known since we were…
They want a new drug
Evanescence arrived in Detroit last Friday with the number one album on the Billboard 200 and a hit single in “Call Me When You’re Sober,” front woman Amy Lee’s trudging kiss-off to ex-boyfriend Shaun Morgan of South African post-grunge also-rans Seether. Not only was The Open Door number one on the charts; it had debuted…
Keeping Mum
Maggie Smith gives an inspired turn as the ax-wielding live-in help in a tale that bristles with morbid, macabre possibilities. But after a prolonged build-up, director Niall Johnson squanders all of the possibilities for bloody good fun on a tepid, ho-hum conclusion. Smith plays Grace Hawkins, live-in help hired by the unhinged Goodfellow clan to…
Vote Leyland for governor
Where would you go, someone asked me recently, if you had a time machine? Back to see what really went on at the founding of one of the major religions? The Texas School Book Depository on a November afternoon in 1963? Marilyn Monroe’s condo on an August night the year before? No, no, none of…
Keeping clean or fighting dirty?
Just as you can say things such as "pansy-assed," Dan, and it’s funny, your boyfriend can shop and cook for you and it’s charming. But cooking and cleaning for a boyfriend when you’re a woman is not so picturesque. It’s just old and tired. I understand where your reply to Just That Into Him is…
Infamous
Compared to the previous year’s much-honored Capote film and this take on the same subject matter — otherwise known as “the other Capote movie” — one thing is certain: Infamous is way, way gayer. Other than that, there honestly isn’t much that writer-director Douglas McGrath adds to this already canonized tale of writing, murder and…
TV Eye
The citizens of Great Britain are the most observed in the world. The country has the greatest number of surveillance cameras per capita and it’s estimated that the average Londoner gets photographed and videotaped an average of 300 times per day. As part of Detroit Film Center’s New Cinema Series this year, Los Angeles-based artist…
We want spinach
Nightly newscasts give politics short shrift.
Man of the Year
Imagine a world where a highly influential TV host a la Jon Stewart calls the bluff of the political machine, runs for president to prove a point, and then ends up winning the White House? It sounds like a smashing idea for a sophisticated satire, if only director Barry Levinson had risen to the occasion.…
Night and Day
Wednesday-Sunday • 18-22 Xhedos 10th Anniversary MUSIC/FUN FOR ALL After opening in the mid-’90s, Xhedos Café helped to anchor a rebounding downtown Ferndale. Xhedos celebrates its 10th anniversary with a five-day weekend that typifies what it’s always been. Popular for Sunday vegan brunches and menu options, Xhedos expands this concept Wednesday with something called the…
Cabbage Patch skids
Grosse Pointe Park law would affect renters.
Back at Cadillac ranch
When the Cadillac Engineering facility closed in March 1994, Big Mama and I could hardly stand leaving the security of our southwest Detroit industrial workplace for unknown cold and friendless suburban environs. A few weeks after arriving at our new locations — Big Mama at Pontiac and me at the Warren Technical Center — we…
Letters to the Editor
Ironic praise Thank goodness for Curt Guyette’s interview with Russ Bellant (“You don’t know Dick,” Metro Times, Oct. 4). If not for the article, I never would have known the shocking news that Republican Dick DeVos and his family support conservative causes and free-market think tanks. How stunning to read that DeVos promoted school choice…
Backslash
Big bother — Am I annoying? Usually, if you have to ask … Yet it seems so often that the most annoying individuals never actually pose this question. Thus, the makers of amiannoying.com have taken the task upon themselves and created a Web site where users can rank the general annoying-ness of various figures in…
Best of Detroit 2006
We asked, and you responded online. We asked our staff and our contributors and our friends. What’s the Best Of Detroit? And even in a time of frightening layoffs and foreclosures, in a troubled region and a troubled world, we found things to celebrate. We found unsung heroes and civic projects that matter. We found…
The great pretender
To any one of the many people who bought Justin Timberlake’s FutureSex/LoveSounds (Jive) in the last month: Sorry. Not because you did — please, spend your money any way you see fit — but because nobody adequately warned you about one song on it, and some of the young and feckless have actually cheered it…
Community chest
Best improvement to downtown architecture Renaissance Center General Motors may be on the verge of losing its claim to being the world’s leading automaker, but the company deserves to be No. 1 in our hearts for the work it’s done at the RenCen since buying the towers. Specifically, the removal of those fortress-like concrete bunkers…
Motor City Cribs
Detroit soul artists Dwele’s Southfield dwelling.
Metro meditations
Try contemplating anything but leaving while staring at the black-and-white checkerboard floor of a greasy spoon. And a white-walled coffeehouse (oops – see-and-be-seen bistro) with couches of fur in blobs of black and white is not restful. But Amsterdam Espresso is a North Cass basement place, new this year. Are its blue floors conducive to…
Ain’t no party like a De-troit party store
“You mean, like, where you buy balloons and shit?” That’s the sort of lame response you’re likely to hear if and when you find yourself jonseing for not-so-fine wine, liquor or a lotto ticket — if you’re looking for a “party store” — far from the Motor City. Apparently “party store” — the words assigned…
The big, red American illusion
As one MT staffer says, any shopping trip that begins by walking through acreage of parking lot can’t be good. But, by God, there must be solid reasons sending suburbia flocking to megastores each weekend, loading up carts at Kmart, Wal-Mart, Meijer, Costco and Sam’s Club. If you ask retail reps, they’ll send in some…
What’s your favorite restaurant?
Whenever someone discovers that I do restaurants, they immediately ask, “So what’s your favorite?” They are invariably disappointed when I hem and haw, pointing out that it depends on the type of food, how far I want to drive, how much I want to spend, if there is a milestone being celebrated and, above all,…
The glories of capitalism
Best former roller rink-turned-store Leon & Lulu 96 W. 14 Mile Rd., Clawson 248-288-3600 It’s a whopping 15,000 square feet and the glossy wood floors are just begging to be skated upon, but Clawson’s new crown jewel, Leon & Lulu, is so much more than an old chestnut with a fresh coat of paint. Owners…
A dream meal
What makes a meal a dream meal? In his 1930 novel Cakes and Ale, Somerset Maugham described a standard British dinner party from the turn of the 20th century. The courses were “soup; fish; a couple of entrées [appetizers]; sorbet, to give you a chance to get your second wind; joint; game; sweet; ice; and…
Sofia’s choices
All of the soundtracks to Sofia Coppola’s films have been set pieces in the “intelligent” wing of indie rock, that hall with the gleaming white walls where the cerebral, stylish music of Air (Virgin Suicides) and the revered heroes who came before is kept. Remember, Coppola tapped famous do-nothing genius Kevin Shields to write music…
Jam ain’t just for toast
The guy hadn’t played his ax outside of his basement in years and felt like a fool swinging the case as he came into the club on a rainy night. He plopped the case on a table at the back, ordered a drink and nursed it, and then ordered another. Meanwhile, the band played on…
Avenue of the Americas
Core Effect breaks it right down in its MySpace profile, dropping names like Three Days Grace, Crossfade and Shinedown as comparisons for its thick-fisted sound. And it’s true: Avenue of the Americas — the Detroit quartet’s new full-length — is alt-metal, with WRIF’s playlist as its principal influence. The album art even features the requisite…
Conspicuous consumption
Starting with Breakfast Best breakfast Russell Street Deli 2465 Russell, Detroit 313-567-2900 Here’s a tip on how to unwind after a hard morning of choosing raw goodies at Eastern Market: Let someone else do the cooking, at ultrafriendly Russell Street. Go for a huge omelet or scrambled egg special, and you might luck into double-smoked…
Spend the night
Best watering hole Tom’s Tavern 10093 W. Seven Mile Rd. Detroit; 313-862-9768 Getting shit-faced in northwest Detroit has never been quite so comfy. Walk into Tom’s with a get-acquainted plan, and you’ll stumble out armed with hastily scrawled phone numbers on backs of moist beer labels. In fact, the tiny Tom’s has all the warmth…
Put Your Ghost to Rest
Core Effect breaks it right down in its MySpace profile, dropping names like Three Days Grace, Crossfade and Shinedown as comparisons for its thick-fisted sound. And it’s true: Avenue of the Americas — the Detroit quartet’s new full-length — is alt-metal, with WRIF’s playlist as its principal influence. The album art even features the requisite…
Enter the doorman
In a fairly short time, Kenneth Lonergan has distinguished himself as a playwright and become somewhat famous for writing such screenplays as 2000’s You Can Count on Me and for contributing to the script of Martin Scorsese’s Gangs of New York. And it was Lonergan’s successes that made his 2000 play, Lobby Hero, an attractive…
Save me a stool at the Buzz
Niches. They’re so hard to find. And that’s just for individuals. Personally, we each have to decide whether we’re with the Mods or the Rockers, the Greasers or the Socs, the Warriors or the Baseball Furies. But imagine how difficult it is for a bar, which actually has to try and make some money once…
Give Me A Wall
Give Me a Wall was released this past Tuesday domestically, after the usual hype-building lag. Apparently, now that it’s here, being dubbed this year’s British buzz-band means sounding like this year’s Artic Monkeys. Older listeners will hear Robert Smith fronting Gang of Four in ¡Forward Russia!, while younger fans will hear (insert name of favorite…
Art Bar
American Life in Poetry by Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006 Here Tess Gallagher goes to the mailbox to post a letter. We’ve all done that, haven’t we? But notice how closely she pays attention to this simple experience, and how she fits this one moment into the meaning of her life. Under Stars The…
Readers poll
Community Chest Best place to see art Detroit Institute of Arts 5200 Woodward Ave., Detroit; 313-833-7900 The Annie Leibovitz: American Music photography show is the hot ticket right now, but with more than 60,000 pieces in its collection, the fifth-largest fine arts museum in the United States has plenty of art to suit every taste.…
Libido express
Shortbus is the culmination of an ambitious, years-in-the-making, barely funded idea Mitchell had to shoot a narrative film full of sex scenes that are both unabashedly hardcore and decidedly nonjudgmental. Focusing on a half-dozen New Yorkers who are trying to balance their finicky libidos with their inexperienced hearts, this scruffy, likable, problematic movie is nonetheless…
