Worthy agrees evidence was wrongly withheld
Attorneys for Dwayne Provience will ask a Wayne County judge to release him from prison at a hearing on Tuesday after Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy on Friday dropped opposition to having his conviction overturned. Provience, convicted in 2001 of murdering Rene Hunter, is serving a 32- to 62-year sentence. In a separate but related…
Hanging with Blakey: A Detroiter remembers
Former Detroiter Linda Jones (her byline graced The Detroit News once upon a time) on her new blog at Open Salon remembers the great drummer Art Blakey, who passed away 19 years ago this month. Not your typical musician profile, Jones, now based in Dallas, recalls what it was like being hit on by a…
A new Cass Corridor zine?
Cover of the October-November 2009 Cass Rag, drawn by “Elle.” HEARD OF THE underground publishing explosion? You know, the one that began in the late 1960s and churned out tens of thousands of passionate, self-made, low- and no-budget publications for a generation? The scene hit its zenith around the mid-’90s, with the rise of a…
LOCAL CLUB & SHOW NOTES
Well, nothing like having to post an entire entry all over again because some stupid jackass hacked the site. Bastards! Anyway… *Local heroes the Dirtbombs are playing a last minute show in the cozy confines of the Majestic Cafe tonight (Wed., Nov. 28th). The show is being filmed by VICE magazine — hey, you might…
Too weird to believe
Q: I’m a 67-year-old woman, almost 68, who has been married four times — once widowed (with three kids in their 40s who’ve turned out pretty well), divorced three times. I recently met someone online: He’s 48, a wealthy, educated man with two boys, 12 and 14. He lives the cuckoldt lifestyle and is looking…
Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant
Hollywood is committed to adapting tween lit involving wizards or vampires, regardless of quality, popularity or even sanity. Based on the allegedly popular Cirque du Freak books, which no one older than 16 has ever heard of, Vampire’s Assistant serves as sort of anti-Twilight, more concerned with the pure wish-fulfillment kicks of supernatural powers than…
Creeps and crawlers
This is the time of year when things get pretty scary in Detroit, and a visit to one of the area’s haunted houses is a must for a well-rounded Halloween experience. Over the years, haunted houses — not to mention haunted barns, haunted hayrides, haunted funeral homes and haunted golf courses — have become big…
Hair lippin’
When Rock’s 4-year-old daughter Lola asks: “Daddy, why don’t I have good hair?” the comedian is both floored and intrigued. What is it about the business and culture of black hair that inspires so many women (and some men) to endure torturous treatments in order to look more “European” (i.e. white)? Good Hair is Rock’s…
Motor City Rides
Lately Detroit appears to be on the verge of becoming Nashville North. To add to our impressive soul, rock, jazz, hip hop, blues, techno and noise scenes, there’s now a honky-tonk and outlaw-tinged country music scene drawing inspiration from the hard-working blue-collar towns in our midst. Downriver you’ve got Doop & the Inside Outlaws and…
Laila’s Birthday
Abu Laila (Mohamed Bakri) is a decent, if uptight man. A former judge, he has been forced to drive a taxi for his brother-in-law to make ends meet. While he never loses faith that one day he’ll return to his job at the Ministry of Justice, this film offers a front seat tour of Abu…
He has never been here before …
Although there are certainly other candidates, the man born Roger Kynard Erickson 62 years ago in Dallas, Texas, just might be the greatest rock ‘n’ roll cult hero of all time. But first, some backstory … It was always a personal pipe dream — to host a panel at South by Southwest or one of…
Foe or hipster?
Detroit indie-pop trio the Friendly Foes are, essentially, time travelers. Now, when you’re working the power-pop angles, it’s hard not to get caught up in exhuming and attempting to reanimate the greatness of hooks long-past. The Foes, however, have managed a more specific, but slipperier bit, of sugary trickery. They conjure the energy, spirit and…
Letters to the Editor
Death be proud Jack Lessenberry’s largely irrelevant regurgitation of Dr. Jack Kevorkian’s preoccupation with death, his quirky artwork, etc., ("I did know Jack," Oct. 21) reminded me of the long-ago criticism of Gen. Ulysses Grant’s fondness for booze, and President Lincoln’s reported riposte: "Give a case of whatever he’s drinking to the rest of my…
We Call It Soul
Lately, it seems that every former indie rocker on earth has decided to start a soul band. But with a touch of Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings, some crate digging, a suspiciously devout devotion to Waxpoetics and a hipster’s appreciation of hip hop, they rarely know their way around a ballad, appear utterly ignorant…
Slinging it early
With November fast approaching, election season is heating up. No, we’re not talking about the Detroit mayor’s race or City Council contest. We’re talking about the 2010 election to determine who will replace Gov. Jennifer Granholm, who can’t run again because of term limits. We bring this up now because we’ve just received an e-mail…
River talk
That Bill Milliken has always been an insight guy. As governor from 1969 to 1983, he worked for education reform, urban policy and civil rights. He signed the state’s Freedom of Information Act, which allows the public to access governmental records. He ushered through environmental protection measures and continues today to work on state issues…
The new raconteurs
It’s just before seven o’clock on a Thursday night in downtown Detroit, and we’re making our way toward Cliff Bell’s, a legitimate (now revamped and legal) speakeasy in the city’s theater district. The club’s curved awning crests the street’s horizon like some sort of beacon; it’s a striking club inside and out, clean with art…
Tale of two homicides
Dwayne Provience is doing 32 to 62 years in prison for the 2000 murder of Rene Hunter, who was gunned down at a northwest Detroit intersection. But now, as Provience attempts to win his freedom, his attorneys are pointing to the fact that, in 2003, the Wayne County Prosecutor’s office argued in a second but…
Comics
The Boiling Point – by Mikhaela Reid
Make them fix it
Everybody’s sick of the state budget crisis, and for good reason. The idiots in Lansing have not only screwed us over, they have bored us to death. We’ve had pretty much all we can take of droning Andy Dillon, the caveman-like Mike Bishop and our governor. Probably the nicest thing you can say about Jennifer…
Keepin’ in stride
Entering pianist Taslimah Bey’s Rochester Hills townhouse, you’ll immediately notice two things. There’s a handsome portrait of Harry P. Guy, a largely forgotten ragtime pianist, composer and arranger from Detroit. And there’s an antique Star brand piano in Bey’s living room. Ragtime giants such as Jelly Roll Morton and James P. Johnson played that model,…
Night and Day
THURSDAY-FRIDAY OCTOBER 29-30 Damned II THE ART OF DEPRAVITY Local and international artists — 140 of them — including Swiss surrealist HR Giger and Marilyn Manson are featured in Damned II: An Exhibition of Enlightened Darkness. More than 200 works explore the depraved and disturbing depths of the human soul, promising to captivate or repulse,…
Land of the lost
Helen Turner has a mean scowl on her face. Always. It’s the look she gives customers at the diner where she works. "I don’t take no shit off of nobody," she spits in an Appalachian accent. She’s behind the counter at White Grove Restaurant, a tiny, genuinely retro diner on Second Avenue near Charlotte, in…
Groovy!
Be advised, things get messy in Evil Dead: The Musical, a wild night of theatrical chills and subversive musical thrills where the laughs are as plentiful as the gore. If the front three rows of patrons decked in plastic ponchos weren’t a strong enough clue, several signs taped up in the Ringwald Theatre’s lobby offer…
In the Midnight Hour
It’s frightening the lengths to which some people will go to realize their dream. Lee Martin, the creator-producer-director-writer-host and namesake of Lee Martin’s Midnight Hour, the made-in-Detroit horror anthology series that celebrates Halloween with a two-hour marathon of episodes from 9 to 11 p.m. Saturday, is keeping his show moving forward with zombie-like relentlessness. It’s…
Screaming bloody mess
It’s time to mutate out of the saccharine sweetness and sentimental nonsense of the mainstream and get all dark. Or, um, something. Or maybe because it’s Halloween it’s time when a goofy B-movie reviewer gets to dress up as legit film critic and use three-syllable words? At any rate, 2009 has seen a bumper crop…
Fall into the season
What do we mean when we say "seasonal dining"? Well, this time of year, it means instead of leaner cuts of meat grilled for an instant, we can dig into heartier, fattier cuts that are cooked long and slow. We trade the lighter breasts of chicken for a crackling cut of duck. And not only…
Port of call
The Parrot Cove Yacht Club has huge servings of solid bar food in its raffish but homey clubhouse. The Cove Platter, at $8.50, is a steal. The substantial sampler overflows with deep-fried chunks of crisp and tender chicken fingers, comparably crisp onion rings, breaded mozzarella sticks and, least crisp of the four, somewhat soggy stuffed…
Boo!
Halloween in Detroit Dance City — quite distinct from "Detroit Rock City," which is another brat entirely — is Swingin’ Time, Shindig, Hullabaloo, Soul Train, Kill the DJ, Optimo, Trash, Club Motherfucker, [Kontrol], Brainfeeder, the Bunker and all those other sick parties from around the world funneled into one frightful night of deranging the senses.…
Astro Boy
A note of caution: Astroboy kills a kid in its first reel. It’s as bloodless a scene as you can get, but the fact remains: A child dies. And that’s about the most original moment in this beautifully animated, moderately entertaining robot adventure. Mixing Eastern and Western animation styles to Tezuka Osamu’s 1950s manga (and…
Food Stuff
Black wines? — The wine aficionados at Ann Arbor’s Vinology had so much interest in their Oct. 27 black wine event they added a second date on Thursday. The theme is, naturally "black," with black glasses, food, clothes and decoration. It happens 7-9:30 p.m. Oct. 29 at 110 S. Main St., Ann Arbor; 734-222-9841; reservations…
Amelia
Amelia is a handsome, dull and utterly banal biography. The shallow, simple-minded script works overtime on its period lingo while skipping such trivialities as character, drama, thematic focus or historic context. Even its Depression-era setting is reduced to a car window shots of artfully composed bread lines while Amelia pines, “Why have I been so…
