Cover Story
Judge Damon Keith Gets Booked
DAMON KEITH WAS in the toilet. Psychologically, emotionally — and literally. This proud young son of Detroit was a standout product of the Detroit Public Schools system at Northwestern High, a letterman in track; graduate of West Virginia State College, the first member of his family to earn a degree; U.S. Army veteran, serving overseas…
30 unreadable metal band names
Dan John Miller of Blanche serves as music composer on the new documentary film, Johnny Cash’s America, which debuts on The Biography Channel tomorrow night, October 23rd, at 9 p.m. The film was screened nationwide in select cities last week and will be released as a CD/DVD next Tuesday October 28th via Sony/Legacy. Miller produced…
City Slang: Blaire Alise & the Bombshells record coming soon
The new single from Blaire Alise & the Bombshells, Run & Hide, will be released Thanksgiving Eve, November 27, at the Cadieux Café. Prior to that, the band plays the New Dodge in Hamtramck with the Split Squad and Amy Gore & Her Valentines on November 23. A show with Gore is appropriate; both ladies…
Lunchtime Links: Shinola’s new partnership, Ausmus is the new Tigers manager, and more
Shinola partners with organic cold-press juicers DROUGHT, a Plymouth, MI-based company founded by five sisters. See photos from the opening of La Feria, a new Tapas restaurant in Midtown. (Eater Detroit) Brad Ausmus is hired as the Detroit Tigers’ new manager. In the spirit of the popular @fakeLeyland joke Twitter, there’s already a @NotAusmus account, which features…
Craft Beer Liberates the Palate at Liberty Street Brewing
This is not your typical bar and it will never be mistaken for a sports bar. The huge vats visible through the front windows tell you that this is a microbrewery. The clean and elegant interior fits well with the location in Plymouth’s historic “old-village” area. The rich natural woods and burnished brass of the…
5 free things to do in Detroit this week
Here’s a roundup of some free or cheap things to do in and around Detroit this week. 1) Author Visit: Sharon Draper Monday, Nov. 4, 6:30 p.m. – 8 p.m. BookBeat Bookstore and Southfield Public Library proudly present New York Times bestselling author and five-time Coretta Scott King Award Winner Sharon Draper to speak and…
Magic
Recently, my young daughter accidentally caught a few minutes of one of those Chucky movies about that homicidal little doll. And she got totally freaked out and wouldn’t go to the bathroom or anywhere else by herself for a day or two. We were laying in my bed reading one night and I asked “what…
Wooden Shjips (11.9 – PJs Lager House)
Back To Land Thrill Jockey Wooden Shjips aptly add an extra shush to their name, with their love of fuzzy tones and hazy effects. The San Fran-based modern psychedelic rock outfit’s tunes are kind of like wind storms, with distorted guitars always churning and the drums relentlessly bursting things forward. The cooler organs provide a…
The Dylanesque Darrin Breil
Darrin Breil may be a new name to some people, but he has been a fixture in the Detroit music scene for years. Darrin is an amazing talent. His guitar playing alone would qualify him to play with most any group. Darrin’s attitude harkens back to the musicians of the 1960’s. He has a genuine…
Kresge Opens 2014 Fellowship Process
Applicants Vie for $25k Award The Kresge Foundation announced on Friday, Nov. 1, its intent to accept applications for 2014 Kresge Artist Fellowships in Dance/Music and Film/Theatre. Each fellowship provides $25,000 to awardees as well as professional practice opportunities by ArtServe Michigan. Since 2009, Kresge Arts in Detroit, which administers the fellowships for its parent…
Film Review: Last Vegas
Last Vegas | D We’ve never before seen Robert De Niro, Morgan Freeman, Michael Douglas and Kevin Kline crammed on a movie poster together, and this would be an impressive spectacle if it were 1992. It’s not. Previously, the salaries of these actors would prohibit their co-billing, but today you can bundle them for early-bird-special…
Film Review: About Time
About Time | B- What ostensibly amounts to a video montage of twinkling night skies, lazy days at the beach, rain-soaked weddings and cute meet-up scenarios set to pop music, About Time is a breezy but undisciplined paean to living in the moment — one that ironically has a hard time maintaining focus. Lanky, ginger-topped Irishman…
Reviewing Kreeps’ Spirit Clinic
So when Production Manager Robert “Nix” Nixon handed me this album by his friend Dom Kreep’s band, Kreeps, it was tough not to cringe. Criticizing a friend’s band is always tough and awkward. Nix insisted that he wasn’t fishing for a review, however. He simply wanted me to hear it. Phew. After hearing it, I…
City Slang: Battlecross to hit the UK
Local metal band Battlecross is preparing to tour Britain and Ireland with Killswitch Engage, Trivium and Miss May I. The tour kicks off in Dublin on January 29 and hits Belfast, Manchester, London, Newcastle, Glasgow and Birmingham, before ending in Southampton on February 7. Battlecross’ Hiran Deraniyagala said, “Battlecross is so stoked to hit the…
Film Review: Ender’s Game
Ender’s Game | B Director Gavin Hood would have done well to note the second word in his film’s title; Ender’s Game, for all its glossy special effects and laudable wartime moral questioning, lacks a fundamental sense of … thrills. Adapted by Hood from Orson Scott Card’s 1986 novel, the first half of the movie is…
10 Michigan haunts
Every month for the last few years, the Mitten Movie Project has taken to the screen, showing some of the best short subject films from around the state and beyond. It happens the first Tuesday night of every month, half-screening, half-party, a way to showcase local talent and bring local movie folk together. If you’re…
Reviewing The Melodic’s Effra Parade
The new album from English afro-folk-pop band the Melodic, available from November 5, is the follow=up to the On My Way EP, but the band’s debut full-length album. Besides the “Last Thing You Said” intro ditty, “On My Way” is actually the opening song on the record, and it’s still gorgeous. This band has the…
A look at the Prolifics
The Prolifics offer a snapshot of what Motown looked like in its heyday. Unlike most bands today, these guys wear matching suits and embrace the tightly choreographed dance moves that were a trademark of such supergroups as the Temptations and the Four Tops. To see them perform is to take a trip down memory lane…
Jessica Hernandez “Demons” free download on Rolling Stone
Just in time for Halloween, Rolling Stone has a free download of Detroit-based Jessica Hernandez & the Deltas’ new song, “Demons”. Get it here.
12th Man Report: The Allen Iverson saga
Yesterday, point guard Allen Iverson officially retired from the NBA. Iverson spent the majority of his career with the 76ers where he played point guard from 1996 up to 2007. But he had a short stint in Detroit — one that the current batch of Pistons are still seeing the affects of. He’d been out…
WDET and the Moth to hit the Fillmore
The Moth Mainstage will be at the Fillmore, in association with WDET, on Tuesday, November 12. The story theme will be “Great Escapes.” According to the press release, “The Moth Mainstage features stories by luminaries in the arts and sciences, newsmakers and news breakers, and everyday heroes (and even a few reformed villains!). The show…
Forced Diet for Michigan’s Neediest Starts Nov. 1
‘Stone Soup’ To Become Staple … Michigan’s Department of Human services announced today that beginning Friday, Nov. 1, nearly 1.8 million state residents who receive government food assistance will have to make due with even less. The reduction in financial assistance, which affects all 50 states, are due to provisions contained in a 2009 federal…
Building Cocktail Culture at Mash in Ann Arbor
Craft cocktails are hot stuff right now. We recently spoke with Julia Barden, bar manager of Ann Arbor’s Mash, about what goes into a superior cocktail bar. Ann Arbor’s Mash has a Prohibition-era feel to it. The setting: Barden says the bar is “low-ceilinged with lots of brickwork, vintage Edison light bulbs, and chalkboard walls…
Detroit’s Devil’s Night
No one knows exactly when the unfortunate Detroit tradition of torching houses on Devil’s Night began, but thankfully after a crackdown during the ’90s, incidents of arson have been lowered to near ordinary levels. Through the city’s encouragement, residents have organized into “Angel’s Night” neighborhood watch patrols; other measures include strictly enforced police curfews for minors,…
City Slang: DSO’s Teddy Abrams selected as Louisville Orchestra music director
The Detroit Symphony Orchestra’s assistant conductor Teddy Abrams as been selected by the Louisville Orchestra to be their new music director. This news comes just a day following Abrams classical subscription debut with the DSO. “My time in Detroit has been a vital part of my development as a conductor. I am very fortunate to…
Polvo – Siberia
Siberia Merge The album cover, a dizzying spirograph, is indicative (and perhaps maybe self-parody) that past write-ups of this noise-rock NC-based quartet repeatedly supply suggestive descriptors like: tangled, knotty, topsy-turvy and bent-up. Their signature sound, the way they snaked their wavy melodies along erratic rhythms was as beautifully bewildering, as perfectly inconceivable as a geometric…
Dragged Into the Digital Age
I got busy on a project around the house a couple of weeks ago and didn’t bother to log on to the Internet for a day-and-a-half. I must admit I felt a little disconnected from the world. Generally I spend an hour or two on the Internet first thing in the morning, surfing news sites…
How Free is Our Information?
Quick — name an important issue that progressives, those who defend civil liberties, and fervent right-wing Tea Party radicals agree on. Not easy, is it? Well, there is something: governments can’t always be trusted, and citizens need a way to check up on them. This has been true of life in America since, oh, about…
LORDE
Almost all the people we know have the single from this 16-year-old New Zealander (aka Ella Yelich-O’Connor) stuck in their heads. Taylor Swift is singing about “feeling 22,” while Lorde sounds miles ahead in terms of worldly wisdom, singing about being raised by the Internet, the dread of getting older, and the languor of the…
Jazz Musician Fights Against Leukemia
Doug Halladay, one of Detroit’s great jazz creatives during the late 1960s and ’70s, was on vacation in Mexico with his wife Sandra in 2009 when he began feeling as if something had sapped the energy from his body. Concerned — having never been seriously ill before — he cut his vacation short and went…
Crooked Little Reasons: Doing it for Themselves
Eric Kelly, frontman for the dusty Southern rock band Crooked Little Reasons, describes his band’s sound by way of rhetorical allegory: “Have you heard the call of a blue jay?” he asks. “They have several calls, and they mock the call of other birds. That’s our band.” Granted, it might sound a little pretentious in…
Public House in Ferndale
Public House 241 W. Nine Mile Rd. Ferndale, MI 48220 248-850-7420 facebook.com/publichouseferndale Handicap accessible Snacks and sandwiches: $1-$4.50 Hours: Daily 11 a.m.-2 a.m. Restaurants like the Imperial in Ferndale and Detroit’s Green Dot have struck upon a formula for success that makes so much sense, you wonder why it hasn’t been more widely…
Wolverines and Spartans Rivalry Re-examined
In honor of the Michigan-Michigan State game this weekend, I’m going to take a look at what the rivalry is, isn’t, and maybe what it should be. Because come Saturday, you’re either a Wolverine or a Spartan. First of all, Michigan State seems to have this deep-seated hatred for Michigan. Why, you might ask? It…
Your Sister’s Keeper
Q: Two years ago, I found a letter in my sister’s car informing her that the blood she gave during a charity blood drive had tested positive for HIV. I didn’t say anything to her at the time, because it was a really bad time, I wasn’t supposed to find out and I didn’t know…
Feedback
Thumping the Thumpers Dear Editor: re: “Beware of the Christian Right’s Revisionist History”; [News, Oct. 23-29, 2013] Good attack on the soft shoe the ultra-Christians perform regarding church-state relations. … Amanda Marcotte’s essay on the deliberate misreading of the intent of the Founding Fathers and Framers is spot-on how church-going, 18th-century gentlemen were allegedly…
Lou Reed Dead at 71
Lou Reed, founding member of the Velvet Underground and the man responsible for such seminal works as Transformer and Berlin, died on Oct. 27. He was 71. No details have been made available, but the singer, songwriter and guitarist underwent a liver transplant in May. With the Velvet Underground, and particularly the debut The Velvet…
Detroit Bankruptcy Was ‘Not Necessary’
The drama surrounding Detroit’s beguiling Chapter 9 bankruptcy trial in federal court was ratcheted up after an admission by the city’s emergency financial manager that a declaration of insolvency was not necessary. In testimony on Oct. 28, Kevyn Orr, who was appointed to the EM post by Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, acknowledged under oath that…
The Artwork of Lori O’Connor
LORI O’CONNOR’S love of photography started when she was young after she was given a miniature spy camera as a gift. Hiding the tiny camera up her sleeve — spy-style — O’Connor documented everything around her, she says, favoring the camera over a journal to record the moments of her life. She has parlayed her…
Women’s Caucus for Art Show At 555 Gallery: “Eye on the D: Seeing Detroit With New Eyes”
K.A. Letts’s drawing incorporates poetry written by a Detroit youth. “I’m a Michigan artist, but I’ve always concentrated my efforts on having my work shown in Chicago,” Ann Arbor-based K.A. Letts says. “It seemed easier to get your work shown, there was more press coverage. But then I looked around and saw all these people doing…
City Slang: Eminem hides out in corn chip bags
Warren-based company Nick’s Chips is running a promotion in association with local rap giant Eminem. 15 copies of The Marshall Mathers LP 2 can be won by finding an Eminem token in a bag of Nick’s hot sauce flavored corn chips. Says Paul Rosenberg of Shady Records, “We are really glad to have the opportunity…
City Slang: Weekly music review roundup
Send CDs, vinyl, cassettes, demos and 8-tracks to Brett Callwood, Metro Times, 1200 Woodward Heights, Ferndale MI 48220. Email MP3s and streaming links to bcallwood@metrotimes.com. The Dave Sharp’s Secret Seven’s Worlds (Vortex Jazz Recordings) sees Detroit musician Sharp assemble a group of some of the region’s best jazz and world music players, and piece together…
12th Man Report: Wide receiver deficit
After last week’s late, come-from-behind victory, the Detroit Lions are riding high. Calvin Johnson is a beast, the offense is clicking (minus the large amount of untimely turnovers) and they’re two games over .500. After last season’s abysmal four-win finish, this year’s team has already surpassed many expectations. However, an already thin receiving corps just…
