Technical troubles
Is Detroit’s Cass Tech High School a “sick building”?…
Urbania
As hypnotic as director John Shear’s feature debut often is, it’s also a jumble that doesn’t quite add up to a satisfying whole. Yet it encapsulates the fear that something wild is lurking just beneath a city’s urbane facade, and that safety is merely a cruel illusion.
Right in the kisser
Love and power deck you with a one-two punch in Girlfight….
Get down with brown
It’s so simple as to be elemental. Preparing brown rice, that is.
Urban Legends: Final Cut
A lobotomized Scream 2 with a twist, Frankensteined together from ripped-off plots, characters and sets. First-time director John Ottman confuses climax with a burst of frenetic action that verges on the comic. He’s no Hitchcock.
Jam-packed party, Jelly rolls
Assorted yummy tidbits from MT’s 20th anniversary party …& Jelly’s Pierced Tattoo gets into a jam.
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Wouldn’t it be fun to be a whistle-blowing, boat-rocking watchdog? Wouldn’t it be cool to be a rabble-rousing, lie-detecting gadfly? Lord knows we need all the dissent we can get these days, especially from a thorough muckraker such as you. Of course you wouldn’t want to jeopardize your cash flow, social…
21st Century boy
Is Radiohead the most important band in the world? The question means more than the answer. The first track on Kid A is titled “Everything in its Right Place.” Nothing could be more accurate. Faced with the limitless possibilities of technology, where every second of a recording can be altered, perfected, tweaked and explored, one…
A lesson in listening
Our man Keith Owens interviews Ernie Isley, one of the baddest R&B/rock guitar players to ever hit the stage.
Home of the whopper
Q: Last year I married my girlfriend of five years. She had a very important rule about finances before we got married: If I was carrying a lot of debt, we would postpone the wedding. I have always been very bad with money and she is a financial wizard, so this is a big sore…
Flower drum songs
As the curtain rises on Björk’s brilliant new release, Selmasongs, it’s blissfully easy to forget this short work is “only a movie sound track.” And that’s why it succeeds. A collection of seven tracks created for director Lars Von Trier’s minimalist film Dancer in the Dark, Björk’s Selmasongs wisely abandons all signs of indie film-school…
I just wanna dance
Promoters sue Highland Park over alleged dance party brutality…
If things get hairy
Q: I swam competitively in high school and college and only dated other swimmers. I had long-term relationships with two that included many intimate moments. Being swimmers, they shaved whatever body hair they had. Whenever we were naked in bed all I felt was soft skin, a sensuous pleasure I enjoyed as much as the…
Dog star
Good looking, sure, but Laika is about as blues as oranges are square. Then again, so are good looks. Thus, in copycat irony, the group named after the first dog in space issues its own “blues” explosion, perhaps in reference to the prominence of straight-faced, dismal vocals unlike previous, more “instrumental” work from the group.…
Tubular talk
WSU to host video art symposium…
Salty bliss
Scrub away your worries with hot beauty products
Takin’ it easy
This album might just as well have been named “Modern Approaches to Old Ideas,” and that’s meant in the best possible way. Ernest Ranglin has been a professional performer for five decades, earning a well-deserved reputation as a strong guitar player who has mastered the ability to execute his ideas. But what makes Ranglin stand…
Two for one
WDET to broadcast Detroit Symphony Orchestra performances…
Scary hairy
Now Fido can trick-or-treat too!…
Mixed media
Smock, a new magazine of art and fashion, is the next logical step in a culture where pop icons and heavily branded kids’ toys are choice items on McDonalds’ menu. But if cross-marketing and corporate synergy have got you on a pessimism trip, this forward-thinking hybrid of the moment works all its creative muscle to…
Control freaking
What’s at stake with Proposal 2.
What’s inside counts
Blood and Gus Gutz is 25 inches of gruesome fun…
Pulling weeds
There’s a moment on Creeper Lagoon’s frustratingly mediocre Watering Ghost Garden when it’s tempting to call the San Francisco foursome a bunch of cop-outs — or, worse yet, liars. Perhaps surprisingly, the offending moment is not in the typically alt-rock rumba numbas that make up the bulk of the Creeps’ latest cookie-cutter EP. Those tracks…
Letters to the Editor
On Ralph’s side Thank you for the article "Nader’s Long March." (MT, Sept. 20-26). I am pleased to see The Metro Times discussing all the political candidates, not just Gore and Bush. And just in case you’re curious, I am voting for Ralph Nader. —Shannon Scofield, Lansing Pay for the past Concerning Keith A.…
I’m your puppet
Boy bands at your fingertips…
Atmospheric poetry
The Minneapolis-born composer Libby Larsen’s output is as varied as it is distinctive. Operas, symphonies, chamber music and songs flow easily from her pen, although her work is far from facile. The strongest piece on this recording, “Songs of Light and Love,” is based on atmospheric poems by May Sarton, which are set to music…
The fairgrounds fiasco
Do you think you can trust anything the Nederlander organization says about its plans to renovate the State Fairgrounds? Hardly, as this whole fiasco has been stamped with backroom dealing, misinformation and arrogance on its part. The first press release on the planned project highlighted the theater and building renovations and claimed the racetrack they…
Future feminists
Pow! Right in the kisser…
Metropolis, Nosferatu & South w/the Alloy Orchestra
Sound makes movie magic, suggesting place, time and mood. This weekend, the three-man Alloy Orchestra makes that magic live, hammering it from found objects and electronics as it accompanies three silent classics: Metropolis, Nosferatu and South — an experience not to be missed.
Hold the handrail
Fun at the Metro Times 20th Anniversary Party … Factory 81 ham it up with some ho’s … Mascott releases a pretty album … & do yourself a favor and go see Grant Lee Phillips.
Conscious party
Mos Def and the Lyricists Lounge tour bring back hip-hop’s righteous meanings.
The Exorcist
They just don’t make ’em like this classic anymore. So what’s new in this year’s model? A digitally remastered soundtrack and 11 minutes of additional footage deliver a mixed bag of blessings and curses. And though it may not have the shock value it had in 1973, the horror remains.
Meeting mess
Detroit Public Schools officials avoid talking about contaminated Beard School site….
Good-bye drunken boat
Local artist/musician Maureen Maki paints and rocks her way through a troubled landscape.
Girlfight
Boxing movies traditionally focus on an underdog getting a shot at something better, and while director Karyn Kusama doesn’t stray far from this conventional story line, her film is radical and not because the pugilist is female. Here’s a sports movie that isn’t about winning.
Hillsdale revisited
New book suggests Lissa Roche suicide raises unanswered questions…
Debatable beta
Mac has the nerve to charge thirty bucks for a beta version of their OS — and the orders start pouring in? WDET gets plugged in, and presidential candidates ignore web requests (surprise, surprise)…
Remember the Titans
Director Boaz Yakin’s earnest, based-on-a true-story portrait of the 1971 high school football season, when a newly integrated team set an example for segregated Alexandria, Va. — with Denzel Washington.
Hamtown hotspot
Coalition hopes to shut down medical waste incinerator…
Toxic warrior
There’s a classic picture hanging on the wall of Dr. Michael Harbut’s clinic in Southfield. Grinning construction workers munch sandwiches and mug for the camera — while sitting on a narrow iron beam hundreds of feet above New York City’s 1932 skyline. It’s a giddy, dangerous-looking shot, but at least those men knew exactly what…
Big kitty cuts
The final show’s over and the guitar’s packed snugly in the back of Maureen Maki’s Toyota Corolla station wagon, but we haven’t heard the end of Paper Tiger. Maureen’s leaving something behind for her friends besides furniture and her fetching art work. Along with bandmate Neil Yee (drums, vocals), she has released Hoopla, Paper Tiger’s…
Silver linings
Liberians granted one-year extension to stay in U.S….
Jazz messenger
Edgefest standout Ken Vandermark brings 5 degrees of avant-jazz inspiration to Ann Arbor.
Danger signals
Symptoms encountered when treating toxicological patients…
Paper Tiger
It makes sense that Paper Tiger is made up of one part visual artist and one part sound engineer. This punk duo knows full well the elements necessary to craft the perfect pop confection. But they shun the rules, just like many of our distortion heavy heroes of recent past. Tearing down song structure till…
