Steel the show
Metalworking has made us who we are today, moving humanity out of the Stone Age, setting Western civilization on a path toward the agricultural and industrial revolutions, and bringing us to where we are now — whether we like it or not. It’s clear that the 16 artists in Detroit Artists Market’s exhibit Metalize respect…
Budget holes
Can Detroit plug its budget gap with the Detroit-Windsor tunnel?
Oliver Twist
Polanski and Pianist writer Ronald Harwood are faithful to Dickens, only they needn’t have been so nice. Polanski is far too proper, giving us an Oliver that’s as good-mannered and kindly as the title character. Only Ben Kingsley enlivens the story with his turn as Fagin, the old salt responsible for the corruption of the…
Media Blackout
Good evening Mr. and Mrs. America and all the ships at sea. This is Jeffrey Morgan reporting. Stand by for the 50th Anniversary Edition of your favorite weekly rock ’n’ roll media column, where every word I write is the unvarnished and unbiased gospel truth! Flash. Let’s go to press! Page 1! • Chris Cornell…
Contemptible
On Detroit City Clerk Jackie Currie’s day in court.
Hippie, not dippy
Ta Det Lugnt (translated means “take it easy”) is a psychedelic album that can be enjoyed, if you can imagine, without the aid of psychotropic drugs. And such feats are easier said than done, as any sobered-up Deadhead can attest. That Lugnt is finally available domestically (expanded with a bonus disc of five previously unreleased…
In The Flesh
Wolf Eyes Local 506, Chapel Hill, N.C. Thursday, Sept. 29 Wolf Eyes is the sound of an approaching onslaught. It rattles like a trailer court buffeted by a category 4 storm. That hiccupping scratch the air conditioner makes when it’s on the blink? Amplify it 50 times and that’s WE’s rhythm track. For musical texture,…
Proactive
Peace on — If you couldn’t make it to D.C. for the massive anti-war rally staged there a few weeks back well … you missed it, and nothing is going to equal that big deal. But there’s still a chance to add your voice to the peace chorus. There’s a protest being staged out at…
The Vice & Virtue Ministry
When is the Pas/Cal-Happy Bullets double bill? Like Detroit’s own nattily attired pop outfit, Dallas-based Happy Bullets write baroque pop songs done up in Kinks and Nilsson finery that nod also to moderns like Belle & Sebastian or the New Pornographers. On Vice & Virtue Ministry, they view suburban life through a looking glass, twisting…
Nyuk it up
The Three Stooges Festival takes over the Redford Theatre.
How Neato!
It’s a quiet Thursday evening at Herman’s Old Town Grille in Plymouth. A handful of middle-aged women sit gabbing and drinking coffee while a few others lob darts. Neato has his eye on an empty pool table. Moments later, the 29-year-old rapper (who once called himself J-Neato) launches into a tirade: “These other white dudes…
Detroit Trauma
Named in part after a vintage, battery-operated children’s toy that came with an illuminated microphone, Ypsi’s Rock ’n’ Roll Monkey and the Robots have a ridiculous moniker. Yet it’s one that manages to sum up the trio’s sound quite nicely. This debut, a collection of four-track recordings done over a seven-year span, is retro, silly…
Discussing a duped dude
SASA wasn’t assaulted or raped. Adults are responsible for the boundaries of their consent and SASA put very few limits upon what he was willing to do. My spidey sense was tingling at the thought of entering, not once, but twice, an unfamiliar, darkened apartment that belonged to persons unknown. (Yikes! Run!) Once inside, SASA…
Letters to the Editor
Vote early … Re: “No count recount” (Metro Times, Sept. 21), you did a great job on this story. I just received an unsolicited ballot in the mail about two or three weeks ago, and a friend of mine received unsolicited ballots for his mother (deceased three years) and his father (deceased three months). What’s…
One Kiss Can Lead to Another: Girl Group Sounds, Lost and Found
First revelation: Neil Young stole the melody for "Pocahontas" from Carole King’s "He’s a Bad Boy." Second: Evie Sands’ "I Can’t Let Go" was featured in a car commercial (the Hollies had the bigger hit). Third: Earl-Jean’s version of Goffin-King’s "I’m Into Somethin’ Good" shreds the Herman’s Hermits hit. Fourth: Barbara Lewis’ "Don’t Forget About…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): I’m afraid I had to name you "Underachiever of the Month" for September, Aries. You didn’t quite succeed at wrestling your frustrations into submission, though you had the power to do so. You also failed to cash in on much of the great potential you had for smashing injustice, exposing fakery…
Domestic atrocities
To paraphrase Lily Tomlin, no matter how loathsome you think today’s Republican Party is, you can’t keep up. Last week I got a memo from them that was so criminally insane it made me spit Starbucks French Roast on my Dockers. The memo, from the National Republican Congressional Committee, accused U.S. Rep. Bart Stupak, a…
Comics
The Boiling Point – by Mikhaela Reid The Perry Bible Fellowship – by Nicholas Gurewitch
Children of Nuggets
This four-CD collage of bands inspired by the psych-garage-punk-pop of Lenny Kaye’s original 1972 compilation of ’60s one-hit garage wonders has keepers among its 100 tracks. There’s primordial angst in the Nomads, Cramps, Chesterfield Kings, Lyres and Green on Red; a psychedelic pop shimmer to the Rain Parade, the Bevis Frond and Chills; and no…
A direction home
I’m going back to the Crescent City Where everything’s still the same This town has said what it has to say Now I’m after that back highway And the longest bridge I’ve ever crossed over Pontchartrain. — “Crescent City,” Lucinda Williams, 1988 Lucinda Williams seems to have spent her entire musical career either running…
Finders, keepers
“Aaron — I really can’t see the humor in explaining to my professor why my homework has pornography taped to it,” begins an anonymous note on a ripped sheet of loose-leaf paper. After elaborating on Aaron’s pranks, the writer concludes, with a half smiley-face, “Please make sure these kind of things stop.” Notes like this…
Comic rejoinder
The most venomous piece of hate mail I’ve seen in more than three decades of reading and collecting the stuff was written in reaction to The Detroit News’ decision, years ago, to cut Conan the Barbarian from its comics pages. It was in typescript, Magic Marker and crayon. The handwritten comments filled the margins of…
The Complete Argo/Mercury Art Farmer/Benny Golson/Jazztet Sessions
The Ornette Coleman Quartet made its New York debut at the Five Spot in November 1959, heralded a new era in jazz and made history. The Jazztet made its debut on the same bill, hit the highest mainstream standards and … well, now there’s this Mosaic box set to help restore their legacy. The group…
Prime-time hick
President Bush, great news! The dumbing down of America apparently has reached full flower — and it smells like stinkweed. The new series My Name is Earl, NBC’s Great White Comedic Hope, exploded on the fall lineup like a cherry bomb up a bunny’s butt. In its tent pole position of 9 p.m. Tuesdays, coupled…
The scrappy warrior
Tyree Guyton began building his junk art environment on Heidelberg Street in 1986, using the refuse of everyday life, transforming vacant houses and lots in his beat-up neighborhood into a candy-colored wonderland that soaked up the sadness and soot. In 1991, Mayor Coleman A. Young brought a posse of cops and bulldozers, giving Guyton 15…
Shape shifters
New DVDs present “films” made with software.
Crazy in the Head
You all know the clichés that go with rockabilly — stand-up bass, chain wallets, silly flame shirts and tats, and a fixation with chicks who fancy themselves peek-a-boo bombshells but really look like drag queens. Los Angeles’ Three Bad Jacks are peripherally no different. Sure, they might adore denim and leather, and they might romanticize…
When you’re hard up for a hard on
Q: I hope this problem isn’t too boring: I adore my smart, affectionate, sexy husband — but he’s impotent. We don’t really need medical advice — we know why. (It started out physiological, side effects from anti-depressants, now it’s psychological.) He’s currently — and willingly — seeing a psychiatrist. I need some advice on how…
Local color
What visually conveys to us the difference between happiness and sadness? Between pain and play? Between struggle and celebration? We might think a lot. But in David Snow’s mixed-media collages, currently on view at Cass Cafe in the artist’s old stomping grounds, the distinction is so subtle it shows how deeply we really do know…
Caterina in the Big City
A small-town teenager, Caterina, transfers to a new school and learns quickly just how different big-city kids are. Plopped down in a class full of the daughters of novelists, politicians and aristocrats, she’s at first ridiculed for her “hillbilly” ways, and then used as a pawn in an upper-class popularity battle. Like a good novel,…
Head cheese
MC Chris is a droll product of ’80s culture, right in there with Weebles and Star Wars. As a Jersey kid, he rapped basement punk shows, and later at CBGB. His nutty, shrill raps got him involved in several Adult Swim shows, including SeaLab 2021 (as Hesh). He was so freaked the day we caught…
Kick out the lambs
Harmonie Park eatery Lola’s blends sass and class.
Tropical Malady
Thai filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s intimate but sprawling Tropical Malady is a strange and beguiling beast of a movie, a romance of sorts that abruptly shifts gears into a surreal fable about a man who turns into a tiger. Put aside any notion of a conventional story; instead, let the film’s hazy imagery, jarring pop songs…
Round & round
Kari Shaver isn’t a stripper — but you’d be hard-pressed to tell. Tall, slender and copper toned, her belly button jewel winks from taut abs, twinkling under the dim lights as Shaver whips around a giant brass pole with agility and grace. And her audience isn’t bleary-eyed men clutching sweaty handfuls of dollar bills. Rather,…
Same game
Hamtramck may be emerging from an extreme municipal makeover, but its politics are as ugly as ever. Maybe not that ugly — but with a hotly contested mayoral race under way and six City Council seats all up for grabs, it’s far from pretty. Five years ago, when Hamtramck faced a $3 million deficit, then-Gov. John…
The Talent Given Us
Director Andrew Wagner’s foray into cinema vérité may seem suspect, but it actually works. Wagner films an impromptu cross-country car trip with a loudmouthed New York family. The gimmick: they are played by his real family — his parents, Judy and Allen, in their 70s, and his two grown sisters, Emily and Maggie. Their minivan…
Metro Retro
23 years ago this week in Metro Times: Helen Zia reports on the murky future of downtown Detroit’s Old County Building, the Roman baroque edifice adorned with John Massey Rhind’s “Victory and Progress,” a 20-foot-tall bronze statuary. Preservationists hope the proud structure can be saved. As of 2005, the building remains, but Rhind’s sculptures sit…
Motown badasses?
The Detroit Cobras are a band with a past, dogged by whispers of debauchery and general unsavory (and unreliable) behavior. But somehow, the group’s couldn’t-give-a-shit strut and volatile combination of obscure R&B, soul and rock ’n’ roll classics has charmed the world. The band’s music evokes festive beerstink nights and stale hungover mornings, heartwarming love…
MirrorMask
Neil Gaiman established himself as one of the premiere comic book writers of the ’90s with his phenomenally popular Sandman series. Unfortunately, a comic book is not a movie. Narrative discipline has never been Gaiman’s strong suit, and his first foray into motion pictures, despite director Dave McKean’s arresting visual sensibilities, lacks drama and immediacy.…
Backslash
PayEnemy — If you’ve ever sold anything online, you’ve probably used PayPal (paypal.com), the Internet’s largest electronic pay site, often used in conjunction with eBay and online stores far and wide. However, the site is far less than a pal to many folks who claim to have been horribly ripped off by the service. Just…
Freak so unique
John Fahey – Yellow Princess (Vanguard, 1969), America (Takoma, 1971): The pioneering progressive folk guitarist has had an unquestioned influence on the contemporary freak folk scene, in particular the exploratory guitar work of Ben Chasny. Vashti Bunyan – Just Another Diamond Day (Dicristina Star, 1970): She was a tree faerie Nico, or maybe the female…
Everything Is Illuminated
As an actor, Liev Shreiber brings thoughtful and expressive intensity to his roles. Rarely the leading man, he tends to upstage big name stars with his smartly nuanced and eccentric performances. So it comes as no surprise that for his directorial debut, he chose to adapt a novel most would consider unfilmable. Understanding that road…
Art Bar
American Life in Poetry In this lovely poem by Angela Shaw, who lives in Pennsylvania, we hear a voice of wise counsel: Let the young go, let them do as they will, and admire their grace and beauty as they pass from us into the future. Children in a Field They don’t wade in so…
What’s the freakin’ deal?
There are all kinds of hyphenates living on the indie fringe. Post-whatever blabber metal, pre-soaked punk fuzz — the names vary. Basically a vaguely fresh sound is concocted in some bedroom or bar, and it’s just unique enough to warrant the message-board thread that argues over what it should be called. “Pizzazz-core is the new…
The Greatest Game Ever Played
Based on the true story of the 1913 U.S. Open, The Greatest Game Ever Played follows the highly publicized transatlantic showdown between British golf legend Harry Vardon (Stephen Dillane) and unknown American caddy, Francis Ouimet (Shia LaBeouf). A classic tale of the seasoned champion versus the humble underdog, it’s a nifty bit of sports history…
Night and Day
Wednesday-Thursday • 5-6 Denise Nicholas LITERATURE Before starring in TV shows Room 222 and In the Heat of the Night — not to mention the blaxploitation classic Blacula — Denise Nicholas was one of the idealistic young Northerners who headed South to work in the civil rights movement. In her first novel, the former Detroiter…
Spice world
For the best flavor, master the art of butchering.
Into the Blue
The sole legitimate reason to see Into the Blue is to see stars Paul Walker (The Fast and the Furious) and Jessica Alba (Honey, Sin City) frolicking in swimwear in a beautiful Caribbean setting. No weak treasure-hunting or drug-running adventure story can tarnish their hard-bodied good looks. Otherwise, Into the Blue is an action movie…
Familiar faces
John Dicker is a sometime critic in Metro Times’ pages, a book reviewer, alt-weekly reporter and the author of this year’s The United States of Wal-Mart (Penguin, $12.95, 256 pp.). As expected, the book is a close look at the controversial company. But rather than some predictable lefty rant against an evil multinational corporation, Dicker…
Fare thee well
Maryann Mahaffey’s long run on City Council to come to a close.
A savory synthesis
At Yossi’s, much of the menu is similar to what you might find in an Arab restaurant – kebabs, hummus, shwarma, tabbouleh, baba ghanoush, fattoush. The differences are both subtle and substantial. Dishes with the same names may be seasoned differently or prepared differently. Israeli cuisine also incorporates influences from Morocco, with its emphasis on…
