Swing, Swang, Swung
For the music lover, the annual outpouring of music from the Ford Montreux Detroit Jazz Festival and the Ann Arbor Blues and Jazz Festival can’t help but to uncork the wine of music remembered. Four Metro Times jazz heads — with over 100 years of jazz testifying among them — pour some of theirs. To hang…
High-maintenance men
Some of us are born beautiful, but most of us should just take RuPaul’s advice: "You better work!" When you see Semaj, a Detroit beautician who goes by his first name only, you know right away that he is definitely "working it." He starts off with an egg every morning, but not for breakfast. He…
Radical history meets Hollywood
In the film Good Will Hunting, Matt Damon and Robin Williams try to one-up each other by naming radical writers they have read: Damon trumps Williams’ Noam Chomsky with Howard Zinn, author of A People’s History of the United States, 1492-Present. That mention translated into additional sales of 100,000 copies for Zinn’s already popular radical…
Targeting Spence
Forget that the election is still 14 months away; forget that there’s yet been no primary. Forget that yawn at the back of your throat. Michigan’s year 2000 Senate contest is already gaining attention from pundits, contributors, special interests and political parties. The Washington Post and National Public Radio each declared last week the showdown…
Montreux medley
Twenty years is a long time for a jazz festival. It’s actually a long time for jazz – the music itself is barely a hundred years old. Presented here are a few special features to enhance your enjoyment of the 1999 Montreux Detroit Jazz Festival…a profile of former Detroit scenester Yusef Lateef; a trip down…
In one ear
A ROLLING STONE Detroit label Small Stone head, Scott Hamilton, has kept the docket full to bursting the past couple weeks and shows no sign of slowing as he and the label’s bands rumble into fall. Last weekend, Small Stone recording artists (and Toledo natives) Five Horse Johnson "tore the roof off" New York City…
Eating excellent eel
There is a spare simplicity to Japanese food that makes it possible to savor each component of a dish. But if the thought of raw fish strikes fear in your heart, order tempura or teriyaki. Or go for the big bowls of udon and soba noodle soups. Chef Sayanthone offers free sushi classes on Saturdays,…
I do know Jack
The most surprising thing about the imprisonment of Jack Kevorkian is how quickly he’s been almost forgotten. Two weeks ago, a dear friend, one of his last die-hard supporters, called me with a voice filled with urgency and excitement. What, she wanted to know, did I think of her scheme to get him sprung? Her…
Rock and remorse
This new record is named after a rough urban thoroughfare in New York, which, figuratively speaking, could have run parallel with the wild life of the now middle-aged icon, Iggy Pop. At 50, he explores the quiet self-confrontation of spoken word, confessing to strange bookish tendencies and to contemplating his own death (on the opening…
Capital gains
The post-vacation stack of mail consists mainly of bills, which means that it’s time for me and the Lizard of Fun to get down to the business of either cutting our expenses or making more money. "Decisions, decisions," says the Lizard. "What kind of second job are you gonna look for? I hear they’re still…
A Chinese Ghost Story: The Animation
A love-struck teen, Ning, takes his relationship anxiety to the underworld in Tsui Hark’s A Chinese Ghost Story: The Animation with all the profound intensity of legend and an equal measure of Nintendo Game Boy sensibility. Ning and his dog, Solid Gold, are on a quest to find an ex-girlfriend, Lan. From the beginning, the…
Givers, rivers and paczki
HIP HOT NIGHT Perhaps the hippest-looking person at the Fanclub Foundation for the Arts’ Friday night wingding was Natalie Stavale, the Fanclub’s own PR gal. Her short, black hair and black glasses gave her a fab look. Second hippest could be John Bloom, the foundation’s executive director, who looked dapper in his bow tie as…
Festival of Animation (1999)
Along with the fairly well-known 1998 Academy Award winner Bunny, this year’s Spike and Mike’s Classic Festival of Animation features some low-profile yet stunning short animation films. As a body of work by a variety of artists, the only common thread is a penetrating cynicism about the world and a tireless effort to uncover something…
Fucking victory!
Macomb Community College professor John Bonnell, suspended for the past seven months, returned to the classroom Monday after a U.S. District Court judge ordered his reinstatement last week. Bonnell, who initially drew fire from the college for using profanity in his lectures, showed no sign of reversing course during an English composition class on his…
The Muse
Calliope inspired epic poetry; Thalia covered comedy and Euterpe fired up musicians, but according to writer-director Albert Brooks, Hollywood power players have their very own muse: the flighty, demanding Sarah (Sharon Stone). Brooks has tapped into an inspired story line with The Muse, and effectively captures the capricious nature of an industry which demands constant…
WSU grad employees win
Graduate employees at Wayne State University won a major victory last week: a tentative contract agreement. Reached after 10 months of negotiations between the Graduate Employees Organizing Committee (GEOC) and Wayne State officials, the agreement raises pay and grants benefits to teaching and research assistants. The proposed agreement is the first of its kind at…
Outside Providence
Outside Providence opens with home movies of cherubic young boys in happy circumstances, the kind of hope-filled imagery that’s shattered when director Michael Corrente cuts to a decade later and the brothers are on their paper route. Timothy Dunphy (Shawn Hatosy) rides his bike through the early morning streets. Attached by rope is his wheelchair-using…
For rich or richer
The old saw about the rich getting richer appears to be truer than ever. Total compensation for corporate chief executive officers has skyrocketed a wallet-popping 481 percent during the 1990s, says a new study by the nonprofit groups Institute for Policy Studies and United for a Fair Economy. Worker pay, in contrast, has risen only…
The 13th Warrior
The 13th Warrior confirms that his role in The Mask of Zorro was no fluke: Antonio Banderas is the thinking person’s action star. Although the Spanish actor has appeared in contemporary American action films such as Desperado and Assassins, it’s the period films – and the transformation his character goes through within them – that…
Food stuff
ASIAN INGREDIENTS Chinese restaurants are popular around the United States, but few of us cook Chinese dishes at home. Perhaps this is because there are many special ingredients needed, and they’re sometimes hard to find. But if you look in Chinese grocery stores, you can find fresh vegetables such as bamboo shoots, white radish, lotus…
Soul survivors
For almost ten years Superchunk (Jon Wurster, drums; Mac McCaughan, guitar, vocals; Jim Wilbur, guitar; Laura Balance, bass) have written, recorded, toured and distributed their own records—a trillion of them plus singles and EPs—while also signing bands, selling T-shirts, doing press, and answering Merge’s telephone. In an ironic twist, Superchunk has become what people in…
Been and done
Looking like something between a postapocalyptic episode of "Scooby-Doo" and a multiethnic teen version of the party mural from "Good Times," MTV’s "Downtown" has a distinct visual quality that captures the essence of its urban labyrinth of themes. Its clean lines are filled in with flat colors reminiscent of things one might find inside a…
The Undiscovered Few
For 60 years, Blue Note has given its artists the freedom to build their own destiny. Innovators such as Sidney Bechet, Dexter Gordon and Ornette Coleman created a new jazz vernacular and psychology. Through reconstructing harmonies and rhythmic patterns they discovered a new way of speaking on their instruments, which is still being studied and…
Hear how he grows
Over the years, my experience with the various musics of Yusef Lateef has been like an association with an old friend who has moved away. Lost contacts, for long or short periods, only increase the joy of reunions. There’s the welcome catching up, the excitement of new or renewed interests, new stories and new ways…
Sounds of dream life
Debussy understood that a work of art, or an effort to create beauty, was always regarded by some as a personal attack. Sometimes, music speaks for itself. Claude Debussy, the composer whose music was the articulation of things ethereal, has never really been explained musically. And where, on The Seduction of Claude Debussy, John Hurt’s…
Stepping Outside
When Peter Farrelly’s Outside Providence was published in 1988, reviewers and trend-spotters dismissed him as just another literary brat packer with a semi-autobiographical debut novel. They were seriously underestimating him. Along with brother Bobby, Peter Farrelly would eventually find enormous success in Hollywood, writing and directing Dumb and Dumber (1994), Kingpin (1996), There’s Something About…
