Pilgrim’s Progress
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: The Game Ubisoft PS3 (available now), Xbox 360 (available Aug. 27) It’s a safe bet that author Brian Lee O’Malley is into way more video games than you. One quick read of the Scott Pilgrim series, and you’ll find so many video game references, from the overt, to so under-the-radar,…
Night and Day
THURSDAY-FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 2-3 Eminem & Jay-Z IDOLS OF RHYME Local hip-hop hero Eminem and rap’s reigning cross-promotional kingpin Jay-Z team up for a pair of stadium concerts in their respective hometowns. New York gets sloppy seconds with a Sept. 13 concert at Yankee Stadium. The duo’s debut kicks off the extended Labor Day weekend at…
Festing around
DOWNTOWN DETROIT Andiamo Detroit Riverfront 400 Renaissance Center, Detroit; 313-567-6700: The Andiamo empire, now entering its 20th year in the business, has prospered and grown into a constellation of suburban eateries. Making its bid for downtown Detroit’s dining crowd, expect the menu to have the usual tweaks Chef Aldo works into the mini-chain’s individual establishments,…
Remembering Ron Allen
“Ron was one of the heroic figures of the Cass Corridor in the ’70s and ’80s,” wrote one fellow poet, Tyrone Williams, at an online discussion board. “A true Detroit legend, a master and an excellent fellow and stalwart friend,” artist Maurice Greenia Jr. wrote in an e-mail. Those were typical sentiments heard after Ron…
Cocked & loaded
Mayer Hawthorne & the County Members: Mayer Hawthorne (lead singer), Joe Abrams (bass), Topher Mohr (guitar), Quentin Joseph (drums) and Quincy McCrary (keys) Motto: "My intention wasn’t to create a throwback album. I think you can hear just as much J Dilla in my music as you can Smokey Robinson." —Mayer Hawthorne Sound: Ann Arbor native…
Pot shot
Speaking of boggled minds, News Hits dodged a green bullet when no one took us up on our offer to bet an ounce of purple kush that Wayne Circuit Court Judge Michael Sapala would overrule the Detroit Election Commission and order that a marijuana legalization measure be placed on the Detroit ballot for the November…
The Last Poet
Editor’s note: This story originally appeared in Metro Times for June 28, 1995: And how will I live, without money, without love, without fame? —Frank O’Hara "Some of the greatest artists never created anything," says poet Ron Allen, with a taunting grin. Beneath that grin you know he’s dead serious. He has the day off…
Metro Retro
25 years ago in Metro Times: Ron Williams covers Dan Murphy, a longtime Oakland County executive who challenged Wayne County Executive William Lucas for the 1986 Republican gubernatorial nomination. Murphy commented on the state of Detroit: "… I see Detroit coming back. I see things being done in Detroit along the riverfront, housing that’s been…
End of summer festival freak-out
Jazz Fest staying power by Charles L. Latimer How Barry Harris and Roy Haynes found their niches More festive listening by W. Kim Heron With chops, Grammy awards even, if not the biggest names Tributaries by W. Kim Heron Jazz Fest looks back to greats, known and less-so Candlebox vs. Saving Abel by Serene Dominic…
31 Minutes to Takeoff
Mike Posner recorded his first mixtape in his dorm room. His second one included an appearance by electro-hip-hop knuckleheads 3OH!3. That should give you a pretty good idea where this 22-year-old native of Southfield is coming from on his debut — which, by the way, solidifies him as one of the top three biggest things…
Food Stuff
Soup’s on! — If you didn’t think we had enough interesting food-centered events every week, here’s another: Soup for Spaulding. It’s a weekly soupfest at Spaulding Court, a vacant North Corktown apartment building. It was bought this February by the Friends of Spaulding Court, a rehab group led by Corktowner Jon Koller. The soups are…
Teenage Dream
Katy Perry’s life is all cotton-candy kisses, fireworks on the beach, and drunken Friday nights. And throughout her second album, she sings about the fun she’s having living it up with her BFFs. (Market crisis? Oil spills? What war?) Teenage Dream is pure escapism, and the perky Perry sells it hard here. Whether thinking about…
Fear of women
Q: Here’s my problem: I love women. I love the way they look, I love the way they move, I love the way they sound. I like to see them naked. But the idea of actually interacting with women — trying to engage them in intelligent conversation without coming off as absolutely leotarded — absolutely…
More festive listening
The the Detoit Jazz Fest headliners are among some of the biggest names in jazz, blues and R&B, staring off opening night Friday with headliners Take 6 (featuring pianist Mulgrew Miller) and Tower of Power (at the Chase Main Stage, at Cadillac Square, starting at 6). Subsequent days deliver the likes of the Yellowjackets (one…
Candlebox vs. Saving Abel
Seeing Queen maestro Brian May return to infrared astronomy and complete his Ph.D. thesis on interplanetary dust after 35 years of the music business has bolstered me to return to my abandoned heliostatic theories on pop music and its shrinking impact on our solar system. For years, I’ve been loath to share my findings with…
Compare and contrast
When asked to compare his school district with Detroit’s, Baltimore City Public Schools CEO Andrés Alonso lets loose a little laugh and tries to step around the question. "That’s a stigma we’re trying to shake," he says. In some ways, though, the comparison is unavoidable. The two districts are similar in size: Detroit had about…
Let’s make a deal
Imagine your little boy or girl gets interested in the legal system and decides he or she would like to be a judge someday. Wouldn’t that just be a parent’s dream? What, after all, could be a better or more important job than applying the laws and helping people understand them? It’s also ever so…
For whom the Belle tolls
The Wonder Twins recently visited Belle Isle in search of music and find good sounds and an immersive experience. D’Anne: I hadn’t been to Belle Isle since I was a little kid. For some reason I remembered it being really small. Laura: The last time I was there was almost 10 years ago for a…
Letters to the Editor
Get schooled Thanks for your coverage of the University of Michigan’s Semester in Detroit program ("A season in Detroit," Aug. 25). Simone Landon’s smart piece was timely, as we are now recruiting both undergraduate students and Detroit nonprofits for Winter 2011. (See semesterindetroit.com.) My only quibble is that the article inadvertently slights other great U-M…
Strange Weather, Isn’t It?
!!! not only predated electroclash by five years, they’ve survived their brief post-millennial window of popularity without deviating much. Indeed, in "Steady As the Sidewalk Cracks" (from the new Strange Weather, Isn’t It?), frontman Nic Offer sings, "When I was young they called it garbage, now suddenly it’s golden age/The only thing that changed was…
Keep on pushing
Last Saturday, there were three big political rallies related to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Aug. 28, 1963 March on Washington, where he delivered the famous "I Have a Dream" speech at the Lincoln Memorial. Most of the media attention went to the "Restoring Honor" right-wing rave-up led by Glenn Beck and Sarah…
Jazz Fest staying power
Pianist Barry Harris and drummer Roy Haynes have things in common. Both octogenarians, major jazz figures for more than a half-century, are still going strong. Last month, Harris, 80, released Barry Harry Live in Rennes. At 85, Haynes hasn’t released a disc in three years, but the last one was a doozy, a 3-CD 1949-2006…
Tributaries
Pianist Horace Silver hasn’t performed in public for years. Betty Carter, Pepper Adams, Clifford Brown, Ray Brown and Donny Hathaway have been dead as long as a half-century. But their music — and thoughts on their music — will be at center stage over the weekend of the Detroit International Jazz Festival. Some events revisit…
Twice burned
Last week proved to be a bad one along two fronts in the ongoing battle against the police state. At about the same time a Wayne County Circuit Court judge was upholding a Detroit Election Commission action to keep a pro-marijuana measure off the November ballot, Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard and Prosecutor Jessica Cooper…
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is one of the most exciting, next-level movies of the year. So why are the soundtrack’s best songs the old ones? Beachwood Sparks’ "By Your Side," T-Rex’s "Teenage Dream," and the Rolling Stones’ "Under My Thumb" stand out among Beck’s tossed-off new compositions (he performs the music, the film’s stars…
Aged to perfection
For more than 40 years, the Vivio family has been pouring suds and dishing out thick burgers to an unusually wide variety of neighborhood characters, tailgaters (shuttles provided) and produce shoppers from their venerable building in the heart of Eastern Market. Erected in 1892 to serve as a German community center, it soon became a…
The Last Exorcism
The Last Exorcism — which is only produced by Roth, but that’s enough — rides TV’s wave of mock-doc reality shows that “debunk” paranormal activity, sorta like Ghost Hunters meets Fact or Faked: Paranormal Files. Cotton Marcus (who is actually played with panache by Patrick Fabian) is a Baton Rouge minister and one-time child evangelist.…
Takers
The Takers are a group of criminals who drive Porsches and live in high-rise condos. They pick and choose heists with discretion. So when old pal Ghost (played by ex-con rapper T.I.) returns from prison with a plan to hijack an armored truck, they’re a bit suspicious. But because Ghost used to be part of…
Wild kingdom
This menacing Aussie family crime drama makes clear that bad guys, no matter how bold, operate in a world of suffocating desperation. Like animals backed into a corner, they’ll react with brutal self-serving savagery, but the fear is ever-present. This is the toxic food chain into which 17-year-old Josh (dull-eyed James Frechette) is dropped. After…
