Sonically Speaking
MC5: Sonically Speaking author Brett Callwood is a frequent contributor to Metro Times. He’s a soft, gentle and pierced gent who looks like anyone you’d likely find in the pages of Kerrang!, and might well be the sweetest guy you’d ever meet. Here’s a drive-by history on Callwood: Born in Manchester, England, he has been…
Tying it all together
The first phase of Mayor Dave Bing’s planning process for reinventing Detroit is done. The five forums for citizens to voice concerns, issues, gripes and goals were attended by some 4,000 people — more than the city initially anticipated. That was a great show of civic involvement by Detroiters who don’t have much history of…
Making real change
Here’s what puzzles me most about the Tea Party movement, as well as everyone else who says they want serious change in this state. This fall, they’ve got a tremendous opportunity to do so — right there for the taking. And yet, they show no interest. Maybe that’s because they — and maybe most of…
Detroit West
Someone said that if you can make it in Detroit, you can make it anywhere. But they didn’t know Detroit music, because the local artists often make it anywhere else but here. The once slightly popular but always respected Detroit hip-hop group Frank N Dank had a strong affiliation with longtime friend and collaborator J…
Fall Fashion
The fall fashion forecast sees jeans as tight as ever, but heels are taller, necklines higher, and hairstyles continue to get cut with especially more interesting angles that actually work. Thanks, Europe. Patterns are more prevalent, color schemes more subdued, and accessorizing successfully these days requires a sense of ageless restraint. Styled by the daring Detroit…
Night and Day
WEDNESDAY-SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 29 – OCTOBER 2 Edge Fest: Edged in Brass FOUR DAYS OF WAY-OUT It isn’t that you can’t hear cutting-edge jazz (and beyond-the-edge stuff that may or may not be jazz) a night here and night there in our neck of the woods, but four intense days and nights of Edgefest (now in…
Letters to the Editor
Elder’s wisdom Loved Jack’s article about "greasy Mike" Bishop ("Bought and paid for," Sept. 22). I went to the mat with Mike Bishop for a couple of years, trying to finally get Michigan free of smoke in restaurants. At one point he advised me to go a website that listed more than 300 smoke-free restaurants…
How’s them apples?
Almar Orchards 1431 Duffield Rd., Flushing; 810-659-6568; almarorchards.com: This orchard, located just outside of Flint, offers a year-round petting zoo with a herd of reindeer, hayrides in season, and all-organic selections of donuts, honey, bread, fudge and caramel corn, both from the orchard and local businesses. Almar’s has also begun raising an old-heritage breed of…
Motor City Cribs
On the stage, Charlie Slick is a full-on party-sensory assault, his electro-dance jams usually presented amid a light-show-soaked flurry of bubbles and glitter with audience participation. For one who invites so much chaos into his live shows you might be surprised to find his home is downright sedate (yet sweet) by comparison. Charlie Slick’s west…
Fall into the season
What do we mean when we say "seasonal dining"? Well, this time of year, it means instead of leaner cuts of meat grilled for an instant, we can dig into heartier, fattier cuts that are cooked long and slow. We trade the lighter breasts of chicken for a crackling cut of duck. And not only…
News Hits gets punked
"You were had," Maj. Robert Smith of the Oakland County Sheriff’s Department told News Hits when we gave him a call after hearing from a well-informed source that a photo we’d run in this column wasn’t the real deal. The picture, part of a digital press kit handed out by Rick Thompson of Michigan Medical…
Spun
No Age Everything in Between Sub Pop On their second album, the two guys that make up Los Angeles’ No Age sound less like a My Bloody Valentine tribute band and more like the skate-punk malcontents they really are. Guitarist Randy Randall and drummer Dean Allen Spunt still allow for plenty of kaleidoscopic detours like…
Two-wheel revolutions
The perfect storm — and we mean it in a good way — of Mayor Dave Bing’s renewed emphasis on redesigning Detroit, the state’s new Complete Streets legislation, and a grassroots movement toward increasing the safety of and opportunities for nonmotorized transportation has Miguel Pope cautiously excited. Pope, who lives near Belle Isle and is…
War (on drugs) is over
Highest greetings from Amsterdam. My name is John Sinclair and I’ve been a marijuana legalization activist ever since I founded Detroit LEMAR (LEgalize MARijuana) in January 1965, following the receipt of a LEMAR flyer sent from New York City by poets Allen Ginsberg and Edward Sanders, the progenitors of this movement. Between 1964 and 1968,…
Cheat Code
Lara Croft & the Guardian of Light Square Enix Xbox 360 (available now) PS3 & PC (available Sept. 28) Man, Lara Croft has faced some peaks and valleys. There was once a time when our favorite tomb raider enjoyed a level of fame and stardom reserved only for Mario and Sonic the Hedgehog … until…
Motor City Five
ADULT. Husband-wife Detroiters Nicola Kuperus and Adam Lee Miller exploit a darkish mix of circuit-bending synths, beats, bass and berating vocals. In ’08, ADULT. produced and performed the Decampment, a film and live soundtrack. In Toronto this year, they presented that alongside a version of its sequel, Traditions. —Travis Wright 1. Metro Times: Why the…
The return of Gordon Gecko
Money Never Sleeps opens with Gordon Gecko released from jail and no one to pick him up. Flash forward seven years (yeah, it’s that kind of movie) and we meet Jake (Shia LaBeouf ), a young hotshot trader with dreams of fully funding a green fusion-energy company. The only problem is that his firm is…
Food Stuff
Slice of life — The Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit has come up with a delicious idea for a benefit. It’s called Home Slice, and it’s a strolling supper featuring local restaurants, noteworthy cocktails and locally produced beer and wine, tunes from DJ Brian Gillespie, as well as a marketplace of urban farm produce and…
Legends of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole
The fable follows fledgling barn owl Soren (voiced by Jim Sturgess) as he and his brother Klud (Ryan Kwanten) are kidnapped by evil owls called the Pure Ones. Held prisoner, they meet Metal Beak (Joel Edgerton) and his wicked queen Nyla (Helen Mirren), who are turning young owlettes into laboring zombies, building a fearless owl…
Hippie chic
It wouldn’t be inaccurate, nor unkind, to call Mayaeni (pronounced mah-YAY-knee) a journeywoman. The 24-year-old singer-songwriter, born and raised in Detroit to a West African mother and a Jewish father (the latter formerly a guitar player with Jimmy Ruffin and others), found herself dancing to hip hop in London in her teens, then moving to…
Catfish
Early twentysomething photographer Yaniv “Nev” Schulman, his brother Ariel and filmmaker Henry Joost share a Manhattan production office working on docs about ballet and modern dance. Nev begins corresponding with an 8-year-old named Abby from the U.P.’s Ishpeming; she’s a little girl who paints impressive-for-her-age watercolors based on his published photos. Over months Nev also…
Metro Retro
26 years ago in Metro Times: Bob Gordon covers the unveiling of the 1986 Cadillac models at the Center for Creative Studies. The event marks Cadillac’s bid for a younger crowd, with spokesman John Selaski saying such vehicles as the El Dorado and the Seville will soon be popular among younger people. As far as…
Protein power
Lockhart’s, named after a town reputed to be the barbecue capital of Texas, is in Royal Oak opposite City Hall. Handsomely retrofitted on the high-ceilinged first floor of an old bank building, with distressed brick framing huge picture windows that look out at the street traffic at the corner of Third and Williams, it can…
Awkward threesomes
Q: I’m a straight college guy, age 21, and I share a house with some buddies and a couple. Anyhow, the interesting stuff: This couple has been together for four years. They’re both quite sexual, but she’s got more libido than he does. I’ve got a big sex drive too. Both of them have stated…
Lebanon
Set on the first day of the war in Lebanon, we’re crammed inside a rattling tank with four inexperienced Israeli soldiers who’ve been sent on a dangerous mission they don’t understand. Their only connection to the outside world is what’s on they hear on the unit radio, see through their gun sights, or learn from…
Bigger than the Silverdome
Back in June, the Wonder Twins set off on a journey to the Pontiac Silverdome to see Indian composer and musician A.R. Rahman’s Journey Home World Tour. As they drove up that fateful day, police turned them and countless others away. Apparently a massive stage collapse had forced the cancellation of the show, and the…
