Cary Loren changed my definition of a Tuesday night when he and the other Monster Island denizens usurped my usual plans of salsa and blue corn chips and “Seven Days” or some other crappy U(!)P(!)N(!) or WB show. Instead, I headed over to detroit contemporary (cleverly referred to as “the contempo” by Loren) for some hisses, whines, screeches, swirls and the articulate-albeit-warped words of the ever-enigmatic John Sinclair. Visual stimulation — Jeremy Kallio’s liquefied limping dance, and swirling oil via overhead projector and a white sheet backdrop — heightened the peyote mind-trips escaping the mouth of Sinclair and the fingertips of the Monster Island collective. Slumber Party set the mood to mellow with a few songs off its new album, Psychedelicate, to be released at the end of August on Kill Rock Stars in the United States and on Poptones in Europe. Monster Island provided the chewy nougat center. And the Alphabet, Slumber Party’s Poptones labelmates, closed out the night and snapped the slightly slumping (not in a bad way) audience back to reality with its upbeat pop stylings.
The weekend, of course, was all about the White Stripes, who packed ’em in three nights in a row at three different venues. Opening Friday night with a video projection of a Kalamazoo class of first- and second-graders singing “Apple Blossom” was one highlight. Witnessing the audience’s overwhelming reaction to the band’s new material and Jack and Meg’s almost stunned appreciation of the rapt attention the audience was feeding them were others. The duo heads back out on tour this weekend for the rest of the summer with fellow road warriors, the Von Bondies and Waxwings.
No break in sight
Forgive me if this installment of In One Ear is a bit on the rambling side. It’s just I haven’t … gotten … sleep … much … recently … sleep … much. Ugh. And it doesn’t look like things are going to change anytime soon. This Friday is sweatysuedelips’ CD release party at Magic Bag (22920 Woodward in Ferndale, 248-544-3030) with deathgirl.com and Blush. I can see it now. My head’ll still be swirling from the industrial electro-pop goodness when it’s time the next night to head over to the Northland Roller Rink, 22311 W. 8 Mile in Detroit (313-535-1443) for Blush’s CD release. Yes! It’s at a roller rink! I always wondered why more bands didn’t do this. I also often wonder why more bands don’t include whistling solos in their songs, so yeah … need sleep. But wait, the next day is Father’s Day, which means it’s also Nate Cavalieri’s birthday and the EP release party date for Judah Johnson (the band Nate plays keyboards in). The CD is being put out on Flameshovel Records and is of course tragic and beautiful and devastatingly soulful and all the other great things we know and love about JJ. The band shares the Magic Stick (4140 Woodward in Detroit, 313-833-9700) stage with the Climax Divine, The Scavenger Quartet and Document.
Liz on the small screen
Did everyone see Liz Copeland on MTV2 last weekend? She interviewed some Detroit Electronic Music Festival participants — Carl Craig, Terrence Parker, Kevin Saunderson, DJxDJ, Mixmaster Mike, Kid Koala, Derrick May, DJ Genesis and Doug McCombs (Tortoise) — for the station’s DEMF AMP Special, which aired Friday, June 8 at 10 p.m. Some videos shown during the special included Autechre, Kid Koala, Mixmaster Mike, Cristian Vogel and Tortoise. If you missed it, don’t worry. Find a friend with cable and tune in Saturday night (technically Sunday morning) midnight-2 a.m., Sunday night from 11 p.m.-1 a.m., Monday from noon-2 p.m. or Thursday night (technically Friday morning) from midnight-2 a.m.
Then if that’s not enough, get more Liz when she hits the airwaves, Sunday through Thursday nights (or Monday through Friday mornings) midnight-5 a.m. on WDET-FM 101.9. Wednesday night/Thursday morning, she interviews Adult. about the duo’s excellent new full-length release, Resuscitation. And July 4 (Tuesday night/Wednesday morning), she celebrates six years on the air with WDET. Technically speaking, there’s gotta be a better way to differentiate that whole midnight/morning dilemma. Let’s work on that.
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