Think musical desegregation and songs filling frigid streets, the cold made warm by music culled from every conceivable (and damnable) corner of the Detroit area. Think puffy livers and snow-haired bartenders manning warm, old-man taverns turned superstar venues. If you’re still a Detroit suburb shut-in harboring misgivings about Blowout 2005 in Hamtramck, well, you should know that the fest is the ultimate in musical juxtaposition: a small immigrant city-in-a-city beset by hundreds of the area’s finest performers (many of whom have international careers) over a long weekend. There’s nothing crazier.
The overriding theme this year is the city’s quickly shifting rock ’n’ roll and hip-hop landscapes — new, young bands and songwriters, emcees and producers are redefining Detroit, from SOL and Tekneek to the Muggs and the Sights. And we could only choose roughly 220 acts out of 400 submissions.
Also, for this year’s event (the eighth) we asked some of the state’s finest poster artists and our design director Sean Bieri to do MT covers, each featuring a band we think you should know about. (From upper left, covers by Michael Segal, Bieri, Tom Deja and Mark Arminski.)
Blowout ’05 kicks off with the Blowout 2004 Movie, a Don Letts-y hoot that traces last year’s event in three-camera, handheld glory. The Room 773-helmed flick doubles as a look at the blue-collar aspects of gritty Motor City music with exclusive live footage of King Gordy, the Fags, Bulldog, Cashada, Man Inc., the Hentchmen, Midwest Product, Big Herk and many others. Screens at 9 p.m., Wednesday, March 2, at the Magic Stick.
Blowout Coverage:
Afro-beat repeat
By Eve Doster
Just you wait
By Johnny Loftus
Old-school, new-school
By Metro Times music staff
P-rock, dog
By Jonathan Cunningham
Trigger happy
By Brian Smith
The Blowout drive-thru
By Metro Times music staff
