June 30 • Celebrity spaghetti wrestling — Don’t forget a bib when you roll into the Lager House (1254 Michigan Ave., Detroit; call 313-961-4668) at the end of June. With this somewhat sick and undoubtedly twisted fantasy of transforming the bar into a pit of spaghetti hurling and bar-star brawling, the people at the Lager will be up to their knees in noodles.
July 2 • Neptune — The Massachusetts quartet Neptune might be taking its love of metal a little too seriously. Neptune’s instruments are carved from jagged scraps of iron (including gas tanks, bicycle parts and manhole covers) and the group will use them to bleed and burn though sets of drop-tuned metal mania at Indigo (3141 Caniff, Hamtramck; call 313-893-8088). But these guys aren’t just a bunch of thick-headed welders with a fetish for Manowar; this outfit has the artsy jargon to back it up. "Neptune not only accesses an audience through its eruptive, visceral sound, but also thrusts views into a netherworld of art and music where lines of questioning are unconsciously unmoored and set adrift." Uh, what?
July 12-13 • Michigan Elvisfest & Elvis Fiesta — Make up some peanut butter-and-banana sandwiches and head to the Michigan Elvisfest, July 12 and 13 at Frog Island Park, near the heart of Depot Town in downtown Ypsilanti. TCB to a "T," this year’s Elvisfest will feature champion impersonators from around the globe, a Graceland wedding and other fab ’50s pretenders, including Roy Orbison, Buddy Holly, Brenda Lee, Jerry Lee Lewis and the Blues Brothers (who have apparently been adopted into the ’50s pretenders category due to similarities in demographic appeal) After the sun goes down, the hot ticket of the weekend will be up the street at the Elbow Room (6 S. Washington, Ypsilanti; call 734-483-6374.) where which will hold its own two-night "Elvis Fiesta." Ypsilanti’s undisputed home of the do-it-yourself rock spirit will host local punk and metal bands (including the metal Elvis tribute outfit, Metelvis) each raging through their own tributes to the king.
