Cover Story
From Motown to Coketown?
McKenzie Duke is trying to recall exactly when she first began to notice the black dust. She’d made the move from Midtown to southwest Detroit last August, renting a spacious loft apartment in what used to be a Hudson’s Department Store warehouse at the corner of Rosa Parks Boulevard and West Fort Street. Everything was…
City Slang: Weekly music review roundup
Send CDs, vinyl, cassettes, demos and 8-tracks to Brett Callwood, Metro Times, 733 St. Antoine, Detroit, MI 46226. Email MP3s and streaming links to [email protected]. We had previously received a sampler CD from Funky D Records signees The Royal Blackbirds, and the full album Shot Down landed on our laps this week. Thanks to the…
City Slang: Betty Cooper says goodbye to singer
All girl rockers Betty Cooper play Smalls on June 28, and the show will be a farewell gig for front woman and song writer Annette Barbara. Barbara is leaving Detroit for San Diego after falling in love and, while the band isn’t necessarily splitting up, they will be on hiatus for a while. Betty Cooper…
Address Absurdity: Rotland Press – ‘Black Eye 2’ (…an interview: Part 2)
Illustration by Sarah Randles Learn to love the bomb. Strange-love An interview with Ryan Standfest “Dr. Strangelove” (1964, dir. Stanley Kubrick)- was co written by Terry Southern, another key influence upon the multifaceted Ryan Standfest, local publisher / artist / writer / performance artist and that startlingly satirical, horrifyingly hilarious film’s subtitle is…
What Were You Expecting…
I was initially going to write an addendum to a previous blog-post in which I tip-toed, with an apprehensive heavy heart, around an adhoc eulogy for my once-perceived undying love for Arrested Development, in the “wake” of its underwhelming return, with new episodes (Season 4) streaming on Netflix last May. I was going to appeal…
Film Review: Man of Steel
Man of Steel | B Spectacular but empty. As a director of hyperbolic havoc, Zach Snyder (300, Watchmen, SuckerPunch) has thankfully put aside his slow-then-fast effects and replaced them with the pixelated bombast of Michael Bay — albeit with more craft and focus. It’s hard to say whether cinematographer Amir Mokri’s (Transformers: Dark Of The…
Black Eye 2 – Rotland Press (Part 1)
Part 1 of 3 (…or at least, “…of 2”) Ryan Standfest is no comedian. Well, technically not. If his art is humorous at all, it’s by no means escapist or some hackneyed stand-up styled ‘Hey–what’s-the-deal-is with airline food’ riffing. No comedian, “by any stretch of the imagination,” says the local illustrator/writer/publisher (operator of Rotland…
City Slang: Dale Earnhardt Jr Jr on Conan
Local boys Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. appeared on the Conan O’Brien Show this week and performed the single “If You Didn’t See Me (Then You Weren’t On the Dancefloor)”. The clip can be seen here. They also played the unreleased song “War Zone”. That clip can be seen here. Click here to join the City…
City Slang: Big Hoodoo video
Psychopathic Records send over a new video from Big Hoodoo. They say, “Direct off the streets of Detroit murderous comes Big Hoodoo, one the most terrifying horrorcore rap artists to ever emerge from the Motor City. Psychopathic Records is proud to present the first music video (“Hexed”) from Big Hoodoo’s forthcoming debut album Crystal Skull.…
City Slang: The Little Steven Amy Gore mystery
We received a very mysterious message from Amy Gore this week about a show she’s playing on Saturday. According to the message, Gore and her Valentines will be playing Saturday, June 15 at the Giving Songs Benefit at the Park Bar, Detroit, and a special guest will be joining on steel guitar. She says, “Giving…
Film Review: Before Midnight
Alongside “biopsy,” “trilogy” might be my least favorite word. Don’t get me wrong, the three Lord Of The Rings movies were an impressive cinematic achievement, the Bourne triptych was consistently topnotch and Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Three Colours is near perfect in execution. But, as a silver screen conceit, most trilogies test my patience and inevitably disappoint…
Belle Ghoul’s ‘Saturday Knife Fight’ EP
Belle Ghoul – Saturday Knife Fight EP Elephant Records Info Our singer slides in with a too-cool croon as mellifluous as some late-night DJ on buzzy AM radio. There’s this hand-clappable beat coaxing you to shake and twist your way out of the diner and slide down the banister to that wavy bass groove as rich in…
Giving Songs a Hand -Benefit Concert- Saturday @ Park Bar
The weekend’s on it’s way and we’ve got something much nobler to contribute your funds to (besides the rest of your fuming gas tank or just another bar’s regular ol’ band batch) – A celebration of art and music to benefit Giving Songs. Giving Songs a Hand is a fundraiser for a Michigan-based non-profit run entirely…
Love gets better with age, but cliches don’t.
Love is All You Need Starring: Pierce Brosnan, Trine Dryholm Director: Susanne Bier Rated: R Run Time: 118 m Grade C+ In the ever weirder cycle of globalization, America increasingly relies on overseas markets to supplement the bottom lines of its endless glut of tired sequels and mega budget special effects action flicks, and in…
Quercus
Quercus, which is the Latin word for oak, is also the name of a trio consisting of English folksinger June Tabor, Welsh jazz pianist Huw Warren, and English jazz saxophonist Iain Bellamy. Although they’ve been playing together for seven years, they are just now putting out their first album, a self-titled release on ECM. Their…
City Slang: Motor City Shakedown in Corktown
Three Detroit rock n roll bands will be joined by the Living Deads from Denveras on Saturday, June 29 at the Corktown Tavern for the Motor City Shakedown. Local bands on the bill are: WHITE SHAG – “This powerhouse rock trio won the award for “Outstanding Hard Rock/Metal Group” at the Detroit Music Awards this…
Silent Lions’ fuzzy Friday
Silent Lions… Garage rock gutted funk from the basement of Alpha Centauri – a primal, grimacing, riffy beast of a bass line storming the groove gates with its rhythmic compatriot – the drums – like a flame-wreathed armored-truck sides-slapdash-painted with demolition derby numbers, colliding and cavorting and cutting up a new, fresh take on… what…
Deemable Tech: It’s Electric!
Q: Does it matter which order I unplug my computer? For instance, if I want to move my laptop from the living room to my bedroom, but I want to keep playing Minecraft, should I unplug it from the wall first, or should I unplug the cord from the laptop first? I think I saw a…
Film Review: The Purge
The Purge | D- Ethan Hawke, an erratically talented actor, seems to have entered a regrettable phase of his career where he plays characters that spend most of their screen time stumbling around darkened hallways with flashlights. Everybody’s got bills to pay, but it’s a bit disconcerting to see an actor simultaneously headlining both…
Film Review: Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer
Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer | A- The Sex Pistols have nothing on Pussy Riot. While Johnny Rotten and co. changed the course of music with only one album and two years of live performances, all the Russian feminist art collective/punk band needed to make an impact was 40 seconds (and no album). Unless you’ve…
Bend Me, Shape Me
Dear Editor: In “Bending the Rules Has Failed Us” (June 5), Larry Gabriel was spot-on with his assessment of the mayoral election: Tom Barrow’s calling out Duggan in his failure to meet the Detroit residence rules calls attention to a rather sleazy, last-minute move to the city in order to run for mayor. Excuse…
Called for Traveling
The Detroit Repertory Theatre, tucked away on a depopulated stretch of Woodrow Wilson Street on the city’s west side, is one of those hidden gems more people should know about. For more than a half-century, “the Rep” has staged several plays a year, including at least one dramatically powerful play about an important issue each…
Barry and the Wacky Weedus
When Barak Obama became president in 2008, there was hope among marijuana activists that federal authorities would not concern themselves with medical marijuana facilities and individuals in states that legalized the plant for medical use. After all, this was a president who had admitted to smoking pot and inhaling (the last three presidents have smoked…
Food Stuff
SIDE DISH Court of Appeal — The Detroit Institute of Arts is more than a treasure trove of art, it’s also a place to socialize. And the museum is adding to its culinary offerings a bit as part of an effort to revitalize Kresge Court into a meeting place for midtowners. The “more sociable” Kresge…
Take me to the Revoir
Jason Revoir is not the kind of man who takes genre definitions seriously. This bloke has crossed more boundaries than a hand-wandering pervert on a crowded bus, simply because he’s not content to sit back and be told what he should sound like. As a result, he creates some of the most fascinating noise in…
Before Burma
Roger Miller is well known as the guitarist and vocalist with Boston post-punks Mission to Burma, but not everyone knows that the Ann Arbor native and brother of Destroy All Monsters’ Larry and Ben Miller was in a psychedelic rock band with those siblings in A2 in the ’60s called Sproton Layer. Even crazier, Sproton…
Walk the Walk
The do-gooders over at the Woodward Avenue Action Association [W3A] have a vision and, unlike most of the crew here at News Hits, those visions aren’t the result of ingesting something plucked off a cactus. Which is a very good thing because those giant buttons could really mess things up when you’re trying to do…
Film Review: This is the End
This is the End | B- As much as Hollywood loves to extol its brand of glitzy, sun-soaked hedonism, there is an equally irresistible urge to burn it all down. The apocalypse has been all the rage lately, with a diverse slate like 2012, Melancholia, Seeking a Friend for the End of the World,…
Distaff Drama
Q: I’m a 27-year-old bisexual chick who just moved in with my girlfriend of 10 months. I love her very much, and this is a great relationship — hot sex, laughs, good conversation. Here’s the thing: I like to smoke pot, and pot makes her very uncomfortable. We’ve talked about it a lot — you…
Moo Cluck Moo
Moo Cluck Moo 8606 N. Telegraph Rd. Dearborn Heights 313-562-9999 moocluckmoo.com Sandwiches $3-$6 Open 11 a.m.-8 p.m. daily. The idea was to keep it simple: just burger, chicken, milkshake — moo, cluck, moo. But hardly had partners Brian Parker and Harry Moorhouse gotten their new “natural” and high-quality fast food joint off the ground…
What’s next for Detroit?
BY THE TIME YOU read this, Detroit Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr was to have appeared at Wayne State University’s law school to hold a public meeting on where things stand. Everybody already knew the big picture: The city is drowning in debt and is running out of cash. There is no reason for any sane…
STUDIO VISIT: Emi Slade
Meet Emi Slade. Her work is an eclectic mix of painting, sculpting, airbrushing and taxidermy. She draws inspiration from classic science fiction novels, vintage psychedelic art, and contemporary pop surrealism. These inspirations show through in a body of work that includes large-eyed tentacled creatures and monocled skunks with top hats. Emi is self-taught in all…
Film Review: The Internship
The Internship | C There is a significant distinction between product placement and product deification, a line effectively smudged by this predictable but effervescent buddy comedy about a pair of 40-something digital economy causalities, who attempt to reinvent themselves as Google interns. Having lost their gigs as watch salesmen because, well, people now just…
For Dinner Tonight: London Broil
Despite its fancy sounding name, this dish is easy to prepare and cooks in less than 30 minutes. The London broil cut is lean, so there is little fat or grizzle to contend with. You gotta like that. Pair with a green salad and some mini roasted potatoes and — voila! — instant dinner. The…
City Slang: Charity Ward at Jazzin on Jefferson
Detroit’s folk/soul/R&B artist Charity Ward will perform at Jazzin’ On Jefferson on the Main Stage, Saturday, June 15 at 2.15 p.m. Other artists scheduled to appear over the weekend include Chris Canas, Stacie Sandoval, Sheila Landis, Thornetta Davis, the 313 Live Experience, Nadir, and many, many more. According to a statement, the event is, “very…
City Slang: Weekly music review roundup
Send CDs, vinyl, cassettes, demos and 8-tracks to Brett Callwood, Metro Times, 733 St. Antoine, Detroit, MI 46226. Email MP3s and streaming links to [email protected]. The B-Sides have Dick Chiclet’s name associated with them (as producer) – the garage/surf rock king of Grand Rapids – so it’s more than likely that this self-titled album (Spinout…
City Slang: SummerFest Songwriter Showcase
Friday, June 21, will see five acoustic singer/songwriters perform at the Corktown Tavern in Detroit. According to a statement, “This is the second edition of Summerfest Songwriter Showcase produced by Static Network to showcase new and old favorites performing an intimate concert on Friday, June 21, 9pm at The Corktown Tavern located at 1716 Michigan…
