Cover Stories
These artists built a psychedelic pyramid installation for Movement
Movement can be downright exhausting. It’s a nonstop three-day rave of carnie food, face paint, furry boots, glow sticks, and some of the best damn electronic music the world has to offer. So what happens when you start feeling that mid-festival fatigue set in? One group of young artists and architects are creating what they…
Asher Perkins
There are a lot of artists performing at the Movement Electronic Music Festival this weekend from all over the world. Many of them will be multi-talented. Maybe a good number of them play an instrument besides their decks and production tools. But there is likely only one man who comes from an Irish folk background,…
Gabi
Gabi, full name Gabriele Schwarz, is performing at Movement for the first time this year, and she has just been picked by Paxahau (the people responsible for the festival) to be a resident DJ throughout the next year. It’s fair to say that she’s riding on the crest of a wave right now, made all…
Justin Martin
In the world of electronic music, the word “nice” can be a pejorative. But it hasn’t done any damage to the reputation of Dirtybird label’s Justin Martin. In fact Martin, known for his sexy, bass-heavy, tech-house sets, loves doing what he does so much, he describes himself as a “fan of his fans.” Martin’s catalog…
Pete Tong
Pete Tong is running late. Our interview has been pushed back twice, but we’ll forgive him. Tong is a world-recognized British electronic music artist, starting with his career as a house music and radio DJ, first for Invicta Radio before moving to BBC Radio 1 with his Friday night show, The Big Beat. In 1991,…
Claude VonStroke
Dirtybird ringleader Claude VonStroke is back with a new remix album of his latest release, Urban Animal, which he will be incorporating into his performance at Movement. VonStroke, whose real name is Barclay Crenshaw, promises a surprise set filled with plenty of dance floor sizzlers. Labeling Movement his favorite festival, VonStroke hints at other upcoming…
Eddie “Flashin” Fowlkes
Eddie Fowlkes is in Berlin, having just come off a three-hour Boiler Room DJ session last week. Over Skype, he sounds excited and a little exasperated, with upcoming studio sessions on his mind as well as his return to playing Movement after two years of twisting the piss-stained dance floors of Europe and beyond with…
The Martinez Brothers
Looking back on previous years of Movement, there are sets that stand out, the kind that leave people talking for months. When the Martinez Brothers (real-life brothers Steve and Christian Martinez) spun an evening set at the Beatport Stage back in 2012, the Bronx-raised duo managed to capture a Detroit essence of homebred techno and…
Ghostly International
After 15 years of propelling electronic music culture forward, shaping countless artists’ careers, and being a massive influential force in techno history, landmark label Ghostly International is celebrating continuous success with an official Movement showcase at St. Andrew’s Hall on May 23 that highlights the very best of the syndicate. With performances by Matthew Dear,…
Escort makes Movement debut
Adeline Michèle was barely 18 years old when she moved from Paris to New York, keen to see her already-active music career blossom into something bigger. That might seem like a drasticmove for a teen, but she had already been traveling extensively with a choir since the age of 6, so she was no stranger…
Underground Resistance Presents: Timeline
Mark Flash, part of Detroit techno collective Underground Resistance, which includes Movement headliner Timeline, neatly sums up the symbiotic relationship in two sentences: “Underground Resistance is techno history,” he says. “Timeline is Underground Resistance.” Underground Resistance has always been sort of an enigma — a secret techno militia known by name and trade, but not…
Your guide to Movement Electronic Music Festival
It’s Movement time again, and that means Detroit’s Hart Plaza is about to be overrun with fans of the many varieties of electronic dance music. From deep house to new-disco, from techno to dubstep — no matter what your choice of subgenre, there’ll be something at Movement to get you dancing like a puppy on…
Movement Day 2 – Hawtin and co take it over the top
By Maximilian de la Garza If you’re ears aren’t ringing, your legs aren’t throbbing and you haven’t been kicked out of the ridiculously silly VIP area, you’re doing Movement wrong. Sunday at Movement means the only legends you’re worshiping all have D and J in front of their names. We kicked things off right with…
Movement Day 1 – Dancing in the heat
By Maximilian de la Garza The backdrop was perfect – a balmy, not-too-hot spring day greeted Movementarians on the festival’s opening day, a welcome reprieve after last year’s stormy weekend. Skyscrapers loomed as the bass throbbed and, from what longtime followers say, there was a much larger sea of flesh than in year’s prior. “It…
Metro Times is seeking a new news writer
Detroit Metro Times is seeking a new news writer to join our team. We’re looking for a dynamic journalist who loves Detroit and Detroiters, and can tell their stories as easily with creative prose as with documents and records. We are seeking a journalist capable of writing enthralling long form, magazine-style features, as well as…
City Slang: Sound Conference at Detroit Public Library
The first Sound Conference, presented by the Detroit Sound Conservancy, took place at the Detroit Public Library on Friday, May 23. We arrived as Consuela Lopez and Osvaldo “Ossie” Rivera were concluding a panel called “The Impact of Latin Artists and Music in Detroit.” We may have missed the bulk of the talk, but we…
Metro Times is seeking a new food writer
Detroit Metro Times is seeking a new food writer to join our team. We’re looking for a dynamic foodie who has a flare for writing about culinary pursuits and loves Detroit food. This writer is plugged in to the bar and restaurant industries, and can get the inside scoop on restaurant openings, closings, and special…
Metro Times is seeking a new part-time staff photographer
Detroit Metro Times is seeking a new part-time staff photographer to join our team. We’re looking for a staff photographer who has a flair for Detroit as the subject. This photographer is plugged in to the city, and can capture the spirit of Detroit in images. The ideal photographer is able to cover Detroit with…
Metro Times is seeking a new art writer to join our team
Detroit Metro Times is seeking a new art writer to join our team. We’re looking for a writer who has a flare for writing about art in Detroit, with the city as the canvas. This writer is plugged in to both the refined and unrefined art scenes, and can cover the spirit of the Detroit…
Metro Times seeks a new staff writer to join our team
Detroit Metro Times is seeking a new staff writer to join our team. We’re looking for a dynamic journalist who loves Detroit and Detroiters, and who can tell their stories as easily with creative prose as with documents and records. We want a writer who is as comfortable writing hard-hitting news as they are talking…
Sagninaw shoots down LGBT anti-discrimination ordinance
Michigan’s LGBT community has taken yet another blow on their fight towards equality—because taking away the Supreme Court-granted right to marry wasn’t enough. Mlive reported that in the early morning hours of Tuesday, May 20, the Saginaw city council voted 9-0 to kill an ordinance that would have “protected anyone against discriminatory employment and public…
MT film critic Corey Hall discusses new ‘X-Men: Days of Future Past’
MT film critic Corey Hall was on FOX 2 to talk about X-Men: Days of Future Past. “If you count the spin-offs, the Wolverine movies, this is the seventh movie in the X-Men series, and it shows, because there are a million different mutants in this thing,” Hall said. “I mean, they’re all over the…
MT’s Désirée Kelly teams up with Converse and the Detroit Bus Company
We have to give a shout-out to our production manager Désirée Kelly for lending her artistic skills in painting this bus for Andy Didorosi and the Detroit Bus Company. The bus was painted as part of a larger initiative sponsored by Converse called “Sneaker Clash,” which has artists painting brightly-colored murals in cities all over the world.…
Film Review: Chef
Chef | B- When surveying great instances of culinary cinema — that is, movies that contain Grade A food porn — it becomes obvious that we’re really looking at a list of all-round terrific films. Babette’s Feast, Big Night, Eat Drink Man Woman, and Tampopo all preceded the age of foodie fetishism and Food Channel…
Film Review: X-Men: Days of Future Past
X-Men: Days of Future Past | B+ Like an endless, cosmic soap opera in hormonal overdrive, the X-Men saga has spanned 50 years of Marvel comics, a confounding tangle of subplots, mysteries, romances, and shifting alliances, all set to the beat of a sci-fi allegory about tolerance. It’s a perplexing world, even for some diehard…
Movement official afterparty at Exodus
There will an official Movement Festival after-party at Exodus, every night of the event, called Country Club Disco. Performers over the three days of the event include Treasure Fingers, Kill Frenzy, Christian Martin, Ardalan, Justin Jay, Sergio Santos, Fei-Fei, ADMN, Alexander, Alex Maniaci, Ballast, Cookin, Dabura, Dayda, Derek Specs, Doug Eng, Dustin Sheridan, Eric Davignon,…
Salon looks at JPMorgan Chase, Detroit and the Global Cities Initiative
Buried inside the announcement of a $100 million investment in the city of Detroit by JPMorgan Chase was this: a $5.5 million pledge for the M1 Rail streetcar and to bring the Global Cities Initiative to Detroit. We’ll assume you’re aware of the M-1 Rail project. The financial institution plans to provide a $1.5 million philanthropic grant…
Wheel of Fortune’s Wheelmobile to spin through Detroit
Look at this glamorous Winnebago, filled with the fabulous and exciting opportunity to win the chance be a contestant on TV’s most popular game show! Wheel of Fortune’s 36-foot Winnebago, aptly named the Wheelmobile, is set to roll through town May 30 and 31 in search of contestants for the long-standing television game show. We…
A brief chat with Jadea Kelly
Canadian singer-songwriter Jadea Kelly has been described as “Patsy Cline writing songs with Feist,” which is an interesting and not-inaccurate description. Starting out as a country artist, her third album, Clover, has seen her go in a folk direction. She’s performing at the Ark in Ann Arbor on Tuesday, so took the opportunity to have…
Beyond the Tree of Stars: An Interview with Greg Edwards of Failure
It’s funny what we learn as we grow older, not just the general gathering of facts but the knowledge of ourselves. It seems that is the case for the members of Failure. Seventeen years after their break up, the band has reconnected and is embarking on a tour across the United States. Ken Andrews, Greg…
City Slang: Detroit Sound Conservancy’s Sound Conference this Friday
The Detroit Sound Conservancy will host a Sound Conference at the Detroit Public Library this Friday, May 23. The DSC was founded in 2012 to, “preserve what Detroit-native and renowned musician-producer Don Was has called the ‘indigenous music of Detroit.’ To that end, the DSC’s goal is to become the go-to leadership for accurate information…
Red Bull house of art gets burgled
A thief has stolen thousands of dollars worth of tools and equipment from Eastern Market’s Red Bull House of Art, the Free Press reports. The thief had been visiting the gallery under the guise of learning more about the art and the artists and came during Mother’s Day weekend when nobody was around. The Red Bull House…
A note on Chase’s pledge to invest $100 million in Detroit
source: Wikimedia Commons OK: $100 million is nothing to sneeze at. If case you haven’t heard — which, we suppose that means anyone who doesn’t live in metro Detroit or watch NBC’s Today Show — JPMorgan Chase has pledged to invest the nicely round sum of $100 million in Detroit. If you want to understand what that…
A growing business
If The Graduate came out today, Michael Komorn suggests a famous bit of dialogue might go like this: Mr. McGuire: I want to say one word to you. Just one word. Benjamin: Yes, sir. Mr. McGuire: Are you listening? Benjamin: Yes, I am. Mr. McGuire: Marijuana. Benjamin: Exactly how do you mean? Mr. McGuire: There’s…
Michigan mulls over casinos, DEMF fires Carl Craig
28 years ago in Metro Times: MT reports on a growing developer interest in building casinos in such outlying Detroit areas as Monroe County and the vicinity of Metro Airport because of potential heavy traffic such casinos might receive. The idea is to build “world-class” resort-style getaways among the overbooked motels and hotels that sport…
Horoscopes (May 21 — 27)
ARIES (March 21-April 20): You’ve got about two weeks to figure out how to pull your head out of your butt and get this to work. I don’t know what’s hiding up your sleeve, but it’s time to get real enough to use it to your advantage. When everything is on tenterhooks, your fingernails wear…
Two James Distillery’s David Landrum
Food culture in Detroit is exploding. Things are happening so quickly these days that it’s hard to keep up with all of it. With restaurants, bars, urban gardens, and whole entertainment districts practically springing up overnight, we thought we’d introduce you to the people behind the enterprises. We aim to find them and quiz them…
Wage wars
When I first heard the news, I couldn’t believe it. The Republicans who control the Michigan Senate had just voted to raise the minimum wage by nearly two dollars an hour! But, yessiree, sho’ nuff, there was Mark Schauer, the soon-to-be Democratic nominee for governor, grinning happily and standing with his arm around Randy Richardville,…
Hamtramck’s Campau Tower closes
Gone without a goodbye — Detroit’s culinary history is often humble stuff, maybe not as posh as other cities. It goes with our town’s meat-and-potatoes, working-class identity that, instead of canapés, we have coneys. Well, one of those disappearing pieces of heritage are the last vestiges of the old White Tower chain that dotted Detroit…
Jumbo’s to host Memorial Day barbecue
Jumbo’s, the best little hole-in-the-wall in the Cass Corridor, is hosting an evening of bands, beer, and barbecue this Memorial Day. There’s a cover, but all comers can expect grilled fare, tiki drinks, Jell-O shots, and such bands as Bad Indians, Peach Pit, Nashville’s own Pujol, and Adult Film. The fun starts at 6 p.m.…
Chef Takashi Yagihashi brings Slurping Turtle to Ann Arbor
Word is still filtering in about the new venture from renowned “Top Chef Masters” contestant and James Beard Award winner Takashi Yagihashi in Ann Arbor. Yagihashi, owner of two successful Chicago restaurants, has opened a sister to his Chi-town joint Slurping Turtle last month. Have a taste of something new, at 608 E. Liberty St.,…
Atwater Summer Time Ale
It seems spring quickly passed us by, and the weather is now (sort of) beginning to resemble summer. That means it’s time to break out the barbecue grills and the slip ‘n’ slides, and crack open an icy cold summer brew. Detroit’s own Atwater Block Brewery has released its Summer Time Ale, a malty wheat…
Anu Gopalakrishnan of Rockin’ Raaga
Have you ever scanned AM radio just for the hell of it, and amid the static and chaos, stumbled upon the deep, chesty sounds of Ukrainian folk music? It’s time to slip into something more comfortable, friends, because Metro Times is getting intimate with Detroit’s ethnic radio stations. This week, we’re listening to Rockin’ Raaga.…
David R. Harper brings ‘In Paradise’ to Detroit
CANVAS: IN PARADISE Canadian artist David R. Harper begs his viewers to explore the idea of ideal and dystopian notions in his latest collection, titled In Paradise. Memorializing the spirit of animals and comparing varied ideas of mortality, Harper pays homage to nature by imitating the idea of taxonomy by using vitreous china, ceramics, embroidery,…
Meet Mikel Smith of Detroit Threads
This weekend, with Movement taking over Hart Plaza downtown, thousands of global electro fans will descend upon metro Detroit. A good chunk of them will also make a pilgrimage to a little clothing and record shop in Hamtramck called Detroit Threads. After almost two decades in business, the humble shop has become hallowed ground for…
Organizer for Detroit’s X Games bid planning skate park on Detroit’s east side
courtesy photo One of the organizers behind Detroit’s bid for the X Games will soon launch an effort to convert an abandoned city park on Detroit’s east side into a DIY skatepark. Derrick Dykas, a resident of Detroit and lifelong skateboarder, says the effort to build a community-designed skate park in the city began last fall: Representatives from Red…
Two James Old Cockney Gin
The fine liquors from Corktown’s Two James Distillery have become so popular, so quickly, it’s surprising when you realize that less than a year ago, they weren’t available at all. Now firmly entrenched as part of any good bar’s top-shelf offerings, Two James Old Cockney Gin feels like it’s always been part of our local…
Skybar
Skybar 1150 Griswold St., Detroit 313-965-3054 skybardetroit.com Open 2-11 p.m. Monday-Wednesday, 2 p.m.-2 a.m. Thursday-Saturday. Invited by General Manager Zois Bricolas, we stopped in to Skybar last Thursday night and saddled up to the bar. The white marble was backlit with red, which offered up a warm, decadent feeling. Though it was only around 6…
Michigan minimum wage debate continues
Last week, the media was aglow when Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mark Schauer unexpectedly arrived on the state Senate floor to thank Majority Leader Randy Richardvile (R-Monroe) for passing a bill that would increase the minimum wage to $9.20 per hour. The idea for Schauer’s surprise appearance likely stemmed from the fact that he proposed a…
Education Achievement Authority spending criticized
CORRECTION 2:20 p.m. Wed., May 21: The story has been updated to accurately reflect the spending of two credit cards. We regret the error. The Education Achievement Authority, the independent state school district tasked with overseeing 15 of Detroit’s lowest performing schools, has received a glut of criticism this year. And last week, the district’s…
Is Detroit’s ‘grand bargain’ even legal?
Keith Davis, speaking before a group of lawmakers who could determine his future, explained why he opposes a plan that would help settle Detroit’s historic bankruptcy. A retiree who worked 31 years in Detroit’s water department, Davis said the $195 million one-time infusion of cash from Michigan’s rainy-day fund doesn’t do enough to ameliorate the…
Banksy likes alt weeklies
Suffice it to say, we dig Banksy, the mysterious international street artist. We were geeked when his graffiti appeared in and around Detroit four years ago, we laughed our asses off when someone painted a fake Banksy in Hamtramck on April Fools’ Day, and we leapt at the opportunity to revisit the whole damn saga when the 555 Gallery…
City Slang: Music review roundup
Send CDs, vinyl, cassettes, demos and 8-tracks to Brett Callwood, Metro Times, 1200 Woodward Heights, Ferndale MI 48220. Email MP3s and streaming links to [email protected]. Blaire Alise & the Bombshells’ For My Darlin’ is, finally, the debut full-length album from the youthful rocker, and it’s been worth the (admittedly short) wait. We interviewed Alise at…
