Rock’s remake; Bush bash

We here at HS headquarters feel as though we’re rising bleary-eyed from a dream that saw us pie-eyed at a caucus for troubled parents of Kid Rock fans, a place where Harley logos, floppy halters and ape-draped, fast-food-fed frames rose from the seats, propelled fists into the air and chirped in unison unfortunate refrains of "bring back Bad Company, bring back Bad Company!" Why the nightmarish cranial intrusion? Well, it seems Mr. Rock has announced details of his eagerly awaited new single, and it’s none other than a cover of Bad Company’s immortal scrotum-drainer, "Feel Like Makin’ Love"! You read right, captain, "Feel Like Makin’ Love." Via Rock’s tone-free trill, rock ’n’ roll’s most popular four-minute argument in favor of justifiable rape will rise from the scrap heap of limp-metal to make our lives even more miserable than before. Man, this news is enough to make us run back and disinter that horrendous Kings of Leon record! As we always say, there’s nothing like a millionaire rock-star mook assuming the proletariat aesthetic of egalitarian classic rock so as to pass himself off as the Real Deal. Wasn’t that outhouse-quality ballad Rock did with Sheryl Crow last year enough of a red herring? And we must ask ourselves this: Will the one-time Vanilla Ice clone adopt Bad Company chirper Paul Rodgers’ homoerotic stance and appear in the song’s accompanying vid sans shirt, all heavy-lidded and bedroom ready, armed with taut pecs, gym-assisted ripples, and George Michael bathroom-cruising jeans? We can only live in hope. "Feel Like Makin’ Love" redux Rock style is set to hit radio this week. Rock’s self-produced (??!!) new studio album — simply titled Kid Rock — burps up in November.

Gold Cash Babies

If you’re gonna tackle an archetypal ’70s rock ’n’ roll tune for public consumption, you might as well choose a good one, fer chrissakes, one that transcends taste and sexual boundaries with language and hooks. So it is that Gold Cash Gold have taken it upon themselves to record Alice Cooper’s "Billion Dollar Babies" for a forthcoming European single flip-side. "That was the coolest Cooper song," jaws GCG guitarist Steve Zuccaro. Me and Eric (Hoegemeyer, GCG singer) have been talking about doing that for six years. We’re finally in a band that can do it!" No word yet on who’s gonna chime in on the original’s trade-off vocal part laid down by flower-pouter Donovan … Audra Kubat perhaps? Meanwhile, the riffy antediluvians are UK-bound, leaving this Friday for a three-week tour and club showcases. Their Times Beach full-length debut, Paradise Pawn Vol 1, will be out locally at the end of the month, with a subsequent international release.

Jack and Renée splitsville?

Hang on to your Q points, team! The topic of this week’s compulsory "White Stripes Report" might have the whole town back up to six degrees of separation with Tinseltown. According to the professional gossip gadflies for the New York Post’s Page 6, the well-loved, penis-packing half of our heroic candy-striped duo may have split with Renée Zellweger! (Insert "horrified gasp" sound bite here.) Does this mean all hope of staging a Nashville-y blues musical version of Nurse Betty at the Magic Stick is dead? Does this mean no more movie stars are going to show up slurping High Life at Blanche cocktail parties? Say it ain’t so, Jack! Anyway, Hit Singles felt we owed our public some answers. We hit the White Stripes Web site and found little solace in Jack’s most recent posting which accurately read only "Males are such despicable creatures."

We dialed up his publicist asking for comment. "There is no comment at all about anything," White Stripes’ flack Chloe Walsh offered. "None at all?" we begged. "About anything? What about our cocktail parties?" we pleaded. (Insert "click — dial tone" sound bite here). So it’s through a wash of tears that we’re left to report that the split may be true. It could be pulling for straws, but the timing of the break seems particularly suspicious with the juxtaposition of White’s recent use of Twiggyish sex-toy Kate Moss pole-dancing for the "I Just Don’t Know What To Do With Myself" video and the Post’s report that Zellweger is packing on the chub for her upcoming Bridget Jones’s (cq) sequel (horrified gasp). In any event, White can always go back to mixing mythology and start kissin’ his sister.

SV: Where’s the beef?

Detroit hip-hop faves Slum Village are officially down to one founding member. It seems T3 is the last man standing. Current parts Elzhi and Fat Cat have taken the place of Jay Dee and Baatin, respectively. The recent departure of Baatin, arguably the group’s most versatile vocalist, has sent pundits on a small tear to learn the geneses of a rumored rift. Whispers of Baatin’s ill health have followed SV for several months. Both Baatin and representatives of his former label, Barak Entertainment, recently responded in separate interviews with Hit Singles. And when asked to address the controversy surrounding his hospitalization, Baatin answered frankly. Turns out he had a mild stroke.

"Schizophrenia, man," he says. "I brought a lot of pressure to myself with the schedule and touring and everything. It ended of with me going into a stroke on my right side. While it was going on I didn’t feel like I got any support from my label."

Baatin says he left because of the label, not the group. "We still gon’ be friends," he says about T3, Elzhi and Jay Dee, who, you’ll note, was another founding member (and producer) who left before the release of SV’s most successful album, Trinity: Past, Present & Future. "We’ll remain brothers," continues Baatin. "I left my independent label to get some business straight. I just recorded my vocals to the first of four songs on their next album, and they’re confirmed to do a song on my album."

Barak Entertainment owner R.J. Rice commented on Baatin’s condition, saying he didn’t want to "add insult to injury. He lent his services to Barak. I don’t want to hurt his career." As for the new Slum Village record, the album is nearly completed and set to come out soon on Capitol Records.

Time has come today

The much-lauded MC5 documentary, MC5 A True Testimonial, which last year was an official selection at about every goddamned indie film fest you can name, will finally see a screening in the band’s hometown. Finally. The movie will be shown at the Detroit Film Theater inside the Detroit Institute of Arts on Oct 30. The date is timely too; it marks the 35th anniversary to the day of the band’s Grande Ballroom recording of its classic Kick Out The Jams. According to the film’s producer Laurel Legler, the delay in the hometown showing had more to do with film festival logistics than anything.

As far as a commercial release date for the film, the producers are in negotiations with distributors and are "potentially working on a release date for early next year."

Anyway, of the original band, drummer Dennis Thompson is scheduled to appear at the screening. Call 313-833-2323 for info.

Gay bar approbation

The Electric Six is presumably still a Detroit-area band, despite a decided absence from the "Drunken Bar Sightings" department and a tour schedule that suggests the sextet is seeking asylum in England, or at least Lansing, to avoid disgruntled former bandmates. So it’s with some measure of, um, civic pride, that we share the news that Dick Valentine (ne the Dance Commander) and company have taken home the dubiously prestigious Q Magazine award for "Best Video" for their clip supporting "Gay Bar." The statues were handed out last Thursday in Blighty. Kudos. This from a magazine whose inaugural awards saw fit to honor World Party’s "Goodbye Jumbo" as the best album of 1990. Still, it put the Six in direct one-degree-of-separation contact with fellow winners Duran Duran, the Cure, Dexy’s Midnight Runners and Jane’s Addiction. (And, yes, Christina Aguilera’s presence at the podium assured us that we weren’t caught in some fancy time-space continuum).

Burning Bush

If you thought protest music was as flat as a Dixie Chicks digital beer coaster, or as unwelcome as the fusion of patchouli and punk, guess again. In fact, we here at HS propose a toast in the general direction of Bands Against Bush, an international resistance movement earnestly standing tall against the undercurrent of bigotry and barbarism of the Bush administration. BAB, which was principally founded by the feisty distaffs of Bikini Kill and Bratmobile, celebrates its manifesto locally and internationally on Saturday, Oct 11. The event kicks off at 5 p.m. at the Furniture Factory (4126 Third, Detroit, 313-832-8890). The heady lineup boasts an inventory of inexorable performers including soigné folkster Audra Kubat, punk stalwarts Hillside Stranglers, and the a capella Girl Gospel Group. There’s also DJ Fukno/White Devil, who has been described as Noam Chomsky on Detroit city water, Monster Island (featuring ex-Destroy All Monsters and Bookbeat head Cary Loren), and a bizarre, Mexican guerilla performance-art collective called La Violencia, plus State-Raised, Death in Custody, Piggi, THTX, the Amino Acids, Girl Scout Hand Grenade, SmashBandits, State Raised, Ralph Valdez, Mutant Press, Amen Akbar, Hot Paws and others. Figure in some spoken-word, a voter registration drive, official Bands Against Bush art and hosting by DJ Charles English (he of vintage 89X, and Clubland/ClubX) and Mary McCarthy (Beamship, Clarified Butter, Creation Buddha and the Monkey, etc.). Go to bandsagainstbush.org for info. Send bitch slaps, quips and rants to hitsingles@metrotimes.com.