A ROLLING STONE
Detroit label Small Stone head, Scott Hamilton, has kept the docket full to bursting the past couple weeks and shows no sign of slowing as he and the label’s bands rumble into fall. Last weekend, Small Stone recording artists (and Toledo natives) Five Horse Johnson "tore the roof off" New York City club Continental, says Hamilton. The show was a showcase for industry types from more than a handful of major labels, including Lava-Atlantic (which really should open a full-time Detroit A&R department, what with signing Kid Rock, the Atomic Fireballs and all the aural investigation it’s been doing around town).
But wait, that’s not all: Small Stone’s prepping new releases by Perplexa (The Sun and the Moon Getting It On, out August 31) and Soul Clique (Unification, to be unleashed September 14), both of which have reportedly dropped the jaws of more than one Detroit airwave jockey.
The label will be invading NYC once more for this year’s mid-September CMJ fest, an annual college-radio blowout as Soul Clique, Five Horse Johnson, Walk on Water, Cincinnati’s Roundhead and stoner-rockers Hermano kick it for the music geeks and industry freaks.
It’s possible, just possible, that the gospel of Detroit is starting to include more than just the standard books of white rap and punk nostalgia. Read on …
SPREADING THE SUGAR-BUZZ
Give it up, ladies and gentlemen, for the White Stripes! The peppermint duo have scored a trio of opening slots for none other than indie-rock standard-bearers, Pavement. It seems that a copy of the new White Stripes full-length (on LA’s Sympathy For the Record Industry label) made it into the hands of Pavement’s tour manager, thanks to Washington D.C. R&B reconstructionists, the Delta 72. Suffice to say, the Pavementers were duly impressed. Jack and Meg (the White Stripes to you and me) will warm up the throngs of ringer-T’d indie-rock kids in late September, ending the jaunt with a set at Athens, Georgia’s fabled 40 Watt Club.
BLUES FOR BUDDHA
Detroit funk ’n’ rollers Howling Diablos may be better known for their party politics (as in "Ain’t no party like a Dee-troit party, cuz…") than their political and personal politics, but, nevertheless, they’ve established a young tradition with their benefit performances on behalf of Ann Arbor Tibetan Buddhist center, Jewel Heart. Last year they threw down at Ferndale’s Magic Bag. This year takes the Diablos and friends geographically closer to the Jewel Heart. On Saturday, the Howling Diablos will be joined by funkin’-rockers 60 Second Crush, ska-tastic Detroiters Gangster Fun, songwriter Chris McCall, Fathers of the Id and Robert Thibodeau at A2’s Blind Pig (208 First Street) to raise funds for Jewel Heart and to raise awareness of the ongoing Free Tibet movement. The doors for the show are at 8 p.m. Call 734-996-8555.
A CLARIFICATION
In the August 18 edition of In One Ear, we name-checked some of the acts that were to appear in the film-in-progress A Detroit Thing (in the "Fly Girl" segment of that column). Representatives of A Detroit Thing, director Anthony Brancaleone and producer Mike Brancaleone, were kind enough to alert us to an error and a correction. The band Sponge will not be featured in the film as we had first reported and the ska-punk quartet Suicide Machines is still in negotiations. However, the Howling Diablos, Queen Bee, Esham and Kid Rock will grace the celluloid with their sound and countenances. We’re sorry for the confusion. Stay tuned to In One Ear for further details.
