AltWeeklies Wire
She Comes in Colors: Niagara's Tale is Pure Detroitnew

Niagara — the same woman who did time with the late Stooges guitarist Ron Asheton in the universally cultish bands Destroy All Monsters and Dark Carnival — whose drug-fueled, gun-toting, sexually vivid pop art is known the world over.
Metro Times |
Brent Callwood |
12-15-2009 |
Profiles & Interviews
Quack! Media Plans on Complete Musical Success in This New Recession Economynew
In an era when the bloated infrastructure of the music industry as we have known it for the last 50 years is imploding, it's refreshing to see a back-to-basics approach succeed, as in the case of the Ann Arbor multimedia company.
Metro Times |
Chris Handyside |
11-17-2009 |
Music
Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen Get Lost in the Supermarketnew

Through the magic of print and cross-referencing, we're taking this virtual shopping tour of a supermarket with the songbooks of Dylan and Springsteen as our shopping list, to see how they feel about the things that are really on the mind of the Everyman.
Metro Times |
Serene Dominic |
11-10-2009 |
Music
After 10 Years of Popping Detroit, the Singles Split for L.A.new
After 10 years of what lead singer and guitarist Vince Frederick refers to as "going in circles," the band is packing its bags and heading off to the washed-up cultural wasteland called Los Angeles, the city where bullshit not only talks, it still maintains a strong control of the music industry.
Metro Times |
Brett Callwood |
10-27-2009 |
Profiles & Interviews
Tags: The Singles
How Did Drew Cohen Go from a Hip-Hop DJ to Mayer Hawthorne, Soul Man to the Stars?new
Blame it on the times; honky hip-hop's blunt delivery just doesn't seem as likable as a nerd who looks like a Nixon campus-campaign volunteer -- complete with black frames, cardigan sweater, skinny tie, high-water cuffs and all, crooning comfortably in a Pharrell-falsetto against a backdrop of a double chin and double-digit unemployment.
Metro Times |
Hobey Echlin |
09-29-2009 |
Profiles & Interviews
Celebrating the 35th Anniversary of 'KISS Alive'new

I say to you snobs who stayed away from "the greatest live album ever re-recorded" because you were too busy, I dunno, reading books or getting indoctrinated into disco or est, here's a track-by-track re-creation of what you missed (which poses no danger for you of hearing even a single note of it).
Metro Times |
Serene Dominic |
09-22-2009 |
Music
After a Lauded Major Label Debut, Hush Hits Rock Bottom and Rises Againnew
Within two years, he'd gone from Detroit hip-hop's other "white meat" to an unemployed, grieving father of three with a family and a mortgage. Hard up for cash, he took a job working the night shift at a factory that was an hour-plus drive away. He'd get home and during the hours before his sons got up for school, he'd make music.
Metro Times |
Hobey Echlin |
08-25-2009 |
Profiles & Interviews
Blonde Devotion: Motown Diva Chris Clark Rises from Obscuritynew
From 1965 to 1967, Motown released a few criminally ignored singles that found a home on Clark's 1967 long-player Soul Sounds. Given the scattered sessionography, Soul Sounds surprisingly holds up better than any other studio album by the more recognizable greats of Motown.
Metro Times |
Serene Dominic |
08-11-2009 |
Profiles & Interviews
Three Brothers, Two Bands, One Writer, and a Reunion Show That Hits Homenew
Neither Anne Be Davis nor Harry Chronic Jr. played into local Detroit scenesterism — nobody would take kids from Grosse Pointe seriously, after all … except Meg White, and you see where that's gotten her.
Metro Times |
Hobey Echlin |
08-04-2009 |
Profiles & Interviews
Garage Greats The Gories Returnnew
The unskilled Detroit band helped alter the course of rock 'n' roll ... by accident. So why did they disband too soon?
Metro Times |
Chris Handyside |
06-30-2009 |
Profiles & Interviews
Finale Aims at the Top of Detroit's Hip-Hop Cropnew
Finale's name may not yet be as familiar as some of his better-known peers, most who hold him in the highest regard as one of the very best Michigan has to offer. But it shouldn't be very long before people start paying attention.
Metro Times |
William E. Ketchum III |
06-30-2009 |
Profiles & Interviews
Blase Splee's Pop Perfection Was a Debut Awaynew
One might guess that a band would invest a lot more thought into its choice of a name than Blase Splee did. But nonchalance might be expected from a couple of guys who know that the true measure of a band has little to do with its name.
Metro Times |
Scott Bragg |
06-09-2009 |
Profiles & Interviews
A Cultural Field Guide to the Detroit Electronic Music Festivalnew
This is a rough anthropological survey of some of the subsets you can observe at Movement 2009, Detroit's Electronic Music Festival.
Metro Times |
Travis R. Wright |
05-26-2009 |
Music
Meet Detroiter Bobby Murray, a Guitar Hero You've Never Heard Ofnew

Murray has been playing guitar and touring alongside the incomparable Etta James for 22 years. He's also recorded three solo albums and before joining James' band, he backed a small galaxy of blues, R&B and soul legends.
Metro Times |
Don Waller |
05-05-2009 |
Profiles & Interviews
Detroit's Fabulous Counts Never Got Their Duenew

They are the best funk band you've probably never heard of -- or even heard. And if you have, you're probably already burning a candle in hope of future stateside dates.
Metro Times |
Don Waller |
04-07-2009 |
Profiles & Interviews