Filed under: Writing | Tags: Bon Iver, iceland, tiger strikes asteroid, tracy thomason, travel
Here’s an essay I was asked to write to go along with Tracy Thomason’s August solo exhibition, Highlights, Low Fades, and Deep Cuts, at Tiger Strikes Asteroid:
A guest post by yours truly was recently featured on Martha Stewart’s daily blog:
Many of the photos in the post above were taken by Tom Costa. Check out his most recent painting and sculptural work at TomCostaStudios.blogspot.com.
And here’s the video I’ve had on repeat since returning from Iceland:
Filed under: Etc. | Tags: Dirtbombs, Girls to the Front, Lac la Belle, Sharevari, The Scene
Hi friends. It’s been a while. Dayjob + nightschool = little time for anything else.
But this new Dirtbombs “Sharevari” cover has gotten me through the past couple days:
The techno classic has been covered by everybody. This one just might be my favorite. Brooklyn’s Plasticfish is responsible for the visuals, and the project is part of the Scion A/V video series. I’m guessing they were inspired by this 1982 episode of “The Scene”:
Seeing my dear friends Lac la Belle play in a Lower East Side basement last week didn’t hurt either — although Jennie Knaggs’s vocals lilting between sorrow and joy brought me to tears 4 times. They should be posting videos from their tour soon. I highly recommend you check them out when they do. I also highly recommend Vanilla Stoli and Vernor’s. They will make it for you at Motor City Bar, conveniently located around the corner from the basement art space where Lac la Belle played.
Here’s my last bit of Detroit+New York news for the evening: Adult. is performing the soundtrack to their “The Three Grace(s)” triptych at Anthology Film Archives on Thursday. Very much looking forward to that.
P.S. I just finished reading Sara Marcus’s “Girls to the Front.” It rules. Really. I’m totally bowing down to it. Or curtsying. Or whatever. It makes me want to DJ again, which reminds me: We’re coming up on Halloween, almost a year since my last gig. And my DJ partner, the lovely Sara Bee, is leaving me for a thrilling life overseas. OK, I know she was the only one of us who knew what she was doing, but I’m the one who owns the smoke machine! And I’ve been practicing. You should really consider hiring me to DJ your party. It’ll be just like “The Scene” in 1982!
Weird. The story mentioned in the previous post was excerpted in Metro Times‘ 30th anniversary issue that came out yesterday. They also included me in a where-are-they-now roundup of some former MT-ers. A couple important details were left out of the blurb, but I love how they worded this aspect of my current life: “[She] lives in New York City with her artist-boyfriend Tom Costa.”
If you’re curious about the art of my artist-boyfriend, and you also live in New York City, you should go to Pete’s Candy Store tonight at 7 to hear him give a talk as part of the weekly series, KnifeFight: Noches de los Artistas. I will also be there.
Here’s one of my favorites:
The Easy Life, Tom Costa
Filed under: Etc. | Tags: 1203 Ferdinand, Jack White, Mexicantown, White Stripes
I’m coming up on year No. 5 of living in New York, which, according to some sources, is the year you officially arrive as a real Noo Yawker.
So, naturally, I’m getting antsy, and as of late, my favorite hobby is searching for affordable real estate in a variety of locales, including, you guessed it, Detroit. Imagine my surprise when I stumbled across this gem on O’Connor Real Estate and Development’s website:
It looked familiar, so I clicked on the listing, did a quick web search, and searched for a super-old email to confirm. My friends, all online indicators point to my hunch being correct: You can buy Jack White’s childhood/early-adulthood home – where classic White Stripes albums were recorded and this vintage interview was conducted – for a mere $59,900. It’s slightly above the rate houses have been going for in the neighborhood, and the final words in the listing – “sold as-is” – beg a few questions, but it features a new roof, modern flooring, and a priceless amount of Detroit music lore. Plus, it’s a steal compared to his Indian Village manse, on the market a few years ago at close to a million.
Check out the kitchen:
I think I’ll stay in New York for now, but someone should snap this up! And then invite me over for drinks!
Buy Jack White’s Childhood Home
I was very saddened to learn yesterday that Detroit poet, musician, carpenter, and arts activist Mick Vranich had died after a serious fall on a construction site in which he suffered a head injury, punctured lung, and broken vertabrae.
Earlier this month, I submitted a story to Metro Times celebrating a few of the hard-working, class-act musicians in the city. The story, which ran today, had already been sent to the presses by the time I heard the news, but I’d like to offer a little tribute here to Mick, an iconic Detroiter who will be missed.
Filed under: Etc. | Tags: Archer Pressing, Chrome Bumper, D-12, Moods for Moderns, Slum Village, White Stripes
Thanks to my brother for picking up a Metro Times this week and for alerting me to the fact that I’m old. Apparently, the paper is running a weekly feature celebrating its 30th anniversary, and this week’s installment of “Metro Retro” name checks an article I wrote NINE YEARS AGO this week about Slum Village.
As I recall, the story was part of a larger feature on the Detroit music scene “behind the scenes.” In addition to talking to Slum Village’s Baatin and T3 during a recording session at RJ Rice’s studio in Southfield, I also spoke with Moods for Moderns at the Loft practice space in Redford, Aaron Warshaw interviewed the gentlemen keeping vinyl alive at a couple local record pressing plants, and Rebecca Mazzei hung out with the Chrome Bumper video gurus responsible for some iconic early D-12 and White Stripes videos.
Here are the articles in their entirety:
Sounding It Out: Slum Village lays it down rough and easy
Practice, Practice, Practice: But first, beers and talk about haircuts
Keeping Vinyl Alive: Cutting records the good old way for the cognoscenti
Captains of Video: Chrome Bumper turns that hip earful into an eyeful
That was a fun trip back in time, now wasn’t it?
Thanks, Jason. But don’t forget: You’re still older.
Filed under: Writing | Tags: Denison Witmer, Factory 25, Metro Times, Rosie Thomas, Sufjan Stevens
Here’s my review of a new Rosie Thomas DVD/LP that ran in Metro Times this week.
Rosie Thomas (with Denison Witmer and Sufjan Stevens)
All the Way from Michigan Not Mars (DVD+LP)
Factory 25
By MELISSA GIANNINI
“My friends are having babies. You know, people are buying homes. … I never needed that foundation.”
It’s 15 minutes into All the Way from Michigan Not Mars, a concert doc that spans tour stops, set-list discussions, meditative car rides, and kite-flying interludes following the release of These Friends of Mine — a collaborative effort between singer-songwriter-producer Rosie Thomas and co-producers-multi-instrumentalists Sufjan Stevens and Denison Witmer — and Rosie is already launching into one of many contradictions: “There’s a part of me that hopes there would be a shift … that I would enjoy the foundation of a routine in life, because I’ve never really had that.”
Fittingly, this dichotomous quality is the most frustrating and delightful aspect of the film — a quirky, behind-the-scenes romp that’s more space camp than drunken debauchery. And it’s a defining feature of Rosie herself, a Michigan native (along with Sufjan, hence the title) who bookends bittersweet, honey-voiced ballads with self-conscious, squeaky stage banter and bizarre visits from her even-more-awkward, neck-braced alter ego, Sheila Saputo.
Born to musician parents in suburban Detroit in the late ’70s (the most amusing anecdote of the film involves a botched local Star Search audition), Rosie sang with Velour 100 in the late ’90s before heading west, landing in theater school in Seattle, where she befriended Damien Jurado and signed with Sub Pop. The film finds her at a crossroads, seeking a respite from the business side of the industry and a return to the simple joy of making music with close friends. The intimacy that unfolds draws a parallel (albeit on a smaller scale) with another recent doc following fellow ex-pats, the White Stripes.
The medium suits her well. While Rosie’s studio albums are lovely, they only scratch the surface of what this complex individual, equal parts sentimentality and hilarity, wants to express. Included in the package is an LP that collects relaxed apartment sessions, further pressing this desire to unleash something raw, uncut and spontaneous. And as we ride along, watching Rosie stumble as she tries to figure things out, barefaced in bunchy thrift-store dresses, it’s hard not to feel like one of her friends.
In case you haven’t noticed, this hot mess of html has been on hiatus for the summer. And how is this particular break different from my earlier, sometimes longer, yet unofficial hiatuses, you may ask? It’s not. I mean, sure, there are some new variables — spotty Internet connection, vacations, a Twin Peaks bender, etc., but you don’t want to hear about any of that, right? And I trust you all have been dealing with this break just fine and are enjoying the summer as I have, at fun outdoor concerts and swimming holes, rolling around in poison oak, and the like.
You Don’t Even Need to Take Your Paper Out
I heard about this thing called Spotify a couple days ago. It’s a European music service that’s planning to crawl up on our shore early next year (right now, it restricts access if you have a U.S. IP address). Maybe you’re familiar. According to this other guy’s blog, users can stream any of the service’s 6 million songs for free and even organize them into playlists, but they have to listen to an ad every half hour or so.
Six million sounds like a lot, but iTunes has 10 million, and in my experience, only has what I search for about 60 percent of the time. And eMusic, “iTune’s cheaper, cooler cousin” (according to a Rolling Stone quote on its site), has more than 6 million songs (not sure how many more), but only about 30 percent of what I want. I canceled my eMusic subscription after just a few months because I was clogging my hard drive with a bunch of stuff I only sort of wanted. Granted, when I buy music over the Internet, I’m typically looking for things I can’t easily find at record store, or random Neil Young songs that pop into my head that I decide I need that minute. Maybe my taste isn’t “cool.” And maybe I’m asking a lot, but it’s the Internet. The Internet is supposed to have everything I want. Instantly. However, if you’re looking for the new Wavves record and don’t like stealing, eMusic rules.
Spotify sounds different, more like Hulu, which also has a limited selection and ads, but is free. There are concerns — that people like owning things rather than streaming them and that the business model won’t be able to sustain the costs of royalties. I have other concerns, but I’m pretty sure they’re boring.
ee Music
Lately, I’ve been riding a rad wavve of Judee Sill and Julee Cruise music. There’s a Sill tribute coming out September 22 called Crayon Angel: A Tribute to the Music of Judee Sill. Frida Hyvonen takes on one of my favorites — “Jesus was a Cross Maker” (hear it at Stereogum). Daniel Rossen (Grizzly Bear, Department of Eagles) did “Waterfall” (it’s over at Pitchfork). Judee Sill put out two records (Judee Sill and Heart Food) of rapture/redemption-rich Laurel Canyon-style material in the early 1970s before dying of a drug overdose in ’79. An additional album, composed of demos and rarities, came out in 2005 on a double-disc called Dreams Come True.
Here she is singing “The Lamb Ran Away with the Crown.”
According to a few only slightly questionable online sources, Julee Cruise (who plays a large role in the eerie hum of Twin Peaks) is working on a new album coming out this year. I think her last one came out about seven years ago. This is exciting news! Also, she’s married to the editor of Guideposts. Just throwing that out there. Fun fact!
You’re going to love this:
Filed under: Etc.
Wait — when was the Grammy Awards process “representative of the current musical landscape”?
Polka Music is Eliminated as Grammy Award Category
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton spoke about her meeting with the presidents of Afghanistan and Pakistan on Wednesday.
