New Music / Safety Patrol
Here. Have some new music.
This is Statik Selektah. He is producer. He is from the east coast and he probably likes seafood.
This is The Preatures. They are from Australia like kangaroos and koala bears.
This is The Smith Westerns. They are from Chicago, IL. You’ve probably been there too!
Also, if you’re the type who likes reading… this blog below was taken via THE METRO TIMES. It’s a young man who lets you know that he walked around downtown a few times and there isn’t any crime. What is that Neil Degrasse Tyson quote about filling a glass with ocean water and declaring there aren’t any whales? I don’t remember. Anywho:
I would be lying if I said I wasn’t a little disappointed with my Detroit experience so far. In the past 8 months, I have no gunshot wounds, stabbing scars, or even a stolen vehicle to show for it. I don’t even have a lower credit score!
When I told everyone I was moving here, I got a wave of backlash and pleas to reconsider. It reminded me of the time I traveled to the Middle East and, as I was boarding my flight, received a hundred text messages and calls saying, “If you go, you are going to DIE!”
Well, my time in the Middle East was just as disappointing and uneventful as my time here in Motown. Where have all the criminals gone? With a nice bout of insomnia, I used to walk to the YMCA at 5 a.m. to work out in total darkness. My Dad freaked out when I told him.
What my father can’t understand is that, unless you live right downtown, and once the sun sets, the streets of Detroit are deserted. No cars. No homeless people. Even the pimps seem to take the night off. I could streak down Woodward (my apologies for the imagery) and I wouldn’t encounter a single soul. How can Detroit be dangerous if no one is around to mug you?
Luckily my prayers were answered and I had my first exciting experience with the underground marketplace.
The other day, I was craving a coffee and on my way back from 1515 Broadway after grabbing a cup when I encountered a nice-looking gentleman on the street corner. I was staring at the pavement as I walked, wrapped up in a daydream about being the first Jewish President when …
“Yo boy! You want some Brown Suga?!” I looked up to see that he was sporting a nice pair of XXL Carhart pants that stooped to his knees, a T-shirt that had a picture of a diamond-encrusted Cadillac, and a coat that was so tattered it leaned more toward a cape as it billowed in the wind.
He smiled at me with a gleaming pair of yellow teeth, dotted with the occasional missing link.
“I have sweetener in here already,” I replied, motioning to my coffee.
“No! Brown Suga! I give you a kick-ass deal! New customers (pronounced cust•oh•moes) get discount.”
He pulled out something from under his coat and all I could think was: Yes! Finally, I have an excuse to use my new throwing knives. But, to my disappointment, he pulled out a tiny bag with clumps of what indeed did look like brown sugar instead of a gun.
Cherry-Pop: My first offer of heroin.
I shrugged my shoulders and said, “Sorry man, unless you take my Delta Skymiles Card, I have nothing to offer you.”
It’s not that I crave danger, per se, it’s that I am a thrill junkie and want some cool stories to tell my children in the future of when their father was a vigilante living in a notoriously perilous city. Detroit’s last famous criminal can’t go down as committing something so white collar as extortion like our wonderful ex-mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick.
It would seem that the egos and cockiness of all the new suburbanites who have migrated to downtown to work for Quicken Loans has left no room for any respectable criminals in this city. I will continue to walk the streets of Detroit, unhindered by thugs and drug dealers, until my personal heroin dealer, Jamal Dontavius (that’s the name he gave me), modernizes and learns to take plastic over cash.
Jason Singer is a privelidged suburbanite who has not known many financial struggles in his young life. He is also an editorial intern at the Metro Times. Send him feedback to letters@metrotimes.com.
Pstrs 4 Wknd
Phantasmagoria & James Linck are both releasing compact discs on Saturday night. This show has been moved to St. Andrews Hall due to massive ticket sales or a problem with the upstairs room. Whatever the reason, it’s going to sound good and you’re going to look good. Doc Waffles, Coyote Clean Up, and Lord Scrummage only further pushes this as the MUST SEE SHOW FOR JUNE 15TH 2013.
Also on that very same day Revoir and Alexis and Electric Corpse and Unlimited Head are playing The New Dodge. It looks like No Wave Detroit is the headlining band based on the flyer however I’ve been told that it isn’t a band at all but… a production company? I have no idea. I only know that I like fun and that this looks fun and after St. Andrews Hall I’m going to go here.
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Things About The Past
Over the weekend I saw Baths play the Magic Stick. I will tell you that it was one of the best shows I’ve seen in a long time, and despite the place being nowhere near capacity I was still somehow impressed with the half-full draw. The setup was one that wasn’t for everyone… light up boxes, laptops, keyboards, and one guitar slung over a guys shoulder for part time usage. Once upon a time things like this would have made me mental, but the set just seemed so honest and all of the sounds seemed perfect and of course it didn’t hurt that I really love the songs themselves.
I ran into a friend who was not sharing this experience. I asked him what he thought and he said it was boring and sounded like The Postal Service. I didn’t see it or hear it that way and I guess that’s the upside of music in general… that everyone get’s to experience it in their way and on their terms. Regardless, Baths = fantastic.
You know where I didn’t go? Orion Music Festival + More. I almost went. I had a whole internal argument about if I should just go for the experience or if it just wasn’t going to be my thing or if I could make it two days without having a breakdown because they turned my beloved Belle Isle into a Gibralter Trade Center. Ultimately I decided against it, however, that’s not going to stop me from having an opinion.
I love Detroit but I hate Detroit. Once upon a time there was boy a cried wolf and that seems like no big deal because now I live where an entire city cries awesome! Everything is awesome. That’s great and all, but it makes it really hard to to figure out what is good and what is not good because, after all, the only way anyone would know you were awesome is because they know things that are not awesome and compare you to them. Not here. You have a band? They’re awesome. You rode your bike to the park today? You’re awesome. You made a bbq chicken sandwich? No shit? It’s fucking awesome.
So I sit around listening to queer pop songs in the comfort of my living room watching the Orion updates roll in, and of course, it is awesome. If you want to share a favorite band with Beavis, well that’s your right as a ‘merican. Still, the things that people were praising seemed insane to me. They had fireworks. Some guy from a local metal band was walking around the island. Metallica announced a band to the stage. James Hetfield brought a car. And. And Slow’s brought meat on a stick. Look, during this time Gibralter Trade Center in Mt. Clemens had races where monkeys were riding dogs. How did someone on team Metallica not think to incorporate that? Why didn’t they have Juggalo wrestling? The world may never know.
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win shit: Baths
Baths has put out one of the best records of this year so far. It’s on the anticon label and the record is called Obsidian. With a properly pointed browser chances are you can have this very record playing for you the rest of the day, and you should. You really should.
He will be performing LIVE and IN PERSON this coming Saturday June 8th at Detroit’s beloved Magic Stick. Doors are at 8:00pm and tickets are $12. If you don’t know how you possibly could come up with $12 well then you’re in luck because the darlings over there have given me TWO pair of guest list spots for this show. Being the saint that I am, and also considering I have no friends, I’m going to pass those along to you.
Baths is Will Wiesenfeld. He’s from Los Angeles. Earlier this year he shared some dates with some people you might have even heard of including WHY? and The Postal Service. I simply can’t get enough of the new album that was released a few weeks ago, and I highly recommend it if you’re into real cool shit. It’s dark. It’s electronic. Synthy. Poppy. Almost industrial at times. And if you don’t do anything else today I need you to listen to the following song at least twice:
So how would you like to come out Saturday night to the Magic Stick to see Baths for free? Great. All you have to do to win a pair of guest list spots is leave a comment that has something to do with bathing. Please make sure you fill out the email portion of the comment field so I can contact you back with the great news of your victory. Private begging and sob stories work too, and you can send those to jrc[at]eatthiscity[dot]com. The winners will be notified tomorrow evening. Good luck. I love you.
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The Saviors
I really couldn’t have written a more touching story myself. Plus, if the New York Times picks it up and isn’t BBQ related, well then you’ve done something wonderful.
It is pretty great. First he restores his childhood baseball fields, and now he saves his beloved Masonic Temple… all from his Nashville office. That used to really chap my ass once upon a time, but he seems to really love Detroit. He just hates you idiots who live around here.
Speaking on idiots… I have a new favorite Kickstarter!
IT CAME FROM DETROIT KICKSTARTER.
If you have a free minute, just go to that page and poke around as to why this guy wants $15,000. Think about all the times you woke up just wishing… hoping… praying for some way you could have a DVD featuring Gore Gore Girls performances and a T-Shirt with the DVD title on it. That’ll be $15,000.
Also, the words “White Stripes” appear eight times on the Kickstarter page, the most important one being the disclaimer that there aren’t any White Stripes songs in the film. He notes that Jack didn’t want to be involved and then blows it off saying there are plenty of White Stripes documentaries out there and he has 29 other great bands.
My absolute favorite part is this:
“…this is a labor of love and we really just want to get this into the hands of fans that I know are out there.”
Let me help you out, sir. Take down that God fucking awful kickstarter where you beg for money. You mention that you’ve personally dumped $30,000 into this project thus far, and since there wasn’t a Kickstarter back then you’re just sort of going for reparations now. The movie is done, right? I know it’s done because I went to the DIA to see it in 2008 or some shit. Anyway. Take your DVD and just make an .ISO file of it. Then, take that .ISO file and upload it to the torrent site of your choosing. TADA! It is now into the hands of the fans that you know are out there. Which is all you REALLY wanted, right? You want that the most. Not the $15,000. Feel free to break it up and put it on YouTube in it’s entirety as well. They will host it for free so all of these adoring fans won’t have to invest in your labor of love and they will be able to share in your masterpiece.
“If we can meet and exceed our goal to around the $25,000 level we will offer a high quality HD uprezzed version of the film for both download and on Blu-Ray. All the titles will be redone in HD and the film should look great on an HDTV or computer screen. “
Shit, son. What’s another 10 Gs?