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coming soon to saint andrew’s hall:
coming soon concert calendar: 1/7 – dorothy @ the shelter 1/14 – andrea gibson @ the shelter w/ chastity brown
1/21 – the green @ the shelter
w/ sammy j, leilani wolfgramm
1/25 – the glorious sons $8.90 tickets
jan. 13 the devil makes three st. andrew’s
jan. 19 g. love & special sauce the shelter
@ the shelter
1/28 – mod sun @ the shelter 2/2 – boombox 2/7 – avatar w/ the brains, hellzapoppin 2/9 – starset w/ gabbitz, year of the locust 2/9 – the dangerous summer
@ the shelter w/microwave, the band camino
2/11 – big wreck w/ attica riots 2/13 – devvon terrell @ the shelter w/ kayla brianna
jan. 20 the dan band
st. andrew’s w/ the tommy marz band
jan. 24 fetty wap st. andrew’s
2/15 – here come the mummies 2/15 – set it off @ the shelter w/ the gospel youth
2/17 – coin w/ the aces 2/18 – gin blossoms new miserable
experience 25 year anniversary tour
2/20 – new politics w/ dreamers, the wrecks
2/21 – architects w/ stick to your guns, counterparts
jan. 26 candlebox st. andrew’s
jan. 31 blues traveler st. andrew’s w/ los colognes
2/24 – lettuce & galactic 2/25 – missio @ the shelter w/ welshly arms
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Vol. 38 | Issue 13 | Jan. 3-9, 2018
News & Views
Publisher - Chris Keating Associate Publisher - Jim Cohen Editor in Chief - Lee DeVito
News....................................... 6 Politics & Prejudices.............. 8
What’s Going On................ 12
EDITORIAL Managing Editor - Alysa Zavala-Offman Senior Editor - Michael Jackman Staff Writer - Violet Ikonomova Dining Editor - Tom Perkins Music and Listings Editor - Jerilyn Jordan Contributing Editors - Larry Gabriel, Jack Lessenberry Copy Editor - Sonia Khaleel Editorial Interns - Aleanna Siacon, Nadia Koontz, Emmitt Lewis Contributors - Sean Bieri, Doug Coombe, Kahn Santori Davison, Mike Ferdinande, Cal Garrison, Curt Guyette, Mike Pfeiffer, Dontae Rockymore, Dan Savage, Sara Barron, Jane Slaughter
ADVERTISING
Feature Twelve Detroit bands to watch in 2018 ...................... 18
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BUSINESS/OPERATIONS Business Manager - Holly Rhodes Controller - Kristy Dotson
CREATIVE SERVICES Art Director - Eric Millikin Graphic Designers - Paul Martinez, Haimanti Germain
Food Review: Chao Zhou............. 34
CIRCULATION Circulation Manager - Annie O’Brien
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Arts & Culture Film: The Post...................... 38 Higher Ground..................... 40 Savage Love......................... 44
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Horoscopes with Cal Garrison.......................... 50
The Detroit Metro Times is published every week by Euclid Media Group Verified Audit Member
On the cover: Photo illustration by Eric Millikin, from photos by Noah Elliott Morrisson.
Printed on recycled paper Printed By
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248-620-2990
Detroit Distribution – The Detroit Metro Times is available free of charge, limited to one copy per reader.
EUCLID MEDIA • Copyright - The entire contents of the Detroit Metro Times are copyright 2018 by Euclid Media Group LLC. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission of the publisher is prohibited. Publisher does not assume any liability for unsolicited manuscripts, materials, or other content. Any submission must include a stamped, self-addressed envelope. All editorial, advertising, and business correspondence should be mailed to the address listed above. Prior written permission must be granted to Metro Times for additional copies. Metro Times may be distributed only by Metro Times’ authorized distributors and independent contractors. Subscriptions are available by mail inside the U.S. for six months at $80 and a yearly subscription for $150. Include check or money order payable to - Metro Times Subscriptions, 1200 Woodward Heights, Ferndale, MI 48220-1427. (Please note - Third Class subscription copies are usually received 3-5 days after publication date in the Detroit area.) Most back issues obtainable for $5 at Metro Times offices or $7 prepaid by mail.
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| January 3-9, 2018
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NEWS & VIEWS Back on patrol
Detroit cop known online as ‘FatalForce’ cleared in killing of teen by Violet Ikonomova
With a Michigan State Police
trooper in the spotlight for the alleged murder of an unarmed teen who was riding through a Detroit neighborhood on an ATV, it can be easy to forget that the Detroit Police Department also notched a killing of at least one unarmed teen this year. The department had gone about 18 months without killing any citizens until February, when Officer Jerold Blanding chased 19-year-old Raynard Burton behind a house and shot him after an alleged struggle. Officers said they pursued Burton, who later turned out to be a carjacking suspect, because he’d been speeding. When Burton crashed and ran from his vehicle, Blanding eventually left his partner behind to go after him on foot. Once out of view, Detroit police say Blanding said the teen “lunged” at him in an attempt to grab his gun, causing him to fire the single, deadly shot. Last week, as the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office doled out murder and misconduct charges to local law enforcement officers accused of acting inappropriately throughout the year, it declined to charge Blanding in Burton’s death. With no eye witness accounts or body- or dash-camera video apparently available for the Detroit police-led probe into the officer’s actions, the county prosecutor described signs of a close-range bullet wound as corroborating Blanding’s version of events and determined the shooting was justified. It’s the third time Blanding, a more than 20-year veteran of the Detroit Police Department, has been cleared of wrongdoing in the shooting of a citizen. The two previous off-duty and non-fatal encounters have prompted unjustified use of deadly force lawsuits against the department, with one suit resulting in a six-figure payout for a victim and the other still pending. Blanding was never charged by the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office in those shootings. He was, however, found by the Detroit Police Department to have inappropriately used force in a 2010 incident, according to a list of citizen complaints filed against him and obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. He was also disciplined early in his career for shooting a pigeon with his department-issued Glock, according to a report by The Detroit News. By the time Blanding killed Burton in February, he had made his Instagram handle “FatalForce.”
In the more recent nonfatal shooting at the heart of a civil rights suit against DPD, Blanding is accused of unloading more than a dozen bullets into the vehicle of an unarmed Detroit resident who was involved in a domestic dispute with the mother of his child. According to victim DeMar Parker’s account of the 2015 incident, his child’s mother was dating a Detroit police officer who apparently called two of his fellow officers for help, one of whom was Blanding. When the un-uniformed officers arrived and began to close in, Parker said he ran to his car and took off, driving a few blocks before turning the car around to head back in the direction of his home. He said he decided to return using the same road in an effort to get the license plate number of the vehicle in which the officers had shown up. As Parker headed back down the street, he said one of the officers stepped into the middle of the road and pointed his gun directly at him. Parker said he swerved to avoid him when Blanding, who Parker said had been standing on the sidewalk, suddenly opened fire. Parker ducked as he said Blanding shot repeatedly at his vehicle, sending bullets whizzing past his head. One of the bullets hit his leg. Blanding, for his part, told investigators that Parker had come back down the street waving a pistol and that he feared Parker would shoot his fellow officer or hit him with his vehicle. Blanding was the only witness to claim Parker had a gun. Others who were interviewed by detectives spoke mostly to the manner in which Parker approached the officers in his car. A neighbor said she saw Parker drive up slow in an attempt to “intimidate” the officers, while the grandfather of Parker’s child, who was not an eyewitness, said he heard a “loud engine” come up the street. The officer Parker said was standing in the middle of the road with a gun said he stepped out of the way so the vehicle could pass but that Parker accelerated and veered toward him, causing him to jump. Blanding, meanwhile, said he heard squealing tires. The Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office declined to file charges in the case, determining that Blanding had acted “in self-defense and/or the defense of others.” The office also declined to charge Parker,
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Jerold Blanding.
citing insufficient evidence. The civil suit is set to go to trial this summer. The officer’s first known near-killing of an unarmed citizen occurred 17 years earlier, and was the subject of an award-winning Metro Times cover story, “Under the Gun.” In that incident, Blanding repeatedly shot a man who said he’d mistakenly walked up to the officer’s vehicle at a drive-up ATM. According to court records referenced in the report, trouble with the cash machine had compelled the victim, Johnny Crenshaw, to get out of his girlfriend’s minivan to get help from a woman using another ATM. While Crenshaw was out of the minivan, his girlfriend moved to let in another SUV being driven by Blanding, who was offduty at the time. As the victim fussed with his cash, card, and wallet, he said he walked back to the spot where the minivan had been and accidentally opened the door of the officer’s SUV. The officer — who later said he thought the man was an armed robber — opened fire, but only after the victim said he’d already apologized and closed the door. Blanding stepped out of his vehicle to shoot at Crenshaw, and continued to shoot as Crenshaw retreated to his girlfriend’s car while he said he was pleading for mercy. Blanding said he thought Crenshaw had been holding a gun. He hit Crenshaw at least three times. No gun was recovered at the scene; Crenshaw had been holding his wallet. The officer was cleared by the Wayne County prosecutor in that case, but elements of the preceding DPD investigation were later called into question by Crenshaw’s lawyer. For example, investigators never sought a key witness to the incident — the woman who had helped the victim at the ATM — who Crenshaw’s lawyer said he was easily able to reach and who corroborated the series of events as told by the victim. Separately, an investigative report into the incident by The Detroit News found investigators offered the officer
leading questions, like, “The black object you saw in the complainant’s hand, did you think it was a gun?” Also questioned was the length of time investigators sat on the case before handing it over to the prosecutor’s office. The case helped lead to what would eventually be 13 years of federal oversight for DPD. That oversight was lifted in 2016. Not much has changed in the way the prosecutor’s office determines whether charges are warranted in deadly officerinvolved shootings. The Detroit Police Department led the investigation into Blanding’s killing of Burton before sending its findings to the prosecutor, though some Michigan State Police officers were on the joint team that handles such matters. Detroit police also sat on the case for more than seven months before sharing the completed investigation. The case was initially submitted just after the killing, and quickly returned by the prosecutor’s office with a request for more information. The information eventually sent to the Wayne County prosecutor included a witness statement saying that officers repeatedly warned Burton to get on the ground. Burton was also found shot with his shirt off once Blanding’s partner caught up to him, which Detroit Police Chief James Craig had previously described as a sign of a struggle. And of course, there was the aforementioned close-range bullet wound — a single, deadly shot to Burton’s stomach. After Burton’s death, Chief Craig divulged details of the teen’s sealed juvenile convictions in a news conference. Before he turned 18, Burton had been convicted of crimes including car theft and assault. No mention was made of the prior excessiveuse-of-force allegations against Blanding. Blanding was placed on leave for 10 months following the killing. Now that he’s cleared, he’s expected to return to patrol. news@metrotimes.com @violetikon
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NEWS & VIEWS Politics & Prejudices
Fixing prisons by helping the mentally ill By Jack Lessenberry
Happy New Year, comrades!
Just think, soon it will be almost a year since President Donald John Trump started to make America great again. True, he didn’t exactly “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act, but instead is starving it to death so health coverage will become impossible to afford. And true, the so-called “middleclass tax cut” he promised turned out to be nothing but a scheme to wildly increase the national debt by cutting the taxes big corporations have to pay. And yes, our president is an ignorant buffoon who has made America the laughingstock of the world. True, he has driven away thousands of the best hightech immigrants, the ones our economy needs most. But that doesn’t matter so much because he did build the wall and brought all those jobs back from China and Mexico. Why, General Motors said they are going to re-open all those closed Pontiac and Oldsmobile plants any day now! What? Didn’t happen? Well, clearly you need some more training in the world of alternative facts. But whatever you do, don’t forget this: Even when this tax cut spurs both inflation and eventually a savage recession, as some economists warn it might… And even when you lose any health coverage and you realize that consumer product protection is a thing of the past, remember this... You’ll never, ever have to worry again about Hillary Clinton’s emails.
Now, back to Michigan True, the decline and fall of our empire may be playing out on the nation’s cable news screens. But while we hunker down and pray for a return to national sanity, there is something we can do here. Michigan has a huge, bloated prison system that costs the state about $2 billion a year, far more than we spend on higher education. That shouldn’t be surprising, since
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our pitiful excuses for leaders have been acting as if we wanted to create convicts, not knowledge workers, by making it steadily harder to get an education. But what would you think of a policy change that would shrink our prison population, save the state hundreds of millions of dollars a year — and give our mentally ill population better treatment? Our legislature could make that happen this year — and one of the people whose opinion I most respect on the prison system has just given us a road map for how to do it. That would be Milton Mack, for many years the chief probate judge in Wayne County. Mack, who had to preside over many competency hearings in the quartercentury he spent on the bench, has spent years studying Michigan’s huge and insanely expensive prison system. Long ago, he realized that a large part of the problem is that it is filled with people who are mentally ill, the casualties of a system that closed the state’s large mental hospitals and never built the promised community mental health centers they said would take their place. Some of those tossed on the street did manage to make it. No doubt there were a few in mental hospitals who didn’t really need to be there. But for many of those who had been hospitalized, being on the street meant “homelessness, incarceration and impoverishment.” What it has also meant was a radical change in the prison population of
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NEWS & VIEWS Michigan. The number of inmates in state prisons has declined from around 51,000 in 2006 to around 40,000 today, due to both the aging of the prison population and the fact that we are somewhat less likely to throw someone in the slam for decades for a bag of pot. Yet the number of mentally ill inmates has skyrocketed. Nearly one quarter of all Michigan inmates — 23 percent — are mentally ill. Prisons, as Mack noted dryly, “are not therapeutic environments,” conducive to people getting better. And indeed they don’t, even if they get their medication. Studies show they stay locked up longer than other prisoners, “largely because many find it difficult to follow and understand prison rules.” For much the same reason, they have far higher recidivism rates. They also cost much more. It costs Michigan taxpayers an average of $35,253 to keep someone locked up for a year. But for the most severely mentally ill prisoners, that jumps to $95,233, money that could be used better elsewhere. Two years ago, Mack left the bench to become Michigan’s state court administrator. For the last year, he has worked
on a paper called Decriminalization of Mental Illness: Fixing a Broken System, which offers an innovative policy proposal for the nation’s prisons. Here’s the heart of what he is recommending: Modify state mental health codes to allow the courts to intervene before someone gets in trouble “to help persons with mental illness secure earlier treatment in order to avoid behavior that may lead to contact with the criminal justice system.” Basically, what that means is that where merited, the courts should be able to require someone to get on medication who may not yet have committed any crime. True, that does raise questions about taking someone’s freedom of choice away. Mack is acutely aware of that, and as a probate judge was very careful not to take claims that someone wasn’t mentally competent at face value. But with safeguards, he is convinced that this would shrink the prison population by as much, based on some pilot projects in other states, as 25 percent. “That would mean a savings of hundreds of millions of dollars a year,” he said. Know what it costs the state to treat the
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mentally ill on an outpatient basis? Michigan spends an average of $5,741 on adults who have mental illness but who are not behind bars. Compare that to the cost of locking them up. Preventing the mentally ill from doing anything to get themselves arrested is vitally important: “People with mental illness are 16 times more likely to be killed by the cops when they are approached or stopped by law enforcement,” Mack told me. His proposal also contains recommendations for various “intercept” policies for law enforcement to use with mentally ill prisoners already in or leaving the prison system. But prevention is almost always a better idea than curing, and keeping mentally ill people out of prison is a very worthy goal. Speaker of the House Tom Leonard is a conservative Republican, but told me that as a young prosecutor, he became converted to the role mental health courts and treatment can play. He has been looking at these proposals — and may be considering legislation to make this happen soon. More than a century ago, intelligent and progressive reformers realized that mentally ill persons don’t belong in prison.
Somehow, we seem to have forgotten that. It could save money and lives if we went back to doing the right thing.
Seven dirty words Remember George Carlin’s seven dirty words? Well, the Trump administration has forbidden the nation’s most important health care agency, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) from using seven words: “entitlement,” “vulnerable,” “transgender,” “fetus,” “diversity,” and, of course, “evidence-based” and “science-based” in official documents. Don’t be surprised if next year, our bargain-basement Mussolini bans the words “democracy, First Amendment, fact-based, Constitution, Obama, impeachment,” and perhaps “freedom.” People who know what this country is supposed to stand for don’t go in for banning words. But there are seven terms I suggest you avoid as much as possible, especially around kids: They are: “Trump,” “Bannon,” “wall,” “believe me,” “win,” “great,” and of course, “Pence.” And make sure you are registered to vote. letters@metrotimes.com @metrotimes
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UP FRONT
What’s Going On
A week’s worth of things to do and places to do them by MT staff
Jessica Care Moore.
THURSDAY, 1/4
COURTESY PHOTO
FRIDAY, 1/5
Jessica Care Moore
Black Label Society
@ MOCAD
@ The Fillmore
FRI, 1/5-SAT, 1/6
FRI, 1/5-MON, 1/29
Anti-Freeze Blues Festival
Let the Right One In @ The Ringwald Theatre
@ The Magic Bag
Detroit native Jessica Care Moore is a poet first. But it is that very gift that has guided her hand in becoming a playwright, producer, performance artist, activist, Def Poetry Jam contributor, and hip-hop collaborator. Over the course of her career, Moore has uniquely merged her poetry, music, and visuals for a deeply personal mosaic of conceptual projects, several of which have garnered national attention. For this event, “Poetry and Beautiful Men on Guitars: A Night of Rebellion Poems & Experimental Duets,” Moore will team up with the likes of Kenny Watson, Sean Blackman, John Bunkley, Omar of One Freq, and Duminie Deporres.
2018 marks 20 years of L.A. heavy metal band Black Label Society, which means one thing — heavy metal is here to stay. With nine studio records and a slew of live recordings and compilations, Black Label Society has set the standard for pushing the pedal to the metal. Formed in ’98 by Zakk Wylde, the band has seen their share of endless line-up shake-ups. Like, the bassist was replaced and then replaced again with himself, and Wylde toured with the Ozzy Osbourne for a good chunk of 2007. But with songs like “Stillborn,” “Room of Nightmares,” and “Heart of Darkness” it’s clear that Black Label Society will forever occupy the darkest corners of our hearts.
Doors open at 8 p.m.; 4454 Woodward Ave., Detroit; 313-8326622; mocadetroit.org; Tickets are $10, $5 for members.
Doors open at 6:30 p.m.; 2115 Woodward Ave., Detroit; 313961-5451; thefillmoredetroit.com; Tickets start at $34.
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Got a serious case of the blues? Well, that’s a good thing for once. In fact, it’s just what the doctor ordered. Eliza Neals & the Narcotics headline night one of the Anti-Freeze Blues Festival, a benefit for the Detroit Blues Society. Detroit Music Award-winner (and former Metro Times cover girl) Neals and her Narcotics blend contemporary blues and classic rock to form a totally unique and sexy sound that is hot enough to warm the bluest of hearts. James Montgomery and Jim McCarty will headline night two with support from Tosha Owens, Bobby Murray, RJ’s Soul Blues Gang, and more.
Doors open at 7 p.m.; 22920 Woodward Ave., Ferndale; 248544-1991; themagicbag.com; Tickets are $20.
There was a moment there where everything was vampires all the time. But Twilight can suck it — bring on the Swedish cult phenomenon Let the Right One In. The 2004 novel of the same name spurred several film adaptations, a TV pilot, and now a stage production. The coming-of-age love story follows teenage outcast Oskar and new girl and shut-in (and “old soul”) Eli as they forge a friendship based on their shared loneliness. Adapted for the stage by Jack Thorn, LTROI makes its Midwestern debut with help from director Brandy Joe Plambeck.
Performances on Fridays, Saturdays, and Mondays start at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 5 p.m.; 22742 Woodward Ave.; 248-5455545; theringwald.com; Tickets are $20.
Hedy Lamarr.
SATURDAY, 1/6
COURTESY PHOTO
SAT, 1/6-SAT, 1/13
Wild Women of Detroit Tour
Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story
@ Eastern Market
@ Detroit Film Theatre
Sure, French explorer Antoine Laumet de La Mothe sieur de Cadillac may have founded our beloved Detroit in 1701, but it was his wife Marie who decided much of the original layout. Detroit’s history is rich with the work of wild women, daring dames, and riveting Rosies. This four-and-a-half hour bus tour will explore everything from to prostitutes, murderers, cults, saints, and Motown greats, and is sure to cater to history buffs and newbies alike. The tour will make a stop at two historic Detroit bars topped off with a few tasty treats.
Starlet of the silver screen Hedy Lamarr was once considered the “most beautiful woman in the world.” But few may know that the legendary actress was responsible for a technological breakthrough that has become the basis for the security of today’s WiFi and GPS, and invented a “secret communication system” to assist the Allies in WWII. Alexandra Dean’s documentary Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story shares a rare glimpse into the genius behind the scenes. Through archival recordings, Dean reveals that Lamarr’s struggle to have her invention taken seriously was one of defiance, brilliance, and heroism.
Tour begins at 6:30 p.m., boarding begins at 6:15; 2934 Russell St., Detroit; detroithistorytours.com; Tickets are $42; 21+.
SATURDAY, 1/6 AND
Show times vary; 5200 Woodward Ave., Detroit; 313-833-7900; dia. org; Tickets are $9.50 or $7.50 for students, seniors, and DIA members.
SAT, 1/6-SUN, 1/7
TUESDAY, 1/9
Ring Without Words
Turkuaz
@ DSO
@ El Club
You shall not pass… up an experience such as this. If dwarfs, giants, elves, and lore are your bag, a trip to Middle Earth might be in the cards. If y’all can’t track down a hobbit or a wizard, the DSO’s Ring Without Words might satisfy your taste for the fantastical. Richard Wagner’s masterpiece, Ring Cycle, may have preceded our fascination with Game of Thrones but the late Maestro Lorin Maazel’s compilation Ring Without Words combines Wagner’s four operatic installments of Der Ring des Nibelungen into one mystifying concert.
It’s hard to place Brooklyn-based funk nine-piece Turkuaz. But if you had to, placing them somewhere between a rainbow and a disco ball would be rather fitting. This shimmering prismatic soul, power-funk, rock outfit has more charisma in a single sparkled lapel than most bands have in their entire DNA. An eclectic experiment in fusing nine personalities and with dynamic dance elements, Turkuaz is getting up for a spirited 2018. After releasing their Jerry Harrison (Talking Heads) produced single “On the Run” in October, Turkuaz kicks off their their 29-date winter tour here in Detroit, spreading their good vibes across the land.
Performance begins at 8 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 6 and 3 p.m. on Sunday, Jan. 7; 3711 Woodward Ave., Detroit; 313-576-5111; dso. org; Tickets are $15-$100.
Doors open at 8 p.m., 4114 W. Vernor Hwy., Detroit; 313-2797382; elclubdetroit.com; Tickets are $15.
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UP FRONT Kid Vishis & My Detroit Players. 8 p.m.; the Crofoot Ballroom, 1 S. Saginaw St., Pontiac; $15. Scarlet Lies with Krillin and Space Skull. 8 p.m. El Club, 4114 W. Vernor Hwy., Detroit; $5-$8. Sisters of Your Sunshine Vapor. 8 p.m.; the Loving Touch, 22634 Woodward Ave., Ferndale; $10. The Yellow Room Gang. 8 p.m.; the Ark, 316 S. Main St., Ann Arbor; $20.
Sunday, 1/7 Dorothy. 7:30 p.m.; the Shelter, 431 E. Congress St., Detroit; $15.
Tuesday, 1/9 Turkuaz. 8 p.m.; El Club, 4114 W. Vernor Hwy., Detroit; $15.
Wednesday, 1/10 August Burns Red. 6:30 p.m.; Crofoot Ballroom, 1 S. Saginaw St., Pontiac; $25.
THEATRE Tuesday, 1/9-Thursday, 1/11 Chicago: The Musical. 7:30 p.m.; Macomb Center for the Performing Arts, 44575 Garfield Rd., Clinton Twp.; $68$78. Turkuaz.
MUSIC Thursday, 1/4 Dyelow with Alaska the Renegade, Drew Denton, and more. 9 p.m.; Blind Pig, 208 S. First St., Ann Arbor; $7-$10. Martin Sexton Trio. 8 p.m.; the Ark, 316 S. Main St., Ann Arbor; $35. Midnight Gold with Painted Shapes and Bear Bones. 8 p.m.; the Loving Touch, 22634 Woodward Ave., Ferndale; $10.
Friday, 1/5 Awesome Dre. 7 p.m.; Detroit Institute of Arts, 5200 Woodward Ave., Detroit; free.
COURTESY PHOTO
Black Label Society. 6:30 p.m.; the Fillmore, 2115 Woodward Ave., Detroit; $34.
and DJ Eddie Baranek. 10 p.m.; Outer Limits Lounge, 5507 Caniff St., Detroit; $5.
Boys of Fall with Stories Untold, Lilac Lungs, and more. 6 p.m. Saint Andrew's Hall, 431 E. Congress, Detroit; $10 advance, $15 day of show.
The Sugarees. 8 p.m.; Otus Supply, 345 E. Nine Mile Rd., Ferndale; $10-$15.
DJ Minx with Mother Cyborg. 8 p.m., El Club, 4114 W. Vernor Hwy., Detroit; $5. Esham. 6 p.m.; Harpos, 14238 Harper Ave., Detroit; $15. Goldzilla with Eddie Logix. 8 p.m.; the Ferndale Public Library, 222 E. Nine Mile Rd., Ferndale; Event is free. Nesha Nichols. 9:30 p.m.; Vernors Room 1 S. Saginaw St., Pontiac; $10-$15. Rich Hands with Loose Koozies
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Thunderwüde. 8 p.m.; the Ark, 316 S. Main St., Ann Arbor; $15. Trifocal with Chirp and Act Casual. 8 p.m.; PJ’s Lager House, 1254 Michigan Ave., Detroit; $5.
Saturday, 1/6 Blackmail with Zero Below Phoenix and the Mighty Ded Woods. 8 p.m.; PJ’s Lager House, 1254 Michigan Ave., Detroit; $5. Detroit Music Festival. 3 p.m.; Saint Andrew's Hall, 431 E. Congress St., Detroit; $15.
Wednesday, 1/10-Sunday, 1/14 Cirque du Soleil: Crystal. 7:30 p.m. Little Caesars Arena, 2645 Woodward Ave., Detroit; $40-$150.
FILM Friday, 1/5 and Saturday, 1/6 The Room. Midnight; Main Art Theatre, 118 N. Main St., Royal Oak; $7.
Saturday, 1/6 Rikers: An American Jail. 2 p.m.; Charles H. Wright Museum, 315 E. Warren Ave., Detroit; Event is free.
calendar@metrotimes.com @metrotimes
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FEATURE
The colorful characters of Krillin.
Detroit dozen 12 bands to watch in 2018
By Metro Times staff, photos by Noah Elliott Morrison
What do you get when you cross
an angsty hip-hop dreamer, an improvisational electronica jazz composer, and a group of space rebels using Earth as a temporary hideout? No, this isn’t some sonic acid trip — it’s Metro Times’ annual roundup of bands and artists you should (and will) have on your radar in the coming year. And this year, it’s getting surreal. Just how does one qualify for such a prestigious honor? Well, it’s simple. The band (or solo artist) must be destined for greatness. Like, that’s pretty much it. Just by being recognized on this list pretty much guarantees that. We’re not making shit up. The truth is, we have an ear for this sort of thing.
Look at our 2017 list: Anna Burch and Stef Chura have since scored record deals (with Polyvinyl and Saddle Creek, respectively), Valley Hush moved to the West Coast, and a slew of others from our list have become staples of the circuit and are gearing up for some surprises this year, too. Based on our findings this time around, we can assure you that 2018 will provide one hell of a soundtrack thanks to these 12 artists. We can’t wait to hear what that might sound like.
Krillin “I don’t know how you want to do this interview because you should know that this is not a normal band.”
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This is how my conversation with Krillin bassist and rare species of alien Leyline Slime, er, Anastasiya Metesheva begins. “Well, I fell onto nuclear trash planet so my body has turned into sludge. It’s temporary, though,” Metesheva explains. “I can harness all elemental powers which is why the space government is searching for me. I just joined Krillin as a hideout.” The story of psychedelic-fiction rockers (or “psy-fi”) Krillin is more than a collection of sounds. It’s a story that’s totally out of this world. The group of multidimensional extraterrestrials from the Underspace who are wanted for being a rogue group of chaos-makers
across the cosmos formed in 2015 when Metesheva was asked by a friend to play at her wedding. Which is exactly what she did. Well, sort of. “Literally this band was created to play their wedding. They are the prince and princess of the Moon,” Metesheva says. “So, when Krillin hears about a rare treasure in their castle they assault the band that is scheduled to play and infiltrates the wedding to find treasure.” But since its inception, the story of Krillin has evolved far beyond a wedding band. You see, drummer Solar Scum (Michelle Thibodeau) is a cat humanoid and intergalactic thief. The Void (Cassidy Stewart) plays guitar
Sam Austins.
while being a possessed parasitic lifeform. And then there’s Capt. Earwig Twitch (Eric Wilson), also on guitar, but his caveat is that his body is always twitching and randomly transforming into things, and as the only one who can fly the ship, he gets Krillin into trouble. Layering experimental noise, droning synths, an unworldly sense of togetherness, and elaborate, everchanging storylines based on real events, venues, and people to create inter-dimensional doorways and improvisational “music to get chased to,” Metesheva explains that Krillin is based on intuition and feeling. As for their live show, well, that’s just something you have to see for yourself. To call it a transportive and totally fucking surreal experience merely skims the surface. “We want to play one show a month in 2018,” Metesheva says. “But since we’re maintaining a low profile from
the space police, we are going to record more material and are working on a few projects that tell the story of Krillin in a way that a new audience could enjoy.” As for what’s to come, she adds, “Krillin can’t predict the future, but we can travel to the past.” — Jerilyn Jordan Listen: krillinband.bandcamp.com
Sam Austins The first time MT caught a musical whiff of Sam Austins was on Nov. 11, 2015, at St. Andrew’s Hall in Detroit. That night a teenaged Austins (who was opening for Casey Veggies and Dom Kennedy) stirred up the crowd in a mosh-pit bass-heavy frenzy as he performed a set of tracks from his debut project, Goat. Although the project made the noise Austins wanted it to make, he fell into a weird space afterward. “I was deep in my own mind. Musically, I felt fresh and ready to go, with
new ideas, but considering the means I had to work on more content, I felt very limited in what I could do,” he explains. “I wasn’t sure of my next step, and in a sense, I felt kind of lost after I released Goat. It was so many dope (and some not-so-dope) things going on around me with no real process. I’m thankful to have learned so much from that period, and to be able to apply it toward this current stage.” Enter the 2017 release of Angst, a sixcut EP that’s much different sonically from Goat as Austin finds a hip-hop space between Slim Jxmmi and Swae Lee, riding on more of a slow-paced melodic vibe that’s more soul-stirring than trunk-rattling. “I think it’s in its own pocket where it’s different enough to stand out in this weird genre I kind of tapped into,” Austins says. “Yet it’s familiar enough where it can sit alongside the Big Sean, Tee Grizzley, and Payroll Giovanni-type projects. I represent a certain sound
of the city that hasn’t been heard until now, and Angst is just the beginning of where I’m going to take it.” Austins is correct on his assessment of Detroit hip-hop. He has definitely found a lane that only he occupies, but he still sees the city’s hip-hop scene as a movement that is constantly evolving and feels the best is yet to come. “I’ve been keeping my ear to a couple new artists coming out of here, like Daniel Hex, Daniel Eugene, Supakaine, and more. I’ve also been rocking with more known names in the city like Bandgang, Sada Baby, and others on that end. I want to work more with Daniel Hex. He’s such an undiscovered gem that I think is capable of pushing this Detroit culture to a new level,” he says. “Detroit music has been thriving and I feel like we’re finally about to see a breakthrough on a larger scale.” — Kahn Santori Davison Listen: samaustins.com
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FEATURE
Molly Jones.
Molly Jones When you ask a musician what their main influences are and the first two names she excitedly states are saxophonists Albert Ayler and Archie Shepp, you know you’re talking to the real deal. Molly Jones is, without a doubt, the real deal; her roving compositions and improvisations are a very welcome component to the flourishing creative jazz scene in the city. Jones is a Detroit transplant, having moved to Michigan from Indianapolis to study saxophone at the University of Michigan. She’s been playing since sixth grade, but during college she decided to pick up flute as well, and later had the opportunity to study it at the University of California, Irvine with Ni-
cole Mitchell, a flutist, composer, and former (and first female) president of the Association for Chicago’s Advancement of Creative Musicians. 2017 saw the release of Jones’ first album as Microliths. When I ask about the relationship between composition and improvisation in her work, she explains they inform each other; this is immediately evident when you listen to Microliths. “I’m surrounded by people who just know how to create music out of thin air,” she says. The pieces she writes are structures designed to facilitate that. Microliths is free jazz, but it swings at times, too; the emphasis on collective improvisation gives the septet’s instruments plenty of space to ramble in and
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out, weaving sonic embroidery within and beyond each other until the string is pulled and it all collapses in on itself to begin anew. Jones is currently working on a solo set that involves electronics, saxophones, a flute, toys, and videos of her own making. She plans to workshop that project around town for a while, developing it slowly as she goes along. But when asked if she thinks that will be completed in 2018, she throws us for a loop with an even larger project she has in the works. “I’m writing an opera,” she says. She says she had the idea to write this opera some time ago, and knew she wanted to work with so many of the “amazing people who live here.” After
approaching her potential future collaborators, and after several of them said yes, she went ahead and started Untoward Co., an LLC that is an opera company. The goal is for the opera to come out in early winter; her vision for it is of a multimedia spectacle that involves animation and dance as well as music. Sonically, the opera will be an exploration of two very distinct styles that speak to her sensibilities: brass brand meets electronic glitch. “I have to find a way to combine those two in a way that makes sense,” she says. We can’t wait to see the results. — Ana Gavrilovska Listen: mollyjones.bandcamp.com
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FEATURE
Jonathan Franco.
Jonathan Franco Local musician Jonathan Franco sees the world as a giant soundscape. The 26-year-old Dearborn native occasionally departs from traditional instruments and finds himself collecting sounds from eclectic objects like a fake Christmas tree or a subway air conditioner to create textured layers that beget specific places or feelings. This unorthodox approach to instrumentation, combined with Franco’s poetic lyricism and interest in ’60s rock, makes for a captivating debut album — one that has been five years in the making. Slated for an early 2018 release, Franco’s debut album is a diaristic body of work that has been written, rewritten, deconstructed, and rewritten again. Franco explains that this tedious process isn’t in pursuit of a cookie cut-
ter sound, but a specific sentiment. “I’ve been taking so long on the album, which makes it seem like I’ve been sitting here trying to get every note perfect, but that’s not what I’m obsessed with,” he says. “The big thing with me lately is trying to capture moments or feelings… a moment or a few hours will stick out to me and I’ll want to figure out how to make a song that feels like that. I don’t know if it will ever come across, but it’s a fun thing to chase.” Franco comes close to, if not arrives at, this goal in his song “A Topiary,” named after an un-made epic film by sci-fi writer and director Shane Carruth. The deeply intricate and imaginative 300-page script — coined as one of the “Best Films Never Made” — was eventually shelved because of its $20 million estimated budget. “Nobody wanted to
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fund it so he ended up just shelving it and saying he would never make it and moved on to other projects,” Franco explains. “It kind of felt like this album for a while, so I always felt really connected to it.” The song is held down by steady guitar strums and layered with sounds from a pitched bell tower, loose piano strings, and old voicemails from close friends. With these elements, Franco captures both the warmth and longing that nostalgia can bring. Franco, whose eccentric songwriting style stems from an exhaustive and diverse list of influences, gravitated toward experimental music at an early age. Although he grew up on ’60s staples like Bob Dylan and the Beatles, he says he was always drawn to songs like “Revolution 9,” rather than the band’s more mainstream tunes. “I didn’t have
any external forces telling me it was weird or different,” says Franco. “I just liked it and that led me to more collage-seeming stuff.” Franco looks to poets including Leonard Cohen, David Berman, Yuan Mei, and Billy Collins for lyrical inspiration while citing artists like the Microphones, Bedhead, Hiroshi Yoshimura, Luc Ferrari and “a lot of Japanese minimalist composers from the ’80s” as influences on the musical side. With such a mixed bag of musical influences and a knack for turning inanimate objects into instruments, Franco has created a body of work that glides through genres and generations and is undoubtedly worth the wait. — Sara Barron Listen: facebook.com/JonathanFrancoDetroit
MotorKam.
MotorKam Watching Motorkam perform is like watching a hip-hop love child of DJ Assault, George Clinton, and Zapp. Any millennial who goes by the alter ego “BlackDaddy” is definitely some sort of funk time traveler. The Detroit-born emcee has had quite the year. He released his album BlackDaddy: Greatest Hits at the beginning of 2017 and followed it up with an EP, BlackDaddy’s Birthday Suite in July. He also performed at the Lamp Light Festival, Electric Forest, and opened up for the Lox, Flint Eastwood, and Goapele. The Summit Academy graduate likes the diversity of his performances. “Seeing that most of the shows this year had drastically different feels, I’d give
myself a B+,” he says. “I felt the various performances gave me an opportunity to gage my demographic and broaden my versatility. At the year’s end I now feel like I’m able to play any room and shine doing it. I do know there’s room for improvement and I’m excited to see big growth in 2018.” MT first caught up with Motorkam back in February, where he talked about his use of Detroit ghettotech, synthesized voice effects, and oldschool vibes mixed with a little bit of trap and boom-bap. His sound is an ambiguous form of hip-hop and he could easily pop up in at least four different playlist genres. Motorkam admits that fitting inside of a box has been the main challenge this year, but that he has come to real-
ize that maybe he doesn’t need a box at all. “I don’t feel the need to change that because it’s what separates me from the next artist,” he says. “I found my own lane and now it’s time for me to continue to expand on it. I can admit that maybe we were a little ahead of the curve with the BlackDaddy stuff and some people spent a lot of time trying to figure it out before they caught on. By now I’ve gotten used to the confused stares and the unsure head nods, I realize people are just processing something they’ve never heard before, which usually ends in them coming to me saying how they loved my set (and it being so different). Some people get it right away though.” Motorkam’s next album, New-
BlackCity, will be released next year. Motorkam promises more of the same, but also an upgrade. The album will feature production from Kaido, Marshall Law, and Landman Dxn. “NewBlackCity will be more centered around hip-hop instead of blending it with various dance elements,” he explains. “After establishing BlackDaddy I wanted to focus on becoming a better lyricist. This new album will serve as a behind-the-scenes look on the tribulations and conflicts I had while making BlackDaddy’s Greatest Hits. It’s like, how does a young black creative find his or her place in a rapidly gentrifying city that’s on the brink of dividing itself in half?” — Kahn Santori Davison Listen: soundcloud.com/motorkam
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FEATURE
Shortly.
Shortly
When 21-year old Alexandria Maniak went to the studio last summer to record what would be her first single as her moniker Shortly, what surfaced was completely unexpected — and it just so happened to land her a record deal. “I wrote ‘Matthew’ so quickly. Emotions had spurred the song the day before I was going to record a different song,” Maniak says. “It’s just a simple E-chord, but it worked because the emotions are more raw and unfiltered. I want to embrace that feeling moving forward. I really want to embrace the idea of failure.” Maniak’s breathy and fraught siren-esque vocals invite comparisons
to artists like Anna Ash or Lana Del Rey. When asked about where she might place herself on the spectrum, Maniak says her brand is a bit of a mood board. “Right now it’s vibrance through melancholy but my brand has been changing a lot because I’ve had an identity crisis and if I have an identity crisis so does my brand, because my brand is me,” she explains. Though Shortly is still a relatively new project, Maniak is no stranger to writing or performing. Having made music under her name for years, Maniak admits she felt pressured to create music that was both upbeat and marketable and that she may have been taken advantage of early on as a female
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artist. Both a manifestation of rebellion and self-awareness, Maniak’s rebirth as Shortly was a product of time’s design and her desire to be heard. “It became an internal argument,” she says. “Eventually I said, ‘I’m going to cut my hair and dye it the color I want it to be and do the things with my body I want to do and ultimately, I want to do the things with my voice that I have wanted to do.” “The word ‘shortly’ embodied things I had been waiting to talk about,” she explains. In November, Shortly signed to independent New York City-based label Triple Crown Records. Despite having only one single to promote and several
other labels nipping at her feet, she says it was a matter of intuition and trust that drove her to sign with Triple Crown. With one bucket list item already achieved, Maniak says her only wish is to keep going. “I’m terrified that I could be at my peak right now just because people care,” Maniak confesses. “There are a lot of things I would like to do with my project, but all of them stem from growth… moving forward, as both a person and an artist. I want to communicate with more people through my music.” — Jerilyn Jordan Listen: shortly.bandcamp.com
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FEATURE
Double Winter.
Double Winter There are few band names that seem more “Detroit” than Double Winter. Appropriately, our interview was conducted in the back of El Club on the first major snowstorm of the year, with the band dressed in all white. The four piece avant-garde rock band — made up of metro-Detroiters Holly Johnson (vocals and bass), Morgan McPeak (drums), Augusta Morrison (electric violin), and Vittorio Vettraino (guitar) — say they plan to follow their well-received 2016 EP, Watching Eye, with a two-song 7-inch and full-length record in the new year, drawing from some of their
favorite genres like doo-wop, Motown, funk, and psychedelic rock. The new material will follow Watching Eye’s lo-fi surf and garage-rock sound, displaying each band member’s unique tastes and talents. Vettraino’s distorted surf-rock riffs and Morrison’s scratchy violin bring the grit, while Johnson and McPeak hold down the percussion section with funk, jazz, and boogie-inspired beats. After playing together for almost four years, the band members say they feel like they are finally finding their stride. “We’re coming into our own as songwriters more,” says Vettraino. “When we sit down to write
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new stuff, we take our time with it and every single part is there for a reason.” The 7-inch, entitled Friends With Bad Ideas, showcases the band’s energetic crowd-pleasers “Fall on Your Face” and “Oxen’s Eye.” “When we play live, there are the songs where we notice people starting to nod along,” says Johnson. While the songs are undeniably catchy, Johnson explains there’s more to them than a memorable hook and reason to headbang. “The ‘Oxen’s Eye’ is actually a symbol for the masculine gaze that many people have to deal with on a daily basis,” says Johnson. “It’s having to do
with dismantling that… and confronting an uncomfortable situation.” As a band containing three amazing female musicians, it’s not surprising that they look to artists like Nots, the Raincoats, Patti Smith, and the Breeders for inspiration. As a frontwoman, Johnson’s vocals fluctuate between haunting and apathetic, paring gracefully with the other instrumentation. The band’s ability to meld each other’s musical preferences and playing styles introduces a much-needed fresh perspective to the indie-sphere. — Sara Barron Listen: doublewinter.bandcamp.com
Emile Vincent.
Emile Vincent In 2012, the hip-hop group Clear Soul Forces blew a breath of fresh air through Detroit’s music scene. The boom-bap quartet was more about beats and rhymes rather than the genre mainstays of materialism and drugs — an updated version of Jurassic 5 with a sprinkle of Slum Village. Its album, Detroit Revolution(s), is considered a Detroit classic. Enter Emile Vincent. The Crockett graduate and founding member of Clear Soul Forces is closing out 2017 with the release of his solo album, All N My Head. Vincent’s first single, “The Box” dropped Nov. 6 — a lyrical odys-
sey with production that sounds like it was taken out of a Digable Planets playbook. “I know my worth and plus there’s purpose in the melody/ Channel heavenly verbiage artillery out the basement ain’t no prison on this plantation capturing my imagination,” Vincent raps. The cut was produced by DJ Dez and the full album debuted on Dec. 15 and featured production from ILLingsworth, Astronote, Ilajide, and Neo Heru. Vincent explains that All N My Head is very personal. “I wanted to put together a well-rounded body of work so the production varies to show different
styles and to experiment with different approaches,” he says. “I like the fact that putting this project out offers a new range of experiences, [and] introduces a new vibe to the culture than what’s currently available to the listeners. I like that it feels complete to me, one of those front-to-back, ‘make your drive home from work better’ projects. It differs in that I was just able to approach each song with a more open mindset and meddle with song structures. I think it makes for an interesting listen.” Vincent also hints to a “possible” Clear Soul Forces album coming soon and states that rumors of his disappear-
ance from the group have been greatly exaggerated. “I haven’t ventured off, but I did want to put out a body of work that was more personal and more of a reflection of my life experiences, views, and opinions,” he says. Vincent credits J Dilla and Madlib as two of his many inspirations and is wistful when considering the current and future state of Detroit hip-hop. “I love it, it’s something for everybody,” he says. “I am not sure of the future, nobody can tell, but I hope one day we can turn around this artist-to-fan ratio for sure.” — Kahn Santori Davison Listen: fatbeatsrecords.bandcamp.com
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FEATURE
Nyduge.
Nydge Nigel Hemmye is a bit of a synthdarling. Though composer and producer Hemmye wears many masks as a collaborator and has his hands on many a mixing board, it is his solo project and moniker, Nydge, that garnered a spot on our list. With an impeccable knack for sophisticated hooks and shouldershimmying pop sensibilities, Nydge juggles accessibility without conceding his innately distinct electronic flair. “I’m most interested in synthesizers and seeing how much emotion I can coax out of them,” Hemmye explains. “Pop music is fun to me. I enjoy the math and structure it provides. For the
longest time, I was afraid of doing it and hated on it. It came down to ego.” It must be noted that among the many qualities that make Nydge stand out it is his fountain of influences. After all, who else admits to the Barenaked Ladies as their earliest memory of music? Hemmye confesses to being shamelessly moved by a range of influences from Sylvan Esso, Nine Inch Nails, and even Skrillex-era Bieber. “I listen to that mariachi band cover of ‘Hotel California’ featured in The Big Lebowski way more often than I would care to admit,” he laughs. “But it’s so thorough.” Beyond synth-pop, what Nydge represents is Hemmye’s affection for collaborative challenges with loops, layers,
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and basslines. He traces his own evolution to his induction into the Assemble Sound family, admitting that since he joined the collective his sound has gone from “charmingly disorganized and neurotic” to “structured, purposeful, and inclusive.” He adds that having access to gear, space, and producer Jon Zott through Assemble Sound has further helped him fine-tune the science of his mastering. “It always helps me to have someone else in the room or else I end up producing myself into a corner, or get distracted,” he says. “I tried to make music alone in a cabin on Lake Michigan once and just ended up with an eight-bar loop and a lot of sand in my pockets.” It’s safe to say that Nydge, who has
only released singles, remixes, and an EP so far, has a lot more to offer. So, what does he have up his sleeve for 2018? “I know of at least three projects I had a heavy hand in creating are set for release. But one will have to be a surprise for now,” he teases. He says he’ll be supporting Flint Eastwood on a Northeast tour in January and February. “Oh, and merch is coming,” he says. Though Hemmye’s got a lot on his plate, he says what he’s looking most forward to is not having to deliver pizzas anymore. “I’m hoping my car will smell less like garlic and mozzarella in 2018,” he says. — Jerilyn Jordan Listen: soundcloud.com/nydge
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FEATURE
Serration Pulse.
Serration Pulse A powerful laser cuts a sheet of iron into hundreds of small, perfectly formed pieces with wistful emotions and mournful voices. They hum and throb and dance as the laser separates them from one into many, and what emanates is the eerie distorted sonic palpitations of Serration Pulse. The duo is made up of Daniel Tomczak on synths and Kayla Anderson on synths and vocals. Both are metro Detroit natives who currently live in the city, having recently moved back after some years spent in Nashville. Serration Pulse cohered as a tangible group in 2012, and have played numerous shows in the years since —
including a recent perfect bill opening for ADULT. at Third Man’s Nashville location. But 2018 marks the band’s first official release, a self-titled EP that they wrote, recorded, and produced themselves, which will be pressed here in Detroit and released on Third Man Records. When we ask Tomczak what influences him musically, his answer is a great summation of what gives Serration Pulse their particular force: “Sounds of machines and things in radios that you don’t normally listen to if you’re a normal person,” he says. “Humming along with the vacuum cleaner when you’re young. You’re already into drone music and you don’t know it.”
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The duo’s only instruments are synths, including a Soviet-era Polivoks which they found on eBay and had to rebuild themselves. They’re also fond of samples and enjoy combining sounds in their own specific ways. Tomczak played synth in Terrible Twos’ frenetic punk rock band many moons ago, but a stint working on live sound with Jim Gibbons, who he describes as the go-to person for live techno or DJs in the city, gave him a fresh perspective and opened his eyes to other music scenes that were happening in Detroit. “Once you’re comfortable with the basics of the technical side, you can be experimental,” he says. He’s talking
about live sound in particular, but the sentiment applies to music in general, and definitely to Serration Pulse. Anderson writes all the lyrics, and it is her ethereal voice that gives Serration Pulse its unmistakably human side. When asked about her influences, she hits on the possibility contained within performance: “When I first started going to shows, I always thought that I could do that,” she says. “And then I tried it and became obsessed. I thought, ‘Oh, I can do that. Why am I not doing that?’ It’s part of who I am now.” — Ana Gavrilovska Listen: serrationpulse.bandcamp. com
Minihorse.
Minihorse When Ben Collins alludes to his strange behavior, it is admittedly hard to tell whether he is being humble or completely self-deprecating. But when it comes to crafting songs for his lo-fi band Minihorse it’s clear that he’s just being himself. “I mostly write the songs thus far, but I’m open to not doing that. It either comes all at once into my head or doesn’t happen at all,” he explains. “I have to trick my brain into having an idea. Sometimes I try not sleeping, or meditating, or connecting my head to electricity. My favorite song I’ve written literally came to me while I was throwing up. This isn’t sustainable.” Collins wryly describes Minihorse as
“Oasish” and lovingly refers to bandmates Christian Anderson and John Fossum as “idiots” for starting a band with him. But what he fails to mention is just how fucking good they are. Case in point: See the band’s 2016 EP Big Lack, where they toggle between languid and caffeinated, channeling the likes of Teenage Fanclub and Guided by Voices. Fuzz pedals and sticky drums grant Collins’ vocals full permission to bleed and disperse against the nostalgic haze that sounds totally Detroit. OK, they’re technically from Ypsilanti. “It feels like a TV show here. We have great recurring characters. I always run into Cre and ask him about his robots, or I see Greg McIntosh or Davey Jones
playing guitar on a porch and go hang out,” Collins explains. “I love Detroit, too. But It feels cheap co-opting Detroit and its image to promote the band. I’d rather not be the musical version of Shinola.” Ypsilanti serves as more than just a home base for Collins, but a home studio. He records everything reel-toreel and when we say “everything” we mean everyone, too — everyone from Casual Sweetheart, Dear Darkness, and Double Winter to Matthew Milia of Frontier Ruckus and Fred Thomas. “I always feel bad for bands who come record with me, because it’s definitely not a traditional studio experience,” Collins says. “I’m basically spending 50 percent of my time apologizing
for stuff being broken. But it does have its own sound.” As for what’s to come for Minihorse proper, they have an LP recorded and pegged for a 2018 release (and they may or may not recruit Jon Auer from the Posies to help mix it). Given his impressive resume and sharp tongue, we figured it wasn’t offbase to ask Collins for some words of wisdom for the new year. “Normally I don’t like to give sweeping life advice, but I think I will just this once,” he concedes. “In my experience, it’s generally a good idea to start a band called Minihorse with your friends John and Christian. It can be fun.” — Jerilyn Jordan Listen: minihorseband.com
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APlus.
Aplus As singer-songwriter duo Aplus, Antea Shelton and Anesha Birchett have written and co-written songs for some of the biggest names in pop music over the past decade. But in 2018, the sisters are poised to step out from behind the scenes and into the spotlight with a debut record of their own. Antea and Anesha had humble beginnings as gospel singers in Detroit, where, along with sister Angela, they were known simply as the Birchett Sisters. “We used to sing at churches and nursing homes and we would do local talent search-type shows,” Antea says. “And we sang together a bit and then we started writing together, and it just spun out from there. So it’s been music since birth for both of us.” But when Angela left for college, the remaining sisters continued to work together, and things began to snowball. (Angela has since become a Broadway actress, currently on tour with The
Color Purple.) Eventually, they were discovered by Grammy-winning producer Rodney Jerkins, aka Darkchild, who offered them a high-profile publishing contract in 2005. Under Jerkins, the sisters co-wrote R&B and pop songs for the likes of Beyoncé, Danity Kane, and Ciara. When that deal ended, the sisters then signed to Universal Music Publishing Group in 2009, where they wrote songs for Justin Bieber, Mary J. Blige, Jennifer Lopez, and others. These days, Antea works as the head of songwriting at the Detroit Institute of Music Education, where she is helping to train a new generation of Detroit songwriters. And though Anesha moved to Nashville four years ago, the sisters still collaborate, thanks to the help of technology and frequent visits back to Detroit. They’ve since also partnered back up with Jerkins to work on music for the TV shows Empire and Star. “For us, it’s not different, because
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we both are self-sufficient,” Anesha explains. “In Nashville, I have my own little home studio. I engineer and record my own stuff, mix it, send it over to her. We both know how to do everything, so it isn’t really an issue. We just get it done the best way we can.” Through DIME’s record label, Original 1265 Recordings, the sisters will soon release their debut album, Pride Liberty Detroit, slated for a Feb. 9 release. (A single, “Strangers,” was released Dec. 15.) The duo is planning a string of live shows in support of the record as well. Recorded in just three days, the album is fleshed out with lush instrumentation, thanks to the production help from DIME co-founder Kevin Nixon. “The songs that we chose were fairly acoustic,” Anesha says. “And we went in with Kevin and just made major adjustments. It was really cool to work with someone who is a producer, and not just kind of holding that title
— someone who actually knows how to go in with the artists and piece it together and create a sound. Because we write top 40 and commercial music, we don’t get a lot of opportunity to be with that type of producer — one who can play instruments, who has an ear for mixing and vocals, and can actually oversee an entire project.” For the sisters, it was perhaps an inevitable next step after so many years of working together. “These are all songs that were compiled based off of our catalogue of music, and we have so, so many songs within our catalogue,” Anesha explains. “We picked the best things that we felt comprised a really great album that was conducive to our lives.” —Lee DeVito Listen: aplustheartists.com
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FOOD
Dapeng stir fried rice noodle.
TOM PERKINS
Sweet spot by Jane Slaughter
You meet some charming peo-
ple in this business, and one of them was Stanley Rosenthal, a professor of art at Wayne State. Stanley emailed me after reading a review of a Chinese restaurant I’d written, recommending other authentic places and offering to accompany me there. Turns out Stanley was a self-taught Chinese cook who delighted in putting on multi-course feasts for friends at Chinese New Year. I was lucky to eat at his home, where the flavors took me back immediately to Guangdong, where I’d lived for a semester. Stanley even had a sideline for a while in catering for the rich, before deciding that they wolfed down the food so fast, it wasn’t worth it. Stanley died two years ago, too soon at 73, but I was delighted to find myself headed recently to a spot he’d frequented. If Stanley liked it, it had to be good. When I visited the first time, a party of 11 Chinese people were seated around tables pushed together — the owners of this hole-in-the-strip-mall hadn’t seen fit to spring for round tables, as are the norm in China. The cheerful customers seemed to be weathering the oddity just fine, though. Chao Zhou (pronounced “Chow Joe”) serves dishes as made in Guangdong,
the southern province Westerners used to call Canton. The name is a city there. The proprietor flattered my party by joking about Americans who don’t know what “American Chinese food” (meiguorende kouwei) is; we were clearly not in that category. Chao Zhou certainly has American-type Cantonese dishes on its menu — cashew chicken, chow mein — and they are cheaper. But if you turn to the Chef’s Special pages at the back, you’ll find Cantonese food as it’s meant to be. My very favorite dish was walnut shrimp (a specialty of Stanley’s), though it uses American broccoli instead of the leafier Chinese. The walnuts are toasted and candied and the crisp shrimp are coated in a creamy sauce made of mayonnaise, condensed milk and rice vinegar, odd as that sounds. It’s a little sweet in a luxurious way and a traditional banquet dish. Also excellent was Beef in Chinese Black Pepper Sauce — the black pepper is wonderful but somehow fades quickly, so this might not be the best dish for carry-out. Spicy Salty Pork Chop looked like enough meat for five chops, deboned and breaded with a sizzling crisp crust and cooked with hot peppers that look like large jalapeños.
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It’s not actually salty. I love the way the Cantonese do eggplant, which is cooked super-soft. (At picture-taking time, the Chinese say “chedze” — eggplant — the way we say “cheese.”) Chao Zhou’s eggplant is cooked with crisp bean pods and green peppers and lots of sauce for your rice to drink up. Randomly chopped Roasted Duck has a slightly sweet glaze and the duck flavor is strong; you get half a bird for $15. Again, like all the dishes at Chao Zhou, this is a lot of food. Most would probably be enough for two — but no matter how impoverished, or cheap, you are, you wouldn’t want to limit yourself to ordering just one. Sweet and pungent Chinese sausage, strongly flavored, is served with big stems of crisp Chinese broccoli; we liked this but wished the sausage to greens ratio had been higher. Beef With Bitter Melon also comes with Chinese broccoli. Our server made sure we knew what we were getting into with the bitter melon because it is… bitter. The richness of the beef and its gravy tempers the bite, though. You’ll notice how often I mention that a dish has an element of sweetness. That quality leads some Ameri-
Chao Zhou
31682 John R Rd., Madison Heights 248-588-6828 chaozhoumadisonheights.com Wheelchair accessible 11 a.m.-9:30 p.m. Monday-Sunday Chef’s specials mostly $12-$15, dim sum $3.50
cans to diss Cantonese in favor of fiery Sichuanese. But that could be because they’ve only had American Chinese food. It’s not the opinion in China, where Cantonese is one of the eight traditional and revered regional cuisines. The only disappointment about Chao Zhou is the lack of alcohol. Dim sum is served till 3:30 p.m., and a long list of “Japanese-style” items is offered, but there are plenty of Japanese restaurants in metro Detroit. You needn’t go here for them. When I visited in December, the whiteboard listed, in Chinese characters, a half dozen items not yet on the menu. The owners were encouraging regulars to try them for possible inclusion on a new menu under construction. If you’re willing to ask for translations, you could learn more about zhongguorende kouwei, food cooked “to Chinese taste.” eat@metrotimes.com @metrotimes
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Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep in The Post.
COURTESY PHOTO
Power of the press By MaryAnn Johanson
Steven Spielberg has made movies about dinosaurs and sharks and aliens and adventurin’ archeologists and war horses and crime-predicting psychics and big friendly giants. It’s probably not difficult to make such things exciting. But this? The Post is a movie in which people sit around arguing about freedom of the press and journalistic ethics and IPOs. Papers are shuffled and xeroxed. Lawyers are consulted, and mostly just frown a lot in reply. The most visually dynamic the movie ever gets involves the setting of hot type — so quaint! — and the rattle of printing presses running off the next morning’s newspaper. And it is all completely riveting. Seriously, I had goosebumps on my arms watching tied-up bundles of newspapers being tossed onto trucks about to bring Truth to the world. The Post crackles with life and energy. The real-life events of almost half a century ago it depicts sizzle with vigor, suspense, and immediacy... and with an urgent relevance for today. Spielberg is surely a genius for having accomplished this alone, but also for bringing Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep together onscreen for the first time. They blaze with such delicious chemistry that it’s astonishing to realize that no one has cast them opposite each other before. As, respectively, Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee and Post publisher Katharine Graham — at a key
The Post 115 minutes Rated PG-13 turning point for the newspaper in 1971 — their characters have nothing but a purely professional relationship, and an antagonistic one, at that. (The business end and the reporting end should not be entangled if the journalism is going to be good... and they get a bit entangled here, which becomes a source of conflict.) It’s not romantic chemistry I’m talking about, but a rapport of the purest movie-movie sort: These are two legendary actors at the tops of their games individually, who spark into something cinematically incandescent together. What they are on fire over together is what turned out to be a signal event in the history of journalism. What came to be known as the Pentagon Papers was a secret analysis of the historical roots of the Vietnam War, a work commissioned by Robert McNamara (Bruce Greenwood), former secretary of defense under presidents Kennedy and Johnson. The documents came to be known thus when they were leaked to The New York Times by military analyst Daniel Ellsberg (Matthew Rhys). “They knew we couldn’t win,” Ellsberg says here, “and still sent boys to die.” At first the Post is playing catch up with the Times’ scoop, but when the
White House gets an injunction against any further revelations from the Pentagon Papers being published by the Times, the Post steps up: It has gotten its hands on the documents too. But can they publish? Does that injunction apply to the Post as well? Wait, what? The White House has gone to court to stop a newspaper from publishing? Hanks’ Bradlee sums it up nicely: President Nixon is “taking a shit all over the First Amendment.” The Post isn’t a courtroom drama: It’s not about the two newspapers fighting this clearly unconstitutional injunction with lawyers. (That all happens offscreen.) Something more fundamental is going on here: Bradlee and Graham have to decide whether, in this chilly environment, it’s worth taking the risk to publish in the first place. Mostly, it’s down to Graham, and she’s in a tough spot. She’s about to take the family-run Post public, but the IPO can be scuppered by any controversy. Graham is already on thin ice as a woman holding unprecedented power in publishing and facing massive sexism. (It’s pretty astonishing that her battle against entrenched misogyny is only the second most important thing happening in The Post.) Would this double whammy simply be too much for investors to swallow?
The Post never outright asks the question, "Why should news be profitable?" but it’s all over the film anyway. The film is full of confrontations between power and the imperative of speaking truth to that power... and it comes down on the Fourth Estate’s side every time. Spielberg has given us a grand adventure in journalism that is so essential today, when once again the President of the United States is publicly bashing journalists and attempting to smear their reporting as “fake news.” The Post is an absolutely essential reminder that the press is rightly an adversary to the powerful, one that is needed now at least as much as it was in 1971. letters@metrotimes.com @metrotimes
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NEWS & VIEWS Higher Ground
The story of a dog named Kai by Larry Gabriel
A little over three years ago a walnut-sized lump appeared on my dog’s side. I took him to a vet and the doctor told me he didn’t handle such things, and downplayed its seriousness. No big thing. So I was in no rush to do anything. However, a few months later, the lump started growing fast. I had other illness and problems in my household at the time, and I put Kai low on the priority list. He became lethargic, laying around and barely moving. When he went out in the yard he needed assistance to climb the three steps to the porch to get back in the house. Other lumps began appearing on his body. His breathing became labored at times. I finally took him to a different vet. This doctor told me that my dog had cancer. He had a tumor wrapped around his carotid artery that would be tricky and difficult to remove. He said an operation would cost $5,000 and the tumors would reappear within a couple of months. This was in late April 2016. The doctor said Kai might live until June or July. I took my dog home feeling depressed and guilty that I had not acted sooner. Kai’s decline seemed to continue. Then one day I remembered that I had been at a compassion club meeting one day where a guy had claimed that he’d cured his dog’s cancer with Rick Simpson Oil (RSO). RSO is a medication derived from marijuana. It’s like a concentrate of cannabinoids. Simpson, a Canadian, developed the oil and claims to have used it to cure his skin cancer. There are numerous methods to extract the oil described on the internet. Simpson’s website Phoenix Tears (phoenixtears. ca) has a lot of information, including testimonials from patients who claim to have been cured or received relief from numerous ailments. At the time I searched around online to see what it said about marijuana and dogs. Most sources said that it was toxic for dogs. One site’s information was that it would perk up your dog for a while but then one day the dog will have a seizure and die. That didn’t sound too bad. Kai already had a death sentence 40 40 January January3-9, 3-9,2018 2018 | | metrotimes.com metrotimes.com
and making his last days better seemed a good idea. The basic recipe to treat cancer calls for two pounds of high quality marijuana. One uses a solvent such as alcohol or naphtha to strip the oil from the buds, then cooks off the solvent at a low temperature to leave the oil. There are other extraction methods, such as butane, but they are all trickier than the solvent method and a bit dangerous. When you hear about explosions at a marijuana facility it’s usually due to some extraction amateur having made a mistake. I didn’t have two pounds of high grade marijuana, nor the inclination to be working with solvents around heat. I had run across people with RSO before so I started searching. Unfortunately, this was around the same time that things were heating up in Detroit with dispensary shutdowns and everybody in town was running scared. They took all the concentrate products off their shelves and sold only marijuana flowers. Still, I located some at Om of Medicine in Ann Arbor. The oil comes in a plastic syringe (no needle), so you can dispense it easily. I bought an oil that was way more THC than CBD, and began administering Kai an amount about the size of a grain of rice twice a day. According to Simpson, taking this amount three times a day for a few months will cure cancer. I know a few people who swear by this regimen. I gave it to Kai twice a day to compensate for the lower body weight of my dog. I don’t know if this is
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NEWS & VIEWS
Kai, a very good boy.
the right thing to do or not. I don’t know if body weight enters the equation. The first few weeks Kai continued his lethargy, and mostly seemed to lay around stoned. There were days when he seemed to stand in the middle of the yard disoriented, unable to figure out what direction to go. Then he started to perk up. He was more alert and energetic, and started behaving as he used to. He’d bark to let me know someone was approaching the front door. He’d greet me when I came in, and he spent more time in the yard. One day when I was out there with Kai, as I walked up the steps he was at the side of the porch where there were no steps. He literally leaped onto the porch. It blew me away. Formerly, he couldn’t even walk up the steps. June came and went, as well as July, and Kai kept moving on. In fall 2016 he seemed to slow down. But, as I found out then and now, he’s an old dog and usually slows down in the winter. Some of his smaller tumors disappeared. The big one is still there, but it stopped growing. There was another development of note. The high THC RSO became unavailable. Last spring I could only get RSO that was about 50-50 with THC and CBD. It seemed to work so I kept it up. Then, a couple of months ago my RSO choice moved to a mix that is about two-thirds CBD and one third THC,
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COURTESY PHOTO
plus a smattering of other cannabinoids such as CBN (best known for its sedative effect), and CBC. To tell you the truth, I think he’s been doing even better with the high CBD oil. He seems less lazy some days. Kai is an old dog, and I have had other old dogs. He’s a dog who just might be dead except for marijuana. Or was the doctor mistaken in his original assessment? It’s hard to tell. I haven’t been back. Anyhow, I can’t say Kai has been cured. The bumps are mostly still there but stopped growing, and some others even seem to have shrunk a bit. The fact that he still has some of the lumps makes me afraid to stop giving him RSO. I fear they will start growing again. I do know that he’s not dead and looks like he is going to make it through the winter. I also don’t believe he is going to suddenly have a fatal seizure caused by the RSO. Kai is not suffering. No crying and moaning. He’s alert enough to participate in our day most of the time. He still has a hearty appetite and his bowels are moving. He’s an old dog; a good dog. And he’s still alive 18 months after I was told he would die. That’s good enough for me. letters@metrotimes.com @gumbogabe
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CULTURE Savage Love
Runners by Dan Savage
Q:
I married my high-school sweetheart at 17, had a baby, together a few years, mental illness and subsequent infidelity led to things ending. My ex-husband remarried, divorced again, and is now in another LTR. I’m in a LTR for a decade with my current partner (CP), we have a few kids, and I’m so in love with him, it terrifies me. My ex frequently makes sexual remarks to me, low-key flirts.
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SLUT, remind yourself that the erotic charge you get from your ex-hubby — the way he makes you feel desirable — benefits your CP, because he’s the one who will be getting a big, fat whiff of your pussy when you get home and there’s nothing wrong with that, right?
I feel an animal attraction in the moment. Whatever. I don’t want to be with him, my relationship with CP is solid AF, and I get amazing fucking at home from a man far more skilled. CP knows about ex-husband’s remarks and one actual physical advance. CP I’ve been with my girlfriend has offered to talk to my ex. I told him “J” for two years. Her best friend “M” nah, I’ll deal with it and make it stop. is a gay man she’s known since high I talked to my ex-husband today, and school. M and I have hung out many he said: “I’m sorry, it’s just teasing, I times. He seems cool, but lately I’ve won’t make an actual move ever again, been wondering if he and J are fucking but you’re the only woman I ever just behind my back. For starters, J and I look at and get immediately hard for, rarely have sex anymore. Even a kiss and it’s only a few more years before 44on the cheek happens less than once our kid is fully grown and we don’t a week. Meanwhile, J’s Facebook feed see each other anymore. So humor has pictures of M grabbing her tits me because you know we both enjoy outside of a gay club in front of her it.” And it’s true that I do enjoy it. But sister. She told me he’s spent the night how harmful is it to engage in flirty in her room, even though he lives only banter without any touching, nudity, a few miles away. I’ve also recently or worse? I hate having secrets, as I found out that although M has a feel they are barriers to intimacy, but strong preference for men, he considI’m a thirtysomething mom and it is ers himself bisexual. I understand that so fucking unbearably sexy to be made everyone loves tits, even if they’re not to feel so desirable even after all that turned on by them, and gay men can shit between us and it’ll never, ever sleep with a girl and actually just… happen because hell no am I sleeping sleep. I also know that her antidewith my ex-hubby, but knowing this pressants can kill sex drive. All three man will never get a whiff of my pussy things at once feel like more than just again but can’t help but beg for it with coincidence, though. At the very least, his eyes gives me a sense of power like the PDAs seem disrespectful. At worst, I’ve never fucking felt before, but even I’m a blind fool who’s been replaced. so I don’t want to be a terrible person Am I insecure or is there something to for hiding this from my CP because I these worries? don’t like having secrets from him but — You Pick The Acronym I Gotta this is just one that turns me on to no Get To Work end but I should nip this in the bud and put a stop to it yesterday because it’s wrong, right? Your girlfriend’s best friend — Secret Longings Utterly isn’t gay, YPTAIGGTW, he’s bisexual Titillating — so, yeah, it’s entirely possible M is fucking your girlfriend, since fucking girls is something bisexual guys do and, according to one study, they’re I love a good run-on sentence better at it. (Australian women who — grammar fetishists are going to get had been with both bi and straight off on diagramming that doozy you guys ranked their bi male partners as closed with — so I’m going to give it more attentive lovers, more emoa shot, too: I don’t see the harm in enjoying your ex-husband’s flirtations tionally available, and better dads, according to the results of a study so long as you’re certain you’ll never, published in 2016.) But while we can’t ever take him up on his standing ofknow for sure whether M is fuckfer, but you are playing with fire here, SLUT, so pull on a pair of asbestos ing J, YPTAIGGTW, we do know who panties when you know you’ll be seeshe isn’t fucking: you. If the sex is ing your ex-hubby, and I don’t think rare and a kiss — on the cheek — is you should feel bad about this secret a once-a-week occurrence, it’s time because while honesty is great generto pull the plug. Yes, antidepressants ally and while the keeping of secrets can be a libido killer. They can also is frowned upon by advice profession- be a dodge. If your girlfriend doesn’t als reflexively, SLUT, a little mystery, regard the lack of sex as a problem a little distance, a little erotic autono- and isn’t working on a fix — if she’s my keeps our sex lives with long-term prioritizing partying with her bipartners hot — even monogamous sexual bestie over talking to her doc relationships — so instead of seeing and adjusting her meds, if she hasn’t this secret as a barrier to intimacy, offered you some sort of accommoda-
Q:
A:
A:
44 January 3-9, 2018 | metrotimes.com
tion/outlet/work-around for the lack of sex — trust your gut and get out.
Q:
I’m a recently divorced woman with a high libido. Now that I’m single, I’ve come out as a kinkster. I quickly met someone who swept me off my feet — smart, funny, sexy, proudly pervy, and experienced in the BDSM scene — and soon he declared himself as my Dom and I assumed the sub role. This was hot as hell at first. I loved taking his orders, knowing how much my subservience pleased him, and surprising myself with just how much pain and humiliation I could take. However, his fantasies quickly took a darker turn. When I say I’m uncomfortable with the extremely transgressive territory he wants to explore, he says, “I’m your master and you take my orders.” I think this is shitty form — the bottom should always set the limits. When we’re in play, he says that I chose him as my top precisely because I wanted to see how far I could go and that it’s his job to push me out of my comfort zone. I think he’s twisting my words. Arguing over limits mid-scene makes us both frustrated and angry. I’m not in any physical danger, but his requests (if carried out) could ruin some of my existing relationships. Did I blow it by not giving him a list of my hard limits in advance of becoming his sub? Or is he just a shitty, inconsiderate top trying to take advantage of a novice? After play, he checks in to see if I’m OK, which on the surface looks like great form — aftercare and all — but this also feels manipulative. How can I pull things back to where I’m comfortable? Do I run from the scene — or just this guy? — Tired Of Overreaching From A Shitty Top
A:
A top who reopens negotiations about limits and what’s on the BDSM menu during a scene — a time when the sub will feel tremendous pressure to, well, submit — is not a top you can trust. The same goes for a top who makes demands that, if obeyed, could ruin their sub’s relationships with family, friends, other partners, etc. Run from this guy, TOOFAST, but not from the scene. There are better tops out there. Go find one. Listen to the Savage Lovecast every week at savagelovecast.com. mail@savagelove.net @fakedansavage
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Horoscopes
CULTURE ARIES: March 21 – April 20
You can’t believe how history repeats itself. This time, the circumstances and the players are a little different but underneath it all, the story is the same. The question that keeps coming up for you has to do with, “should I stick around and get this to work or should I keep moving on?” There is no right answer to this. You have reached the point where what was fated is in the process of being molded into the future by the choices that you are making now. The most important thing to consider is your motive. Don’t let your fears keep you from seeing what your life is worth. TAURUS: April 21 – May 20
.All kinds of stuff is popping up and you are learning how to roll with the punches. Some of it is on the hard edge of experience; so much so that the last few months have turned out to be one long period of coming to terms with life’s harsher truths. It’s a good thing there are people like you around, because however this is playing out in your world, you seem to be the one who is there helping everyone else make the best of it. On some level you are probably ready to snap — but your angels are very much part of this, and they are here to keep you from flipping out. GEMINI: May 21 – June 20
The mechanics of living are going to take up much of what happens in the next few weeks. If you’ve got deeper stuff to contend with, it’s going to have to wait. Other things will most likely get completely written off or canceled because you have no time. Issues that relate to your career, and any decisions that need to be made about your agreements with people, will show others that you are in no mood to be taken for granted. It will be one more month before you can slow down enough to come back to yourself. Hold steady; it’s about all you can do right now. CANCER: June 21 – July 20
It’s been at least seven years since you looked at how things need to go. Contrary to popular opinion, we don’t stay in the same groove forever. What needs to happen next isn’t something that any of you can be clear about at the moment. Any impulse to change the way you do things has to be tempered with enough patience to wait till the time is right. Things are going to be back and forth for about six more months. You will be sitting on the fence until it becomes clear that you’ve got to get around the issues that keep you stuck in limbo, looking at the same old thing.
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by Cal Garrison
LEO: July 21 – Aug. 20
The pressure is off. God knows what happened, but something just clicked. In the course of figuring out what to do next a couple of things come to mind. Everything that you have been working toward has finally begun to take shape. At this point it is less about staying on top of things than it is about taking what you’ve created and allowing it to walk and talk on its own. The next few months will see the best of what you have to offer being birthed as a new template for things that could change your life, and ultimately open the space for you to change the world. VIRGO: Aug. 21 – Sept. 20
You have so much going for you. It’s essential that you begin to see this and learn how to keep your spirits up. For the past couple of years you’ve had to struggle with issues that have made it easy for you to blame others, or life itself, for all of your woes. At some point it became obvious to you that your attitude needed a facelift. Now, all of a sudden, someone’s put a bug in your ear and you’re excited about possibilities that were invisible, until about a month ago. Keep nursing your enthusiasms and let joy show you how much better things go when you’re in it. LIBRA: Sept. 21 – October 20
You’re looking for a way to make all of this work. For the last few months your actions have made it hard to tell if you have everyone’s best interests in mind, or if you’re just looking to make everything work for you. At this point you don’t have a choice. It’s time to do whatever it takes to restore your peace of mind; even if it means swallowing your pride, eating a little crow, or lowering your standards and expectations just enough to function cooperatively. It may not be exactly what you want but at least it will give you a way to meet in the middle and go from there. SCORPIO: Oct. 21 – Nov. 20
The weight of responsibility is battling with the need for something out of the ordinary. Ninety percent of the time, this is what all of us are looking at. For some reason you’ve got the idea that you’ve got to discipline yourself to take care of business if you want to get somewhere. That only becomes true when we love what we are doing. The need to break out will feel more or less acute; it all depends on your ability to turn what you’ve got into what you want. Look around; ask yourself if you can find a way to put your heart into this. If that’s too much to ask, it may be time to get out.
SAGITTARIUS: Nov. 21 – Dec. 20
It’s amazing how people don’t know how to behave. Your nearest and dearest could be driving you nuts. If it isn’t that, there is probably more than one female giving you a run for your money. In most cases, there is nothing you can do about it. I get the sense that some of you are dealing with people who have finally shown their true colors. Before you decide to marry your disappointment you need to look at whether it makes sense to carry on. Give this two more weeks. In that span of time more will be revealed and you will have a clearer sense of the truth. CAPRICORN: Dec. 21 - Jan. 20
For the last six or seven years things have been going according to someone else’s plan. Either that or you’ve had to keep half of who you are in a place that disallows any freedom of expression. Between the past and the future, if you step out far enough to be objective, you’re approaching a whole new start. If the old story, and the people, places, and things that have formed a bigger part of the scenery, form a body of wisdom that is akin to a Ph.D. in the school of life, know that they will soon be replaced by influences that make it possible for who you really are to begin to shine. AQUARIUS: Jan. 21 – Feb. 20
Your relationship situation is always an issue because you keep trying to make things look like they’re “supposed to.” You’ve got so much going on, it would be a shame to let your life fall into the dustbin of convention and conformity. For more than one lifetime your spirit has been calling you to search out the truth, and have the courage to define it in your own terms. At the moment there is a tremendous amount of pressure to make your life look like everyone else’s, when the “Seeker” in you is dying to set you free to be nothing more or less than your true and total self. PISCES: Feb. 21 – March 20
Famous for being the one who can handle anything, you’re having a hard time finding the energy for this. It would be easier if you could think, but the rate of change is beyond the beyondo. Your mind is ambidextrous but your heart can’t focus on more than one thing at a time. The trick to getting through this stretch involves navigating the hair-pin turns that require more than the usual amount of attention. If you’re smart, and if your ego doesn’t mess you up, you will ride through this gauntlet on the wings of love, and come out on the other side with a whole new life.
metrotimes.com
| January 3-9, 2018
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