By Doug Coombe
Published: 9/29/2010
Types: Culture, House & garden
On the stage, Charlie Slick is a full-on party-sensory assault, his electro-dance jams usually presented amid a light-show-soaked flurry of bubbles and glitter with audience participation. For one who invites so much chaos into his live shows you might be surprised to find his home is downright seda...[MORE]
By Doug Coombe
Published: 7/14/2010
Types: Culture, House & garden
For his first act in the late '50s and '60s, the 73-year-old Andre Williams recorded, produced and wrote songs for great soul hotbeds including Fortune, Motown and Chess Records. Under his own name he released "Bacon Fat" and "Jail Bait," two absolute classics. Williams also penn...[MORE]
By Doug Coombe
Published: 5/26/2010
Types: Culture, House & garden
Traffic Jam & Snug restaurant owners and Bronx Bar co-owners Scott Lowell and wife Carolyn Howard are a veritable midtown redevelopment army. In addition to running three great midtown dining/hang-out destinations, Lowell and Howard have taken to rehabbing run-down apartment buildings in the nei...[MORE]
Published: 5/19/2010
Types: Culture, House & garden
The road winds past crowded gardens and flowering trees, past the horse barn and the pool, and up to the gated mansion. It's a beautiful place for someone to call home. The main house has 16 rooms, a wide balcony on the second floor, plush furniture on hardwood floors, and lots of space in which to...[MORE]
By Doug Coombe
Published: 5/12/2010
Types: Culture, House & garden
This guy Evan Perri is your basic Grateful Dead-loving, computer-hacking, gaming nerd who's a Django Reinhardt nut. He's also the leader and a guitarist in Hot Club of Detroit, a surprisingly great gypsy jazz group. Quick backstory: Perri got into playing guitar through his jam band heroes, includ...[MORE]
By Doug Coombe
Published: 3/31/2010
Types: Culture, House & garden
Wolf Eyes co-founder, programmer and vocalist Nate Young sits on his sun-drenched second-floor porch smoking American Spirits, sipping on a 40-ounce of Sol Beer and listening to mixtapes of classic techno, electro and disco on a crappy boom box. The porch of the former Detroit flophouse leans down a...[MORE]
By Doug Coombe
Published: 3/24/2010
Types: Culture, House & garden
Thunderbirds Are Now! keyboardist Scott Allen's Big Mess is a band of bros in more ways than one. Everyone in the new, Tom Petty-inspired combo grew up, and continues to live, within a mile of one another in Livonia. And there are three brothers in the band, two are twins. No doubt there's some long...[MORE]
By Doug Coombe
Published: 3/3/2010
Types: Culture, House & garden
Much like the Zombies and Odyssey and Oracle, when Pas/Cal released its brilliant pop gem of a record I Was Raised on Matthew, Mark, Luke & Laura in 2008, the band had already imploded at the peak of its creative powers. Pas/Cal's Belle and Sebastian-inspired, immaculate pop was largely the visi...[MORE]
By Doug Coombe
Published: 2/24/2010
Types: Culture, House & garden
Architecturally speaking, Palmer Woods might be Detroit's greatest neighborhood. Tucked in the northwest corner of Woodward and Seven Mile, the neighborhood was built up largely in the 1920s, with grand Tudor and Colonial Revival homes nestled along winding roads. With every house unique — inc...[MORE]
By Doug Coombe
Published: 2/17/2010
Types: Culture, House & garden
Former Saturday Looks Good to Me keyboard player Scott Sellwood and his wife, Laurie, now live in New York City. But they return to Ann Arbor frequently — it's where Laurie works for the University of Michigan's School of Education, and where Scott's veritable supergroup Drunken Barn Dance is ...[MORE]
By Doug Coombe
Published: 2/3/2010
Types: Culture, House & garden
It seems fitting that the roar from the Hounds Below should be a stone's throw from Ferndale's Alcoholics for Christ meetings. The band is, you'll note, Von Bondies' frontman Jason Stollsteimer's new band, and they rehearse in the attic of the bungalow he just moved into a couple of months ago. Stil...[MORE]
By Doug Coombe
Published: 1/27/2010
Types: Culture, House & garden, Interior decorating
Even futuristic techno isn't immune to the march of time — Juan Atkins' pioneering Metroplex label is having its 25th anniversary this year. And the (tongue-in-cheek) "janitor" of Metroplex, Anthony "Shake" Shakir, is celebrating the 15-year anniversary of his own Frictiona...[MORE]
By Doug Coombe
Published: 1/13/2010
Types: Culture, House & garden
It's fitting that multi-instrumentalists Ryan Gimpert and Scott Michalski live in a 1920s American craftsman-style house. Both are genre-straddling musicians who are responsible for crafting an inordinate amount of worthy, ear-bending Detroit music. Both play in the country-rock Volebeats (Gimpert ...[MORE]
By Doug Coombe
Published: 1/6/2010
Types: Culture, House & garden
MT photographer Doug Coombe has covered a lot of musical real estate under the heading of Motor City Cribs & Rides in the last year. He's hung out in the Ferndale bungalow-rehearsal spot-studio of Chad Thompson, keyboardist and vocalist for Johnny Headband. He's hung out in the Go bassist-guitar...[MORE]
By Doug Coombe
Published: 11/11/2009
Types: Culture, House & garden
Technically, Black Milk's home is in Wixom. But if you factor out sleep, the prolific hip-hop producer and emcee practically lives in Tommy Hoffman's Studio 1 in Livonia. About a stone's throw from the roar of I-96, tucked in a nondescript cinderblock industrial park, Milk's beat lab strikes a perfe...[MORE]
By Doug Coombe
Published: 10/14/2009
Types: Culture, House & garden
Driving past Guilty Simpson's cute little Dearborn Heights bungalow with flower pinwheels in the front lawn, the last thing you would guess is that its resident is about ready to take Detroit hip hop to a new level. But barely a year after the release of his classic debut LP Ode to the Ghetto, Byron...[MORE]
By Doug Coombe
Published: 9/23/2009
Types: Culture, House & garden
Will Sessions is one of Detroit's best new bands. Since its debut last Halloween, it has recorded with Slum Village and neo-soul phenom Mayer Hawthorne, and re-created hip-hop tracks and live samples as a roots-inspired big band with Black Milk, Phat Kat and Guilty Simpson. If you like your hip hop ...[MORE]
By Doug Coombe
Published: 9/9/2009
Types: Culture, House & garden
Bobby Emmett is your basic pop-obsessed jazz musician who earns a living playing country music. His debut solo album, Learning Love, drops soon. (And it's one the best Detroit records this year, though it sounds straight outta of '74.) Most of you know Emmett as the former Hammond B3 organ player f...[MORE]
By Doug Coombe
Published: 9/2/2009
Types: Culture, House & garden
For all that talk of Detroit "garage rock" bands, I have never seen a Detroit band that actually practiced in a garage. Pas/Cal comes the closest for having recorded much of its brilliant pop (and very un-garage) music in vocalist Casimer's former garage. But as far as truly rocking the ga...[MORE]
By Doug Coombe
Published: 8/19/2009
Types: Culture, House & garden
Much like Andrew "Party Hard" W.K., Detroit geeks Johnny Headband mix metal, dance and an unabashed sense of frolic in a highly choreographed and aerobic workout on stage — with no hipster sense of sarcasm or irony about it. And much like Andrew W.K., Johnny Headband leaves a physica...[MORE]
By Doug Coombe
Published: 8/5/2009
Types: Culture, House & garden
In part inspired by their Osborn High School classmate Esham, who started releasing records at age 13, and by mixtapes from New York’s underground — handed to them by DJ Kevo — Thyme and Mudd took to the mics. Consisting of Mudd, Thyme, Proof (who hosted the Shop’s open mics) and J Dil...[MORE]
By Doug Coombe
Published: 7/22/2009
Types: Culture, House & garden
You know you're "Up North" when instead of guiding you to your destination, your GPS sends you down a two-track road in a national forest, and, when you call your host for directions, you discover there's no phone service, but maybe beer. Welcome to the not-so-old days! Insane Clown Po...[MORE]
By Doug Coombe
Published: 7/15/2009
Types: Culture, House & garden, Interior decorating
Three things are immediately clear in author Michael Zadoorian's basement lounge: He loves pop-culture schmaltz and ephemera, his sense of humor rattles, and his thrift-store skills kill. His basement's filled with skillfully placed tiki mugs, Michigan artifacts, taxidermy (a jackalope even!), woode...[MORE]
By Doug Coombe
Published: 7/8/2009
Types: Culture, House & garden, Interior decorating
Visiting Mike Emmett's Ypsilanti tattoo parlor in Depot Town is like stepping back into a few different eras of classic Americana. Depot Town's architecture harks back to the 1800s and all the little towns that sprang up in Michigan along the Detroit-Chicago rail corridor; the interior that Emmett d...[MORE]
By Doug Coombe
Published: 6/24/2009
Types: Culture, House & garden, Interior decorating
There's nothing much on the outside of Felton and Ida Williams' modest Ecorse home to distinguish it from other look-alikes on the block. But what does set it apart, no doubt, is the treasure trove of gospel recordings stored in his basement. Inside, the tastefully decorated house is a veritable met...[MORE]
By Doug Coombe
Published: 6/10/2009
Types: Culture, House & garden
Ann Arbor used to be a town in the country — but not anymore. But out on Jackson Road, on the town's far west side, you'll find a little reminder of the A2 that once was. There, tucked in the woods is Backseat Productions, Jim Roll's recording studio for the last two years, in a building that ...[MORE]
By Doug Coombe
Published: 6/3/2009
Types: Culture, House & garden
The online bio of Detroit hip-hop artists Stoopz and Breeze is implausible. Bob Stoopz, the duo's producer, was "raised by wild German shepherds on the streets of Farmington Hills [and] had to learn how to play the keytar at a young age to make ends meet." Drew Breeze, the duo's emcee, was...[MORE]
By Doug Coombe
Published: 5/27/2009
Types: Culture, House & garden, Interior decorating
The Go was arguably the first Detroit band in the lamentably coined "garage rock" scene to bust out of the Detroit dive-bar circuit and go national when its Sub Pop debut, Watcha' Doin, dropped a decade ago. Truth be told, the Go's mystic mix of reverb-dripping pop and psychedelia springs ...[MORE]
By Doug Coombe
Published: 5/20/2009
Types: Culture, House & garden, Interior decorating
Those who've known Scott Allen as the manic keyboardist in Thunderbirds Are Now! might be shocked. See, in Thunderbirds, Scott's high-energy, injury-defying (well, sometimes) stunts were perfect visual foil to TAN's Brainiac-inspired assault. So you might not expect that singer Scott loathes th...[MORE]
By Doug Coombe
Published: 5/6/2009
Types: Culture, House & garden
Of all the people who've taken a Chrysler buyout lately, hip-hop beatmaker and producer Cream of Beats (real name: Zachary Cephas) has got to be one of the biggest buyout success stories. See, this guy Beats took a buyout a little more than a year ago, after driving a Hi-Lo at Chrysler's Jeffer...[MORE]
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