8/19/13

Avoiding Dream Cruise: Soft Metals, Elephant Stone and Z-Con

I’m not going to knock against the Woodward Dream Cruise because I am sure it’s a lot of fun for the people that go and plunk a chair down to watch a traffic jam but there were a few other things going on this weekend that I checked out which did not involve gas fumes and honking horns. (Can I take that “knock against” part back?)

Thursday Aug 15, Something Cold presents Soft Metals at the Garden Bowl
My weekend got started a little early by seeing a show that went really late. Synth dance duo, Soft Metals played a free show at the Garden Bowl and post synth aficionado Justin Carver of Something Cold was spinning records. Surrounded by a crowd of the hippest in Detroit, Justin and crew started the show with some very danceable obscure B-sides. Around midnight Jordan Passmore did an inspired DJ set which mostly involved spinning knobs on a mixer that looked like a sundial. Around 1am, (I should be sleeping!) Soft Metals came on and got played a nice 40-minute set in front of a semi-circle of dedicated fans.


Saturday Aug 17, Elephant Stone at Pike Room
Still recovering from Thursday night/Friday morning, I didn’t get to this show until 10:30pm as Red Stone Souls were just finishing their set. Their set must have been something to witness because the crowd was cheering loudly for an encore and some even left before the main act. This was a major loss for those early exiters as Elephant Stone, a four piece psychedelic band from Montreal put on a dazzling 60-minutes of magnificent rock. Elephant Stone’s sound takes the reverb and fuzz of psychedelia and mixes in good doses of sitar and shoegaze to create songs equally sonic and melodic.


Sunday Aug 18, Zombie Con at Michigan Picture Institute
This was the first year for Zombie-Con, which was held at the impressive Michigan Picture Institute in Troy. I had really wanted to come on Saturday as well but just couldn’t make it down there. The festival celebrating all things Zombie was quite a bit of fun with vendors selling Zombie handcrafts, books, videos etc. A nice movie room with Zombie films playing all day. I saw Reel Zombies, a very entertaining mockumentary about using real zombies on a film set. I went through a haunted corridor full of zombies chasing and grabbing at me. Best of all I spoke to Dave Alexander of Rue Morgue Magazine about the great their great Canadian horror mag and took pics of beautiful zombies. Z-Con was a well done con and I really look forward to what they have in store for us horror fans next year.

Post and Pics by Mikel OD Pfeiffer of MPAD Media see more pics at my Flickr page