EVENT REVIEW: 2014 Detroit Maker Faire at the Henry Ford Museum

MCB hit up the Detroit Maker Faire this past Sunday afternoon at the Henry Ford Museum.
It was a hot day already as we arrived to the event around noon. Outdoor sights had to be checked out first due to the threat of a looming thunderstorm.

The Maker Faire attracts a huge crowd, but it's so spread out between the large parking lot of The Henry Ford and the inside of the museum, that it isn't unpleasantly crowded. You could easily view what you came to see and if there was any lines, they were minimal.

The outdoor scene was buzzing with all types of vehicles passing us by. Bikes of all shapes and sizes had families and strangers alike cruising around on these unique pieces of transportation.  

H.G. Well's time machine is still floating around and we have proof. He popped up and wanted to know what year it was. He even pointed out future presidents that were in the crowd.

You haven't seen anything till you've seen the rolling hostess cupcake cruising around the grounds.

After signing waivers we enjoyed a game of Riskee Ball. It's the classic game of Skee Ball with a twist.
Blasts of flames are the contestants' rewards for high-scoring rolls.

We also checked out the Power Racing Series. This annual racing series features teams from all over the country who build up kids' toys and race them on a track for hundreds of cheering fans.

The Maker Faire did not forget about the kids. The Maker Shed gives children a chance to build their own wooden race car and design it. Children are given pieces of cut wood and wheels and can choose from a wide variety of adornments including glitter, markers, seats, feathers, and more. Staff is on hand with hot glue guns ready to assist your child.

 

 

After you have completed your car you get to race it against two other cars on a track. You get to name your car for the race and keep it after the race is done. All this is free. Kids love it !

 

The lifesize mousetrap attracted a large crowd at the event. We got to the fence early to check it out. Remember that mousetrap game you had as a child? It has been turned into a life-size spectacle and it all played out at the Maker Faire. The mousetrap hosts explained how it would go down as they set up each portion. The Mousetrap has combined Newtonian physics and large-scale art with performance to create a unique brand of engineering fun packaged into a traveling road show!

 

All went well till the last piece that would bring a safe held high on a crane to a smashing end as it would land on a car. The staff assisted the setup and it did end up falling on the car.

The Blaze belly dancing troupe entertained the crowd on the performance stage. 

 

The heat was brutal. Glad there was plenty of cool refreshments and ice cream to be had.  

On top of all the outdoor sites, the indoor museum was open as well. Besides all the great displays that call the Henry Ford Museum home, the Maker Faire took a weekend residence. The cool inside was a welcome relief from the blazing sun outside.

Technology was alive and well inside the museum. Seeing a homemade droid moving about was not uncommon at the Maker Faire.

3D desktop printing may be a common household printer in the near future. They exist now with a high sticker price, but it is sure to come down as time elapses. Some companies had them operating in their booth and had the results laying out to hold and be in awe of.

    
Fans of Star Wars rejoiced at the Maker Faire due to a stunning display featuring bots designed by the R2 Builders Club. 

Fans loved meeting their favorite Star Wars characters and picture requests were always granted.

The Fart-O-Matic machine was another hit with the kids. As they sat in the chair a ballon would fill up with the "gas" that they released.

A storm was brewing outside, but we did make a quick stop to the check out the DIYpsi Indie Craft Fair tent outside. A collective of Michigan made artists selling their works that included Cre Fuller and his "Tin Angry Men"   

A thunderstorm started an hour before the official end time for the Maker Faire, but we sure got our fill for the day. There was so much to do to occupy the time.
 
Maker Faire has become part of pop-culture. A family friendly event celebrating technology, education, science, arts, crafts, engineering, food, sustainability, and geekdom.

It's turned into a annual event here in Michigan and is surely one of the more unique ones to check out.

FENDER PARTY @ HUBER BREESE MUSIC AUG 2 12-6 PM

 

Fender guitars are iconic. Most people recognize them. They started a revolution. Modern music would be very different if it wasn't for Fender. They are still causing a commotion by sponsoring local events at independent music stores. They are throwing  in the Detroit greater area this weekend, August 2, 2014 at Huber Breese Music.

In celebration of Fender's 60th anniversary, they are having a party at Huber Breese Music. The event will feature presentations and demonstrations, live music; and free food, beverages and SWAG. Also, guitarists can get a FREE set of strings and a tune-up. Free Fender gifts with every purchase. If you attend, you can be one of the first people to see an exclusive one-of-a-kind Fender instrument.

 

WHEN:
Sat., August 2,
Noon – 6 p.m.

WHERE:
Huber Breese Music
33540 Groesbeck Hwy.
Fraser, Mich. 48026

ROWLAND S. HOWARD'S 'POP CRIMES' ALBUM REISSUE BEING RELEASED ON AUGUST 5TH

 

 

 

In this age of instant information, where we’re all one click away from being experts, let’s start by saving you a trip to Wikipedia with a few core facts...

Rowland S. Howard started playing in teenage bands in late 70s Melbourne. Whilst still a callow youth, he wrote Shivers, an undisputed classic, (quietly ignoring the fact that Rowland perhaps doesn’t see it that way and approaches the song as if it was written by someone else.) The song was recorded by his band The Boys Next Door, who mutated into the Birthday Party and then relocated to Europe to wage a guerrilla campaign against the trivialities of the 80s, until they turned their fire upon themselves and disintegrated mid-decade.

Whilst his former associates have moved on to weekend color supplement acceptability, Rowland has commonly been perceived as the banished wastrel prince... exiled to a squalid garret on the colder edges of the kingdom, accompanied only by his dreams and inclinations. His demeanor (pale, gaunt, stick thin, sickly, dark humored, fatalistic) has perhaps inadvertently added far too much credence to this interpretation of events. The shadow of this myth has seemingly obscured by the sheer volume of his creativity and the singularity of his musical vision.

Always respected by his peers, a scan through Rowland’s catalogue of work sees him allied with the likes of Lydia Lunch, Thurston Moore, Wim Wenders, Barry Adamson, The Gun Club, Nikki Sudden, the Beasts Of Bourbon, the Hungry Ghosts and HTRK. Rowland’s own ensemble, These Immortal Souls, gun their engines in the ill-lit background and the legacy of his work with The Birthday Party scores the skin of successive generations of musicians and fans.

But it’s a history Rowland would gleefully put a match to. With or without it, Rowland S. Howard would make tense, beautiful music, would deliver us his personal vision of the world, would create Pop Crimes.

Longtime faithful friends Mick Harvey (who has played with Rowland for over 30 years), JP Shilo (Hungry Ghosts) and producer Lindsay Gravina make for a formidable backline. Out front, the guitar playing couldn’t be any one else but Rowland S Howard and his weary, almost journalistic vocal delivery dispassionately sits amidst the sweaty panic of the music, adding to the ill ease.

The band lurch in to Pop Crimes as if dragging a rain soaked body across a muddy field. The ghosts of Lee Hazlewood, Snatch, Sergio Leone, The Shangri-Las and nameless guys from a never known chain gang watch on. Within the first few breaths, Rowland references Stalin, Calvary and genocide, whilst razoring guitar lines the current crop of post-punk revisionists could only fantasize about.

Shut Me Down is Rowland at his most romantic, though inevitably it’s shot through with loss and longing. If only Dusty Springfield were alive to revel in its drama. Talk Talk’s ‘Life’s What You Make It’ is re-imagined as if it had risen from the grind of a Detroit auto plant’s assembly line. ‘(I Know) A Girl Called Johnny’ sees Jonnine D from HTRK sidle up to the microphone for a duet that will melt even the coldest of hearts. It’s a glorious missing link between the New York girl group sound and the street smarts of Suicide. Townes Van Zandt’s ‘Nothin’ is given a chilling tenement building transformation. ‘Wayward Man’ has the band wailing like alarm sirens before Rowland emerges at his most contemplative with the gorgeous, fragile build of ‘Ave Maria’. Final track ‘The Golden Age Of Bloodshed’, takes the album out on a swaggering, swashbuckling epic, with salvation slipping through the narrator’s fingers.

Rowland S. Howard carved a deep scar across the landscape of contemporary music. Elsewhere in the world, such a rogue character would be rewarded with glowing features in glossy music magazines, invited to curate arts festivals, offered their own radio show or feted with tribute albums. In Australia, such a triumph of the spirit, a lifetime spent wilfully unyielding to the middle ground, is not so highly prized and not so publically commended. Sadly we don’t do gravitas. We don’t value those who scratch the polished surface, shine a pale light in to our darker corners, alert us to the fact that we are not without blame or weakness, dare to infer that the very same things that pleasure also corrode.

“Sometimes, Muhammad must come to the mountain.”

Rowland S. Howard: October 24th, 1959 – December  30th, 2009

 

Tracklist:

Side One

(I Know) A Girl Called Jonny

Shut Me Down

Life's What You Make It

Pop Crimes

Side Two

Nothin'

Wayward Man

Avé Maria

The Golden Age Of Bloodshed

 

 

Listen to the title track HERE  

Get the new album at Fat Possum Records

SATORI CIRCUS PRESENTS A NEW PERFORMANCE PIECE

On Friday and Saturday, August 1^st and 2nd, 2014, SATORI CIRCUS will perform a new original performance art piece titled, ..”…poems we tell ourselves…”.. in front of two audiences, in two different spaces at the Tangent Gallery /Hastings Street Ballroom.

”…poems we tell ourselves…”.. is an entirely new performance piece, with all original words, music and visuals. Different from other SATORI CIRCUS’ performances, this performance delves into the dream world of a single person whose life is black and white, much like their dreams.

In our dreams we can escape; we can maneuver freely; we can become something else; we can live out our fantasies; we can become the super hero…or the anti-hero; we can defy all time and logic.

This is where up is down and down is up and the question will be…”is this real or a dream?”

A collaboration with friends Brian Dambacher (Funy As Hell, 63mins), Tim Suliman (MOSES:39, Child-Proof) and Sean Redenz (63mins, DAMNED), along with Antonio Cosenza, they have created a time morphing performance, where situations occur on two separate stages and the audience is fed a live video of one stage while the performance is on another. Then it switches back and forth from one stage to the other.

Be prepared for the unknown and come with an open heart and head to witness a hybrid of performance art rarely seen in this Detroit Metro Area. We guarantee that you have never seen anything like this and you may never again. Sometimes, journeys end where they begin and begin where they end.

August 1^st and 2^nd at the Tangent Gallery / Hastings Street Ballroom, 715 E Milwaukee St, Detroit, MI 48202 (313-873-2955) www.tangentgallery.com

Two Performances each night – In two different spaces – No two shows alike – No one audience sees the same thing. First performance at 8 p.m. with doors at 7:30 p.m.…Second performance at 10 p.m. with doors at 9:30 p.m. $10 admission for one show or $5 more if staying for second performance in a different space, seating is limited.

“SATORI CIRCUS is easily the Best Performance Art Group Detroit has produced. It should be seen if only to witness a New Direction in Art.” - Detroit Free Press

“A love for the absurd, SATORI CIRCUS is a singularly uncanny theatre-going experience that’s a little bit Performance Art and a little bit Rock Opera.” - Metro Times

“New York City has the Blue Man Group, Detroit has SATORI CIRCUS.” - Chris Jaszczak

SATORI CIRCUS 

http://www.satoricircus.com

satori_circus@yahoo.com 

https://www.facebook.com/SATORICIRCUS1988

http://www.facebook.com/satori.circus

An Interview with The Singles by Jeff Howitt

The Singles play tonight at The Loving Touch with The High Strung and Moon Walks 

$12 for 18+

1. I saw the band on Randall's Island in New York City in 2004. Despite the in the round stage giving out a few hours in, you made the most of it. What was that show like?

Vince: We were actually the first band that played after the rotating stage stopped working. The show seemed like organized chaos looking back at it now. That was so long ago! Still, it was fun, and great to see Bo Diddley, Alex Chilton, and The Stooges.

2. When the band originally left for LA, well after the post-Garage Boom in 2009 Vince was quoted as feeling like you'd been "going in circles" in Detroit. Seeing the city now do you think bands have a better opportunity now?

Vince: I don’t think so. The opportunity was there maybe in the early 2000’s when there was focus on guitar bands again….White Stripes, The Strokes. I think bands need to get out and tour if they can. Go to New York, LA or Nashville; where the industry is mainly located. 

3. The Singles always struck me as like Detroit's Association. A great mix of stomp and hook. What led to the line up becoming a two piece?

Vince: We still tour as a 3-piece, and record as a full band sound. It’s just Nicky and I are the only members of the band. We’ll have exploding bass players, etc. from now on until we can find musicians that want to take the Singles blood oath with us.

4. In LA did you do any session work? 

Nicky: Not really. Vince and I have just been working on The Singles. Full on. 

5. Any other dates you are excited about on this tour? Or just happy to be back on the road and see what happens? 

Nicky: I think we’re just stoked to be on the road in general. We’re getting in front of a lot of new people and It’s been awesome. In particular, we’re looking forward to Detroit. Portland at the Doug Fir Lounge is going to be great. And we love playing Eugene, OR. People get really nutso there. 

6. I saw you played with Blaire Elise and The Bombshell's in New York. Was that put together or have you been keeping up with your old friends and new bands in town? 

Nicky: We were asked to join that bill by Get Hip Records. They put that show together. Now that we’re rocking again, we’ve been getting back in touch with a lot of old rock n rollers we used to know. We’re also meeting tons of new bands again, like Blaire Alise & The Bombshells. It’s refreshing.

 The Loving Touch is located at 22634 Woodward Ave, Ferndale, MI  

http://www.thesingles.us 

TONIGHT: Fuckknot, Broadzilla, The Devil Elvis Show, and Rock N' Rummage at The Crossroads Bar and Grill in Ypsilanti

Tonight (July 25) Ypsilanti may just have what you're looking for in a night of entertainment.
It all goes down starting at 9PM at at the Crossroads Bar and Grill in Ypsilanti.

Live performances from:

Fuckknot

 
Broadzilla

The Devil Elvis Show

Plus Detroit's traveling rock n' roll inspired flea market...
Rock N' Rummage

The Crossroad's Bar and Grill is located at 517 W Cross St. in Ypsilanti, Michigan 

REVIEW & INTERVIEW: BODY COUNT with ICE-T at the Rockstar Mayhem Festival on July 19 at DTE Energy Music Theatre

Surveying the crowd at the Rockstar Mayhem Festival and it can easily be gauged that they probably know Ice- T more for his 14 year role as Detective Odafin 'Fin' Tutuola on the NBC Crime Drama Television program "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" then for his musical endeavors in a rock band. And for good reason considering the majority of festival attendees were not even born yet when Body Count formed in 1990. Adding to that is the fact that it's been 11 years since Body Count featuring Ice-T has played the Detroit area and it's been 8 years since the band has released an album.

Body Count is back this year though with a new album called "Manslaughter" on Sumerian Records and a tour that takes them on the road for 27 dates on the Rockstar Mayhem Festival.

Motorcityblog was at the Michigan tour stop on July 17 at DTE Energy Music Theatre in Clarkston to catch up with the band and witness all the live action on stage.

We had the opportunity to chat with lead guitarist and founding member Ernie C before Body Count's live set. Ernie C is no stranger to Detroit as he lived in the city and went to school on 7 mile as a youth.

 

Check out our chat with Ernie C below as we discuss the new album, the tour, the song "Cop Killer", and future plans ...

We also had the opportunity to briefly say our hellos to Ice-T and his wife Coco as they were kind enough to do a short meet and greet with the crowd before the Body Count set.

The Sumerian Records stage where Body Count headlined was amongst two other stages that saw bands play one after another. Ice-T’s wife Coco took her spot on the side of the stage before her husbands set began and she brought along both their bulldogs to accompany her. I don't know if the bulldogs were wearing earplugs, but I sure hope the crowd was because they were about to be assaulted with the thrash sounds of Body Count. 

 

You know you're in for a treat when the mic stands are adorned with brass knuckles.

As soon as Body Count hit the stage the massive crowd shifted to the far left to witness the return of the band. There was much rambling about the band all day and many people who never had the opportunity to see the band live were highly anticipating it.

The band had a 25 minute time slot on the tour and they made the most of it. The band performed 4 tracks of their debut album (There Goes the Neighborhood, Bowels of the Devil, Body Count, and Cop Killer), 2 tracks off their new album (Manslaughter, Talk Shit,Get Shot) and a Exploited cover melody (Disorder) off the Judgment Night film soundtrack. 

The band's current lineup consists of original members Ice-T on vocals, Ernie C on lead guitar, and Sean E Sean on backing vocals. The lineup is completed with Vincent Price on bass, Ill Will on Drums, Juan Of The Deads on rhythm guitar, and Ice T's son Tracy Marrow Jr. on backing vocals.

Ice-T did take note of the all the youngsters at the show. He stated how he was the oldest performer on the tour (Ice is 56 years old) and asked the audience memebers their ages. One yelled out "20 years old". Ice-T schooled him and told the 20 year old to remember that he was once his age and he has never been his.

The crowd reacted to the new material just has much as the classic tracks from 22 years ago. Body Count's new single "Talk Shit,Get Shot" and it's accompanying video have been making the rounds on the internet and a whole new generation of Body Count fans have been born. A Body Count live show can only solidify the fan base.  

Complete set list of  the July 19, 2014 performance at DTE Energy Music Theatre:
There Goes the Neighborhood, Bowels of the Devil, Manslaughter, Body Count, Disorder, Talk Shit,Get Shot, Cop Killer


Do yourself a favor and pick up the new Body Count album "Manslaughter" from Sumerian Records. Full of great lyrics and tight riffs.