Metro Times: Blowout Blog

Dan DeMaggio: 100 percent gentleman

After just barely getting to New Dodge Lounge in time to see the end of the Meltdowns, I got to catch Dan DeMaggio of his City Chicken Orchestra before he went onstage. Dan, quite rightly, gave me a hard time about the description I used of his group in the paper ("Boozy spoken-word blowhard Dan DeMaggio hurls his song-poems at the audience to gentle musical accompaniment.").

According to DeMaggio, what irritated him wasn't that it was inaccurate. He conceded his blowhardosity and booziness. “But, ‘song-poems’? Who the hell wants to go see ‘song-poems’? Especially when they're being hurled at you?"

Well, the good news is that plenty of people stayed to hear them. Not exactly a packed house, but, wit ...

Stick your Woodstock up your ass.

Holy shit, I love the Blowout. I may have only just arrived home (at what I thought was 2 a.m. but what my computer clock is telling me is 3 a.m. – damn) and therefore still be enjoying the memories that are very fresh in my mind, but I think that this year's Blowout is the best festival ever put on anywhere in the world. Ever. Frankly, you can stick your Woodstock up your ass.

Having lived in London for 10 years and traveled extensively, I'm fairly sure that this is a festival that could only happen in Detroit. In London, New York or L.A., the venues wouldn't pull together in this manner and there wouldn't be enough decent local bands to make the thing work. As an Englishman who chose to live here 14 months ago, I truly believe that this is the greatest city in the ...

Wonder Twins Blowout Report: Friday

Laura: We started off day three of Blowout right with pierogies at Polish Village.

D'Anne: Those were some good pierogies. Definitely not on my diet.

L: Diets are for housewives. Only a fool would go to a multi-day event in Hamtramck and NOT partake in good Polish food.

D: I know. When in Rome, do the Romans and all that...

L: Um, yes. That's exactly the expression. So after pierogie time, we made our way ...

THREE DOWN, ONE TO GO...

Man, I felt exhausted going into Blowout after putting all the editorial stuff together. and, today, finally, I'm an absolute zombie. But I figured I'd better scribble down a few random thoughts from these last three nights of my second-ever Blowout, which Brian Bowe once described to me on the phone as "Detroit's South by Southwest." Well, not quite, exactly... although the weather last night made it pretty damn close, at least in terms of atmosphere. So before I forget everything, as my throat gets sorer and my head begins to ache even more, here goes:
Citizen Smile at Small's. Reminiscent of early Teenage Fanclub and bass player Adam Padden is arguably the Paul McCartney of Detroit. Besides, any band with a singer named James Brown ...

Hamtown nocturne

All the high-volume indoor energy aside for a moment, it is Hamtramck's dense urban grid that is the real winner in the Blowout story. It's in this space, built for people - - simply put -- where all kinds of community life is possible. It's here, man, to paraphrase Dennis Hopper's crazed photojournalist in Apocalypse Now, it's really here.

Daytime Blowout music at Cafe 1923 (2287 Holbrook, Hamtramck).

Enjoy children's music by the Mydols, CelloBella and Danny Kroha. Starts @ 2:10 p.m.!!

...

Intern BC on the Hadituptoheres

One of the many epic Blowout 12 adventures last night was the Hadituptohere's late set at Kelly's Bar, which started like a punk rock insane asylum, and then came totally unglued from there. Bodies slamming, drums, guitars, arms, and elbows flying, along with a heaping helping dose of crowd surfing made this one a Blowout classic. When the well lubricated boys started knocking the signs off the walls, it was management's turn to suggest i ...

HOLY LIGHT

Love and fat kisses to the tubby push-tit with the beard/black-rimmed specs combo who continued to smash my toes with his giant size 12 or whatever boots whilst traveling in and out of the Atlas Bar. The tops of the feet this a.m. are hued in peculiar shades of crimson. Neat. Could only hope the very pretty and sparkler-like flickers shooting from the old, yellow-y smoke filtration machine on the Atlas' ceiling wouldn't spark some Great Whi ...

The Blowout is Recession Proof

We made five stops last night and they all had one thing in common: they were packed to the gills. I found this amazing, the sight of the tiniest of dive bars like the Painted Lady and Whiskey in a Jar and Kelly's just totally banging. And people everywhere seemed really, really happy. I had a thousand conversations and I don't remember a single one of them having any bile at all.

I wish I could say that my body was Blowout proof because this morning, I woke to find: OUCH. I guess that three nights in a row that end in whiskey collapse will do that to you.

If I were a more cautious man, I would sit tonight out in deference to my body. But I am not a cautious ...