Soul Of An Artest

We have been offline for a while, taking in the savage beast that is Detroit, home of Ultraviolence and Garage Rock. It is also the home of sooooper-slow innernet. We confine our "surfing" to the LAN at work, or the mercies of Roadrunner from Time Warner. So when we actually confront internet that matches the ludicrous scenes from adverts for DSL, we tend to throw up our hands and go for a bracing walk instead.

We did spent a listless Saturday in the confines of the Somerset Collection, cruising around the posh north end in preference to the crowded but more richly beshopped south end. We'll confess that after the mauling we suffered at the hands of Harbour City in Hong Kong, we have somewhat cooled on the Mecha-Mall. And we are no closer to relatives gift-nirvana, aside from a self-purchased Pistons T-Shirt, bought largely to scare the overly refined Knicks fans that infest the Apple.

But we digress. The main point of this little post (interrupted for a couple of hours while we entertain an excitable Chilean road-builder on the phone) is to point out how close to the Detroit rock aristocracy we are. Very proud were Gringcorp and cute companion when we stumbled upon a massive White Stripes Thanksgiving show last year at the Masonic Temple Theater. After browsing through Mojam, which is very patchy, and Detroit Citysearch, which is fuller, but very badly organised, we hit upon The Kills, a band we have enjoyed from time to time, including at Southpaw.

We played pool to the sounds of The All Night Push, who had a very polite keyboardist who wore a suit and looked like a slightly better-fed Johnny Depp. We liked them alot - the singer is one of nature's crooners, and they probably like the Kinks. Blanche, which followed, seemed like a Detroit in-joke. Charismatic lead singer plays enthusiastic but not very compelling rockabillly/bluegrass. But they did bring out the scenesters, for who should materialise in the crowd at the Magic Stick, a bowling alley/pizza joint/pool hall/rock toilet, than Jack N' Meg themselves. Jack was less pale and better fed than normal, looking more like a young Ozzy Osbourne than he has any right to. But he didn't beat anyone down, even the fuzzy-haired kid in the lacrosse T-Shirt, who most probably whispered something very non-scene in his ear. No sign of Renee, though, who was probably elsewhere pimping that rancid corpse of a Briget Jones movie.

We also think we saw three members of the Dirtbombs playing pool in the corner, but we're fairly positive that you have less than any interest in that little factoid.