Michigan Indie Review

The Wrenfields at Memphis Smoke Royal Oak, Mi. Wednesday, March 28 2001 review by Mitch Phillips The Invitation A month and a half prior to my mid-week arrival I received an invitation from Noreen Novrocki, asking if I’d come see her alt/country/roots sextet, The Wrenfields. I received a three-song EP in the mail with the usual promotional materials and a nice e-mail complimenting my past work. (Sly move - always appeal to the writer’s ego when trying to get press. ) She even offered to pay for my drinks. (Very sly move - especially if you know the writer has a predilection for liquor but only a budget for beer.) I’d already agreed to cover the show, even if I couldn’t admit to the reasons. But then I played the EP. Then I played it again. And again. In fact, I played it so much I destroyed the disk. It won’t even cue-up anymore. I’m going to miss it terribly until the full-length CD comes out sometime this summer (so if you’re reading this Noreen, I really need an advanced copy ...

Blush / Sweaty Suede Lips / Atomic Numbers and Deathgirl.com St. Andrew's Hall, Detroit 3-24-01 Live music events are for voyeurs like me and, luckily, exhibitionists like the dozen or so plaid-skirted, knee-socked, pigtail-ponies who sauntered through the crowd and hovered over the balcony rails at St. Andrews Hall for the Blush / Sweaty Suede Lips / Atomic Numbers / Deathgirl.com show on Sat. March 24th. "School-grrlz" feigning pre-pubescent naiveté and bearing upper-thigh seem to have become a fashion (or is it fetish?) in Detroit, much to my delight. It makes you wonder what the next decade will bring to the crowd's dress - or lack thereof. Blush I missed Blush - again, which is a stupid shame. Not only was it billed as their CD release party, but they were to perform with a more electronic approach, having recently lost their drummer, Kelly, a former Stun-Gun-ner who's sold her kit to pursue her passion for sequencing. By all accounts, (even the oth...

A Disclaimer... Date: Friday, March 16, 2001 @ 23:25:58 EST Topic: Opinion Writer Mitch Phillips gets defensive about his sometimes brutally honest reviewing style. A Disclaimer.... by Mitch Phillips Recently I’ve been accused of taking pleasure in thrashing local bands in my reviews when I should be, by all means, promoting them. After all, this website exists for this very reason. So shouldn’t I do everything I can to make them look good? My response to this criticism was an emphatic NO. 'It does no good to be another yes-man in the local music scene,' I recently responded to a slighted bandmember by e-mail. 'Too often reviews are written by close friends and/or hangers-on who have nothing constructive or objective to say about a band's music or their performance which is of no use to anybody.’ Or they only go see the great bands who are already getting good press and leave the struggling, shitty bands to their own devices without any feedback. I don't ...

Robb Roy at The New Place Lounge Date: Wednesday, March 07, 2001 @ 05:46:18 EST Topic: Show Reviews Long working local band takes our reviewer from The New Place in Dearborn to a dance-hall on Telegraph where he proceeds to put Robb Roy's music to the "Booty Test." Dearborn Michigan May 20, 2000 review by mitch phillips Heavy Metal Dues I first met Graham Strachan on a shipping dock in 1990. He was hauling scrap metal for a salvage company with longtime friend Michael Kudreiko. Despite his being covered from head to foot in rust, grease and metal shavings, I knew instinctively this guy was a bandhead (poor guy with a pony tail - not exactly genius on my part). But like alcoholics, musicians are predetermined to find each other in any crowd. I told Graham I was gigging the club scene in my off hours and he told me he was the singer for a band called Robb Roy. "Yeah, I've heard of you guys, " I said with vague recollection; their name had already been ...