In developing the Speakers Bureau content for the Detroit Creative Corridor Center, they asked us to turn the camera on ourselves and make a piece about the work that we do. Kind of a weird task, but we’re pleased with how it turned out. Check it:
See the rest of the videos– there are seven now!– in the Speakers Bureau here.
“When it comes to rebuilding a city, you have to know your past before you can see your future. This is the Motor City, and we are coming back. Watch us. We’re about to put Detroit in overdrive.â€
See that commercial here. As you probably gathered, the commercial is in promotion of the three-part documentary series that Discovery Networks’ Planet Green filmed about Detroit. In fact, you may recall some chatter here many moons ago about the upcoming feature of DL! in the doc series along with a bunch of other Detroit greats, but now the official release and airing schedule is out. Mark your calendars, folks. The feature will air nationally on Planet Green Thursday, August 4th at 8pm.
Monocle is a global publication discussing international affairs, business, culture and design. They recently came to Detroit to film a piece on DETROIT LIVES! for a segment they produce on Bloomberg TV (AT&T U-Verse Channel 222, Comcast 178, DirecTV 353, Dish Network 203). All in all, the piece is great, sandwiched between reports on arts and culture from Munich, Berlin and Tokyo– not too shabby being in the mix with those powerhouses. The piece discusses DL!’s efforts as a new type of socially driven creative company to create momentum through our clothing line, public art and community engagement. The piece will air again on Bloomberg’s cable station on Saturday, February 26. Check local listings for the time as it plays a few times throughout the day. Alternatively, by clicking the image below you can see the segment. The Detroit bit appears just after the 1-minute mark at 1:10.
One step further on the topic of press coverage, Ann Arbor’s SHEI magazine did a piece on DL! discussing future plans five and ten years down the road, what’s going to move the city forward and what makes Detroit a fun place to work in. Check out the article here.
VICE media and Palladium Boots teamed up to produce Detroit Lives (they picked a good title, eh?), a film about the positive components of Detroit. Johnny Knoxville leads the voyage in a fancy automo-boat through a picture show of imagery and people representative of Detroit’s forward movements. You get a good dose of the movers and shakers– Bethany Shorb, Carl Craig, Black Milk, Phil Cooley– coupled with shots from all around town, inside abandoned buildings old mansions, factories, music venues, dance parties, speak easies and just about everything else in between. The film is part of Palladium Boots’ ongoing “Explorer” series whereby the premise is to strap on your Palladium Boots and explore a new place. They have VICE media handling all the film production and behind-the-scenes work. Check out the film in three parts here.
I had the chance to attend the PSFK Salon today held at the DIA. It was a mini-conference of sorts, 4 hours in length, under the premise of fueling imagination through creative and inspiring discussions about Detroit. Scott Monty spoke. He is man behind the wheel with social media at Ford. Catie Newell discussed her architectural project called Five Fellows that is shaping up to be an ongoing arts installation– and home– in the same neighborhood as the PowerHouse Project. Jeremy Eckhous talked about his company Advanced Energy Group and their use of geothermal energy as a renewable source of energy for affordable heating and cooling in the region. The panel discussion followed with Jerry Paffendorf of Loveland, Terry Parris from Model D and Rebecca Powers at Hour Detroit. Here’s some random snippets that people were heard saying throughout the course of the afternoon– all painting a picture for growth and change in the region.
“I think there is a dynamic happening right now to make us believe that change is really happening this time for Detroit.” Rebecca Powers
“We produced one of the greatest entrepreneurs of all time in Henry Ford, and we will continue to do that.” Terry Parris
“It’s in our blood to make things here in Detroit” Terry Parris
“If you have an idea or story and you want to do it, there’s nothing stopping you in Detroit.” Terry Parris
A fine morning indeed.
As you may already know, the Allied Media Conference and US Social Forum are both coming to Detroit this month. But what exactly are these conferences, or discussion, or gatherings aiming to do? There’s all kinds of chatter about them coming, but what do they actually want to do? AMC, taking place this weekend, aims to create and organize media that strives to create social justice. You can plan to build stuff, take part in all kinds of workshops, learn a lot about the transforming qualities of gobs of different types of media (short wave radio and film to name just a couple) production and meet some interesting folks. All right here in our backyard. The USSF, on the other hand, taking place June 22-26, focuses on creating a process and solution to tackle many of the global economic and ecological hurdles. Their are tours, performances, work projects and brigades and little mini-projects, like this one, called Detroit Expanded. USSF chose Detroit for their location, ground zero for where change can affect the most people, but potentially also where these thoughts can go the furthest. Registration for USSF (AMC is currently closed for registration) is pretty easy and remarkably affordable given the breadth of topics, information and events happening. Join the fun, listen to the chatter, participate when you can. A lot of excitement coming to Detroit!
Detroit: city of surprises. Yesterday, Metro Times’ annual “best of” issue hit the newsstands yesterday giving you at least 100 reasons to appreciate the city. It hits on every possible angle you could imagine with categories all over the place; kind of like, get this, best indie lingerie. “Indie” has been ferociously used to categorize craft fairs around here, and more times than not music that is playing at the Magic Stick– and now apparently lingerie, too. Anyway, of particular importance with this years “best of” is the increasing reality that Detroit is embracing the uprising of honky tonk from its core. Sure, the grit and gore of the tool and dye beating heart of Detroit doesnt often get associated with good old country music, but by God, there couldn’t be a better match. Whitey Morgan and the 78s, a country band ala Waylon Jennings, got a “best of” award for being the best country artist this town has to offer. Now, for all of you that are thinking about Toby Keith, I present to you Whitey Morgan, frontman for one of Detroit’s best surprises and quite possibly one of the scariest males I have ever seen:
With a neckbeard hovering around 4 inches in length and the stare of a famished, angry water buffalo, Whitey Morgan is not on stage to play you some twangy parlor music that the folks in Nashville might pick up and put on the big stage. Oh no. This is country music– themes hover exclusively around cheating and drinking. Whitey Morgan and the 78s play music like Waylon Jennings if he gigged exclusively at biker bars. So, all that said, Whitey and his boys are organizing quite possibly one of the better live music spectactles of the Spring, aptly titled The Honky Tonk Throwdown. Whitey headlines night one, the Deadstring Brothers on night two and Wayne “THE TRAIN” Hancock– the Viper of Melody– on night three. Whoo! Tickets are $10 a day or $25 for the whole weekend. All shows are played at PJs Lager House. Do yourself a favor and be there.
Oh yeah, and come out and see the new goods on show tonight at Bureau of Urban Living. 5pm-8pm. 416 West Canfield. Got all kinds of new stuff– shirts, zip pouches, throw pillows, towels, art prints. Whoo!
As mentioned here before, new DL! goods– throw pillows! hand towels! zip totes for things like pencils and keys and water guns! special hand-screened prints on some salvaged materials!– are going to be showcased for ONE BIG NIGHT at Bureau of Urban Living in Midtown. Yep. Pretty cool. Stop by Thursday, April 22 at 5pm. There will probably be some cervezas and light snackery and plenty of conversation relating to things like Detroit’s own soul temptress Chris Clark:
