OK. OK. It’s Friday. Not a bad thing. The weekend is chock-loaded with festivals of all varieties (Hamtown Labor Day Fest, Detroit Jazz Fest, Arts, Beats and Eats) and the weather, at this point, is supposed to precipitation-free. The Detroit Lives film is coming out real, real soon.

In celebration, it’s time for a little Friday Soul Roundup, a collection of succulent selctions coming straight out of Detroit in the late 50s and 60s:

There is an entire stockpile of information and anecdotes about Detroit soul, R&B and otherwise over at Soulful Detroit.  It’s quite easy to get lost in the depths of information over there. Have a pleasant weekend now, ya hear?

In the past month, the New York Times has written three overly positive articles about Detroit from a variety of different angles– a look at business growth, a look at neighborhood growth and a look at art as a tool to create social change. The most recent of which was the the article on neighborhood development through a discussion of Midtown and how it is remaining stable throughout the ongoing recession and housing crisis. The article claims that “many obsolete buildings in Midtown have been converted to rental housing in recent years, and the rental market has been strong. An association study found that 92 percent of the 4,295 rental units in the area were occupied last spring.” Sue Mosey, prez of the University Cultural Association that oversees a lot of development in Midtown, adds “We really have lost almost no businesses during the recession.” Not too shabby.

What’s interesting though, is that it seems all of this positive press in the New York Times is having a general effect on outsider opinions of Detroit.  On a recent visit to New York to try and get some of the DL! merch in shops over there (a shop and gallery space in Brookyln called “By and By” is now selling some pieces!), it’s very clear that people’s opinions are changing.  When presented with the Detroit Starter Kit and a general explanation of what DL! is, there was a lot more “oh yeah, Detroit is the new place to be” than there was “Eeek! Detroit is a shithole, isnt it?”— which is great. That feels good.

Alright, alright, alright! I am quite pleased to announce the new website is finally here. I know, it probably doesn’t look extremely new visually, but the guts under the hood are all 21st century glam. And by that I just mean that the blog format been migrated to a wordpress backbone which just means that now, like most blogs out there, posts can be tagged, commented on (see below), added to your RSS feed, permalinked, etc.  All content is also searchable and categorized on the right panel of the site.  It’s a big deal, people. The little toddler that is DETROIT LIVES! went from being a shaky one-stepper to moonwalkin’ across the floor.

Also, we now have an integrated shopping cart and store function.  The Etsy shop will remain open in addition to our new web store and really, orders can be placed in either location.  It doesn’t really matter.  But it sort of feels cool to have that little button on the side that says “Your Cart.”  Dig it.  Over the next few weeks and months we will be adding some exciting new pieces.  Keep those eyes on the 21st century DETROIT LIVES! integrated webstore!  Ha.

Finally, a special thank you to Alan Languirand (of Team Loveland and Project Lemon Battery) for all the web work re-designing this sucker and tirelessly getting it updated and incorporating all the original design that Scott Waraniak did on the original website.  A toast to you, gentleman, and in celebration I bring you the delicious musical sounds of Lee Rogers, the famed “Prince of Detroit” in the 50s and 60s for having innovate the new Sound of Detroit:

A fine festival weekend indeed. DL! had a booth with some goods at Come Hear Belle Isle on Saturday which was just plain fun. The music was good (Maunder Minimum, Doop and in the Inside Outlaws, Champions of Breakfast) and the crowd a pleasant force of humans. The Remick Music Shell– this retro-looking cement compound of a stage– is just awesome. You can almost picture orchestras and bands playing in the 50s on smooth summery nights with people hand-in-hand dancing in the crowd. It really needs to be used more often. Not only is the stage cool, but the water is twenty feet away providing a nice little atmosphere. There was something special going on. Grass waving back and forth, summer sun, music in the background, people dancing and a bunch of donations to Friends of Belle Isle. Come on. That’s some goodness.

Seperately and simultaneously, the People’s Art Festival took over the Russel Industrial Center with what seemed like about double the vendors from last year. There were giant eagles made from scrap metal, mixtape jewelry and one of the best business cards ever seen– a paper moustache you could wear by attaching to your nostrils. Incredible. I wore mine for roughly 3 minutes, exactly the amount of time it took me to start sneezing uncontrollably. Whatever the case, very cool. All in all, a fine Detroit weekend. On to the week!

Err’body’s always talking about Detroit’s music scene. Here a few tracks from bands that are just getting started in Detroit, currently recording in Detroit, repping Detroit on the west coast and making believers out of the fact that Detroit isn’t just about electronic music and garage rock. Have a listen.

The latest Detroit sensation touring the west coast and getting airtime on KCRW, Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr:

Brand-spanking newly signed Madis One to Blank Artists in Detroit with a little samplage of Bjork:

Bjork sample, madis music by MADIS ONE

The Auctioneers, a band not from Detroit (NYC), but currently recording an album here and playing shows around town:

And finally, the most astonishing addition to the lineup, Detroit’s best old-time country western band. These guys do nothing nothing like the new stuff coming out of Nashville; think more like Waylon Jennings, and these guys just kill it. Here’s a Johnny Cash cover they do particularly well, thats also rumored to be the opening track on their new album released October 12 on Bloodshot Records:

It’s the talk of the town– young people can do big things in Detroit. The NYTimes recently cashed in on that realization with an article about the arts and their effect on changing the image of Detroit and also attracting new settlers. Locally, it’s the hot topic in the media. Laura Berman over at the old Freep-tasty wrote a column today giving three reasons why being in Detroit is a good thing for a young person. The article is short and sweet, here are some snippets:

“You’re smart, you’re talented, you’ve got new ideas. In New York, you’re a sparrow. In Detroit, you’re a prized canary.”

“Detroit’s affordable. Really, really affordable. Here, a young couple can become landed gentry… for a fraction of the cost in a similar community anywhere else.”

“This is a place where you can take raw hope and be part of turning it into a brand new future… It’s a unique time and place.”

Over the next few months, we will be hitting some cities across the country and globe to get DL! goods sold in stores– our way of disseminating the message that Detroit is alive and kicking. To support our little roadshow, we hit the workshop and came up with something of a “Detroit Starter Kit”– well, it’s not even called that, but still– to creatively merchandise and package a few of the more popular DL! items to try and solicit interest from shopkeepers. That translated to this:

The kit contains one hooded sweatshirt on an eco-blend fabric, one canvas tote bag, one 100% cotton ringspun t-shirt, a 5×7 matted print on metallic paper of the train station project and a hand-screened poster print on Stonehenge paper. The box is made of all salvaged and recycled materials– corrugated cardboard mostly scrapped from stuff found in the basement, fabric scraps leftover from other projects, etc. The duck cloth exterior of the box is custom-made and screened doubling as both the outer sleeve and a bag if need be. All in one, it’s a very portable and representative snapshot of DL! and Detroit as a whole. No plans to sell these for the time being, but maybe we’ll do a limited batch of them at some point.

So, last year DL! had an exhibition at Whitdel Arts (then the Ladybug Gallery) to underscore the creative culture in Detroit, look at some of the cool projects around town and to screen the brand spankin’ new DL! film “The Farmer and the Philosopher.” It was a good time. We even had a nice panel discussion with Toby and Mark after the film screeening and got some good conversation going.

Well, as you may have guessed, we’re doing it again. Less about the film screening (though there might still be more film…), and this time we put out an open call for submissions. The list of participants is pretty strong, even with a submission coming over from foggy London town (sorry you guys couldn’t make it!). The general theme of the show is understanding Detroit’s blastoff in to the future— which of the city’s strong points will move it forward, how will it get there, who will be a part of it? And this shindig isn’t limited to a fine art picture show– oh no– we’ve got everything from stuff hanging on a wall to lights and sounds to outdoor public art thrown in the middle of fields and buildings. There will be stuff for everyone, all with an eye for Detroit’s forward progress. The show is going to run for just a little over a month between both of CAID’s galleries at Whitdel Arts and then the main gallery on Rosa Parks in Woodbridge. There will be some events leading up to it if all goes to plan, but put it on your calendar and come check out the fun. More updates to come as the date nears.

The city of Detroit is one of the only cities of its size in the country to not have a public recycling program. Thats where Recycle Here! comes in. You’ve probably seen the happy little bumble bee (designed by Carl Oxley who did the Welcome to Woodbridge mural among others) around town that they yse for their logo. So, here’s the deal. They are currently in the run for a 250k grant from the Pepsi Refresh Everything Campaign– basically, Pepsi is giving away $1.3 million PER MONTH to fund great ideas. It’s a pretty neat program to be honest. The Recycle Here! folks are trying to get recycling in to all Detroit Public Schools to reach about 90,000 kids. They currently reach about 30,000 and just simply do not have the resources to extend their reach that far. What’s great about Recycle Here!’s program is that it starts with education, teaching students what it means to recycle, what you are doing for the environment and how it helps Detroit. It’s not just showing them the green bin in the cafeteria where they can put their pop bottle. Recycle Here! needs your votes. They are currently ranked 113th and climbing where the top two vote receivers on August 31 get the money. So get clicking below, and you are able to do it once every day, so keep coming back!

The Vice Magazine blog, VBS Blog, featured a photo of the DL! mural I did near Eastern Market. The blog post discusses the sort of new American dream that can be discovered in Detroit.

“The city has become a place where enterprising classes can find the space and time to do whatever they want, cheaply and hassle-free. It’s a raw space where they can create community and start rebuilding their city from the inside out. The people we talked to were all eager to discuss the reasons they love Detroit, and, as importantly, what their vision is for it. Everyone is doing something—making music, buying and developing land, building businesses, and laying the foundation for a new Detroit with a creative scene that reminded us (the Euros among us, anyway) of East Berlin after the Wall came down. What we found there is a DIY paradise where people hustle to survive and use an anarchic sense of creativity to make shit happen.”