Long battered by business closings and abandonment, Detroit has also become a laboratory for artistic entrepreneurship. Some local musicians are hoping to take advantage of huge new tax breaks for recording artists and restore some of the city’s faded Motown glory. Meanwhile, urban planners are hoping to replicate the “Bilboa Effect” – the idea that an investment in the arts can transform the fortunes of a city.

Today, a look at Detroit’s cultural fortunes with Mark Stryker, the arts reporter and music critic of the Detroit Free Press; Andras Szanto, a cultural consultant with AEA Consulting; and Katherine Yung, a reporter with the Detroit Free Press.

Check out this interview with Ted from Pitchfork….

“Welcome to 5-10-15-20, where we talk to artists about the music they loved at five-year interval points in their lives. Maybe we’ll get a detailed roadmap of how their tastes and passions helped make them who they are. Maybe we’ll just learn that they really liked hearing the “Kids Incorporated” theme song over and over when they were kids. Either way, it’ll be fun.” says Pitchfork.

Title Tracks : Steady Love from John Davis on Vimeo.

“To breed or not to breed? That is the question Owen Ashworth appears to be asking with his fifth full-length outing as Casiotone for the Painfully Alone, the wryly titled Vs. Children. But this is a Casiotone record, which means Ashworth won’t provide direct access to his thoughts, relying instead on proxies, personae, and other distancing mechanisms. That is, until the record’s third act, when a new Casiotone seems to emerge. Before that, however, Ashworth takes us on a joyride with a succession of mostly doomed outlaws and derelicts, with a couple of side excursions into familiar disaffected-slacker-ballad territory. It all adds up to easily the most mature and thematically ambitious Casiotone release to date, a further testament to the talents of a man more in tune with the lives of his generation than many of the folks actually living them,” says Pitchfork on their album Vs. Children.

Band Website!

Casiotone For The Playfully Alone with Silverghost in the Pike Room Thursday February 25. Doors open at 8pm. Tickets are on sale now for $8.

“Dropping an earth shattering set of modern, relevant, radio ready rock & roll . Robots In The Garden put on a performance that had the sweat packed room jumping for 30 minutes with what can only be described as one helluva a set! Check these guys out while you still have a chance to catch them in the small venues! ” – Detroit Rock Review.

More at their MySpace.

Robots In The Garden featuring Avienne, Auto Artillery, Contents May Very, Artigo and Shotgun Theory in the Pike Room Sunday February 21. Doors at 5pm. Tickets are on sale for $10 in advance and $12 day of show.

“In a day where Hot Topic peddles guyliner to millions of male teenage mallrats, it’s hard to imagine a time when glam-rock was truly shocking. But there remains one gender-bending device whose provocative, polarizing power remains undiminished: the falsetto– a sound that tends to elicit both laughter and skepticism, if not outright hostility. Still, it remains a highly effective weapon in the endless war against safe, overly earnest indie– and few bands brandish it so wantonly as UK art-pop quartet Wild Beasts.” Read more on their album Two Dancers at Pitchfork.

Follow Wild Beasts on Twitter and check out their MySpace!

They will be playing with Still Life Still in the Pike Room on Saturday February 20 at 8pm. Tickets are on sale for $10.

Check out Pepi’s website for tour dates!

Pepi Ginsberg featuring The Hosts in the Vernors Room on Friday February 19 at 9pm right after the St. Vincent show. Tickets will be on sale for $5 at the door.

“While all three members of Q and Not U formed different projects after their breakup five years ago, the ensuing career of their drummer, John Davis, might be the biggest and most pleasant surprise. He’s continued to record smart, affable power pop– one record as the frontman of the band Georgie James, and now recording most everything himself under the name Title Tracks. If It Was Easy, his first full-length under the name, is any indication, it seems he’s just getting started,” says Pitchfork.

Title Tracks with Pretty and Nice and Friendly Foes playing in the Pike Room on Tuesday February 16 at 8pm. Tickets are on sale for $8.

Doors open at 6pm!
Listen to After Elvis music and look at awesome pictures at their MySpace.

Read Never Shout Never news, see photos and videos – official website!

Rockstar Energy Drink presents The AP Tour featuring Never Shout Never with special guests Hey Monday, The Cab, Every Avenue and The Summer Set in the Crofoot Ballroom on Thursday May 6 at 6pm. Tickets are on sale now for $15 in advance and $17 day of show. They are selling fast- make sure to get yours soon!

“A four-track iTunes Sessions EP from electro-pop duo YACHT and their Mystery Lights Band is out now. (That’s the gender-bending cover up there.) It features three live versions of tracks from last year’s Best New Music recipient See Mystery Lights and a cover of Weezer’s Blue Album classic “Holiday”. Listen to the Weezer redo over on YACHT’s blog and check out the tracklist below” Pitchfork.