The culture of Detroit does not rest solely on the shoulders of the Movement festival. Like any major American city, Detroit hosts its annual beacons of pride and popularity — the lauded Detroit International Jazz Festival, downtown’s chilly Winter Blast, the prestigious North American International Auto Show. But often, the shadow cast by these behemoth weekend attractions hides a bustling culture that breeds year-round. Last Thursday evening, as the stages were being erected and the carnival food carts were still jockeying for position before the start of Movement 2010 in Hart Plaza, the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MOCAD) was offering a small sampling of such sophistication.
The MOCAD was welcoming three new exhibitions into its white walls — critically acclaimed Belgian artist Jef Geys’ Detroit-centric Woodward Ave, Design 99 and their take on art, environment and community with Too Much Of A Good Thing and finally LaToya Ruby Frazier’s black-and-white photo exhibit titled Mother May I. To complement the opening of the new installations, Brooklyn-based Japanther (ChinaShop recently caught up with that dude duo at SXSW — check it out here < http://www.chinashopmag.com/2010/03/japanther-rocks-carniville and Detroit locals Tyvek were set to take the stage (or rather a corner of the floor).
After a blistering set from Japanther — complete with dozens of grease-soaked hipsters and their fiercely accessorized (and fiercely attractive) hipsterette counterparts shaking along to the pounding rhythms — Tyvek took to it. Within moments, it was clear the four-piece represented the fading ideal of Detroit’s garage rock past while ushering in a new era of psychedelic, experimental pop songs (regardless of just how fuzzed-out and distorted those pop songs can seem) within the schizophrenic patchwork of the city’s current musical state. Tyvek’s oddly photogenic frontman and lead guitarist Kevin Boyer explained that while the group has performed in galleries before, “the art [of our music] is kind of a separate, unrelated thing,” says Boyer. “[Tyvek] is a smack on the ass and a punch in the face. We’ve played a lot of galleries where people don’t know what’s going on” when the band takes the stage. Throughout Tyvek’s hour-plus set, the never-waning hipsterati were truly treated with a punch in the face from the type of performance art that can’t help but be amplified — a refreshing taste of life outside the Detroit techno
Words by Ryan Patrick Hooper with photos by Dustin Downing
