- Hey One Detroit, I'm Christy McDonald and here's what's coming up on arts and culture this week.

Detroit punk rock band, Cinecyde, take their claim as the first punk rockers in the motor city.

Plus the role of women in Jazz with Terri Lyne Carrington from the famed Berklee College of Music, and the story behind a favorite on Chinese restaurant menus in Michigan, almond boneless chicken.

It's all coming up this week on One Detroit Arts and Culture.

- From Delta faucets to Behr paint, Masco corporation is proud to deliver products that enhance the way consumers all over the world experience and enjoy their living spaces.

Masco, serving Michigan communities since 1929.

- Support for this program provided by: The Cynthia and Edsel Ford Fund for journalism at Detroit Public TV, The Kresge Foundation Community foundation for Southeast Michigan.

- The DTE foundation is a proud sponsor of Detroit Public TV among the state's largest foundations committed to Michigan focused giving.

We support organizations that are doing exceptional work in our state.

Visit www.DTEFoundation.com to learn more.

- Business Leaders for Michigan, dedicated to making Michigan a top 10 state for jobs, personal income and to help the economy.

Also brought to you by The Fred A. and Barbara M. Erb Family Foundation, and viewers like you.

(rhythmic music) - Hi there and welcome to One Detroit Arts and Culture, I'm Christy McDonald.

Thanks so much for being with me.

Wow, has the world shifted in just a week, more vaccinations, less masks, a sense of opening back up to the world and as more performances and concerts get on a summer schedule, we're keeping you in touch with artists, music and cultural events that we'd love to engage with, and that really fill our soul.

Coming up on the show this week, How dissatisfaction with rock music brought us detroit punk rock band Cinecyde and how the DIY rockers have evolved since the seventies.

This is a great story.

You're going to hear from the band.

Plus, Aaron Dworkin and his arts engine series explores the role of women in Jazz with Terri Lyne Carrington of the Berkelee College of Music in Boston.

And if you're a fan of Chinese food, chances are you've had almond boneless chicken but did you know that dish is a Michigan thing?

We'll take you through its local history as part of Asian-American and Pacific Islander heritage month.

It is all coming up.

Detroit has never been shy about its pioneering music scene, and that includes punk rock.

So much of the music was self-produced and self-released but rival the punk scene in New York and in LA.

One of Detroit's first punk bands, Cinecyde, formed in the mid seventies.

And they're still making music today.

Right now they're working on their latest album and we even have a look inside their recent recording sessions.

Thanks to Facebook.

You know, we didn't know a lot about Cinecyde, until our One Detroit editor, Chris Jordan, punk rock fan in his own right, who did some work with the band introduced us.

♪ Wanna look, wanna let you see ♪ ♪ Wanna speak, wanna let you say ♪ ♪ Run it back, same as before - Punk rock was really sort of a, a dissatisfaction about rock and roll.

It became one thing, or it became a narrower thing.

And it was at the exclusion of anything else.

♪ Enemy Man, Enemy Man, Enemy Because you were passionate about music.

We were passionate about music, you got angry, passion, anger, there was punk rock, there you go.

♪ Here comes one single warning ♪ ♪ Coming to you, come over the way ♪ - Formed in 1976, the same year that the Sex Pistols and the Ramones released their first singles, Cinecyde were, depending who you ask, Detroit's first punk band.

- We thought we were completely alone.

Detroit was filled with cover bands.

Just doing rock and roll covers It just wasn't what I was looking for.

It wasn't a good enough kick.

- Decided to make a record, Gutless Radio, which is sort of any anthem against radio at the time.

♪ We don't fucking know gutless radio ♪ ♪ We don't like the things we hear ♪ - As we discovered that there were some other things going on in other parts of the country, or other parts of the world, you would get wind of, some sort of underground band or something.

And there was just no possibility that they would play any of that stuff.

I mean, it was sort of brash, I mean most bands in rock and roll would be, I wannna be signed.

I want the industry to love me.

In our case it was, we were, sort of just slamming.

Slamming the industry with the idea that it would be, that we would do it yourself.

We would issue our own records and things.

♪ I ♪ Still ♪ Love you - They were one of the central bands and what became by the early eighties, a thriving, eclectic, fiercely independent punk scene in Detroit.

- All the clubs, and there were a lot of them, that were doing punk.

They were full like every night.

It didn't matter who played.

In fact, a lot of, kids would go to the bars, just because they knew something was gonna go on there.

- It was an eclectic scene.

So, there's a nice spectrum of bands.

It wasn't one thing.

It was, it could be bands that were very roots oriented, or it could be bands that were, more rock and roll, a little electronica, kind of stuff was sneaking in there.

But you know it all, I seem to, the commonality was, it had to be a little raw, had to have a little bit of an edge.

- 45 years later, Cinecyde are still going strong, are still totally DIY and just released their 8th album with the Pulp Sci-fi inspired title track, Vegetable or Thing.

♪ Chuck it out ♪ What's the first mistake - This is a project that we worked on for a while, actually before the pandemic and then finished it up during the pandemic.

Chris Gerard was in the band and played bass with us and we recorded a lot of that with him in the band and then he had health troubles and Chris went on his hiatus and we always thought that he would end up back in the band, but things did turn for the worst and he died.

Just an amazing, amazing guy, a beautiful soul, a great creator.

He always had an innovative and interesting way to look at things.

Maybe two thirds of the record was, with Chris or something was close to being done but we kept putting it off and putting it off.

We were mixing and things during the COVID thing.

So essentially, we just stayed safe and tried to be safe, but I thought we have to release this.

We're not going to, we're not gonna not release it, and we're just gonna have to try different things like, - Maybe we can do our re-release.

When the bars are open.

♪ We are rock and roll gutless radio ♪ ♪ When our rock (inaudible) - So being in the independent music scene, the detroit punk scene for just about 45 years, how have you seen the scene change and how was your approach to making punk rock change?

- I don't know that I can say anything about a scene.

I'm always interested in what's going on in Detroit.

There's a load of great musicians, load of great people, creating and making music and stuff.

I mean, it's through all these different eras, through the eighties, nineties, two thousands, now.

I think that detroit is sort of underplayed.

It doesn't get the exposure that it should.

- Has your approach to writing punk rock changed.

is it still the same sensibility?

The same spirit?

- I mean, Cinecyde is Cinecyde, and it has a specific kind of sound but I would say we evolve every every time, every song.

♪ (rock music) - To me, punk was just about getting back to a roots, stripping music down and being well, being fun.

Yes, being aggressive, it could be.

But also, respecting and understanding those roots, and those roots could be anything from a some of the garage band sounds of 65, 66, or it could be rockabilly from the 50's.

X from Los Angeles, of course, I always appreciated The Cramps or it could be, Hank Williams or Johnny Cash, it could be any of that kind of stuff that you're bringing, bringing to a simplicity and a more directness.

The music it just, for me, it just plays in my head, so it plays in your head and then you just kind of, try to work it out on an instrument and then boom, there it is.

Maybe, for us, maybe for me, it's just, it's my personality.

♪ They found in town in a frozen lake ♪ ♪ Chuck it out ♪ What's the first mistake ♪ When did all it killed them all ♪ ♪ The plant dead hers there's a flipper call ♪ ♪ Vegetable or Thing ♪ You came down from the outer space ♪ ♪ Wants to kill the the human race ♪ ♪ It changes shape and fulls us all ♪ ♪ (inaudible) ♪ (inaudible) ♪ Round and round and round we go ♪ ♪ Where it stops?

No one knows.

♪ ♪ Out to take over the whole world.

♪ ♪ (inaudible) ♪ (inaudible) ♪ It came down from outer space ♪ ♪ Wants to kill the human race ♪ It changes shape and fulls us all ♪ ♪ (inaudible) ♪ (inaudible) - For more on Cinecyde and their latest projects.

Just head to our website@onedetroitpbs.org Musician and founder of the Sphinx Organization.

Aaron Dworkin has a new interview series here on Detroit public television called arts engines.

And this week, he talked with the founder and the artistic director of the Berkeley Institute of jazz and gender justice, Terry Lynn Carrington.

They talked about the changing roles for women in jazz.

- What is an Institute for jazz and gender justice?

- It's just a way to bring attention to this really, really big problem of gender parity in jazz.

And also just in the music industry in general.

But my focus is jazz because that's my background and that's basically where I make my living, and what I teach.

But it started off with just meeting with some students.

Some women students that told me some stories that were just kind of shocking because I didn't grow up with the same kind of experience they did.

It really opened my eyes to seeing that these issues really needed to be addressed at our institution, but just in the field in general.

And just because I had a very exceptional career, and childhood, and was protected and kind of ushered into the jazz world, by my father and other greats, I had a responsibility now to really look at the issue from, without of my own perspective, and try to bring others along with me and to point out to my colleagues and comrades in the jazz world, and mentors even, that something is terribly wrong.

- There are clearly these issues relating to gender and jazz.

- What are the ways in which you address it?

Are there different kind of focus areas or pockets or ways that you tackle it?

- Well, the first way is just providing a safe, nurturing place for not just young women, but people from the entire gender spectrum, to be able to learn the music.

That's like the first thing.

Because there are transgender students, that I didn't know, for at Berkeley.

That have found us, and a lot of young women that always feel this barrier, you know, even in a classroom, or in an ensemble, they don't feel as supported and nurtured.

So even the young men that are in our program, because it's not just for women, but since these young men have gravitated to this program, the young women feel supported by them and not judged and not like they're being given an opportunity just because they are women.

They feel like, you know, they really have an environment to buckle down and try to learn this music, which is hard enough in itself.

And we also have a lot of guest artists to come in and give them lessons, and lead ensembles, do a composition work, private lessons.

They come for few days at a time.

So I think that within a semester we might have six or seven guest artists, which are great opportunities for the students to learn directly from these masterful musicians.

- What would you like to see different in the field, say 10 years from now that you would have been instrumental in helping to bring about?

- It seems to me that people just say that they didn't realize that this problem existed and which is, it seems odd, but I can relate to it because I didn't as well for so long and I'm in it.

So I think that just this awareness of, oh right, there is something wrong, none of this music that we played, none of the composers are women, none of the jazz standards are written by women.

Most of the band leaders aren't.

So you have patrons, presenters, radio journalists, all people that are coming now more to a consciousness around this issue.

And I see it changing.

So I'm extremely hopeful.

But in 10 years time, it would be great to see more gender equality in our field.

And not just in the performance, but also with education.

With teachers, with journalists, with scholars.

So that's kind of my goal in 10 years.

Is to have helped contribute to that kind of equality.

- So you touched a little on, you know, you've had this extraordinary opportunity and really was able to come into jazz early and have had just such an extraordinary career.

When did you kind of realize this is my thing, right?

Was there a moment that that kind of happened for you?

- No.

I always felt ownership in the music.

And that's the first thing that I try to relate to our students, the business, your music.

You have the right to be here.

You have the right to play it.

And I, it was hard for me at first to relate to people that didn't feel that way because I've always felt that.

But just to, you know kind of stand in your own authenticity, inside of the music is not easy for a lot of people.

And also, I think so many of so much of what we come to expect from a jazz musician is steep in masculinity.

So we have not fully accepted the feminine aesthetic, you know, in the music.

So I think that everybody has to start to listen differently and even myself.

I've even I've had to start to listen differently.

And I'll also look at my own playing because I've always compared it to every other guy out there.

So I had to be just as strong and just as, you know, in touch with my own masculinity to be competitive with them.

And so now it's like a whole different way of thinking it was transformational really.

- And finally, as we continue to mark Asian American and Pacific Islander heritage month, we take a look back at one of our most popular food stories.

If you are a fan of Chinese food here in Michigan, chances are you've ordered almond boneless chicken.

But where did this dish start?

That's what One Detroit's Bill Kubota wanted to find out.

He brings us more.

- Gonna miss it.

So we a here to Get the last, whatever they got.

- Last supper at Kim's - Yeah.

Last supper at Kim's - Last Chinese supper at Kim's.

- Kim's, here in Troy, Michigan since 1974, closing for good.

- What's your favorite dish - Sweet and sour chicken and egg drop soup - How about you?

- almond, boneless chicken.

(inaudible) - What do you know about almond boneless chicken?

- I don't know very much about it.

But Kim's makes the best that I've ever had.

- This is an old line Chinese restaurant.

One of Metro Detroit mainstays past 50 years.

(inaudible) - Okay just follow him.

- Okay.

Thank you.

- Thank you very much - Thank you.

- I knew we would get busier but I just didn't know how busy we would get.

How many people wanted to come and say goodbye - Margaret Yee and her siblings spent their lifetimes building this business but the next generation of Yee's have other career plans.

- Hi.

Now I didn't give you a hug.

At least, I have a breathing minute.

- I know.

I felt so bad.

- Kim's features Cantonese cuisine.

You might say Detroit style Cantonese with a signature dish.

Something the next generation, Chinese Americans who worked in their parents' restaurants know all about.

- Almond chicken's most definitely like the king of Chinese food - I would say, for Michigan Chinese, almond chicken is the most iconic.

Everybody knows what ABC means.

Almond boneless chicken.

We would always put ABC on it so we could differentiate what we were packing in the carry out.

Lots of customer nowadays put order, I want ABC.

It's a Michigan thing.

- ABC's origins go back to Southeastern China.

Not far from Canton, now called Guangzhou, on the Pearl river Delta, sits the city of Taishan.

Taishan, not pronounced like it's spelled - Taishan is like, where the huge immigration patterns happen.

So our uncle came to Michigan with, it's like, why didn't you go to San Francisco or New york?

And they landed in Cass Corridor and Chinatown.

And so then of course he brings over his seven siblings.

And now my dad's side was all here, but they're all Taishan.

- Many decades ago, career paths for Chinese in Detroit were limited washing clothes or serving food.

- My grandfather said, well, I try laundry.

But when the business is slow, I have nothing to eat.

But at least if I worked in the restaurant, when business is slow, I still have all these food I can eat.

I won't go hungry.

- Detroit's Chinatown restaurants, shared recipes and adapted them for American tastes.

Then the restaurants moved to the suburbs where ABC became a top seller.

At the golden crown in Bloomfield Hills, Connie Low has been making it for more than 40 years.

- The older generation, they live in Michigan.

They come out with this.

- Does anybody know who came up with a purse?

- Nice.

That's the question.

- That's the million dollar question.

Don't know.

There's some ideas of like which restaurant might have started it, but I don't know.

I would never say - When they first started the almond boneless chicken they didn't call it almond boneless chicken.

They called it wor sue gai.

- A wor sue gai?

- Yeah.

We heard that many, many of times over the years - Saying wor sue gai was a little too hard for a lot of people.

And actually wor sue doesn't really translate to almond boneless chicken.

But looking at the dish, people were able to describe it.

And I think that's probably what happened.

- A simple presentation, no secret ingredients but a key one.

Cornstarch.

which will help give ABC its crunch.

- The reason I've put a lot of corn starch because I want to make sure they absorb all the water.

So it won't be so watery - Then comes the breading and the frying.

- So I dip on the breading.

I make sure the breading is even.

- It's all in the technique of frying the chicken and the right temperature.

When to bring it out.

It's all in the technique.

- The chuck fried chicken rides on a bed of lettuce.

- And then we put gravy on top.

- Then some onions.

At the golden crown, they used to add slivered almonds until Connie began to worry about customers with nut allergies.

Now, no almonds.

And no loss for ABC enthusiast Rowe Ruch.

- Now let me demonstrate.

This chicken, When you go to open it up, it's actually white and soft, and it is not dried out.

- ABC comes with many dining options.

- So I always like to put it on my rice.

So I have the sauce on it.

- Everybody different.

- Exactly.

- Some people ask for more lettuce Some people say - I don't want no lettuce.

- I don't put it on top.

I always put the rice on the side.

So that's two different ways that you can have.

- Yeah.

- but also in the gravy, there's a water chestnuts for crunchiness.

So you have more texture than just the chicken and the batter.

- It's good.

It's too crispy.

- I mean, you just kind of gain the craving and you love, like, you end up loving the food that's there.

but then your parents tell you, like that's not real change.

- No.

How about Chinese American food?

Susie Moya had to leave home to learn the real story about ABC.

- When she moved to San Francisco she was expecting almond chicken out there.

And when she got out there, she's like, the Chinese food is not the same out here as it is back home.

- I can't tell you how many restaurants, so, one, you would ask about almond chicken milk.

Oh yeah.

We god almond chicken.

And we're like, is it deep fried You would try to describe it, They're like, oh no, not deep fried.

And then sometimes they would say that they have it.

It was deep fried, but it would be like a stir fry.

- So I have a lots of customer.

They move to Chicago, they move to Florida.

Whenever come back to visit, They always have almond chicken.

Because they don't have it anywhere else.

- It's kind of like detroit pizza, people really didn't know about detroit pizza.

We had our own pizza.

It wasn't just New York or Chicago - Like square pizza and Coney island hot dogs, our cuisine has been discovered in other places, almond boneless chicken.

You can also find it in Columbus, Ohio.

So there is something those Buckeyes love about Michigan after all.

- And that is going to do it for One Detroit arts and culture.

Thanks so much for joining me.

Make sure you find us at onedetroitpbs.org and follow us on social media.

I'll see you for One Detroit on Thursday.

Take care and be well.

you can find more at onedetroitpbs.org or subscribe to our social media channels and sign up for our one Detroit newsletter - From Delta faucets to Behr paint Masco corporation is proud to deliver products that enhance the way consumers all over the world experience and enjoy their living spaces.

Masco, serving Michigan communities since 1929.

- Support for this program provided by the Cynthia and Edsel Ford fund for journalism at Detroit public TV, the Kresge Foundation, Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan.

- The DTE Foundation is a proud sponsor of Detroit public TV among the state's largest foundations committed to Michigan focused giving, We support organizations that are doing exceptional work in our state.

Visit DTE foundation.com to learn more.

- Business leaders for Michigan, dedicated to making Michigan a top 10 state for jobs, personal income and to help the economy.

Also brought to you by - The Fred A. and Barbara M. ERB family foundation And viewers like you.