A Tribute to Motor City Rock 'n' Roll : 1966 – 1972
Unlike anywhere else in the country during that era, Detroit made rock ‘n’ roll something more than musical entertainment – It turned it into a lifestyle. Other cities such as San Francisco may have woven many threads of rock music into its highly visible youth culture but in Detroit, rock was the youth culture! This is why the Motor City's bands reflected the city so perfectly – loud, often crude and simplistic, genuinely soulful, frequently arrogant and all of them driven by industrial strength determination. Bands from Detroit weren't so much about artistic expression as they were primal ferocity, simply because rock ‘n’ roll wasn't just what they played . . . it was who they were!
With a ton of raw, ready but untapped
talent waiting in the wings and a regular circuit now forming, the number
of bands available to
play these clubs seemed to grow weekly. Bands like The Tidal Waves, The
Underdogs, The Pleasure Seekers (which included a young Hideout counter
clerk; Suzi Quatro) The Yorkshires, Chosen Few, The Unrelated Segments,
The Rationals and a pre, pre-Silver Bullet Bob Seger were working regularly,
each one developing their own unique styles – mixing some portion of Detroit's
soulful ambiance with the British beat tunes of the day – and building
solid reputations.
Even with so many venues, the demand for live rock music was headed toward an unprecedented level, turning many of these bands into local heroes and generating a series of Detroit region hit (and a lot of near-miss) records which got the bands their three minutes of glory over the audio and sometimes the video airwaves. After all, seeing Herman's Hermits on American Bandstand was one thing (yawn), but discovering that squirrely guy with the shaggy hair from your study hall was on TV, wailin' out a would-be hit record was quite another. Which, not unexpectedly, inspired even more kids to grab a guitar, a set of sticks or a microphone, hoping for the day they too could be lip-synching their newest tunes on Robin Seymour's "Swingin' Time" afternoon TV dance show.
West Coast and elsewhere began to tour, it foreshadowed a major change
in the Detroit music scene. By early 1967, the first generation bands were
evolving fast. Some breaking up; pressured by the realities of high school
graduation and military induction and others combining into new and musically
challenging groups, with more progressive influences. Maturity was pushing
the bands, their fans and the club scene in general toward a new environment.
At this juncture, what began in the suburbs and outlying communities was
magnetically being drawn back to the City itself. 
The
allure of smaller teen clubs faded as Detroit's legendary concert hall,
the Grande Ballroom, rose to prominence.
Inspired by the emergence of concert venues like the Fillmore and Avalon in San Francisco, the Grande was the brainchild of an entrepreneurial high school teacher and local disk jockey; "Uncle" Russ Gibb, and along with help from John Sinclair and Jeep Holland, they ushered the psychedelic era into the midwest. Catering to what Gibb hoped would be a hipper, musically maturing crowd – a gathering point for tribes of suburban youth – the Grande struggled through its first year but inadvertently proved to be the perfect classroom for the young Detroit bands learning their craft, particularly the MC5who signed on to become the house band.
Success arrived as the ballroom slowly began hosting the important touring acts of the era and expanded its series of concert promotions with posters and handbills which were artistically as distinct as those selling the shows in San Francisco. Not only did it become the preeminent concert venue in Southeast Michigan but it kept its local flavor, with all of Detroit and Ann Arbor's top talent - including the Five, The Rationals, SRC (who kinda got the ball rolling back at the Hideout when they were the Fugitives), Billy C and the Sunshine, Jagged Edge, The Woolies, Thyme, and The Frost playing the Grande regularly, either as headliners or opening for the national touring acts. And aspiring to the ballroom's massive stage provided the initial motivation for another powerful wave of local groups like The Amboy Dukes, Psychedelic Stooges, Third Power and Savage Grace – all marching in Michigan's new "Guitar Army".
Grande admission card images
courtesy of Russ Gibb
from
WABX, Jerry Goodwin (and Russ Gibb) on WKNR-FM and the others – often
managed to completely blur the distinction between broadcaster and listener.
They delivered a soundtrack for the whole "insider/outsider" experience
that being young in Detroit during that era provoked and, in the beginning
at least, they were us and we were them with the only difference being
the side of the microphone we sat on.
One can even argue that the whole FM radio revolution pretty much began in Detroit. In 1964, a local folk singer (and, later a member of The Southbound Freeway) – Larry Miller – began broadcasting an eclectic radio show on WDTM. Spinning up album tracks from barely known folkies and blues artists, a smattering of show tunes, a sprinkling of jazz and even spoken word recordings, Miller set the stage for the whole thing when he took the show to KMPX in San Francisco in 1966 and eventually back to WABX in 1968.
the
FM radio revolution and the emergence of the Grande as the premier concert
venue, the local music scene was rapidly becoming dominated by the hard-rock
'n' soul, high-energy sound that eventually defined Detroit music and,
for a while, it seemed like much of the world was listening . . . and wanting
more. So began a feeding frenzy by the record labels that started
with The MC5 (and the Stooges) signing with Elektra and Bob Seger to Capitol.
Within just a matter of months, the Amboy Dukes, SRC, Frost, Savage Grace,
Frijid Pink and others were recording albums on major labels instead of
demo tapes in their basements. One could almost imagine every A&R shark
in the midwest trolling the Detroit River for unsigned talent and
those who weren't swallowed by a major label were being snapped up
by the smaller record companies. At moments, It seemed like every band
in the area had an album in the works and the break-out success the Motor
City groups deserved was right on the horizon.
The Grande remained at the center of the
scene, hosting one of Detroit's most infamous concerts on Halloween 1968
when the Five recorded "Kick Out The Jams" live for their monumental
first album. It was the ballroom's near-ideal acoustics and a special kind
of "vibe" that formed between the crowd and the bands which created
legends and it was again used to good advantage in 1969 when Dick Wagner
and Frost recorded a large chunk of their second LP, "Rock and Roll
Music" in concert there. 
But, for all the smoke, there was conspicuously little real fire. Aside from attention being generated by the MC5 (of which only some came as a result of the actual music on their album) and not overlooking Mitch Ryder's earlier showings on the national charts, very few of these records made any substantial impact outside of Michigan or the midwest. They were usually hit sellers in the region but beyond that . . . nothing.
According to Dick Rosemont writing in Michigan Punk – his liner notes story for AIP records' Highs in the Mid Sixties series:
Hindsight suggests the recording industry missed the mark completely in marketing Detroit's rock, treating so many of these great bands as nothing more than local phenomena. When the records failed to break out of the local market the record companies responded with fickle conservatism (remember, the folks in charge of most record labels still believed rock music was a passing fad), tightening the purse stings and pulling out of any promotions that might spur sales and recognition so only a few of these acts got the chance they deserved and many of them ended up in debt to the record companies . . . and worse."Theories abound as to why more Detroit acts weren't successful nationally, from "the management never matched the talent" to "the talent was just a bunch of energy." A number of national labels – Cameo, Warner Bros., Capitol – made serious efforts to develop something out of the scene, but never came up with more than one-shot hits."
Around the Motor City, emerging talent could learn from and ultimately measure themselves against the best without leaving their home turf. In an environment where getting even an opening slot at the Grande might put them on stage with the MC5, Frost or Savage Grace, it isn't hard to envision the 'little pond' syndrome that ultimately formed surrounding the scene. As a result, the local rock music infrastructure eventually became so top-heavy that many bands (including the marginal and mediocre) achieved almost legendary status around town and managed to sustain themselves with little more than a reputation.
What had started as an organic, self nurturing local environment with room for everybody turned destructive over time. While Detroit may have been a place that worshiped its best and brightest stars, it also proved to be a town that ate its musical young. The hometown audiences, who'd been weaned on high-energy rock, became so notoriously demanding that plenty of good bands (and lots that could have been good) were eventually ground into dust before they could make much of a noise beyond the city. Even making it big around the Motor City would prove little value toward achieving national recognition and record sales (at least on a short-term basis) – Just ask Bob Seger, Dick Wagner, Ted Nugent or Scott Morgan.
As it became increasingly obvious that the rest of the nation never quite arrived at the same musical destination as Detroit, the scene began to unravel.
The local scene and it's supporting infrastructure had reached critical mass and began to implode. The Grande Ballroom had virtually closed it's doors, succumbing to competition, location and operating expense problems as well as the eventual burn-out of the hippie vibe it tried hard to foster. A later, occasional incarnation as the Grande-Riviera was, as expected, doomed from the start. The myriad of teen clubs which spawned the once-vibrant local scene had dwindled to just a few and what remained of the city's popular music venues was being divided among a small group of promoters to save themselves. The result? Opportunities for new, young bands began to disappear twice as fast as they arrived. Even the well established groups who had worked the Grande regularly and later moved over to the Eastown (which ultimately sank under it's drug-plagued reputation) were now looking for gigs and finding few, but for the occasional festival, benefit or outdoor concert. The big name artists on tour were after ever bigger gates and had begun turning from ballroom/theater gigs to stadium-sized shows at the Olympia, Cobo Hall or Crisler Arena in Ann Arbor. With the lowering of the legal drinking age to 18, the entertainment focus for a large segment of Detroit's youth became bars rather than concert halls. Clearly, rock 'n' roll in Detroit had ceased being a neighborhood enterprise.
Whether through accident or insight, the abundant talent that fueled the scene was slowly drifting (although some say running) away from Detroit. Maybe a handful saw it coming, who knows? The MC5, in perhaps their final decisive act of a defiant career decided to move to England. Ann Arbor's Commander Cody "ozone" juggernaut went out to Berkeley for some shows and just never came back, while emerging groups like Flint's Grand Funk Railroad took a quick reading of the scene and turned the other way, exporting their version of Michigan high-energy rock across the heartland instead of trying to slug it out with their peers in the city. Meanwhile Bob Seger and Ted Nugent (among others) responded to the writing on the wall by gathering up some of the best hands from the failed bands and heading out on incessant touring schedules throughout the Midwest, steadily building fan followings outside of Detroit.
Back in Michigan, survival was a hit-or-miss proposition. Brownsville Station took their high-energy heritage and roots-rock influences and turned them into a concert powerhouse that couldn't be ignored – even in Detroit's fading glory. The long-lived Woolies plugged on, buoyed by their reputation as an outstanding live act – starting their own record label and finding enough work touring as a backing band to endure for many more years. A few more, like Scott Morgan of the Rationals kept going by forming and re-forming new bands out of the ashes of their others in a quest for the right combination. But, by mid 1972 the best and brightest moments of the original Detroit rock scene were drawing to a close, prompting more of the talent that hadn't already taken an early flight (Glenn Frey and Iggy Pop come to mind) to depart Michigan and seek fame and fortune elsewhere, while too many of the rest just shrugged and took up non-musical ventures or started looking for weekend gigs playing cover tunes in the bars. As one pundit put it: "Never before in history could someone buy a car built by such great musicians".
Aftermath . . .
Like an event cascade that typically precedes
a man-made tragedy, one can point to numerous small reasons why this explosive
package of musical talent never completely detonated and blew out of the
Detroit area but for those who were there, it remains inexplicable. 
Though
the Detroit rock saga will always be punctuated by far more performers
who narrowly avoided success than made it, fortunately much of this great
work continues to find its way into the hands of to the bigger audience
it deserved more than thirty years ago.
Not only have the familiar names finally received their acknowledgment as the direct influences of the punk generation, today's hard-core groups, the garage-band revival and beyond, but tapes and CD's of the 45's and albums made by many of the groups listed here are now compiled, traded and cherished among garage/punk rock fans worldwide. Compilation discs which include records by the less-well-known groups as well as recovered and reissued works by the likes of The Rationals, MC5, The Stooges, Frost, SRC, Up continue to appear regularly on new CD's and are selling to (and influencing) a whole new generation.
Besides the recorded music, the poster art of Gary Grimshaw and Carl Lundgren continues to draw admiration as the best of its kind and are selling for outrageous sums to collectors. The influence of the Grande Ballroom and Detroit's incredible club scene of the sixties which gave many of these performers their first real chance at stardom has been noted by music historians and writers throughout the world.
And where else but the Motor City could
Creem
– the magazine that
really taught journalism to rock – have gotten
it's start? 
"Creem came along in 1969, roaring out of Detroit with a mix of irrelevance and irreverence that left also-rans like Crawdaddy or Fusion or Rock Magazine sleeping in the dust. With writers like Greil Marcus, Dave Marsh and the legendary Lester Bangs during the early seventies, and folks like Rick Johnson, Bill Holdship and John Kordish in the latter part of the decade, Creem raised the quality and expectations of Rock journalism, penning a legacy that carries on today. After the untimely death of publisher and founder Barry Kramer, however, the zine suffered under subsequent ownership, never quite regaining those past glory days..."
As recently as a decade ago it seemed that vast amounts of this great work and the story behind it were on the verge of being towed into history's junkyard. Thanks to the strength of the musical talent and the many dedicated and inspired individuals who refused to let the Motor City rock story slip quietly away, a renassance of sorts began to occur. Yet even with the latter-day revival of interest in Detroit's musical past, two things were missing: A definitive written history of the subject and a visual documentary.
As the summer of 2005 unfolded, the Detroit rock story became one (giant) step closer to being told in all the detail it deserves.
It wasn’t Ben Edmonds, Dave Marsh, Ken
Kelly, John Sinclair or any of the journalistic or (counter) cultural deities
who emerged from Detroit’s great music scene of the late sixties that finally
wrote the book. Grit, Noise and Revolution,
a first-of-its-kind history of rock music in Detroit emerged from the pen
of author David Carson. And what a book it is! A deeply
researched and gloriously detailed narrative covering the people, places,
recordings and events that spawned that high-energy blast we call Detroit
rock.
Carson’s work centers primarily on the same time period covered by this site, paying great attention to the most notable Michigan acts such as the MC5, Bob Seger, The Stooges, Ted Nugent and even George Clinton's Parliament / Funkadelic monster but it also goes much further, intricately tracing the roots, weavings and threads of Motor City rock. From the blues and vocal-group stylings the '40’s through the early rock ’n’ roll movement of the '50’s to Motown’s glory of the early '60’s and continues up through the demise of the local rock scene in the early '70’s as concert venues such as the Grande Ballroom and Eastown Theater lapsed into terminal stasis, it’s all there. Built upon scads of interviews with some of the most pivotal figures in the process, Grit, Noise and Revolution gets everything in perspective – from the role of Detroit’s radio personalities to the chart position of most recordings. The copious facts and figures are presented in a quick and breezy style that almost belies the depth of the book’s scholarly underpinnings and, while probing analysis of the why’s and wherefore’s aren’t the book’s forte, insights abound, with interpretation left up to the reader, as it should be.
So, unless its a complete accident that you’ve arrived here, whatever reason you have for visiting this site should be all the motivation you need to go out and buy the book!
On the other hand, MC5 * A True Testimonial – the (now completed) documentary film about their career and influence – seems unlikely to ever reach distribution. After years of work, release of the picture has disintegrated into a stream of accusations and legal maneuvering between the film producers (and their allies) and the living band members. Without first-hand knowledge of all the elements in this dispute, it's a tough call as to who's contentions to believe. And a sad judgement to have to make at all, because in the age-old battle between art and commerce, art is always the loser, right along with the discerning public who, in this case, are left with nothing more than the failure of seemingly rational people to use their otherwise brilliant imaginations, a bit of diplomacy and a little negotiating skill. Maybe someday . . .
Despite the lack a visual documentary, there are a handful of great web sites which have shown up along with magazine articles and videos appearing regularly enough to assure that Detroit's rock history is no longer veiled in mystery, myth and folklore. That shroud opens a little further each day, giving the world a better view of the late sixties Detroit scene that shaped rock music in ways that are only now becoming fully appreciated.
So go get the book, search out the music and artwork, and revel in the history – the sights and sounds of Detroit and an era that took every narrow notion of what constituted music and tore it a new one.
Long live Motor City Rock!
"Between your memories, dreams, desires and regrets, who is certain of what really happens?"
The Motor City music scene that spontaneously combusted in the mid sixties and faded to ashes by the mid seventies was the result of a colossal fusion of random circumstance, vision, energy and opportunities . . . both embraced and completely missed. This era, full of astoundingly great music, impassioned people, unlikely places and incredible events remains a glorious memory to many and this web site is dedicated to all the participants in that recollection – those who were there and those who wish they had been.
This site does not purport to tell the complete story. That aspect is better served by reading David Carson's book mentioned above and those who are inspired to gather a more comprehensive historical view should start there. Rather, this site is intended as a minor homage to those times, places people and music. And, as this site continues to mature, there will hopefully be more memoirs and stories about the bands, recordings, concert venues, and further profiles of those individuals we now recognize as central to the era. If we're all lucky, maybe someday we'll be rewarded with the aforementioned documentary as well as even more books
These pages evolved from an initial endeavor entitled "The Motor City's Burning" which first went on-line in early 1997 and quietly grew through 1999. No longer wishing to tread on the name of the great John Lee Hooker (and MC5) tune or be confused with the the string of delicious compilation albums issued by Total Energy Records under a similar name, the site's title -- Rusted Chrome -- was given as a reflection of the culture shared with Detroit's automotive dreams of that era. Like a toothy Buick grille, pushed toward oblivion by rampaging horsepower, so was Detroit's rock music. And like the highway behemoths and muscle cars of that bygone era, the Motor City also left behind a deeper legacy in its sounds; one that continues to live on in the rock music of all the generations since and will no doubt shape those yet to come.
Since first appearing, this site seems to have struck a positive chord with thousands of Michigan music lovers of all ages and from all across the globe. Almost from the beginning, there has been an overwhelming stream of thoughtful comments, remembrances, stories and generous offers of information to help in building the site. Alas, it languishes these days, victim of the information funnel that seems to reflect life in ones fifth decade – much gets in but little gets out at an equivalent speed. For that, and to all those who've sent material in the last couple of years, I apologize. Based on what's been accumulated, new items will be added or updated and corrections made in due time. And, to keep it going will always require more contributions. If you really don't mind a sizable delay in getting due recognition, take a moment to launch an e-mail and use the blank space to reminisce and add to the collective memory. Any information you can provide – no matter how trivial it seems – about the bands, clubs, recordings or people who made the scene is still greatly desired and will be thankfully acknowledged in these pages as they continue to evolve. And evolve they will. Somewhere down the road not too far (I hope), a brand new set of pages may yet replace these. Expanded informational content accompanied by a new, cleaner look and easier accessibility will hallmark the revised site but it's purpose will always remain the same – to exalt the memory and music of Detroit rock 'n' roll.
Special appreciation to those individuals who've contributed so much and supported the effort to make this site what it is: To "Uncle Wally", Dennis McWhinnie, Bill Cook, Ken Gibbs and the other regular correspondents – you guys are the best! And deep gratitude to all those who've visited and commented or provided updates, corrections and new information.
Thanks a million, one and all.
Steve Geer E-mail s.m.geer@worldnet.att.net
The Bands | The Personalities | The Venues | Rock Art
chronically under construction...
© The Geer Works, 1997 - 2005
If you want to know where it happened, when it happened, whether it's on record and who played in the band, this site covers virtually every Detroit area band of consequence from 1965 onward, all the clubs, ballrooms, concerts and music festivals during this era.
.
ESSENTIAL LINKS
The Motor City Music Archives
An absolutely herculean research effort put together by brother Detroit rock maniac, Mike KrawczykCheck out this incredible site...NOW!
Detroit Rock and Roll
An encyclopedic reference on the Motor City bands and musicians from the fifties through today with pictures and links.
Awesome!
Read all about it.
Detroit's alternative on-line community: Metro Times
Did you play in a band between 1965 and 1970?
If you did, or just wished you had, then you've gotta visit
My First Band
This is either a hit counter or...
Your lucky number!
These pages were originally designed back in 1996 and
my guess is they'll work with just about any browser these days.