Hey guys, to celebrate the Australian release day of ‘Ready to Die’, the new album by Detroit’s finest, Iggy & The Stooges - which is today! - let’s remember some of the other great artists who helped give the Motor City its high energy rock’n’roll reputation, from the ‘60s through to more recent years.
The MC5
The Stooges big brother band and the first band to consciously raise energy levels to a new peak in the late ‘60s. Side one of their first album, the live ‘Kick Out the Jams’, is the most sustained spew of flame thrower rock ever put to vinyl, while their follow up album ‘Back In the USA’ packs the same energy level into ridiculously tight and concise 2-3 minute stabs, creating the short & sharp template for ‘76/77 punk in the process.
? & The Mysterians
Going back a few years to the mid-‘60s, this bunch of Tex-mex transplants created a template for enigmatic minimalism with their one-shot hit ’96 Tears’ that was picked up in spirit by Iggy & co with the first Stooges album, and half a decade later by NYC gutter synth-punks Suicide.
Bob Seger System
Years before he came to represent the ultimate in Midwestern arch conservatism, Bob was a lung busting R&B screamer who cut some of the toughest Motor City records ever. Indeed even his early ‘70s albums are killers, although they’re impossible to find because Bob’s never let them reissued – assumedly they’re too real and raw for sensibilities these days. His early singles were great garage rock, but his first album, 1968’s ‘Ramblin Gamblin’ Man’ was a real coming of age, with the pounding groove of the title track (dig Bob’s fur vest in the video linked to below), and the most intense anti-war song ever,“2+2=?”.
Mitch Ryder/Detroit
Speaking of lung busting R&B screamers, Mitch Ryder’s was Detroit’s original wild white boy. His cuts with the Detroit Wheels where amongst the most intense white R&B recordings of the era, and unlike Bob Seger who turned more conservative as he progressed, Mitch embraced the counterculture and formed a great group simply named after his home town and cut an incredible monolithic version of the Velvet Underground’s ‘Rock n’ Roll’
Funkadelic
Just as the Stooges and the MC5 let their freak flags fly at the end of the ‘60s, so did George Clinton and his bandmates in black R&B outfit the Parliaments, who became Funkadelic in the process, unleashing a molten brand of soulful psychedelic rock on their early albums before heading into funkier territories. The amazing ‘Maggot Brain’, featuring original lead guitarist Eddie Hazel’s spine-tingling 10 minute solo, is the place to start with their rock stuff.
Alice Cooper
Moving from Arizona to LA, the original Alice Cooper group got a whiff of the energy emanating from Detroit at the start of the ‘70s and, relocating there, produced their two finest works, the ‘Love It To Death’ and ‘Killer’ albums. While Alice Cooper is better known for the more overt and theatrical horror rock that came a bit later, the earlier group stuff – and Alice Cooper was a group originally – is genuinely wild and creepy in the best possible way.
Suzi Quatro
The great Ms Quatro made her first record - the pro-beer garage pounder ‘What A Way To Die’ – with all girl garage gang the Pleasure Seekers in ’65, but it wasn’t til nearly a decade later that she made it big as a leather jumpsuited glam queen – in the UK . But with a band featuring 3 guys who looked like a slobbier version of the Stooges , it was clear that while you could take the girl out of Detroit, you couldn’t take Detroit out of the girl…
Brownsville Station
Bottom rungers in Detroit in terms of credibility, these guys looked like a ‘Saturday Night Live’ version of a ‘70s rock band but had actually had a bigger hit single than most of the bands that sneered at them – the original ‘Smokin’ In The Boys Room’ – and their bizarre mix of boogie, garage rock, glam and R&B – (and their eclectic choice of covers, from Jimmy Cliff to Gary glitter) – always made for fun listening. Main man Cub Coda later wrote many great and often hilarious historical pieces about the blues, adding credence to the fact that these guys knew what they were doing all along.
Sonic’s Rendezvous Band
The great lost Detroit group, led by MC5 guitarist Fred ‘sonic’ Smith, and featuring Stooges drummer Scott Asheton and soulful singer Scott Morgan, originally of another great ‘60s R& B combo the Rationals. Basically a local bar band during the punk era, SRB would be invited to open for any enlightened group who came through town – like the Ramones and Cheap Trick – but they couldn’t get arrested , and their sole release during their existence was the electrifying ‘City Slang’ 45. Hours of live stuff has subsequently been released, and its mostly great. They should’ve been huge. Fred gave it all up when he married his namesake Patti in 1980.
Destroy All Monsters
The other great Stooges/MC5 Detroit-based offshoot, this lot featured Stooges guitarist and MC5 bassplayer Mike Davis. Starting out more as an art project type band before those guys joined, DAM developed a singular vision that combined high energy rock with the deadeyed deadpan vocal of platinum haired vocalists Niagara. They had a bunch of killer Niagara/asheton tunes, including the JFK assassination epic ‘November 22nd 1963’ - Jackie, hold on to his brains!
Radio Birdman
Yeah, Birdman were a Sydney band but mainman Deniz Tek was a Detroit native who grew up on the Stooges and MC5 and spread the Detroit high-energy gospel when he hit the stage in the mid-70s in Sydney. Birdman were hugely influence on the local scene, ensuring a disproportionate fanbase for the Stooges and the MC5 in Australia for generations to come.
Death
Teenage African-American punks who dug the high energy stuff more than the funky stuff and formed a great punk/streetwise hardrock combo in ’71. Not even making a ripple at the time, it wasn’t until their self-released 45, the amazing ‘Politicians In My eyes’ (recorded in ’74 but still sounding amazingly contemporary even now) was discovered by collectors 30 years later that they belatedly gained notoriety. Two collections of original recordings on Drag City are worth hearing, especially the first.
Romantics
Yeah the ‘What I Like About You’ guys. Still legends in their home town, these guys were deafeningly great when I saw them as a 15 y.o or so, and, in their early days at least, combined Kinks/Hollies tunefulness with real high energy. Their first album – with the hit – is a power pop classic – their earlier debut single, linked below, is a real pounder.
Gories
Moving to the mid-80s now, The Gories were the only band of the period with a garage sensibility to be band fronted by a black guy - the hugely influential and great Mick Collins – and came on like early John Lee Hooker backed by the Cramps or Panther Burns. Alex Chilton loved them and took them under wing, as he’d done the Cramps less than a decade earlier. These guys & gal were the first stirrings of a new scene in the Motor City – all that have followed have come under their influence, including…
White Stripes
Yeah, Jack and Meg may have been the biggest thing since sliced bread, and there’s no denying they were/are fantastic AND had a completely unique vision, but they were also very much a product of their environment. They never denied that of course, and openly acknowledged their debt to the likes of the Stooges whilst actively supporting their contemporaries on the Detroit scene, including the last three bands I’ll mention, all of whom featured on the fabulous Jack-produced comp ‘The sympathetic Sounds of Detroit in 2001.
Detroit Cobras
The late great Chrissie Amphlett and Adalita aren’t the only two wild women of rock to come from Geelong – Detroit Cobras singer Rachel Naggy also spent time there in the ‘80s, while her dad ran the local Ford plant (or something like that…). A great garage-soul covers band that paid overt tribute to their town’s black R&B roots, the Detroit Cobras were the great hope of the post-White Stripes scene until they snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in grand Stooges tradition.
Paybacks
The other great femme-fronted group of the early 2000’s Detroit was the mighty Paybacks, who ripped out some of the fattest chords since SRB’s ‘City Slang’, and who produced what I personally reckon is the single greatest hard rock song of the decade – ‘Black Girl’. Wendy Case has an AMAZING voice and an ability to combine volume and power with melody that rivals the likes of Cheap Trick and the Dictators.
Dirtbombs
These Detroit perennial predated the Detroit rock revival and have outlived it. The brainchild of ex-Gories frontman Mick Collins, these guys will jump from ‘60s garage rock to ‘80s post-punk with all manner of funky stuff thrown in for good measure, and as such presage the current anything-goes generation of garage-punk bands as typified by Melbourne’s Total Control and Ooga Boogas.
-Dave Laing
Iggy & The Stooges’ newie ‘Ready To Die’ is out now in stores & online
Rock on.
