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By Max Conroy

On Wednesday night, Donita Sparks and her band the Stellar Moments performed at the Magic Stick.  They were great.  Unfortunately, there had to have been less than fifty people there, even thought it was a featured event in most Detroit entertainment papers.  It’s a bummer, but those are the breaks; hopefully the turnout in Detroit wasn’t indicative of the turnout for the entire tour. 

Observing this band from a slight distance makes me like them all that much more.  They all hung out in the bar before the show and seemed approachable and even goofy.  I’ve been burning the candle at both ends lately and had a chest cold, in the middle of a heat wave, the night of the show, so I opted not to speak to anyone other than Cousin Justin, and I could hardly understand what he was saying half of the time.  Most of the band also made it a point to watch the young opening acts, and were very supportive of them.  This shows a lot of empathy and character because there is nothing more disrespectful or arrogant than not paying any attention to your opening acts.  The Stellar Moments also tuned their own instruments and did the sound check; to save costs I’m sure, but the overall sound of the show only benefitted from this simple act. 

They played a full hour set and did an encore.  The set consisted of the entire Transmiticate album and three L7 tunes.  Donita has still got it to be sure and was all over the stage shaking her ass, blonde hair a blur, gold tooth shining in the lights.  Allan the Italian was a perfect lead accompaniment to Donita and Logan’s rhythm guitar.  Dee Plakas created a driving train of sound while Dat No (probably spelled wrong) carried the rhythm.  Donita declared that the crowd was tiny, but mighty.  Everyone there loved it and was dancing instead of head banging, as Donita predicted in the interview that I did with her.  Should have been there, man.  You missed out on this one. 

I’m posting a couple of tracks from the show.  Again, a Digital Voice Recorder that has a built in mic was used, so this is hardly representative of what the show actually sounded like; the vocals were much more prevalent at the show.

Pretend We’re Dead:

Headcheck:

By Max Conroy  

The co-founder of the great all girl rock/metal/punk/raunch band L7, Donita Sparks, has just released her first solo record since the band’s break up eight years ago.  The amount of time between break up and solo effort might make some fans a bit skeptical as to the quality of her new material, but a lot has happened to the music industry in the past eight years, and it’s a lot more difficult to make a record these days when it’s on the artist’s dime.  Allow me to assuage any trepidation that you might have regarding this record because of how long ago 2000 seems.

I first heard that Donita Sparks and her new band the Stellar Moments were releasing a record not by Mojo or Pitchfork, but on Fresh Air with Terry Gross.  The review was by Ken Tucker, their music critic, whose reviews I greatly admire.   

I hadn’t thought about L7 for awhile, but they definitely have a place in my subconscious.  Bricks Are Heavy and Hungry for Stink are several albums that came out at that magical time for me, where development goes into overdrive and everything was confusing, troubling and magical; the junior high, early high school years.  They were big players in that soundtrack of those awesome, yet horrible times for me and most people that I can relate to now whether they realize it or not.  For example: a couple of years ago, I met a new friend and we were hanging out at his place; he was into psychobilly music and I was into protopunk at the time; the first record he put on was Bricks Are Heavy and it was the perfect choice…we both knew that we had a lot in common at that point.   

Natural Born Killers was also a polarizing experience for me when it came out; looking back on it, it seems like the A Clockwork Orange of my generation.  I can remember smoking weed out of a pop can with my two best friends on an outcropping in front of the movie theater before attempting to sneak into the film because we were underage.  Shitlist is still my favorite song on that soundtrack and the scene where Juliette Lewis puts the coin in the juke box and slices up that redneck while it plays, the most memorable in the film.

I also was lucky enough to have seen L7 on the ‘94 Lollapalooza tour at Pine Knob in Detroit when I was fourteen.  I was lucky enough to have some college-age neighbors that I grew up with who knew I was into music heavy.  When L7 went on early in the day, I remember looking to my friends and saying, “Those are some crusty bitches.  I wouldn’t mess with them.”  And that’s been my impression of them ever since; intimidation based on their hardcore stage presence.

Nostalgia in art and literature is regarded as something to be avoided at all costs.  I guess that it kills the ability to think in the present and clouds memories in a grotesque rosy hue.  But I’m a nostalgic person at times and all of this history came back to me as Terry Gross’ intro faded and the first notes of Need to Numb came through my speakers.  I had to stop what I was doing and listen.  It’s a straight ahead NY Dolls style rocker that convinced me right there before the review even began that this record has to be good.  Tucker’s review was laudatory and included clips of Creampuff, a take on the 60s girl group sound, and He’s Got the Honey, probably the most commercial song on the album; a good overview of the record.

A little while later, I acquired Transmiticate (the album title is a made-up word, combining transmit and communicate) and am quite impressed by it.  Make no mistake, it’s a departure from L7, but the evolved sound is an appropriate balance of maturity and the best of what L7 had to offer: fuzz and great hooks.  The album incorporates modern electronic effects, particularly on layered backing vocals, and the classic human/band feel beautifully.  The production by Ethan Allan is par excellance and the drums played by Dee Plakas, the only other member of L7 on the record, are fantastic, tight and big. The record successfully jumps tempos throughout and ends with a ballstothewall rocker, Into the Hi Fi.  If you are looking for new music that’s provocative, a fan of L7, or interested in supporting people out there that still give a damn about rock and roll, you should find this record.

A few weeks after hearing the review of Transmiticate on Fresh Air, I was presented with the opportunity to interview Donita in conjunction with her show here at the Magic Stick on June 11th.  I jumped at the chance, but was a bit cautious based on my teenage impression of L7.  I did some research and watched some interviews that she’s done recently and was happy to learn that she’s a seemingly normal person that probably wouldn’t put me on her shitlist and knock my teeth out if I mumbled the wrong question. 

Here’s my stellar moment with Donita Sparks…

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By Max Conroy:

This kind of blew me away.  For all you music geeks/bitches that haven’t utilized YouTube, you’re missing out.  This is a brilliant case where the seemingly obscure character turns out to have a community of people who have taken the time to upload what they have.  I thought for sure there’d be very little information about Jimmy McCulloch out there; the only hope is that he played with some big names.  There’s no information on Allmusic.com about him other than several brief mentions in the Stone the Crows and Thunderclap Newman bios.  I looked him up on YouTube and a number of interesting hits popped up.  There’s a retrospective that includes about every picture of him that could possibly have existed and some live footage playing Heartbreaker(ironic since he died of a heart attack as a result of a heroin OD), the last song he ever recorded with the band The Dukes.  There’s also an interview he did in Chicago during a Wings tour in 1976.  The interviewer mentions an injury to Jimmy’s hand.  He apparently broke it during rehearsals for the tour, wrestling with David Cassidy, which delayed the tour for several weeks. 

On YouTube, it’s interesting to look at the comments for the videos.  For one of the promotional videos for Something in the Air, a YouTube member reminisces drinking with Speedy Keen at a local wine bar, presumably in the UK.  The user who published the interview and some other McCulloch stuff’s handle is WinoJunko76, ironically a Wings song on Wings at the Speed of Sound about substance abuse.  This guy’s obviously a fan and the person you need to send a message to for any info or video on the subject of Jimmy McCulloch.  One time I saw an Awesome Color video, a band whose members are from Ann Arbor that now reside in Brooklyn, and emailed the person who posted it, he emailed back, I sent him $10 and he sent me a DVD of the entire performance.  That’s an awesome tool, man. 

Back to Jimmy.  There’s also footage of him performing another anti-drug song with Wings called Medicine Jar.  There’s also a video of him getting nailed in the face with a cake immediately after walking backstage after a Wings show on his birthday; Ringo eventually stumbles in and acts the fool.  One of my favorites so far is his doom, damned blues-rocker Too Many Miles with White Line.  There’s even apparently the only live recording of Thunderclap Newman on here (according to the poster); it’s only the song, which is great, no video.  There are also tons of videos of him playing with Wings (if you’re into that) and Stone the Crows. 

So I guess there is a lot of info out there about this guy.  I’m pretty sure that videos are commonly taken off YouTube, so sorry if some of these links don’t work anymore, but you guys really need to check out YouTube if you’re trying to research something that you think wouldn’t be out there.

I finally hooked with Al Reid, lead singer with the Capreez on their garage soul hit Soulsation on Detroit’s Sound label.  We talked for about an hour about the history of the Capreez and that song, and about Al’s career: from his early bands, to going on the road with Jack Scott, to how he joined the Capreez, to why he turned down an offer from the Three Dog Night to be their lead vocalist, to the loneliness of the road, and to the joy of still playing music today with his son.    

Al Reid is a great guy, and we really appreciate him sharing all those memories and stories.  He’s also sending us a copy of another one of his songs that was a big hit in Canada, called Blue Eyed Girl.  I am working on a big article about Al and the Capreez which I’ll drop in a few weeks here.  For now, listen to this story Al told me about how the Capreez celebrated when they heard their other big hit, Rosanna, being played for the first time on CKLW: