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By Max Conroy
Living in Ann Arbor, it’s strange to have to purchase a European import that compiles a bunch of records recorded here, but I’m glad it’s available at all. The name of the label, A-Square, is a nickname for the city of Ann Arbor. It was created by Jeep Holland, a compulsive music and comic collector, DJ, manager, promoter, and manager of Discount Records, the store that Iggy Pop worked at as a teenager. Holland would stock import records that no other stores would carry, British Invasion records, and get a feel for what area kids would respond to in the store and while DJ-ing events. He met local musicians at Discount and eventually started promoting some of them. In 1965 he began producing records exclusively as promotional material to get gigs for acts that he was promoting and put them out on his A-Square imprint.
In five years, he put out records by approximately a dozen bands, including the MC5, the Rationals, the Scot Richard Case (SRC), the Up, and the Frost; all Detroit legends. By 1970, for a myriad of reasons, including his domineering personality, poor business acumen, lack of payment from distributers, and changing times, he left Ann Arbor for Boston, leaving behind A-Square records and a wake of debt. A lot of these records are very hard to find now, 40 plus years later, and the 45s have been the only way to hear most of these great bands.
A-Square (Of Course) was released this past May on Big Beat Records, distributed and marketed by the mega-reissue label Ace Records out of the UK. The title comes from a button issued by the label that read A-Square (Of Course). There are definitely some issues with this package, but the good greatly outweighs the bad. First off, there are no Rationals tracks on it, which seems odd since they were the biggest act on A-Square and the label’s flagship act, but Ace intends on releasing a compilation of their work on A-Square soon, to be named Think Rational! (again from a button). According to Scott Morgan of the Rationals, they’re still working on obtaining the rights to the masters. Secondly, this is by no means an exhaustive collection of A-Square’s catalogue, which would require a multiple-disc release. This collection contains 25 tracks by ten bands, 8 tracks by the Thyme and 5 by the Scot Richard Case. More than half of the compilation is music that was never released originally, which is great if you’re looking for really rare stuff, but not if you’re looking to have high fidelity copies of the famous records that were actually released on the label. Also, there are several bands that recorded for A-Square whose masters cannot be located and are not represented here; the Jagged Edge, the Children and the Gang most notably.
The bottom line, however, is that this anthology is filled with a ton of highlights and is most definitely worth the $19. It contains an early MC5 single, Looking at You/Borderline, which has been released a ton and isn’t that rare, but is great to have in this context with fantastic documentation in the liner notes. Apparently, Holland and John Sinclair didn’t get along that well for a variety of reasons, even though Sinclair managed the group and Holland was in charge of booking them. According to the liner notes:
Jeep: Sinclair went into United Sound and recorded that record with Danny Dallas, then just decided to use my label name. He designed his own A-Square label, designed his own package and just put it out. He finally got around to informing me as the record was coming out: ‘Oh, by the way, I put the record out on A-Square.’…My label was a success, and John thought it would get his record more attention… Danny Dallas told me some wonderful stories about that session. He said they immediately turned their amps up as loud as they could go. Danny kept trying to tell them, ‘You don’t have to do that. Get a good sound and I’ll boost it in here.’ But no, John Sinclair came into the control room, looked at the board and went like this [sweeping arm motion] pushing every one of the faders up all the way. Then he ate a big chunk of hash or something and lay down on the floor while the band played.
Let’s just say that it’s not the 5’s best moment sonically, but well worth hearing and a great addition to this collection. Also featured here is a rare live recording of the Prime Movers. The Movers were a highly respected blues outfit in the Ann Arbor area at the time that never released anything. The band included Michael Erlewine, the brain behind the All Music Guide, on vocals and harmonica and a young Iggy Pop on drums. The track here is a cover of the Yardbird’s version of I’m a Man that was used as a tape that Holland took to New York probably around ‘66 to promote the band. It actually features Iggy on vocals instead of Erlewine and might possibly be the earliest recording of Iggy singing. The Up’s Just Like an Aborigine is a raw-as-hell protopunk gem and another massive highlight on this disc. Everything else not mentioned here is good if not great, making this a must have for anyone even remotely interested in psyche, garage rock, the Detroit high energy sound, or Southeast Michigan culture.
The Up’s Just Like an Aborigine:
By Max Conroy
The Raconteurs played Saturday night at the Fillmore Detroit with the Atlanta-based garage punk revivalists the Black Lips. All 2900 seats were accounted for, but the place didn’t seem overly packed at all. This would probably have been a concert that I wouldn’t have thought twice about, seeing the ad in the paper or hearing about it on the radio, but a friend called me before getting tickets the day they went on sale. What the hell, I’ll go; I like the rock and roll; I consider myself a fan of J. White even though at times I want to dislike the White Stripes. I really like the Black Lips, particularly their 2005 record Let It Bloom, but didn’t know that they were opening until after I’d committed to the event. No matter what you think about White’s music or his opinions regarding his music, he’s done a lot for rock and roll. I can’t blame him for leaving Detroit either. That said, I can pretty much take or leave the Raconteurs.
When I first heard that White was forming a band, I thought that it was a great idea: breaking away from the mold of a two-person ‘band’ where he most definitely calls the shots to working with three to four other extremely talented people, writing songs and collaborating in a super group, like they did back in the late sixties through the seventies. I could really give two shits about Brendan Benson, based purely on ignorance, but drafting the rhythm section of the Greenhornes, bassist Jack Lawrence and drummer Patrick Keeler, made me have to take this band seriously. I have seen these two play live probably more than any other group of musicians.
I’ve seen several incarnations of the Greenhornes, as a four-piece and a trio, and have seen them play with Holly Golightly several times. One of my most profound dipshit, foot-in-mouth, moments was making some boneheaded comment about how the Greenhornes weren’t all that great to Holly Golightly while smoking cigarettes outside of Kraftbrau Brewery in Kalamazoo, and she basically said, “There are a lot worse bands out there.” About ten minutes later, the Greenhornes tore the place apart. I’d seen them open for Golightly a few nights prior at the Magic Stick and they didn’t exactly put their best foot forward, but every time that I’ve seen them since, they have been absolutely amazing; one of the best bands I’ve ever seen. And so much of what made them so good was their impossibly tight rhythm section; Keeler, the definition of the jazz-influenced rock drummer, killing the skins, sweat flying everywhere, drinking whiskey; and Lawrence the silent rock carrying the rhythm, his expression is comparable to Elijah Wood’s character in Sin City: blank, verging on scary.
I got the Raconteurs first record when it came out, but never really listened to it seriously. I also had the chance to see them a Lollapalooza a few years back, but chose to see some other band that was playing there at the same time; it might have been Sleater-Kinney playing their last non-Olympia show. The music seems fine, and I’m not sure why I haven’t taken the time to listen to their records, maybe there just hasn’t been enough time, who knows? So this show was a good opportunity for me to really give their music a chance.
Upon entering the Fillmore Detroit, if you are a guy, you have to empty your pockets, hold all your shit for security to go through while they frisk you. It’s been awhile since I’ve had to do this and was somewhat freaked out by it as I did have something that would be considered contraband, which I held under my wallet, hoping they wouldn’t notice. They were some huge fellows and seemed very good at their job. I made the mistake of wearing a green shirt that said ‘Boston’ on it with a clover. The guy who was about to frisk me mumbled something, and it sounded to me like, “If I find anything in your pockets, I’m going to fuck you up.” My stomach sank as I was holding onto my wallet and contraband, hands shaking. I quickly ripped out anything else that I had in my pockets and explained rapidly what it was. He could tell that I misunderstood what he’d said and repeated it: “I should fuck you up for wearing that shirt.” That I could handle. The Pistons were just knocked out by the Boston Celtics in the conference finals. “Oh, sorry, man. I totally didn’t think about it.” “You should go home and burn that shirt.” “Oh, I will.” My hands were still shaking when I bought a round of beer five minutes later.
By Max Conroy
It’s finally summer here in Michigan, the sweat pouring down my back as I type this in a coffee shop, is proof. The air is thick, it’s hot as hell and there are tons of music-related events going on in the area; I’ll try and keep all of you hipped to what should be worthwhile and, of course, my opinions and reflections of those events. Speaking of which, stay tuned for my write up of the Raconteurs/Black Lips show, which should be posted by tonight, or maybe tomorrow morning if any SNAFUs arise.
Here is a track I recorded earlier today. My friend, who wishes to remain anonymous, dusted off his Telecaster and let it fly.
PS: The Donita Sparks show is coming up on Wednesday, which I promise will be worth the $10.
By Max Conroy
This past week has been one of the most eventful/busy of my entire life. In seven days I saw Jandek, wrote about it, interviewed Donita Sparks, saw Blind Mellon in Flint, crashing that night in East Lansing, saw Solomon Burke in Detroit and motored immediately after to Grand Rapids to hang out with Uncle Fucker. I got back to Ann Arbor last night around midnight. I had a real good time, but I’m glad to be convalescing here on this beautiful Memorial Day. In my travels to East Lansing and Grand Rapids, I picked up some great records at some great shops. If you’re anywhere even close to Grand Rapids and like records at all, you have to go to the Corner Record Shop, just outside of GR. It rivals Encore and is about to become an entirely analog recording studio and venue as well! Another surprise is that Uncle Fucker dusted off the Telecaster this weekend in a moment of clarity, and I recorded some of it for you. I have also edited some of what I recorded at the Solomon Burke show. Featured here are Lay My Burdon Down, performed by the choir before he went on, and Diamond in Your Mind, the song that Tom Waites wrote for him on his first comeback album. The choir provides an accurate representation of the enthusiasm of the crowd, along with a healthy dose of ecstatic joy in loving Jesus. Diamonds is just a great song and was recorded by Burke recently, so it captures his sound now. The third track is Uncle Fucker shredding All Down the Line, the Stones song.
Lay My Burdon Down:
Diamond in Your Mind:
All Down the Line:
Stay tuned for the Donita Sparks and the Stellar Moments review and interview.
I like this one a lot, so much that I haven’t really decided if I want to sell it. The Six O’Clock News were formed by Rockabilly hall-of-famer and Detroit native James Wayne Boyer. He originally formed the band Jimmy Boyer and The Newports, who were a top local band in Detroit and Windsor in the early to mid 60s. Around ‘68 or ‘69, he formed the Six O’Clock News, who recorded only one 45, Train Ride Down Jasper Way / Working On The Road, in 1969 on Novi based label Adell. After the Six O’Clock News broke up following their brief time together, Boyer went on to play in a few more local bands before touring nationally with a Nashville based group called the Billy Swan Band.
The A side to this promo copy, Train Ride, is a great song. Jimmy’s rough and gruff voice give emotion to a hard working railroad love song, backed by a Dennis Coffee-esque funkabilly band. It’s a fairly rare 45, but it’s unlike many small label Michigan garagers that we come across, the song writing is actually good (and original). If CCR put this out, it could have been a national smash hit. As it was with a relatively unheard-of Detroit band in 1969, they produced about 1,000 or so promo copies, sent them out to as many radio stations as they could, and probably received little if any airplay. The records then sat for years, with a few surfacing here and there. This one came out of a collection we bought recently that was the remnants of a local radio station’s backstock, hundreds of discarded 45s, deemed not popular enough to be worth a damn, forgotten for almost 40 years, until they landed with us to revive them again. NOW FOR SALE
Listen to Train Ride Down Jasper Way:
Note: The B Side on this, the pop-pysch Working On The Road, was featured on the comp “Voyages Into Pop-Psych Vol. II”, and also on the internet radio station/website Technicolor Web of Sound.
by Cousin Geoff
The Sun Messengers are one of my favorite local bands. I’ve written about them a couple times, and cheered them on at Pistons games, where they serve up the funk as the resident house band.
So, I was excited to not only find a 45 by The Sun Messengers that I had never seen, but lo and behold it was another Tigers song to add to the collection.
There’s good parts to this song, like the opening, and the chorus, but the singing is really pretty bad. The front says it’s The Sun Messengers w/ Tyrone Hamilton and the Bleature Creature Choir. This Tyrone Hamilton is, I assume, the one singing and it sort of sounds like someone wrote a song about the Tigers and then performed it at a family reunion and the family is too nice not to tell him he can’t sing worth a lick. I’m guessing that Tyrone Hamilton was one of The Sun Messenger’s friends, and they didn’t have the heart to get someone else to do lead vocals on this track.
That being said, I really don’t care too much. In fact, I sort of like it better that it’s kind of bad. It’s still an awesome song. The label alone is worth adding to my collection.
What’s that you say, I said the Tigers won again today!
Listen to Tiger Dynasty:
by Cousin Geoff
Frikid Pink is one of those bands that is consistently overlooked and underrated among late 60s Detroit garage rock acts. I posted before about the Soulbenders and thier version of House of The Rising Sun. Frijid Pinks’s take on it shows why they were a national act and the Soulbenders were stuck in the West Michigan local dance scene. And yeah, the Soulbenders recorded on Fenton, and they’re obscure, and that sort of makes them cooler now, but in terms of pure ability, there’s little comparison.
This record, which features their big hit - a guitar-heavy version of House of the Rising Sun, propelled their first, self titled album on Parrot. This song is the pinnacle of what Frijid Pink was about. They apparently were so popular in Detroit around 1969 that Led Zeppelin opened for them. However, you hardly ever hear them mentioned in the same breath as The Rationals, SRC, The Stooges, early Bob Seger, The MC5 - first-team Detroit rock and roll bands from that era. They seem to be on that second-team list, along with bands like Mitch Ryder, Brownsville Station, or The Frost. Why is that?
Listen to House of The Rising Sun:
by Cousin Geoff
Ann Arbor based rock and rollers Brownsville Station had a breakout hit in 1973, with Smokin’ In The Boys Room, rising as high as #3 on the U.S charts that year. Smokin’ was one of the first teen-angst songs, about pissed off students taking relief by sneaking into the boys room for a smoke. I like the B side even better, though, a great garage cover of Robert Parker’s classic jam Barefootin’, also done well by The Rationals off their album on Crewe.
According to Wikipedia, the bass player, Mike Lutz, works at Oz’s music in Ann Arbor and teaches guitar and bass lessons. That’s awesome! Mike, if you read this, can you tell us a little more about the band? Brownsville Station was led by crazy man Cub Coda, whose wild stage antics were well-respected and studied by many, including Alice Cooper. Can’t you hear School’s Out as the perfect song to play next after Smokin’?
Check out Barefootin’:
And here’s Smokin’ in the Boys Room:
by Max Conroy
I first heard about the Third Power on this site a long time ago when the Cousins did a write up about their bass player Jem Targal in response to finding a signed copy of his rare solo album Luckey Guy. I downloaded Believe, the only album released by the Third Power and didn’t feel too bad about it because of the album’s obscurity; I believe that it isn’t too hard to track down on CD though. The download that I got was ripped from a record and the guy recorded the second side first, which I didn’t realize till finding the vinyl a few weeks ago. It doesn’t get much better than this if you’re looking for an aggressive, Grande-era Detroit power trio. I’ve scoped this record every now and then for the past few years on EBay and it seems like every copy that I’ve seen was in Europe, which is odd since it only sold about 16,000 copies, mostly in the Detroit area.
Like the record itself, information regarding the band is pretty rare. For the most part everything out there is very basic and states that the band formed in Detroit in the late 60s, were very loud, had a cult following, released one record, it flopped, they went their separate ways, the guitarist Drew Abbott went to play lead for Seger’s Silver Bullet Band, and Jem recorded Luckey Guy in the late 70s. I did find an early biography of Jem Targal, their lead singer and bassist, on someone’s personal website. The biography reads a bit strange, almost like it’s Targal speaking in the third person (pardon the pun). According to the site, Targal was born in Ann Arbor, his father studied and taught at the University of Michigan, and when he was young his father accepted a position at the American University of Istanbul and moved his entire family there: ”There were seven families, all related, living in the house together. Targal’s grandfather, a retired general, was there. So, too, was Targal’s uncles. One had been the head of NATO forces for seveal years; the other uncle was a professional wrestler.” Sounds like a trip, man. His family moved back to the Detroit area in 1951 and eventually many years later he met Abbott at Oakland Community College in a speed reading class. Abbott taught Targal the bass and they formed several groups, met their drummer Jim Craig, a solid powerful drummer, and came up with the name the Third Power in the van on the way to their first show together at a club called the Fifth Dimension (a popular venue that had featured Hendrix and the Yardbirds). Power trio…trio…third…third…power…like to the third power, man…get it? The band moved into a farmhouse on Haggarty road, between 12 and 13 mile roads. They were known for having massive parties at their place where rock icons like Rod Stewart and Badfinger would hang out. The band kept playing around and became very popular in the Detroit area, playing shows with local acts like the Rationals, Seger, and the MC 5. They signed with Vanguard, who also featured another Detroit act of the era the Frost, in 1969. The album was produced by poet and blues scholar Sam Charters and came out in 1970.
I almost shit my pants when I saw it in the stack at Encore. They pile up their new arrivals on the floor against the bins, in front of the register. I was in there a few days prior to finding it and noticed that they had a massive pile of new arrivals and quickly paid for whatever I had gone in there to find, so as not to be tempted by whatever was in the new stacks. A few days later I was walking in the neighborhood and decided to go back to see what was left in that pile, and there it was, perfect, in the shrink, bronze Vanguard label. I bought that and Grant Green’s Alive! for $30 and the dude working there said bye to me using my name off of my credit card. Respect, mon. Irie! I got it for $20; the price guide says $30 mint, but Popsike lists anywhere from $50 to $250 previously on EBay.
by Max Conroy:
The Go’s latest album Howl On the Haunted Beat You Ride is a fantastic record that doesn’t seem to get much credit, and I live in the land where it was made. Shamefully, until I moved to back to Michigan this past August I’d never heard of them and the way that I heard of them was from a magazine published in the UK, Mojo. Mojo gave the record a four star review and the write up was good; garage, overlooked band, Detroit, etc. There was also a picture of the record’s cover accompanying the review that pretty much guaranteed that I’d look for it. It’s perfectly psychedelic: two huge hipster faces with lifeless hipster expressions, flanking the jacket; the entire band arranged vertically in the center of it, all wearing black or stripes; their far out logo in the upper left; a brown and orange, early mid 60s to early 70s, color motif; all of this on a hazy blanket of stars. I know being interested in a record because of its packaging might be a bit careless, but this record is so cool looking and feeling that I’d be happy to own it even if the music sucked, which it most certainly doesn’t. It’s on Cass records (Cass is a street/area in Detroit for all you non-local readers), which I’ve never heard of, but they totally knocked the ball out of the park on this one. It’s a gatefold with super heavy boards, it feels like it’s a record made in the 50s, and has great graphics pasted inside along with the lyrics.
The Go formed in Detroit in 1998. Jack White was an early member of the band and is featured on their debut Whatcha Doin’, playing lead guitar and singing back up. I had read somewhere that they kicked Jack White out of the band, which would be one to tell the grandchildren: Yeah, I was in a band back in the day…and we kicked Jack White out of the group…We could have been rich! I’m pretty sure that he just left the band because he didn’t want to be a sideman. I have no idea if there is any bad blood as a result of the split, but the Go wasn’t on the White compiled fantastic comp. Sympathetic Sounds of Detroit. There is footage the Go out there playing live during the JW era on an obscure movie called the Detroit Rock Movie, which also has footage of JW jamming Stop Breakin’ Down in his tiny Detroit apartment. If any of you out there have a copy of this movie, I’d be happy to receive one; please respond to this post. Anyway, Whatcha Doin’ was released on Sub Pop and is a great debut record on the noisy side of the garage. They made a follow up for Sub Pop called Free Electricity that was never released because it was allegedly too heavy, which has to be bull shit…too heavy for Sub Pop? I found a copy of it on Soulseek and it’s definitely worth finding. I think there were other reasons Sub Pop shelved it though; one song starts with the lyric, “Big cock angel”. They were ultimately dropped from Sub Pop and put out a more focused rehashing of 60s garage and 70s glam on Lizard King, called The Go. The group then waited four years to put out another record, the brilliant Howl on the Haunted On the Haunted Beat You Ride, which AMG has listed as coming out in April of 2007, but I’m pretty sure it was more like late summer and they still haven’t reviewed it.
Howl On the Haunted Beat You Ride represents the Go fully coming into their own. The music is derivative of 60s psych and 70s glam to be sure, but they certainly make it theirs. The production on this record is simply amazing and it was produced by Bobby Harlow, their front man, in Detroit. The album utilizes clean tones, trippy imagery, and classic CSN-like harmonies with great effect (and I really dislike CSN). The bizarro-poetic title comes from the song Yer Stoned Italian Cowboy, a romp about an irresitible character that “shoots directly from the Id”. Fucking brilliant! In my opinion, there’s only one bum track on this record and that’s the lead off song called You Go Bangin’ On, which was released as a single, so I might be missing something. But don’t listen to the first thirty seconds of this record and file it away. I bought this record seven months ago and the Go haven’t played around here since to my knowledge, until this past Saturday where they played at Gold: a fund raiser for the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit.
by Cousin Geoff, featuring guest writer Ameritape John:
508 Maus Street in Ypsilanti, former home of Pathway label
I got an email the other day from a guy named John who said that he had read one of my previous posts about the Ypsilanti gospelgrass label Pathway. I’ve written about The Smith Family Sings Your Gospel Favorites LP, and Carl and Evert’s I Have Found The Way 45. John may be one of a handful of Pathway followers out there, excited as I was when I stumbled onto one of their records and became strangely obsessed with the 1960s lo-fi off-tune religious music from Ypsilanti, Michigan. John may be one of the few people in the world who is actually more into Pathway than I am. He gave me permission to publish this piece he wrote for a UK record collecting mag, where he attempts to explain the sacred/weird localistic significance and also provides additional info on other Pathway LPs.
Another concept to consider here is the idea of collecting and searching for “deep” gospelgrass, as opposed to the much more popular digging for rare funk, soul, garage, hip-hop, ect. This “Xian” genre that John refers to is something I’ve also taken an interest in, like my post on The Pathway Quartet out of Sandusky, Ohio. There’s something about this primitive religious music that takes on some sort of an intriguing local, cultural, and almost psychedelic aspect. The thing is, I’m not sure if I even want to publish this. I like being able to find an seemingly endless supply of these records at garage sales and local salvation armys, passed over and passed over, as few people are actually into it like me and John. Like he says, most people don’t even want to talk about it, much less search for it (although I can see some UK folks, some of our best customers and really the heavyweights of record collecting, start getting into it). Nevertheless, it’s a great concept to explore. As Max pointed out in a conversation today and John alludes to, Pathway seems to be very much the essence of what punk rock is, but instead of drugs or booze or fuck the man it’s about Jesus and getting into heaven. And all this coming from the homemade basement recording studio of 508 Maus Street in Ypsilanti.
I have no idea who these guys are, what label this might have been on, or where in Michigan they were from. I just found this on a boot Michigan garage comp I have kicking around.
The only info I could find is that they won a Battle of the Bands competition at Birmingham Seaholm high school, beating fellow garagers The Fallen Angels. Anyone know anything else? All I know is that it’s sweet.
Listen to their song As Long As I’m Around:
Country Roads, Happy Easter, and Sally Lives On
by Cousin Geoff:
I hope you all had a nice holiday weekend. I spent mine in northern Michigan, all day out in the woods on snowshoes, shot some guns, found the best walking stick ever off a downed oak branch, and spent time with family. I also gave away one of my dogs. Sally the hound, gone, too much for me and my wife now with baby Ella. Despite her bad behavior (constant nervous energy, getting up on the couch, in the garbage, that old coon-hound howl at all the wrong times) I was sad to see ol’ Sally go. We’ve had a lot of good times in the past four years, but she’s just an up north dog, and not an Ypsilanti dog, and that’s just the truth. My other dog Zoe we’re keeping, but she’s feeling down and out because Sally was her constant companion. A sad story, but they are afterall, just dogs.
Driving home today, I heard Toots and The Maytals sing Country Road on XM, and I realized that a good song is a good song, and a good friend is a good friend, even if it ain’t nothing but a hound dog. Ann Arbor’s The RFD Boys (been meaning to write about these guys for a long time, and I will eventually) do a great version of this, more true to John Denver’s original, and very different than Toots and The Maytals, but still the same song.
The RFD Boys version:
Toots version:
It’s Easter and I missed church today but I haven’t been in forever anyway. So I’ll make up for it by including a few Jesus songs in this sermon. More proof that a good song is a good song - Jesus is a Soul Man. One of the Cousins’ favorites is the version by the Pathway Quartet - I compared it to the Otis Williams version in a previous post.
As for Sally, I think she’ll be happy up north. For some reason the Harry McClintock, Hallelujah I’m a Bum song pops in my head. Hallelujah, I’m a bum. Hallelujah, bum again. HalleluJAH, give us a handout, to revive us again. Well, as Bunny Wailer says, Time Will Tell. Good luck Sally, may Jesus and St. Patrick lead you down a good Country Road to help you be Reborn. Maybe there’s hope for you afterall. Then again, maybe Elvis was right.
The Soulbenders, aka Phlegethon, were a Grand Rapids based garage group from the mid to late 60s, part of an incredible West Michigan garage scene, including Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo, Battle Creek, Niles, ect that easily rivaled what was going on in the more well-known South East Michigan/Detroit area. The Fenton record label and recording studio was the epicenter of this movement, putting out some incredible stuff during about a 5-6 year period.
The Soulbenders were a garage cover band that was typical for back then. Their version of Hey Joe was number 1 on three Grand Rapids radio stations, WLAV, WGRD, and WERX in 1967. Their follow up, called 7&7 Is, was number 2, and their last single titled Last Voyage Home hit number 1 again in 1971.
The group made quite a splash on the local scene and even they opened once for The Byrds as well as Detroit groups like The MC5 and The Stooges. In 1967, they won local and state rounds of The National Battle of The Bands, and flew out to Braintree, Mass, where they placed 5th out of 11,000 bands. They played House of The Rising Sun at this competition, give it a listen and see what you think (audio from my personal copy off a boot Mich. garage comp):
One of the members, Aris Hampers, put together a comp CD of 18 of their recordings. He has been a Grand rapids area DJ for over 30 years, and also owns or owned a record store called Aris Disc Shop, where you can purchase this CD. The picture above was taken from here, where you can also get more info on the disc and the band.
I attended the blowout last year and it was fantastic. The blowout is a 4 day music festival that plays out in the city of Hamtramck (Ham-Tram-Ick for our non-Detroit readers). I attended only 2 nights last year but I had a great time. Last years opening night had more bands I was familiar with, The Muggs and The Hard Lessons in particular, so I will have to do a little more research on the bands playing at the Majestic. On Friday Carjack is playing and this is the one can’t miss show for me. The wife and I saw him play at the K.O.C. Lounge last year and it is not a live show to miss. The only negative thing is that he is playing at the same time as the Detroit Cobras. On Saturday I will be at the K.O.C. to see Scott Morgan’s Powertrane and Mitch Ryder for a Grande ole time. Beyond that I am gonna do some myspace searches and decide who I wanna go see. Here is the list of performers so you can do the same. ANYONE GOT A RECCOMENDATION?
Cousin Justin
