After my drive out of Chicago, I cruise the edge of Lake Michigan on the i94, I’m not really in a hurry. So when the opportunity to pull off for some dinner and a quick view around some other areas, I get into a sunset over the lake at Stevensville in Michigan. The drift of time is catching up with me, but that is no excuse to not smell some roses when being a solo traveller allows the privilege of choices. Circle through the town to a couple of areas that front the lake, but unlike Australia where most beaches. rivers and lakes all have public shores… this area seems to be more like privately owned. The first spot is just houses in a tree’d area, but I stop and bush bash my way though some trees and a track to where it opens to a mavelous view of the sandy lake shore.
I can’t help but find another place to view the water while I am eating, and find another small park with a raised wooden viewing area, but NO access to the beach-y/water… (in a private housing area, this is very strange for an Australian). I guess access to sand or water between your toes is for some people?... It’s still about 3 hours drive to Detroit so I better get moving. I have tended to now spend the last days doing things and driving in the late arvo into the evening. I found a good AirBnB on the northside of Detroit, not too far from the city, but in various stages of setup, so it’s a bit cheaper. |
Have a good online chat with the owners, and organise to arrive late, I follow the GPS into Detroit, bypassing Kalamazoo, Battle Creek and Jackson all of which sound great, and Ann Arbour which I have heard of. But it’s dark by then and can’t site-see anything, and this is a music trip so I hung-it to Detroit. Drive in and it’s getting later, Detroit brings up the thoughts of a ghetto-city, dangerous, poor, lost place where everyone else in other USA cities have said “WHY are you going there?, There is nothing to see, DON’T go there…” so many different voices were ringing in my ears, let alone what I know from the news and TV.
But honestly, what do people know…? Most of the time I would ask people from other parts of the USA straight away, “so you’ve been there?” and they’d reply “Oh NO, I would never go there…”. So I’m always one to form my own first-hand opinions, no matter how fraught the path may seem. So here I am driving into Detroit at 11pm at night… first time I’ve ever been in the joint. I do get that feeling in my gut, “keep your eyes open, son” my brain is saying, but my heart is less worried. I drive towards the city, it looks glittery and happy, the highways are wide and good. But as I get to the city things get more run down, and as the details come into focus they prove to be less shiny. |
I make it to Basecamp, my AirBnb, a old nursing home or Nunnery which is being slowly converted into a Bed & Breakfast/AirBnB/Hostel. Alex and Jenny have completed a rough hostel room, and a few nice private rooms. I booked in one of these as it is still pretty cheap, as they are still renovating the building and parts of it are still a building site. But I don’t mind they are passionate people with a vision, just the type I respond too and like to support. I get in late at night, but everything works out fine and the room is very comfortable (the mattress is exceptionally soft and brand new). I get up in the morning and head down to the large kitchen, have a coffee with the hosts and the 5 backpacker-types who I gather are staying as worker/accomodated people. |
I have a good chat with Alex and Jenny about their place, Detroit, and the world with them and all the occupants of the stay. They all seem like interesting people. But this is a musical trip so it’s time to get into the obvious stuff and work my way downwards from there.
I go to the main historic music recording studio that Detroit is known for, Hitsville USA where the Motown groove was invented, perfected and sold…All of Marvin Gaye, Martha & the Vandellas, Stevie Wonder, The Supremes, The Four Tops, The Isley Brothers, The Temptations, Smokey Robinson, Gladys Knight, The Jackson 5, and Diana Ross got their start here. The originators of the studio Berry and Ester Gordy perfected the art of making hopeful, pleasant music from the rebellious rock n roll of the 50s and 60s. Black hopeful groove mixed with white sentimentality. A mix that would change the face of music, and as the studio name suggests net them 180+ number one hits worldwide. |
But for me, I have loved some of the music, and the hype is never that interesting, it’s more of the what and how it got there and seeing the process of what made it happen. This is the humble studio where so many of the early hits came from. The original studio at Hitsville is simply a well audio-treated garage. The original set up on just one of the houses in the neighbourhood, and then Berry quickly bought up the houses next door(8 houses total) to expand the operation once they had success. The difference with Motown compared to other music breakthroughs in this era was they worked their artists, & spent time on presentation in the age of the dawn of television. Hitsville knew & exploited the power of making their artists personae rather than just the music. This rings true right through to today. |
Detroit today shows a lot of evidence of these rags to riches, American dream, boom or bust, everything or nothing. The Hitsville Museum sits in the new centre of West Grand Boulevard, a leafy double wide street, near the Hospital. But as pleasant as it sounds some of that neighbourhood is run down, there are the disparate terms on which Detroitians live. On hope boulevard where the billion dollar Motown industry is founded, today people 1 block down are selling their clothes on a street market, a homeless guy walks up to me and asks for money. I don’t give him any.
I made a pact with myself a long time ago. I don’t give money to beggars, as harsh as that sounds, as a musician & creative I have struggled through on the edges of a standard life, and also worked very hard at times to have the means to do these things I do. It makes it very hard for me to just hand cash away, because if I do that to everyone who is in need, I end up without the ability to do anything musical/creative & to experience and soak up stories from all over the place. That being said, I have given away food, donated much time to good causes and worked on volunteer projects for organisations, and spent a lot of time working for corporate things (that I hated), so I would have the means to be able to spend time working on other care projects without a budget. |
Detroit was a haven, and then a underground network for slaves to leave into Canada. The irony of this history through current times is not lost on me. A lot of people have a one-eyed view of Detroit, and in some ways there are some truths to the hype. It does still have run down areas and neighbourhoods that feel a bit edgy. You can have a burnt out house next to a run-down house, next to a renovated house. There are still run-down neighbourhoods, but there are also renewing neighbourhoods, and lots of community creative things happening around too.
Out of all the US cities that I visited though, it felt like the only city that was in an upswing. It has already had its lows, layed in its own vomit in the gutters of bankrupted industry and stared into its own abyss. Since the lows of the 80s and 90s it’s hit a renewal of creativity and an explosion of some sort of grass-roots community renewal. Perhaps the “swamp” thought it so unprofitable that it was abandoned rather than drained, and all that was left were the people who rolled their sleeves up, and the arrival of people now with hope of a cheap new start. Detroit still has its problems, but the vibe from the people I met, and the musos, creatives and punters I met in dive bars all over the city was a good sense, dare I even say hopeful sense of where this phoenix has to rise. It’s got plenty of grittiness and a-ways-to-go, but compared to a lot of other big cities that I visited (which were stayed and stagnant and established) Detroit seemed like it was ready for change, and was doing something about it, no matter how small or big.
Another thing that gets me about Detroit after I see it in the daylight for the first time, in my mind Detroit was this crowded, closed in industrial city, with a claustraphobic dark cityscape, where it only rained… (the thing of movies). But like this centre of the city picture, Detroit is almost the complete opposite of that, spread out, wide boulevard streets lined with trees, sunny warm days, plenty of grassed area, just a bit of high rise in the CBD, but most of the city is single/double story buildings… perhaps it’s just the days that I arrive, but totally not the feel for the city I expected. After a bit of a musical tour, I head into the CBD and have a walk around, see the sights, check all the newly added art and beautification remodelling for some 100 year celebrations. The centre of the city is being transformed into a pedestrian haven with alfresco living.
I check out the Detroit River, some of the surrounds, some city monuments, get a snack. The city feels inexpensive, relative to other big cities, its reputation has kept the price of living reasonable. I do a walk around more of the city, and there is a lot of public arty things being setup, for city markets and city invigoration. Some of the one strip is big town retail, brand new buildings, but I wonder who will be buying. After a good hour or 2 of just drifting around the city its getting later, so I look for a spot to hang for a moment, after walking a few places, then I find a small dive bar that looks more my style. |
The Bathtub Pub is just a single width terrace, graffitti on the walls, a little grimy but has a nice feel to it, I am the only customer in there at 4:45pm, so I say hello to the bartender, Keon, he is friendly and speaks with a thick Detroit accent and slang that I have to concentrate to understand him, this is my sort of bar. After a beer, Keon talks me into $4 spicy chicken wings and chips, who can say no to $4 spicy wings! he hand cuts his chips, and makes the spice, they are delicious. It seems like Bathtub is not the first choice of a lot of Detroitians, but eventually a few more business people and randoms wander in. Keon introduces me to another hip hop mate who comes in, everyone who comes in gets to sign the walls.
I head down to Monroe st in the City to a bar listed on the Detroit Blues Society’s(DBS) page where there is a Blues Jam. But after getting there and having some food, and a beer I chat to the bartender and he says the jam has moved to thurs night. Doh!… but I find another jam on DBS page at Pub Froggy, it’s way out in the suburbs, but hey I know that any jamming is better than none, and these things always lead to more connections and jams and fun! so I head there on my second night in Detroit. It’s a medium-sized neighbourhood bar, with a small on-the-floor band space. There’s a lot of muso-ish people in the place, and good number of older blues-ish folk. |
It’s low key, so I walk to the side of stage and stow my bass, ask if there is a list, there isn't one really… I go to the bar and get a beer from the friendly and cheeky bar-lady and a pencil to put my name on the paper. The house band cracks into some blues, I hang at the side, and then the back, but once start chatting, as everyone recognises me as not local, I gradually talk to Tosha Owens who is the singer in the house band and also Jane Cassisi who is part of the Detroit Blues Society organising committee. I let them know I’m here to play and that I play blues, but also funk, groove, ska, reggae etc.
A couple of other jams happen, but I get chucked up pretty quickly with Martin Chaparro and the young Brendan Linsley. Martin does others styles, so he throws in some groove latin styled originals that we can jam on, fantastic fun jam, and it’s here where I meet the infamous drummer David A Watson. He’s a wild card! We get to musically-communicating onstage straight away, we all lay down some fun grooves! The crowd approves and we end up with a dancefloor full of revellers. I get a few other jams in, which is more bluesy after a few other duos and blues jams, and me and drummer David are getting along like old mates already! as we are playing another older wisen, shaman-like blues guy in a headband gets up with us, and plays with style and depth. |
We have some great blues jams, and it rolls around wonderfully with a few different players. I shake the shamans hand… we have a small chat. I later find out from the other players over a beer that he is JC “Billy" Davis, who played with Hank Ballard & the Midnighters in the 50s and 60s, and later with Jackie Wilson and Martha Reeves & the Vandellas, and touring with Sam & Dave in the 80s. But it was in the early days that Billy played a tour to Seattle in ’59 where the young Jimi Hendrix hassled to see Billy & learn some guitar licks. Jimi took Billy to meet his dad. It’s pretty crazy to meet guys like this in jams.
I make a great connection with the local musos here, Tosha Owens is great powerful singer, David A Watson is one of the loosest, fun drummers I have met, and Martin and Brenden are jovial, versatile, working musos who I end up jamming with more in Detroit. Pub Froggy sounded like a very unlikely jam… but it turns out it’s a wonderful and well supported local jam, and I have another great chat with Jane and the others about other jams happening in Detroit that week. Seems like a poppin’ local scene! |
One of the other things that I had know about Detroit was the art scene on the rise, and a project I had found about 8 years ago, so I head out to find The Heidelberg Project. By artist Tyree Guyton, I saw an art story on his urban renewal project, of building art in his destroyed neighbourhoods in the suburbs of Northern Detroit. Paint dots on a his house (the famed Dotty House) and reclaiming and tidying abandoned houses and dirty empty blocks. It’s here, at the Hiedelberg blocks onsite of the entire neighbourhood installation, that I meet the wonderful Stacy Risner. She works with the Project and just happened to be sitting in the info booth onsite that day! We have great long chats about the project and art in Detroit. |
Stacy gives me a few tips and a contact for local art projects! and a Sticker Trade Market over the other side of town happening later that day. I give her a blues jam that I am going to at the Blue Goose Hotel northside on Thurs night.
It’s SO great to be standing in an art project that I saw on an art show on TV about 8 years previous. Tyree has been working on the project since the mid 80s, and it hasn’t always been smooth sailing. The council has been both ways on the project and have nearly shut it down twice in it’s history, but it project has managed, and stayed, and now employs a few people and as with people who stick at things for the right reasons, Tyree has become a world renown artist.
After a reaally long and beautiful chat with Stacy, she let’s me know that Tyree is actually here today, he likes to keep it low key, he is tending a few pieces and after wandering around I briefly say hello and shake his hand, and let him know that I’m from Australia and have followed his project for 8yrs and it’s pretty amazing to be standing here in it. We have a brief chat and I leave him to his work.
After a long lunchtime in the artistic sun, I head across town to where Stacy said the Sticker Meet was on… at the Lincoln Street Art Park, I find a big warehouse with artist stuff, and art studios inside, and things in various states of being built (much like the old Mekanarky Art Space in Sydney), but even though open it’s not active, but I find an artist inside and he tells me the Art Park is next door... I head out to what is just a graffitied open space, with a very rough stage and some containers and built storage areas. There are a few art installations, and like a lot of Detroit, it’s found object art, rough-shod put together, but with a gritty street flair. |
So Stacy’s Sticker Swap Meet doesn’t seem to be happening, but I met Emanuel (A Photographer from Switzerland), who is also photographing the park and a local Detroit-ian skater Steve. We have a chat about Detroit and art and all things worldly. Emanuel is keen to hear about New Orleans, or was it Austin? we have a friendly little world chat, and then Emanuel’s partner in crime, yells at him out the car window and then drives off! after photographing a few more things I ask him if he needs a lift anywhere… he says she’s always like this, and will come back. Just as I am driving down the road, she does.
Just down from the Art Park is another rail underpass with heaps of graffiti, and is also used for street party, gritty launches or art gatherings etc, it’s pretty run down, & has a couple of dudes appreciating the graf & smoking a jay. It looks like it’s had a lot of use, & there are some great pieces. |
Detroit lost it’s rules long ago, and the locals seem to abide by that, that’s why it probably feels a bit fresher in its approach than other cities I’ve been to. I having to travel faster now (as I am running out of days), which is a shame as I feel Detroit has a lot to offer, and I’m sure I will have to explore it a lot more in the future. The grass roots arts and community scene seem strong here. Anyway I heading to a Swing dance night and then a jam so gradually start to head that way. I’m trying to cram as much of Detroit in as possible. |
I head further north west, but have a bit of time so start to think about dinner, but as I am driving I see a sign for 8 Mile Rd, and totally remember that Eminem is from here too, so on the spur of the moment swerve across the Hwy to the Exit and drive 8 Mile to see where he grew up. It is a run down suburban area, not terrible, but definitely has a grittiness to it. I drive for a while just soaking up the vibe, sights, and the history that inspired the music. I stop at Mohawk Plaza and stop at the asian takeaway to get some food local. |
You know you are in great neighbourhood when even the asian food place has a full bulletproof shield across the entire shop, with a little bulletproof glass turning box to exchange money and the food. ha ha! I hang for a bit, eat my food at the one small table, while a few different black and asian people come in & out. Not one white person. While I am there I decide to look up where Eminem grew up, and it turns out his mum’s trailer park is literally 5mins away. So after food I head off for a look, like a ‘good’ tourist. What the hell, sometimes first hand curiousity ya just have to flow with it. The Continental Community trailer park is ever ominous in the dusk, and it is a loose place, with a few skulkers walking around in the dark. |
I head out past 9 mile Rd where the Swing night at Rosie O’Grady’s, but that Swing night doesn’t exist anymore (thanks internet), but I find another night and head over there at Mr B’s on Sth Main st in Royal Oak. If nothing else Detroit is full of extremes as this is a really gentrified cafe area, and must be where all the white people hang out. Swing is fun though, and have some great dances with the locals, seems like a smaller insular group, some of which enjoy dancing with a different style of dancer, and some who don’t ha ha! It’s only a small place that they have just moved to, so it’s a crowded dance floor. I get a lot of dances in but then head over to another blues jam before it gets too late. |
A short 15 mile drive across town to the western shore of Lake St Clair, I get to The Blue Goose Inn recommended by the Pub Froggy crew, arrive in time for some jamming! Tosha Owens is there, and a few of the others from Froggy. I meet a few more locals, and get up for a jam. Fun times, a upbeat number, then a really mellower heartfelt dynamic one. I make a great connection with Jake Segal who’s a blues drummer with feel. The house band is great also lead by Erich Goebel, crazy guitarist with a beard to match! Good jams but I don’t get a jam with Tosha, as it just doesn’t work out sometimes :) |
A surprise! as Stacy Risner shows up to the gig and gets to see me play, which is awesome, after I mentioned it at Heidelberg, the pub is around the corner from where she lives, and she didn’t know that music happened there, ha! informing the locals… it’s cool to see people more than once on trips like these.
Next day thursday, I get up a bit earlier say hello to the Basecamp crew, and head out to do some more daytime things, head to the Eastern Market area that I saw had lots of street art, and cafes with farmers markets and the meat packing district. Just want to have a breakfast and do some blogging and stop in at Trinosophes on Gratiot Ave. Great cafe and music space attached. I check out where a couple of my other recommendations are for the day and then head out after a great brekky! |
I see a bit more of the city and find the Play Space recommended by Stacy, run by Michael Feld a musician and technologist. He created his own studio space, art centre/creative hub, that provides facility and opportunity for up and comers. I do find the place but just can’t quite link up with Michael, so we email a bit. I head over to another place Stacy put on my list, Hamtramck Disneyland!
Completed by Dymrto Szylak from the Ukraine but moved and worked for General Motors for years in Detroit, and completed this folk art in his yard after he retired and needed a hobby, it’s now owned by a Art conglomerate who rents 3 of the units on the property to cover costs, & one unit for an artist in residence. Detroit certainly has its share of crazy grassroots art & artists.
In the evening I have 2 jams to head to! Curtis Sumpter who I met at the Blue Goose said he had a small regular jam way out in Westlands (about 30mins out of the city) I don’t think he expects me to show up, but I do! it starts earlier and then I can get to the later jam as well. I have transport so use it and get there early for some dinner, then get into a great conversation with James Cloyd Curtis’s bassplayer, after some musician and blues talk, he tells me a great story of when one time when he was playing with Albert King, and a young Stevie Ray Vaughn was trying to get onstage totally off his head, so James bounced Stevie right off the stage and out of the place ha ha! |
The jams here are not straight blues and there is a brass section and it gets a bit jazzy, soul and funky influenced as well. It’s a cool bunch of old experienced players. I get chucked up with a great bunch and lay down some versatile jams, get a few nods. It’s great being at jams every night, with a great level of players at all the jams. I have some more chats with a few of the other musos after my jam, and eventually thank Curtis and James for taking care of me, but then head off to the next jam after a couple of hours.
Travel way across town 25 miles to the First Place Lounge, to a wilder jam with David A Watson and some of the jammers who were at Pub Froggy, and it’s cool to be recognised a bit in Detroit as a few people say hello (I’ve only been here 4 days). It’s a loose and bluesy, but also a bit anything goes, so over the course of the night there’s all sorts of songs and players and even MCs throwing down rhymes over beats and grooves. I get a good run here and play a lot almost to the end of the night! Martin Chapparo and Brendon Linsley get up to some old tricks and we head off into jamming all sorts of crazy grooves and jams and covers (that I don’t know) ha ha fun times! |
Unfortunately this is my last night in Detroit… I stay the next morning, head to the Eastern Markets area again for coffee, breakfast and more blogging, I was only going to do a stopover in Detroit, but ended up staying a few extra days (sorry New York and Boston) but it’s great to cram so much into such a short time. Some huge musical icons, local jams, getting to know some creative people, getting to lots of areas (good & bad), most of all finally having a 3D personal view of what Detroit is ACTUALLY like, the rest of USA you don’t know what you are talkin’ about, Detroit is a must see in my books :)
Great connections, great people, I’m sure I will be back, Love ya Detroit Rock City! then it’s over the river into Canada heading to Toronto and Montreal. I can feel the Fall temperatures starting to bite, as the leaves are all starting to turn brown.