CD Review: Various Artists - Motor City Is Burning (2025)

A hell of a lot of great music has come out of Detroit, Michigan and surrounding areas, from blues and soul artists like John Lee Hooker and Aretha Franklin to the Motown machine of the 1960s, which featured talents like the Temptations, the Four Tops, Marvin Gaye, and the Supremes, among many others. The Motor City has also made a name for itself in the world of rock ‘n’ roll, beginning with Mitch Ryder’s Detroit Wheels in the early 1960s and Russ Gibbs’ mid-decade Grande Ballroom Scene, which made stars of the Stooges and MC5, with the thread running through 1980s-era bands like Destroy All Monsters, the Mutants, and the Romantics to ‘90s trailblazers like the Gories, the Detroit Cobras, and the White Stripes.

For those of us that grew up listening to – and loving – Detroit rock, however, the most exiting era of the city’s rock scene was roughly between 1967 and 1977, a ten-year period that saw the emergence and ascendance of the scene to a commercial pinnacle in the form of artists like Bob Seger and Ted Nugent. This is, more or less, the period chronicled by Cherry Red Records’ new historical compilation, Motor City Is Burning: A Michigan Anthology 1965-1972. Comprised of 66 songs spread across three discs and packaged in a study cardboard clamshell with an accompanying booklet, Motor City Is Burning offers up tracks by some of the usual suspects (Ryder, Stooges, MC5) along with some lesser-known but beloved bands (SRC, Brownsville Station, Frijid Pink, The Frost) and more than a few welcome surprises and rarities.

Motor City Is Burning

The first CD is loaded with mostly 1960s-era goodies, taking on a distinct, Nuggets-styled garage-rock vibe, especially since it opens with the classic “96 Tears” from ? & the Mysterians. Mitch Ryder & the Detroit Wheels are represented by the irrepressible “Jenny Take A Ride” and the disc offers up other essential rock goodies like Dick Wagner & the Frost (“Mystery Man”), former Grand Funk RR Svengali Terry Knight’s early band the Pack (a psych-drenched cover of the Stones’ “Satisfaction”) and, hailing from Niles MI, Tommy James & the Shondells’ deep cut “I’m Alive” (a psych-rock delicacy). Scot Richard Case (SRC) and the Rationals are two of my all-time fave Detroit outfits, and they offer a devastating one-two punch with the former’s scorching take on the Skip James’ blues classic “I’m So Glad” and the latter with an electrifying cover of the Kinks’ B-side “I Need You.”

There are some fine obscurities here, too, like the Ted Lucas-fronted Spike Drivers’ 1966 folk-rock single “Baby Won’t You Let Me Tell You How I Lost My Mind”; the Shaggs’ (no, not that one) 1969 flapjack “She Makes Me Happy,” with its cool Byrdsian twang; the Troyes’ raging 1967 single “Help Me Find Myself”; or the Apostles’ 1967 melding of the Cadets and the Kinks on “Stranded In the Jungle.” The disc includes a couple of intriguing, never-before-released tracks in Dearborn City Limits’ “Come See About Me,” a poppy, keyboard-driven rocker believed to have been waxed in 1966 that could have been a radio hit, and the enigmatic Felix’s 1968 “Outside Woman Blues,” a blues-rocker in a Cream vein that is exceedingly rare. Throw in groovy tracks by long-gone rockers like Tidal Waves, the Solitary Confinement, the Innsmen, the Thyme, and the King’s Court and you have an inspired compilation already.

Scot Richard Case (SRC)

Disc two catches the scene as it transitions from the garage to the revered Grande Ballroom and then onto festival stages in both Michigan and, in some instances, nationwide. Focusing largely on hard rock, this is where heavy hitters like the Stooges (their timeless “1969” still packs a wallop, like a crowbar to yer eardrums), MC5 (the buoyant, complex “Teenage Lust”), Grand Funk Railroad (from Flint, but close enough for their cover of Eric Burdon’s “Inside Looking Out” to wrench your cerebellum), and Alice Cooper (who remade their image in the Motor City and came up with the eerie “Halo of Flies”). The disc includes a couple of beloved “also-rans” in SRC (the former Scot Richard Case), whose “Up All Night” channels the Pretty Things with jolt of Motor City madness and Savage Grace, whose ethereal 1970 cover of Dylan’s “All Along the Watchtower” gives Jimi a run for his money.

Detroit Rock, Soul & Funk   

Cub Koda & Brownsville Station

 

The second disc also includes a handful of worthy bands that should have been a hell of a lot bigger, starting with Cub Koda’s almighty Brownsville Station. Although the band released seven albums of blues-tinted rock circa 1970-1978, they remain best-known for their 1973 novelty hit “Smokin’ In the Boys Room.” As shown by their rowdy 1970 cover of Bo Diddley’s “Road Runner,” which features Koda’s fiery guitarplay and a swinging rhythm track, they were a hell of a lot more than that humorous, if ultimately misbegotten single. Frijid Pink were another “coulda, shoulda” outfit, remembered for their hit cover of “House of the Rising Sun.” But “Pain In My Heart,” from their 1970 sophomore effort, displays a harder-rock facet of the band’s talents. There are also some relatively unknown gems here, too, like the previously-unreleased livewire 1972 track “Wake Up People,” a skronky guitar ‘n’ keyboards rave-up from Kopperfield. Power trio Head Over Heels is another shoulda-been band, and their “Right Away” is a deliciously bluesy rocker while rare singles by bands like the Glass Sun, Resolution, and Sunshine round out the disc.  

The third CD of Motor City Is Burning is probably the most pleasantly surprising of the three, largely comprised of soul and funk jams from Michigan artists like the Temptations, Diana Ross & the Supremes, Chairmen of the Board, and Smokey Robinson & the Miracles. The disc isn’t all just Motown hits, although the Temps’ 1970 single “Ball of Confusion” is a prime slab o’ psychedelic soul. Often times, producer/curator David Wells went with the lesser-known choices. The Supremes’ “Reflections” – a classic Holland-Dozier-Holland single – offers a severely underappreciated and wistful performance by Ms. Ross while the Miracles’ “Flower Girl” is pop-soul at its very best. Chanteuse Freda Payne’s 1971 anti-war single “Bring the Boys Home” is a gorgeous example of the power of song and Chairmen of the Board’s “Hanging On To A Memory” is a boiling pot of funk with frontman General Johnson belting out the vox with the incredible Funkadelic laying down the backing groove.      

As for the non-Motown tracks on the disc, there’s a wealth of great material to be explored, beginning with the early (1970) Parliament song “I Call My Baby Pussycat,” which pairs a rockin’ intro to a high-voltage soundtrack with funky flow and chaotic instrumentation and vox. Blues legend John Lee Hooker is represented by the anthology’s title track, “The Motor City Is Burning” a stone-cold boogie-rock tune with scrappy guitar and a heart full of napalm. The L.A. based Sussex Records label wasn’t around for long (1969-1975) but they released several cool records by Detroit artists like Dennis Coffey & the Detroit Guitar Band (the Top 10 instrumental hit “Scorpio”) and Sixto Rodriguez (discovered and produced by Coffey, it would take audiences 40+ years to discover his sublime, Dylanesque “Inner City Blues”). Rare Earth was Motown’s “rock” imprint, but they were also a band whose 1968 “Sidewalk Café” offers up a pulse-quickening joyful noise mixing rock and soul. Another band on the label was the hard-rockin’ Sunday Funnies, whose 1971 single “Walk Down the Path of Freedom” reminds one of a bluesier Bob Seger with loudly-spinning guitars and keyboards. Another underrated Detroit rocker, Ruth Copeland’s cover of the Stones’ “Gimme Shelter” is pure fire & brimstone with fatback git licks courtesy of Funkadelic’s Eddie Hazel and Ray Monette, from Dennis Coffey’s band.  

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

To be honest, Cherry Red had me hooked with the initial premise, and I have to say that producer Wells did a yeoman’s job in collecting some tasty treats from the deepest, funkiest vaults of Motor City rock ‘n’ soul for this anthology. Sure, there are plenty of “marquee” attractions here, artists of a high degree of familiarity to attract the punters. It’s the obscurities and rarities found in the other grooves, however, that make Motor City Is Burning both an entertaining and historical collection of performances from one of the grandest, and grittiest music scenes to ever take root in the continental U.S., a scene that continues to burn out of control to this day. Grade: A+ (Grapefruit Records/Cherry Red, released March 17th, 2025)

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Archive Review: Various Artists - CBGB’s and the Birth of Punk (2002)

A fleabit Bowery dive every bit as filthy as its reputation makes it out to be, CBGB’s has earned its place in history as the nursery school of punk rock. The Reverend made his pilgrimage to this rock ‘n’ roll mecca back in ‘82, hitting the club with some friends after a long night drinking pitchers of Rolling Rock at the Village’s Rooftop Tavern with the ghost of Jackson Pollock. The bands were largely unknown (tho’ the Dancin’ Hoods did subsequently make a couple good albums), the beer was warm and CBGB’s bathroom was worse than any Southern truckstop I’d ever thrown up in.

To top it all off, I left behind the umbrella I had bought on the street from a Korean grocer earlier that day. ‘Course, by 1982, Joey, Stiv, Debbie and Richard had shuffled off to greener pastures and even Lester had left this mortal coil. CBGB’s was still the coolest place on the planet to be at that moment and if we experienced even a little of the club’s famed vibe, it was worth the sojourn.   
   

CBGB’s and the Birth of Punk

The club’s legend, of course, is not based on its ambiance (dark and smelly) or even its shithole bathrooms (proudly pictured on a CBGB’s T-shirt available on the club’s web site). The many talented bands that graced the stage at CBGB’s in the early-to-late seventies is what earned the club and its proprietor Hilly Krystal a place in rock ‘n’ roll history. As outlined in British music journalist Johnny Chandler’s liner notes for CBGB’s and the Birth of U.S. Punk, Krystal originally opened the club in 1973 in New York’s run-down Bowery district as a venue for “Country, Bluegrass and Blues” (CBGB). Crowds weren’t exactly queuing up to buy tickets for the club so when Television’s Tom Verlaine and Richard Hell approached Krystal in early ‘74 about becoming a sort of house band, playing the same night every week, he agreed. Soon folks like the Ramones, Debbie Harry, and Patti Smith were hanging out, performing, and creating a music scene that would have worldwide impact. Krystal was never afraid to book unsigned bands, thus opening the club up to the best and the brightest talents from across the country.

Compiled by Chandler, the U.K. CD release of CBGB’s and the Birth of U.S. Punk offers up a dozen and a half tracks, ranging from important punk antecedents like the Velvet Underground and the Stooges to 1960s-era garage bands like the Seeds and the Sonics. A fair representation of homegrown N.Y.C. talent is included, such as the New York Dolls (who frequently performed at the Mercer rather than CBGB), Suicide, Johnny Thunders & the Heartbreakers, and the Ramones. Some of the big names associated with the club are included, such as Blondie, the Dead Boys, and Television, represented here by an unreleased live version of “Friction” actually recorded in New Jersey.

Licensing difficulties obviously influenced the track selection, since there’s nothing here from the Talking Heads or Patti Smith, both important CBGB’s attractions back in the day. Cleveland’s Electric Eels and Pere Ubu merit inclusion, both bands having made an important trek to New York to perform at the club. Chandler’s odd choice of a Dead Kennedys’ song – certainly better suited to a West Coast punk rock compilation – stands out quite starkly. CBGB’s and the Birth of U.S. Punk is meant to provide an audio history of both the NYC scene and its impact on what would later become known as “punk rock.” Chandler has done a fairly admirable job in assembling the compilation, tracing the evolution of punk’s first generation from its ‘60s roots to its inevitable early 1980s conclusion as it crashed-and-burned under the weight of its own ambitions.

Touchstones In Rock ‘n’ Roll History

However, do we really a document such as this? Of the artists included on the CD that actually haunted the CBGB’s stage at some time, only a handful of them made it into the 1980s intact, and only the Ramones and Pere Ubu stretched a career into the ‘90s. Although nearly every band featured here had some small degree of influence on modern music, most are merely the favorites of aging and overwrought critics and record collectors with too much time on their hands. Likewise, the dubious influence of bands such as the Velvet Underground, the New York Dolls, the 13th Floor Elevators, and Television is overstated – none experienced a significant enough commercial presence to influence listeners beyond their inner circle. They are touchstones in rock ‘n’ roll history – more people are familiar with their names than with their music.   

Ask the average fan of, say, Down By Law or Pennywise about CBGB’s and they might mumble something about the Ramones and not much else. Although still offering live bands seven days a week, I’d bet the farm that Krystal makes more money hawking CBGB’s T-shirts online than he does from the club’s take at the door. CBGB is a symbol of a long-passed era, an aberration in time rather than a thriving creative venue. The legendary Cantrell’s club in Nashville provides as much the same sort of looking glass into the past for Music City scenesters. The club featured national acts like the Replacements alongside local talents like Jason & the Scorchers and the White Animals during the 1980s. In both cases, the long-term influence of either CBGB or Cantrell’s on their city’s local music scenes is inconsequential beyond their status as brief historical curiosities.  

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

The British fascination with the roots of punk (or sixties garage rock, for that matter) is admirable, especially considering American fast-food culture that ignores the past in favor of a bright, shining present. There comes a time, however, when we have to stop obsessing with the past. I like the New York Dolls, the Stooges, Television, and the Ramones every bit as much as the next fellow, but it is unlikely that yet another compilation featuring these artists is going to change the world, much less attract many new listeners.

CBGB’s, the club, and the punk rock era that it ushered in has been documented to death. Being the consummate record geek, the Reverend bought a copy of CBGB’s and the Birth of U.S. Punk just like many of you. However, from my seat, the compilation smells like a rotting corpse, Chandler’s erstwhile efforts akin to necrophilia. Your money is better spent on a White Stripes CD or perhaps a Ramones reissue. (Ocho Records, released April 8th, 2002)

Review originally published by Alt.Culture.Guide™

Archive Review: Iggy & the Stooges' Your Pretty Face Is Going to Hell (1999)

When Elektra Records dumped the Stooges way back in 1971, how could they have known that they had unleashed a literal Frankenstein’s monster of rock ‘n’ roll? Better than a quarter of a century has passed since Elektra released The Stooges and Fun House, and both albums remain happily in print, threatening another young rock generation with their uncompromising musical anarchy and seemingly boundless, chaotic energy. Throw in Columbia’s recent reissue of Raw Power, credited to Iggy & the Stooges and consisting of a reunited and expanded band, and you have three classic albums that, while not chalking up very impressive sales numbers upon their initial release, nonetheless remain among a handful of the most influential rock recordings ever made.

Credit in part is due to Iggy Pop, née Iggy Stooge. Perhaps the most enduring of rock’s legendary wildmen, Iggy’s cult of personality has propped up numerous artistic incarnations and is nearly thirty years old and still going strong. From metalheads to punk rockers, the amazing Iggy is the godfather of them all. This ever-growing fan base has led to an unbelievable number of album releases through the years – some legitimate and some not – that have seemingly shown Iggy, both solo and with the Stooges, in just about every light. There seems to be no end to Iggymania, though, as this release from England’s Snapper Music illustrates. Your Pretty Face Is Going to Hell is another retelling of the Stooges’ legend, and not a half-bad one at that. 

The material collected for Your Pretty Face Is Going to Hell is strictly from the archives, i.e. of interest primarily to collectors and not the casual fan of Iggy or the Stooges. Assorted studio outtakes, a few live tracks, and some demo tapes, some of this been released before on other albums, while other tracks have circulated in the tape trading and bootleg communities. Since this stuff was dug out of the vaults, apparently without much post-production added to the tracks, the sound quality varies wildly, from muddy studio tracks to bright, tinny radio broadcasts.

There are some good performances here, though, including a brilliant studio take of “Cock In My Pocket,” an over-the-edge version of “Open Up and Bleed,” and a wonderful rehearsal take of “Johanna.” A live radio broadcast of “Raw Power,” although of mediocre sound quality, nonetheless sounds great when you turn it up loud, while the bonus tracks, “Tight Pants” and “Scene of the Crime” are an eerie musical foreshadowing of the British punk that would follow, all muscle and bad attitude. Your Pretty Face Is Going to Hell may not win points for beauty or aesthetic quality, but for raw, primal rock ‘n’ roll energy and cheap thrills, it works pretty well. (Snapper Music, 1998)

Review originally published by Alt.Culture.Guide™, 1999

Buy the CD from Amazon.com: Iggy & the Stooges’ Your Pretty Face Is Going to Hell

DVD Preview: Louder Than Love - The Grande Ballroom Story

It was one of a handful of legendary American music venues, and the epicenter of the high-octane Detroit rock ‘n’ roll scene. Originally opened in 1928 as a popular dance hall, the historic Grande Ballroom was bought in 1966 by local high school teacher and radio DJ Russ Gibbs, who envisioned a venue similar to the Fillmore in San Francisco. Working with like-minded local counterculture figures John Sinclair (poet, musician, and MC5 manager) and High “Jeep” Holland (producer and manager of local bands), they booked a veritable “who’s who” of classic rock and blues artists to perform at the venue between 1966 and 1972, including Eric Clapton and Cream, Led Zeppelin, Janis Joplin, Howlin’ Wolf, the Who, and the Grateful Dead. Motor City rock legends the MC5 were frequent performers at the Grande, as were local rockers like Iggy & the Stooges, SRC, Catfish, Frost, Ted Nugent, and Savage Grace, among others.

On June 10th, 2016 our friends at Music Video Distributors will release Louder Than Love - The Grande Ballroom Story on DVD. Produced and directed by Tony D’Annunzio, the award-winning documentary film has enjoyed boffo screenings at nearly three dozen different film festivals around the world since its April 2012 debut to sold-out audiences in Detroit, including the Nashville Film Festival, Australia DocWeek, and the CBGB/NYC Music & Film festival. Filmmaker Michael Moore – a Flint, Michigan native – personally chose Louder Than Love for his Traverse City Film Festival, describing the movie as “an amazing look back at the talent and creative culture produced in this state.”  

“The Grande Ballroom era is potentially the greatest untold story in rock and roll history,’ says director D’Annunzio, a Detroit native, in a press release for the DVD. “With everything Detroit has been through in the last several decades, I wanted to let folks know that aside from the automobile industry, the city has some amazing musical history which helped shape American pop culture.” The filmmaker collected more than 75 hours of interviews with both local and international musicians who performed at the Grande Ballroom, including B.B. King, Alice Cooper, Scott Morgan (The Rationals), Wayne Kramer (The MC5), Dick Wagner (Frost), Ted Nugent, and James Williamson (The Stooges), among others.

D’Annunzio also gathered over 500 never-before-seen archival photos taken by professional photographers and fans of Grande Ballroom performers like the Who, Albert King, Jeff Beck Group, Iron Butterfly, the MC5, Traffic, and others. “We have incredible 8mm film of The Who performing ‘Tommy’ for the first time, including an audio recording by Pete Townsend explaining ‘Tommy’ to The Grande audience. Both have never been seen or heard in any documentary,” D’Annunzio notes. Showcasing the legacy of of one of the most influential music venues in rock ‘n’ roll history, you’re going to want to check out Louder Than Love - The Grande Ballroom Story!

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Fossils: Iggy and the Stooges' Raw Power (1973)

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Iggy and the Stooges – Raw Power

The early 1970s was a tumultuous time for Iggy Pop and the (Psychedelic) Stooges. While the band had released a pair of critically-acclaimed albums in The Stooges (1969) and Fun House (1970) that would eventually become two of the most influential and iconic albums in rock music history. Both albums were deemed commercial busts, though, and the band couldn’t get arrested even in their Motor City hometown. As the various members drifted into hardcore substance abuse, Iggy tried to keep the band afloat by juggling the line-up and adding underrated guitarist James Williamson, but it looked as if the Stooges were about to become mere rock ‘n’ roll footnotes when an unexpected savior stepped in to put the band on the road to immortality.

A chance meeting in 1972 between Iggy Pop and David Bowie would lead to the British glam-rock star taking the wheel of the badly listing Stooges ship of state and, temporarily at least, setting the band on a straight course. Bowie’s manager took on the band, and the singer – who was at the height of his Ziggy Stardust era fame – took the band into the studio to record their important, groundbreaking third album. Released in 1973, Raw Power would ultimately provide a template for young punks around the world to follow just a couple years later, and songs like “Search and Destroy,” “Gimme Danger,” “Your Pretty Face Is Going To Hell,” and the high-octane title track would inspire a several subsequent generations of young, loud, and snotty rockers.

The Columbia Records ad for the album featured the iconic photo of a young Iggy Stooge strangling the microphone alongside influential quotes from Creem magazine’s Dave Marsh and Rolling Stone’s Lenny Kaye (future Patti Smith Band guitarist)…simple, but effective, conveying both the band’s sense of danger (now billed as “Iggy and the Stooges”) and the energetic nature of the music to be found in the grooves.