Blitz #38 (Detroit / L.A.)

Either I have copies and just haven't dug them out of a box yet after our recent move, or else I never had them in the first place, but I'm missing three issues of Detroit's Blitz (they dropped the "!" somewhere during the year) from 1980. Sometime during the year, health problems caused Blitz publisher/editor Mike McDowell to forsake the cold, snowy winters of southern Michigan for the warmer, more attractive climate of southern California. With this issue, Blitz had successfully relocated to Los Angeles and increased the size of the zine from its traditional 7.5"x10.5" to a more-professional-looking 8.25"x10.75" magazine size. Unfortunately, the editorial decline that had begun during late-79 had obviously followed Mike to L.A. as this issue is the weakest (in my estimation), editorially, of any in my admittedly small collection.

Blitz issue #38 features a cover story on the Four Preps, including an interview with Ed Cobb, and a piece on the Jan & Dean 1980 summer tour. On the plus side, this issue includes an interview with Detroit rock legend Mitch Ryder, who was staging a "comeback" at the time. I remember Bob Seger's massive, nine-night sell-out of the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit during the summer of '80s where he brought in Ryder to open for him. My brother Greg and I got lucky enough to see three shows during the stand and Ryder kicked ass! This issue of Blitz also includes an interesting interview with Jimmy O'Neill, the host of the TV show Shindig!

With this issue, McDowell also expanded his "local scene" coverage with reports from Detroit, Los Angeles, Miami, Boston, Toronto and Chicago, which was written by my old buddy and music biz PR wiz Cary Baker. Blitz also continued to cover 45rpm vinyl, this issue featuring reviews of singles from the Clash, the Barracudas, Cub Koda & the Points, the Undertones and the Zantees, among others. LP reviews this issue included Blotto, SVT, the Pirates, Teenage Head and the Tremblers.

This is the last issue that I remember seeing of Blitz, since I later moved back to Nashville from Detroit in mid-81, just in time to catch the initial stirrings of a growing Music City rock scene. I recently dug up this blog for the zine, created by Mike McDowell, who has evidently been publishing in some form or another, since launching his original Ballroom Blitz! music zine back in 1975. Overall, I've enjoyed Blitz! as much or more than many of the small-press music zines that I've run across or have been associated with, and I've gone back to the handful of issues that I have for reference time and time again. I have to applaud McDowell for sticking by his guns and continuing to publish Blitz! through the years, bringing his own individual rock & roll vision to the pages of the zine.

Mike McDowell's Blitz!: http://blitzmag.blogspot.com/

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VITAL STATISTICS:
• Issue #38
• November-December 1980
• B&W, 28-pages (including covers)
• Style: music zine

ARTICLES
Mitch Ryder
Jan & Dean
The MNM's
Luxury
Ed Cobb/The Four Preps
--> also album reviews, reader mail and local music news from Detroit, Boston, Chicago and L.A.