Friday, June 06, 2003 :::
More Motor City Madness Rock n' Roll Memories
I like to think my friends and I in high school had pretty good musical taste. We all went through our different phases: 60's music, punk and new wave, heavy metal, some of the shit that was then popular, and we all had our guilty pleasures.
I honestly believe at least 75% of the people in my high school owned these two albums at one time or another: Boston's first album and Van Halen's first album.
One album my three closest friends and I all had, you could get it at any record store in town for $5.00, was an anthology called Michigan Rocks. The record company that released it was called "Seeds and Stems," go figure. Apparently the guy who put it out actually paid for the music rights, there is a little blurb on him about halfway down this page under "Tom Connor: Unheralded Record Producer."
Here is the cover:
A real treat on this record was the song "Journey to the Center of the Mind" by The Amboy Dukes. It was psychedelic, with some abrupt chord changes, Beatle-esque harmonies, and good cheap guitar solo by a young Ted Nugent. Another highlight of the album was the live version of "Kick Out the Jams" by The MC5. Whenever you heard the song on the radio, and the 45 single I had, the concert announcer on the record said "Alright brothers and sisters, its time to kick out the jams!," and then the band would crunch into their anarchist, proto-punk / heavy metal / post-grunge before there was grunge sound. But on Michigan Rocks the announcer said "Alright motherfuckers, its time to kick out the jams!"
Things like that were important when I was 16 or 17 years old.
Of course the album wasn't complete without the Bob Seger System, The Stooges, and Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels. This album also exposed me to groups like Third Power and SRC. To be honest, I could have lived my entire life without hearing those last two bands and been just fine.
I had not thought about Michigan Rocks for a long time and it bubbled to the surface while chatting online with Big Ed about Detroit Rock City.
I still have my copy.
Quote of the Day:
It would be superfluous in me to point out to your Lordship that this is war.
--- Charles Francis Adams, U.S. Ambassador to Great Britain, a dispatch to Earl Russell during the Trent Affair, September 5, 1863.
::: posted by tom at 11:13 PM
