Abandoned Detroit - The City of Neglect

Still hungry for more Detroit ruin porn? Follow along as Bob, aka Detroit Unseen, takes you on a journey documenting the spectacular ruins of Detroit and his personal recovery from drug addiction.
There's no shortage of web sites and short films documenting the rise and fall and current revival of Detroit, but the city's legacy is vast and star-crossed enough to support yet another take on the subject. It could benefit from some tighter edits, but there's a pandemic on and it's not exactly like most of us are pressed for time.

From the filmmaker: 

With Detroit you take the good with the bad, recognize the good as it comes and preserve the good that has come before. Many that enter the City of Detroit can sense the urgency of change and the spirit of reinvention. We certainly understand this, and the photos represent what we have seen along the way. The Flag of Detroit contains the two Latin slogans “Speramus Meliora” and “Resurget Cineribus” meaning “We hope for better things” and “It will rise from the ashes.” The prophetic phrases originally created in reference to the great fire of 1805, ring true more now than ever. We take these slogans to heart everyday as we go out and explore our great city.

Descent into The Maelstrom: Radio Birdman Documentary Nearing Completion

Born in Ann Arbor, Deniz Tek grew up in the wake of the region's prolific underground music scene  soaking up the inescapable sonic influence the Stooges, MC5, and the rest of the Rust Belt Guitar Army. So when he split town for Australia in 1972, it didn't take long for him to apply the sound and attitude of his formative years to a musical effort down under. Although Tek would ultimately be associated with numerous combos including TV Jones and New Race (with Ron Asheton from the Stooges and Dennis Thompson of the MC5), it's Radio Birdman where he made his bones. 

Considering glut of documentaries currently clogging up viewersphere, we're hoping this one finds a way to stand on its own legs and drops some genuine knowledge.
Deniz Tek's website
The Radio Birdman Story, #deniztek, #radiobirdman

The Legendary Cobo

The Legendary Cobo from Douglas Akers on Vimeo.

Just as the highly anticipated Grande Ballroom doc "Louder Than  Love" has (finally!) started appearing on the film festival circuit, the makers of an equally exciting and long-brewing Motor City-centric project have turned to kickstarter in search of funds to turn their vision into reality. Picking up where the the Grande, Cinderella, Eastown, and other legendary Detroit concert venues left off, Cobo Hall not only supplied the ambiance for live albums from Kiss, Bob Seger, Hank Williams Jr., and more, but also provided the stage for Martin Luther King to recite his "I Had a Dream" speech months before the Washington D.C. version. But that barely scratches the surface of the Cobo story. For complete details, check out the official website here: The Legendary Cobo

Faces, Cobo Hall, September 6, 1976

"We used to make Cobo Hall feel intimate. It has a really good sound in there. That was the epitome of our playing in Detroit; it never got better than that. There was just something magic about that place." IAN MCLAGAN

Detroit's Grande Ballroom: It done kicked 'em out!

Location, Location, Location.
Unlike San Francisco's Fillmore, which successfully parlayed it's late-sixties, hippie-dippy pedigree into a multi-million dollar franchise under the crafty tutelage of Bill Graham, Detroit's Grande Ballroom was virtually abandoned and left to rot, not unlike Detroit itself.

With the official release of the widely bootlegged Future/Now films documentary, MC5- A True Testimonial still(!) in limbo, it's of particular importance that Louder than Love, the Story of the Grande Ballroom, get completed and released in a timely manner, lest the rest of the world continue under the false impression that California and New York held exclusives on all of the music, revolution, and counter-culture mayhem that went down in the 60's.

The Grande's legacy may have been resurrected in the mid-80's by a new generation of fans hungry for the pure, pre-corporate, high-energy rock music that the venue fostered during its short influential reign, but the building itself has not fared nearly as well; numerous online sources offer photographic evidence of the building's structural decline, and practitioners of the urban exploration movement have produced several video accounts of exposing the decay behind the Grande's exterior walls.

Fun Fact: The debut performance of The Who's Tommy took place at the Grande.
Sour Grapes: Machine Gun Thompson of the MC5 apparently has a bone to pick with Iggy and/or the Stooges.

Even a partial listing of Grande Ballroom Alumni reveals the sonically diverse zeitgeist of the Grande's brief tenure:

The Amboy Dukes, The Animals, Jeff Beck Group, Chuck Berry, Big Brother and the Holding Company, Blood Sweat and Tears, Blue Oyster Cult, Bonzo Dog Band, Brownsville Station, Butterfield Blues Band, Canned Heat, Cream, Detroit w/Mitch Ryder, Bo Diddley, Fleetwood Mac, The Frost, Frut, Genesis, Sir Graves Ghastly, Alan Ginsburg, Golden Earring, Buddy Guy, Abbie Hoffman, John Lee Hooker, Howlin' Wolf, J Geils-who recorded their breakthrough live album Full House at Detroit's Cinderella Ballroom, The James Gang, Elton John, King Crimson, The Kinks, Led Zeppelin, MC5, NRBQ, Pink Floyd, Procol Harum, Shakey Jake, John Sinclair, Sky with future Knack leader Doug Fieger, Sly and the Family Stone, The Stooges, Third Power, T-Rex w/Marc Bolan, Turtles, The Troggs, The Who, Johnny Winter, The Yardbirds.

Kick out the jams indeed.

-toke!