Alice Cooper performs at Rock the Rapids in Grand Rapids, 2011 | MLive.com file photo
By John Serba | jserba@mlive.com
Detroit has one of the country's proudest rock 'n' roll histories. This is outside the city's obvious significant and great musical contributions via Motown, techno and hip-hop - we're talking guitars, bass, drums and attitude. Apt for the Motor City, its rock is identified via automobile terminology - garage rock, a defiant, sometimes noisy, riff-driven sound rooted in blue-collar aesthetics.
Sure, New York City, Los Angeles and San Francisco are touted among the U.S.' greatest cities for rock 'n' roll, but that's almost by default - they're population epicenters rich with culture by sheer size. For quality over quantity, Detroit is easily one of the richest epicenters of rock music, ever. From To back this undeniable assertion, here's a rundown of Detroit's rock history, from The Stooges to The Coop to The White Stripes.
It's one of the birthplaces of punk
First, Detroit is one of the epicenters of punk rock. Mabye the city is the birthplace of punk, but that's a point we could argue long into the night over too many six-packs of Stroh's. Nevertheless, two of the genre's sonic pillars emerged from the Motor City music scene - two bands without whom the Ramones might not exist, two bands that would leave an indelible mark on music forever.
Iggy Pop performing in Ann Arbor, 2011 | MLive.com file photo
The Stooges
NO FUN: The Stooges were young, loud, ugly, sloppy, angry, raw and trashed, all elements exquisitely represented by Iggy Pop, who’s an easy finalist for greatest rock frontman of all time. They shoved everything right in your face, and didn’t give a… darn.
From its Detroit-via-Ann Arbor garage, the band produced the disaffected noise of their generation: artfully primitive, stripped down to the essentials of chords, beats and emotions. Released between 1969 and 1973, “The Stooges,” “Fun House” and “Raw Power” comprise a proto-punk holy trinity rivaled by none. The Stooges were never Detroit’s most popular or commercially successful band. But they’re certainly Detroit’s most influential.
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KICK OUT THE JAMS: The Motor City 5 aligned their crashing chords with radical political movements - punctuated by the defiant deployment of a particular 12-letter obscenity - to become one of the most incendiary live acts of the time, and possibly all time. That's why breakthrough debut record "Kick Out the Jams" was recorded live at Detroit's Grande Ballroom.
(Note: video contains adult language.)
Like The Stooges, the MC5 proved too fiery and volatile a unit for a music-biz run of any significant length, imploding after three albums. But both bands burned hotter and brighter than most. A few years later, punk popped in New York City and London, but it happened first in Detroit.
Bob Seger
One of the great rock songwriters of his generation, Seger was a journeyman touring artist for a decade-and-a-half, playing every nook and cranny throughout Michigan and the Midwest before breaking through to the mainstream in the mid-1970s. That rightly earned him the reputation as the hard-working man’s rocker du jour, an ethic perfectly representing his hometown of Detroit.
Bob Seger at the Jackson County Fair, 1976 | MLive file photo
Backed by the Silver Bullet Band, Seger released “Live Bullet,” recorded during a Cobo Hall concert, in 1975, and subsequently enjoyed significant commercial success for the next dozen years: “Old Time Rock and Roll,” “Night Moves,” “Mainstreet,” “Turn the Page,” “Like a Rock,” “You’ll Accomp’ny Me,” “We’ve Got Tonight,” “Against the Wind” and “Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Man” make for a perfect greatest hits compilation - or “playlist” for you young’uns out there - one many songwriters would envy.
Bob Seger at Dow Event Center in Saginaw, 2014 | MLive file photo
Seger ended a decade of retirement in 2006, releasing two new albums and returning to the live-music circuit, drawing his biggest crowds right where he started - here in the heartland.
Alice Cooper
Thee original mega-theatrical shock rocker, the Coop - real name Vincent Furnier - grew up in Detroit before his family moved to Phoenix, Ariz., where he began his musical career. But his heart remained in the Motor City, his sound rooted in the defiant clatter of Midwestern post-blues garage-rock.
Alice Cooper performing in Bay City, 2014 | MLive.com file photo
Alice is one of the most recognizable characters in rock history, a larger-than-life cross-dressing ghoul in Baby Jane makeup, wearing a boa constrictor and carrying a cane like the world’s most demented circus ringmaster. He’s best known for being electrocuted and decapitated on stage - and for inspiring the likes of KISS and Marilyn Manson.
His hits ranged from youthful paeans “I’m Eighteen” and “School’s Out” to smart ballad “Only Women Bleed” to riff rockers “Under my Wheels” and “No More Mr. Nice Guy.” Truth is, Alice is one of the nicest guys in rock, and still puts on a professional, entertaining, must-see live show, 50 years into his career.
Glenn Frey performs with the Eagles at Van Andel Arena in Grand Rapids, 2004 | MLive file photo
Glenn Frey
So, the $25,000 question: Do the Eagles play rock 'n' roll? Ehh. Maybe. Sometimes. Sort of. (Being in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame doesn't necessarily mean one plays rock music.) But any retrospective on Detroit rock that doesn't include Glenn Frey is flawed. Born in Detroit and raised in Royal Oak, Frey was a significant part of the city's music scene, playing in many bands and palling around with Bob Seger (Frey played guitar and sang background vocals on "Ramblin' Gamblin' Man"). When Frey passed away in 2016, Detroit mourned heavily.
Frey moved to California in the late 1960s, met Don Henley in 1970, and the rest is history. Once the group spectacularly self-destructed (only to get back together many years later, and all that), Frey enjoyed a significant solo career in spiked with a handful of slick ’80s hits, the biggest ones associated with movie and TV soundtracks: “The Heat is On” for “Beverly Hills Cop,” “Shakedown” for “Beverly Hills Cop II” and “You Belong to the City” and “Smuggler’s Blues” for “Miami Vice.” Those are all considerably more rockin’ than “Take It Easy.”
The White Stripes
Of course the leader of the new-millennium garage rock revival is from Detroit. OF COURSE. The earth might spin off its axis if it wasn’t. Anyway, that leader was The White Stripes, the then-husband-and-wife duo of Jack and Meg White, who played a distinctive and crude blues time-warped from the analog days of reel-to-reel recorders and fuzz pedals.
“Fell in Love With a Girl” and “Hotel Yorba” reflect the raw directness of their early years; the unmistakable crunch of “Seven Nation Army,” the song played over the PA system of every sporting event you’ve ever been to, marked their commercial breakthrough; latter hits “Icky Thump” and “Blue Orchid” show a progression toward more layered, experimental sounds. The duo split in 2011.
Meg White has kept a low profile since The White Stripes disbanded. Jack White become a musician of considerable influence, integrity and relevance. He's a purist in a time when rock 'n' roll is more niche than commercial force. Although he lives in Nashville, Jack continues to support his hometown, performing special concerts, bailing the Detroit Masonic Temple out of its tax debt and opening the Third Man record store and record-pressing plant in the city.
Ted Nugent at the Jackson County Fair, 1994 | MLive file photo
Ted Nugent
The Motor City’s self-proclaimed “madman,” The Nuge, Uncle Ted, Terrible Ted, the Whackmaster, is a conundrum for some, specifically those who appreciate his wild and ribald rock ‘n’ roll but cringe at his equally loud socio-political opinions. So we’ll stick to the music here: He began his career with psych-rockers the Amboy Dukes, eventually going solo and writing some of the most awesome, colossally dumb hard-rock guitar riffs in music history: “Cat Scratch Fever,” “Stranglehold,” “Dog Eat Dog.” He’s certainly one of the most significant guitar heroes of the 1970s.
He subsequently joined Styx’s Tommy Shaw and Night Ranger’s Jack Blades in platinum-selling supergroup Damn Yankees, remembered for smash hit ballad “High Enough.” But since then, his extramusical antics - do I really need to detail them here? - have pretty much overshadowed his career as a songwriter and scorching guitarist.
Kid Rock at Allegan County Fair, 2014 | MLive file photo
Kid Rock
Every Michigan musicphile has an “early Kid Rock” story - in my hometown of Grand Rapids, it was seeing him in the early 1990s, his high-top-fade years, unloading turntables from his trunk and rapping at the local dive, the Reptile House, to a couple dozen people, and doing costume changes anyway. Now, he’s a crossover star, an outspoken (for better or worse; like Nugent, his politics have made him a divisive figure) and self-made icon, on the downside of his commercial peak, yet still able to sell out multiple nights in a row at Pine Knob- er, I mean, DTE Energy Music Theatre.
It’s hard to know where to begin with Kid Rock, who traversed multiple genres: hip-hop, rock, metal, country and the handful of godforsaken blends of the aforementioned sounds, which boosted his appeal to numerous marketing demographics. He’s a savvy guy. Sure, he was probably the first to play “hick-hop,” but you can’t blame him for being an innovator. Hits “Bawitdaba,” “Only God Knows Why,” “Cowboy,” “Picture” and “All Summer Long” showcase his significant musical diversity.
Negative Approach
One of hardcore punk’s pioneering groups, Negative Approach was matched in its savagery by few of its peers (see: Bad Brains, Black Flag, Minor Threat, the Dead Kennedys), all of whom made punk rock faster and nastier. NA burned hot and quick, releasing an EP and a full-length LP before breaking up, leaving a big, smoking crater behind; they reformed in the mid-2000s, and still play live.
CHECK IT OUT: Negative Approach singer John Brannon, one of the true characters of the Detroit music scene, subsequently formed Laughing Hyenas (who worked with producer Butch Vig, pre-fame) and Easy Action, both grossly underrated acts which will rock yer face right off.
Death
From 1971-77, the three Hackney brothers from Detroit, inspired by The Who and Alice Cooper, toiled in obscurity, producing high-velocity demos heard by almost no one. Decades later, Death's story became a dream realized for music obsessives: dusty old tapes found in an attic, and they contained real genius, the missing link between Motor City innovators the Stooges and MC5 and the wildly popular punk of the Ramones and Sex Pistols. The rereleased tapes, "...For the Whole World to See," is now an essential piece of the Detroit rock 'n' roll collage. (The documentary "A Band Called Death" tells their extraordinary story with the dutiful respect they deserve.)
The Gories/The Dirtbombs
Singer/guitarist Mick Collins is the common element of these two underground bands, beloved by the fistful of folk who love their punk trashy and their trash punky. Active in the late 1980s and early ’90s, and listed as an influence by Jack White, The Gories were one of the first acts to smash the DIY punk-rock philosophy with primitivist blues and soul (a sound later popularized, relatively speaking, by The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion and other indie rockers of the 1990s). Collin’s post-Gories act The Dirtbombs boasted a cleaner sound, and enjoyed greater notoriety as a live act; the garage-rock revival boosted the band’s profile, and fueled acclaim for albums such as “Ultraglide in Black” and “Dangerous Magical Noise.”
Bill Haley
Haley is included here, albeit with an asterisk. He was born in Metro Detroit - Highland Park, to be exact - but only lived there until he was seven years old. Of course, he went on to make history as the voice of the first-ever rock ‘n’ roll band, Bill Haley and His Comets, whose “Rock Around the Clock” helped define and popularize a genre. Can his city of origin take some credit for that? I think so.
Bonus: Kiss, 'Detroit Rock City'
No, Kiss isn’t from Michigan. But Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons didn’t write a song called “Bug Tussle Rock City” to pander to Oklahomans’ sense of rock ‘n’ roll pride. It’s a deserving testament to Detroit being one of the great pillars in rock music.
Clint Eastwood in "Gran Torino." (Photo provided to MLive.com by Warner Bros.)
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