Look, we’re not here to crook our backs and give ourselves head, but we must say, if anything, Blowout 2005 showed us this: There’s a new generation of fresh-faced kids coming up in Detroit making admirable racket; they’re full of new ideas, new hope and, best of all, new, unjaded energy. And while we hastily salute the shifting of Motor City sounds, and will in the future give you stories on the worthwhile ones, here’s a cap of some droll moments:
We overheard multiple cell-phone conversations of eager people goading friends to drive down to witness Seduce guitar hero David Black play with Crud. Too, a catfight ensued after Crud’s set on Thursday at Knights of Columbus, which we unfortunately missed. The Frustrations, a trio of gangly teens (the oldest being 18) from Royal Oak blew in a things-toppling-over rock ’n’ roll show Thursday at the Locker Room: a wonderfully chaotic tuneful mess of bent surf, and art-damaged chordage in front of a few shy band girlfriends, us and Matt Smith. This band was inspiring, emblematic of new, young Detroit rock ’n’ roll. A confused Nathaniel Mayer rushed into the unisex bathroom as Heather Allegrina-Bowe (wife of Creem editor Brian Bowe) stepped out of the stall and some dude whizzed at the urinal and shouted in his patented sex-growl “Whaaat the heelll is goooing on in here!” moments before swaggering on stage for a slightly sleazy but stellar, star-fortified performance at Small’s. A sweaty, ruddy-faced, heckling suburbanite at the crammed and chemically enhanced Sights show whose mantra of “you guys fucking suck” was only surpassed by his chirping to one of us, “Hey Joey Ramone, what the fuck are you looking at?” Amino Acids blew out the power Saturday at the Locker Room, leaving many in the dark. And finally, from the “It ain’t a Detroit party until somebody’s mustache gets ripped off” department: A wink-wink to Deuce, the comely Gore Gore Girl low-ender, for ending the pre-party festivities at the Majestic complex with a bang, er, a rip. The sexily soused bassist was so convinced that Birdgang’s Jeff Schwarz’s wicked handlebar ’stache was a stick-on that she reached out and gave it a booze-fueled yank. Lo and behold, the mustache gave way — as did some skin, follicles and, well, all sense of normalcy. A moment later — for what Deuce referred to as “symmetry’s sake” — the ballsy chick relieved Schwarz of the other side of his lip hair and the two were seen tumbling around on the floor. Our crack team of reporters actually retrieved the evidence (see pic) from the sticky Magic Stick carpet.
The idea of Blowout 2005 was to be a fist-jacking celebration of Detroit music, and it worked on every level, slim turnouts on many of the Thursday showcases notwithstanding. Sets worth mentioning include ones by the Hard Lessons, Bulldog, the Sights, Audra Kubat, Mu, Cashada, the Muggs, Saturday Looks Good To Me, Man Inc., Thunderbirds Are Now!, Bang Bang, Porchsleeper, the Holy Fire, Nomo, the Prime Ministers, Dorkwave, Paik, His Name is Alive, the Tides, Candy Band, Wasted Youth, the Woebegones, Battling Siki (with Hard Lesson Augie), the Dollfaces, Tiny Steps, the Straight Jacket records showcase, Loretta Lucas, Nick Pivot’s Cocktail Shake (with Sight Eddie), the last-ever show of Detroit City Council, Black Bottom Collective, Lee Marvin Computer Arm and so on; really, too many to run down.
More blow jobs: Kudos to the 35 Metro Times interns (headed by Colleen McKinney), the Hamtramck venues, all performers and trolley drivers and Blowout 2005 promoter Anthony Morrow; this one usurped all previous fests, boasting more than 7,000 attendees teeming Hamtown streets. Better still, there were no arrests, and maybe two fights. Not bad considering the thousands of gallons of beer sucked down. Kisses to the unpaid Motorcityrocks.com scribes for daily (well, almost) Blowout reviews on their site.
And we found this, a site with select live Mp3s of Blowout performances (www.visualnoiz.com/multimedia/MP3/2005_Blowout/).
For more Blowout on-scene pics go to www.metrotimes.com.
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