Ben Waugh, Bootsy, The Sillies
With the Detroit Punk Archive Project, St. Mary hopes to spotlight the hidden history of Detroit's music scene starting in 1979 — specifically, that of Bookie's Club 870, which St. Mary equates as Detroit's own overlooked and underloved CBGB's. The project is an extension of The Orbit Magazine Anthology, his four-year passion project released in 2015 that was a totally wild behind-the-scenes look into Detroit's alt-media origins and Orbit magazine madman Jerry Vile.
So far, St. Mary is off to a pretty good start. The Knight Foundation recently awarded the project a $15,000 matching grant so that St. Mary could reach his goal of creating an expansive and interactive archival website documenting the music scene with interviews, fliers, stories, and, of course, music — with plans to release three vinyl records of re-issued, unreleased material. As of this writing, the fundraising campaign has reached $3,335 of his $15,000 goal, and has 45 days to make it happen.
In addition to donations, the Detroit Punk Archive Project is seeking your stories, images, relics, and audio clips from the bygone era of Bookie's heyday. Do you have photos of when the Romantics took the stage? Were you there when the Cramps performed? Did you get lucky in the bathroom during a Cult Heroes show? Do you still have that Destroy All Monsters flier you did coke off of?
You can listen to some sample tracks below, and reach out to the Detroit Punk Archive Project to contribute.
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