Detroit Rock City (46 page)

Jon Howard:
There were all these bands that were based on noise around Ann Arbor because Detroit was so bad at the time. They'd go up and play Detroit, but it was just a crappy place to live.

John Szymanski:
We played with Monkey Tailed Skink, but we were kind of innocent kids; we didn't get too deep into the Ann Arbor scene. We went to the parties but were probably too nervous and shy. They were all at least five years older than us.

Jon Howard:
The noise scene was a little intimidating. It was kind of cliquish. I knew people, but they weren't openly looking for friends. They had their own thing going. Bulb Records was early—Andrew WK and Wolf Eyes—and they had the real DIY thing going with make-their-own tapes, their own vinyl. Everything was super limited and handmade.

Andrew WK:
Wolf Eyes originated with Nate Young and Aaron. Nate went to my high school. I was blown away by him; he was one of the people I idolized. He got kicked out of high school, so he was a sophomore when I thought he was a senior. Later he met Aaron, around the same time I did. Aaron had a band called Galen, and he moved into the Huron Street house.

Harold Richardson (
Gravitar, Easy Action, Negative Approach, guitarist
):
Huron House was this place where punk rockers lived in and they had shows in the basement. Lotta shit broken, kids puking on the steps as people were walking in to see the show. It was a place that if you were claustrophobic, you weren't going to be into it, because the place would be packed tight for almost every show.

Aaron Dilloway:
Jim Magas and Geoff Walker from Gravitar were this bridge between noise and rock. One day I went into Discount Records and saw the Couch seven-inch, and I thought, “How did they get a record out?” This was a month or so after the show with the Hyenas, and I asked Jeff what else was out there like this, and he had other things to show me. Caroliner, this SF band on Subterranean that was huge for us. We wanted to do this stuff. Put out fucked up records.

Harold Richardson:
I spent my senior year in DC after ten years in Germany. My dad was an Army officer; I was a Eurofag. I moved back, and Springsteen was really popular, and I'm still into going to discos—we made fun of all the kids going to the 9:30 Club. I went to the disco, and it was all Miami Vice—we were doing blow off girls' stomachs, and these other punk rock kids were all sober and straight edge. We thought that was weird: they were pacifists and always getting in fights and getting their ass kicked.

I had to go to college, and Central Michigan, it was the only place that would accept me in the States because I was a terrible student. When I got there in '86 Cliff Davies from Ted Nugent was living there at Mt. Pleasant, where Central is, and we both washed dishes. He told me he used to play with Nugent, and I said, “Sure you did.” Then he shows me his gold records and shit; I was like, “Wow.” He said Nuge never paid him off, so there he was, washing dishes and getting some kind
of percussion degree at Central. I moved to Ann Arbor—it was more happening for music—and then I joined Gravitar. Jim Magas and Pete Larson—man, they knew shit. I was in a band with Jim called the Browns, which Aaron Dilloway was in. Andrew was a really sharp dresser. He would make his own suits even then, and he was a shy and quiet guy; it was when he did music that he was pretty abrasive. It was a noise punk rock scene that wasn't punk rock at all. It wasn't hardcore like it was in Detroit, but more of punk rock kids that were into noise instead of just punk rock.

Aaron Dilloway:
Wolf Eyes were all in that Huron House; Nate, I and Solomon, Sol Meltzer from Nautical Almanac lived there. One morning they tried to wake me up—there was a KKK rally in Ann Arbor, and they were gonna go protest against it. I was hung over and I went back to sleep. Nate woke me up and said we have to hide Twig because the cops were looking for him because he threw rocks at the cops at the rally and he had to move to Chicago for a while. Nate made this tape of Robert Redford reading Peter and the Wolf on one side and wolf howling on the other and he took the wolf sounds and played an organ over it. He wanted me to come in and play guitar on some tracks he was working on, and he had done a show under the name Wolf Eyes—him and a keyboard that he had messed with.

Andrew WK:
We all moved to New York, where they lived with me for two months with the idea they were moving out too. We were all gonna do Wolf Eyes together, maybe call it Mini-Systems. I wanted it to be my band, and we played songs that eventually became Andrew WK songs. But they missed Michigan, and it all eventually became clear that it wasn't in the cards. And I was so sad when they left; I was back to knowing nobody. It took them being out there to make me play shows in New York. And when they went back, that's when they focused on Wolf Eyes in earnest and added John Olson not too long after. Once Wolf Eyes blew up, Wolf Eyes in my mind still has the potential to be as big as they wanna be.

Aaron Dilloway:
Andrew left, and we were constantly on the phone and sending tapes back and forth. Andrew was recording under the name Wolf Eyes at the same time as Nate and I, and eventually the plan was to get together for Wolf Eyes. But he was in New York and we were in Michigan. We moved out to New York and stayed a couple of months, but by that time he had his own thing going and we had ours. We wanted to get weirder and he wanted rock and roll. He basically said he was going to get signed to a major label and make music for as many people as possible.

Rusvelt (
Blondie's, owner
):
The cops hated me, man, oh yeah. I said I always got busted there; they didn't want the club to be there. There were always problems: the neighbors would always complain, the noise, the kids. There was a guy who used to climb the trees next to the apartment buildings by Blondie's before the show, during the show, after the show. And he would toot this horn. The neighbors would always complain. They always used to say, “That's the devil's place” and all this, and “The devil lives there and satanic bands play there.” Vice would come all the time and bust me; I was always in court all of the time. Mostly the underage drinking. The young kids came to drink. There was this kid's birthday one time, and two of his buddies are drinking and he wasn't drinking. So I went over to him and said, “Why aren't you drinking, man?” And he says, “I'm not old enough.” “So if you're not drinking, how old are you?” He says, “Well, I'm nineteen.” So I said, “If you're not drinking, then get the hell out of here.” I served everybody man. I trained everybody at the door outside if a vice cop pulls in—I trained them—all I said was, “Take all your drinks at the bar.” They all rushed to the bar, and nobody had anything at the table. We got busted, don't get me wrong; we got busted more than once for serving minors.

Bill Kozy:
Blondie's was our hangout, man. I didn't light candles and listen to Venom as some kind of ritual like a lot of the people there did. We'd go to see these wild-ass bands. That was our scene; it's where you went most nights, and there hasn't been a club like it since then.

Karen Neal:
I pulled a knife on this guy at Blondie's who was fucking with my friend, this guy Mark DeWitt. I don't remember cutting him, but I pulled. I had a straight razor in my boot, and I just like, shook it in his face, and I was fucking pissed off. He told people that I cut his hand, and I don't remember it. Later on Inside Out was playing a show at Blondie's with Heresy, and my bass got left up by the stage, so I jumped into the pit to grab, to get my bass, and DeWitt's friend came up and just—boom!—tried to break my nose. There was blood everywhere. Chuck Burns was such a gentleman. He gave me his towel to bleed on.

Rusvelt:
I opened Blondie's in 1984. It was all local bands at first, not doing much. Then this booking agent from Ann Arbor calls me and says, “We got this band from LA called Slayer. Would you be interested? $500.” So I'm like, “Let me ask around and give you a call back.” I ask the kids around, and they go, “What is it? Slayer from LA?” I said, “Yeah.” “Okay, get 'em, get 'em, get 'em.” I booked the show. I moved the stage on the other side; I knocked all the coolers out, the wall—just for that show. I was by myself, waiting for the band, and they pulled in, and the fucking tour bus is bigger than the bar. I said, “What the fuck is this?” One of them walks in and says, “I ain't playing here.” Tom Araya, the singer, says, “Oh man, this is cool. We're going to rock the house. We're going to fucking yeah yeah!” Good energy and good attitude and shit. Sound check comes, and everything's shaking; all the bottles from the bar fell down on the tiles. I had some air conditioning, and it fell right on the fucking floor, and they blew their whole PA system. I says, “What is this?” Their manager goes, “We have a better system in our basement. Are you kidding me?” So I'm on the phone going to get a better system. I was on the phone all day long, and I got a new system for the show. I had to. I didn't even have any opening bands. I charged $6, and it was packed. It was a Saturday night, and I go to the guys, “Do you want to play another night?” “Well, hell, we're off. Don't tell the agent.” So another $500. And the second night was fucking even busier. I asked them, “What do you guys need?” They go, “Man, we heard of this White Castle.” So I brought them bags and bags and bags; they got sick and were fighting it on the stage. Slayer was the beginning, and everybody started calling me—everybody in the world; it was like a snowball effect. It really started a lot of that metal scene in Detroit.

John Speck:
Blondie's was an eye opener, because fairly soon after starting to go there I realized that there were kids my age drunk at the shows, and I was underage. How was this happening? So I watched this one kid one day, like, barely peek
over the bar, walk up and buy a pitcher, and I was like, “Where's this at? Did his dad send him there?” So then it became one of those deals: walk up, and Roosevelt's at the door, and he's like, “Five bucks, kid. ID.” I'd be like, “Oh, I left my ID at home.”

“Ten bucks.” He wouldn't stamp you with the underage, and you'd walk over to the bar. “I want a pitcher of beer, please.” It was $6 for a little minipitcher. They were making a killing off of suburban punk kids getting shit-hammered and then driving drunk home with the first alcohol of their lives in their systems. I drove me and my buddies home when I was old enough to borrow my mom's car. I came to at the rumble strips while going into the center of 75 like bumpbumpbumpbump. I'm like, “UGH! Ugh!” and all my other buddies are all passed out in the car, and everyone's like, “Oh! Fuck.”

Rusvelt:
Guns ‘n' Roses came to town early on, opening up for the Cult somewhere in Detroit. I'm working the door at Blondie's, and this guy comes in on crutches. I had Diamond Rexx in from Chicago, and this guy on crutches moved the chair onto the stage and gave hell to the band. He's yelling, “You guys suck! Get off the stage!” So I went up to him and said, “Listen motherfucker, you got one leg broken, and I'm gonna break the other fucking leg! Shut your fucking mouth!” It was Axl Rose. Someone had to tell me, because I had no idea. He was a pain in the ass.

John Speck:
GG Allin show at Blondie's. My friends were all like, “Dude, this guy throws shit and shoves the microphone up his ass, and so you gotta go.” Everyone was waiting for him to go on and waiting for him to go on. I was standing kind of back because I didn't want to get shit thrown at me, and he comes out, and he comes out all “Grrraaah.” Getting all aggro with poop, and everybody starts trying to get the fuck out of the way. But there's nowhere to go because it's fairly packed. And people start trying to get where you are, and you're like, “Get the fuck away from me, motherfucker!”

Steve Nawara (
Electric Six, Detroit Cobras, bassist, guitarist
):
I was in eighth grade, and I went to see GG Allin at Blondie's. He came on, and he shit, and he started running after everyone.

He started running up everywhere. The whole place broke out into a riot. This skinhead came and hit me in the face. He was too big for me to fight back, so I looked around and there was a smaller skinhead, so I started hitting him in the face. And then, like, I'm sitting there and just didn't know what the hell was going on, and GG Allin seemed like he dropped out of the sky and landed about five feet
away from me, threw his cowboy boots up on the table, and I was just like, “What the fuck?” I was terrified.

Bill Kozy:
I ran out the door, and Rusvelt was cowering with a trash can lid, saying, “GG, what are you doing?” The barkeep, Skin, after the show, I remember him with his mop bucket just going, “Just another night.”