BIG RICH: MC5/ SRC/ DEADBOYS!

Grimshaw Poster

I put a SPELL on you! I believe it to my SOUL! The MC5 delivered a most JOYOUS message of CELEBRATION each and every time they played!


Comments included on video

No DOUBT as to their intentions...COME TOGETHER! America, your children were certainly not safe in their arms. Besides all the "trouble'' and Cops and bad dope... it was the "Dance of Romance"... Brothers and Sisters, and it was ALL TRUE!


Iggy in front of SRC photo: Leni Sinclair

EQUALLY as powerful, in their own way, as Brother Bands, Stooges and the Mighty MC5... was The SRC... their very names had a mysterious ring, QUACKENBUSH (Gary guitar and Glenn keyboards)... all wizardly, like GRIMSHAW, know what I mean?


SRC 1968 photo: Leni Sinclair

Anyway, these Quackenbush Brothers, Steve Lyman, Al Wilmot and lead singer Scott Richardson introduced us teen-age music lovers to a completely different view of the world, filled with Gnomes and Dwarfs and Angels and searing, soaring... psychedelic versions of classical opera like we "ain't NEVER heard before"! I recall sittin' on the floor of the Paladium, a suburban version of the GRANDE, trippin' my BRAINS out, watchin' mushrooms and vines and elves and all kinds of happy shit sproutin' and runnin' all OVER the place.

So fine, so clean... Their standard closing number, BOLERO/HALL of the MOUNTAIN KING, would, much like BLACK to COMM, in a different place.... leave us awestruck and astounded, and havin' to come back to earth, to face another day.



Dig this, my Harley Mechanic's name is Ray... Quackenbush, now what's the chances of that?


Stiv Bators and The Dead Boys

Multiple Realities Timothy Leary called it, for sure... 'round about 1978 things were different, of all the PUNKS, the DEAD BOYS was our favorite, an all American Band from Cleveland, just across the lake from Detroit. We were DOWN with the DB's right off. They played BOOKIES...





Norton, of the 27, tried to unite me with Lydia Lunch of "I need lunch" fame (she stole the Dead Boys Lunch).... she was havin' NONE of it.


Lydia Lunch

I traded my MC5 colors to their drummer for some kind of sleeveless Hot-Rod Monster t-shirt, it was the LEAST I could do. Great show, HIGH Energy, small club... best way to see your band, face to face.

A little later, they played the Second Chance in Ann Arbor. They had been around long enough to get a Rep... the show ended in a rain of glass from the balcony... ala' Metallic KO.

The roadies were using tables for umbrellas to clear the stage... unbelievable. Before the show, I got Stiv Bators autograph, it read, "DOWN to KILL , To the DETROIT DOGS. I still have it, somewhere.

IT'S ALL ABOUT GRIMSHAW!

Gary Grimshaw

People ask me, "Why do you worship this Gary Grimshaw guy?" I always answer, "If you were a kid with a toy guitar... and Eric Clapton let you play with him... how would YOU feel?" That's how I feel about Gary. I asked him once, "What's this GRIMSHAW name about?" He told me in old England, GRIM meant Hermit and SHAW meant Forrest... Man from the Deep Woods. I was impressed.




Never have I met a Man with such an infinite amount of patience and unlimited loyalty... it really was all about the "People". It "Wasn't money he was after", as he says,"I wanted to change the world!" I'm pretty sure he has.


During the years I worked for Gary, as his assistant, he taught me just about everything I know about Graphic Arts. There were times, I'm sure, he was dumfounded by my behavior... my "Reckless Love of Life" he calls it, being very kind. His advice for this young, untrained cartoonist was, "learn to draw the same thing over and over..." not easy for a guy in my state of mind. So I studied the Underground Comix Artists... R Crumb, Greg Irons, Rick Griffin and the infamous S. Clay Wilson. Watching him and all those guys is the only art schoolin' I ever had. Oh yeah... Trippin' made me want to draw and STROH'S put art on hold.


Gary once told me, "If you spent as much time drawing as you spend in that Factory, you'd make some REAL money!" I didn't know about that. He was the BEST and he sure wasn't rich.



We had a lot of fun, no doubt... never heard a harsh word from him. I helped him move a couple dozen times... the Brother gets around. I proudly financed some Poster prints for Gary in later years, that MC5 with wings, and others. We shot a lot of video too. There's a shelf full at his house right now. He says "I'm your BIGGEST fan". The feeling's mutual, I'm sure.

MC5 Rob Tyner Tribute Show Motor City's Burnin

I'm down on Schaefer Highway, out on the West Side. Rob Tyner's passing has brought a throng of Detroit Rock n' Rollers to Moby Dick's Bar in Dearborn... to "Remember Rob Tyner"....a HELL of a guy. I'd met his Mom at the funeral home a few weeks before... she buried her face in my MC5 t-shirt and sobbed... I cried like a baby... heart-broken.



Tonight it was Scott Morgan, Bobby East, Dee Dee Ramone, Wally from the Romantics and a shit-load of others... these guys are jammin' when I walk in. Killin' it for Rob... Hijackin' Love, Route 66... Michael Davis is brought onstage by Wayne Kramer... with Tino singin', some Howling Diablos and Rob's Guitarist from Weapons, Robert Gillespie... they do a 10 minute version of the "MOTOR CITY'S BURNIN"! This boy is impressed.... backstage I run into my old Pal Mike Davis, I ain't seen him in years... Let me' buy you a drink. Kick out the JAMS!