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.

BIG RICH: IT SCREAMED DETROIT!

Rich and Sister Ellie

Me and Mitch Ryder went to the same high school at different times together. As an alternative to gettin' shipped off to Viet Nam, in fall of '68, I decided to go back and finish my senior year. The family had relocated out to 15 mile and Ryan, a cornfield infested wilderness to me. The Principal was worried if I had picked up any bad habits on the road... "Nah", I told 'em... "I don't even smoke... cigarettes." Just a little Lysergic Acid (LSD). So I proceeded to plunge back into reality.


Big Rich

Warren High was a mite backwards, you could say... although a fair amount of bell bottomed chicks and Art class made it seem worthwhile. Football players on the other hand, had a serious hippie hate'n thing going on. This was still the time of GRANDE' and the EAST TOWN was commin' on, we were lookin' pretty weird... hair gettin' long, beads, round glasses, occasional dog collar... "far-out" we used to say.

Had left my leather, somewhere, so we bought some of them suede fringed jackets at the Plum Pit, over on Gratiot and 11 Mile... we were lookin' cool... my buddy, Donnie Jones and me. His was red, mine was brown... Some bikers at a burger joint on the west side said, "Look at them queer cowboys"... but they let us go, again. It was always somethin'.

Lots of "shit" goes down in "Boys Rooms", ya' know. I was lurkin' and havin' a toke one day when a big foot baller named Moe walked in... me smilin' about an unrelated issue pissed him off, so he socked me into the sink. "Any time... anytime you wanna' fight!" Oh well, No harm done, I met him later at a party in Birmingham... all stoned out and smilin', just sittin' on the steps. I won.



It seemed like they left me alone after a while... turns out there was this guy... big, long haired, karate guy... he told 'em to leave me be, so they did. We got tight, I called him Bert. He dosed me once and took me out on the I-75 Freeway during rush hour... at a high rate of speed.

He thought that shit was funny. The car was a '68 Chevelle Super Sport, Black with mags and a peace sign in the rear window... it screamed DETROIT!



I took Bert to the Hill House in Ann Arbor, once... a hot bed of radical types. They were smokin' Hash and playin' John Coltrane, usual radical stuff. Bert invited the best lookin', blond, most radical feminist in the place to... "



Blow this pop-stand and go some place hip"... she smiled and said... "Where would you like to go?" We split, she stayed. I am still amazed.



We ran off to Toronto, to see some Hippies I knew... the Open City Commune, saw Howlin' Wolf at The Colonial Club... what a bad-ass. We turned around and drove right back, he didn't dig the scene. I told him to ditch the joints that night, commin' over the Bridge... "Nah, were cool", he said. The US Border Guards did a personal-flashlight-inspection, found the pot, seized the car... and let us go.

His old man had to go get it... title was in his name.

Carl Lobert (BERT) didn't make it, the Qualude-747's took him, in 1976, at the tender age of 25.

BIG RICH: BLAME IT ON THE GATOR!

If you wanna know how all this got started, just blame it on the Gator'... and LIFE Magazine. In the early '60's things was jumpin'! Beatles, Beatniks, Bikers and Bikini's were changin' my view of the world...



LIFE and Ed Sullivan were my source of information. My family had a pop-up camper, like a covered wagon... another Pal of mine, Rich, had a Grandpa in Florida, they borrowed me and my camper and off we went. South-bound, 1966, before the Interstate was built... took 3 days.



Daytona Beach was a dream come true... we swam in the Ocean all day and hit the boardwalk every night. Genuine crazy bikers wearin' german helmets, chicks galore... Tommy James blastin' "Hanky Panky"...





I had a white t-shirt air brushed with a giant "Maltesse Cross"... Daytona Cop drove next to me one night as I was walkin' home... "If you were my kid, I'd kick your ass..." he said out the window... they didn't dig my style I guess.



This might be a good time to talk about this German stuff... medals and all. We are Patriots, of the Highest order! All that stuff is left over from WWII. I have an album cover with Bing Crosby wearin' one of those helmets, a war trophy... ya' gotta kill em' to take their lid. Get the picture?

It became a symbol of rebellion, just to freak out the citizens. Truth is Ron Asheton wore it well... he had quite a collection. I asked him once what he thought of it all... Nazi's and stuff. "Nah", he said, "those guys are assholes, it's all about style". "Seems like I'm always rootin' for the other side... Indians, Rebels, you know." "Me too", I said. Yeah, Rebels.



I rolled back into Detroit that summer, head full of wild ideas, confederate flag beach towel and that plastic German helmet that almost got me beat... pretty soon my Gator came in the mail, all alone in a little cardboard box. Back in Florida I saw the sign, $5 LIVE BABY ALLIGATORS... 15 years old and I was in... Mom says I was never the same after that. That Gator didn't make it.

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!