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!

BIG RICH: DENNIS THOMPSON GRANDE VIDEO

Detroit Devil's Night Fires

Devils Night in Detroit was BIG news, when we were kids it was soapin' windows and ringin' doorbells... gremlin stuff for sure... it was also the only day you could dress as a person of the opposite gender... and get away with it... you know, Halloween and all. General FREAK show downtown and everybody had a ball...in later years it took on a more tragic and bizare tone as fires raged all across town... insurance jobs, I ben' told.


Now the ZENTA thing, which was never fully explained to us by the MC5, yet heartily embraced as our "Religion", had it's HIGH Holy Days of October 30-31, New Years Eve to us... with ritual, sacramental offerings of pyscho-active substances performed at every opportunity... weed, acid...like that. It was told to me by "Bob "Righteous" Rudnik, a DJ, poet and knowledgable rapscalion, that Zenta originated as a pan handling routine by JC Crawford in New york City... who knows, who cares...it was OUR's and we ran with it.


The MC5 recorded their first album, Kick out the JAMS!, LIVE at the Grande Ballroom on these 2 special days in 1968. Dennis "Machine Gun" Thompson says it was the FIRST LIVE Rock n' Roll Album EVER recorded! There was a sound truck outside... a couple thousand crazed teen-agers inside...and they wouldn't let me in.



Trip ahead 28 years to 1998, when I, as BIG VIDEO, and our body guard, Kevin Ernst, was invited to attend the gala re-opening of the Grande with a Documentary film crew as they interviewed Dennis INSIDE the Ballroom, amid the tumbled down plaster and beams and very... heavy... vibes.

Check it out...it was really good for me.