Scott Morgan’s Powertrane with Deniz Tek & Ron Asheton
“Ann Arbor Revival Meeting” LP
scum stats: first 500 on red vinyl
It is seldom that live shows I witnessed are properly released on record, so the fact that I was in the crowd for this show and it’s finally out on vinyl puts a smile on my face.
Short story: the Mooney Suzuki had flown in to Detroit to finish the mixing of their album “Electric Sweat” and were staying at my mom’s house (where I was living) over that weekend.
Upon picking them up from the airport, they’d asked if there were any good shows happening while they were in town. I’d mentioned this show (one I wasn’t previously planning on attending) and they LIT UP excited and hell-bent on attending.
I was easily swayed. The gig was memorable (I got to meet Ron Asheton backstage afterwards), so much so that I went home and immediately reviewed it in a piece that went nowhere. Unpublished for 17 years. Until now.
The piece ain’t perfect (maybe I imagined them playing “Future/Now” by chance?), but I’ve got nothing to cringe over. I was 19 years old. No ragrets.
I’m giving away a free copy of a red vinyl copy of this sucker to the post in the comments I like best. Write about something you did in the early 2000’s (or earlier) that DOES embarrass you. Turn your cringe into colored vinyl.
DENIZ TEK w/ SCOTT MORGAN’S POWERTRANE, featuring RON ASHETON 11/10/01 Blind Pig, Ann Arbor, Michigan
Detroit expatriate Deniz Tek didn’t need have a cake for his birthday celebration this night. All he needed to do was show-up. Scott Morgan and Ron Asheton and 200 hundred-some people, most too young to have ever seen RADIO BIRDMAN, the RATIONALS or the STOOGES live (Tek, Morgan, and Asheton’s former bands, respectively) were the guests. With only a few days to practice, his backing band overcame a few miscues and provided the concrete backbeat that they were enlisted for. Tek electrified the audience with his intense demeanor, seeming as if his entire future depended on what amounted to a pick-up gig. The set mainly consisted of Tek’s solo material and Radio Birdman songs, but the occasional MC5 song (“Future/Now”) and Sonic Rendezvous tune (“City Slang”) seemed to be surreptitiously slipped in by Scott Morgan. After a brief break backstage, the band returned with Ron Asheton. The all-star line-up tore, no, ripped, no, shredded through the Stooges back catalog. As Asheton fingered the first notes to “TV Eye” the crowd erupted. Twenty years of pent up energy was released in a cosmic explosion of power chords and Detroit dirge. “So this is what rock and roll was like?” I thought to myself, having been born after the STOOGES, MC5, and RADIO BIRDMAN had all played their last shows. I’d gotten mine, finally, as did the rest of the crowd. “Down on the Street” featured Hiawatha from the Cult Heroes on guest vocals. As if being the only black member of the White Panthers wasn’t enough, Hiawatha oozed with cool, maintaining the cocksure attitude I can only imagine Iggy had when he originally sang those notes. Next was the anthem of leering punks everywhere “I Wanna be Your Dog”. Had we waited our entire lives just to hear this song? I had, so had others, we celebrated in spilt beer, pushing, shoving, and any other form of testosterone bonding that can occur without taking off any clothes. The crowd had turned into an atom smasher and no one was complaining. We had arrived, as had our leaders, and the celebration was the chunky boogie of “1969”, the first track off the STOOGES self-titled debut album. The show closed with Tek’s signature song “New Race” and was somewhat marred by the fact that two hyper-fans took it upon themselves to jump the stage and sing along. I cringed at the tackiness, but felt better when I saw one of the guys realize what an idiot he looked like as he emotionally broke down after the show.It seems that rock journalists have overused the term “sonic” to the point where it’s lost it’s meaning. But the vibe, the air in the room, it was, simply put, sonic. Deniz Tek plays the guitar that Fred “Sonic” Smith used in the MC5. ‘Nuff said. A line-up of this caliber would draw thousands in Europe, a continent that continually seems to be beating us to the cool that we produce in southeast Michigan, while the club in Ann Arbor held less than 500. You weren’t there? Your loss. Once in a lifetime. I was. I’m set. Now I can die.
Thank you Blackwell! Just received this beautiful record today. Stay fantastic!
2003 Broke as a joke single dad Driving down state street on my way to college in my gmas 1988 mercury cougar when a rusted freeze plug blew out of the engine and sent every ounce of coolant on the exhaust. Nascar style burnout smoke blocking everyones sight for at least 5 minutes. Traffic jam watching and shaming me as i waited for tow truck.
What embarrasses me from the early 2000’s is just how far I would go to win something. I would write a story about my life that was personal, embarrassing, and maybe sometimes funny. Obviously this isn’t one of the funny ones. Degrading yourself for free stuff is something I still struggle with today apropos this very story.
After a rough custody battle, I am embarrassed that it took about 4 years to get back on speaking terms with my ex. We were supposed to be grown ups yet both behaved like toddlers when it came to speaking to each other. Happy to say we get along well now and I enjoy seeing her at our son’s shows.
Yet in 2019, I unashamedly still am. ?
Most embarrassing thing of the early 2000’s… I was a huge Hanson fan.
My most embarrassing moment from early 2000’s: Getting drunk at a karoke bar and singing Friends in low places! lol What an embarrassment. But it was a fun night!
I was at the Bottom Line in NYC and had just turned 22. I thought I was so cool with my purple mohawk and leather jacket adorned with saftey pins and various HXC buttons.
I see Donna Summer and feel the urge to explain to her why her cover of MacArthur Park was so important to the world of dance music. C’mon slam-dancing and stage dives were a huge part of dance music world even if it was neanderthal.
I saunter up to her and begin blagging like a self important insider only can.
She stares right thru me with those big brown eyes. She tosses her hair back as if on cue form Lizzo’s “Good As Hell” and says Baybee I’m Diana Ross".
Embarrassed AF I break out to an immediate sweat and nearly drop my beet bottle. I bolted for the door never ever to return.
True story.
Went to a bowling alley for a birthday party for a friend of the girl I had just recently started dating but knew nobody. It didn’t stop me from partaking in a couple lines with the boyfriend of the girl who’s party it was, which resulted in me feeling extremely confident that I could successfully karaoke the 1992 party anthem “Baby Got Back”. I knew every word and my timing felt spot on while sitting at the table with a fat numb tongue filling the inside of my mouth. I took my place on the small stage deciding to warm up the crowd by shouting into the microphone “anyone here from White Bear Lake” the small town we were in. It was a bit I had seen Homer Simpson do on the episode when he gets the job as the mascot for the Springfield Isotopes, and in my current state I was certain the absurdity of the question would bring down the house, of course everyone was from White Bear lake, I mean hysterical right? It was then that the music started and I tried following the lyrics that would highlight dashing across the screen. And while all the words were there in my head, I stumbled along behind the beat and lyrics gaining a new profound respect for the guy that had just finished “I love this bar” Immediately my “flo” turned into what can only be described as a preschooler belting out “Let It Go”. Mumble mumble, mumble, mumble “Unless you got Buns Hun” Mumble mumble. I don’t know if it was the drugs or the anxiety that flushed across my pale face, but It was at that point that the Karaoke lady had to tell me to move my hand down off the microphone, apparently gripping it like Mike D with fingers wrapped around the top was a cool aesthetic but functionally it didn’t work so well. The boo’s reigned down, I didn’t know what else to do, clearly karaoke wasn’t my jam, it was then that I decided rather than continue my skills as a “microphone fiend” I would do the only other thing I knew I was great at. I broke into a “running man” that would have made Hammer proud, then closed it out with my signature James Brown splits. At this point I feel it’s important to mention I was 30 years old at the time and that girlfriend, yeah what up, married for 17 years. NEVER EVER UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF THE RUNNING MAN!
School talent show, senior year of high school. My friend and our dads played two songs, ain’t we got fun, and Eleanor rigby. Solid parts 4 different lines. It went well but was a bit folky for the grunge era of 95. After, I went on as an encore holding a stuffed sheep in the spotlight, while a friend played all by myself by greenday. Not entirely sure how I played it off to my parents and teachers who didn’t appreciate watching it. The cringe was it was a greenday song and I couldn’t ever listen to them with out being annoyed. It cut me to the. One that they were the new punk grunge band replacing nirvana. Fuck that and them