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 Unpublished for 17 years.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.
Oh man, I’m embarrassed I didn’t know well enough to be at this show. I was in college at the time, in Fayette, IA, and burying my head in the deep sands of Psychology courses, which ended up becoming a minor to my Communications major. Looking back, I think I could have gotten a better education at shows like this for a much smaller investment.
It was my birthday. New Year’s Eve, and I was at the I-Rock Nightclub in Detroit watching some bands. The owners thought they’d help me celebrate by inviting me onstage where they had me sit in a chair while I was completely unaware of what was about to happen. They toasted me, as did the near capacity crowd of a few hundred. Then they invited several strippers on stage who proceeded to undress me…in front of everyone, including a nice woman I was dating who had accompanied me to the show. When they removed my jeans, much to my dismay, I was not wearing underpants. All of this was very entertaining to the crowd in attendance who obviously sensed my discomfort and enjoyed a good laugh at my expense. The strippers put on their show, climbing all over me, whispering ‘Happy Birthday’ into my ears and offering a few sweet words of kindness and understanding given the embarrassment of the moment. Meanwhile, fearing my own personal George Costanza moment, I felt cold, unaroused, and full of fear that this woman I liked who just witnessed this whole scene would later carve her biblical revenge out of my soul sevenfold…Afterward, when I approached my gf, she laughed about it and wasn’t upset in the least. I felt relieved, and received a nice birthday gift later that night anyway.
Early 2000’s my only vehicle was a Cadillac Miller Meteor; more commonly known as a hearse. It was awesome – loads of room for huge sub-woofers and was sound system dream, plus a total love nest. (not to mention a straight-8 that would float down the interstate at 120+) I went to a concert with a friend and came out to discover it had burned completely to the ground. Charred skeleton. Detective work concluded that the fire started in the back, where something had fallen out of an ashtray and onto some blankets lying around. I miss that car terribly. My embarrassment stems not from the vehicle or the negligence of properly extinguishing recreational smoking materials, but that it was a Whitesnake concert that I had attended.
As a teenage boy in the ’90s I decided that I needed a change of look and one Sunday afternoon let my mum talk me into having a home perm kit to put a slight wave in to my boring straight brown hair. The instructions said to let the chemicals dry naturally but 16 hours later it was still wet but well past bed time with school in the morning so she took a hair dryer to it. The whole middle of my head turned into this curly fuzz, with the sides straight and flat. My mum was insistent that bad hair would never be a reason I could take the day off school so off to total humiliation I went…
I can’t help singing along with a good song. Mostly I don’t even realize I’m doing it. That’s great at a Raconteurs show (Hammerstein was epic tonight, Happy Birthday Dean), but it’s less appropriate at a middle school talent show. I was attending with my girlfriend, who’s little sister was playing piano. Apparently, while she was playing Colors of the Wind from Disney’s Pocahontas, I was singing along. Not entirely quietly. I didn’t even know I knew all of the words. I certainly didn’t realize I was singing. And when my girlfriend elbowed me I realized that everyone around me was staring at me. But in my defense, have you ever heard the wolf cry to the blue corn moon?
I could tell you about the time way before the early 2000s when I left my nearly-all-white small English town to go to a university in a diverse city, all excited to finally have folks to discuss my blues obsession with, where eagerly at some mixer I went up to the first black guy I’d ever met and after the preliminary chitchat asked him if he was into Robert Johnson, and in a cut-glass accent he said “Who? . . Oh. No, I’m a Mozart man myself”—but that would just make me want the earth to open up and swallow me again.
i voted for ralph nader. we ended up with 8 years of W.
this could have been the early 2000’s or late 90’s. it’s fuzzy. I was in college and hip hop was cool. my buddy and I were all about buying up snazzy, three-stripe, Adidas gear. tear away pants with matching button up jackets, the whole she-bang. we had been out on the town, having cheap dollar-well drinks and spotted over to the techno club after a few too many Cape Cods. it was downtown Lincoln, Nebraska. we showed up to the club and were dancing up a storm to the ‘uun-sa, unn-sa, unn-sa, of the House DJ. Loke a thick fog rolling into Cape Cod, we decided to run home, put on our three-stripes, and really show these people what was up. because 2 white boys from NE are the epitome of b-boys getting down. the looks we got when we showed back up…the looks we got.
I was a staff writer on my university’s paper, and the editor needed someone to cover the softball beat. No one was available. I volunteered to cover a game, thinking it wouldn’t be too difficult. Our sports editor later told me the coach banned me from the stadium. Yes, my coverage was that bad.
And its my bday so..