CAN’T GO HOME
(Text and new video below)
The third in our series.
Going to New York/escaping Detroit was all consuming for me when I was in high school. It seems like a thousand years ago, but in those days before the internet, digital music downloads and infinite music videos available in seconds, trying to find out what was going on was not easy. New music outside of major pop and rock albums filtered very slowly (if at all) across the country from New York or Los Angeles. You had to know like-minded compatriots or hang out at record stores, coffee houses and clubs to find out about new music and artists.
In Detroit, there was the Chessmate. I saw Phil Ochs, Joni Mitchell and the Blues Magoos there. I even played with John Lee Hooker (a Detroit resident). The major rock venues were the Grande Ballroom where my band, “The Cowardly Thangs” opened for Cream. The other great stage was the Mump where Bob Seger, Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels and the Amboy Dukes (Ted Nugent) performed.
My interest in blues, R&B and songwriting was partially fed by hitchhiking to Chicago to see Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf and by having a subscription to “Sing Out” magazine which featured articles and songs by Bob Dylan, Tom Paxton, Mark Spoelstra and many others. This magazine was published in New York and was a siren call for me to head there. The moment I finished school I took off.
The contrast between Detroit and New York was huge. In New York, you could become anybody. I met musicians, actors, poets, comics, playwrights and painters. Everyone was from someplace else. In the Village, practically every storefront was legendary. Gerdes Folk City, the Kettle of Fish, Café Wha, the Café Au Go Go, Gaslight, the Four Winds, Fat Black Pussy Cat, Minetta Tavern, the Bitter End, the Village Gate, Café Borgia etc. are all probably worth a Wikipedia page.
