In the litany of bands I never thought I’d see perform, The Gories were probably at the top of the list. All music lovers have those bands, the ones we missed out on because we were too young, or in the wrong part of the country or we discovered them after the band had broken up and formed new bands or gone to get the dreaded “real jobs.”
The Gories were three kids who formed on a lark while drinking a six-pack and listening to a garage rock compilation. Back in 1986, only guitarist Mick Collins knew what he was doing; Dan Kroha had to learn guitar and Peggy O’Neill picked up the drums as they went along. They were a bit of a joke, having decided that they wanted to just make noise and scare everyone out of the bars they played. They lasted until 1993 putting out a handful of albums and a handful of singles before calling it quits.
I didn’t find The Gories until years later when their reputation solidified them into that mythical pantheon of Important Bands. Naïve charm is what I found mostly in the music, which was appropriate. The band’s configuration of two guitars and a drummer helped them capture the sound of old horrible recordings of horrible bands. All treble and snot on a slab of wax with the microphones levels holding onto dear life. They kept that blues tradition but also pushed forward covering bands like New York City’s Suicide. It wasn’t mind-blowing music, but it was a hell of a lot of fun.
On Saturday, The Lincoln Center unusually showcased Detroit for the Roots of American Music program giving us Mitch Ryder, ? And the Mysterians, The Gories and Death on one bill. For free.
We showed up at about 4:30 to find that the ample seating was still available. There was no music between bands, which I thought was unfortunate as a DJ with a good library could help showcase more of the Detroit sounds that weren’t on the bill, perhaps helping to contextualize how the music got from Mitch Ryder to The Gories. Missed opportunity there, unfortunately.
The area was plainly set up for “sitting and watching” music rather than the “get up and move” music that was to be on display. There was about 10 feet between the press barrier and the first row of seating and there was security ensuring that people didn’t loiter in the aisles.
I took a seat and resigned myself to taking just a few photos from a distance and was going to focus predominately on the acts.
Death has an amazing history. Formed in Detroit in 1971 by three African-American brothers, the R&B turned hard rock band independently laid the groundwork for what would retroactively be recognized as some of the earliest punk rock. Death had record label interest and funding that died when they refused to change the band’s name. This rebellion netted them seven finished songs of a planned twelve.
Death released two of the songs as a single and then broke up in 1977.
In 2009, the recorded songs were released as …For the Whole World to See and the living members of the band reunited and played a handful shows. You really have to read the NYT article, as it’s a fascinating read. This music was uncovered and released made it one of the most important afro punk finds since the Living Hell’s Noise Addiction was cleaned up and released a few years ago.
On stage, Death was astonishing to behold. It was like a warp field had opened up and this amazing band came to us from an alternate universe, one where Death had never ceased to be. The band was technically tight and the vocals were powerful. The rhythm-heavy songs betrayed a bit of that heavy, low-end centric sound and the speeds were at the low end of the punk scale thanks to the 30-year BPM arms race.
Bobby Hackney would give us context before some of the songs, and talked a bit of history of the band, and at one emotional part, choked up while talking of his brother, David, who was only on stage as a photo, and in spirit . Through what must have been a bit of a whirlwind year, the band played new material talking of a new album coming out this fall.
As a younger crowd began to filter in and take up the space up front, there was a relaxing of the rules, much to the chagrin of the elderly attendees who showed up early enough to sit in the front rows. As more and more people filtered in, I gave up my seat and made my way forward to dance and sing along to The Gories.
I’m not going to say that I was nerding out, but I did spend the afternoon trolling message boards trying to find set lists so I could get a hint of what to expect. I was both excited and slightly disappointed by the Maxwell’s set they played Thursday night; they did “Ghost Rider” (YES!) but not “Feral” (BOO!). So I knew kind of what was coming but that didn’t could hold down my excitement or expectations.
They came out and it was like they walked right over to me and jabbed a needle full of pure garage filth pleasure directly into my waiting brain. It was sloppy, it was messy, it was wildly uneven but I trembled before it all like it was my wedding night. Dan was the face, keeping the banter up between songs; Mick was the wild man, singing and gesticulating using his guitars to punctuate the grungy slick bars; Peg was the cold one, wearing sunglasses and duct tape on her fingers, showing no emotion, playing like a slightly out of time metronome.
Bars were fudged, time slipped, and at one point a song was so mangled that it had to be restarted. It was enough to make a music lover cringe. But it was classic garage rock, getting by on noise, charm and filth.
? and the Mysterians are a Latino garage rock band. Most famous for their 1966 hit, “96 Teardrops,” a minimal song with what may be the most well-known organ lick in rock and roll. I know of ?’s eccentricities and that the band had broken up, been reformed, shuffled instruments and members in its nearly 50 year history, so I didn’t really know what was going to happen on stage, I knew that at the very least we’d get “96 Tears”, “I Need Somebody” and “Can’t Get Enough of You Baby” with “96 Tears” closing the set.
? may be from Mars, but even Martians know that you don’t open with your biggest hit.
We got, amazingly, the original line up and they were still as slick as you please. The bass walks were long and off beat slightly giving it a bit of a counter rhythm to the drums. The guitar work was near perfect, everything sounded great and I couldn’t detect any slips. The keys were in hand and on time, every time. And ?. oh, ?. He came onstage wearing what could only be called a gypsy shirt opened in the front to show off ?’s taut physique, fringe along the sleeves, the fabric had gold discs sewn to fabric the color of a box of crayon’s vomit. ? was in constant motion even when guitarist Robert Balderrama was brought to the front for an extended solo.
The setlist was any hour of any oldies radio station, covering Otis Redding, The Rolling Stones, and they were joined onstage by Ronnie Spector in what will politely be called and “impromptu duet” as she was led away by security after the song had finished. It was a very tight set, but it wasn’t anything you hadn’t heard before.
We had another event to head to, so we couldn’t stay for any of Mitch Ryder’s set, but The Detroit Breakdown was one hell of a way to spend the day.