Detroit Rock City Read Free

out doing, just like every other high school, teen dances. But his teen dances, because they had a bigger facility, turned into concerts. He got the Supremes and the Temptations, Shadows of Knight. Bob Seger. People would come from all over the Metro area, from the west side, from all the suburbs, because of the acts that were playing there.
    Jerry Bazil ( Dark Carnival, drummer ): We had these great bands playing at our high schools. Teegarden & Van Winkle, the SRC, the Up, Third Power—they all played at high school dances at places like Mercy High School and Catholic Central. This was the late sixties, early seventies.
    Jaan Uhelszki ( journalist , Creem magazine ): The Who played at Southfield High School in 1967. I don’t think that the people who showed up were necessarily students.
    Pete Cavanaugh ( WTAC, DJ ): I was on the air at WTAC in Flint, and we were doing sock hops all over Michigan, and we could promote them on WTAC because our signal went so far. Punch Andrews, who went on to manage Bob Seger, was doing the Hideout. And there was the Hullabaloo franchise. Sock hops moved into live bands. It had to happen that way. Mark Farner’s first band or Don Brewer’s band—these were just starting, and now they had a place to play. Seger got his start that way. I’d have sock hops, and Seger would play afterward.
    Robin Seymour ( CKLW/WKNR, DJ, host of Swingin’ Time TV show ): Bob Seger did one of his first big live things at the Roostertail, where I was puting on events. He had his Beatles haircut, a little cap on, and he walked on the stage and had to walk right off; he was so nervous he had to go throw up. I went over to Punch Andrews, his manager, and I said, “Get him out of here, I won’t have anybody doing my shows on drugs.” Punch says, “He doesn’t touch drugs. He’s nervous, he’s scared to death.”
    Pete Cavanaugh: After a while you would have bands, and the only time records would be played was between bands. The sound was shitty. No one knew any better. Question Mark and the Mysterians got their first gig there at one of our places, Mt. Holly, south of Flint. We got everybody: Bob Seger, the Rationals, Dick Wagner and the Bossmen. At the same time Jeep Holland and A-Square Production in Ann Arbor were doing things. Jeep put his bands at Mt. Holly and booked the whole year in advance at one point.
    Scott Morgan ( Rationals, Sonic’s Rendezvous Band, guitarist, vocalist ): Jeep was also our manager. He was like the Svengali of the Rationals: produce, find us songs, book us—you know, anything you can think of. We had this Dodge van with the Rationals logo printed on the side. You could see us coming from a mile away. Jeep was also a really bad driver, and one night he was driving the van to a show in Lansing and I was in another car behind them. Jeep was cutting in and out of traffic and eating pizza and drinking a Coke all at the same time, not paying attention to what he’s doing. He passes this car in front of him and just keeps going up the side of the road, down the embankment, rolls the van three times. My brother was in the van, in the passenger seat. When it rolled and the top came off,they just got thrown off on the ground. My brother was hardly hurt at all. Jeep was a little banged up. He did everything else pretty well. Just not driving.
    Deniz Tek ( Australia’s Radio Birdmen, guitarist, vocalist ): The Rationals were doing this British Invasion thing, just before everything happened. They would play high schools. Pretty soon bands moved from the schools and would play TV shows, like Robin Seymour’s Swingin’ Time . He was a DJ and he also had a TV show.
    Robin Seymour: We found the Rationals. Art Cervi was my talent coordinator; he later became Bozo the Clown. He was the best Bozo in the country. We discovered them and played their first record.
    Then they did a cover of the song “Respect” in 1966,