Detroit Rock City Read Free Page B

and the Stooges, solo, vocalist ): When we played for Russ we’d make $50—that was for the whole group you know. And then we worked our way up. Over time we were headlining and we were paid pretty well. But with John Sinclair, on bills with the MC5, we played for free.
    Jaan Uhelszki: I got a job where I was working as a Coca-Cola girl at the Grande. As a Coca-Cola girl, you did two things: You sell Coca Cola, Sprite, and orange pop, and what you really do is make sure no one doses those said drinks. That was the bigger part of my job. They didn’t sell alcohol at the Grande Ballroom. While it wasn’t all ages, I think it was seventeen and above; all they sold was soft drinks. Nobody drank; everybody did drugs. It was a psychedelic ballroom.
    Gary Rasmussen ( The Up, Sonic’s Rendezvous Band, bassist ): The Grande was not a bar. It wasn’t really a big drinking culture at that time.
    S. Kay Young ( photographer ): You could get every drug you wanted—Sandoz right from the source—but nobody really drank.
    John Sinclair: There was a guy named Neal. About ten o’clock on Friday night at the Grande, Neal went up a staircase that extended from the floor of the Grande Ballroom. And he would appear at the top of the staircase and just hang out with a big smile. Everybody would go to Neal, and he’d give them samples of this week’s acid, and all the acidheads would drop. The first band had played at nine. The second band played at 10:15. And at 11 o’clock it was time for the MC5, when everybody was peaking on acid—the audience and, often, the band.
    K. J. Knight ( Ted Nugent and the Amboy Dukes, drummer ): Neal was this guy who would hand out hits of acid at the Grande Ballroom. He had a house downtown, and he hung with a girl name Dirty Debbie. We used to go down to his house in Detroit and he would always turn us onto drugs. John Finley was a huge drug dealer back then. Finley and Rusty Day had the Day and Night Dealers Blues Band. One time I was backstage waiting to go on, and Alice was backstage, and I offered Alice Cooper a stick of gum, and he said, “KJ, you gotta promise me that this isn’t coated with acid,” you know.
    Ted Nugent ( Ted Nugent and the Amboy Dukes, solo, guitarist, vocalist ): Creem magazine printed a story about how I shot two guys at the Grande Ballroom after they tried to steal my briefcase. I never shot anybody. But they printed it.
    Dennis Thompson ( MC5, New Order, drummer ): We practiced at the Grande as well as being the house band for a while. Everybody used to come to the Grande to rehearse, from Janis Joplin to Procol Harum to whomever. And we used to take LSD, turn all the lights out, middle of the night, and go downstairs and just listen to the music. Couldn’t see anybody. All you saw was those little lights on the amplifiers, right?
    Gary Rasmussen: They were better drugs at that time, cleaner. One time we all took a lot of LSD and went and played at the Grande Ballroom; we thought that would be a good idea. Frank Bach, our singer, didn’t because he was macrobiotic and not into drugs, but the rest of the band did. So we go on, and we’d start a song, and we’d be fine. Then we’d get to the guitar solo, and as soon as it would start, we’re looking at each other going, “What song are we doing?” None of us knew how to get out of the solo. So we’d play the solo for ten minutes and just sort of end the song. We’d look at each other and sort of go, “Wow, that was weird.” We’d start the next tune and play the song fine until the solo, and as soon as the solo, we’re gone again. We don’t know where the fuck we were or what we were doing.
    Bob Sheff ( Iggy and the Stooges, Charging Rhinoceros of Soul, piano ): The Charging Rhinoceros of Soul were the warm-up band for the Mothers of Invention at the Grande one time. Oh God, I refer to it as cookie Sunday. I was late