Well, here I am at the birthplace of the two things I love the most: 1) Rock and Roll (as we know it, MC5, Stooges, etc.) and 2) The Automobile. I haven’t been here since 1987 when Half Life played at the Graystone, and now all I can do is wonder why I haven’t been back sooner. Why? Because this place rules! Detroit is obviously ground zero of all things cool, from Motown to Dodge Main, from Funkadelic to The Pistons. One quick look around is all it took for me to realize that this is the only other place outside of California that I could do Gearhead from. In other words, this town lacks nothing. It has the cars, the builders, the clubs, the artists, the tattoo parlors, the garage bands, the venues… if it wasn’t for this crazy thing called “snow” that people kept warning me about, I’d have thought I landed in paradise. Like my beloved Oakland, this town gets a bad rap, but hey, it’s all about attitude, and this place has plenty of that.
I’m here because of my friend Nina who owns Acme Mercantile in nearby Ann Arbor. Long story short, she went to the Autorama last year and noticed that no one was selling Gearhead. Seeing an opportunity to right a great, great wrong, she took it upon herself to make sure that Gearhead was in fact a presence at Autorama in the most obvious way possible, by flying me in! To complete the picture, she also invited Claudia from No Fun Records to share the booth with us – and what a booth it is! Between Nina’s Rat Fink-heavy store stock, all the Gearhead Magazines and Apparel, and the No Fun discography, we got a winner here folks. Thanks Nina, I owe you one. I’ll keep you updated daily from here until I once again go West…
I’m not sure what I expected to see in Detroit, but any notion I had that California car builders are somehow “ahead” of what’s going on in the kustom kulture world quickly disappeared after one quick look around. I could (easily) write a hundred different posts about a hundred different cars because the amount of creativity and skill that I saw laid out before me at Cobo Hall was truly inspiring. My erstwhile “tour guide” around the layout of this brave new land was Jason Poirier from the Detroit chapter of the Road Devils. Yes, this is a peak under of the hood of his immaculate 1955 Pontiac Chieftain, and like the title of this post promised, they really are doing amazing stuff with louvers here! I was thankful (to say the least) that Jason took the time to introduce me not only to his club, but to the members of the local chapters of The Poor Boys, The Rumblers and the Deadbeats, to name but a few. He did such a damn fine job (and kept the Black Label flowin’ all day) that I felt compelled to make a name tag proclaiming him “The coolest fuckin’ guy in Detroit.” Much to my surprise, he actually wore it. Stay in touch pal!
My old pal Jon Clark, who is officially known around these parts as “the guy who saved Gearhead” (although that is a story for a different time) proved to be one hell of a host! In less than two hours, he took me through the entire show (stopping just long enough to take this photo of me with the legendary Norm Grabowski) then proceeded to drive me on tour of Detroit that included the original home of Motown Records, the Highland Park Ford plant where the first Model T rolled off the line in 1913, and the giant tigers of Comerica Park, all before treating me to a “Coney Island” at The Lafayette….whew! By the way, that’s Jon’s A-100 Dodge van in the post from 3/5, and I should mention that it won First Place in the “Conservative Van” category. Not bad for it’s first show!
I have a sneaking suspicion that I’ll be back in Detroit much sooner than later though… I mean, now that I’ve witnessed just some of what this town has to offer, how could I ever stay away?..
-M.LaVella
There was some pics and shit too but i'm too busy to post em...
so there it is i expect all the road devils worldwide to come next year..and some of the ohio boys to stay all weekend....
Jason
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