Checked out Motor Lounge in Hamtramck for an anniversary party, March 3, 2000. Know the date only because I still have a labeled “Maximum Overload” cd of that night's industrial/techno tracks, many of which still sound uber-cool (while others sound dumb and dated). Motor's been shuttered since 2002 (after a six year shelf life). There were rooms of different sizes with what seemed like hundreds of people dancing, some very obviously pumped on methylenedioxymethamphetamine. People were making out on couches around the edges; the main bar bustled with activity. I remember drinking a few pints of Guinness and "dancing" (if you haven't sampled such music, it's an odd exercise to try actual dancing with such a nonstop hammering musical backdrop as provided by blended techno and industrial). I guess it's more accurate to say, pseudo-danced for what seemed liked hours but was probably one solid hour. In a nutshell, Motor was weird, but interesting. Another couple there with us seemed completely freaked out by it all, which cracked me up at the time.
Then there was the Garfield, in Sugar Hill (across from the present-day MOCAD,or Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit). It operated as an underground after-hours club around the same time as Motor; you had to pass through armed guards to get inside, down to the basement. I got in thanks to an Irishman who was completely nuts but knew his way around such shady enterprises. The place was raided several times, arrests were made as in the blind pig days of Prohibition, but it was fascinating to see how such a place could thrive regardless. I'm pretty sure the building has since "burned down," replaced with a pile of rubble.
During my explorations of Detroit after dark, I've tried to find remnants of the Detroit Playboy Club formerly located at 1014 East Jefferson Ave., but to no avail. Seems that nothing's left but photographs and memories.
On the other hand, I have been a few times to the Detroit-Leland Hotel, which was built in the late 1920s and subsequently hummed with considerable gangster activity, Jimmy Hoffa sightings, and more recently, the Leland City Club or just plain City Club underneath, at its base, a mostly Goth music scene last time I went. Bizarre scene, bizarre brightly colored drinks in plastic cups once you passed the security checkpoint in front. A lot of Bauhaus ("Bela Lugosi's Dead"), Nine Inch Nails, Siouxsie & the Banshees. etc., open well into the morning hours.
Today's Rune: Flow.
2 comments:
Not going to the city club the many times I was invited by my "goth" friends is still a minor regret. Now that I've lost my tendency for socialization.
Still though I do enjoy immensely "house music": it always gave me the chance, one who can't dance a reason to let it all go.
I try not to do big cities after dark. Give me the woods every time.
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