Detroit Rock City
A work ethic that never stopsby Jason Schmidt | 09.01.2005
Detroit might not be famously known as a "city that never sleeps" and it's certainly not the first city that pops into your mind when considering the music scene. But for anyone not from the area, there's more than meets the eye, and if you're willing to peer inside, there's a whole underground world waiting to be discovered and exposed.
When it comes to music, Detroit truly lives up to the name of “Rock City.” If, on hearing the name “rock city” you revert to an image of little red and white birdhouses which serve as advertisements to lure your family off the interstate highway, toward a mountain view and trinket shop, you are definitely thinking of the wrong location. If this “See Rock City” image is what you conjured up, stop reading now. Detroiters won’t like you or your Cracker Barrel attitude. Detroit Rock City seems engrained to the opposite of the birdhouse sentiment. They don’t need to advertise their community of discarded automotive factories and vacant machine shops. Detroit is a world in and of itself.
It doesn’t take long to understand that the Detroit area takes its music as serious as its work ethic; and rightfully so. This industrial, blue-collar town continues to push out hit record after hit record, all the while staying true to its origins. No Britney Spears, flash in the pan dance moves from this area. As Kevin Watts, a Detroit musician puts it, “it is all about putting in the effort here. We take hard work over luck, grit over polish, and stamina over speed.” And work they do, with such current chart toping artists as, Kid Rock, Eminem, White Stripes and the Von Bondies, as well as older artists such as Iggy Pop, Bob Seger, Ted Nugent and MC5. All Detroit artists continue to show the work ethic engrained in the area.
A glance into other Detroit activities, such as professional sports, identifies the same engrained ideals. Athletes such as Steve Yzerman, Joe Dumars, Barry Sanders, Allen Trammel, never had their success or fame handed to their doorstep. Instead, working and persevering made them the top in their cumulative areas. Perhaps hard work is engrained into the Detroit culture because it exists everywhere, from the assembly lines to the music community. This could also be why those who turn successful from Detroit continually represent Detroit in a positive light.
The uniqueness of Detroit’s music scene seems to be a common question among musicians, music critiques, and record labels. Laurie Pike, a reporter from the LA Weekly, specifically questioned why the musical genres of Detroit don’t evolve and adapt like those of other areas in the US. She interviewed Matt Smith and found, “People here play [music] as if the last 30 years of American culture never happened. You’ll try out a guitar player and it’s like he’s never heard anything since 1972.” Pike also interviewed Ko Shih from the Detroit band Ko and the Knockouts and found, “Because it’s an isolated place, it’s got a lot of social outcasts going through their lives uninterested in mainstream culture, most of us don’t listen to any music that is produced today aside from bands that we know in Detroit.”
Perhaps it is this “isolation” which has given Detroit the gift of originality. Detroit has maintained itself as a provider of counter-culture music and hybridization of sounds from its inception. Motown switched how society viewed popular music. The Psychedelic music movement pervaded Detroit in the 1960’s before becoming a music for the masses. Detroit techno received critical acclaim around the world and redefined the sound and texture of electronic music. Detroit also was one of the original pioneers of the rock and metal hybrid music as well as the rap/rock hybrid music.
Another factor which may help to cultivate the “uniqueness” associated with this city is the mass proliferation of music venues. There are clubs and theaters to cultivate all forms of artistic representation. According to Mellissa Matusak, former manager and talent buyer of Saint Andrews, one of the most famous clubs in Detroit, “we truly care about the bands regardless if they are selling out the venue or if there are 10 people in the club watching.” Along with the clubs trying to care and foster a community, the music fans in this region are willing to support the artists in a much more obvert manner: whether it be waiting in line in the rain to see a band, purchase tickets and merchandise to show support for less popular bands, or to barrage the artists with nearly excessive applause and energy. Detroit does support its musical community like no where else. This engrained support may identify why so many artists from around the world rank Detroit as their favorite city on the tour schedule.
Recently Detroit hosted the first Motor City Music Conference which featured over 450 artists in over 50 venues around the city. Along with the publicity for the independent artists the conference provided a trade show atmosphere for musicians, an opportunity to have musical critiques from record A&R scouts, as well as a conference setting to better understand the issues affecting the Detroit music scene. Conference introductions from Detroit labels such as Eminems own Shady Records and the Grammy award winning producer Don Was helped set the tone for the event. Presentations from successful Detroit artists and executives helped to provide the “how to” footing for up-and-coming acts to follow.
It is definite that Detroit knows how to cultivate and maintain its sense of musical roots. The sense of respect and effort put forth by this community toward artistic ideals is revolutionary. All of which goes to show that Detroit may appear to be an old dinosaur in business economics, but when it comes to creativity and overcoming adversity, Detroit is in a league of its own.
