Archive for the ‘Detroit’ Category
Flashback…October 15, 1984
97.9 FM in Detroit has long been home to WJLB, one of the finer R&B/’urban contemporary’ radio stations in the country. While kicking around on the excellent Detroit Radio Flashbacks I found the website featured weekly charts, “hip pocket surveys,” for much of 1984-85. These were the final years legendary DJ The Electrifying Mojo was at the station, so I thought it might be fun to take a look at what was getting played just about 25 years ago. I mostly missed the Mojo era, but JLB was a hugely influential radio station for me; it played loads of local records and was one of my first exposures to live turntablism, with a party/booty show every Friday night. So, I hope you enjoy these tunes. There are some hometown favorites here, stuff that stayed pretty local, and things from the last throes of Motown. Not surprisingly, Rochester Hills’ own Madonna is the only white performer on the list. Also not surprisingly, Prince, a Mojo favorite, appears a few times, both in his own work and through Apollonia 6 and Vanity. Pardon the dodgy embeds, Most of the record companies don’t like it enabled on their YouTube offerings…
24. You Get The Best From Me – Alicia Myers
23. We Don’t Work For Free – Grandmaster Melle Mel & The Furious Five
No video…but here’s a taste of the song.
22. The Jacksons – Torture
21. Tonight – Ready For The World
See the Top 20 singles from Detroit's WJLB on October 15, 1984
McPheeters & Miscellany
photos by Billy Whitfield
It’s always interesting when punks get old. That’s why my emphatic finger-point this week is towards a story in Vice by former Born Against frontman Sam McPheeters. McPheeters ventures into one of the Midwest’s strangest regions, the wealthy suburbs of Michigan’s capital, Lansing, to profile Doc Dart, former frontman for hardcore group Crucifucks. Dart, who calls himself “26,” appears to be suffering from several forms of mental illness, and has become a suburban pariah in the Mason-Okemos area.
Detroit, by the depressing numbers
Michigan Central
I’m not usually in the position of emphatically recommending anything on the cover of the Weekly Standard, but this story on Detroit is too important to pass up, if only because it’s able give a high-altitude view of the staggering failures that continue to define this once-majestic place.
Yeah, you’ve got to put up with a bit of Scott Templeton under-the-bridge stuff but Matt Labash does a really good job of sussing out some of the complexities of Charlie LeDuff, one of the best guys in the business, whose personality seems to be between the gentle inquisitiveness of a Jon Ronson and the advocacy of someone like Muntadhar al-Zaidi (not the best comparison, but the latter is close at mind, give me a break).
If Detroit has a future it’s with the LeDuffs of the world, the sparking, idea-oriented tied to this place who can bring some of the ingenuity and passion back. Whether they’ll be attracted by the blank canvas decades from now when the city is little but a sterile downtown surrounded by desolate blocks or will come sooner, when there are still things worth saving, is the big question.
(Check out the map at the bottom of this article to get a sense of the city’s scale, Boston, San Francisco and Manhattan can fit into the city limits, 30% of which is now estimated to be vacant.)
