0 0 9 V -y, 14B - The Michigan Daily - Thursday, November 18, 2004 The Michigan Dail MOTOWN continued from page 6B always an undercurrent of struggle." In the 1950s and '60s, in a city eco- nomically dominated by the auto- motive industry, Motown used the traditions of "assembly line" produc- tion and hard-working ethos to cre- ate its entertainers and their sound. Christophe Zajac-Denek, drummer for the band Hard Lessons, champi- ons the group's "working-class drum- beat." "It's necessity," he says. "Detroit, in itself, has people who really want music with no fluff. There's a lot of heart and history coming up from Detroit. Hard Lessons reflect that, a lot on the music side. It's funky, but it's got a simplicity, too." Zajac-Denek, who's been drum- ming for 10 years, shakes up some "rock and soul" with vocalist/guitarist. Augie Visocchi and organist/vocalist Ko Ko Louise of Hard Lessons. They have their core in rock'n'roll music, but as Visocchi notes, "We also draw a lot of influence from the stacks and 45's - the blues and soul music that comes out of Detroit's Motown. We try to put some soul in there because it sets us apart from the rest of the bands." As for the "Motor City," Visocchi is quick to respond: "I'm definitely a product of the auto companies, and I hear that come up a lot. My family came to Detroit to work in the auto factories. I almost gave up going to college to work in an auto factory. "Detroit, in itself, has people who really want music with no fluff. There's a lot of heart and history coming up from Detroit. Hard Lessons reflect that a lot on the music side. It's funky, but it's got a simplicity, too." - Christopher Zajac-Denek, drummer for Hard Lessons That's what your dad did, what your uncles do. Detroit isn't necessarily a city where every- one's just going away to college and being in their hippie band. It's unique in that everyone's just sluggin' it out and playing their music." So Detroit, this Motor City, hears a reflection of its culture in bands like Hard Lessons and Saturday Looks Good to Me, playing in bars and basements, and sometimes in larger venues like the Magic Stick. The Majestic complex has been around in the city since the 1910s Go here ,, +, N ::> www.fordvehicles.com/collegegrad , , , , , , , , to get there e h when the buildings were built. Fam- ily owned and operated since the '40s, three generations later, the Majestic still offers a unique and culturally creative option different from just another stop on the music circuit. Although sometimes the Majestic or the Magic Stick draw in local acts from the area, Baise notes, "a lot of the bands we have here don't have the draw. It's really competitive." Music will always be a struggle. It's frustrating, thorny and intricate and entangling, but behind it all is the music. As Visocchi says, "Rock'n'roll is what we do. We sleep on floors; we sleep in cars; we smell like smoke constantly." With radio waves dominated by the same 10 songs on replay, repetitively rerun, processed and packaged, with a musical climate of "celebrities" rather than artists. Clear Channel's recent overgrowth of monopolized concert venues and airspaces, while frustrating, adds a depth and struggle to the music which highlights the enduring fragments of Motown's traditions. As Thomas so aptly says of Clear Channel, "In the Dark Ages, they'd be this dragon you had to conquer." Weber remembers that before the Clear Channel invasion, she and husband Carl Hultgren played the Magic Stick three or four times a year. "Since then," she says, "We've only been asked to play once." Instead, local bands turn to their local bars: Small's, Belmont and the Painted Lady in Hamtramck; the Lagerhouse on Michigan Avenue, and even to the Detroit Art Space. Detroit's music is an eclectic and inventive innovation, flavored with the heartbeat-rhythms of Motown's soul, marinated in the hard-work ethics of middle America and laced with the struggle of the "under- dog" in a corporate-controlled radio space. At the nucleus of this contem- porary movement, whether it's an e- mail group called -313 that circulates only Detroit electronic music, or the unique presence of women rocking out in Detroit bands, "up front sing- ing, playing bass, playing drums," quoting Visocchi, to the Detroit Jazz Festival, the largest free jazz festival in North America, there's Detroit. The form it takes varies; its expression branches; but always, the allegiance to Motor City lingers somewhere behind the vinyl scratch- ing, guitar-rocking, hip-hop poetry slam, funky backbeats, bluesy pas- sions and enduring charm of our music today. Early in his career, Jack White recorded some of his favorite Detroit rockers all over his house and in his neighborhood; it has become, as Visocchi notes, the "cornerstone of what the media has come to know as the Detroit scene." The Sympathet- ic Sound of Detroit, as the album is entitled, doesn't represent all of the sounds of Detroit. What is does rep- resent is a form of local initiation, in the tradition of Motown records. As Thomas says, "Much of the Detroit music scene is just teenagers from around town, packaging records in living rooms and making record- ings in basements. It's the success story of pure art." By Bernie Nguyen Daily Arts Writer DETROIT - The city gives off an eerie sense of abandonment as one drives through it. Whole streets, wide and bare, are left empty as traf- fic lights flicker red and green. Park- ing lots with single cars, dented and rusty, deserted in the center, some- how make everything look more neglected. The low hum of city traf- fic is strangely muted. Detroit seems like an urban ghost town. Everywhere the city shows signs of its old glamour. High buildings with fancy cornices built of fading stone are boarded up, their windows broken and their doors nailed shut. Streaked stone angels stand on the side of Gothic church facades, reach- ing their hands up to the heavens. Against the sky, buildings' peaks and church spires point toward the sun, standing against a grey sky that fades in cloudy squares toward the Detroit River. The asphalt in plac- es is broken up, churned over with dust and dirt and the last flutter- ing threads of yellow tape. Some of the streetlights are broken and their poles are taped over with paper fli- ers too faded to be read. Occasional- ly on a corner a man can be spotted, draped in layers of fabric, clutching bags, shoes flapping at the soles. He stands all alone and he never has to wait to cross the street, for there are no cars. It seems ironic that in this once booming automotive city there is little traffic. The streets between the buildings become more and more empty as they approach the center of Detroit. Incongruously against the backdrop of grey slate and stone is the massive bulk of Comerica Park, an ostentatious construction of cement and steel. It shines while most of the buildings have faded, a glaring mod- ern contrast to the increasingly sad emptiness of a once-great city. During the 1950s, Detroit saw glo- rious times. The rise of the American motor industry and the Big Three (General Motors, Ford and Chrysler) turned Detroit into America's Motor Capital; its population was booming at 1,849,568 in 1950. Throughout the past 30 years Detroit has seen many of its key industries leave for other locations, including Cadillac, which closed its Clark Street Plant in Detroit in the early 1990s. The 2003 census esti- mates revealed that Detroit's popu- lation was 911,000. Its crime rate, though improving, is among the highest in the nation. Walking along any street is a pre- lude to surprise by the echoes that bounce back from empty alleyways. Steam rises from the manhole cov- ers, pale twists of white that dis- solve against the cold concrete and graffiti covered walls. A single man walks down the center of a four lane avenue, surrounded by nothing but empty air and space. He walks slowly, hunched, his shape growing larger in the shadows cast by the edifices that loom above him. Trash cans, dented and open, flutter with fat pigeons that peck at loose crumbs and wing their way up the buildings, their shadows chasing them along the sides of the walls, a sad arch of darkness against a dim background. But still, there is life. Once in a while, you'll stumble over a fire hydrant painted vivid colors, abstract designs that pop from the bleaker shades of urban life, as if some art- ist decided to plant a flower in the middle of a wasteland. You'll see people in groups wrapped against the cold, hands together, heading towards the Detroit Opera 'House or the Greektown nightlife. As you drive by bakeries, you can smell the aroma of cooking bread and sweet cookies and the ripe scent of coffee Here's the deal: one price, no haggling. This "student discount" offers substantial savings on new Ford Motor Company vehicles based on set prices established by Ford's Employee Purchase Plan. There's no catch - it's a unique offer, exclusive to select schools like yours. Save even more when you apply the current national incentives available on the vehicle you select. The best part? You get what you expect. The style and features you want. No-hassle dealer experience. A payment that's easy on your wallet and lifestyle. that permeates the air. The casinos vibrate with neon and thrills to be had for a quarter a pull. You'll pass a cluster of laughing teenagers, snap- ping their fingers and singing songs you can't hear because your win- dows are closed, and you'll think of the Motown era, when singers belted the sultry melodies that still vibrate in the rhythmic undercurrent of the city. Despite Detroit's seeming decay, construction is everywhere. Roads are closed, detours raised in vivid orange signs, traffic cones snaking across sidewalks as Detroit prepares for the Super Bowl in 2006. The city is holding its breath, waiting for one last turn of the key before the engine turns over, for one more curtain call. This old girl will lumber on, even if all her windows are boarded, her houses razed, her sidewalks stained WELCOME TO DETROIT STRUGGLING CITY SEARCHES FOR NEW IDENTITY PETER SCH( A window of the abandoned Michigan Central Depot in Detroit. with urban refuse. And you can st: hear the voices of Detroit's pas They shout from the rusty screech the People Mover. They whisper the splashes of the river. They ecl from the white graffiti figures c the dark gray slate, alone and lonel indelible and fading, a testament Detroit. They will always be there. WRIm FOR WEEKEND. STOP BY 420 MAYNARD ST. AND GET A STORY TODAY! It's how you ge t ther( PAID ADVERTISEMENT ~ r boot 64w a/ ei k ct. 0 ,. v X.. :. I at ,,,zbw.a rTy}k ? ,' won ~'te The Spirit of Detroit outside the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center.