Magic Stick 1993-2015 RIP

  I'm not out of the Detroit area for 4 months and its best music venue switches from a rock venue of must-see indie to a cold charmless techno dance hall. I know that they are running a business and when crowds average less than 250 it may not be a sustainable business model....but techno?  Techno - A style of music  invented in Detroit, that is fundamentally based on the sounds of a malfunctioning MRI machine.
  The blame for the indie scene's demise  can be traced to the state of radio in Detroit.  The only so-called modern rock station 89x  currently only plays songs where the vocalist is either screaming or whining.  I swear I hear better music at the Meijer's and Chuck Wagon Pizza in Ludington than I've heard on 89xsince 2000  (outside of the Sunday Morning 'Time Warp' program) .

   So my next few posts are going to be about shows I've seen at the Magic Stick. Starting with first show I saw there in 2003.  For 11 years my wife and I were out of the concert scene due to our raising of two young children.  In March of '03 I picked up a copy of the Metro Times, Detroit's alternative weekly, and found out that a Los Angeles band PaloAlto was going to be at the Magic Stick at the end of that month.  I had found out about PaloAlto when Spin Magazine listed them as an up and coming act in the year 2000.  In the Spin article they said they started out as a Catherine Wheel cover band, that was enough for me to explore their music a little further.  I liked what I had heard  especially since 89x by that time had chosen a Limp Bizkitized path.  Here are songs from the three bands that I saw that day

Palo Alto- Some Things Must Go This Way

The Caesars - Jerk It Out

And those were just the warm up bands.  Here is a video from the headliner from Sweden, 

Soundtrack of our Lives - Sister Surround

  Later that year while watching an episode of British hidden-camera prank show Trigger Happy TV, my daughter noticed this song playing in the background.  Oh yeah and the tickets were 12 bucks.