Music at Meijer's?

   Everyone is, or at least should be aware of how retailers will pipe in music in an attempt to subliminally spur sales or attract clientele.    Whoever is programming the airwaves at Meijer's in both my new town and in my old neighborhood, is either the biggest Replacements fan ever or an aging rebel without a clue.  In my last three visits to the retailer I've heard the following songs.  

     Three weeks ago I heard 'Achin to Be' from the 1989 album Don't Tell a Soul.

    Today as I perused the dairy aisle 'Merry Go Round', a chart topper on the Modern Rock Chart for four weeks in 1990, came over the speakers.

   During a temporary lull at the Meijer's in my old hood two weeks ago I heard my favorite Replacements song,  'I'll Be You".

   I don't know if this is a coincidence or a ploy to move merchandise.  If it's the latter it's not working on me, because when I get to check out I just tell the cashier 'Those aren't mine, I don't know how that Jack Daniels and cigarettes got in my cart'.

Magic Stick Warm-up Bands

  Often at the Magic Stick the warm-up bands were just as good the headliners.  In June '04 The Stratford 4 stole the show from headliners Beulah.  The song Telephone inspired me to make a mix CD and sneak it into the disc player of my oldest daughter's car on her 22nd birthday.  It featured this song plus Spacemen3, Primal Scream and T Rex, Belle and Sebastian and the Bunnymen. 

    In May of '04 Apples in Stereo came to the Magic Stick and their drummer Hilary Sydney, worked double time as she also played guitar and sang lead for the High Water Marks.   The High Water Marks also feature one of my favorite drummers Jimmy Lindsay.  I talked to him at the merch table and told him his style reminded me of Keith Moon.  I later found an old interview with him online where he was asked which historical figures he would like to have dinner with.  Of course, Keith Moon was one of his choices.

High Watermarks - Good I Feel Bad

     Imaad Wasif's band alaska! was first band on for an Ash/Bravery show in April '05.  Ash had started the tour as headliners but by the time they reached Detroit, the Bravery had a surging single that gave them top-billing and let me call it an early night.
  alaska! - Real Is Your Control

 

First Day of Spring

   After a long cold winter, the first day of spring has arrived.  But there is no way of knowing how long it will last.  The Gandharvas being from Canada should know a thing or two about the appreciation of the season of renewal.  That being said their hometown of London, Ontario is actually farther south than the area of Michigan where I currently reside.  

      In 1987 The Jesus and Mary Chain released the album Darklands, the title of the first single  off of it continues the spring theme with April Skies.

    Although I couldn't think of any more songs involving spring, I found a video by the Breeders that, like spring, bridges the gap between Winter and Summer.

    Summer is ready when you are.

Bands with girl's names

First off we have Catherine Wheel from Great Yarmouth with special guest, everyone's favorite Rhode Island girl, Tonya Donelly performing 'Judy Staring at the Sun'

 Next is DC band Lilys with 'Mystery School Assembly'

  Last up John Wozniak's band Marcy Playground with "Poppies" the first single from eponymously titled 1997 debut album that later went platinum after the second single 'Sex and Candy; was released.

More Magic Stick Memories

In the mid-00's I saw these next three band put on great performances at Detroit's Magic Stick.

Jets to Brazil - Conrad

Rainer Maria - Seven Sisters

The Kills- Wait.  

The members of this minimalist duo with a prerecorded drum track have achieved greater notoriety outside of this endeavor,  Alison Mossheart in the Jack White's band Dead Weather and Jamie Hince in Kate Moss.  Hince and Moss have been married since 2011.

Magic Stick Closing Pt.2

The second show I saw at the Magic Stick Featured headliners Scottish Rockers Idlewild.  The warm-up bands were Detroiters Devilphone and the generically monikered  phenoms from Kansas City 'The People"  Hard to find any info a band with so plain of a name.  They must have realized it also because they later changed their name to The Golden Republic.  First off is a song that appeared on their 4-song EP The basement tapes and later appeared on the eponymously titled Golden Republic CD.  The unheard ethos of this blog are not compromised as this video only had one view when I found it.

 Here is a song by Idlewild  Actually it's Darkness

  Another song fromThe People's Basement Tapes CD was called "Texas". I could not find any internet references to this song but recently found a different version with a different name.

Golden Republic/The People - Make It

  One more Idlewild song to round things out.

 As Idlewild was on stage at that April 2003 show at the Magic Stick, the energy of the dancing, jumping crowd had the upstairs poolhall dance floor literally bouncing above the bowling alley below.

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.