The Grande Ballroom & Plum Street
By Mike Marino

The Sixities were a societal kaleidescope of communal and carnal experimentation. Old funky junky neighborhoods in cities across the country were now being inhabited by modern day hobbits on a personal journey to attain enlightenment, or to simply Lewis and Clark it to find the path to their own inner Northwest Passage, but … be careful what you ask for.

Others flocked to these various urban and concrete gardens of socialist edens for nothing more complicated than to get stoned and to jum into the raging seas of all things psychedelic. Sex, drugs and rock and roll were the the major addictions of this rag tag generation of boomers and bongers on the move...m-m-m-my g-g-generation! Marijuana and LSD flowed freely for the more esoteric turned on - tuned in - dropped out residents, while some hipster hobbits developed habits that were more destructive.

From London to New York to San Francisco they came. By thumb, by van, by bus...runaways and those we should have run from came forming a melting pot that included artists, politico's, musicians, street performers, hustlers, sinners and saints. New York, the flash point of the Beat Generation and it's nuclear explosion of Kerouac's and Ginsbergs. Folk music and politics engaged in a fornication of action -re-action. Bob Dylan was walking hand in hand in drag with Pete Seeger and Woody Guthries ghost. Change was in the air and the answer my friend truly was blowin' in the wind.

The Village was now morphing into the paradise found then lost of the new pioneers...the Rucksack Generation of Hippies. It was “folk you” time for the overflowing folk music scene with a Peter, Paul and Mary limp wristed lilt that was only missing happy faces tattooed on Mary's ass while she puffed the magic drag in...and Peter and Paul formed a folk music menage a trois with Mary in the middle heating up the folk music sheets. Mary Traverse blowing in the wind..so to speak! Folk was fading like an old pair of favorite jeans that have been patched too many times with frayed cuffs and rusted zippers. If folk was effeminate...and that 90 pound weakling in those body building ads in old comic books (do they still run those?) was being replaced by steroidal stereophonic vinyl filled with tales of brave Ulysses, Casey Jones and white rabbits.

The not so hip anymore effete beret crowd and its literary cafe posers of an outdated generation were being swallowed whole and replaced by gargantuan legendary barefoot legions of young people who were living in the moment, the future did not exist and all was not "woe is me we are beat" Kerouac as defeatist crap. Existence was existential and an extension of the cold war. There may not be a tomorrow afterall so what the fuck...lets not blow today!

It was a new dawn.. a new age..of hope..peace..community. At least that is how the script was written and the street theater critics were criticising.....who needs mimes and artists? The curtain rises...it was...Show Time at the Sixties Theater of the Absurd!

New York had the Village and all it's old beat venues, San Francisco had the Haight Ashbury and of course the rock icon of them all, the Fillmore Auditorium..meanwhile in the rock and roll heart and soul of the Rustbelt Capital blue collar Deee-troit...there was Plum Street...and the granddaddy of hometown pride...the Grande Ballroom... it was the 9th Gate to Rock and Roll Heaven/Hell preceding it's future spawn such as The Michigan Palace, Harpo's, St. Andrews Hall, the Eastowne and others. The Grande kicked ass and jams Mother Fuckers!

Deee-troit was the Rustbelt Mr. Hyde to San Francisco's Dr. Jekyll. The chemistry in Dee-troit was the bad acid that circulated at Woodstock. The Haight was an old ethnic neighborhood in the "good old days" and was evolving into the vortex of the arts and counter culture. Victorian architechture was the artistic frame work of the community and its' head shops, galleries, coffee houses and music venues that moved into the area gradually at first as the Counter Culture of Flower Power was giving birth. Unlike Detroit's Plum Street District, the Haight was larger. It had evolved naturally into a psychedelic community and was magnetic north for the rucksack compass.

Plum Street was a Mexican community in the 30's and 40's. Zoot Suit City baby!!! As the residents moved to the westside of Detroit as they became more affluent the neighborhood started to fall apart...urban renewal, new freeways gobbling up the real estate on it's borders. (Today it is the site of the massive MGM Grand Casino! Not a trace left!

As a Haight Ashbury or Greeenwich Village, it was a wannabe knockoff like a bad imitiation Rolex watch on the black market. It was promoted by real estate developers to emulate the Haight and become it's brother in rust, and all for a profit without any prophets. The differnce between the Haight and Plum Street was the difference between Led Zeppelin which evolved as a group and the Monkees who were manufactured on a studio back lot and just as mundane, or to put it another way it was the difference between a $500 call girl who take you "around the world" versus a $5 blowjob in a back alley by some smackhead skank loaded with heroin and syphillis.

Dee-troit did not have a peace symbol attitude, in fact it had a middle extended finger attitude that resulted in the corrosion and corruption of the Peace and Love Generation in the Motor City. Plum Street itself was an old neighborhood that had fallen by the wayside of time. Decrepit as an old junkie, she was about to be fixed up for an retail infusion of what was called "Hip Capitalists" to capitalize on the counter culture...not to promote it but to fleece it. It was so opaque that John Sinclair who had his Trans Love Energies media company headquarted here was referred to as "The King of the Hippies!" Sorry, John, but Hippies have no kings your Highness...emphasis on the "high" Eventually Plum Street collapsed as it lacked the "heart and soul" of the counter culture of the times. (Haight Ashbury is still a tourist destination, Plum Street is forgotten and in ruins)

Plum Street was over by '69 thanks to an overdose of drugs and violence, motor cycle gangs, and police harrasment. One of the promoters, Bob Cobb said in an interview, "It would have worked if only we could have had the hippies without the drugs..." What? Hippies without Drugs? When Plum Street officially "opened" even the fucking mayor, Jerry Cavanaugh came down to make a speech and cut the ribbon!!! Hip Capitalists? Capitalists Yes...Hip, No! Plum Street was a bad imitation. When I was living in the Haight and hitched to Detroit on one of my two hitchhiking trips back east I went to Plum Street and was horrified. It had the appearance of one of those fake Warner Brothers studio backlot sets for gangster films or bad westerns with John Wayne. It was not sad to me...it was embarrassing.

Sinclair (The King of the Hippies! I'm sorry I couldn't resist that!) also not wanting to be left out of the San Fran avalanche of cool was impressed by it's Be In, so he organized a Love In on Belle Isle park in the middle of the Dee-troit River. Obviously not in tune with the “real” Motor City, John felt it would be a day of flying colorful kites and sunshine and community all for the benefit of Mr. Kite....which by the end of the day had motorcycle gangs beating up bystanders, cops beating up motorcycle gangs and bystanders, and drunks from the suburbs beating each other up. The biggest mistake Dee-troit made in the Sixties was the impression that they were a international destination of peace and love..like the Haight Ashbury. Instead it was only the weekend hippies, boozers and gangs that congregated..not looking for inner illumination but only a few heads to kick in. The Beatles didn't hang out on Plum Street as they did in the Haight and Scott Mackenzie sang about San Francisco and "wearing flowers in your hair" ...later to sum it up..David Bowie sang..."Panic in Detroit" which fit the mood of the times more appropriately.

The '67 Riots didn't help and before the national guard invaded Kent State...Dee-troit had them and their tanks on Woodward Avenue after a blind pig was raided by the Detroit Police...buildings burned, snipers shot cops, cops shot back and the city was in ruins...Peace..Love..and Understanding? Fuck..lets just say it was a massive failure to communicate.

But then...there was the Grande Ballroom..a no bullshit music venue that was the Grand Old Dame of Dee-troit rock and roll..peace and love in Dee-troit..no! Rock and Roll..it doesn't get any better. So stick in your thumb and pull out a Plum (Street) and throw it on the compost pile..it's time to rock, roll, and remember the Grande Ballroom. She was beautiful, opulent, overwhelmingly gorgeous..if she were a movie star it would be the Lauren Bacall of venues while it played host to the Bogarts of rock music from Cream to the MC5 and the Who.

Grande Ballroom: Detroit's Rock and Roll Bordello

The Grande Ballroom is part of the rock and roll roots and psyche of the Motor City. It's as much a part of us as the Detroit Tigers, the auto industry and labor unions. You can cannot extract one of those elements without a fight. In the Sixties the Grande erupted into second life as a entertainment venue headlining the top rock acts of the era from the volcanic sounds of Cream to the street fighting chutzpah of the MC5. The Who exploded on stage, Hendrix sent the crowd into a hormonal frenzy and fire with his incendiary guitar playing, while Iggy and Stooges and Ted Nugent rallied the rock and roll testosterone and if the MC5 were kicking out the jams...then Ted and Iggy were kicking them in the balls. It was the predecessor of Detroit’s live rock and roll era and in it's wake emerged the Eastowne Theater, the Vanity, Harpos and the famed Michigan Palace. These venues saw everyone on stage from Aerosmith to David Bowie and Queen, Roxy Music and The Velvet Underground.

But..but...the Grande was the grand dame...the other venues were prostitutes in a house of rock and roll ill repute but the Grande was the elegant madam who you respected but couldn't fuck. This classy lady was not for sale...actually she was when promoter Russ Gibb teamed up with real estate mogul Gabe Glantz to reopen the venue which had fallen into disrepair. There is the Grand Prix race but when the business venture started to fall apart they referred to each other as the Grande Pricks! (Gabe and Russ had a falling out and Gabe's son, Steve took over concert promotions in the city at the venerable Michigan Palace Theater. Russ Gibb faded into the background and it was the age of Glantz. Steve and I became good friends thanks to my work in rock and roll radio at CJOM radio across the river from Detroit..but that is another story! Meanwhile ...back to the Grande.....)

The Grande was an architectural work of art. Classic terra cotta building in the Renaissance Revival style while the interior was pure ornate Moorish art deco decadence. It opened in 1928, at a cost of $223,000 and that just a year before the stock market crash of '29 fronted as the opening act of the Great Depression where brother can you spare a dime was the at the top of the hit parade while the stock market bottomed out never making the top ten....this all followed by the Dustbowl and Steinbecks nomad Okies on the move as the banks took their homes and properties and threw whole families out in the street and on the road...

The Roaring Twenties were about to exit stage left and the curtain began to rise on the Bonnie and Clyde gangster Thirties. Add prohibition on top of it all making for a "how dry I am" era and the Grande is just what the doctor ordered. It housed retail shops on the first floor at ground level while upstairs was the wooden dance floor and emporium that had a capacity of 1,000 jitterbuggers and bobbysoxers and during the war years..zoot suits filled the joint to capacity. Dancing hard to forget your troubles or engaging in dance marathons to win cash prizes had an allure in depression and war climates of the times of the 1930's and 1940's.

The Grande exploded like an entertainment artillery shell during WWII...Detroit was the arsenal of Democracy pumping out war material to defeat the Axis and knock them on their asses...tanks, bombers, artillery, jeeps, ammunition all filed out of the factories as Henry Ford was commissioned by President Roosevelt to organize the assembly lines of Detroit and the town went to work, three shifts, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week...the factory workers put their heart and soul into their work and worked hard..but ...all work and no play...you know the rest so being Detroiters..yes we work hard..but goddamn it we know how to party and when the work day or week was done...the workers put on their dancing shoes and headed for the Grande Ballroom to kick up their heels while they relaxed from the work of manufacturing Axis ass kicking material.

The Post War Years took their toll on the Grande as well as Detroit’s inner city strata. The affluence of the Motor City was in hyper drive and while the suburbs acted as a sponge to absorb the city residents, the city atrophied and along with it, many of her architectural wonders as it underwent a demise I call the decline and fall of Edifice Rex. The burbs blossomed and the city's concrete jungle became overgrown with debris and ruins. The Grande faded as fewer people ventured into downtown Detroit for their entertainment. It was multi-plex theaters, snobby dinner theater and ballroom dancing held the same interest level that a paralytic might have in running a marathon.

As the Fifties came and went..the Sixties emerged. A caesarian birth of dubious Beat parentage. Music was more important than ever and venues were needed for it's presentation. Russ Gibb along with his partner Gabe Glantz together re-opened the old Grande that they used to frequent. Russ had traveled to San Francisco and ended up at the Fillmore Auditorium and a dream was born. (Russ was a DJ in Detroit as well who started the "Paul is Dead rumor..also later he had a TV talk show that I was invited on to be a guest. (I got so carried away talking about the "good old days" that within 5 minutes I took over as "host" and interviewed Russ for the remaining 20 minutes of the program!)

Russ not only was impressed by the groups he saw but the light shows and artistic playbills that were handed out announcing which groups would be playing on which dates and of course the massive floor with patrons dancing to the psychedelic music illuminated with black lights and the lava lamp effects of the light show as images danced along with the patrons and filled the room along with the smoke of marijuana.

Russ felt he could duplicate the San Francisco Experience in Detroit...but as the wise sage asked.."Are you Experienced?" Remember, the Motor City is not San Francisco just as Gary, Indiana is not Rome. He remembered the Grande on Grand River and Beverly Street...not the best part of town anymore day or night. Would people come and brave the neighborhood to catch a few acts? Maybe..if he had the right ones.

The old girl was in ruin but a little make up and the old girl could be a fraction of what she used to be. The proscenium stage and the wooden dance floor along with full length promenades were still in relatively good shape and he had a vision that the old second floor was funky enough to add to the delightful experience for his "bohemian" patrons who would descend from the suburbs back to the inner city to see groups like Cream, Hendrix and the Who along with local acts, Iggy and the Stooges, The MC5 and Bob Seger...an he was correct in that assumption.

To put the rock and roll blitzkrieg into motion he needed the help of the local hipster community and he found it in John Sinclair..he had the in with all the musicians, artists, writers and photogs on the fringe and a marriage made in rock and roll heaven emerged from their meeting. At the same time..Plum Street the pseudo Haight Ashbury was beginning to flower with head shops, incense, LSD and marijuana. The only thing missing from the equation is that in Haight Ashbury, we came from all over the country, and Europe to form a community. In Detroit, Plum Street was small and merely attracted people from Ann Arbor and Birmingham! Hardly hippies, hardly hip, and not a runaway in the bunch..when Plum Street closed or the Grande Shows ended..you went home to mom and dad safe in the arms of suburbia.

Sinclair invited Russ to hear his group The MC5 and also there that night at rehearsal was Jerry Younkins, who developed a light show, that was also demonstrated. Rob Tyner of the Five introduced Russ that night to his high school buddy Gary Grimshaw, and artist who designed all the Grande posters and playbills. All was in readiness and the curtain would rise on the old Grande (now fixed up and painted like an old hooker on speed, or Herman Goering at a cabaret with full lipstick and rouge treatment) was ready to rock and roll. Local bands had already been lined up as were a host of international acts, or at least would in time be international. D-Day was set for the rock and roll Normandy Invasion during the first weekend of October in 1966. The light show was promoted on the posters and the first act was to be the Jam Kicking Mother Fuckers, the MC5 and a group called the Chosen Few.

The word was spread they came in herds from the burbs...but..not being familiar with the area and also fearful of it did manage after a few wrong turns make to the Grande. The parking lot was something out of Nightmare on Elm Street and the side door entrance on Beverly was like opening the 9th gate to hell.

When you entered the building you paid a cheap admission and would head up the stairs to the second floor. The stairs were as wide as small surf boards and once inside the ballroom...they had stepped through the looking glass to the Mad Hatters party, hosted by Uncle Russ Gibb! You cold almost see and hear the ghosts of the past..a scene right out of the ballroom sequence in Kubricks "The Shining" only now, Russ Gibb was the caretaker and not Jack Nicholson. Leave your axe at home, Redrum! Redrum! Redrum! On the wall, stage left you could buy a soft drink and in back there was a small store to buy posters, underground newspapers, books and poetry along with incense and peppermints the color of time or thyme...and you couch potato it on the right on one of the couches set against the wall.

The music pounded...the crowd was typical Dee-troit...loud and proud and danced in time to the music. The patrons were also fueled by drugs and the pulsating light who that projected from the wall of scaffolding erected in the back. Gary Grimshaw and Leni Sinclair, Johns wife manned the light show from slide projectors and color mixers, while oil was poured along with diverse pigments to augment the effect. Top is all off with left over glitter light balls from the 20's and it was a hallucinogenic dream scape that transferred the patrons onto another plane of reality that was not plain by any standards.

The crowds swelled from that night on as word spread that something was happening at the Grande Ballroom, and you don't know what it is, do you Mr. Jones? Southbound Freeway, the Spike Drivers, Gang, the Wha, Walking Wounded, the Woolies and Jagged Edge, all local got gigs a the Grande and brought their fans along to join in the fray of hip, hipster and hyper cool. The MC5 became the defacto house band. Friday and Saturday Motor City evenings would never be the same again.

Soon it's fame went national and outside groups joined the lineups from Jeff Airplane to the Grateful Dead who were to embark on their first ever national tour, the Grande was the first stop on that journey. If you build it, they will come..and they did, Jeff Beck, Big Brother and Joplin, Procol Harem, the Fugs, Butterfield, Cream, and the Who. On average there were over 1,000 patrons packed in this assembly line of hip. But as all things that go up..it must come dawn. Newtons Law...by the mid-70's the counter culture had changed, and the heyday of the Grande, once again..was over...newer venues opened, such as the Michigan Palace and the Fox Theater...today the Grande is a hulk, from a historic standpoint in counter culture lore it is an Incredible Hulk..in ruins...alone once again..forgotten by the newer generation who if they drive by the area, would only see one more of Detroits ghetto ruins on their way to the mall...The Grande was the center of gravity for the Detee-roit music scene...it was the Grand Dame of Rock and Roll..Deee-troit style. One thing for certain..she may be gone..but not forgotten and goddamn if that place didn’t' kick out the jams Mother Fuckers!