R & R Crusader

R&R CRUSADER

TRANS-LOVE COMMUNICATIONS COMPANY

Have you ever thought about what goes on behind the stage and the final product you see when you see a rock concert or go to a place that has music and musicians working there? I know you don't have to think it about, really, because all you really have to do is pay the little money at the door and go in and be entertained, just like you were at home watching TV. All those people are there just to play for you, right, because you paid your little money at the door. Or maybe the people let you in free, so all you have to give is your time and presence, right? It's pretty weird. For three years in Detroit I've tried to present music and other art work in a form where the people who hear it and thereby take part in it can become actively involved in the whole scene - helping get it together, publicity, etc. People who want to can work on any of this, but no one ever seems interested. The television term of engagement with what you see and hear seems to be by far the easiest and what would seem to be the most fulfilling way to get some information.

But it's a lot more fun and a lot groovier if you can take part in the act of something happening as more than just an observor. You can make it happen. If you want to. Think about it. And you can get out of the tv-studio world that way. Anyone who is really into playing music knows that. What I want to get at is what concerts like the Jefferson Airplane concert at Ford Auditorium last night are all about. What kind of "entertainment" scene do we have that makes it only usual that a group like the Airplane can come all the way from San Francisco, receive $3500 guarantee for the trip, just for playing 45 minutes of music? Isn't that weird? And the local bands who performed got like $5 a man because the rest of the money goes to the Airplane add the promoters. The Magie XXXXX Veil Light Comapny got $10 for doing their out-of-sight show. You dig? And the Airplane gets $3500.00. Isn't that weird? And the people who "own" Ford Auditorium got $1100.00 for permitting music to be played in "their" place for 4 hours.

To top it off, if anybody needs money it's the MC-5. At the Alirplane concert, where they wiped out the whole place with an astounding set of "Black to Comm, " playing the only really unique, improvised music on the show (breaking down the 45 record 3-minute limit people who are swept by the whole entertainment industry thing think they have to stayinside), the cat who signed for their equipment long ago came in and snatched it out from under them because they had missed their payments. The guy must be stone deaf. No money in the world will ever be as valuable as the music they made with that equipment, and anyone with any sense who had the money would give it up just to insure that the band can make its music when it needs to. They're like the restxx of us and don't have any money, unlike the rich SF bands, whose people support them when they play so they can keep playing and not have to worry about the money. People in Detroit are so stupid. They have bands and music here that are out of sight and they won't listen to anything except what comes in from the image centers like NY and SF. I'm talking about the so-called "hard-core hippies" who always talk about San Francisco and how groovy it is there, and aren't hip that the reason things are so groovy musically there, and what had been done there that is really radical, is because the people have created their own local pantheon of bands, and support them. It would be happening like that here if any of these so-called "heads" had any sense. But they think it's more fun and easier to talk about San Francisco all the time and how hip it would be to be there.

Anyway, now the MC-5, who have been together for three years and are so powerful and together that people still can't believe it, don't have any fucking equipment. How many people are going to stand for it? I'm not. Trans-Love is going to get some equipment for the band this next week however we have to. They have to have it. And if people around here had any sense they would make damn sure that the MC-5 I has enough adequate equipment at all times to carry on as they can. They work most of their gigs for free, and even the ones that look like they're being paid for (the Grande jobs in the last month), the money went to pay union dues so they could play the Airplane concert for $5 a man. All the money went for that, and then their equipment was snatched up. But does the union give a shit? NO. All they want is THE MONEY, just like all the other stomp-down American businessmen in the music industry.

The thing to remember, children, is that MONEY DOESN'T HAVE A GODDAMN THING TO DO WITH MUSIC. Musicians, and all artists who are into it, should be supported by the rest of the people so they can have the music and art when they need it. XXXXXXX Any other way of doing it is just stupid, including especially the current method of doing it. Because you have to have the music or you will die of cancer like your fathers and mothers who listen to Herb Alpert and Frabk Sinatra and the rest of the death merchants. If you don 't have the music you will die. Try it and see. 

The Crusader has been involved in the business aspects of the industry lately with THE SEE, which will be moved after this weekend. The owner of the building, one GABE GLANTZ, who strangely enough also owns the Grande ballroom, wants THE MONEY -- RIGHT NOW. It ain't there. He also wanted to tell us what bands not to get (because they cost too I much) (he says), and do we really need two light machines, and shouldn't the door charge be more than $2, and shit like that. But we aren't into THE MONEY at all - no one who 's worked there, except for the musicians and light show people, has got ANY MONEY at all from their work. We've spent money we don't have trying to make the place work. We want to pay the musicians $25 a man straight across the board, which means none of us get any money, but that's only the very first step in the direction things should be. And everyone wants to got in free, because they don't care enough about the place making it to get the money together to help keep it going. But it will move, and it'll keep on, because we have to have it, You do whatever you have to do. The people we'll be dealing with in the new location, the Varsity Theatre at Six Mile and livernois, which will be made into a ballroom, are stone business people, and they'll make sure the place makes it. We'll move it out of the neighborhood but no one here gives enough of a damn about it to make any difference anyway. The kids will support it, because they need it. Good luck to you.