CULT HEROES BAND live at Lili's 21 Club, Hamtramck, Detroit
Summer 1999An opportunity to see a REAL Detroit rock band, all-the-way live and even in a legendary Detroit bar, is one of those things Detroiters take for granted and the rest of the world hardly knows about.
The days of the Grande are long-gone (though live on in digital splendour, in your very own living room) and even the Red Carpet or Bookies are but distant memories. But still cranking it out down in the bucolic wilds of Hamtramck, right off Joseph Campeau about one mile east of I-75, is the legendary Lili's 21 Club with a full cart of every kind of rock & roll splendour, all presented in the inimitable DETROIT style.
The Motor City is, after all, the original home of high energy, rock 'n soul, big beat drivin', hard hitting, psychedelic ranging, from the streets, gritty urban rocked-out SOUND, and although it gets harder to catch that kind of act in the Midwest every year, THE CULT HEROES have been playing it, in various incarnations, for about 20 years. Led by the ferociously kindly fashion plate HIAWATHA BAILEY, the HEROES present a classic 4-piece line-up always anchored by a big beat, snarling guitar turned up loud and the essential distinctively active Detroit bass line.
Driving down to a rock show in Detroit is an intrepid affair. To begin with, all the freeways are in gutters, so you move through the nightscape in a weird tunnel, moating enclave-like neighborhoods in varying states of decay. All around you rush the pure products of the Motor City, the very latest and the previous most dependable, all conducted with the calm assurance of the absolutely dependent Detroiters. These people are their cars, the freeways are like arteries pumping blood to the extremities, and the show will take place near the heart. That's what makes a Detroit rock show special, on a good night, then and now and forever, like kick out the jams.
Cross 8 Mile and gaps quickly appear around. I-75 swings up and over to head more towards downtown, and a driver gets a brief sweep over the Davison ditch, the Highland Park Chrysler plant sitting over it, empty, and the Fisher building halfway to downtown. It's an eerie landscape, especially if you don't know it, and many a whiteboy has simply exited the ramp, crossed back over the freeway, and gotten right back on, reversing course back out to the suburbs.
Lili's 21 club is stashed away off the main drag of Hamtramck, the Polish enclave surrounded by the East Side of Detroit. An old-time bar, it started presenting live rock & roll when Art Lyzak of the legendary Motor City Mutants needed a place for his band and the bar's owner, Lili, just happened to be his mom. That was probably 20 years ago and the place is still rockin' out almost nitely.Hamtramck itself is like a time warp, stuck in maybe 1966 when Detroit iron ruled the road and Motown ruled the airwaves. There's a half-mile commercial strip full of non-chain stores, polish butchers, and 99 cent bazaars. Go a bit further north and you're back in the half-empty Detroit streets, looking like a hockey player's mouth without the cosmetic dentistry inserts. Go the other way and you'll hit a small Arabic/Middle Eastern enclave. Big GM cars roll down the street with wailing Arabic pop as the soundtrack. Party stores are all fortresses (like all over Detroit), with cashiers encased in plexiglass with a turntable to put your money through.
That night in July it's about 90 degrees at 10 at night. Humidity is at its typical midwestern summertime high, big puddles sit all over the cement, and the air conditioners at Lili's are working overtime. Inside it's dank and the pressed tin ceiling is dripping. There's a small crowd there draining Labatt's and moving very little. The first act is almost generic punk rock; they've got very little of the big snarling beat that marks true Detroit high energy sound. But they're enthusiastic, so what the hey.
After a brief wait the Heroes come on and tune up. It keeps getting hotter in the club. The stage lights are tested and then turned up all the way. The dry ice machine starts up, the fog starts swirling and we're off. HIAWATHA is bean-pole skinny, wearing his usual showy garb, a nucleus of akimbo energy, getting into everybody's face. The straighter you look the more attention you get. The band is solid, the drummer lags a bit tho the guitar is plenty loud. They cover several Stooges' nuggets, including LOOSE, DOWN ON THE STREET and I WANNA BE YOUR DOG. DOWN ON THE STREET is particularly rockin'. Hiawatha is crawling around the mic, the dry ice is spitting out fog, the band won't let the heat slow them down. In a few songs the entire band is soaking wet like Jackie Wilson, and so is the audience. A lot of people can't take it and leave, but there's a hard-core group by the stage absorbing it all. This band is not gonna slack off. They came to play, no excuses, whining about the heat or sparse crowd. They're doing it all, and why not? A long-time feature of the act is Fred Smith's SHAKIN' STREET and it sure sounds great to hear this song played live. The CULT HEROES play a few of their recorded repertoire, some impressive singles including BERLIN WALL and AMERICAN STORY. They also do a fine cover of Scott Morgan's PIRATE MUSIC. Somewhere in there a Stones' song was played too.
Finally we're satiated. Another fine evening of uptempo Detroit rock and roll. Outside Hamtramck is quiet, the semi's parked in the supermarket lot, humidity lifting a bit, some tire-squealing sounds floating by.
Back out to I-75, the spine to Detroit's skeleton. Turn it up on the freeway, take it fast, take it home .... DETROIT ROCK AND ROLL!
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