Detroit Rock City: Tales from the Pinball Wizard
The Gamers’ Guide of Guitarist Joe Memmer of the Detroit Doors: The third in a series of interviews with Detroit’s lost rockers
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“Detroit Rock City” should have been the name of a Seventies-era pinball machine produced at the height of America’s obsession with pinball arcades. Why? Because the rock ’n’ roll industry is a pinball machine. The young, hopeful musicians of the late Sixties stood in front of the televisions of their youth and, mesmerized by Elvis and the Beatles, decided to pull back on their own personal plunger and . . . so rolled their optimistic silver ball — not once, not twice, but three times (3 plays for a lot more than just .25 cents) — into a dizzying, glass-encased world of flashing lights and bell-dinging sounds. However, beware of the pinball wizard manning the flippers, for the Merlin of this game is not a high-scoring “Elton John.” The “wizard” most musicians ended up with is akin to the late Angus Scrimm’s “Tall Man” character from the 1978 horror classic, Phantasm: that silver ball of hope will turn back on you as a slicing silver ball of horror that will not only drain away your blood — but your soul. Then, just for the hell of it, the wizard tilts the machine.
However, during the time between the record executive losing interest in the flippers of fate and titling the machine to end a career, the musician bounces off just the right bumper and launches an additional bonus pinball into that flat, rectangular crystal ball: a pinball duo paired to do battle with the record executive wizard.
Some of those pinball duos never leave the glass-encased playing field: John Lennon had his Paul McCartney. Keith Richards has his Mick Jagger, while Joe Perry has his toxic-twin sidekick in Steven Tyler. To put it into a Detroit perspective: Dick Wagner had his Alice Cooper and Ron Asheton had his Iggy Pop. Another one of those silver balls rolling down the I-94 alley into the illuminated, bell-dinging world of “Detroit Rock City” was a young guitarist by the name of Joe Memmer. His silver-sheen sidekick: a singer by the name of Dave Gilbert.
If you’re a connoisseur of Detroit’s rock ’n’ roll scene of the late Sixties and early Seventies, you know the name of Dave Gilbert as Detroit’s version of David Lee Roth and Steven Tyler; the frontman of one the Motor City’s most under rated bands that rose from the ashes of Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels. A band just as deserving as Kiss to have marketed their own pinball machine (and that would have been an awesome pinball machine!): The Rockets.
“Okay, yeah,” you say. “We know who Dave Gilbert is . . . and enough with the pinball non-sense. Don’t you know people game online these days and play Far Cry 5, Grand Theft Auto, and Warcraft, you old, analog-pontificating fool? Get to it already. Who’s Joe Memmer?” you scowl.
Well, Joe was one of those pinballs (sorry, don’t “tilt” this writer just yet) that bounced off the bumpers of the Bee Gees, Iron Maiden, a salad dressing matriarch in Columbus, Ohio, Missing Persons and . . . Aerosmith. And while his ball danced under the glass, there were a few flashing lights and bell-dinging gigs with Alice Cooper, Salem Witchcraft, Bob Seger, and Dick Wagner of the Frost.
So how did this writer come to composing a “gaming guide” on the life of Joe Memmer? Well, we have another wizard of the music industry to thank for that: Arthur Pendragon who, for a brief time, was the infamous Phantom of Detroit in 1974. But before Arthur could make that introduction, Jim Morrison pushed his way in front of the pinball machine and decided to launch Mike “Chizzy” Chisholm’s silver ball into this writer’s personal pinball machine, which I like to call The Ghosts of Jim Morrison, the Phantom of Detroit, and the Fates of Rock ’n’ Roll. For the not so cruel Fates to properly introduce Joe Memmer, this writer first had to meet the man Jim Morrison chose to be his harbinger into the 21st century: Mike “Chizzy” Chisholm.
And as the Fates would have it, for a brief time in the early Eighties, Joe Memmer bounced around under the glass of “Detroit Rock City” with our Phantom: Arthur Pendragon. And when Arthur’s ball fell through the flippers one final time, Mike “Chizzy” Chisholm launched his own pinball alongside Joe Memmer to dominate “Detroit Rock City,” together, as members of the United States’ premiere Doors tribute band — the Detroit Doors.
So on a wet, muggy and rainy Friday evening, this writer sat down for a fascinating insider’s look into the music industry with one of those analog musical Phantoms that you, the rock ’n’ roll fan, need to meet. Ladies and Gentleman, please welcome to the stage, Mr. Joe Memmer.
Joe, I came to know you through the research for my book regarding Arthur Pendragon’s career, The Ghosts of Jim Morrison, so I am aware of your work with Dave Gilbert in the Free and Shadow. We’ll get to that part of your career a bit later, but first, I’d like to know how you and Arthur became bandmates in Pendragon?
I first met Arthur when he was hanging out at Harpos; not playing there, but hanging out, having a beer and listening to bands. Art was pretty good friends with Ron Baltrusz, the guy that booked [Pendragon] into Harpos a lot. Ron had his own booking agency with a couple of other partners, Rick McNeil and Kurt Foltz; together, they booked a lot of cover bands. Ron eventually went on his own to book the bands he wanted, and Ron also became a partner in Harpos. I ended up joining Pendragon in 1978-ish and was with the band until 1980.
Even before writing the book, I was aware of Harpos. It’s a pretty legendary venue, not just for Detroit, but known as a premiere national tour stop in the Great Lakes.
Yeah, Harpos, I loved that place. I loved playing there and hanging out. It was this old theatre in the worst part of town off Chalmers [Street at 14238 Harper Avenue] and these guys bought it and converted it. That was in, uh, 1972 or 1974, I believe. But it was right next to the freeway, the I-94, so you could make a quick getaway (laughs).
So you were initially with the Free, then with Shadow. Could you tell me more about those bands beyond the brief bios you see online via You Tube uploads of the singles?
Well, as you said, I was in the Free with Dave Gilbert, and then we formed Shadow out of the ashes of the Free. And Dave’s brother, Marc, was in Shadow as well. Now, in the early Eighties [from 1980 to 1986], Dave was in Adrenalin. So when I started playing at Harpos with Pendragon, Adrenalin opened for us. Then Adrenalin got pretty hot; they were getting ready to sign a record deal. Next thing you know, the tables turn and Pendragon is opening for Adrenalin. And every time they came off a tour, Harpos always had a headlining spot for [Adrenalin].
That’s an odd pairing, no? I’m familiar with Adrenalin and I looked at them as more of a Ratt or Quiet Riot-styled, MTV-era hair-band, as opposed to the straight ahead jeans and t-shirt bands of the pre-MTV years, such as Pendragon.
You mentioning MTV reminds me of a story you’ll enjoy. I was in this LA band, Synergy, with keyboardist Chuck Wild. Synergy did this funk thing with a chick singer. It was more of a disco band, really; at the time that was “hot” and it was paying better than the rock thing. Anyway, Chuck goes downtown to some audition in LA. This was right around the time I was going to leave California for Michigan. I found out, a bit later, that Chuck’s audition was for Missing Persons — and he became one of their two keyboard players. As you know, they became the new-wave darlings of MTV. Chuck went on to work with Michael Jackson and he’s done really well in the ambient music field as Liquid Mind.
Your leaving Los Angeles to return to Detroit reminds me of Jerry Zubal and his time with Rockicks on R.S.O.
Oh, Robert Stigwood. I have some stories about him. But, yeah, I knew Jerry Zubal. Good guy. Great guitarist.
Paul Warren, at the time with Rare Earth towards the end of that band, ended up in Los Angeles as well. Did you know Paul?
I knew Paul, but not real well. I was good friends with his drummer, uh. . . .
Jimmy Hunter, who was in Ray Manzarek’s Nite City with Paul.
Right. I knew Jimmy Hunter much better. I remember Jimmy calling to invite my wife and me down to The Midnight Special taping for Paul Warren and Explorer, which, I don’t know if you knew this: they hold the distinction of being the only unsigned band to appear on The Midnight Special, which is pretty cool. They had really nice LA fanbase. They should have been bigger.
Wow. And I know quite a bit about Paul Warren. But I did not know that. I am sure that will be explained in more detail in Paul’s upcoming book. So, after Synergy and brushing greatness with Missing Persons, you returned to Detroit.
(Laughs). Well, that’s when I was introduced to Arthur. At the time [Pendragon] had two guitar players — I can’t recall who — but there was this competition between the two [guitarists], from what Art told me, with each turning up and trying to play louder than the other. And things got too loud. So Art got tired of that and canned the whole band. And that’s where I came in, with Art and me building a whole new band along the lines he wanted.
So, my buddy, Larry Marshall, who booked the last version of the Pendragon band, mentioned he knew Art; that Art was a pretty good writer and singer. And I knew Art was a pretty good guy from Harpos, so I went out to Rochester, where his house was. We talked; I listened to some demos and Art’s stuff was pretty cool. “Queen of Air” and “Morgan le Fey” was in there and I knew I could be happy playing his stuff. Art told me he had a keyboardist, but we needed a drummer, so I had a buddy, Ed Lawson, and I brought him in. And we set up shop in the keyboardist’s house.
So that would be Bob Ellis?
Yep, that’s right. Bob Ellis. And we were there for three to four weeks and got it together and did some gigs. We weren’t doing Harpos, obviously. Just small bars, such as the 300 Bowl, some places in Taylor. But it’s been forty years, so I can’t remember all the bars, but there were a lot of them before we made it to Harpos, which is the gig in Detroit at the time.
I can tell you that the Pendragon version I was in started as a four-piece, not a quintet — with me on guitar and Art on bass at that point, and Ed and Bob, of course. Then Art decided he wanted to play guitar, so we brought in a bass player, uh. . . .
That would be Marc Kopchak.
That’s sounds about right.
I wanted to discuss some of Arthur’s song publishing rights I discovered from 1976?
Well, those songs would be long before I joined the band. We may have played a couple in a live setting at some point. Then again, maybe not.
Are you aware of the Pendragon bootleg, well pirate, issued in Europe as Phantom: The Lost Album?
Really? No. I wasn’t aware of that.
Neither was Rick Stahl or Mike deMartino, two of Arthur’s musical associates from his United Sound Studios days. Those Pendragon-pirated tapes came out in 1990 in Italy, a year after the Phantom’s Divine Comedy was first pirated.
What songs were on that bootleg?
“Your Life,” “Queen of Air,” “Lone Wolf,” and “Storms.”
I know those tunes. “Queen of Air” is a great, great song.
Then the final three are: “The Music Rolls On, “Release Me,” and “Sailin’ Away.” And those are the seven songs on the pirated Pendragon tapes.
And what about the songs from 1976?
Those are: “Rock ’n’ Roll Dreams,” “Gypsy Girl,” “Time Touches My Life,” “Midnight Highway,” “Sailin’ Away,” which is on the pirated album, and “Child of the Sun.” Are any of those familiar? Did you ever record any of those or play those live?
No. They’re not familiar to me.
I am not surprised. Rick Stahl and Chris Marshall didn’t recognize any of them either.
They could be earlier version of songs, or alternate titles.
Yeah, that’s what I thought. “Time Touches My Life” could be “Your Life.” Chris Marshall seems to think “Release Me,” is the song he wrote with Arthur back in 1977, “Morgan le Fey.”
Now “Morgan le Fey,” that one we did. That’s another great Arthur original [Joe sings the chorus and hums the melody].
Yep, that’s the one. Chris sang and hummed it exactly the same.
Yeah, great song. Another great one was “Roll with the Waves.” Now, I don’t know if that had an alternate title or not, or if that’s one of those songs from 1976 you found.
Jerry Zubal shared live club versions of “Kat of the Amazon” and “Come to the Sea” with me, which he and Chris Marshall played on. I know those are before you joined, but are those familiar to you?
No. Those aren’t familiar to me. However, if I heard them, I would know.
Well, in speaking with Chizzy [Mike Chisholm of the Detroit Doors], he asked me to forward any Pendragon songs I had; so I sent him copies of the pirates and the unreleased live originals. Chizzy said the band would eventually want to learn those songs to mix into the Detroit Doors’ sets along with Walpurgis material. So he’s got them.
Oh, cool. Now, with Chizzy and me planning to rehearse old Walpurgis and Pendragon tunes, I just ran across old cassettes that Art gave me with songs that he wanted me to learn. But I am awful at labeling things — and the labels get old and peeled off the others. I am trying to figure out which is what (laughs). Of course, the tapes are so old, I am sure the oxide has flaked off by now.
I talked with Mike deMartino, a producer who worked with Pendragon at Cloudborn, and possibly at Fiddlers Music; this was after you left the band, obviously. He, like you, went digging through his personal mementos and found an old 7 1/2-inch reel of some sides Pendragon cut. He wants to transfer them, but after forty years, he feels it might not work.
I have a 16-track master from a band I was in called Jem. That was with Marc Gilbert, after Shadow and before he went with Adrenalin. To save [the tape], they had to put it into an oven and bake it to a certain temperature and time; take it out, let it cool. Then bake it again.
To make the oxide adhere back to the acetate or the Mylar base.
Yeah, but the oxide peeled off the first song of the tape. So there is some bass drop off. Other than that, the process worked pretty good.
So Chizzy told me about your contributing a lick on the Rockets’ “Desire,” which appeared on No Ballads (1980). How did that happen?
When I was in California, Dave [Gilbert] called me to come out to the Record Plant to hang out. “Maybe you’ll get to sit in,” he said. So I flew up to Frisco and hoped a bus with my guitar and I was in the studio. But that lick comes from a song I wrote, “No Choice,” and Dave always liked it. So he asked if he could use [the lick]. When the band was trying to figure a lick for what became “Desire,” Dave worked it in. I was cool with that because, well, you can’t copyright a lick. Dave showed it to Dennis Robbins, and Dennis showed it to Jim [McCarty], who dug it.
“Desire” served as the lead track on the Rockets’ fourth album, 1980’s No Ballads. The band’s one-time bassist, John Fraga, was part of the studio band behind the Happy Dragon Band project — that’s part of the Phantom mystery — formed by the Rockets’ touring sound engineer, Tommy Court. Court also built the studios at Fiddlers Music, which recorded-issued Adrenalin’s earliest singles.
You can learn more about the Happy Dragon project and the history of Fiddlers Music courtesy of our interview with the studio’s chief engineer, Scott Strawbridge, here, on Medium.
Well, Dave was just an amazing vocalist. For me, back in the Seventies, it wasn’t Steven Tyler from Aerosmith or David Lee Roth. Dave Gilbert from the Rockets was the man. No disrespect to Steve or David intended, but wow, Gilbert just didn’t get his due.
Well, you know, I was the one that got Dave into singing. He could sing, everyone knew he could, but I didn’t and he didn’t see himself as a lead singer. I went to jam at someone’s house. There was Dave, a bassist, a drummer, and myself. Dave was a keyboardist; he had an organ. This was in 1967. So we did “Little Games” by the Yardbirds and Dave was really good — but he’s not playing his organ, just singing. So when I was putting a band together, I ran into [Dave] at the library. I told him we needed a singer, but one who just sings, not play the organ, which was typical for a lead singer to do at the time: stand behind a keyboard. And he agreed.
So that was the beginning of the Free. The name came from this business we used to drive by for practice: Midwest Tree Company, which was our name for a time. But Dave felt it was a dumb name, so we shortened it to the Free. And we cut that first single for Atco/Atlantic.
The local Detroit label, Marquee, first released the Memmer/Gilbert-penned “(Day of) Decision for Lost Soul Blue,” backed with the Memmer-penned “What Makes You.” It was then reissued nationally by the Atco label in 1968. You can also listen to both sides of the single with a You Tube-embedded link at the end of this article.
Then, with you and Dave, the Free transformed into Shadow. Did you record for Robert Stigwood and he rejected the album?
Stigwood actually produced it. He was starting his own label, Clean. This was before R.S.O. He put Clean together with Earl McGrath, later of Rolling Stone Records. Clean was their first shot at their own label. So Stigwood signed America and Shadow. Shadow, at the time, was me, Dave, the bassist from the Free, along with Dave’s brother, Marc, later of Adrenalin, and a drummer, Dave Crurella. This was around 1972.
An October 9, 1971, Billboard magazine article “Atl Forms New Label,” in their “General News Section,” reported Ahmet Ertegun, president of Atlantic Records, Robert Stigwood, president of Stigwood Enterprises, and Earl McGrath, a former head of production for 20th Century-Fox Pictures, co-formed a new label, Clean. In addition to the Detroit group, Shadow (with Stigwood and McGrath producing), they also signed Starbuck, and a Los Angeles rock group, Country. From 1977 to 1980 McGrath was the president of Rolling Stones Records, an Atlantic subsidiary.
The Gilbert/Memmer composed single of “I’m Drifting (Thinking of You) b/w Oh La La” was issued in 1972 on Clean.
So McGrath came to see Shadow in Ann Arbor and liked it; we flew into New York for Stigwood to audition our originals. At the time, the Bee Gees were Stig’s boys, let me tell you. We went to Stig’s five-story townhouse on Park Avenue, just me, Dave, and Marc, and we sang five or six songs in harmony with an acoustic guitar. Stig got up and he told us he liked it a lot. So he tells us his “boys,” the Bee Gees, are in town and he had to go. But he invited us to their concert at Radio City Music Hall and he sent a limo to pick us up. We got invited to the after-show back-stage party, which was very cool.
Anyway, McGrath calls us the next day and said Stigwood wanted to sign Shadow. So we signed. And that’s when we found out that Stigwood wanted to put an orchestra behind us.
Right away with the lush Bee Gees arrangements.
You got that right. Now, I could see the strings in spots but not all the way across all the songs on the whole record. Dave, on the other hand, was dead set against any of it. He refused to “sell out” as he put it. I guess Stigwood wanted to keep those guys [the orchestra musicians] working between Bee Gees gigs, but we weren’t going to be the Bee Gees. No way. So we did the album in three weeks in New York. Then went back for another three [weeks] and finished it. The label mixed it down without us — we had no input. They produced a test pressing and gave it to Stigwood. However, by then, Stigwood didn’t care anymore because we didn’t put his orchestra non-sense behind us like he wanted.
Stigwood told us he’d release the 45 [rpm single] and if it “does something,” he’ll put some money behind it. But [Clean] didn’t try to get airplay. A couple Ann Arbor stations picked it up and it just faded away.
But we still had a contract. So Shadow did another demo. And Stigwood liked that. And he said, “Keep at it. Cut some more songs.” Basically, you get the cold shoulder when you don’t do what they want, which we didn’t.
And Shadow split.
So Shadow split. We went back to Columbus, Ohio, where we were based. Our [financial] backer lived there: John M. Moore, a big booking agent in the area. Phyllis Diller, the “haystack guy” from television’s Hee-Haw (laughs), all the big acts; when they came through, John booked them. But John wanted to get into rock ’n’ roll; he never had a rock band that he broke and that was one of his life’s goals. And he picked Shadow.
But how that all happened with John: Shadow’s ex-manager moved to Columbus and started working at Marzetti’s, you know, the salad dressing? So [our ex-manager] is working there and became “friendly” with Mrs. Marzetti and she knew John Moore — when we were putting Shadow together back in 1971. We were done by 1973 and went back to Michigan.
By 1975, out of the ashes of Ray Manzarek’s rehearsals with Iggy Pop, ex-Stooges’ guitarist Ron Asheton and Dennis Thompson from the MC5 formed the LA-based (Ron Asheton’s) New Order, which Dave Gilbert joined as vocalist. Manzarek’s and Iggy’s various pre-Nite City and post-Stooges bands are discussed at length in pages of The Ghosts of Jim Morrison, the Phantom of Detroit, and the Fates of Rock ’n’ Roll.
And what was your next musical adventure in Michigan?
I put together a new and improved Shadow (laughs); a seven piece. But we couldn’t find a lead singer. Dave was having some personal issues at the time, but got it together and came back. And the guys agreed. But the new project didn’t jell. Drugs and drink were in the mix and it wasn’t working. The performance wasn’t there.
What were some of the gigs the Detroit or Columbus-based Shadow played?
Oh, I can tell you a good one. We played the Top Hat in Monroe. And we were using this song off this late-Sixties bootleg Jeff Beck record as our set closer — I’ll tell you the song in a minute. So we just finished our second-to-last song. It’s like 10 to 2 in the morning and here comes these guys, four of them, dressed to the teeth like “rock stars.” And they sit at a table in the front. And we rip into our closer. We finished. And those four guys left. So we asked the bartender, “Who where those guys sitting in the front?” So the bartender says, “That’s, uh, oh, that’s uh . . . they were at the civic center in Monroe.” It was Aerosmith — on their first ever Michigan date. The song they heard us play: Johnny Burnette’s take of “Train Kept A-Rollin’.”
So that’s where Aerosmith got the idea to record it?
Oh, yeah. And Shadow did a really cool version of it with me and Fred Hughes on guitars. Fred was really good. I would do a lead. Dave would sing. Fred would do a lead. We really rocked it up, more so than Beck from the bootleg album.
So you did the first rearrangement of “Train Kept A-Rollin’ into a hard-rock song. Aerosmith stole it, well pinched it, from Shadow?
Yep. No one did “Train Kept A-Rollin’.” No one was playing it back then; only Jeff Beck on that bootleg album. Those are the sessions when Jeff was trying to put together a new band out of the ashes of the Yardbirds. Robert Plant and [John] Bonham were there. That’s how [Led] Zeppelin formed, out of those Beck sessions; they met there. [Rod] Stewart was there and that’s how the Jeff Beck Group formed. Corky Laing [from Mountain] was the drummer on those sessions. That’s the Beck bootleg. Great record.
My bassist, Chad, in a second version of Shadow, had the Beck boot and wanted me to check it out and it was just great. So we covered “Train” and Dave killed it. Just killed it. Then Aerosmith seen us do it at the Top Hat and they recorded it on their second album [Get Your Wings; March 1974] — and got a hit record out of it.
To put the Detroit scene into perspective: Phantom’s Divine Comedy: Part 1 was also released in March of 1974. There is an April 2019 post-script at the end of this article — with more details as to when this “meeting” between Shadow and Aerosmith occured.
And Aerosmith debuted it, live, on The Midnight Special, shortly thereafter.
Yep. They did alright.
It’s my understanding those leads on Aerosmith’s version are rooted in Detroit: Steve Hunter and Dick Wagner — and not Joe Perry and Brad Whitford — play those leads. That’s always been a point of contention with music journalists and guitarists, even more so as to who played the leads on Johnny Burnette & the Rock and Roll Trio’s version (which is discussed at length in The Ghosts of Jim Morrison).
That’s probably true. I wouldn’t doubt it. Hunter and Wagner commanded a lot of respect. Great guitarists. Oh, you know, a sidebar to the whole Aerosmith thing: Marc [Gilbert] ended up jamming with the Joe Perry Project. I can’t recall if that was just jamming or an audition to be in the band. I think Joe Perry lost his lead singer after their first album.
Now that I did not know. Interesting. Marc’s career is more epic than his brother’s.
Marc’s a great guy and great singer in his own right, for sure.
Speaking of songs being pinched: Arthur told me he wrote “Hollywood Nights.”
Seger’s song?
Yeah.
I don’t know anything about that. We, Pendragon, never played that song when I was with the band — not even in our cover sets. That was [when Seger issued the song] in 1978, before I left Detroit for California. I first heard it in California on a lunch break when I was working a day job at a supermarket.
However, Art and Punch were friends. Maybe Art came up with a lick or something and passed it onto Punch, who passed it to Seger? Like how it worked with me and “Desire,” possibly. But, like I said, you can’t copyright a lick.
We also discuss the Phantom’s connection to Bob Seger’s “Hollywood Nights” during the second part of our two-part interview with keyboardist Russ Klatt — a recording member on the Phantom’s Divine Comedy effort.
Yes, Chris Marshall (Pendragon’s first guitarist) said the same thing. He felt Art was more into dark, moody material and didn’t see him coming up with something like that, or “so bright,” as I said to Chris.
Yes, Arthur’s material had more of a moody vibe, for sure. But great songwriting nonetheless.
And when Pendragon did gigs at Harpos, Arthur mentioned they opened shows for Huey Lewis and the News.
No, not Huey; he didn’t “hit” until after I left the band. However, Pendragon did open for Iron Maiden.
The kings of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal? You’re kidding? Next you’ll tell me you opened for Saxon’s Detroit shows.
(Laughs). No, but we did for Iron Maiden! It was their first tour of North America and they rolled into Harpos, as did all the major bands of the day. By that time, Harpos went “metal,” around 1979, I believe. It was their first time in Detroit. We never met them, as they were too busy barnstorming in their dressing room, I’m sure. We, Art and the band, never heard of them. It was just some “Brit band” is all we knew. The next thing you know, like Missing Persons, Iron Maiden is all over MTV.
And you did open for the Shoes?
Yes, we did. Now they weren’t all over MTV (laughs). They were on Elektra. Were they out of LA, right?
No, I want to say Champaign or Chicago, Illinois. They were led by Jeff Murphy, who became a pretty successful alternative-rock producer in the early Nineties. The Shoes did three albums for Elektra who, I guess, thought they had the next “Knack” on their hands.
The Shoes were really cool guys. Elektra was dumping all kinds of money into that band and giving them all kinds of stuff. The band invited us into their dressing room and shared their deli. They gave us all these guitar strings and guitar picks. Great, great guys. We hung out and played video games.
Well, Chizzy was right, Joe. You were with Arthur for a long time. That’s some adventure.
Well, three years in a rock band, in rock-band years, is a long time. I was sad when it ended. Booze and drugs started to seep in a bit. And the business end was a mess. And it was just a case of it being time to leave that situation. We had this “success,” but it wasn’t turning into “money.” But that isn’t unique to Pendragon. All bands, many bands suffer that fate. That’s rock and roll. Not everyone survives it like Aerosmith or the Rolling Stones.
And now you’ve come full circle from doing Doors covers and Doors tribute sets with Arthur in Pendragon — to joining the Detroit Doors.
How that happened is that Chizzy and I had a mutual friend in Scott Williams, the Detroit Doors’ drummer. The band needed a guitarist, so I met Chizzy and he’s just a beautiful human being. He’s just a great singer with a great stage presence, fully committed to honoring Jim Morrison’s legacy.
And fully committed to use the band and Jim Morrison’s music to help others.
Yes, and I am on board with that 100 percent. That’s what sets this band apart from the others. Chizzy and I, as well as the band, are committed to now honoring Arthur and his music. Again, Art was a good guy and a great singer, songwriter and overall musician. I’m on board with this next phase in the Detroit Doors.
And so goes this tale of the supple wrists of Joe Memmer, working those flippers on “Detroit Rock City.” So how do you think he does it? What makes him so good? How did he avoid the distractions of the flashing lights and bells to become “part” of the machine and survive the glass-encased playing field? It’s not that big of a mystery, really. Joe’s a Detroit musician, baby — and he plays a mean pinball.
END
Post-Script, April 13, 2019: The Aerosmith Connection?
In regards as to when Aerosmith walked into The Top Hat rock club in Monroe, Michigan, outside of Detroit — where they watched the ending of Shadow’s set and seen Dave Gilbert and Joe Memmer rip through a version of “Train Kept A-Rollin’”: Here’s an excerpt from the Facebook page of Splatt Gallery. The Walled Lake-based rock art gallery completed an in-depth investigation as to when Aerosmith “officially” kicked off their Get Your Wings Tour in 1974. The investigation also includes a discussion as to Aerosmith’s performance history of the song.
Here’s Splatt Gallery’s conclusion of their investigation:
You should recall, a few posts back, that we dispelled the belief that Aerosmith kicked off their Get Your Wings tour in Detroit, on the erroneous date of January 7, 1974. But it turns out that Aerosmith did perform a pre-tour show in Michigan, still over a month before the start of the tour — but the memory of this show may have fed the tour kick-off myth.
The managers of The Brewery in East Lansing were early fans of the Boston band and they had been trying to book them — they finally succeeded with a show on January 30, 1974.
Aerosmith had performed at least twice before in Michigan, when they toured with the Mahavishnu Orchestra in February 1973, and when they toured with Mott the Hoople in October 1973 — incorrectly billed as “Arrowsmith” for both shows. They did NOT, however, appear with the New York Dolls at the Michigan Palace in September 1973.
At the end of a glowing review of The Brewery show, written by Dave DiMartino in Lansing’s State News newspaper, he writes: “Heading for Detroit, the group will share the bill with guitarist Roy Buchanan this weekend, and then continue their trek of the Midwest.”
The January 19, 1974, issue of The Fifth Estate newspaper in Detroit had a listing in its events calendar for Linda Ronstadt with Roy Buchanan at the Michigan Palace, February 1. Our guess is that Ronstadt cancelled (she would return to the Palace on the 13th with Jackson Browne), and that Aerosmith was slotted in. An eyewitness account claimed: “Aerosmith . . . played Detroit with Roy Buchanan . . . the show was excellent and my fellow guitarist-buddy and me both thought Joe Perry blew the ‘Telecaster guitar -god’ and his lame band off the stage.”
Upon further investigation, it’s been discovered The Top Hat was not in Monroe, but a bit further down the road in Rockwood, Michigan, which is closer to Toledo, Ohio. “River Road” is now known as “Huron River Road” these days. However, this is the club where Shadow had a gig and Aerosmith stumbled in and caught the end of the band’s set — either in February or October of 1973.
Music/Video Section: The Detroit Doors, The Free, and Pendragon
A special thanks to Detroit rock photographer Michelle Walton for the images and Mike Chisholm for the music clearances.
You can learn more about the Detroit Doors with this supplement article featuring singer Mike “Chizzy” Chisholm.
— R.D Francis is the writer of The Ghosts of Jim Morrison, the Phantom of Detroit, and the Fates of Rock ’n’ Roll, an exploration of the life and times of the musician responsible for the mysterious 1974 Jim Morrison “solo album,” Phantom’s Divine Comedy: Part 1 — and came to replace Jim Morrison in the Doors.
You can learn more about the Phantom’s career and book purchasing information by visiting the Facebook Author’s Page for R.D Francis.
