Exodus to Pontiac (for Detroiters)

Salvation may have arrived for live Detroit music, only we'll have to go to Pontiac to get it. Without naming names, let's just say I've been burned out on downtown Detroit venues for a while. Mostly because of the simple fact that they sound bad. (They smell like vomit too, but a little scent of bile never hurt anybody.) Sure, if you go higher-tier, like St. Andrews and The State Theater you're more likely to get a better mixed show, but step below that and you're in for some real midrange abuse. Like cat screeches and baby wails recorded by a $5 Radioshack special and magnified at weapons-grade levels straight into your eardrum kind of abuse.

I don't have anything against the D. I grew up 313 and, while I can't exactly say "the city's been good to me," I can say that it has its charms and I want the best for it. But the little bit of out-of-state touring I've done in bands only showed me that it doesn't have to be this way – that the United States indie rock trail is littered with plenty of establishments that take pride in what they're doing enough to offer bands the chance to communicate their musical ideas legibly in a relatively filth-free setting. There are places like the Doug Fir Lounge in Portland, OR and Rubbergloves in Denton, TX that not only sound phenomenal but have style and self-respect to match. To my crew, who cut their teeth playing Detroit's hardest dive bars, these places seemed like something out of a commercial for toilet paper and coming home to reality was a drag. Detroit has needed a competing venue on that circuit for years.

I've never felt that independent music belonged sandwiched in bars. Not exclusively. I guess if the music is designed to be listened to while drunk then, by all means, stick with the blown speakers, passive aggressive soundmen and park-at-your-own-risk location – and we'll all work ourselves up into a state of intoxicated agitation. But so much of the rest of music is a statement of some kind – art of some kind, actually – and at least deserves a decent frame to be considered in. Yeah, serve booze, but let it be secondary. We need music venues that happen to serve alcohol, as much as we need alcohol venues that happen to serve music.

I think I found one. I covered the Fujiya & Miyagi show for Detour last night and hiked it out to Pontiac, to a new venue called the Crofoot. (I say "hiked it," but it took me about the same amount of time it would take me to get to, say, The Majestic.) The Crofoot is a three-in-one musical complex in the vein of New York's Bowery Ballroom or The Knitting Factory, with rooms ranging in size from intimate (Pike Room) to cavernous (Eagle Theater). The place was crisp. It smelled like new (not a tinge of vomit, but give them time); all freshly cut wood paneling and shit. But more importantly, the sound was SOUND. I could have used a little more bottom end, but in general all the details were in the right place. I could tell who was playing what. I could hear vocals. I didn't even need a catch rag to dab a bleeding ear.

Fujiya & Miyagi were great, too. I've been discovering the really good Krautrock like Neu! and Cluster this year so I was definitely prepared to appreciate it. I had never heard them before and because the sound was clear, I got to experience them the way they intended to be experienced. When I got the album later, it sounded just like the set I had just seen. [Bonus: I had no problem finding a parking spot on the same street (there are lots for cheap all over the place anyway) and I wasn't confronted by aggressive strangers asking for my money with their faces inches from mine.]

This isn't an anti-Detroit rant, anti-street person, or anti-anything. It's pro music. I like live music and it's good to know there's a decent place to see it again.