New documentary: A Band Called Death

I've mentioned them before, and then it seemed that interested had waned a bit in this band, but Death is back, baby! Available On May 24th digitally & in theaters, A Band Called Death tells the story of this pretty much unknown all-black 70's punk rock band from Detroit. Looks like a good one...

Before Bad Brains, the Sex Pistols or even the Ramones, there was a band called Death. Punk before punk existed, three teenage brothers in the early '70s formed a band in their spare bedroom, began playing a few local gigs and even pressed a single in the hopes of getting signed. But this was the era of Motown and emerging disco. Record companies found Death’s music— and band name—too intimidating, and the group were never given a fair shot, disbanding before they even completed one album. Equal parts electrifying rockumentary and epic family love story, A Band Called Death chronicles the incredible fairy-tale journey of what happened almost three decades later, when a dusty 1974 demo tape made its way out of the attic and found an audience several generations younger. Playing music impossibly ahead of its time, Death is now being credited as the first black punk band (hell...the first punk band!), and are finally receiving their long overdue recognition as true rock pioneers.

Detroit Breakdown this Saturday

As announced back in April:
The Detroit Breakdown
Lincoln Center Out Of Doors | NYC - July 31

Sixties garage icons Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels and ? and the Mysterians, iconoclastic rockers The Gories and Death, nomadic bluesman Eddie Kirkland, stirring soul singers Melvin Davis and Spyder Turner, Motown hitmakers The Velvelettes and Dennis Coffey and R&B all stars The Party Stompers.

Presented by Lincoln Center for The Performing Arts in association with The Ponderosa Stomp Foundation

Death - the blog

The Detroit-based proto punk band, Death, has their own blog now. Click here to visit. You might remember I posted something a couple of weeks back following the story about them in the NY Times.

Click here to order their album from Drag City Records, or here to order it from Amazon.

Punk Before Punk Was Punk

This is amazing! Read the story of mid 70's rock band Death in today's NY Times. Listen to them play "Politicians In My Eyes." I had never heard of these guys before, but they existed, starting in Detroit as an R&B band in the early 70's, and switching to an up tempo, hard rock style in 1973 after seeing an Alice Cooper show. And yes, they seem to have beaten the Bad Brains and Pure Hell for the mantle of first all black punk band by some time. Incredible.

"The teenage Hackney brothers started playing R&B in their parents’ garage in the early ’70s but switched to hard rock in 1973, after seeing an Alice Cooper show. Dannis played drums, Bobby played bass and sang, and David wrote the songs and contributed propulsive guitar work, derived from studying Pete Townshend’s power-chord wrist technique. Their musicianship tightened when their mother allowed them to replace their bedroom furniture with mikes and amps as long as they practiced for three hours every afternoon. “From 3 to 6,” said Dannis, 54, “we just blew up the neighborhood.”