Detroit Rock City (23 page)

Charlie Martin:
So at 4 a.m., with union stagehands working triple time, they had to strike the stage and move it back fifteen feet and set it all back up, and it just cost thousands of dollars. We had gotten $50,000 in advance and were supposed to get the rest on the night of show. But because of this fiasco, Steve Glantz did not have the liquid funds to pay us, and Punch was adamant that we were not going to play without it. Punch told him he was going to have a riot, so Steve had to call his dad, Gabe, who drove it out to him that evening and handed it over to us in a certified check. Glantz filed bankruptcy after that, and we never got the 25 percent.

Drew Abbott:
I still rue the day of Charlie's accident. We were coming home from rehearsal and I saw Charlie's car at the side of the road and I almost stopped, but I had to get home for something. He had gotten off the freeway and was coming back with a can of gas and was crossing the street, and a gal came around and hit him. He was okay—his feet were moving in the hospital, but he got a blood clot and that was it. He could never walk again. After that Robin left, and we got David Teegarden after trying a few drummers.

David Teegarden:
One day I was in Oklahoma at Dick Sims's house, and Jamie Oldaker drove up and said, “I just got a call from Bob, talking about Charlie Martin's accident.” I was feeling awful for Charlie, but I was also down because they didn't call me; they called Jamie to take over. That's how it is—they forget about you. They had been on the Night Moves tour, and it had soared to the top and really took Bob to a new arena. They went out for the rest of the tour, and the last gig was in Tulsa. We were friends, and we went to eat, and then I took him to the gig, and we were in the dressing room and he tells me this is Jamie's last gig because he had to go back with Clapton. They were going to take a break and audition drummers. They auditioned dozens of drummers, but I got it. When I signed on, my pay was $400 a week, and I thought I had hit gold. It didn't take long to get a raise to $600, then Punch would pull me over to the side and say, “You're getting a bonus on this” and hand me $2,000 extra. I was seeing all kinds of bonuses, then I was up to $1,500 a week. The first album I did was
Stranger in Town
. At that time they didn't give me a full cut on gigs, but now I was seeing $50,000 royalty checks. I can't believe it happened. We flew everywhere. I never had to touch my luggage, and we'd get there and have three limos waiting for us and the road manager would make sure bags got put in the van, and we'd bitch if we had to wait for our room keys. We played in Oakland at the coliseum, and Bill Graham built a whole western movie backstage with girls wearing tights being cocktail waitresses
and Eddie Money came up and did a comedy routine, which was pathetic. That was the
Against the Wind
tour. Then I was cut in on a concert take, so Bob would split the proceeds among the core members of the Silver Bullet Band. I was really making serious coin. When we started that tour, Drew Abbott—he was kind of an accountant, he was always talking about money—he said, “You know the ticket prices are going to be $15 a ticket. That's outrageous, people can't afford that.” I said, “Well, I don't have to pay that.” Drew bitched to Punch, and Punch said, “Shut the fuck up and play the gig.”

Drew Abbott:
Punch is a good businessman, and he's been right more than he's been wrong.

David Teegarden:
We were setting attendance records; Punch could book Atlanta and sell out in ten minutes. Then we started just doing two nights in every city. That was the first time that kind of thing had been done.

Shaun Murphy:
We would come back and do these great shows in Detroit. One year Mitch Ryder opened for us. Mitch came into the dressing room, and they're all glad-handing each other. So Mitch sits back at a table and is talking to Bob, and he says, “You know, there's only a couple great song writers in the world, and one of 'em's me.” Bob didn't know what to say.

Drew Abbott:
Craig Frost came and played keyboards, and then after the '89 tour David and I left. In any corporation you have to look at a band like this as just that. I was a cog that worked in the corporation up to that point, but where he was going musically—wanting to play everything like the record, including the solos played by session guys—it was difficult. It caused friction. I think he was right to do this, it was working, but we had been pretty damn successful doing things the way we had been doing them. Bob was going in a different direction, and I was just going to cause a lot of friction. We never got into that for the money; it was such a shock to me, that money. All I wanted to do was make enough money to get to the next gig, and when I was off the road I would still go down and play the blues off of Cass Avenue, but the other guys never played when we had down time. I don't know why.

David Teegarden:
You know, protection is utmost in Punch's deal, Bob's image. It's very rare to find people that passionate about it, and he loves Bob like a son.

Drew Abbott:
When we were opening for Bachman Turner Overdrive, they were hitting big, and I had breakfast with Fred Turner one morning, and he said here's how it happens: “You have to have the right material, the right record company, the right band, and the right manager all at the same time, and if any one of those is missing, you're not gonna make it.” We were listening to him and thought it makes sense to us. So Bob had the right everything all at the same time.

Mitch Ryder (
Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels, Detroit, solo, vocalist
):
Bob is one of the greatest writers we've ever produced. When he was serious about his writing—and I use that in the past tense—he wrote some songs that can never be matched. So he clearly had a talent. The question still remains: Did he make Punch Andrews or did Punch Andrews make him? I think Punch has done a remarkable job handling his image, considering what I know about him. And he's done a remarkable job taking care of his money for him, which allowed him the luxury of going ten years between albums, to serve his fans as one of the upper class. I just don't feel he served his fans as well as he could have, and I don't begrudge him the idea of living the life of luxury, 'cause he earned it. He had a choice to make. He had to choose between fans or money, and he chose to “enjoy my life.” Good for you, Bob. You enjoyed your life, but the fans could have been a lot happier.

David Teegarden:
I still get my royalties, and I never signed a contract. They don't have to pay us shit. But they do.

Robert Matheu (
photographer
):
I met this guy David Tedds a few years ago; he was from Redford. He said, “Dude, I went to see Black Sabbath in at Cobo Arena, and my best friend made this big cross out of tin foil and cardboard.” And I went, “It was on the cover of
Creem
magazine?” He goes, “Yeah, oh shit! You're right! How do you remember that?” I said, “If you go twenty-two pages in, there's another picture of the huge cross, and I'm right in the middle of the photo,” and he goes, “No, really?” And I am. This is way before I was ever part of
Creem
. I've got a bad mustache and I got a Cody High School T-shirt on.

David Tedds (
fan
):
I didn't put the Sabbath cross together. I went to high school with the guy that did. I saw it waving around at the front of the crowd, and he told me in school the next day that he'd made it. He was a trip; he was permanently stoned and drove around in one of those seventies custom vans with the shag carpeting. His eight-track collection consisted exclusively of the first several Sabbath albums. He'd just rotate them day in and day out and drive around blaring them as loud as possible for the populace to hear, whether they liked it or not. He lived in his parents' basement. The floor was painted black with a huge silver cross in the middle. His famous line to me was, “Dave, one of the reasons I love Sabbath so much is that they're so scientific!”

Bobby Hackney (
Death, bassist, vocalist
):
We read
Circus
, but we grew up with
Creem
in the midseventies. Our hope was always to be in
Creem
.

Mark Norton:
I was in the 27, and we opened for John Cale at Bookie's. Barry Kramer was there with his ex-wife, Connie, and we sat around doing coke at the table.

Robert Matheu:
I'd see the
Creem
people at the shows—mostly Lester—before I was involved with the magazine. I'd see Lester at the Faces shows, and I snuck backstage. Actually, at that time you didn't have to sneak backstage: a 35-mm camera was better than a laminate pass. I was seventeen, and I'd see Lester and I knew who Charlie Auringer was, I knew who the
Creem
people were, and I had my 35-mm camera. After the show the Faces were always across the street to the Pontchartrain, where they were staying. And I could just keep taking pictures, because for them it was all about the party. Lester didn't give me the time of day. He'd be nice occasionally and go, “Did you get any good photos tonight?” I'd say, “Yeah, you want some?” He'd go, “No, not really.” After a couple of the Pontchartrain parties he said, “Maybe I want to see a photo of that.” It would be safe to say I did some blow off the back of a Ronnie Wood guitar with him once at the Pontchartrain. I think the beauty of
Creem
, of why the magazine stayed what it was for so long until Barry passed away, was because Barry never cared to play with the New York people, the big boys, real hard. He liked going to New York, but he liked coming back. Whether he was cognizant of it, I don't know.

Linda Barber (
journalist
, Creem
magazine
):
What eventually doomed
Creem
was that Barry separated
Creem
from
Rolling Stone
. They were very similar publications, but Jann Wenner had the vision to see it on a more standard level, kid of a rock 'n' roll
Playboy
. He got political; he got environmentally conscious. He expanded into so many other realms besides just music. Whereas Barry was like, “No, we're just about music.” I think that's what killed it, because generations grow up faster after us. They are smarter, younger, and they are hungrier for more. Some other things can relate to music. Something even as dumb as Bill Clinton taking up the saxophone.

Robert Matheu:
I think that's what kept
Creem
so good for so long is that it stayed removed. I don't think it was a conscious thing on Barry's part.

Bob Mulrooney:
I went down and met Lester Bangs at the
Creem
house when they moved to Birmingham, about close to the time he was leaving. I called down to the
Creem
office and tried to order a back issue that had some article on the Velvets I was looking for, and the guy on the phone goes, “Hey, I wrote those articles.” I go, “What?” And then I knew who it was and I said, “You're my hero.”
I was going nuts. So I was doing a radio special on Lou Reed a little later for this community college station, and I talk to Lester again. I wanted him to come on the show, but he couldn't, but he tells me that if I'm really into the Velvets and Lou Reed, call this guy in New York, and that was this Constantine Radulavitch, this famous Velvets collector and archivist dude. So I call him, and he sent me copies of all his stuff—four huge reel-to-reels of stuff, unreleased songs, Lou Reed playing on an acoustic at parties of Richard and Lisa Robinson, and he's drunk on his fucking ass, and then he'll get all scrambled 'cause he's arguing, and what else? Do the Ostrich was on there. The guy says, “Here, take these and just take what you want off of it for your special, but give them to Lester afterwards.” So I took them to his house on Brown Street in Birmingham. Dave Marsh lived there; so did Ben Edmonds. I went there with a couple friends. I wasn't even a drinker at the time, and Lester's hands were shaking. It was, like, the early evening, but he was shaking when we met, and he goes, “Let's go get some beer.” And we got loaded. We put on the tapes for a minute, and Lester goes, fuck this shit, let's put on
Raw Power
. So we played
Raw Power
, like, over and over and over, for hours. Only that and Blue Oyster Cult, the second album,
Tyranny and Mutation
. All of Lester's room was all albums—you couldn't even sit on the floor—and he had these huge speakers, but only one of them worked. It was weird to read how depressed Lester was when he died. He used to call me at my house, like, looking for Quaaludes.

Mark Parenteau:
When they got the office in Birmingham,
Creem
was really becoming a glossy national magazine. Ben Edmonds and Dan Carlisle lived on Smith Street in Birmingham. It was just a suburban house directly across the street from the chief of police, and we were having so much stuff going on and then his kids, his son and daughter, tried to come over and hang out with us. I'm like, “Dan, this is the police chief's son. You may want to be careful.” But stars were coming to that house because it was so powerful between
Creem
and WABX. I mean, it was really the house you wanted to visit if you were Bryan Ferry. Bryan came over during the heyday of Roxy Music, since
Creem
magazine had championed that music first and had written about it and inspired Dan and I into playing it on WABX.