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Splatt Gallery's History of Michigan Music Posters
Volume Ten - 1974 - Page Four
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Neat ad for Bob Seger at the Springfield Oaks Activity Center in Davisburg, Michigan, March 21, 1974, billed as “The Bob Seger Group”, with the L.S. Phreaque Rock Band. Interestingly, the exact same line-up at the same venue appeared in a newspaper article with the show date of February 22, 1974. The venue was close to Seger’s home, so there could have been two shows, or the first one may have been postponed.
The article also mentions that the L.S. Phreaque Rock Band was from Grand Blanc, Michigan and that they had won a battle of the bands at Springfield Oaks on December 15 (1973). The band also released one single recorded by Bill Lamb in Flint, Michigan that was released on August 6, 1975. The writer of the two tracks, Lex Morris, is currently a member of the Orlando, Florida band Steel. Unfortunately, we cannot find a video of either song, the A-side, “Rockin’ Down”, described as a “hard-hitting bonehead cruncher”, or the B-side, “I’ve Seen the Light”, described as a heavy bluesy rocker”.
In a book, that appears to be a voluminous family history, titled “The Legacy of the de Lacy, Lacey, Lacy Family, 1066 – 1994”, it seems one of the family built the Springfield Oaks Activity Center. One section reads “Buck Buchanan, one of our young crew members suggested we hold a “Battle of the Bands”…We held one each month and after the fourth, we booked Bob Segar (sic)…The overall best band was determined to be L.S. Phreaque from Flint, and besides the first-place money, they won the right to be the back-up band to Bob Segar (sic).”
This all may be the source of the odd line found in many Bob Seger biographies “…including one renown concert in Davisburg, MI, called Battle of the Bands”.
A Capitol Records full-page ad for a tour by Grand Funk in support of their eighth studio album “Shining On”. The album, boasted as "the first 3D rock & roll album" came with 3D glasses to go with album artwork.
The tour started off in Richmond, Kentucky on March 21, 1974 and lasted over 13 weeks with 41 shows.
A Capitol Records poster for the eighth studio album by Grand Funk, “Shinin’ On”, released in March 1974.
Second in the series of nice illustrations by an unknown artist for the Underground in Ypsilanti, Michigan, this time for the schedule of shows March 22, 1974 through April 7th, with Storm, Jeffrey, and Straight Light.
Record company ad for Peter Frampton, right around the time of his appearance at the Ford Auditorium in Detroit, March 22, 1974.
A pair of adds and a backstage pass with Brownsville Station opening for Johnny Winter, in San Bernardino, California on March 22, 1974, in Salt Lake City, Utah on March 25th, and in San Diego, California on March 30th.
An ad/ticket form for Grand Funk Railroad at the Indiana State Fairgrounds in Indianapolis, Indiana on March 22, 1974.
Cover of the March 22, 1974 issue of the Ann Arbor SUN newspaper by Gary Kell.
As a premium gift for a subscription, the March 22, 1974 issue of the Ann Arbor Sun newspaper was offering the newly-released album by Ted Nugent & the Amboy Dukes. “Call of the Wild”, released in February 1974 was the group’s sixth album.
As we’ve noted before, no two of the albums ever had the same band line-up, and in the extended period since their last album, “Survival of the Fittest”, recorded live at the Eastown Theater in Detroit in 1971, the band had undergone three line-up changes, going through vocalists Dave Gilbert and John Angelos. Released on Frank Zappa’s DiscReet record label, the album yielded the group’s final single, “Sweet Revenge”.
Cover art by Lynn Lascaro, aka “Napoleon”.
Ted Nugent & the Amboy Dukes – Sweet Revenge (1974)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NjrrYPOdAI
The back cover subscription page of the Ann Arbor SUN newspaper from the March 8 and March 22, 1974 issues.
Poster/ad by an unknown artist for a Jazz Blues Weekend at Warriner Auditorium in Mount Pleasant, Michigan, March 22-24, 1974. Duke Ellington couldn’t make it, his son Mercer aptly stood in for him. Exactly two months later, Duke Ellington passed away.
Eight years before the Prince album, the British band Hawkwind brought their “1999 Party” to the Michigan Palace in Detroit, March 23, 1974. It was Hawkwind’s second Detroit appearance, the previous show was at Ford Auditorium in November 1973. They took a liking to the Michigan Palace, they would return there three more times. Cartoon ad by an unknown artist.
Hawkwind – Silver Machine (1972)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfniG-AdSC4
A full-page United Artists Records ad in the March 1974 issue of CREEM magazine for the first live album, and fourth album overall, by Hawkwind, coinciding with their appearance at the Michigan Palace in Detroit on March 23, 1974.
Ad by an unknown artist for a benefit show for The Fifth Estate newspaper at The Earth Center in Hamtramck, Michigan, March 23, 1974.
We begin to find listings for the Catacombs Coffee House in the basement of St. Martin’s Church in Detroit, Michigan with the date of March 24, 1974 in the events calendar of The Fifth Estate newspaper. This poster for the venue was drawn by noted comic book artist Bill Bryan, yet another comic book artist to come from Detroit.
Poster by Keith Warren Graphics for Todd Rundgren & Utopia at the Masonic Auditorium in Detroit, March 24, 1974.
Newspaper ad for Todd Rundgren & Utopia at the Masonic Auditorium in Detroit, Michigan, March 24, 1974.
Poster by an unknown artist for the Saginaw, Michigan band, CEYX (pronounced seeks) at the Hidden Hollow Lounge in Saginaw, March 24-25, 1974. The band is still available for hire today, as you’ll find here:
http://www.ruschentertainment.com/ceyx-band/
There is also a facebook page, “Eddie Kurth Michigan Music Hall of Fame” that has dozens of great promo shots of bands from the Greater Tri-City Region (Saginaw, Midland, and Bay City) throughout the years:
https://www.facebook.com/TheEddieKurthMichiganMusiciansHallOfFame/
Record company ad for The Marshall Tucker Band , right around the time of their first Michigan appearance, opening for Joe Walsh & Barnstorm at the IMA Auditorium in Flint, March 24, 1974.
Aerosmith returned for their second show in eight weeks at The Brewery in East Lansing, Michigan, March 25, 1974. Some online Aerosmith timelines have the band at the Civic Center in Saginaw, Michigan the night before, on the 24th, but we have been unable to confirm it. If correct, Aerosmith would have three consecutive nights in Michigan, as they go to the Rock & Roll Farm in Wayne, Michigan the night following this show at The Brewery.
As mentioned earlier, 1974 was the year of Aerosmith in Michigan with well over a dozen performances. We’ll continue our obsession with accuracy while sifting through the muddy waters of the past, so far we have eliminated the January 7 show from the database as we’re certain it was an error of the bootleggers. The database has both Brewery shows and the upcoming Rock & Roll Farm show, but Saginaw on January 24 is not, so it remains doubtful.
And then there is an intriguing mystery of just how the hell Aerosmith stumbled into the Top Hat bar in Rockwood, Michigan one night when the band Shadow, with Dave Gilbert and Joe Memmer, closed their set with “Train Kept A-Rollin’”.
Ad for Aerosmith, with Punch at the Rock ‘N’ Roll Farm in Wayne, Michigan, March 26, 1974, the night after their show at The Brewery in East Lansing.
The March 8, 1974 issue of the State News in East Lansing, Michigan carried three pages of stories, with pictures, of multiple instances of public nudity pranks that had erupted around campus on a particularly warm spring day. “Streaking” had come to Michigan State University.
Instances of this uniquely peculiar human activity are recorded throughout history since medieval Europe, occurrences by American college students go back at least as far as 1804, but a name for the stunt came from a Washington DC reporter covering a “mass nude run” at the University of Maryland in 1973, when he exclaimed to a national audience, “…they are streaking past me right now, it’s an incredible sight!”
Local police forces and campus officials, somewhat relieved that students were acting up in this fashion as compared to the violent protest demonstrations earlier in the 1970’s, basically condoned the still-illegal activity and even facilitated some planned events. Famous incidents included a streaker at the 1974 Oscar Awards presentation and at the Detroit Tigers Opening Day game.
The fad reached a peak with the release of the song “The Streak” by comedian Ray Stevens on March 27, 1974. And the true measure of a fad is when marketing men find a way to exploit it for advertising, and suddenly it was being used to sell everything from records, such as this ad for Discount Records in East Lansing, to vodka, to most ironically (or logically), clothing stores.
Ray Stevens – The Streak (1974)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxUfg3uCBbg
The Trading Post was a “hippie mall” in Roseville, Michigan, right across the road from the honk Macomb Mall. It had a large arcade in the back that began hosting concerts, at least as early as these March 27-28, 1974 shows by the band Punch.
This Rainbow Press handbill, likely by John Benson, also shows the other bands to follow, through to April 6, are Marcus, Holy Smoke, Angel Baby & her Daddy-O’s, Joltwagon, Salem Witchcraft, and Deluxe.
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Trading-Post-East/120579861623354
Apparently, the Trading Post “hippie mall” in Roseville, Michigan was a magnet for police looking for freaks to bust, as this ad that appeared in a number of issues of The Fifth Estate newspaper in Detroit implies. The photo is from the cover of the 1971 book “SHOTS”.
Cover of the 1971 book “SHOTS”, published by the Liberation News Service and edited by David Fenton.
Rumors of a legendary late night jam session by ex-Beatles John Lennon and Paul McCartney, the first and only time the two played together since the break-up of The Beatles, proved to be true when the bootleg album “A Toot and a Snore in ‘74” surfaced. It occurred in Los Angeles on March 28, 1974, while Lennon was producing a Harry Nilsson album, and Paul and Linda McCartney stopped by for a visit.
They were also joined by Stevie Wonder, who sang and played piano, Bobby Keys on sax, Jesse Ed Davis on guitar, Lennon’s girlfriend May Pang on tambourine, and Ed Freeman on bass. McCartney played drums, using Ringo Starr’s kit although Ringo was not present (the next day Ringo complained that Paul had messed up his drums).
The recording starts with John Lennon offering Stevie Wonder “a snort” and “a toot” of cocaine, and adds “it’s goin’ round”.
Various Artists – A Toot and a Snore in ’74 (1974)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrSSxlu4ns8
Two ads that appeared in the March 28, 1974 of The Village Voice in New York City juxtapose the change of eras in the NYC music scene. The foreclosure of the Fillmore East Theatre, and the beginning of rock shows at CBGB.
As most folks know, CBGB-OMFUG (which stands for “Country, Bluegrass, Blues and Other Music For Uplifting Gormandizers”) opened in December 1973 as “Hilly’s”, by owner Hilly Kristal with the intended format of roots music and poetry readings. In February 1974, two locals, Bill Page and Rusty McKenna, convinced Kristal to let them book shows, and started bringing in rock groups. The ad shows an appearance by the band Television on March 31, 1974.
Although they are not named on this ad, the Dogs rock and roll band from Michigan opened for the Dictators at Popeye’s Spinach Factory in Brooklyn, New York on March 29, 1974. It turned out to be a historic night for the Dictators, as we have two accounts.
The first is from a Punk Magazine article by John Holmstrom and Mark Rosenthal:
"'Cause you know baby, I'm the Next Big Thing"*
1974--The famous Popeye's Incident--March 29th
Popeye's was a derelict bar in Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn. The clientele should have gone to Alcoholics Anonymous. The bar tried live rock'n'roll to boost business. The Dogs (who still play in Los Angeles), opened the night. The late great Eric Emerson fronted the Dogs. The Dictators played their usual set--Fireman's Friend, Master Race Rock, Backstreet Boogie, Back to Africa, Weekend. Adny asked Richard Blum, one of their roadies, to come up on stage. He slammed into "Wild Thing," giving one of the great live performances of that song in this century, despite the fact that he had never set foot on a stage before in his whole life except to fix the mikes or set up the drums wrong. Something happened. All the bums in the bar--proud to see a fellow derelict make it big--went NUTS. They liked this degenerate so much they started climbing the bar stools, throwing bottles, and screaming for more, more more$$ They danced and ranted and raved--not realizing that Handsome Dick Manitoba was born.
Richard Blum--a madman in those days. He ate twenty eggs a day. Restaurants couldn't fill his orders for lunch 'cause he ordered so much. He wore a giant afro haircut and a bad skin problem. He caused a lot of the trouble that got them thrown out of the press parties they'd connive their way into 'cause [he'd] eat so many 'ludes. He cooked for the Dictators and worked as a roadie--smashing equipment, totalling the rented equipment trucks, losing amplifiers, and screwing up the sound.
The Next Big Thing--The Dictators continued to play the Coventry but Richard was not an official member of the band yet. A friend of the band set up a gig on their home turf--the Bronx. Six hundred people came to see them at a party on May 3rd, 1974. The Dictators played an amazing set and Handsome Dick Manitoba came on dressed in somebody's father's bathrobe as a special surprise guest.
Sandy Pearlman and Murray Krugman were in the audience and were stupified by Manitoba as he and the band did "Wild Thing" and the classic "I Got You Babe." The next week Sandy and Murray wanted to sign up the band--with Manitoba as an official member. None of the Dictators understood why. Richard could not sing. Sandy and Murray thought the guy was funny. They thought it would be a good joke to get this group signed to a record contract. They threatened to take a bigger percentage of royalties if Manitoba didn't join. Richard was welcomed with open arms.
And the second account comes from Blondies’ lead singer Debbie Harry:
One night Eric [Emerson], Chris [Stein], and Barbara [Winter, ex- of Edgar and Eric's girlfriend] went to see the Dictators at Popeye's Spinach Factory in Brooklyn. Eric got raging drunk, jumped up onstage with the Dogs, and tore his shirt off. Then the Dictators came onstage and their big fat roadie jumped on too and sang "Wild Thing." That was Dick Manitoba. Everybody in the room was completely drunk. It was like a fraternity party.
Nice poster for Mahogany Rush with Bob Seger, The Wackers, and Little Boy Blues Band at the London Arena in London, Ontario, Canada, March 29, 1974.
The Wackers, who started out as the Los Angeles band Roxy, moved to Montreal, Canada in 1972 where they recorded two albums, released by Elektra Records, before singer-guitarist-keyboardist Michael Stull left the band to return to LA.
Back in LA, Stull was being considered as a replacement for Jim Morrison in The Doors, and although that did not happen, Stull did later join the Butts Band, which included former Doors John Densmore and Robbie Krieger. But where Stull became most successful was in voice-over acting, including a character in the Scooby-Doo cartoons, (that author RD Francis should get a kick out of) called the Wax Phantom.
Poster/ad for The Ark coffeehouse in Ann Arbor, Michigan with an appearance by Bessie Jones, March 29-30, 1974. Her traditional gospel and folk songs, along with the group, the Georgia Sea Island Singers, were recorded by noted archivist ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax in 1961, the Georgia Sea Island Singers performed at President Jimmy Carter’s inauguration, and Jones may be familiar as a source of sampling by Moby and others.
Bessie Jones – Sometimes (1961)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5esC8pgfOag
Beginning on, or around, March 29, 1974, Danny Hernandez, formerly of The Ones, brought his new band, called “Punk” to the Pro Bowl in East Lansing, Michigan, for a summer-long residency.
Promoter Jerry Patlow took out two full-page ads in the March 30, 1974 issue of Billboard magazine. The first page was dedicated to Rock & the Sharks with illustration by Dennis Preston.
The second of two pages that promoter Jerry Patlow took out in the March 30, 1974 issue of Billboard magazine, featuring these other acts under his management – Rumor, Chubby Checker, Freddie Cannon, Vince Vance & the Valiants, Angel Baby & her Daddy-O’s, Luther Allison, and Frijid Pink.
A collage in the March 30, 1974 issue of the Fifth Estate newspaper in Detroit, Michigan by FE staff member Tom Willoch (or Wiloch).
Poster/ad for the first Michigan appearance by Dolly Parton, as part of the Porter Wagoner Show at Masonic Auditorium in Detroit on March 30, 1974.
Volume Ten - 1974 - continues - HERE
Nice schedule of events at the Michigan Palace in Detroit, for March 21, 1974 through April 12th.
Newspaper ad for Sly & the Family Stone at the Michigan Pace in Detroit on March 21, 1974. The ad appeared in the March 10th edition of the Detroit Free Press newspaper, eleven days before the show date, but is not found again at any time up to the 21st. The calendar section of the Fifth Estate newspaper makes no mention of it and we cannot confirm it with any other source other than this ad, so we might assume that this was yet another of his infamous cancellations.
On their 1970 tour, the band cancelled nearly a third of their scheduled dates, including a February 20th show at Olympia Stadium in Detroit, and a July 27th show in Chicago that sparked a riot. That one was intended to be a free concert in Grant Park to make up for three shows the band had cancelled in Chicago earlier in the year.
When the band did perform at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit on December 16, 1971, the promoter had made them post a $10,000 “performance bond”. And just before they took the stage that night they also had to pony-up for an old hotel bill to keep Detroit bailiffs from impounding their instruments.
They will try again at the Michigan Palace in November, where it appears that the band did perform one of the two scheduled nights.
The Dogs Rock and Roll Band Direct from Detroit, still in NYC, appearing at Folk City, March 20-24, 1974.
A slick little ad for the first Michigan appearance by the Jefferson Starship, at the Masonic Auditorium in Detroit on March 20, 1974. The ultimate offshoot from the Jefferson Airplane, which had sputtered to an end through the beginning of the 1970’s, the Starship would become more successful commercially than the Airplane had ever been. The transformation of the band, which took four years to reach fruition, will be the subject of another post (because of the great art).
The Detroit show was only the second show of the Starship’s first tour, which had started the night before in Chicago, the band’s first album would be recorded following the end of the tour in July and would be released in September 1974.
A rather cumbersome pun, “If Rock’s Your Role…” in an ad for the Embassy Hotel in Windsor, Canada, with a two-night appearance by Bob Seger “and the Good Time Band”, March 18-19, 1974.
Another great poster from the Grand Valley State Colleges in Allendale, Michigan, this time for Todd Rundgren’s Utopia on March 19, 1974.
A nice ad for a show in Atlanta, Georgia with Rare Earth, Kool and the Gang, and Funkadelic on March 17, 1974.
The “Guitar Battle” shows continued to tour the Midwestern USA through the spring and early summer of 1974. The Rockets opened the show at the Kellogg Auditorium in Battle Creek, Michigan on March 17, 1974. On March 30th, the battle descended upon Kiel Auditorium in St. Louis, Missouri, with ex-MC5 guitarist Wayne Kramer in tow. The following night, the show moved over to the Memorial Auditorium in Louisville, Kentucky.
Lafayette, Louisiana was the next appearance, on May 16th, followed by Dayton, Ohio on May 27th, with Bob Seger opening the show. On June 7th, the battle raged on at the Convention Center in Indianapolis, Indiana. On June 8th, it invaded the Rockford Boyland High School in Rockford, Illinois. And on June 23rd, the Memorial Stadium in Asheville, North Carolina was the scene for the sonic carnage, with Bob Seger again among the opening acts.
A newspaper ad for Ted Nugent & the Amboy Dukes with Savage Tenderness at Caveland in Festus, Missouri on March 16, 1974.
Ad by an unknown artist for “A Soulful Event” at Carpenter Hall in Ypsilanti, Michigan, March 17, 1974, with Koko Taylor with the Vipers, Radio King & his Court of Rhythm, and Uprising.
A very cool poster by Mike Dauss for the Eagles in San Luis Obispo County, California on March 16, 1974.
Bob Seger released his seventh album, imaginatively titled “Seven” on March 15, 1974. The cover image was originally going to be mock-up of a Seagram’s Seven Crown whiskey bottle label, similar to how he used a Lucky Strike cigarette pack for the cover of the “Smokin’ O.P.’s” album, but they could not get permission from Seagram, so at the last minute, they picked an abstract painting by artist Robbie Fleischer that Punch Andrews labeled “Contrasts”.
On the back cover, appearing the first time in print, was the words “The Silver Bullet Band”, and the credits listed the band members (at the time of the recording) as Drew Abbott (lead guitar), Chris Campbell (bass), Rick Manasa (organ, piano), and Charlie Martin (drums).
Bob Seger – Get Out of Denver (1974)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WWHdBuOC6Q
Promo poster for the Bob Seger “Seven” album. Judging by the folds, it may have come with the album. Remember when record albums came with posters?
Bob Seger – U.M.C. (Upper Middle Class) (1974)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxuCvhObKGA
The back cover of Bob Seger’s “Seven” album introduced the Silver Bullet Band, with Drew Abbott on guitar, Chris Campbell on bass, Rick Manasa on keyboards, and Charlie Martin on drums.
A full-page Motown Records ad for the second solo album by Smokey Robinson, “Pure Smokey”, released on March 15, 1974. The album cover artwork was by Robert Gleason, whose next project for Motown will be for Stevie Wonder’s “Fullfillingness’ First Finale” album in July.
An ad for the Michigan Palace in Detroit, March 16, 1974, with Mahogany Rush, the Chambers Brothers, who had just performed in Ann Arbor the night before, and for us, the highlight of the bill, the first Michigan appearance of the Graham Central Station.
As Don Cornelius says, …the most exciting musical experience in the business today”. Check them out tearing up the Detroit Emerald’s classic “Feel The Need” on this Soul Train appearance:
Graham Central Station – Feel The Need (1974)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B10-z3dXDCg
Record company ad for the Chambers Brothers with announcement of their March 15, 1974 appearance at the Crisler Arena in Ann Arbor, Michigan, along with Three Dog Night.
A killer poster by an unknown artist for Uprising in Mount Clemens, Michigan on March 15, 1974.
An ad for Kiel Auditorium in St. Louis, Missouri with Brownsville Station opening for Johnny Winter on March 14, 1974 and the upcoming “Guitar Battle Show” with Ted Nugent & the Amboy Dukes, Cactus, and Wayne Kramer.
A full-page Columbia Records ad for the second album by Aerosmith, released just ten days before the band’s appearance at The Brewery in East Lansing, Michigan, March 25, 1974. The album featured contributions from guitarists Steve Hunter and Dick Wagner.
