The League Bowlers will be appearing at the Ohio State Fair Wednesday July 26th with Erica Blinn and McGuffey Lane. The show is free and runs from 7-9 pm. (Details here) Also, the new League Bowlers CD Some Balls Deluxe will be available for pre-order any day now. With so much Bowling going on, we thought it would be a good time to revisit this piece about the finest guitar player I've ever stood next to onstage, Mike Parks. - Colin G.

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(I'm having trouble coming up with anything new & coherent to say about Mike Parks right now, so I'm gonna harken back to a piece I penned for Pencilstorm in earlier, better days, January 27th, 2014 to be exact.

I mean it all now as much as I did at that time, and then some. I love ya, Mike. - Ricki C.)

MIKE PARKS / GUITAR SLINGER / JANUARY 27TH, 2014

Today is Mike Parks’ birthday. I’m not sure exactly how old he is, but he’s older than Mumford & Sons and too young for Social Security & Medicare.

I thought I first met Mike when I joined the road crew of Willie Phoenix & The True Soul Rockers in 1990, but after Mike and I got to talking one night at a gig and discovered our shared West Side roots, it turned out we had actually met – though fleetingly – 20 years earlier when I was a senior at Bishop Ready High School.

The band Mike was in at that point – The Tree (which later went through various permutations and ended up as Pure Prairie League of “Amie” fame) – played a dance at Bishop Ready and my Catholic school nerd rock & roll friends and I put together a “light show” to accompany the appearance. (Said light show was cobbled together from oils made with colored Jell-O and overhead projectors from the Bishop Ready audio-visual lab. I think Life Magazine had run an article on “hippie culture” that week and provided a tutorial.)

The members of The Tree – including, I believe, longtime Parks friend & bandmate Phil Stokes – were drawn from that most dangerous of 1960’s subcultures: Greasers Who Took Acid. Laid-back run-of-the-mill hippie types who did acid were problematic enough when bad trips got into the mix, but Mike’s particular band of brethren – working-class toughs who had formerly beaten up on longhairs before they discovered the pharmaceutical joys & benefits of the late 60’s – were a particularly volatile mix. (Think, those clearly whacked-out-of-their-skulls bikers at the side of and ON the stage in the Rolling Stones “Gimme Shelter.”)

Anyway, The Tree sauntered into our Bishop Ready high-school gym like gunslingers: arrayed in a mix of boots, blue jeans & black leather jackets, topped off with the longest hair we had ever seen close up. They looked, and moved, more like a gang than they did a band. My friends and I were afraid to even speak to them. After the dance, Mike came up to us in the gym at our pathetic little audio-visual station and said, “Hey, cool lights.” We couldn’t have been prouder, but were struck so dumb by Mike’s acknowledgment of our existence that I think only one of us managed to stammer out, “Th-th-thanks.” Mike just turned and walked off in a haze of badass guitarslinger cool. (Somewhere around that time, Mike lived in the house The MC5 maintained at 1510 Hill Street in Ann Arbor, Michigan, FOR TWO WEEKS before the communal-living residents figured out that no one in the house knew Mike and that he didn’t belong there.)

By time we met up again 20 years later, Mike had become one of the five best lead guitarists I have ever seen in Columbus, Ohio. (Actually, we later discovered I had seen him one other time in the intervening years, when I was writing for Focus magazine and reviewed Brownsville Station in 1978, a show Mike’s then-current band – Shakedown - opened.) (Right around there Mike also served time in The Godz, see photo below.) Mike’s white-hot guitar style was especially cool when he played alongside Willie Phoenix – no slouch of a lead player himself – in The True Soul Rockers. Mike’s straight-ahead solid-rock lead guitar attack contrasted and dovetailed with Willie’s more idiosyncratic playing to killer effect in The Rockers: having Mike & Willie onstage together was like employing Duane Allman & Richard Thompson in the same band, no small musical feat and treat. (Sadly, there is not one bit of recorded evidence of the dual-lead guitar fireworks Mike & Willie deployed nightly. Tragic.) (2017 editor's note: We have lately come into possession of a KILLER live show from the High Beck Tavern in 1992 that it would be great to release as an "approved bootleg" if we could get Willie Phoenix's permission.)

One of the things I love about Mike is that he doesn’t just PLAY rock & roll, he actually THINKS about rock & roll, has IDEAS about rock & roll. One of those ideas about rock & roll brought about his and my biggest dust-up ever. By their natures, guitar heroes and roadies are gonna run into problems. One night at Ruby Tuesday’s when Willie gave me the song list for the first set I had the bright idea that I would line the guitars up in the order Willie & Mike were going to use them, so it would be easier for me to hand them up to the stage between songs. We didn’t have a guitar rack in the True Soul Rockers, just individual guitar stands. More to the point, we had EIGHT OR NINE individual guitar stands between Willie and Mike, some with guitars in alternate tunings.

As I was sorting out various Fenders & Gibsons, Mike walked up, watched for a minute and said, “What are you doing?” “I’m arranging the guitars in the order you’re gonna use them,” I replied. Mike was quiet for a coupla beats, then said, “You can’t do that. It’s not very rock & roll.” “I don’t care if it’s rock & roll or not,” I said, with an edge in my voice, “I’m juggling eight or nine guitars here and it makes things simpler.” “It’s still not rock & roll, though,” Mike said, “I’m taking all my guitars onstage with me. I don’t want you handling them anymore.” I watched incredulously as Mike made six trips back & forth to haul all of his guitars up on the stage. It was the one and only time in my roadie existence that I ever wished for a guitarist to break a string, so that I could refuse to help.

Mike and I got along ever so much better when I wrangled guitars for The League Bowlers – Colin’s offshoot covers band when Joe Oestreich first moved away and Watershed was on hiatus – and we could use Watershed’s guitar rack. Again, Mike’s endlessly inventive lead guitar style – imagine Chuck Berry if Chuck had ever deigned to PRACTICE the guitar after 1957, or picture the bastard mutant offspring of Keith Richards & Wayne Kramer – was set off perfectly against Colin’s Cheap Trick-inspired stylings. Mike’s playing in the Bowlers really was quite stunning. He could play anything Colin tossed at him – from Gawel/Oestreich originals to Tom Petty to George Jones to Georgia Satellites to Dwight Yoakam – and, on top of that, Mike could play ALL NIGHT LONG without repeating a lick. I’m pretty sure I saw, from my roadie station at the side of the stage, every show the latter-day incarnation of The League Bowlers played and I don’t think I ever saw Mike play the same solo twice. (For a full eyewitness account of the last night of The League Bowlers when they imploded and broke up ONSTAGE at the old Thirsty Ear in 2008, check out Growing Old With Rock & Roll, The Friday Night Massacre, August 1st, 2012.)

Happy birthday, Mike, it’d be great to see you on a stage again sometime. – Ricki C. / January 25th, 2014

And now I will get to see him, this Wednesday at the Fair. You oughta come, too. - Ricki C. / July 23rd, 2017

Mike (extreme left) in Shakedown, mid-1970's.

Mike (second from left) in The Godz, late 1970's.

Note: I am frankly amazed that Mike was not pistol-whipped by Eric Moore (extreme left)

for showing up at a Godz performance in this get-up.

Mike (extreme left) in The True Soul Rockers, 1992. Jim Johnson, extreme right, Koz & Willie in the middle.

Tags The League Bowlers, The Godz, Shakedown, Willie Phoenix & the true Soul Rockers, Columbus rock & roll, Willie Phoenix & the True Soul Rockers

First the details, below that some great MC5 readin' from Ricki C. & Mike Parks.

Shadowbox Live (503 S. Front Street, phone 416-7625) will present Louder Than Love, the acclaimed documentary about Detroit’s legendary Grande Ballroom this Sunday, July 20th, at 7 pm. The Grande (pronounced Gran-DEE) was Detroit’s version of the Fillmore East and West, Chicago’s Kinetic Playground or the Boston Tea Party, the great rock & roll ballrooms of the 1960’s. Produced & directed by filmmaker Tony D’Annunzio, Louder Than Love won Best Documentary Award at the Las Vegas Film Festival, Best Independent Standout Award at Hell's Half Mile Movie & Music Festival, and has had 16 consecutive sold-out screenings.

Shadowbox Live plans to provide a true Grande Ballroom experience with the award-winning film interlaced with authentic light shows, original poster art and artists.

Legendary MC5 guitarist Wayne Kramer will join Shadowbox house band Bill Who? as they kick out the jams on tunes by not only The MC5, but also Led Zeppelin, The Who and more.

Some of the greatest bands in the world got their start or made their name at the Grande Ballroom in the late 60’s and early 70’s. Louder Than Love is the greatest untold story in rock & roll history as revealed by the musicians, artists and people who lived it.

Schedule of Events:

4:00pm – Doors Open to the Backstage Bistro. There will be a gallery and sale showcasing authentic rock art and photography

6:30pm – Doors Open to Shadowbox Live

7:00pm – Louder Than Love Begins

For ticket prices and more information on Louder Than Love, Sunday July 20th, please visit www.shadowboxlive.com.

The MC5 and The Grande Ballroom by Mike Parks

The MC5/Grande Ballroom symbiotic relationship: linked together forever.

Detroit and Ann Arbor in the late 1960’s were violent, high-voltage and dangerous. The MC5 was the response, referred to as “The fathers of metal & punk,” but they were in a category by themselves.

My involvement in the 5’s story happened by accident: a fork in the road. To celebrate my expulsion the last day of my senior year of high school, my hitchhiking partner and fellow musician Phil Stokes and I decided to go to Chicago to a Spooky Tooth and Bo Diddley concert. En route we were tossed off the Ohio turnpike by a patrolman who suggested we go to Detroit where we might find satisfaction.

That night we ended up on the doorstep of the Grande Ballroom, where the MC5 were playing. This was a pivotal moment. After the show we met the sole member of the road crew who offered us a road gig and a floor to sleep on at the MC5’s Hill Street house. We accepted and turned one night into a summer of electrifying shows.

Fred “Sonic” Smith and Wayne Kramer were two of rockdom’s best dual guitarists – tight and damaging. Rob Tyner was a fearless front-man. The rhythm section of Dennis Thompson and Michael Davis: NUCLEAR. Each live show outperformed the last, and obliterated the politics and bad management that surrounded them.

The MC5 was like no other band.

A True Testimonial. - Mike Parks / July 17th, 2014

THE MC5 IN 1968 by Ricki C.

“I was 16 in 1968 the first time I heard The MC5
Rock & roll was, at that point, the only thing keeping me alive”

I first heard of The MC5 sometime in 1968. I can’t remember exactly how, it was just part of that Teenage Jungle Telegraph that existed back in those days. There was no real Rock Press to speak of back then, Rolling Stone had just started publishing, and you could only buy it in head shops on campus, not in every Meijers and Kroger’s. There was certainly no internet or YouTube. If you wanted to see a band you had to GET IN YOUR CAR, DRIVE TO A VENUE AND PAY MONEY TO WATCH THEM. (How very quaint.) And there were no Smartphones, Spotify and Rhapsody: if you wanted to hear a band you had to go downtown to Marco Records or Lazarus and BUY A SLAB OF VINYL. (Grandpa, what was vinyl?)

Anyway my rock & roll best friend Dave Blackburn and I somehow discovered The MC5 (I’m betting by some connection to The Who) and became Instant Raving Fans. We were lower-middle class West Side boys – although attending a rather genteel Catholic high school, I must admit – who had mortal blows delivered to our beloved jagged-edge Power Rock & Roll by the Summer Of Love bands in 1967. I mean, I’m sure Jefferson Airplane and The Grateful Dead meant well, but let’s face facts, they were hardly delivering the likes of “My Generation” or “Get Off My Cloud.” (And indeed, it was during soundcheck at Detroit’s Grande Ballroom that The MC5 – who were opening that night for rather lightweight Boston folk-rockers The Beacon Street Union – first issued the timeless invocation “Kick out the jams, motherfuckers.”)

Dave & I and our West Side compadres were hippies for about 20 minutes, but even as early as ’68 we were looking for something a little wilder and a lot louder & harder, ya know? And The MC5 and all the other Detroit bands fit that bill to a tee. Plus they were only one state over from Ohio, so they played the Midwest like the local bands that they were. (I saw the Bob Seger System at the Sugar Shack on 4th Street more times than I can count.)

And then in February 1969 the first MC5 album – Kick Out The Jams – was released and OUR FUCKING BRAINS EXPLODED! Really, I can’t overestimate to you the effect that album had on our teenage psyches. From the very first moments of Brother J.C. Crawford’s intro straight through to the last outer-space noises of “Starship” this record is one for the ages. (Is it the Greatest Live Rock & Roll Record of All Time? It was until the expanded version of The Who’s “Live At Leeds” was released in the CD era. And some nights at my house even now, 45 years later, the original vinyl edition of “Kick Out The Jams” still kicks Pete & the boys’ asses.)

Okay, okay, okay, I promised I’d keep this at 500 words, we’re rapidly headed for 900 and I could go on like this all night, so let me just say this: The MC5 were one of the five greatest bands EVER on this planet. They kicked out a truly fearsome noise, they had killer stage outfits and they did unison dance steps, like a punk/metal Temptations or Four Tops (they were from Motown after all). In some ways they were like James Brown backed by The Who, and what more could you ask for in a rock & roll band? The MC5 never made it big because they were just too loud, too smart, too uncompromising, too political, just flat-out too bad-ass to play The Great American Entertainment Game and become Big Stars. (It’s widely held that The MC5 were the target/inspiration for The Beatles couplet: “And if you go carryin’ pictures of Chairman Mao / You ain’t gonna make it with anyone anyhow” in the song “Revolution.” For a West Side boy like me, those whiny limey bastards putting down my Midwest crew was just too hard to stomach.) (sidenote – It was only five years from The Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show to The MC5 at the Grande, five years from “I Want To Hold Your Hand” to “Kick Out The Jams.” Where have we gone in the last five years in what is today laughingly referred to as rock & roll: from Mumford & Sons to Imagine Dragons? God help us.)

The MC5 were, in many ways, their own worst enemies: they refused to play by the rules, refused to keep their mouths shut, made their fair share of bad decisions, managed to alienate both the Straight AND the Hip Worlds (The Velvet Underground in particular) and eventually tumbled down into Street Drug Hell. Does any of that make me love them less? No, it just makes me respect them more: because we were all lower middle-class boys and we were all supposed to be in this together. Kick out the jams, motherfuckers.

(ps. The MC5 is not in The Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame. And that is why I do not go there.) – Ricki C. / July 15th, 2014.

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