DETROIT: Downtown Motown

Sometimes I never know what to write when it comes to trying to annotate Detroit photo posts. Many people already have their perceptions, assumptions whether right or wrong about the city, some people won't even click on the post because Detroit is in the title. That's the roll of the dice. From the off I never wanted to go down the ruin porn photograph route when it comes to the city, there's enough of that already - just search ruin porn into Google and most of what comes up will be from Detroit. If you were to ever read reviews about restaurants or places to visit, things to do that I feature, the horror reviews would have you running for you life, sadly too many people in the suburbs believe said tales and never venture south of eight mile.

Sad but true.

Like when the in laws came to visit from Pittsburgh, we didn't hide them away in the suburbs like so many would.

I know Detroit has issues, I see it, I've driven down neighbours with only a couple of houses still occupied to entire stretches of nothing, just overgrown land. Detroit has issues that go back decades (racism, white flight, state/local politics), I guess if you live outside the US you might not be truly aware of them, maybe I'll explain them one day. I feel far more comfortable mentioning Detroit these days - whether it's things to see do or places to eat on my blog lately, I'm throwing caution to the wind and I truly hope you enjoy reading what I share, perhaps to see another side of the Motor City, just to balance things out a little.

On a side note, the eagle eyed locals among you might notice that the "Outsource to Detroit" banner still attached to the 1001 Woodward building in these photographs. They were taken just a couple of days before the 10 story, 130 foot banner split in two and flew its way through downtown due to the heavy winds we experienced in April. While to many it was a bit of an eye sore, it certainly caught your attention when you were heading south along Woodward.

LIFE: Vinyl Kind of Weekend

Our weekend pretty much started, and ended with vinyl. There was a huge, and I mean huge estate sale at the end of last week with a house of thousands and thousands (no joke) of records - from everything from jazz to blues, show tunes and some rock and roll thrown in for good measure. The majority were for sale for $1 so it would have been wrong to have not checked it out. 

Which basically meant Joe leaving me at the sale for a couple of hours to go through the walls of records and pick some out for ourselves. I think we came home with about thirty to add to our collection, I was mainly battling against seasoned resellers, luckily they weren't overly interested in the jazz or the blues so that was fine by me. What did we end up with well everything from Fats Waller to Billie Holiday via some Motown and Three Dog Night.

With talk about buying a house we've already packed up a box of vinyl - mainly the ones we can deal without listening to for a couple of months, as for the rest, I dread to think we physically and safety pack up and move 800 plus of them. This all reminds me how I should get around to doing an apartment tour - but it'll be without the fancy parts you find in similar posts on other blogs - you'll see it mess and all.

Anyway listening to vinyl, relaxing with five of them lined up, certainly is a nice lazy way to spend a Sunday and try to forget the coming stresses of the week ahead. Nothing beats that pop, the hissing and the crackling of music of years gone by coming back to life.

How was your weekend?

FOUND IT FRIDAY: Holiday Antiquing

I've been meaning for months to be more dedicated to sharing my vintage finds from estate sales and the like, but it's just never stuck. So I'm running with Joe's idea of trying at least to make it a somewhat semi-permanent fixtures every couple of Fridays in what I'm now terming Found it Friday. 

Estate sales have been a little hit and miss in the last couple of weeks, coupled with missing a weekend after being stuck with a broken down car, I thought I'd share some of our finds we picked up during our time away. As a couple we love nothing more then finding and poking through local vintage antique malls and flea markets in new places and we certainly came away with some goodies - although mostly of the vinyl and vintage powder compact kind, but I guess you wouldn't expect anything different from us these days!

We took the leisurely coastal route north after coming off the freeway at Bay City and after seeing a couple of antique stores driving through Tawas, we decided to have a quick stop and looksee. There's actually a number of antique malls and it was a great start to our holiday, we managed to pick up three nicely priced compacts - the red powder and rouge compact, Richard Hurbuard somewhat Aztec designed compact and a smaller rogue pot from the Central Michigan Normal from Mt. Pleasant all for $26, bargain!

I find the Central Michigan Normal compact the most intriguing. After doing a little research the title is actually the former name of the Central Michigan University. The university changed it's name just prior to World War 2 so this compact happens to be one of the early ones before mass production took off in post war America. 

Flea markets in the US tend to be a little more junk shop then what i'm use to in the UK, but we popped into one in Oscoda and were met with a huge amount of vinyl. I manged to pick up two Motown vinyls - my first Martha and the Vandellas (famous for Nowhere to Run, Dancing in the Street etc) and a Gladys Knight and the Pips record. I also have another side interest in collecting old vintage advertisements, basically ones taken out of old magazines. I already have a couple up in our kitchen and have dream-like-plans of continuing this when we buy a house these will go with my Fred & Ginger advertisement I picked up at the Royal Oak garage sale earlier this year. At $1 for the two you really can't go wrong and saves me cutting up my own vintage magazines!

Our last vintage stop was a gorgeous little antique store called Trillium Woods Antiques somewhat in the middle of nowhere but handily located along Lake Shore Drive more communally the Avenue of Trees scenic drive. This sweet little log cabin store was set within the woods and had some lovely home decor pieces, but as ever we were more interested in the compacts and managed to find two. The first being a leather one, also part of a matching set with a small purse with the most intricate design upon the top and the second, a cute little square design with flowers. Granted the second wasn't the cheapest ($19) in hindsight but certainly welcome in my collection!

Looking back at all out goodies has made me all excited about all the estate sales we have lined up for tomorrow, there looks to be a few good ones so fingers crossed!

Where are your favorite places and shops to get your vintage picks from? Found anything good yourself lately - I would love you hear all about them!

Trying to Find Motown Vinyl in Motown City

So to celebrate Record Store Day I thought I'd tell you about Detroit, Motown and trying to find it on vinyl. You'd think living just outside the birthplace of Motown it'd be easy to find original Motown records - think again. Since moving to metro Detroit I've been listening to a lot of Motown and I have ambitions of building up my vinyl Motown collection but it isn't occurring that easy.

Motown Record Corp. was set up in Detroit in 1959 - it was a mash up of two ideas - motor and town - this is the Motorcity after all and Motown itself has become a nickname for Detroit. The Motown Sound is considering to be influential by being able to somewhat cross the racial divide and it's role in the social intergration of the 1960's. In fact Motown as a the record company was black owned and a black centered business. It even brought out the first girl groups. Across the next 12 years, Motown Records achieved an incredible 110 top 10 records with bands such as The Supremes*, The Temptations*, Stevie Wonder*, Marvin Gaye, The Jackson Five and The Marvelettes* (who sang Please Mr Postman)* to The Detroit Spinners* (all stared acts are from Detroit/Michigan). 

From left to right working clockwise - the Jackson 5, The Supremes, The Temptations, The Marvellets. 

In fact Motown is even defined as a sound. While producers believed in keeping it simple, the trademark sound of Motown is recognised through tambourines and hand clapping assisting the back beat and even often using two drummers - through overdubbing or playing together. The gospel "call and respond" form of singing and distinctive melodies became the sound. By 1971 Motown had left Detroit for LA, the 1967 race riots in the city didn't help. The Motown museum still exists in the city - based in the building which was formally a record studio for the label. Considering the music is over 50 years old, it certainly doesn't sound it's age.

So why is it so hard to find Motown records just a couple of miles away from the city of it's birth? Sadly it comes down to race. The race riots I just mentioned caused white migration (to use it's proper social term "white flight") out of the Detroit and while Motown helped with some racial integration, it could only go some way. As many of the estate sales (although we do head into the city when we get the chance) are in the suburbs unfortunately many of these people may have been fleeing from the perceived threats of riots and the black population, so to be hoping for black music is perhaps asking too much of an era of inequality. It's sad, but true and even today racism is strongly apparent in many places.

It's rare but an amazing find when we do come across Motown vinyl, we've managed to score some from Diana Ross and The Supremes, The Temptations and The Commodores (when Lionel Richie was still a member and all). But considering we've been buying and collecting vinyl since last September it's hard going. Granted we could buy them at record stores, but for us part of the fun is in the chase and to understand and appreciate Motown is to know the social issues surrounding it, particularly in the city which it was born out of.

Do you love Motown?