Detroit by Detroit - tonight at Magic Stick.

Proceeds from tonight's round robin musical masquerade at the Magic Stick (8pm) will go to the Red Cross' Disaster Relief Efforts in Japan.

Which is an integral note for any bemusing smirked, skunk-eyed hater who might shrug this off as an ostentatious tooting the town's own horn type of thing...

Indeed, this feels like something of which I'd already subconsciously speculated the possibilities... and the fact that now it's a reality, ...that yes, another, in fact, many-others, were already thinking, were already motivated, by the likelihood of its feasibility (and, above all, quite certain of it, if nothing else, being a fun, possibly absurd, escapade)... speaks volumes to the current excitement shared between the city's current cluster of resident musicians...

The talent and motivation goes without saying... but I stress excitement... because isn't that what this is about? Beyond the good cause... (read more on Japan Disaster Relief)... similar to the infamous "Brunch Rock" article (only much less heady or ponderous)... a celebration of each other.

Repeat the last four words of that preceding paragraph.... doesn't it feel like that's what the scene should be doing? I mean, even I myself had mixed feelings about "the wave crashing back on itself..." with all these bands "covering each other..." But maybe I'll put it more as a wine bottle...with Detroit just mixing back into itself as it hits the confounding bottle-neck of the Internet, with it's cork of redefined musical success... Regardless... we continue to mix together in our smoke-swathed urban bottle, continuing to meet, bond and fire off various collaborative chemical reactions between each other...thus, aging our collective wine, causing a mature musical bouquet, if you will...

I'm going off on too far a' tangent... and this is without any actual wine (or any spirit) in my system to delude my mind's transmissions to the fingers at the keys... I'm just saying... we mix together, we mature together... I'd like to see any other music scene where there's such allegiance... to one another's bands... Where bands around here seem to truly regard other bands like neighbors, or neighborhoods onto themselves... The folk bands are like Metro Parks or smaller towns with mom-and-pop diners... The indie-pop bands are the urban destination points that still have decent used book shops but also have modern craft stores that you always buy something from... the more straight rock n roll bands are the more blue-collar pockets that have a network of admirable hole in the wall bars giving an edge and character to an otherwise blase milieu....

Go tonight and ask one band about another band... And you'll feel like they're giving you directions on how to get to their neighborhood and what joint to check out first once you get to their corner of town...

But above all that flowery rambling...

It is, we stress... for an important cause.

SATIN PEACHES -as- Lightning Love

BETTY COOPER -as- The Detroit Cobras

THE HANDGRENADES -as- Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr.

ILLY MACK -as- Eminem

THE KICKSTAND BAND -as- Andrew W.K.

THE DRAGS -as- The Satin Peaches

CITIZEN SMILE -as- Macrame Tiger

MICK BASSETT -as- Deastro

SKELETON BIRDS -as- The Boys Themselves

PATRICK DAVY & THE GHOSTS -as- Citizen Smile

THE ASHLEYS -as- The Muggs

WOODMAN -as- Duende

.....

And oh...the music is so loud...

and then I fade into the.....crowds of people standing everywhere

and if you think it's obsolete...

Then you go back across the street...