Motor City is Burning (BBC documentary) 13.3.2010

Number of posts : 62 Registration date : 2007-09-09

A documentary on some of Detroit's music scene was on the BBC last night. It featured extensive footage of Motown artists, John Lee Hooker, the MC5, Stevie Wonder and of course the Stooges. It was pretty good and placed the riots there of 1967 in context for someone who knew little about them. It also had the wonderful Funkadelic who had their first output on a Detroit label. Some good insights from Wayne Kramer, John Sinclair, Leni Sinclair, Pop and Alice Cooper.

An interesting peek into the bleakness and ugliness of industrial America at that time.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/musictv/detroit/synopsis/

Number of posts : 2617 Registration date : 2007-12-16

this is the documentary that was on before, a couple of years ago? it's pretty good.

Number of posts : 51 Registration date : 2009-07-17

23rd and Nadja Thanks for the info! I would love to see this program. We have BBC America on our cable but i heard it is different from England. I do hope at some time they show it here.

Number of posts : 411 Registration date : 2009-01-19

Detroit is even bleaker nowadays. I keep waiting for the music scene to explode creatively but nothing really new since May, Atkins etc. invented techno. Kid Rock & Insane Clown Posse don't cut it. White Stripes are OK, but nothing particularly innovative. Documentaries like this make me pine for a 'good ole' days' I was too young for. I might have to move to Norway or something.

Number of posts : 1786 Location : Bristol Registration date : 2008-01-20

There was another documentary on a couple of hours earlier about the history of Detroit and that really showed how bad it is now.

It said that they are now demolishing buildings in the middle of the city and turning the space back into farm land!

Number of posts : 545 Age : 35 Location : Sweden Registration date : 2008-05-11

The documentary was alright! It's sad to see that the grande ballroom is falling apart and as well as Detroit itself. I liked that they featured George Clinton and Funkadelic. Also, it was great to hear "We will fall", that's a stooge song you don't hear often when it comes to documentaries featuring the stooges. People seem to skip that song but I like it alot.

Number of posts : 411 Registration date : 2009-01-19

Yup. New mayor Dave Bing is behind the initiative to convert vast swathes of derelict areas into 'green spaces'. Comparing sattelite images of southern Detroit taken in, say, 1970 with those from last year it looks like a very large bomb went off. 'White flight' drove the folks with money north of 8-Mile years ago. The population of urban Detroit fell below a benchmark figure (2 million?) a few years back, meaning federal funding has been cut and they can't rebuild even if they wanted too.

You can cruise around the downtown areas and see rows once beautiful pre-war homes that are now gutted and boarded up. My photographer friends love these scenes, but they just bum me out at this point.

Subject: Re: Motor City is Burning (BBC documentary) 13.3.2010

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