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Hollywood, CA. -- Following three grueling days of interviews at a Royal Oak motel, Detroit Punks' director Ivan Suvanjieff and his production team packed their bags and headed for the hills... the Hollywood Hills, that is. Camped out in a hotel behind Grauman's Chinese Theater, Suvanjieff spoke candidly with Detroit legends, and folks who knew all about punk rock before the term "punk rock" was born. Speaking of Detroit legends, the hands-down highlight was his interview with Wayne Kramer. The MC5 guitarist recalled his youth growing up in Detroit city,  the formation of the
now legendary Motor City Five
and the group's aggressive and uncompromising political stance.
He went on to explain how the MC5's
radical views got them shunned from the music industry. He also talked
about his descent into drug addiction and his sentence in federal
prison after being nabbed in a cocaine conspiracy. Unlike most rockers
with similar stories, Kramer's tale does not end with an overdose in a
cheap motel or lifelong prison sentence. The Wayne Kramer of 2003 runs
a successful record label (Muscletone Records) and rocks as hard as ever.
While in LA, the MCR crew caught his show at the Baked Potato and was
awed by the Detroit guitar hero who sounds even better than the MC5 records we have been playing
for years. Recently ranked in Rolling Stones' 100 greatest guitarists
of all time along with former band mate Fred "Sonic" Smith, Kramer
still knows how to handle the ax. Kramer was joined on stage by Bill
Gould (Faith No More), among
others. Producer Paul
Zimmerman was holding court at the other end of the club, riffing wicked with Don Was and Creem
publisher Robert Matheu. While Wayne Kramer was Suvanjieff's highest profile interviewee in this round, there were several others of interest as well. Coz Canler of the Romantics sat down to talk with Suvanjieff, as did Sirius Trixon (singer of the Motor City Bad Boys). Other interviews included David Keeps (writer and former manager of Destroy All Monsters), Rick Morris (drummer of The 27), Bill Holdship (a Creem editor), Kirsten Rogoff (Algebra Mothers, Sillies), Dave Rice (Blind, L7), Steve McGuire (Traitors). Gregg Sutter, research assistant to Detroit author Elmore Leonard, was on hand to explain Detroit's surf rock tie-in and recount tales of the 3-D Invisibles. The Detroit Punks team has now conducted over 100 interviews and talked with  just about
everyone who's anyone in Detroit music. The impressive list of
participants persuaded "The Dude" himself to officially sign on to the
project. Jeff "The Dude" Dowd, the model for the Coen's Brothers' Jeff
Lebowski in The Big Lebowski,
will help produce Detroit Punks.
While there is no word on the distribution of the film at this point,
Suvanjieff has said that he hopes it can be a Detroit project from
start to finish. --Ryan Sult |
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