Brownsville Station re-visited

Good Times

One of the most memorable concerts of mine was October 7th 1976. I went to the coliseum in my hometown with my brother who is three years prior my age to see Aerosmith with this band as the opening act and to this day I really enjoy their fine style on “The Martian Boogie”.

This was Andy’s first concert and when Brownsville station closed the set and the boogie started Andy was blown away-literally. The whole place became one thick cloud of smoke and people he had never seen before where handing him joints to hit and pass on {A wake-up call} that I enjoyed turning him onto indeed.

“The Martian Boogie” was a seven-minutes-barn-burning set-closer recorded live in one take, spaceship noises and all.

The tune started out as a pastiche of various John Lee Hooker-Junior Parker boogie riffs, then was promptly corrupted into a whole different ball of wax when the band was stuck in a hotel room in Canada watching a lousy sci-fi movie called Not Of This Earth.

One of the many great acts to come out of Detroit, Brownsville Station implanted energy into the show that was lacking elsewhere in rock & roll.

They quickly had to change the perception that they were just an ordinary band and got gritty by doing road shows (paying dues). By 1973 these rockers had artists like Bruce Springsteen and ZZ Top opening for them! Quite prestigious to me.

“Smokin’ in the boys Room” skyrocketed their career and brought them to the forefront of music history. The B side of that 45 rpm was a good listen too.

“Barefootin’” has some fantastic intro riffs. “Lady (put the light on me”) was a moving tune that got into your bones also, but by far tunes like “My Friend Jack”/ “Sleazy Louise”/ and “Hot Spit”…

Watching them on stage with fire pods and a fresh white towel accenting the bottle of Jack Daniels, each of them with their own, yea, close your eyes, sit back and enjoy this “They Call Me Rock’N’Roll” band.