Michigan Music History Podcast -- MMHP989 · Scott Baker, Gary Johnson, Fred Reif, Mike Beattie

Michigan Music History Podcast--Benny Speer-Driving Benny & The Jets Into Michigan Rock History Part 1 of 2

·48 min·3 clips

The Michigan Palace opened 9-22-73 with the New York Dolls, and Benny’s father had bought it for $50,000.

1. Michigan Music History Podcast -- MMHP989 focuses on Benny Speer and the Michigan club and concert circuit around Dearborn, Wayne, Detroit, and Bay City. 2. Scott Baker hosts with Dr. J, Fred Reif, and Mike Beattie, and Benny Speer appears as the guest because of his work with Benny and the Jets and his family’s nightclub history. 3. The episode asks how one family’s clubs, bands, and friendships connected Jamie Coe, Bob Seger, Kiss, Aerosmith, and the Michigan Palace. 4. Benny says he was born in Ann Arbor but grew up in Plymouth, Michigan, after his family moved from Ann Arbor to a suburban life. 5. He remembers Plymouth as a place where Daisy BB guns were part of childhood, including BB-gun fights that ended after a friend was shot in the eye. 6. His father, a chiropractor from Indiana, opened offices in Ann Arbor, Ypsilanti, and Plymouth before investing in the Military Inn in Dearborn. 7. Benny describes the Military Inn as a castle-like nightclub on Telegraph and Warren Roads with what he says was a 10,000-gun collection. 8. Jamie Coe and the Gigolos played the Military Inn, and Benny says he watched them as a third- or fourth-grade kid. 9. Benny says Jamie Coe was unusually kind to him, gave him a real microphone and stand, and treated him like a young musician instead of just a kid in the room. 10. He then describes the West Side Six and the Funny Farm as bigger nightclub ventures where his father booked the Frost, the Rockets, Iggy and the Stooges, Bob Seger, and the MC5. 11. Benny says the MC5’s last gig was at the Funny Farm, and he links the club’s name to its location near Eloise Mental Hospital. 12. He explains that the Michigan Palace was for sale for $50,000, and his father went downtown to look at the building after Benny noticed the newspaper listing. 13. Russ Gibb and Gabe Glantz enter the story at the Michigan Palace, and Benny says those promoters were part of the behind-the-scenes force around the venue. 14. Benny gives the Michigan Palace opening date as 9-22-73 and names the New York Dolls as the first band on the bill. 15. He says David Johansson told his father to look for Kiss, and his father paid Kiss $500 to open for Blue Oyster Cult in 1973. 16. Benny also recalls being told to throw away 5,000 Aerosmith albums after a Michigan Palace show because nobody wanted them at the time. 17. He says his early rock idols were Elvis Presley and Ricky Nelson, with Elvis being his first concert at Olympia Stadium after he and a friend hitchhiked downtown Detroit. 18. The conversation shifts into the 50s-dance oldies circuit, the school-dance demand for covers, and Benny’s later writing for newspapers under Cub Koda’s influence. 19. Listeners who like Detroit rock club history, venue lore, and musician friendships will get the most from this episode. 20. Listeners wanting a short, modern-band interview without Detroit history should skip it.

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