Sunday, February 17, 2008

EDDY DETROIT, DESERT SHAMAN

Most folks came to "know" EDDY DETROIT, as much as anyone can know Eddy Detroit, from a 45 the SUN CITY GIRLS put out covering one of his songs ("Immortal Gods"). A Phoenix, Arizona-based contemporary of that band in the 1980s, and whom I believe to be a bit older than them as well, active way back in the 70s, Detroit is the proverbial riddle wrapped in the proverbial enigma. Trouser Press of all folks does a good job capturing the zeitgeist of Eddy Detroit:

"....a self-styled post-punk Rod McKuen who croons his wide-eyed psychobabble-cum-poetry over a lite-psych backing reminiscent of a Holiday Inn lounge band hipped-out for the summer of love...."

He's a bongo-furied, satan-inspired, mystical African hippie punk percussionist who's put out a few records that beg to be pulled out and studied from time to time. The "Immortal Gods" CD, a reissue of a 1982 LP that had the Sun City Girls backing up Detroit, is quite good - better still is the "Mephisto Cigars" 45, with an '82 version of that song (later released in the 1990s on Majora) that totally rules the roost. I'm posting that version for you here. If you want to watch a bizarro video of his "Beezelbub", click here.

7 comments:

mdsgcg said...

nice post; the variety on this blog is astounding...definitely echo the sentiment that the other Eddie Detroit records aside from the one with sun city girls are worth hearing...it's hard to pick a favourite between immortal god's; jungle captive; philosopher's jounrey...and they're just the 3 I've heard

said...

Say, if’in ya would like to see just how the ‘one god’ thingy came into existence, with my spooky cool background music, you can at moi’s wee YouTube film “AMEN (hotep IV, that is.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7iQRFP_e90

Stay on groovin' safari,
Tor

TFO said...

I was in Eddie's group along with my bandmates Bob Crain and Doug Dunham in the mid 80s. The three of us were called Fine Science, but we also backed up Eddie, along with other musicians. We never recorded with him but played a variety of gigs over several years. Those were some weird days. I remember at a house party at Eddie's girlfriend's house he got chased (by her husband) with a large knife through the back yard. We loaded out pretty soon after that. Good Times!

FM SHADES said...

Whole album here,
http://fm-shades.blogspot.com/2008/08/eddy-detroit-jungle-captive-phoenix_06.html

FM SHADES

Anonymous said...

Found a little audio clip of some early Eddie Detroit in some old cassettes and put it to vid on youtube just for fun >> http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=O8sGZfwyJeU

Kurt Benbenek said...

I met the guy at a thrift store in Compton, CA - I was browsing through dusty albums and this guy came up to me and said "Hi, I'm Eddie Detroit!" - he proceeded to tell me all about his career. Didn't seem weird or anything. He said he played in The Iguanas and gigged with Mamas and Papas

that's all

Anonymous said...

Just found a copy of Eddy(not spelled Eddie on the sleeve)Detroit's single with PS. Mephisto Cigars bw I AM Pazuzu. It is on Pan records, says recorded at studio 9 Hollywood, Ca. on the label. The sleeve is dated 1980. Can anyone give me more info on this 45. Also signed by Detroit on the back of the sleeve, with his old phone number!