The Three Forgotten Stoners from Flint

They were never really embraced by the east and west coast intelligentsia. Rolling Stone magazine wasn’t a friend to the band, nor was the hip alternative magazine from their home state, Cream. Their sound was a throbbing monolith, built on a pure, primitive drive that was closer to a voodoo ceremony than a peace happening. This wasn’t the Grateful Dead. Although, I understand that small tabs of “blue micro-dot” weren’t uncommon. I call the rag-tag power trio from Flint, the forgotten (grand)fathers of Desert Rock with their pumping bass and shouted vocals. But maybe we are getting ahead of ourselves. Let us consider the background a bit.

The landscape of the city of Flint, Michigan is about as different from the origins of the Palm Desert Scene as you could imagine. Cement structures replace the open landscapes that inspired Josh Homme and company. If ever there was a doomed place in the post-industrial American empire, it is the city of Flint, a city nearly as forgotten as our still un-named band of midwestern stoners. Located north of the city of Detroit, Flint was nicknamed “Vehicle City” because of the massive amount of automobiles produced there after WWII. Flint was the symbol of a prospering nation until the early 80s recession hit and destroyed this illusion of the American Dream. The largest maker of car’s in the world, General Motors, downsized their workforce in Flint from 80,000 in 1978 to under 8,000 today. However you feel about the US Empire, you need to consider the individual economic heartbreak and despair that resulted in Flint losing half the population between during the same period.

Which bring us to Grand Trunk Western Railroad. Today Grand Truck Railroad is the American subsidiary of Canadian National Railway. But originally, Grand Trunk Railroad was born from a collection of rail lines going back to the early 19th century. The railroad’s presence in Detroit and throughout the nation made Grand Truck an essential link in the growth of the auto-industry with manufacturing plants across the state. Which is how our band of brothers got their name, the obvious word-play of Grand Funk Railroad. So let us get back on… track.

It’s hard to image today, but in 1971 GFR sold out New York’s Shea Stadium faster than any other band, including the Fabulously Overrated Four. With 10 platinum albums in a row, it’s odd that Grand Funk Railroad have been left behind by classic rock fans who are endlessly loyal to every super deluxe reissue by Led Zeppelin or, God help me, Deep Purple. But music isn’t just about selling records, it’s about understanding the connectivity of ideas and art and acknowledging how music develops from one generation and the next. Even Rolling Stone magazine noted that the Josh Homme fronted Queens of the Stone Age had a connection between “American meat-and-potatoes macho rock of the early 1970s, like Blue Cheer and Grand Funk Railroad, and the precision-timing drones in German rock of the same period”. Time for us to reconsider the music of that forgotten power-trio of Mark, Don and Mel.

At their best, which almost always means in-concert recordings, Grand Funk Railroad was a massive beast of raw energy and heat. It’s not a metallic sound, not even hard-rock in the traditional sense of the word. The energy, sweat and groove was born of the same contempt, boredom and frustration that had inspired the desert rock sound in the late 80s and 90s. And while it is Black Sabbath that is so often cited as the inspiration of the desert sound, the raging groove of Grand Funk Railroad is the missing link in that sound. It’s not studied. They don’t give out diplomas for the music ritual of the Palm Desert Scene. You can’t even really capture the sound on vinyl, it’s the power of performance, when music becomes primitive and sophisticated, when you must live within the sound. There may not be much of a structured song once the drum and bass lock into place.

When it comes to desert groove, no record on earth will change your life faster than Welcome to Sky Valley by Kyuss, the most important hard-rock album of the 90s. A collection of tracks with lots of groove to spare. That “groove” is apparently elusive for some rock-music critics to identify when it’s within the context of hard or heavy music. It’s possible they don’t really understand the definition. Here we try to help. Groove is raw, primal, communal and often sexual. There is nothing in the world like watching a powerful band lock in sync with the crowd or audience. With Kyuss or Hawkwind, locked-groove disintegrates into pure white-noise, the shouted vocal and guitar becoming one with the rhythm. A wall of sound that forces you to move your ass. It’s irresistible. And when you are ready to explore that sound further, don’t forget about the missing link from Flint, Michigan: Grand Funk Railroad. Their second album, Grand Funk, commonly know as the “Red” album, and Live Album (1970) are as vital as Black Sabbath’s Master of Reality or Volume 4 to the development of the desert sound. One last note and let’s be clear here: The endorsement of GFR is limited to their first few albums. Unfortunately, the bulk of their albums are plagued by inconsistency and mediocrity, taking forays into soft rock and cover-song territory. Anyone need to hear the Locomotion again? Nevertheless, on the Live Album/Red, Grand Funk add, with smoking playing and groove, an important layer in the history of hard rock music.

by Shawn Ciavattone