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De De Troit lived with several other musicians and
artistic types in a grand but dilapidated old Los Angles house. One morning, she was entertaining a balding long-haired ecstatic
with thick glasses named Eddie Detroit (no relation). His meeting with De De was cosmic, he informed me. Visiting LA from
Phoenix, he'd gone to a record store to see if his LP, IMMORTAL GODS, was stocked. It wasn't but instead he found De De Troit's
12-inch single, "Backfire," produced by Doug Moody with whom he had an appointment later that afternoon. It was meant to be
etc. etc.
Eddie's fiddle player lived nearby in Los Feliz but Eddie still needed the rest of an LA pick-up band. The plan was for him
to book gigs and fly in from Phoenix to perform them with us (I played guitar in De De's band), divvy up the loot, and fly
home. Round trips from Phoenix to LA cost around $50.00 back then. Eddie was a very solid cunga player; I liked how he played.
John MacAdams, a Canadian who lived in the house with De De, would augment with drums. I would play acoustic guitar. De De
would play bass and then there was the fiddle player.
Any hesitation I felt was obliterated when De De mentioned that Eddie was working in a style similar to a band that she thought
I really liked.
"What band is that?" I asked.
"The Incredible String Band?" said Eddie tentatively.
I leaped whole-heartedly and with complete abandon into the trap, carressing its jaws as they snapped shut on me.
Eddie gave De De a complimentary copy of IMMORTAL GODS. The cover ("I did it myself," Eddie boasted) featured a photo of Eddie
and a pretty woman sitting on a horse. In the palm of his outstretched hand, Eddie held his own grinning head. On the back
cover, Eddie misspelled his own name: Eddie DeRoit.
De De made cassette copies for us. The album was sort of half-baked esoterica. The songs were about Vampires, Beelzebub, the
god Pazuzo, and (my favorite) Mephisto Cigars. Musically: Tyrannosaurus Rex plays "My Generation," "Who Do You Love?' and
"Tequila." Vocally, Eddie sounded incongruously nasal like one of the Beach Boys accompanied by the female singers of Brazil
66. Most of Eddie's two-chord songs tended towards the old myxolydian mode. This would have been quite cool especially since
the fiddle player understood this elementary but crucial point. His guitar player however, insisted on playing in the major
key with the consequence of one dissonant note that he chose to hang upon, thinking it to be a new blue note and not a fundamental
misunderstanding of the material. There was poem by Byron, Eddie explained, set to the tune of "Drunken Sailor." I have not
yet found the line "Oh no, the vampire bit me" in Lord Byron's work. I must confess I ripped off the idea and refitted "Drunken
Sailor" to my "Sink the Love Boat." Anyway, It's not hard to understand why IMMORTAL GODS is now a cult classic. It was rereleased
as a CD on Majora Records a few years ago and has been hailed as a "lost psychedelic treasure."
It was an extremely loose album full of tentative metrical errors which, like idiots, we labored intensely to replicate.
A gig was booked at the Lhasa Club and we assembled
for our first rehearsal. Eddie, unfortunately, was unable to make it. But, the point, he explained, was for us to get our
parts together. He knew the material inside out. The fiddle player showed up like the Lone Ranger, unmasked but with a faithful
Indian companion named Conrad. The silver bullets were of the ice cold Coors variety. Conrad, would toss them across the room
to Kimosabe according to an internal timekeeping which resembled the antics of some quaint germanic city clock. Kimosabe,
who identified himself as Brandon Curtis (later we would call him Straitjacket), was a fiery jazz rock fiddler who bore a
remarkable resemblance to Dylan Thomas shortly after his young angelic stage. Brandon and Eddie had been buddies since way
back in DeTroit.
Brandon made it clear that he would attend rehearsals only if Eddie was part of them. Like Eddie, he had played on the album
and knew the material. John, De De and I were still a little unsteady on our feet. Eddie missed the next two rehearsals which
made De De grow quite anxious. We had our parts down and were ready for him. Eddie announced that he would arrive on Monday.
We would rehearse all Tuesday and Wednesday and do the gig on Thursday.
Eddie however missed the Monday flight but promised to be on the Tuesday flight. When he missed that flight and when De De
was unable to reach him by phone, she called Brandon. Brandon was very apologetic. He hadn't realized we were not old friends
of Eddie's. Had we been we would have known not to rely upon him, great guy that he was. Brandon promised to show up for Wednesday's
rehearsal and the Thursday performance even if Eddie didn't show up. The show must go on! We wondered what he meant by: 'if
Eddie didn't show up.'
At two in the AM of Wednesday, I got an anguished call from De De. Many people complained about De De's voice describing it
as whiny and grating. To me it merely communicated a world-weariness, the cause of which I was soon to learn. "My friend Bosco
has just arrived from New York. He's stuck at LAX. Can we drive down and get him?"
For De De, anything. "Sure," I yawn.
Back then, the freeways were fairly empty in those dark wee hours. Bosco, she explained as we sped west and then south, had
been with her as a member of UXA, a San Francisco political punk band. UXA stood for United Experiments of America. De De
was the lead singer. The songs were written by her and her boy friend, Michael Kowalsky. I don't recall how he took his life.
But its absence created a gaping hole in De De's day to day existence.
Sleepy conversation is sometimes the most unguarded. De De began to tell me of a book she was reading, THE HOPI PROPHESIES
by Frank Waters. She was very concerned with what the book told of a tablet from the earliest times. The spirit which had
made all things had broken this tablet into four pieces. One piece was given to the Red Man, another to the Yellow Man, the
third to the Black Man and the fourth to the White Man. Chaos and bloodshed would reign until the tablet was whole again.
"I wonder if I'm wasting my time playing music," De De mused. "The Red Man has returned his piece. So has the Black Man and
the Yellow Man, But the White Man still has his piece. I wonder if I shouldn't devote my life to finding the White Man's piece
and returning it."
That's what I loved about De De. That's what her music was about.
Eddie had gone incommunicado. Jean Pierre at the Lhasa Club insisted that there would be a good crowd to see him as Eddie,
a few years earlier had had quite a strong following in LA. So we headed down to the club. Bosco sat to the rear of the stage
with a pair of bongos and a large droopy hat. We told him to look aloof and mysterious and to neither confirm nor deny that
he was Eddie Detroit. It went off quite well. Afterwards, Jean Pierre, pressing his hands together in delight said to Bosco:
"Eddie, zhut whus zoh whundefool! Geef me a coll. Oui mhust do zhis again."
"OK," Bosco mumbled.
It was a grand cosmic joke but being petty fools and not grand fools we were sticklers for authenticity. Perhaps we believed
Eddie had been in a car crash and after recovery, would return like the Dali Lama to Lhasa to claim his spiritual and temporal
throne. Fat chance! Most likely the old cephalopher had been battling Pazuzo, Beelzebub, or Mephisto and his cigars.
| clockwise from top: Eddie Detroit, Jimyo, DNL... |
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| Junior's trombone, and Brandon "Straitjacket" Curtis. |
| Artist's conception of what |
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| Eddie Detroit looks like now. |
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