And Let Me Be Who I Am by Derek Farr
“Let me be who I am, and let me kick out the jams”
-The MC5
The Detroit Metro Times recently shared that $5 million could net you Detroit’s historic Grande Ballroom:
The abandoned Grande Ballroom is up for sale for a hefty $5,000,000, according to a listing on Jim Shaffer and Associates Realtors that went online this week. The old-school music hall was a hub for classic and psychedelic rock bands in the 1960s until it closed in 1972. Since then, it has sat looming like a fading memory of a bygone era.
Back in the days of sex, drugs, and, rock ‘n’ roll, the ballroom hosted acts like Led Zepplin, Pink Floyd, Janis Joplin, and even John Coltrane and Sun Ra. MC5 became regulars on the stage and recorded its 1969 debut album Kick Out the Jams there, and in recent years a mural of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame-nominated band’s guitarist Wayne Kramer was painted on the side of the building.
You can read a lot more about the Grande Ballroom on this website & watch the awesome documentary Louder Than Love: The Grande Ballroom on the Detroit Public Television Facebook page!
Derek took this shot of the mural on the Grande a couple of years ago. See TONS more in his excellent Detroit gallery on Flickr.
