“DARK, DANGEROUS, MORE BLOOD…”

YOU’LL find the little town of Saugatuck on the shores of Lake Michigan. These days it is home to a thriving tourist industry, with visitors drawn by its historic downtown, full of galleries, boutique stores and chic restaurants. But on July 4, 1969 –

Independence Day – a different kind of incomer descended on the town: 20,000 hippies and bikers, there for the second Saugatuck Pop Festival. Alongside John Lee Hooker, Arthur Brown and Muddy Water were several explosive bands from nearby Detroit – MC5, the Stooges, Bob Seger, Ted Nugent’s The Amboy Dukes and SRC – who were collectively turning the home of Motown into the hard-rock capital of America. Watching with mounting excitement were a band, on Frank Zappa’s Straight label, but it was caught unconvincingly between psychedelia and harder blues. Accordingly, the Alice Cooper band felt unloved in LA and were looking for a new base. They soon found it in Detroit.