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Off-Ramp

Detroit Punk Band Death's First LA Show

Death
Death
(
Tammy Hackney
)

About the Show

Over 11 years and 570 episodes, John Rabe and Team Off-Ramp scoured SoCal for the people, places, and ideas whose stories needed to be told, and the show became a love-letter to Los Angeles. Now, John is sharing selections from the Off-Ramp vault to help you explore this imperfect paradise.

Funding provided by:

Corporation for Public Broadcasting

Listen 5:09
Detroit Punk Band Death's First LA Show
Death

In this case, Death warmed over is a good thing. The Detroit-based group called Death played punk music before there was punk music. Their 1974 demos were excavated by an indie label and released last year, and next weekend they’re playing their first concert in LA. Off-Ramp's Lainna Fader talked with Death’s singer and bassist Bobby Hackney from his home in Vermont.

In the early 1970s, the music of Detroit was split into two scenes: the black soul, funk and R&B of Motown and the white rock 'n' roll of MC5, The Stooges, Alice Cooper, and Bob Seger Somewhere in the middle was Death, brothers David, Bobby, and Dannis Hackney, who put out punk music years before anyone else was playing punk on the east side of Detroit.