The album Detroit Invasion documents Kim Fowley‘s last USA performance with a live band. In March 2012 Kim Fowley’s Psychedelic Dogs reunited friends who had met fifteen years earlier in Detroit during the making of Fowley’s ‘Michigan Babylon’ album. Matthew Smith (Outrageous Cherry) is one of the musicians who played with Fowley on both occasions,so are Troy Gregory and John Nash. ‘Detroit Invasion’ contains recordings at The Magic Stick in Detroit, The Polish Alliance Hall in Hamtramck, and in Matt Smith’s studio. The gigs and the studio session were memorable occasions, Smith remembers, and took place only a couple of days after Fowley had undergone cancer surgery in his hometown Los Angeles; cancer which would eventually kill him early in 2015.
Kim Fowley was the embodiment of rock ‘n’ roll as producer/songwriter of Gene Vincent, Them Belfast Gypsies, The Runaways, the Germs and many other musicians and bands, and as an outstanding improvisational solo artist himself. Fowley lived rock ‘n roll to the extreme and even managed to give his sickbed and deathbed a rock ‘n’ roll edge. ‘Detroit Invasion’ was Fowley’s last album. According to Cary Loren (Destroy All Monsters), who supplied the artwork and photos for the sleeve and released the album on The End Is Here, a first copy of the LP was sent to Fowley in hospital, where he died of bladder cancer shortly after.
This LP is a rock ‘n roll testament and a rock ’n roll jinx.