As you may have heard - CPOP threw their last opening on Saturday night before closing its doors for good at the end of the month. MCB arrived late and was met with a crowd at the door and not nearly enough elbow room (which is just the way it should be at a CPOP show)
After a few minutes we ran into Tom Thewes who gave us the low-down on the near future of the famed dietroit gallery - We quicly made the rounds to document the walls and Amy Palomar has a great photo set that will be posted tonight to really fill you in but here are a few shots for now that the trusty camera phone did just fine on....
There aren't many places like CPOP that I have ever experienced....cool people working to bring an element and overall tangibility to us that we might not have in our sitesas we are bombarded with artistic images and ideas in this overblown plastic world that travels past you at blinding speed taking your individualistic ideas with it as it tears your eyelids away.
My first experience with CPOP was in Royal Oak back in the day - they had recently opened and I had been a slackass at stopping in to check them out for a few months....I was moving back out to Los Angeles and was all packed up and seriously stopped my caravan to run into the new art shop in the city to have a look around....with my UHaul running outside Rick Manore convinced me to purchased a litho from Glenn Barr called "Hot Rails to Hell" which is one of my favorites to this day and since I was raving about the artwork he tossed in a copy of the super rare "HEEP" from Glenn as well which I read about every month because it just so super cool.Living out of state for years I would travel back to Dietroit every quarter or so to visit family and friends and would always try to stop in to CPOP no matter how busy by schedule was at the time. Sorry to see CPOP go but keep your eyes open for something soon from Tom and Rick as they move forward with the vision of what CPOP is and has to offer to art lovers and more importantly artists themselves.
We bounced around the gallery for a while but had to cutout short to stop over at the Stonehouse Bar in Detroit where Dan and the crew from SHOWTIME CLOTHING were giving away a new Fender Strat guitar at 10pm so we stopped in for a beer and some pizza (killer)
Always on a schedule I had to bust out just before Dana and the guys from 60 Second Crush took the "stage" having to call it an early evening because I had a little road trip ahead of me early Sunday morning.
I drove cross state to Muskegon and drove the MCB Challenger onto the Lake Express which is a new high speed jet boat ferry that runs across to Milwaukee and back twice a day - it only takes about 2 hrs to make the crossing but Iwas early to the port and after chowing down some awesome fish tacos at a local beachside eatery and kicking it on the white sandy beach of central Muskegon I was onboard and sleeping as they shuttled us across.
Exiting the ferry in Milwaukee I am now safe in the hands of Wisconsin for the entire week so unless the little MCB helpers kick some ass this will be a short week of posts although we are coving a lot of ground. Look for some free tickets if I get to the computer early enough tomorrow and Wednesday and a huge giveaway on Friday of cheese.