The Trans-Love Energies operation in the Warren-Forest community has undergone a number of changes lately, according to spokesmen for the hippie cooperative, of which the Fifth Estate is a member group.
The Artists’ WorkZshop, located on John Lodge, has been joined by the group for economic reasons. “We just couldn’t make the rent anymore,” said Trans-Love head John Sinclair, “and the building had pretty much outlived its usefulness to us. We’re hoping that some community group will take over the building and put it to better use.” The Artists’ Workshop Press, at 4863 John Lodge, will remain operative as headquarters for the Trans-Love publishing and printing operation, and will also continue to serve as office quarters for Trans-Love Energies, The Sun, and Detroit LEMAR.
In another fiscal freak scene, the Trans-Love telephone line has been disconnected for non-payment, but hopefully there will be a new line in operation within the week. Callers can leave messages with the Fifth Estate, 831-6800, in the interim.
In other developments, the hoped-for ballroom operation at the Varsity Theatre has apparently fallen through, Sinclair said, and the group will work as closely as possible with the Grande Ballroom through the fall. “With the program of bringing in musicians from San Francisco and New York that Uncle Russ has undertaken,” Sinclair said, “the Grande is coming closer to what we had hoped for, and we want to insure the continuation of that kind of imaginative booking policy.”
The Grande has hosted Tim Buckley and the Grateful Dead so far this summer, and has secured bookings for the Chambers Brothers, of LA, and the Cream, of London, for the immediate future.
“We’ll also be working with Russ in his new capacity as management agent for the MC-5,” Sinclair said. The avant-rock band is currently negotiating, through Trans-Love, with ESP-Disk, the avant-garde New York recording company, for their first LP, and recording will begin as soon as the group’s current contract with a local label is terminated.
Trans-Love Energies will also move into the former Fifth Estate bookstore at 923 Plum Street and set up a distribution and sales center there. Leather craftsman Dennis Smith has opened a new shop on the same floor of the Plum Street building and brings the number of Trans-Love shops on Plum Street to three—George Agee’s House of Mystique, at 937 Plum (3rd floor), is the third member group there.
The new Trans-Love store will be open evenings and weekends and will serve as the Plum Street source of the Sun, the Fifth Estate, Artists’ Workshop Press books and magazines, Grimshaw posters, underground press publications, Pun’s sandals and leather groovies, hippie-made beads and jewelry, and LEMAR literature, among other groovies. The store will be operated by Pun Plamondon, Genie Johnson, and Gary Grimshaw.