“H
ey, come in!” engineer Bill
Skibbe says, removing his
headphones and waving me
into his mixing studio. He detly lits a 12-
inch single of a turntable, spins it between
his ingers and places it gently under a
microscope. “Let’s have a look at what I
just cut.” Under the lens, the minute stylus
grooves are as large and smooth as rivers.
“Where it squiggles, that’s where there’s
bass ,” Bill explains. He seems satisied with
the result and leans back in his chair.
“Vinyl’s a three-dimensional sonic
experience,” Bill says. “It’s more sympathetic
to the human ear. And it’s a much greener
way to listen to music — there are no servers
with giant carbon footprints. We had Mark
Zuckerberg walk in here the other day. I think
it blew his mind that we’re using this old
technology; it’s practically unchanged since
Thomas Edison. But me, I’m in love with the
physicality of vinyl. So this place,” he says,
throwing open his arms, “is my mecca.”
I’m poking around Third Man Records, the
Midtown music emporium that Detroit native,
rock star Jack White (of The White Stripes
fame) opened in 2015. There’s a stylish shop
and performance space out front, stufed with
T-shirts and token-operated jukeboxes. And
at the back, down a low-lit corridor, past Bill’s
studio, is a whirring record-pressing plant.
The loor is varnished a funky, chemical-spill
yellow, and the workers sport branded boiler
suits and cool haircuts, looking like they’re
fresh of a shoot for Rolling Stone.
Bill tells me there are only a few other
places in the world where you can record a
live album, then have it mixed and cut to
vinyl in the same space. “It’s unconventional,
PREVIOUS PAGES:
Eastern Market
CLOCKWISE FROM
TOP LEFT: Third Man
Records; Madcap Coffee;
Arthur Rugenstein,
owner of Detroit Design
Reworked, Eastern
Market; avocado salad
with feta and crispy
shallots next to a burrata
cheese plate with stone
fruit, Wright & CompanyA new leaf // he city’s prescient motto was coined by Father
Gabriel Richard after a ire razed the city in 1805: ‘Speramus
meliora. Resuget cineribus’, meaning ‘We hope for better
things. It will rise from the ashes’
but that’s Detroit,” he grins. “The craziest
part was when Jack told me he’d opened on
the Cass Corridor. I was gigging round here
in the ’90s, and it was not a neighbourhood
you felt safe in. But it’s completely turned
around. I mean, there’s even a dog park!”
Midtown’s resurrection from seedy
no-man’s land to a lourishing retail area
that’s home to microbreweries and of-beat
businesses is part of a tide of uplit and
reinvestment that, in just a few years, has
revitalised the depopulated heart of Detroit.
For the irst half of the 20th century, Detroit
was America’s wealthiest and most inluential
city, but in the 1950s racial tensions and
declining industry triggered an exodus. The
once-grand city staggered on, beset by crime
and corruption, until it collapsed, iling for
Chapter 9 bankruptcy in July 2013. Rock
bottom, however, had a galvanising efect; the
city began to reimagine itself.
“There were no rules, so people made
them up,” explains Dan Armand when
I arrive in Eastern Market — a district
characterised by Victorian storehouses and
ramshackle lots that’s popular with young
creatives. In 2015, Dan launched the annual
Murals in the Market festival, turning his
depressed neighbourhood into a canvas
for international and local street artists.
“There’s a lot of pride in Detroit,” he tells me.
“Those who stayed are passionate about this
city. And there’s a can-do attitude because
we want more for ourselves. Like when
people got together and formed ‘lawnmower
brigades’ to tidy up abandoned lots.”
As a result of the festival, 125 murals
are now splashed across warehouse walls,
subterranean spaces and water towers.140 nationalgeographic.co.uk/travel
DETROIT