Season Three is here with Dr. Kristen Hillaire and Patti Quatro! We talk in depth about the groundbreaking all-female Detroit rock ‘n’ roll band, the Pleasure Seekers, formed in 1964.

At the ages of sixteen and seventeen, Patti and her two best friends, Nan Ball and Diane Baker, were hanging out together and noodling on their instruments in a basement in the suburbs of Detroit. Like so many other teens, the British invasion was having a huge influence on the cultural shifts occurring in music, and after seeing the Beatles live at Olympia Stadium, Patti was hooked on rock ‘n’ roll. She recruited younger sister, Suzi, and Nan’s younger sister, Mary Lou, at the age of fourteen, and the Pleasure Seekers were ready to go!

Also in 1964, Dave Leone’s and Ed “Punch” Andrews’ “Hideout” opened as a teen club in the suburbs of the city. It was an explosive time in Detroit – the music, the Motor City, the mayhem, and the magic! The Pleasure Seekers and the Quatro sisters were not only there to bear witness to it all, they helped to create the distinct and dynamic sounds of early rock ‘n’ roll in Detroit.

When the Pleasure Seekers (and Cradle) were inducted into the Detroit Music Awards at the Fillmore Theater in 2012, Dennis “Machine Gun” Thompson of the MC5 wrote, “The Quatro girls were the first all-female band that played instruments well, and forerunners for many bands to follow. One kick-ass band!”

This episode is a re-play from an interview that I did with Patti Quatro’s older brother, Michael (a.k.a. Mickey or Mike) in the summer of 2024. Patti and I felt it was important to play it again, because Mike helps to contextualize a lot of the Pleasure Seekers early days. The conversation includes what it was like for Mickey to come back from Los Angeles to Detroit after being on the Lawrence Welk Show as a teen, his reception at Grosse Pointe High by his classmates, the black Stingray he purchased, and continuing to play gigs and book bands all over town. He also shares with us his memories of being at ground zero of the nascent Detroit rock scene in the early 1960s, the festivals he put on and promoted, as well as the bands he signed to his booking agency. Mike followed in his father’s footsteps as a booking agent after recognizing that he could fill a business void by being the only rock agency between L.A. and N.Y. If you’re a music fan of MC5, Bob Seger, Ted Nugent, Grand Funk Railroad, and all the other “homeboys” (as Patti describes them), then you’re not going to want to miss this episode!