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!”

On Ep. 39, it’s the fall of 1968, and the Pleasure Seekers are back home in Detroit after touring on the road for almost a year. Big changes were occurring musically, socially, and culturally, and the Pleasure Seekers were taking it all in and applying it to their own path forward. Patti Quatro tells us about the trippy yet informative days at the Grande Ballroom with all the technicolor accoutrements of sex, drugs, and rock & roll. We also talk about more gigs around town, a hilarious “comedy” evening at the Brass Rail in London, Ontario, and a major decision about Mercury Records. The Pleasure Seekers were coming up on many professional crossroads – challenges the band had never dealt with before! But they kept their steadfast commitment to the musical vision of the band and faced those crossroads head on.

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