Doug Brown and the Omens
“Youth and Experience”

It’s hard to come to terms with the fact that one’s parent could have, at any point, ever been cool.

So when my parents would talk about the MC5, it was merely a retelling of the rumor that the call to arms of “Kick out the jams, motherfucker!” turned into “Kick out the jams, mother superior!” when the band would play dances at metro Detroit Catholic schools.

But my parents never saw the MC5. My mom saw the Rationals at the state fair, but all she remembers from that is a mess of people yelling “Jeep! Jeep!” at the band’s manager, Hugh (Jeep) Holland.

But once in every rare while, they’ll come through with a glimmer of excitement.

Now I grew up not too far from where the original Hideout teen club was situated, albeit years after it was functioning.

When I became aware of the slew of amazing singles that came out of Hideout, I did all I could to quiz my friends’ parents to see if they ever made it to the Hideout. And if they had records…well I’d definitely dig through them in hopes of finding the Pleasure Seekers or the Mushrooms.

Unfortunately, nothing ever really came from those excursions.

As my parents grew up on the other side of town, I never really thought to ask them.

So about 15 years ago my mom and I were in the car together. God knows why, but I was in charge of the audio and popped on Norton Records’ excellent “Friday at the Hideout” compilation.

Imagine my surprise when my mom screamed out “Oh my god! I know this!”

And began to sing along with every damn word to “Youth and Experience”

The background on this song is that Doug Brown and the Omens recorded this song and a flexidisc of the tune was a giveaway as part of Bob Griffin’s US Senate campaign in 1966.

What I’d gathered about the flexi-disc was that it was largely forgotten until the folks at Norton Records found a copy in the back of a box at the auction of the collection of a local Detroit disc jockey who was murdered. They included it on the comp, thus how I became aware of it.

Now exactly why they recorded the song is a detail that appears lost to time…as young garage bands supporting Senate candidates in the 1960s is odd to say the very least.

The organ player in the Omens was a young Bob Seger and this song has some of that good Seger magic bubbling under, more of which would come to light as Bob would come into his own with his group the Last Heard.

“Bob Griffin’s got youth and experience” she crooned.

“You see…Griffin was appointed as Senator when the previous guy died. So that’s where his EXPERIENCE came from” she said, as if this was something everyone learned in civics class.

“But he was still pretty young…so that’s where the YOUTH came from” she said, almost beaming.

This release, by far, is the rarest release in the Hideout universe (I hesitate to call it a Hideout release outright, but as Doug Brown’s other stuff was on Hideout subsidiary Punch Records, it’s all family) so I had to ask…

“How in the hell do you even KNOW this song? It barely even came out” I said.

“Bob Griffin’s campaign office was on our walk home from school,” she exclaimed and excitedly recalled the route from Toledo Street to Holy Redeemer. “We would stop in there ALL THE TIME and grab piles of this record.”

Cue record collector rage and dismay. Mom, for the record, was no longer in possession of any copies of this one. “Youth and Experience” is probably a $200-250 record at this point.

In the time since I’d known about “Youth and Experience” I’d managed to track down and obtain copies of all the other Hideout releases, a fun exercise for someone who likes Detroit and garage records, but in the intervening decade and a half, I was only aware of two sales of the flexi, and I’d slept on both of them.

But this copy popped up on eBay recently from a seller who’s a good friend, I made an offer outside their platform (shh….you’re not supposed to do that!) and now, I have a finally have a full run of Hideout and related titles.

The song itself is indicative of the Hideout sound…low-key fuzz guitar single paired with of-the-era 1960’s organ accompaniment, while not the most savage or impressive of garage rock sounds, is by no means something to kick out of bed.

So I can rest…for now.