Here’s what Jami Villers of fellow rock city Austin’s Live Music Capitol had to say about the film:

It Came From Detroit is the ultimate look into the Detroit garage rock scene. From the early days of Motown to the hugely influential band The Gories, from The Dirtbombs and The Hentchmen to the mainstream wunderkinds The White Stripes, this documentary provides an in-depth examination of the music of Detroit Rock City.

James R Petix’s first feature-length film is clearly a work of passion. The film is well-researched and thorough, with interviews that are candid and insightful. The city is depicted as ugly and desolate, a place that boomed 50 years ago and has been in slow decline ever since. As Jason Stollsteimer from the Von Bondies says: “It’s the shell of a great city”. However, from this rubble there is a music community so full of love and support that you find yourself wishing you, too, came from Detroit. The gutted sky scrapers from the city’s long-gone glory days set an appropriately grim backdrop for the hard-hitting garage rock that flourishes in its shadows. Images of anti-gun posters, homeless people, and abandoned buildings are spliced with live footage of some of the best rock bands the town has produced. The juxtaposition is fantastic, giving you a sense of the gritty ugliness of Detroit that inspires this strain of music. Deanne Lovan from the Come-Ons says, “It’s so desolate that there is nothing else to do, other than to create.” Adds Troy Gregory, of The Dirtbombs, “No one is ever gonna give a rat’s ass about Detroit anyways”. Before The White Stripes broke internationally, there was never a sense that something good could come from the Motor City, the bands didn’t expect success, and as such, had nothing to lose. The resulting music was all-or-nothing. The community creates because it has to; the music they make is soul-food and a necessary act of survival.

Read the full story on their website here: http://www.livemusiccapitol.com/2010/02/it-came-from-detroit/