I got an interesting Halloween surprise today when we walked over to the Coffee Box in Rahway, NJ, for our usual iced mocha with decaf and skimmed milk. We sat down and suddenly “What A Way To Die” by the Pleasure Seekers starts playing on the shop’s sound system!
Since I had never heard the Detroit rock classic about teen drinking played on a radio station, let along in a business in New Jersey. I asked the barista about the source. She replied that the song was from a Halloween playlist put together by a fellow employee seated at a nearby table. I questioned him and discovered that he had never heard of the Pleasure Seekers or even Suzi Quatro. I told him that “What A Way To Die” had been inducted into the Michigan Rock and Roll Legends Hall of Fame this year as a Legendary Michigan Song, but he drew a blank when I mentioned it.
He had simply picked it from a list of song titles containing Halloween-related words like witches, spells, death, and graveyards to entertain people who came into the shop. “What A Way To Die,” which name-checked some teen beer favorites from the ‘60s like Schlitz and Stroh’s along with Colt .45 malt liquor, was the B-side of the Pleasure Seekers’ debut single on Hideout Records and Suzi Quatro’s first lead vocal.
Because of its subject matter, it got zero radio play when it was released in 1965, but it has gained renown over the years as a prime example of Motor City garage rock. Interesting fact. If one types in the song title on YouTube, you are immediately directed to the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.
