MOTOR CITY MADNESS: L.A. is in the...

MOTOR CITY MADNESS: L.A. is in the middle of a gang-violence epidemic. Are we alone? Hardly. According to the Detroit Free Press, in just the first five months of the year, 126 kids under 17 were shot in Detroit, 12 fatally. No one seems to have any solutions. But veteran rock singer Scott Morgan has dramatized the crisis with a new single called “Sixteen With a Bullet.” Propelled by a volley of booming guitars and Morgan’s rough-edged vocals, the song is a mournful lament about two 16-year-olds who murder each other in a liquor-store robbery.

Morgan, who played in the Rationals and Sonic’s Rendezvous, two popular Motor City rock outfits, said the song isn’t based on any one incident. “There’ve been so many absurd incidents that you almost lost track after a while,” he said. “Kids shoot each other for their shoes. A 2-year-old got shot by his 5-year-old brother. And the other day they were burying a kid who’d been shot and someone drove by and shot up the whole funeral.

“I’m just as baffled as everyone else in terms of a solution,” Morgan said. “The way the crack cocaine trade is around here, it’s pretty enticing for kids who get hired as runners and make $300 a day instead of $3 an hour at McDonald’s. All I wanted to do was point up the senselessness of the violence.”

So far, “Sixteen With a Bullet” hasn’t exactly taken the Motor City charts by storm. Morgan says most of its airtime has been on local college radio outlets. “The black stations don’t play it ‘cause it’s not dance music, and the white stations don’t play it ‘cause it’s not classic-rock or Top 40. But hey--I just wanted to take a stand. Isn’t that what rock’s for?”

The song, on Jukebox Records, should be available here by the end of the month at selected Tower stores, Rhino, Moby Disc, Texas and other speciality outlets.