The Magic Stick

Upstairs in the Majestic complex on Woodward, the Magic Stick has been one of Detroit’s go-to rock rooms since the early 1990s, when the owners pulled out the second-floor bowling lanes for pool tables and a dance floor. It was a regular stop for the city’s garage-rock scene around the turn of the century.

It’s also where that scene had its most famous falling-out. On December 13, 2003, Jack White got into a fight here with Jason Stollsteimer of the Von Bondies, a former friend turned rival, and Stollsteimer ended up in the hospital. Jack pleaded guilty to assault and battery in March 2004 and was ordered to pay $750 and take anger management classes.

The room was renovated in 2015, holds about 700 standing, and is still booking shows. Downstairs, the Garden Bowl bills itself as the oldest active bowling alley in the country.

Two more Jack White stories belong to this building. On July 9, 1999, his 24th birthday, he played the Garden Bowl downstairs with Jack White & the Bricks, on a stage built over lanes 11 through 14; Third Man later released it on bowling-pin-white vinyl. And around the same time, by Conan O’Brien’s account, Conan spent about three hours drinking beer and talking with a group of scruffy local kids at a Detroit spot with food, bowling and a rock room, and only found out years later, at an SNL rehearsal, that two of them were Jack and Meg White. Neither has named the place, but it fits the Majestic like nothing else in town.