Expand Your Mind!

Expand Your Mind!

Judy Adams

Although it’s very difficult to define music, it can be broken down to sounds that are pleasing to the ear. Many people are prejudiced towards their musical pleasure; by limiting themselves to only one form, of music.

“Classical Music” is generally associated with the adult middle and upper classes. Classical Fanatics reject all other type of music. If music is made up of sounds imitative ipf nature and of emotions, how can just one type of music fulfill this description?,

On the other hand, rock enthusiasts, generally speaking, are equally as prejudiced. To them, all “Classical Music” sounds the same. (And to the classical fanatip, all rock sounds the same!) Both groups purposely refuse the attempt to accept each others music.

Musical bigotry is so obvious, it’s unnoticed. How can people expect to attain all physical and cerebral pleasure from just the one form of music?

The reasons for this bigotry is. musical taste stems from the connotations with hillbillies; and classical with wealthy snobs and an ugly gradeschool teacher forcing her pupils to listen to the Nutcracker Suite. People reject the music because of the connotations.

People use music as a means of attaining social status. For example, the stereo-type season-ticketholder to Detroit Symphony concerts pretends to enjoy the music and impresses his friends with his knowledge of classical music — which he has merely learned from the program notes.

The stereo-typed “every weekend at the Grande” Freak goes only to say he has seen a particular group and to boast to his friends about all of the “cool” people he knows there. Both groups force themselves to enjoy the music mainly because they are socially insecure.

Just as with a good poem which should be read over'at least twice, classical music should be listened to more than once. The problem comes when ,a person will listerrto the piece only once (usually with only his ears) and decide he doesn’t like it the minute it starts. The more a person hears a piece of classical music the more he will find. This is proven by the fact that the most popular (and most frequently heard) classical pieces are: Beethoven’s Fifth, the Nutcraker Suite, Clair de Lune, and Tchaikovsky’s 1812 overture. To a person who is not familiar with classical music these pieces are usually those in which he can tolerate or perhaps enjoy. Mainly because he’s heard them so often.

The most absurd reason some people reject classical music is because “they don’t understand it”. How can someone not understand it — if music is comprehendable through individual interpretation, the only way a person couldn’t understand it is if he didn’t understand himself.

I am personally against people dictating to others what sort of music they should enjoy. Each individual has his own reaction or interpretation to a piece of music. This response is inexplainable. Each jpiece of music has its own emotional or physical qualities which it offers to the listener. No two reactions can be the same to one pieTcte. But people still believe they can find everything in one type of music.

Those who appreciate Eric Clapton, or Nicky Hopkins or Judy Collins as being virtuosos in their field, should sit down and listen to the pianistic artistry of Artur Rub^nstien or the virtuistic guitar playing of Andres Segovia.

People will, say that they thoroughly enjoy the Moody Blues music. Yet on the other hand will reject classical music. “Nights in Write Satin” and “Days of Future Passed” are about as “Classical” as a group could get. Procul Harums “In Held Twas I” also has very strong “classical” influences. Sure rock is powerful but so is a 100 piece Orchestra!

Just try to find the cerebral stimulation in rock that is experienced in Debussy’s “La Mer”. The tranquility of the sea, the glimmering of the sun, the playing of the waves. The experience is almost, visual. Yet Debussy could - not produce the somewhat crude, throbbing, physical sensation a listener would receive from Jimi Hendrix’s music, for example. Human beings need,.both the tranquil “La Mer” and the crude Hendrix — one balances the other.

He was God and guilty

San Francisco s Straight Theatre was chosen last weekend for the world premier of the new MC5 film “Kick Out the Jams!*’ The Trim, produced by Ann Arbor’s multi-media Trans-Love Eriergies community under the direction of John Sinclair, the MC5’s personal manager, was shot in the band’s, home territory in January 1969 and released for public viewing March 6th at the Straight. “Kick Out the Jams!” joined the Beatles’ “Magical Mystery Tour” and San Francisco’s ace Congress of Wonders in a benefit for the Haight-Ashbury Medical Clinic.

The film was simultaneously premiered in Ann Arbor at Mark’s Coffee House in a private screening for the band and thefolittle buddies and pals.

“Kick Out the Jams!” is the first film produced by Trans-Love Energies, who have in the past been active in rock and roll concerts, booking, production, public relations, publishing, light wizardry, poster design - and production, photography and , other artistic activites centered on the community’s three bands: M5, the Stooger, and the Up.

The footage was shot on location at the Grande Ballroom (Detroit), the Village Pub (Birmingham, Michigan), and at the Delta.Pop Festival (Delta College, Midland, Michigan) by Trans-Love’s resident photographer, Magdalene Sinclair. Lighting was done by Pun and Genie Plamondon, Dave Sinclair, Robin Sommers, and Audrey Simon. The editing was done by John and Magdalene Sinclair, who. cut the rough footage to the MC5’s single version of their “Kick Out the Jams!’’hit.

The film was completed in f February and released March 6th at the Straight. “Kick Out the Jams!” was subsequently screened at the Straight March 8-9 with “Magical Mystery Tour,” at' the Eagles Ballroom (Seattle) the same dates in conjunction with a live MC5 appearance there (the latter date in a benefit for Seattle’s HELIX newspaper), and at the Ann Arbor Film Festival March 13-16. Additional west coast screenings included a benefit for LIBERATION News Service and San Francisco Newsreel in Berkeley March 19.th,at a Black Panther benefit in Berkeley March 21st (both of these latter screenings in conjunction with live appearances by the 5), and in the Los Angeles area March 23-28. v

The film will make its first Detroit appearance at the Grande Ballroom April 4-5 when the MC5 returns to the motor city. “Kick Out the Jams!” will also make its television debut later in April oh the WABX-produced “Live from Earth” hour-long special on WTVS (Channel 56, ETV) under the direction of Dave Dixon.

Prints of “Kick Out the Jams!” will be made available by Elektra Records to television stations, underground movie houses, newspapers and other media as it is feasible. Individuals can obtain prints for $30.00 from Trans-Love Energies, 1510 Hill Street, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48104. The film is just over 3 minutes long, 16 mm. color with sound.

Ariearlier version of the film was shot last fall (Sept-Oct) by Emil Bacilla and Magdalene Sinclair, and footage from the Grande Ballroom, Silverbell Hideout, and Crow’s Nest East (Detroit) was partially edited by John & Magdalene Sinclair at Documentary Interlock’s New York studios in December 1968, with the assistance of Newsreel’s Jonathon Ch ernoble. The original and workprint of the first film were stolen from a Trans-Love automobile while .the car was impounded by the New York Police Dept, at their 96th Street-Pier 56 auto pound, $nd the footage has been given up lor lost. The original “Kick Out the Jams!” footage has become a legend in the New York underworld and the film, once thought to be porn, is reportedly worth over $5000,00 on the black market.

THE STORY OF THE MC-5 ON THE WEST COAST IN MARCH PART ONE by John Sinclair, Minister of Information, White Panther Party BERKELEY, MARCH ,21st

(Trans-Love Energies) V East Coast Minister of Propaganda Dennis Frawley and myself left Ann Arbor March 6th and flew to San Francisco to try to set things up for the next week wheri we would all be there. Our Minister of Art Gary Grimshaw (a political exile from the state of Michigan) met us at the' airport, toked us down arid drove us around. We stopped to see Jann Wenner at Rolling Stone magazine’s SF offices to ask him why he sent back 500 free copies of our album that Elektrahad sent him to give away to his subscribers. He seemed a little nervous to see us and explained that, no, it wasn’t like we’d heard, he didn’t think it was a hype but they were given copies of Ika and Tina Turner’s River Deep Mountain High, produced by Phil Spector (we whipped out our dicks and started jacking pff in awe of the pOp-ness of the whole thing) and were giving them away with their issue titled “American Revolution 1969.” Well, sli t, Jann, we said, that’s mighty white of you.

We went to the distributor to gel some MC5 albums to give away but they didn’t have any albums left in stock, which seemed like a good, omen. Then we contacted the people at the Avalon . Ballroom-Gary S c an I o n and Soundproof

Productions-about working there Ss the hext weekend. We’d tried to set it up on the phone from Ann Arbor but couldn’t get any definite answers, so we called and talked to one dude-Scanlon’s partner, who was excited when we ran our plan to him and offered us five days -Wednesday thru Sunday - the following week at the Avalon. He called back a half hour later and told me Jtiis partner didn’t want us to play there| because he didn’t like otir ' record and the word Was out that the MC5 is a hype.

We started to wonder about it but just dismissed it as craziness, and went over to the Straight Theatre on Haight Street, where the Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour was playing in a benefit for the Haight-Ashbufy Medical Clinic. We met the managers J of the Straight arid set up a gig for the next weekend. We were really excited because the Straight has a glorious history of people’s theatre, great community rock' and roll | scenes arid the best vibes in town.

. Graham wouldn’t hire us because of the Fillmore East liberation scenes, and the Avalon was getting weird about it, but we were going to play in the best place of all anyway, and we t felt pretty good about it. Grimshaw whipped out a poster and.Frawley and I left for Seattle the next day, where we met the band and crew.

We played Second to Jethro Tull, the speed-freak bebop jazz-rock-pop band from England that has all those great ads in the underground press. The people in Seattle weren’t ready for the MC5, I’m afraid, and just like Boston people were walking around - talking about “they’re louder than Blue Cheer/’ as if that had anything to do with it. There were some stone freeks in the crowd who got down with the band and danced and had a good time, but most of the people there were stunned and even offended after we played two sets. Saturday night some dudes threw apples at us on stage, which was pretty far out all in all. Again there were some extremely sympathetic people in the crowd, but it felt like most of the people just didn’t have any idea of what was going on - all they heard and saw was a noisy blur of sound and motion like nothing they’d ever seen on that' stage before, and they couldn’t relate to it all. Undifferentiated madness* they thought. And why does it have to be so fu king LOUD?

it reminded me of the 5’s receptions in Detroit 2 years ago and even a year ago, when everyone in the business in Detroit was telling me that they were tob LOUD, too crazy, too far out, too unmanageable to ever make it or anything like that; But We knew the people were ready for it, if we could only expose them to it enough. Which we did/thank god, and now our audiences in Detroit are a lot different from our audiences anywhere else, Chicago and Berkeley excepted, because you’ve had time to assimilate our language, you | know the language yourselves, arid you. can even relate to new songs by the 5 that you haven’t heard before because you’re in tune with the music as a whole, 1 That didn’t happen in Seattle at all. The band did' some radio interviews with plastic-type disc

-jockcys-progressive rock chompsand got insulted by the disc jockeys who couldn’t relate to the 5 at all but was just interviewing them because they weire in town and had;a record put. The best people in Seattle that we met were the HELIX people, who put out the newspaper there and also have started, a White Panther chapter. The clubowner at the Eagles Ballroom was friendly and young arid no hassle, but we had tofor 31 of our Seattle , friends out of our cheapass wages so they could get in free—the dude wouldn’t just let them comb in. The HELIX-Panther people . had a dinner for us to get together arid toke down with them on Saturday afternoon, and we played on a benefit for them the next day which netted HELIX almost $2500.00. Lots more people canie on Supday than on Friday and Saturday, and I guess the bill was stronger. But the 5 was wasted on the benefit - it started at 3 pm and the 5 finally got to play last, at 2:00 'AM', after most of the people had left and those who stayed were worn out. We got there at. 5 and had to wait around 7 hours, which didn’t help any either, arid most of the music was pretty fired. They seemed to love low-energy folk-rock there, and were put off by what we were doing. One/ dude kept shouting “Plastic” at Wayne until Wayne called him down from the stage and told him to suck out of his ass. Then the same dude started throwing eggs at us and Pther sh t.,It was a drag.

We were glad to leave Seattle the next morning for San Francisco, and s Frawley and I went down to the Straight for a free night with the Living Theatre and the Motherf kers. We smoked some joints with oUr old friends from New York and we all decided that there should be a free MC5 dance at the Straight Thursday night before the weekend gig, so the street people could get down with the music and dig it. The next day we visited a lot of pepple and tried to set up some other gigs so we could play more while we were there. We called up the SF State Strike Fund people and offered to play on a benefit the next night at the Fillmore, but when we went there to play Bill Graham flipped out and wouldn’t let our equipment in. Our co-eonspirator Danny Fields called Graham to demand anexplanation and was' subjected to a half-hour rant from the crazed Graham, who told Danny that the MC5 wasn’t “qualified to play on my stage, fhey’re a SHUCK and they’ll NEVER play in my halls! AND they’re aligned with those M OTHERF * KERS.,” he sputtered. “I’ll never forget New. York ... NEVER ... and why don’t they just play the music and shut their f king mouths??? They’re musicians, not sociologists, for Christ’s sake. Those cockSuckers will NEVER play on my stage” and so on into the night. Not even for a benefit, nor would we work for ^Graham anywhere else: we had a booking in a new joint Graham is opening with Scenic Sounds of LA-the club is in Pasadena-but after Wednesday night we got a call from LA to tell us that there were already too many people on the bill and we had to be dropped. Then somehow the Grateful Dead, who just happen to be booked by Bill. Graham, appeared on our former place on the bill, along with Paul Butterfield and the ever-present Jethro Tull. So we were doused out of work for the next weekend.

we on p 26

MC-5 FROM R 19

Thursday night at the free night at the Straight a thousand freeks danced and shouted and got down to the music of Nimbus and the MC5. Friday night at 9 o’clock Haight Street was deserted. There were maybe 100 people in the theatre for our show and 5 people on the street. The Haight is really dead like they say, only I mean really DEAD. There are a lot of freeks out on the street in the daytime, but as soon as night falls everyone’s off the street because they don’t want to get ripped off or murdered or raped or whatever else happens there at night.

It s really shameful. Saturday night was the same. Big empty Straight theatre.

Saturday morning Frawley and I did a radio show with Roland Young on KSAN which was a real treat. It was like being home doing a show with Jerry Lubin on WABX-high-energy music, good raps, and an intensity that’s missing from the general radio programming out here in San Francisco. The whole rock and roll scene out here has grown incredibly smug and unbearable, and they don’t want to be bothered with anything that might change their comfortable little scene.

When Rolling Stone came out with a killer review of our album, classifying us as something out of Wild in the Streets and musically on a level with Blue Cheer, ? and the Mysterions, the Seeds, and the Kingsmen, piled on with the hype and strictly a bogus creation of Elektra Records, we began to feel very strongly that there was some kind of dangerous conspiracy against the MC5 in San Francisco. The FM disc jockeys: were playing our commercials and calling us Detroit’s answer to Blue Cheer. Graham or the Avalon wouldn’t let us play in their -halls. We were desperate to get our music before the people so they could decide for themselves. We were getting bad-mouthed all over town, from the highest echelons of the pop establishment {Ralph Gleason put us down in the daily Chronicle) to the hippies out in Marin County.

Sunday the 13th Tribe held its second free concert in the Golden Gate Park at Speedway Meadows, and we connived our way onto the bill through some family connections. We played last, on borrowed equipment, and got to play only four tunes, but the people really related to the music and the energy and we finally got half-way off Sunday afternoon. Sunday night at the Straight, though, there Were still but 100 or so people there; and even though it was like a family party it brought us back to the old 1966 days at the Grande Ballroom when 300 people was a huge crowd, and we don’t like to dwell on those days much at all.

We set up a gig for the next Wednesday night in Berkeley and moved across the bay from San Francisco to check put the East Bay culture, which turns out to be a much higher energy scene than the somewhat decadent San Francisco culture and the low-energy culture of the surrounding countryside, where lots of hip families have moved to get away from the Haight and the whole city scene. We could relate to the Berkeley street culture much better, and vice versa. The gig Wednesday night was a benefit for LIBERATION News Sendee and Newsreel and the people could relate to us' better because of it. Bill Graham is none top popular o^er here either, and the Rolling Stone review was seen as something very weird in itself.

There was a bit of trouble, however, when the band, Jerry Younkins, some other brothers arid a bunch of San Francisco sisters got stopped on the SF freeway by the Tac squad and hauled out of the car for the traditional search scene. When Younkins protested that they “couldn’t” search him or the car because he “knew his rights,” the cops threatened to throw him over the railing into the ozone. “It’d be my word against yours, punk,” the pig oinked. The other pig saw there was action on the other side of the car and knocked Fr$d “Mad-dog” Smith put of his way, turned around, grabbed Fred, and started punching him in the stomach and face until Fred fell down, then the pig kicked him and ordered him up against the wall with Younkins. There wer 15 people in the car altogether and they were charged with 4 crimes each-possession of dangerous drugs (an. unidentified pill was found on the floor of the car), possession of narcotics (one has pipe with alleged residue was found outside the car on the ground), possession of open container of alcohol (one half-empty beer can was in the car), and maintaining a premises Where marijuana was being smoked (!).

They were taken to the so-called Hall of Justice in SF and held for. thirty-six , hours-until Wednesday noon^before they were arraigned. LIBERATION News Service secured the services of attorney Terence “Kayo” Hallinan, one of the heaviest lawyers in the country and defender of 15 of the Presidio 27. HaUirian got all the charges dismissed except the “open-container of alcohol” ruse, and the judge fined 14 people $10.00 each to get rid of them. A charge Of resisting arrest had been brought against Fred Smith, and he has to appear next Tuesday to try to get it dismissed. We’ll have to fly up from LA for that, which is a drag, but that’s what you get for getting beat up. We’ll have to go to trial in Oakland County as soon as we get home for the same bullshit. Death to the pigs!

Anyway, we posted $125 bond for Frederick and paid off $140.00 on fines and everybody went back to Berkeley to get ready for the dance that night. When we went over to the Finnish-American Cultural Center, where they were having the dance, the place w? racked arid the energy level was p? : y high even when we got there, inewsreel was showing porn flicks on the walls and ceiling, free beer and wine flowed from the back, joints were ,everywhere, the Motherf -. kers got .. everybody whopping it up and dancirig and stomping around, and everything felt real good. The music was very strong that night and blew people down, arid they loved it. By the end of the dance 1 was just like home, and we got on completely for the first time in ten days.

Monday Frawley and I spent all day and evening with Charles Bursey, a Black Panther and candidate for Berkeley City Council in the April 1st elections. We talked about the White Panthers and about doing things together, and we got in touch with the free candidate for council, Big Bill Miller of the Telegraph Avenue Liberation Front, to set up a benefit dance-rally on the weekend,^ since Graham had canceled us out of the Pasadena gig for the weekend and we were free to play for free if we could find a place . We got the Finnish-Aihericari hall again, turned out the publicity (after Wednesday night Bill Miller declared himself the White Panther candidate for Council, and he arid Bursey were running on a solidarity Black Panther-White Panther ticket), and got ready to get down again.

This time it was the Berkeley police who douced us out. The pigs got together with the Finnish dudes who run the hall and xxxed out the dance. I guess it was starting to get a little scary for them, especially after they dug the energy riot Wednesday night. No Black Panther-White Panther get-togethers would be permitted, at least not at the Finnish center on this weekend. But the Black Panthers and the White Panthers in Berkeley have got a thing going how, and the people know it’s getting strong because the police are. getting worried. There are a lot of really far, out dudes in Berkeley, and they’re starting to organize and really get it all together.

Tomorrow we’ll play in Provo Parkin Berkeley for Miller and Bursey in the first outdoor concert of the 1969 season. And they’ll have ahell of a time stopping that one.

Tomorrow night (Sunday) we go , down to LA to record at the Elektra studios all week and possibly play a gig in Bakersfield next weekend unless it’s been cancelled. Then we go to Ft. Lauderdale (Florida) for one day for the Pop Festival there-we’re on a bill with Canned Heat, Credence Clearwater, Chuck Berry and the MC-5, which should be pretty far out indeed. Then we fly home the next day for a month in Ann Arbor and Detroit, and it’ll really be a relief. The band will be moving into the country outside of Ann Arbor when we get back so they can practice and jam at night without getting f ked with, and there’ll be a lot more stuff coining out of Trans-Love Energies, including the national White Panther newspaper edited , by Pun Plamondon. Puri joined us out here i two days ago to confer with the Black Panther national office and solidify the alliance. We’ve seen a lot of our old friends from Detroit here and met a lot of strong brothers and sisters, and we told them about the ' scene, at home and how far out you people are getting.

We’ll be at the Grande Friday and Saturday, April 4th & 5 th, with Pacific Gas & Electric for the killer ZENTA HOMECOMING, so we’ll see you then. Easter Sunday there’ll be a huge celebration somewhere in Ann Arbor-listen to the Kokaine Karma show with me and Jerry Lubin Saturday, 12 noon to 4, on WABX, and we can talk some more. We’ll be glad to see you all.