MC5

In the past year the Detroit rock and roll scene has exploded into the national consciousness, largely through the efforts of what has developed into the most exciting rock and roll band to be found on earth-the totally insane MC5. The 5 have been working and playing in and around Detroit for over four years now—they’ve come all the way from polish weddings and $5-a-night deejay hops through the starvation scene trying to be professional musicians after high school, the bogus management scene, the year, almost two years of working $125 a night teen club and fraternity party gigs, the local bigshot scene with no recording contract but a huge personal appearance following, to their present position as one of the most talked-about bands in the USA, fired by a major record company for alleged “unprofessionalism” and immediately hired by another, Atlantic Records, in a six-figure production deal, with stories in TIME and Newsweek, Billboard and Rolling Stone, the East Village Other and the Great Neck (Long Island) North High School “Guide Post”, and tours across the country east to west and back.

The MC5 was the first Detroit group to “break out” nationally, even though the Amboy Dukes, the SRC, and Teegarden and Van Winkle had records out before the 5, and they are determined to take all of their home people^ especially their brother bands, along with them all over the world. In a sense-in a lot of senses-they are the archetypal Detroit rock and roll band, and in themselves they embody what to a great extent they defined as the Spirit of Detroit. of rock and roll music, from its earliest beginnings (Little Richard’s “Tutti Frutti”) to its most contemporary manifestations (the space music of Sun Ra and his Astro-Infinity Arkestra) and hitting a lot of the highest-energy points in between (“Shakin’ All Over,” James Brown’s “It’s a Man’s World,” the Trogg’s “I Want You,” Ted Taylor’s “Ramblin’ Rose,” and their own killer rock and roll masterpieces “Kick Out the Jams,” “Come Together,” “Lookin’ at You,” “Borderline,” “Teen Age Lust,” “Call Me Animal” and the “Human Being Lawnmower” for starters). The band has developed a new musical language to deal with the extreme high-energy output they create through a total program based on living the music all the time, and the people who have been with them the longest-their friends and neighbors in the Detroit/Ann Arbor areahave thoroughly assimilated this new language and can hear it spoken now by any number of Detroit bands who have been turned on to the energy-rock-and-roll blasts of the MC5 and feel it in their own flesh.

The MC5 is a whole thing, as their manager-mastermind John Sinclair, the notorious dope-fiend J)ost White Panther maniac, has written in the now-censored liner notes to their Elektra KICK OUT THE JAMS lp, and their influence hasn’t been only musical. The way they relate to their brothers and sisters-their common culture-has inspired a lot of the people in that community to relate to each other in the same term as the 5. The band has already played more benefits, for more different causes, than any other band on earth, and they continue to stress the importance of playing free for the community as a primary duty of any bona fide rock and roll band. “The music comes from the people,” as Wayne Kramer puts it, “and it has to constantly be in touch with the people, on all levels.”

In Detroit everyone knows the 5, whether they “like” the band or not. The 5 is more a religion than just a band anyway, and the people who are behind them are behind them all the way. Wayne Kramer, Rob Tyner, Fred “Sonic’’ Smith, Michael Davis and Dennis Thompson are household words in Detroit, and the people know exactly what those words mean. They’ve watched the 5 come up the hard way, and they won’t ever forget the incredible magic moments the MC5 has, brought them over the years. And if there’s anything to be said for them at all, it has to start with the fact that they aren’t at all easy to forget, no matter how brief your contact with the band might have been. The MC5 stay with you, because that’s where they want to be. Right there.

The MC5 will be seen and heard both nights of the Revival.

Personal Management: John Sinclair/Trans-Love Energies

Recording: Exclusively on Atlantic Records Discography: “I Can Only Give You Everything” (AMG, Detroit, 1 966), “Looking at You”/“Borderline” (A-2, Ann Arbor, 1968), “Kick Out the Jams”/“Motor City is Burning” (Elektra, 1969)

Album: “Kick Out the Jams” (Electra, 1969)-Recorded live at the Grande Ballroom