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Photo by Leni Sinclair |
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Photo by Leni Sinclair |
Background: poster by Gary Grimshaw
MC5: The Most Radical Band on the Planet
…When I first saw them, I thought they were incredible. Just totally fucking great. They were trying to extend rock and roll into something that had more space for creativity and improvisation. They called themselves avant-rock at the time…They were people that were totally into their music and into trying to make their music more effective and their whole performance aesthetic more complete. This is what we talked all the time and of course ingesting large quantities of mind-enhancing substances…Other than that, they fused jazz and rock, like the fusion music that came (later). But they fused with jazz instead of fusing jazz into rock. So there’s all these different aspects of them that have come down in history…They built a mass following in their hometown. In Detroit, the MC5 was as big as the Rolling Stones. We headlined all the local (bands) show at Olympia Stadium and drew more people than the Beatles… -- excerpt from John Sinclair interview on MC5
At this point, much detail has been gathered on the MC5 at their website, and you should go there to kick out the jams -- music clips and videos are there as well. Also, John Sinclair’s online interview (excerpt above) cuts to the core – you should know about that. AND – as if you didn’t have enough, Cary Loren has gathered more information from his anthology project. To get an overview of the whole period, who influenced who, where the music went, etc., you can read what he has generously provided below... -- James Semark
TRANS-LOVE ENERGIES, MC5, GRANDE BALLROOM
By Cary Loren
The most important influence the Artists Workshop and its offshoots would have, could be felt in music, art, and politics. I will try to give detailed and precise examples for each area, but as these elements are still evolving there is a need for a more complete study than is possible here.
Trans-Love Energies was a nontraditional business conglomerate of various bands, light shows, artists, underground newspapers, and headshops based in Detroit. Sinclair saw the burgeoning potential for rock music as a vehicle for massive radical change and action. As full-time manager of the MC5, “the most radical band on the planet,” and with the antiwar movement in full swing, John recognized this time as being prime opportunity to “indoctrinate” “turn-on” and freakize American youth.
Fusing a strange brew of radical politics, black culture, poetry, free-jazz, and dope (marijuana) with rock and roll and communal attitude became Sinclair’s primary focus. His efforts went toward educating and radicalizing the growing youth movement. There was work to do. The MC5 was the perfect vehicle to express the message.
THE MUSIC OF THE MC5 IS THE CITY
The city is meat and energy in motion And sound And the sound is the MC5 1The opening of the Grande Ballroom (October 7 th, 1966) in Detroit kicked the Midwest psychedelic movement into high gear. In the summer of ’66 rock entrepreneur and WKNR-FM radio DJ personality “Uncle” Russ Gibb saw the possibilities of the exploding hippie movement during a visit to Bill Graham’s newly opened San Fransisco, Fillmore Ballroom. After that visit he commissioned one of the largest strobe lights ever to be built, and brought it to the Grande Ballroom on Joy and Grand Boulevard in Detroit. The Grande was designed in Moorish style revival. As an oriental dance floor in the 1920s, it oozed baroque plaster ornamentation, mosaic tiles and large curved doorways. It quickly and logically made the conversion into the first Midwest rock palace.
Sinclair saw a partnership in the offing and installed the MC5 at the Grande as the “peoples” band. Russ Gibb remembers, “The first day 50 people showed up. The next week it was 100, then 500.” The scene exploded and a dirth of local bands appeared. Groups like the Rationals, Savage Grace, The Scott Richards Case, the Psychedelic Stooges, and the Frut found a home on the Grande’s stage. Word soon spread to the predominately white suburbs and overflowing crowds became the norm every weekend.
The Grande ballroom was unique in the Midwest. It soon attracted international rock bands like the Who, Cream, and Janis Joplin with Big Brother…The MC5 played almost every weekend and would open for many of the national acts, often blowing them off–stage. Russ Gibb supplied the space and bookings and Trans-Love Energies created the scene and the light-shows, tapping into an explosion of teenage baby-boomers herding into the city. PLUM STREET (Detroit’s bid for a flower-power neighborhood) and the Grande ballroom offered suburban youth an exotic destination and look at real city-life.
INFLUENCE OF JAZZ ON THE MC5
The MC5 evolved out of the garage rock aesthetic that has been part of Michigan’s roots since the early 1960s. By their embrace of avant-garde jazz and black roots rock, the MC5 became ambassadors bringing black culture to the attention of white suburban youth. Both John Sinclair and Rob Tyner were instrumental in passing on the knowledge of this culture to the rest of the MC5 and then to the general public. Rob went as far as assuming the name of his jazz pianist hero McCoy Tyner as his own.
Sun Ra and John Coltrane represented some of the farthest reaches of Jazz. They have both ascended to legendary status with books, films, websites and list serves devoted to the activities and ideas of these seminal musicians. John Sinclair initiated the first contact with Sun Ra in 1965 when he traveled to New York City to visit Sun Ra and conduct an interview for an early issue of the Warren/Forest Sun newspaper. Sun ra and his Solar Myth Arkestra represented a similar mind-set to the Detroit Artists’ Workshop. They both practiced a do-it-yourself aesthetic, ignoring the mainstream distribution establishment. Sun Ra’s Arkestra also lived and worked communally since the early 1960s first in Chicago, New York and then settling in Philadelphia. Although Sun Ra has since died, his commune of muscians continue to tour and play his music.
On their first album the MC5 gave tribute to Sun Ra and his Magic Myth Arkestra by including his poetry on “Sonic Reducer Rocket Ship #9”. Sinclair hosted several concerts by Sun Ra and the band often camped out at the Hill Street house in Ann Arbor. The influence of free Jazz on the MC5 is well documented. What is interesting is how they brought this passion into the rock arena and in turn grew an audience for avant-jazz among the predominately middle class white audience.
PROJECTIONS: GLOBAL INFLUENCE OF THE MC5
The RAMONES were also highly indebted to the intense style and high powered antics of Detroit bands like the MC5 and Stooges. The ripped up jeans which became a signature of the in-your-face RAMONES style were seen on Iggy Pop seven years earlier. it was a costume and posture that said “fuck-off” to store bought goods. The MC5 also had a strange array of costumes that went way over-the-top, using glitter, spangles, velvets, jeans and torn American flags in a kind of folk-art ensemble. Becky Tyner and Sigrid Dobart made all the costumes for the MC5 out of found materials in second hand stores.
The punk scene of the late 1970s in Europe (British punk) and America can be seen as inspired and fueled by a handful of high-octane albums from the motor city. The influence of Detroit rock on late 1980s New York and Seattle noise bands (also known as shoe-gazers, for their pose of often staring at the ground) cannot be underestimated. By the use of noise and “controlled feedback” the MC5 took rock and roll to its outside limits. Early performances by the Stooges and MC5 were excersizes in “free rock”.
The list of bands under influence of sonic feedback would be too numerous to begin listing, but one of the most obvious quotations has been from the early 1980s influential and experimental rock group SONIC YOUTH. The band SY is well known for their use of controlled feedback and high-energy squall. The band also took their name from Fred “Sonic” Smith, as a homage to the MC5. Sonic Youth went on to influence countless other bands, including the noise-rock supergroup NIRVANA which broke in the early 1990s. In his recently published diaries Cobain made lists of his favorite albums that would include the Stooges and MC5 in the top spots.
Punk, avant and noise rock were expressions of liberation, a fusion of protest and sound. It was the noise of adolescence breaking out. Creating rock and roll in ones parent’s garage or basement was a rite of passage. Guitars, drums and amplifiers are ubiquitous instruments easily found and not too difficult to play, and usually self-taught. It was a backyard suburban culture, adapted from industrial urban streets, easily understood and modified.
The techno movement is a reaction away from the intensity and high-energy of 1960s avant-rock; it provides a mask of coolness and electronic bliss -- a sense of being “in control” verses being “out-of-control” and free. Minimalism vs. Maximalism. Techno music is about predictability, consumerism and asexuality. It is structured around fad and fashion, electronics and dance club scenes reminiscent of the disco era. The individuality of rock fashion is replaced by instant “identity patches” and label conscious consumers. The rawness and identity of the human voice is also neutered, untrusted and often completely removed from the format. When voice is used it is often “treated” as a mechanical tool, over layered with robotic special effects.
Although it is now the predominate expression of the youth movement today, innovations in techno and electronic music make it the domain of elitist sound architects, who perform their wizardry on complex and expensive computers and sound board machinery far out of reach for the average youth. Techno music is often the other side of the coin, an electronic prison where human-to-human contact is replaced by the laptop computer chip, and preprogrammed samples. Not all electronic music is suspect. There is a large and important history of electronica that is truly experimental and noteworthy. Top
1 David Sinclair, editor WORK/5 in quote by John Sinclair (Detroit Artists workshop Press / Trans-Love Energies, 1966) p.94.
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