MC5
An Oral Biography of Rock's Most Revolutionary Band
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
A riveting oral biography of the proto-punk Detroit rockers MC5, based on original interviews with the band and key members of their inner circle
Few bands have dared to ignite a revolution through their fusion of activism and art like MC5. Managed by the charismatic radical and hippie spokesman, John Sinclair, MC5 wasn’t just a band; they were a thunderous proclamation of dissent, amplifying the voices of the marginalized long before it was fashionable. From championing racial equality to rallying for cannabis legalization, they fearlessly thrust their beliefs onto the world stage. For their efforts, the rabble-rousing musical arm of the White Panther Party, the scourge of J. Edgar Hoover's FBI and other defenders of public decency, were often beaten with clubs, threatened at gunpoint, tossed into jail, and even unceremoniously dumped by their record company, right as their album was storming up the charts—and all while the Sex Pistols were still on training wheels.
What has been lost amidst this notoriety is MC5 itself, a band worth remembering not because they were bad boys, but because they were so damn good. In MC5: An Oral Biography of Rock’s Most Revolutionary Band, music journalists Brad Tolinski and Jaan Uhelszki invite readers to reconsider this legendary group. Centered around a series of interviews with MC5, their manager, and their inner circle—many of whom are no longer with us—that Tolinski and Uhelszki inherited from CREEM Magazine founding staffer and Mojo's US editor Ben Edmonds prior to his death, this book presents a genuinely candid, funny, and moving portrait of rock’s most uncompromising and articulate band. MC5 also features a virtual “who’s who” of 1960s rockers, including Iggy and the Stooges, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, promoter Bill Graham, John Lennon, the Jefferson Airplane, and political firebrands like Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Tom Hayden, and Black Panther Eldridge Cleaver.
As innovative, insightful, and inspiring as the band itself, MC5 is a fitting testament to the legacy of these iconic rock pioneers—told in their very own words.
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A series of interviews conducted by late music journalist Edmonds with band members and associates of MC5 anchors this immersive account of the proto-punk group. Fleshing out those exchanges with narrative sections, music journalists Tolinski (coauthor of Play Loud) and Uhelszki depict a musically vibrant 1960s Detroit where high school friends Wayne Kramer and Fred "Sonic" Smith started playing guitar together. "Weirdo" vocalist Rob Tyner joined soon after, bringing a "contrarian spirit" that fueled the band's intense, energetic sound and countercultural ethos. After a performance for antiwar demonstrators at the 1968 Democratic convention turned into "a full-scale police riot," MC5 became "the darlings of the growing hippie underground." Yet their revolutionary mindset, the authors suggest, may also have cut short their career. The 1969 album Kick Out the Jams was pulled from record stores due to profanity and subsequent albums saw little label support. By 1972, the band members had gone their separate ways, though they reunited for performances in subsequent years. Contextualized by vivid background on the political and artistic upheavals of the 1960s, the band members' own words jump off the page, bringing alive creative clashes, charged group dynamics, and the excitement of a Detroit underground filled with hippies, beatniks, rockers, and radicals. It's a scintillating portrait of a band that punched far above its weight.
