I can’t begin to tell the story of the MC5 unless I first
talk about the 60’s in general as they can only be understood in the context of
the history of that era. I know, I have
spent a lot of time in this blog describing the 60’s and correcting
misconceptions but this time I’m not going to be describing hippies, free love
or flower children. There will be no
British Invasion or communes. I’m going
to take you on a tour through the seedier side of the 60’s and into the face of
rebellion. The MC5 are deeply connected
with things like Abbie Hoffman, the 1968 Democratic National Convention riots
in Chicago, the White Panther Movement, the Chicago Seven and violence on stage
at Woodstock. You see, the MC5 was the
most far left and militant band, bordering on anarchy, to come out of the
1960’s.
…And they made some of the most dynamic and amazing music
of the era.
They were founded in 1964 in Detroit, Michigan, by Rob
Tyner (vocals), Fred Smith (guitar), Wayne Kramer (guitar and shown in the
foreground of the above picture), Michael Davis (bass) and Dennis Thompson
(drums). By 1965, they were playing
regular gigs in Detroit and entered the studio to record their first single, I Can Only Give You Everything (1966). (I will play this single on Wednesday.) The name, “MC5” was shorthand for “Motor City
5,” which they were never really called.
The Black Panther Party
I must now turn attention to our first 60’s history
lesson and cover a topic seldom discussed today. Most people have heard of the
Black Panthers and with all of the shootouts and violence, their opinions are
probably not very high about this group.
To a large degree, this may be deserved but most people forget about the
spirit in which they were founded. The
early 60’s saw a lot of police brutality and violence aimed at black people and
many saw this problem needing to be addressed.
Originally, the Black Panthers were set up to be more of a neighborhood
watch or patrol but instead of looking for crime, they would step in and act as
witnesses to racially oriented police brutality and possibly stepping in to
defend the victim. Along with this
“neighborhood watch” function there were health clinics, free breakfast for
children programs and other community projects.
The police, understandably, saw the Panthers as a threat
and confrontation between the two factions became inevitable. FBI Director, J.
Edgar Hoover, referred to them as, "the greatest threat to the internal
security of the country." But
things started out innocent enough and it was in those early days that the
Panthers recruited a white man, John Sinclair, to take action on their behalf.
In 1966 John Sinclair, a Michigan resident, actually
approached them and asked what he could do to help their cause. The result was that Sinclair founded a sister
organization called the “White Panthers.”
This group would consist of white people helping their black brothers
and sisters in ending police brutality and bringing awareness of the injustices
suffered by black people in this country.
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| The Black Panthers logo on the left and the White Panthers on the right, note that one is the reverse of the other. |
Now that Sinclair had the organization, he needed people
to fill its ranks. He needed to make
white people not only aware of the plight of their black brethren, but of the
movement they could join to fight for racial equality. In order to get the word out, he started a
new enterprise called “Trans-Love Energies.”
This organization could be used to address the social needs of the time
in a broader sense, like ending the war in Vietnam, saving the Earth, living as
brothers and sisters and of course, ending racial inequities. The counter culture was heavily centered on
music and John Sinclair knew that he would need to utilize music to get his
message to young people everywhere.
Since he already had a magazine, the Fifth
Estate, to use the printed word, he needed to have his own rock band to
help tailor this message through music.
At this time, the MC5 were looking for a new manager.
They had already released their first single when they came across
Sinclair. The MC5 now had a manager and
Sinclair now had a rock band with which he could influence the youth. In 1968, they released their second single, Borderline b/w Looking at You, through Trans-Love Energies. That summer, they went on tour, opening for
bands like Big Brother and the Holding Company (Janis Joplin) and Cream (Eric
Clapton). There was just one problem;
instead of warming up the crowd for the headliners, the Five were upstaging
them. The crowds often demanded multiple
encores, cutting into the main acts time on stage.
At one particular concert, where they opened for Cream,
they burned an American flag on stage and then put up their own pot leaf flag
that had the word “KREEP” emblazoned in red letters across it. The crowd was whipped up into a fervor, one
that Clapton and Cream could not overcome.
Eric Clapton was not happy.
Despite only two locally distributed singles, these performances earned
them the cover of a January 1969 issue of Rolling
Stone Magazine. (See below.) John Sinclair had
his voice to reach the youth of America.
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| Click to enlarge |
It was on tour in 1968 that they met a group in New York
City that called themselves, “Up Against the Wall Motherfucker,” or just the
“Motherfuckers” for short. This group
grew out of anti-Vietnam groups in the area.
They embraced much of the counterculture but in an extremely militant
fashion. Abbie Hoffman said they were “the
middle-class nightmare... an anti-media media phenomenon simply because their
name could not be printed.” Their name
was taken from a poem, Black People, by
Amiri Baraka, from the line, “The magic words are: Up against the wall, mother
fucker, this is a stick up!” They were associated with many anarchistic
activities of the time, including bringing the fences down at Woodstock, making
it a free concert. The MC5 were now
involved with the Motherfuckers, along with the White Panthers.
The Democratic National Convention
Up to this point, I brought you to the first week of
January 1969. I need to back up the
clock a bit to continue the story and go back to the summer of 1968, before
they had become famous.
1968 was a Presidential Election year and the Democratic
National Convention was held in Chicago.
Soon after the location was announced, various counterculture and
radical groups began making plans to stage protests. It was a ripe target because democratic
President, Lyndon Johnson had escalated the war in Vietnam from 23,000 troops when
he took office to over 500,000 by the time the convention would take place in
August. Abbie Hoffman and the Yippies,
the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam and the Women
Strike for Peace movement were but a few of the groups planning protests at the
convention. There was a music festival scheduled in Lincoln Park to protest the
war and John Sinclair knew where he needed to take his new-found band, the MC5,
to perform.
The city was not blind to the fact that radical groups
planned protests in their city during the convention. Many cities had already broken out in riots
after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. the previous April and
tensions only grew after the assassination of Democratic Presidential
Candidate, Robert Kennedy weeks earlier.
In the weeks leading up to the convention, Mayor Richard Daley had been
publicly declaring over and over again that he would maintain law and order in
the City of Chicago during the event.
The Police Department went on overtime shifts and the Illinois National
Guard was called out to assure order was maintained. Finally, while the city could not deny
permits for peaceful protests outright, it did drag its feet and created
obstacles so that most permits were not processed before the event, making most
protests in the city that week, illegal.
The unrest had already begun by Friday, August 23rd,
when a number of protesters were arrested.
It continued on Saturday with more arrests and the violence began. The police would physically clear protesters
from areas and protesters began throwing stones at police while chanting “Hey,
Hey LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?”
The “Festival of Life” music festival was scheduled to start at 4:00 PM
on Sunday. When the time arrived, the
only band to have made it to the Park was the MC5 and they took to the stage. There have been reports that have the MC5 were
on stage for up to ten hours or more.
They simply are not true. The
Five played for less than an hour.
The plan was to have many bands play for a crowd of about
100,000 youth but they didn’t have the permits.
Therefore, there were no porta-potties and the concession stand was
operating at full capacity feeding the 3000 that actually showed up. Furthermore, there was nothing set up in the
way of electrical service and all of the equipment was powered by an extension
cord that was ran from that concession stand.
After less than an hour, the concession stand was no longer willing to
supply the power and unplugged the cord.
It was Abbie Hoffman who started the false rumor that the city and/or
police had shut down the festival. The
rioting broke out in earnest this time and the police again began clubbing and
arresting protesters until the park was cleared.
Only two other musicians are known to have made the trip
to Chicago. Country Joe McDonald was present at the festival but did not perform
and
Phil Ochs was among those arrested and jailed the day before.
The MC5 was the only band to play the protest
at the Democratic National Convention in 1968.
John Sinclair and the MC5 managed to avoid being arrested but many did
not, including what has become a famous group, the Chicago Seven.
This group was put on trial to make an example and
hopefully show the youth of America what happens when you protest. They actually started out as the Chicago
Eight but Black Panther leader, Bobby Seale, quickly had his charges separated
from the rest. The remaining seven,
including Abbie Hoffman, would stand trial in late 1969 on federal charges of
conspiracy and inciting a riot. The
country watched on and soon there was a national movement and protesters
everywhere carried signs and wore tee shirts that said “free the Chicago
Seven.” Four of the Seven were found
guilty and sentenced to five years in prison in 1970. Those verdicts were overturned on appeal in
1972.
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| A Farside cartoon inspired by the Chicago 7, click to enlarge |
Kick Out the Jams Motherfuckers… er… um… Brothers and
Sisters
The Five had released a couple of singles with small
record companies but they soon had a contract with one of the big boys, Elektra
Records. The executives at Elektra had
heard their singles, recorded in a studio, along with having heard them
live. They made a bold decision to do
the unheard of. The debut album by the
MC5, Kick Out the Jams, would be a
live album! They conveyed such energy
when they were in front of an audience and they would feed off of it. It was that energy that had them upstaging
the likes of Eric Clapton and Janis Joplin.
The album was a huge success, climbing to #30 on the Billboard Top 200 in the spring of 1969 and
is currently ranked #294 on Rolling
Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.
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| Kick Out the Jams, 1969 |
Like anything else with the MC5, this album was controversial.
The title track, Kick
Out the Jams, opened with the following words: “And right now... right
now... right now it's time to... kick out the jams, motherfuckers!” The song would then start up. Back in the 1960’s this was not
acceptable. Two years earlier, Elektra
had edited the word “higher” out of a Doors’ song, Break on Through, because it could be construed as a drug
reference. Elektra wanted it out but the band and Sinclair stuck to their guns
and the recording was released as is.
Without the bands knowledge, Elektra did edit out the
offending words for the release of a single that they hoped would get airplay
and help support the full album. They had doctored it with a recording of Tyner
saying, “Kick out the jams brothers and sisters,” instead. The Five were not
pleased with this.
(I’ll play both versions on Wednesday. I’ll open with the
doctored, clean version and close with the original, uncensored version.)
After the album’s release, it quickly became something of
a hot potato. Stores began to refuse to
carry it because of both the vulgar and reactionary content. Elektra Records, again without the bands
permission, removed John Sinclair’s extensive liner notes that were extremely
militant and anarchistic. It then
created two forms of the album; one with the doctored, clean version of Kick Out the Jams, described above, and
another with the original, uncensored verbiage. Once again, the Five weren’t
happy.
This didn’t end the controversy. The “explicit version”
would often be confined to remaining behind the counter and only sold to
adults. If you found the album in the regular bins, it was probably the clean
version. Furthermore, a large department store chain in Michigan, Hudson’s,
refused to carry the album all together.
The band responded by taking out a full page ad in the Fifth Estate Magazine that had the MC5
name at the top and showed pictures of the band. Below the picture, in large
letters, it said, “FUCK HUDSON’S!” The band, without asking Elektra first, turned
the table and put a large Elektra Records logo next to the offending words. Hudson’s
countered by refusing to carry any records on the Elektra label, including
those by Tom Paxton, the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Phil Ochs and the Doors,
just to name a few. It was now Elektra’s
turn to not be pleased. (See the ad below.)
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| The "Fuck Hudson's ad, click to enlarge |
Busted!
This whole time that John Sinclair was managing the MC5,
he was out on bail and awaiting trial on drug charges in Michigan. He had been arrested in 1967 for having just
two joints (marijuana cigarettes). In July, 1969, he went to trial and was found
guilty of these charges. That same
month, the judge sentence him to ten years in prison for just possessing the
two joints. Sinclair had been out on
bail for over two years and it was customary to allow the convicted to remain
out on bail pending his appeal. The judge denied bail pending appeal and John
Sinclair was taken straight into prison to serve his ten years. It became obvious that the whole thing was twisted
to silence Sinclair.
After the Hudson’s incident, Elektra Records dropped the
Five both as punishment for what they had done and to hopefully regain the
potentially lost sales they were facing. This was immediately followed by John
Sinclair being locked in prison for ten years. The MC5 was dealt a devastating
one-two punch and lost both their manager and their record contract at the same
time, as they were charting on Billboard.
The following month was the Woodstock Music and Arts
Festival. The event needs no
introduction from me and John Sinclair, despite sitting in prison in Michigan,
managed to have his presence felt. Abbie
Hoffman was present at Woodstock and between sets, took to a microphone on
stage and began a diatribe on the plight of John Sinclair. Later that evening, while the Who were performing,
Hoffman came onstage and snatched the microphone away from a shocked Roger
Daltry. He continued his rant by saying, “I think this is a pile of shit while
John Sinclair rots in prison…” He was interrupted by Pete Townsend who yelled, “Fuck
off! Fuck off my fucking stage!” Townsend then charged Hoffman, hitting him
with his guitar over the head as Hoffman fell into the pit in front of the
stage. A few weeks after the incident,
Hoffman would begin his own trial as one of the Chicago Seven. You will hear both incidents this August when
we recreate Woodstock at AWT. (I’ll play
the longer first diatribe on Wednesday too.)
Epilogue
The MC5 soon signed on with Atlantic Records, which had
just been breaking into the Rock music scene with band like Led Zeppelin. The Five would release only two more albums, Back in the USA in 1970 and High Time in 1971. Their producer at Atlantic, Jon Landau, tried
to restrain them and mold them into something they weren’t and who could blame
him considering their recent history?
Also, they were now in the studio to make their next record and not in
front of an audience. The magic was gone
and sales were miserable.
The band fell apart but did manage to get together for
their Farewell Concert at the same venue where Kick Out the James was recorded. That concert took place on New Year’s
Eve, 1972.
John Sinclair’s
plight attracted a lot of attention. In
December 1971, the “John Sinclair Freedom Rally” took place in Ann Arbor,
Michigan. Many musical acts came to
perform including Bob Seger, Stevie Wonder and Phil Ochs. The event was
headlined by John Lennon and Yoko Ono. John had just written a song called “John Sinclair,” and one of its lyrics, “They
gave him ten for two; what else can the bastards do,” became a rallying cry. A few days after the rally, the Michigan
Supreme Court ordered Sinclair’s immediate release after having served well
over two years in prison. They had found
a number of improprieties in his trial.
John Lennon and the Plastic Ono Band would record John Sinclair and release it on their 1972 album, Some Time in New York City. (I’ll play this John Lennon song on
Wednesday.)
The Black Panthers rapidly declined through the 1970’s amid
violence, infighting and controversy.
The White Panthers did not fare much better and by the mid 1970’s they
were no longer an entity. The White
Panther logo (shown up above) had been incorporated into the MC5 logo and found
its way onto tee shirts, posters and other items. It has become the last bastion of remembrance
of the White Panthers. The Five’s logo, shown at the bottom of the page, incorporated
much of what made up their controversial existence. There was a pot leaf in the
middle, so reminiscent of John Sinclair’s situation. Written across the bottom
is “Motherfuckers,” which is both a tribute to the organization in New York and
to their rallying cry on Kick out the
Jams. Finally, there is prominently displayed, the White Panther.
As we entered the 21st century, nostalgia for
the past dictated a few cleaned up versions of the shirt be produced for sale.
One of these appeared on Jennifer Aniston on a 2003 episode of Friends. (See picture below.) One has to
wonder how many people realized the significance of the white panther that
remained on the logo displayed on Aniston’s chest. (The pot leaf and “motherfuckers”
were removed.)
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| Jen Aniston wears an MC5 shirt on Friends |
The MC5 was like a skyrocket. They went up and bursted to
our collective “oo’s” and “ah’s” and quickly burned out, leaving with us
nothing more than a memory we enjoy recalling.
That fleeting moment forever changed Rock & Roll. Punk Rock would come into being and become a
force to be reckoned with by the middle to late 70’s. Many of those acts would
point back to the MC5 as one of their major influences. If I was asked to describe the Five in one
word, it would be “meteoric.”
Fun Facts…
Fun Fact #1:
The organization founded by Sinclair, Trans-Love Energies, still exists today
though it has a different role. It is now a medical marijuana compassion center
in Detroit. It helps patients who need marijuana for medical purposes in
Michigan, where it is still illegal.
Fun Fact #2:
Jefferson Airplane took the lyrics to their song, We Can Be Together, from a leaflet put out by Up Against the Wall
Motherfucker and published under the title, the
Outlaw Page.
Fun Fact #3:
My favorite MC5 song is off of their failed second album, Back in the USA. It is Shakin’
Street. The version I will play is
not the final released version but a longer version. The first 12 seconds were cut in the final
mix.
Fun Fact #4: Blue Oyster Cult would sometimes open their concerts with a version of Kick Out the Jams, using the "Brothers and Sisters" opening.
Conclusion
If you frequent AWT, you have probably seen the picture
at the top of the page here at the club. I used it when I made the landmark
giver for the concert platform. Why did I use that picture? It is one of my favorite musical images from
the 60’s. Though it is a still
photograph, it conveys an energy and intensity that just can’t be put into
words. It is a good image to draw
someone to a concert. That energy and
intensity captured there is what made the MC5 so special and it only came out
when they performed live. There was just
so much of it that even pictures and their debut live album were able to
capture it. That picture is also a
poster on the wall of my beach house on Park Place.
In 1969, much of what I have written here could not be
published because of the language I have used. I have pulled no punches and
described the Five using language they would have used to describe
themselves. I felt anything less would
lessen your experience of the Five.
Anyway, we now live in a world where you can use “motherfucker” on a
song recording or even on this blog.
Maybe we have the MC5 partially to thank for that.
So, I want all you motherfuckers out there to join me
this coming Wednesday, May 30, from 7-9 PM as we kick out the jams at a Woman’s
Touch. If you do, I can promise you one
thing… You will never be the same again.
Programing Note: My show is from 7-9 PM SL time but I’m only going to play about one
hour and fifteen minutes of MC5 and related stuff like the Abbie Hoffman rant
and the John Lennon Song.
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The MC5 logo
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