Rock-and-roll’s great comedy of errors, as told by the music.
Author’s Note: This post corresponds to MC5: A Brief History, originally posted 10/30/2023. To watch the full special, scroll to the bottom of this post or visit my YouTube channel here.
Part 1: Kick Out The Jams
Wayne Kramer: guitar, backing vocals, lead on “Ramblin’ Rose”
Fred Smith: guitar, backing vocals
Rob Tyner: lead vocals
Michael Davis: bass
Dennis Thompson: drums
Guests: JC Crawford, speeches on “Ramblin’ Rose” and “Motor City Is Burning”; Sun-Ra, lyrics on “Starship”
Produced by Jac Holzmann and Bruce Botnik
In February 1969, Detroit’s own MC5 made their major label debut with Kick Out The Jams. To total. Fucking. Chaos.
In all of two months, they would lose that major label deal. And in perhaps one of the most infamous album reviews ever written, Lester Bangs TRASHED the album. Here are some of the highlights:
He starts off strong, referring to the album as “this sweaty aggregation.” I’d expect no less from Les, let alone the fact this was his first review for Rolling Stone.
“For my money they come on more like Blue Cheer than ’Trane and Saunders, but then my money has already gone for a copy of this ridiculous, overbearing, pretentious album; and maybe that’s the idea, isn’t it?” (quoted from: Lester Bangs, “Kick Out The Jams” Rolling Stone Magazine, 4/5/1969)
(Man, why did everyone hate Blue Cheer?) Les said JC Crawford’s rousing speech at the beginning of the LP stood “midway between Wild in the Streets and Arthur Brown.” (Now see, I would personally take being compared to one of the hardest hip-hop samples of all time as a compliment.) “...the difference which will sell several hundred thousand copies of this album, is in the hype, the thick overlay of teenage-revolution and total-energy-thing which conceals these scrapyard vistas of cliches and ugly noise.”
And finally: “they came on like a bunch of 16-year-old punks on a power trip.”
However, my personal favorite review of Kick Out The Jams came from the Columbus Dispatch. It described the album as sounding “like a garbage can full of pliers going down a flight of cement steps.” I cannot wait until I reach the point in my career when I can describe something like that.
As so succinctly put by Jaan Uhelszki on a recent episode of the Sound Opinions podcast, Les made the same mistake all critics make at least once in their careers. Hell, I’ve done it a few times too. Every once in a while, we review the hype instead of the album. And my god, was the hype for the MC5 on another level. Brace yourselves, you’re gonna read that dirty word many times in this review. “Hype.” Hypehypehypehype.
I’ve always been partial to this Baron Wolman shot of MC5 frontman Rob Tyner. It encapsulates everything the 5 were to the “straight” people in the ’60s: glittering. Shrieking. Dangerous. Almost monstrous. “Louder than god’s revolver and twice as shiny,” as another great MC-abbreviated band once said. Cool kids Creem answered with their own cover story; with Rob looking much more introspective.
These two covers captured the duality of Rob Tyner, just as they capture the next-level hype surrounding the 5. Thanks to Jann Wenner’s little deal with Elektra, our boys from Detroit landed that coveted Rolling Stone cover...with no album out.
So, yes, while the Dispatch’s describes total assault on our poor critic’s ears...at least they reviewed the music.
The Rolling Stone story is mostly bullshit. It infamously sparked the rumor of Rob wearing a miniskirt on stage, which he got hilariously worked up over in interview with Ben Edmonds some two decades later. (“I am not the father of androgyny!!” He cried, in his delightfully goofy midwestern accent.) But it did wonders for moving the 5 outside their little White Panther bubble.
Yeah, that was the other thing that came with the 5. John Sinclair and his White Panther Party. You literally could not separate the two entities come 1969. John was the band’s manager of sorts, and they all lived on his Trans-Love Energies (get you there on time) commune in Ann Arbor.
All this – the radical political ties plus monstrous hype – made taking on the 5 a huge risk for Elektra Records. Per the recommendation of two high schoolers, Elektra sent “house hippie” Danny Fields out to Detroit to see what all the fuss was about. After all was said and done – the 5 practically kidnapped Danny! – he somehow convinced Jac Holzmann to sign both them and their little brother band. You may have heard of them...The Stooges.
Pictured: the MC5 and all their people and ladies, plus members of The Stooges' camp, signing with Elektra Records (photographed by Leni Sinclair, 1969)
This landmark decision would bite Elektra in the ass. Long story short: they signed a counterculture band, then somehow expected them not to do counterculture things! Like their 12-letter-word-you-can’t-say-on-the-radio rallying cry. Or John insisting upon writing it into Kick Out The Jams’s liner notes. Turns out that’ll do a number on sales. Who knew? Then came the rock-and-roller behavior. See the guys having their dicks plaster-cast. They burnt through the label’s money like you wouldn’t believe; getting arrested for obscenity and disturbing the peace at least once a week, equipment constantly getting stolen or otherwise trashed. They racked up a very big bill in a very short amount of time.
Elektra’s final straw was the debacle I’ve taken to calling “the Hudson’s Incident.” Because of those liner notes, a department store chain called Hudson’s refused to sell Kick Out The Jams on the grounds of “profanity” and “obscenity.” However, they were still selling The Doors’ self-titled record, which infamously closes with a song about...that. To call out this double-standard, the MC5 took out a full-page advertisement in local anarchist publication the Fifth Estate. And it said…
The Elektra logo is on the ad because their money was used to run it. However, Elektra had no idea this ad was running! Upon hearing of all this, Hudson’s freaked out and stopped selling all Elektra releases; including Judy Collins, Tim Buckley, the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, and yes, The Doors. This would be like if a chain like Tower Records stopped carrying Elektra. This was huge. Elektra freaks out, takes this as their easy ticket to ditch these lunatics, and drops the MC5 like a hot potato. As put by Steve Harris in Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk:
“It was the funniest thing I’d ever heard.”
Thus, the MC5 accidentally birthed the punk ethos. Unfortunately, the events following Kick Out The Jams’s release – the Rolling Stone review, the Hudson’s Incident, an ill-fated trip to California, all of it – was also the kick-off of a downward spiral they would never quite recover from. All that massive potential blew up in their faces, like the powder-keg band they were. The hype failed the MC5, or maybe they failed it. As put by Charles Shaar Murray in advance praise for MC5: An Oral Biography of Rock’s Most Revolutionary Band, they were faced with the impossible task of being “the greatest rock band in the world, and to righteously serve and further a counterculture revolution.”
The explosive Thing that is Kick Out The Jams was my first exposure to the MC5. And I went in with no hype whatsoever. This was the first 5 record I had, via picking up this guy’s entire record collection, went in expecting to buy 150 records but walked away with over 300 for free, blah blah blah. It’s established Abigail Devoe Lore at this point. Before writing the video this review comes from, I’d spent a while away from this album to, well, do my job and review other stuff.
My first reaction to hearing Kick Out The Jams in full for the first time in months was...what the fuck was that??
I mean, Jesus. If you don’t know what you’re getting yourself into, the intensity will wear you out. The energy is palpable; you can feel it from the stomping of the crowd, that one person in the audience at like every ’60s live album recording with a tambourine, the girls screaming!
Singing the whole of Ramblin’ Rose in that goofy falsetto was the most quintessentially Wayne Kramer choice he could’ve possibly made. I don’t know what possessed him to do it, but whatever it is, I’ve grown to love it.
If you pay attention, you can hear exactly when Wayne’s low string fell out of tune. I don’t know if he bumped into something or what, but you can hear it clear as day. Right out of the gate, you get this spectacular crunch of sound; this bone-crushing intensity that so many groups would copy through the ’80s and ’90s.
It’s kind of incredible that the 5’s greatest hit was written in the kitchen of what was essentially a frat house. Wayne lugged an amp in there, Rob had a joint in his hand, and they came up with the thesis statement of their whole careers. Kick Out The Jams is the tightest, most composed thing on the record; while still havingthat wild energy. You just can’t argue with, “Kick out the jams, motherfucker!!” It was their signature song for a reason. It comes at you from all sides: wailing guitars, the unrelenting crash of Dennis’s drums, double-recorded vocals (equipment issues meant Rob, Wayne, and Fred all had to come in the next day to fill things out.) I know we “ooh” and “aah” at how Fred Smith and Wayne would lock together so easily. As guitarists, they were made for each other. But listen to Michael’s bass playing; it’s nothing fancy, but it’s the fluidity needed to balance out such a rock-solid, in-your-face slab of a song.
What a treat it is to hear Mike play. I can hear him loud and clear on Come Together. It would take another year or two for the rest of the guys to come into their own, but Mike had it on this album. Sadly, there is no MC5 album where they all had it. And sadly, as we’ll see through the next album’s production, Mike would not always have it. Regardless of when each individual hit their stride, the 5 presented themselves with a unique challenge: balance. They could not for the life of them regulate themselves, and to a new listener that can be completely overwhelming. It was for me! You simply cannot have a wishy-washy performer fronting all this glorious mess. The fire in Rob Tyner’s belly, the grit. On “Come Together,” you get the feeling he sincerely believed every word he sang. That was exactly what a group like this needed.
For the life of me I cannot figure out why there’s a fade-out/in separating “Come Together” and Rocket Reducer No. 62 (colloquially known as “Rama Lama Fa Fa Fa.”) These takes were born from the same night, the songs were played back-to-back, and they’re on the same side of the record. Why not have one flow into the other? It’s an odd, clunky choice. But nevermind that. “Rama Lama” is good stupid fun. It’s the kind of macho posturing that only a gaggle of perpetually stoned 20-year-olds could make remotely likeable. Top to bottom, it’s perfect for them. It’s silly, it’s sexy, I have nothing more to say.
To this day, 55 years later, Borderline is utterly confounding. Bruising and off-kilter, it never settles into anything. Top to bottom, it’s unsure of itself, and for a long time that quality turned me off from it. For the life of me I can’t figure out what the hell it’s about. I don’t even know if Wayne knew what the hell it was about, and he wrote it! Whatever it ism he came up with something that perfectly suited razor-sharp Dennis.
I know “Kick Out The Jams” is the MC5 song. And Starship...we’ll get there. But the crown jewel of this album is Motor City is Burning. The 5 rarely all had a good night on the same night at the same time. It’s what makes them so fulfilling, yet endlessly frustrating, to be a fan of. The recordings of any one number are truly all over the place. But miraculously, on this night at this moment, everyone nailed it. Fred brings it back home with that bluesy turnaround, while Wayne does his signature disjointed, shrill, angular solos. It didn’t always work, but it did here. Again, pay attention to what Mike is doing. There’s no groundbreaking variation on the central theme, but the looseness helps things move along underneath the guitars.
Jesus Christ, Rob. He’s right at home on “Motor City.” He was a blues man through and through, he loved John Lee Hooker. The rawness of his voice from back when the 5 were gigging altogether too much reallysuits this song. “Motor City” only sounded better as time went on; both widely-available 1972 recordings are Dennis and Rob at the peak of their respective powers. But man oh man, do I wish they did the last verse more often! (No, it’s not just because I like hearing the man assert “I may be a white boy, but I can be bad too!”Although it does get me twirling my hair and kicking my feet.) It seems Rob wished the same; he made a point to include the verse in The New MC5/Rob Tyner Band arrangement.
Out of some semblance of concern for my legitimacy as a critic, I will not be doing a deep dive on I Want You Right Now, because nothing I say will be articulate, concise, or remotely professional in any way. But I will say this: I believe Elektra made the 5 tone this song down to be on the record. If you think this is...a lot...I’m here to tell you this was the tamest “I Want You Right Now” ever put to tape.
Now this. THIS is what "I Want You Right Now" sounded like.
The song I did a complete 180 on since first evaluating Kick Out The Jams is Starship. Of all the music I’ve heard in my life, this is still some of the weirdest and heaviest shit I’ve ever heard. And in the time since ABH, I’ve decided this is the best song on the whole album. Somehow, it’s the one I’ve revisited the most. Its longevity, listenablility, and boundary-obliterating are made even more mind-boggling by the fact the guyswere playing this in 1968. If Love’s Forever Changes has no sense of gravity, then “Starship” destroys any and all laws of physics. The roaring takeoff launches us into a zero-gravity plane, with stuff whizzing past our ears in the form of the guys groaning and whistling like goobers. Rob blends mic feedback with his voice to do some exotic, mindbending, truly harrowing shit. Listen to Dennis’s rolls, he was a beast!! This song’s structure, or utter lack thereof, has us floating past where the sun shines...eEEETERNALLY!! The guys slip into an off-kilter jazz thing for all of 30 seconds before the catastrophic crash back down to earth. I can’t decide if this song is the best or the worst acid trip ever. It’s straight-up demented and I love it.
In my original Kick Out The Jams episode, I wondered why they didn’t close the record with “Black To Comm.” It was their traditional set-closer for almost their whole history, and took many forms over the years. In evaluating this album again, I think I’ve answered my own question. “Black To Comm” was a mercurial song. It could be really really good...or really REALLY bad.
As out-there as it is, “Starship” was a more appropriate closer for Kick Out The Jams. It showed where the 5 were in their musical journey at the time; heavy into avant-garde jazz. Sun-Ra, Pharaoh Saunders, Albert Ayler. However, would I commit crimes to hear a soundboard recording of a 1968 “Black To Comm?” Oh hell yes. 1967 “Black To Comm” was mental, “Starship” is bonkers, could you imagine what a 1969 “Black To Comm” might’ve done?
My one gripe with this album: unless you’re really really paying attention, it’s easy to lose track of Dennis. Thing One and Thing Two just played so damn loud, anyone has trouble competing! But from what I cancatch, Dennis is the spectacular engine firing on all cylinders. He slips in these little nuggets here and there, like an Elvin Jones thing he buries in the total fucking chaos of “Starship.”
Sure, Kick Out The Jams is sloppy as hell. Well and truly all over the place. But that was them! The MC5 were a kinetic thing, barely held together. So many of these songs end in a spectacular BLEAAAH because they collapse under the weight and inertia of themselves. In the decades following its release, all of the guys separately admitted they weren’t happy with how Kick Out The Jams sounded. Wayne’s guitar slipped out of tune. Rob had blown his voice out that week. Elektra promised they could re-record it if they weren’t happy with it. They went back on that promise. I have to say I’m glad the guys didn’t get what they wanted. Otherwise, we might not have gotten this cultural landmark recording. It’s a time capsule of the golden age of the Grande; for 40 minutes, we get to be a fly on the wall. This is something that can never be replicated, even under a perfect set of circumstances. Over 55 years later, Kick Out The Jams is still lightning in a bottle.
Personal favorites: “Ramblin’ Rose,” “Kick Out The Jams,” “Rama Lama Fa Fa Fa,” “Motor City Is Burning,” “Starship”
If I were an MC5 fan in 1970, I’d have been beyond hyped for Kick Out The Jams’s follow-up. Whatever they’re cooking up, it must be a real...
I’m sorry, what?
Part 2: Back In The USA
Wayne Kramer: guitar, some bass
Fred Smith: guitar, lead vocals on “Shakin Street”
Rob Tyner: lead vocals, backing vocals on “Shakin Street”
Michael Davis: bass
Dennis Thompson: drums
Guest: Danny Jordan, keys
Produced by Jon Landau
To understand how we got Back In The USA, we have to go back in time to the spring of 1969. The MC5 went on a tour of the west coast. Of course, typical MC5 shenanigans ensued.
Since their van got fucking firebombed a while back, they were touring out of a rented Pontiac they rented with tour manager Steve Hardanek. This shouldn’t be a shock to any of you readers, but by the end of tour the Pontiac was gross. The guys would get drunk and drive around aimlessly, everyone puked out the window at least once, sometimes they didn’t make it out the window. And it was never washed out.
Wayne shared wine out of a jug with Timothy Learly. Wouldn’t you know it, it’s spiked with acid! The next thing he knows he’s at Tim’s mother-in-law’s place with Dennis. They drive back to the motel tripping balls and crash the car into some guy’s yard. It’s such a shame these two had so many fallings-out over the decades, because so many of the best, most ridiculous moments of MC5 lore could’ve been turned into a stoner comedy called The Marvelous Misadventures of Dennis and Wayne.
Then friend of the band Emil Bascilla took this photo of the guys with a groupie. It got published in the Berkley Bark, and got them in serious trouble with their women back home.
Motor City Madness, indeed!
And wouldn’t you know it, there was another incident! One far less talked about in this history, one I’ve dubbed “the San Fransisco Incident.” A good chunk of the band was piled into this station wagon riding around with groupies. It’s unclear exactly what happened and exactly who was there. According to Wayne in his memoir The Hard Stuff, one of the girls flipped off an officer and that got them all pulled over. Fred got southern-boy snarky with an officer and got the ever-loving shit kicked out of him. They all end up in jail for a week, Wayne swallowed a whole hunk of hash and had an interesting first night. This chaotic trip was where sessions for the intended Kick Out The Jams follow-up album began, at Elektra’s facilities in LA. There, they cut versions of set staples “Teenage Lust,” “Call Me Animal,” and “Human Being Lawnmower.” They head back to Detroit, cue the Hudson’s incident. But pretty soon after, Atlantic Records swoops in. They scoop up the MC5 for 50 grand: a whopping $429,565 in today’s money. Rock critic Jon Landau was set up to produce the next album as a favor.
During all of this, John Sinclair got arrested for possession. As the story goes, he offered a joint to an undercover officer to flirt with her. This could be an urban legend, but nonetheless the anecdote made it into MC5: An Oral Biography. Normally this would be no big deal. It’s 6 months in jail, John had done it before. But it absolutely is a big deal right now, because this was his third strike. John Sinclair was facing 10 years in federal prison. This puts the MC5 in a tough position: either they have no manager when he inevitably goes to jail and they’re really screwed, or they part ways now, be slightly less screwed, but destroy our relationship with our biggest ally and advocate. They went with the latter, it wasn’t pretty. At the same time, Jack Forrest and Pun Plamondon were sentenced for blowing up the CIA building in Ann Arbor.
John’s 10-year sentence was handed down that July. For decades after, there were very complicated feelings and resentment all around. John bashed his former house band in the Village Voice, Rolling Stone, and Creem; and if Guitar Army was any indication, he was seething well into the 1980s. Both parties felt they’d put targets on each other’s backs; the 5 with their wacko rockstar behavior and John with his wacko White Panther stuff. Taking down a counterculture leader was the best way to disrupt and ultimately take down the Detroit counterculture as a whole. As put by Wayne, “John was crucified, not only for his own defiance, but for the MC5’s too.” (quoted from: Wayne Kramer, The Hard Stuff: Dope, Crime, The MC5, and My Life of Impossibilities (2018)) The severity of John’s sentence kicked up protesting through the rest of 1969 and 1970; Abbie Hoffman infamously interrupted The Who’s set at Woodstock calling for John to be released. The Supreme Court would eventually overturn his sentencing in 1971; with the help of the Free John Sinclair rally and a Beatle.
Meanwhile, the 5 changed hands from John to Dee Anthony. This didn’t last long; the 5 were far too unruly for him to handle. Back In The USA sessions took place in earnest in the summer and fall of 1969. Jon Landau and Wayne bonded; with Jon trying to get the guys to think for themselves as musicians. Write on their own, address their individual weaknesses. As a result, their collective focus leaned away from jazz/“avant-rock” and towards the back-to-basics thing that all of rock-and-roll will soon pick up on.
Through recording, three big problems come up.
Number 1: These guys can’t be consistent from take to take to save their lives! They cut their teeth playing live, stuff sounded different every time they did it. That’s just how they operated. But that doesn’t work in a studio setting. You need continuity.
Number 2: Michael had stopped practicing. He’s fallen out of practice to the degree at which he’s messing up simple chord changes. One day, they do 30 something takes of Tutti Goddamn Frutti because Mike kept messing up the same thing. This was killing Dennis in particular; and would inevitably kick up his fiery temper. Jon recommended bringing in a session player to cover for Mike, but Wayne steps in to keep it all in the family.
Problem number 3: Tempo. The push and pull of Dennis’s playing. Here’s how he described it, I’m paraphrasing from a couple interviews here: when everyone’s on the same page, it gets intense. Propulsion, our engineer drummer called it. You want to be ahead of the push. As a drummer, your natural inclination is to not be right on the beat, but slightly ahead. But the thing is: the 5 were so intense all the time that it could be hard for anyone to rein that force in, especially Dennis who wasn’t fucking mic’d!!
The only way to solve that problem was to record everyone’s parts separately. You know. The exact opposite of how Kick Out The Jams was done. And the results were mixed. It’s no secret Back In The USA is a complete 180 from the preceding LP. It’s like it was recorded by a completely different band! Everything’s more composed. You even get that from the album art: black-and-white portraits as opposed to the chaotic collage. From their sound to their look (trading gold lamé and sequins for cowboy shirts and leather jackets) was a concerted effort to sever the MC5’s ties with the White Panthers.
Upon release, Back In The USA was seen as uncool as possible. Little Richard in 1970? When the radio is playing country rock and prog? Really? It flopped hard in the US. Didn’t even break the top 100. But is was a hit over in England. Why? Atlantic didn’t have a promotional office in the states, but they did in England. They pushed the hell out of Back In The USA, it got into the hands of future members of bands like The Clash, cue the accidental birth of punk rock.
There have been times where Back In The USA was my favorite MC5 album. There’s a lot to love about it! For one, this is a lot more accessible to a new listener than Kick Out The Jams. The guys are friends with the traditional song structure again! Yay! I wouldn’t say it’s “pop” by any means, but it has a pop sensibility. These songs have a lot more mainstream appeal than fucking “Starship.” Rob’s vocal evolution from 1968 to when this was recorded in ’69 is astounding. You could tell through some of their earlier recordings that he’s still trying to figure out what his thing is. Figuring out the singing thing a whole, really; he was originally the 5’s bassist. A lot of his Kick Out The Jams gruffness has subsided, but none of the power is lost. His voice will only improve from here.
Looking At You was one of the songs that made me fall in love with the MC5. It was the Tartar Field performance specifically, where Wayne’s blasted on god-knows-what. Presumably a little bit of speed and a whole lot of hash.
When I saw Rob and Wayne throw themselves to their knees in sync the first time, I screamed like a girl at a Beatles concert. What’s better than that? To finally see the chemistry these guys had and the command they had over a crowd was magic. Though now it’ll always give me a chuckle knowing Dennis would chuck a stick at Rob to get him to wrap the damn song up after 15 minutes! I’ve heard somewhere that Wayne played the “Looking At You” solo different every time. Between the single version from ’68, the Back In The USArecording, and the live stuff, that tracks. On the album version, we get a taste of what I like to call his “comfort lick.” Every guitarist has one, something familiar they go back to and work into as much stuff as they can. “Looking At You” is tight on the record, tight for the good. The American Ruse also feels very MC5,even with this drastically different approach to recording. Fred gets a solo on this one; the incorporation of I think? Glory Glory What A Hell of A Way To Die? Is cheeky. I want you to pay attention to these lyrics:
“And when they pull you over it’s suspicious, for something that just ain’t your fault. If you complain they’re gonna get vicious, kick in your teeth and charge you with assault.”
If I had to guess, these lines are about Fred getting beat up in the San Fransisco Incident. But...I just want you to sit with those lyrics and be ashamed of how our country really hasn’t made much progress at all on the front of police brutality in the 54 years since this song’s release. Fuck, 55 since it was written!
Putting this, “Human Being Lawnmower,” and Chuck Berry’s Back In The USA all together in the track listing was genius.
There are oddly joyous moments on Back In The USA. High School is such a fun tune! I know Tonight was supposed to be the tune to get you out of your seat and dancing, and it’s a good song otherwise. But I’m sorry, I just can’t forgive the MC5’s version of, “hey kids! Spelling is fun!” Be more obvious that this album was a bid to secure a teen audience, I dare you.
No song on this album is exactly a paradigm of writing. The 5 were not known for their lyrical prowess. No Dylans, Lennons, or McCartneys here! Fred makes his lead vocal debut on Shakin Street; a little shuffle with some acoustic guitars layered in. This may be The Wrong Opinion, but I the only one who thinks he sounded a bit like Tom Petty here?
My biggest hang-ups with Back In The USA are as follows:
1. It’s scrubbed a little too clean. This really messed with songs like Call Me Animal and “Human Being Lawnmower.” The primal drive “Animal” should have and the chaos “Lawnmower” should have got trampled all over by too-clean production. Back In The USA was recorded “a la carte;” everyone recorded their parts separately. That was just not how the 5 worked! They were entirely unfamiliar with this method of work. This overcorrected the perceived sloppiness of Kick Out The Jams.
2. I do not like this production. It thrust a lot of the guys’ respective weaknesses into the spotlight. I can’t stand how Jon mic’d Dennis’s drums. It’s way too close on the snare, so you lose all the dynamics of his playing. He was the driving force of the MC5, let him fucking drive!! Wayne’s guitar was shrill enough. Themix needed to favor the body in the rest of the instruments and the lower ends of Wayne’s guitar tone. This mix did the exact opposite. I know Jon meant well in trying to give the 5 a super fresh-sounding record. But again, this creative choice did not play to the band’s strong suits.
And 3: There are points that just feel...awkward. I don’t mind closing the album with a Chuck Berry tune. It pays respect to a huge influence on the 5, and Chuck was still fairly relevant going into the ’70s. But opening the record with a cover of “Tutti Frutti,” of all Little Richard songs, is...confounding.
I won't ever skip it, but it’s objectively a wack choice.
I don’t know what to make of Let Me Try. On the one hand, this is not a ballad band. I don’t listen to these guys to hear a ballad. But on the other, I am a Rob Girlie. Perhaps THE Rob Tyner Girlie. It remains extremely hard to set that bias aside to properly evaluate “Let Me Try.” And the very overt self-reference on "Teenage Lust" wrecks a song that would’ve almost worked otherwise.
Of the three original MC5 albums, Back In The USA is the weakest of the bunch. It’s not representative at all of what made this band special. But just like Kick Out The Jams, Back In The USA was ahead of its time. These bratty, snappy, two or three-minute songs may have been out of fashion in early 1970. But this format will come back in a big way in about five years with the dawn of punk rock. We’re still about 10 years out from the ’50s rock-and-roll revival!
Flawed as it is, this album is a lot of fun. This is my “I’m getting ready in the morning and I want to sing and dance and be surprised that I still know every word after months away” MC5 record. That’s why it was once my favorite. Even its pitfalls can’t affect its energy. The best songs are so good that even anemic production can’t shake them. You can throw it on, replay it a time or three, and not feel like you’re breaking your brain. It’s without that spectacular roar, but not without the bite.
Personal favorites: “Tonight,” “Let Me Try,” Looking At You,” “High School,” “The American Ruse,” “Back In The USA”
Part 3: High Time
Wayne Kramer: guitar, bass
Fred Smith: guitar, principle songwriter
Rob Tyner: lead vocals
Michael Davis: bass, co-lead vocals on “Poison”
Dennis Thompson: drums
Select guests (of which there are a LOT): Brenda Knight, Merlene Driscoll, and Joanne Hill: vocals on “Sister Anne”; Charles Moore: flugelhorn, trumpet, horn arrangement on “Skunk”; Dan Bullock, Rick Ferretti, Leon Henderson: brass on “Skunk (Sonically Speaking)”
Produced by Geoffrey Haslam
“The old saw is that you can’t keep a good band down, and it’s never been more forcefully put than here.” He described High Time as “the first record that comes close to telling the tale of their legendary reputation and attendant charisma.”
This is what the great tastemaker Lenny Kaye had to say about the MC5’s 3rd album, High Time, in Rolling Stone Magazine. I just want you to let that sink in: they were being called legends all of 2 years after their debut album!
But looking at the physical space on the page devoted to each album, you might be wondering why the High Time section is so much shorter than the other 2 records. It’s because 1971 is around where any reliable narration of the MC5’s story ends. Michael and Dennis are already using heroin at this time. During production, Wayne starts up too. Big mistake. There’s a mutiny in which Wayne booted from his band leader seat in favor of Fred. He’s the “creative beacon” of the late-stage MC5. He really steps up to the plate songwriting-wise, but thanks to Jon Landau’s influence, all the guys have started writing on their own. Rob contributes Future/Now, Wayne brings the drama with Miss X and Poison, and Dennis makes his songwriting debut with Gotta Keep Movin’. Considering how things went for the 5 after this album’s release, this separatist approach to songwriting could be a reflection of their fraught state.
Exactly no one was happy with how Back In The USA came out! So the guys were hellbent on producing themselves. However, the MC5 had no fucking clue how to produce themselves. Enter the man who Wayne and Dennis both said “almost saved the MC5”: High Time producer Geoffrey Haslam.
Production was split between two home bases in London and Detroit. The 5 welcomed this; they were essentially run out of the States for being too political for the music industry, and not political enough for the counterculture. Artie Fields Productions at the Alhambra Theater had 16-track recording, allowing the 5 to do all the wacky stuff they wanted to do. Plus, if Mike flubbed a chord change, the rest of the guys would just keep playing through the take and overdub later. Some famous faces drop by sessions on both sides of the pond: Chris Squire of Yes lends Mike his bass, and in Detroit, the guys invite Bob Seger and Scott Morgan over for the drum intro of the once-known as “Power Trip,” newly-christened Skunk (Sonically Speaking.) Seger & Co. have no idea what the hell they’re doing, so the guys send them home to do it all themselves; with Dennis nailing the core track in just one take.
The 5’s goal with High Time was to combine the raw energy of Kick Out The Jams with studio chops from Back In The USA. And what a spectacular quantum leap forward High Time was. Landau meant well, but he just didn’t know how best to handle how the 5. Geoffrey Haslam did. He didn’t just execute the 5’s vision, he hit it out of the fucking park.
What sets High Time apart from the albums that came before is the incorporation of more instruments. There’s more layers of everything, thanks to 16-track technology. Wayne always wanted keys in the band; we got some of that ’50s diner flare with Danny Jordan guesting on Back In The USA. But now we have organ. And horns. Tambourines. Finger cymbals, whatever those are called? They finally let Rob play his stupid sexy harmonica on an MC5 record!
High Time comes out swinging with Sister Anne. Opening your record with a 7-minute song. What a way to do it. I presented “Sister Anne” on my first appearance on the Losing My Opinion podcast, and if I recall correctly, it was Thin Lear who was surprised by the song. He said something like “I didn’t know the MC5 were capable of composed stuff like this.” That’s why I love playing it for people who only know this band from Kick Out The Jams. It’s the perfect blend of everything the band had in their arsenal by 1971: the raw passion of Kick Out The Jams, the studio chops from Back In The USA, and now Fred coming into his own as a writer. Thin Lear also only really knew Fred through the work of his second wife. You may have heard of her...
Pictured: the future second Mrs. Fred Smith (or maybe he was Mr. Patti Smith...) [photographed by Lynn Goldsmith, 1978]
It was fun introducing each other to the versions of Fred Smith we knew.
“Sister Anne” is a thrill! The twists and turns are all a surprise. We have gospel, we have overdubbing on overdubbing, we have the goddamn Salvation Army band. This is intricacy and depth we’re not used to hearing from the 5! It’s followed up by Baby Won’t Ya, which is so much fun. High Time overall has the best lyrics of the bunch; it’s safe to say that Fred was the best writer of the bunch. “Baby Won’t Ya” is the cream of the crop. But my god, I do not envy Rob, there’s a lot of words to spit out on this song. “She was a female mercenary coming home from war/The ultimate inflection of the word perfection...” This song specifically feels like a rectification of the mistakes made on Back In The USA. We have all the same components: drums, bass, guitar, keys, vocals. But this was written for dynamics. The mix brightens the color that’s already in it. The backing vocals don’t feel so flat, the guitars pop in and out through the solos. “Baby Won’t Ya” is three-dimensional, and comfortable in being so.
In the original ABH, I said this:
“‘Miss X’ is the worst MC5 song. I skip this one every single time it comes on, I’m not even sorry. I applaud the experimentation trying a ballad, but experimentation comes with varying degrees of success. This was not a success. Sorry, Wayne. Next!”
But seeing as I’m a good music journalist, I admit when I’m wrong. I was absolutely wrong about “Miss X.” It is, in fact, the best MC5 song. I’ll admit, the recording fidelity is whack. I don’t know what the hell happened to those tapes, but the reverb on the drums is baffling and poor Rob sounds like he’s underwater. Nevermind that, though. What was once schmaltzy to the point of secondhand embarrassment is swoon-worthy. The tone is, humid, and sexy; from the latent surface noise at the bottom all the way up to Rob giving one of his great underrated vocal performances. He gets most praise for pushing his voice to the absolute limit on Over and Over, and rightly so. On this cut, he scoops down into the baritone range – much more comfortable, I’m sure – for the choruses. It’s an intimacy not felt in a 5 recording since “Look What You’ve Done Done Baby.” (Even now, I still can’t believe that one was an off-the-cuff warmup.)
From such lines as “Your lips, your undulating hips/Squeeze me oh-so-tight, fulfill me through the night” and “We slide and slip from hip to lip,” it’s so obvious what this song is about. But where “Let Me Try” teetered on the edge of being too cheesy, “Miss X” somehow clears the hurdle. By the “Let Me Try” sincerity metric, it shouldn’t. Is it the proto-80s-power-ballad croon? The almost-pleas? Stately piano versus utterly romantic guitar? Just-gritty-enough harmonies? That heart-stopping cry of “Baby, baby, baby, baby!” I’m not sure why it all works, but it does. One can imagine doomed teenage lovers doing stuff in the station wagon on lover’s lane, just before the ground opens up and swallows them whole, or the B-movie monster drags them into the lake. It’s just about as cinematic as the MC5 ever got; an important precursor to its author’s film work.
Maybe the real tragedy of “Miss X” is that I’ve uncovered the last mystery of the MC5’s discography.
Rounding out side 1 is the Dennis-penned “Gotta Keep Movin.” This is a precursor to writing he’ll do for his bands after the 5. (No, not that New Order. The New Order.)
“They ridicule my wild ambitions, say ‘settle down son, live decently or you’ll rot in jail before you’re 23’” By singling out that lyric, I want to remind you all of how young these guys were. During the height of the White Panthers/Kick Out The Jams nonsense, the guys were 20 and 21 years old. Rob was the oldest and he’d just turned 24.
“Atom bomb, Vietnam, missiles on the moon, and they wonder why their kids are shooting drugs so soon.”It bears reminding that these guys have seen a lot in a very short amount of time, and very young. “Gotta Keep Movin’”s lyrics have a flow. The words don’t stumble over each other. The other guys could get word salad-y, Dennis didn’t.
Rob’s “Future/Now” opens side 2. This, right here. This was the best Rob’s voice ever sounded on a record. Rob’s voice was the 5th instrument of the MC5; a fine and beautiful instrument. “Future/Now” song has Rob written allllll over it. He wrote lyrics that were verbose and embarrassingly earnest; see “Screeching useless martyrs hanging naked up on a cross!” And the dramatic spacey end? That’s all him. This is a great bassline chugging away underneath, I wish I knew who to credit it to.
Wayne bags a winner with “Poison.” Of course Wayne throws some more goofy falsetto into this one. Of course! The shining star of this song is the fantastic co-lead vocal from Rob and Michael. For a while I thought that was Wayne on that second part but no, vocals are credited to Rob and Mike! Man, I had no idea he had it in him. These two are electric together. But it’s worth noting they’re throwing sparks on lyrics like “But I ripped my pants doin some dance that I learned in France.” Goofy as hell. I’ll be pouring over this guitar part for a while. "Poison" is so unique within the 5’s discography.
For the love of god Fred, did you have to write “Over and Over” in the key of A? I know it sounds great on guitar, but you’re killing poor Rob! This was at the very top of his vocal range and you can tell. Nevertheless,he killed it. He persevered; funneled his frustration into the performance. It almost sounds like he’s crying at times. He really did nail that vocal take. “Rough trade from Venus,” as he said.
High Time is rounded out by “Skunk.” The texture on the drummed intro is fantastic. I love how adventurous the 5 got with this instrumentation and arrangement, and I love how Geoffrey encouraged it. Fuck it, Dennis is the most underrated guy of the group. Now that the production is finally treating his instrument right, we get to appreciate his talent. He finally got to do his Keith Moon-meets-jazz-master thing with “Skunk.” Here, he’s immortal and unstoppable. The brass is dissonant, but triumphant; “Skunk” feels like a victory lap after everyone was pushed to their limits making this album.
Lenny Kaye praised “Sister Anne” and “Baby Won’t Ya” in his Rolling Stone review; highlighting their three-chord wonders and Rob’s performance on the record as a highlight. He names Dennis’s Gotta Keep Moving as the strongest cut overall. But he wasn’t really about the wackier stuff happening here. He felt the spacey section tacked onto the end of “Future/Now” was the worst offender, and didn’t really warm up to the horn section on “Skunk.” I respect the great Lenny, but I have to disagree with him. The risks the guys took with song structure on stuff like “Sister Anne,” “Future/Now,” and “Skunk” yielded some of the highest reward on High Time. That willingness to stretch a song was one of the 5’s great assets in the Kick Out The Jams era. They abandoned it through Back In The USA, and that was to their detriment. It was smart to revisit this for High Time. It may not always land. But when it does, it’s such a thrill.
High Time wasn’t meant to be a statement of finality at all. All the guys thought they would cut at least one more, and they were looking forward to it. High Time was a celebration of how far they’d come. It’s a rich, intricate display of mature mastery. We had our stars on Kick Out The Jams but finally, the rest of the 5 have hit their stride. The balance was struck between power and technicality, their a-ha moment had finally come, and it was magic. It’s a shame this album flopped so hard upon release (it was promoted even less than Back In The USA,) because High Time is the best MC5 record. I’ll go as far as to say High Time is THE criminally underrated rock record of 1971. I can’t wait until this experiences a greater renaissance, because I know in my heart it can and will.
Lenny Kaye really put it best: “For this, we can only praise the Lord and pass the ammunition.”
Personal favorites: “Sister Anne,” “Baby Won’t Ya,” “Future/Now,” “Poison,” “Skunk”
Unfortunately, even the showstopper that is High Time couldn’t save the MC5. They couldn’t save themselves. High Time sold even worse than Back In The USA, and over the course of 1972 the lineup cannibalized itself. They scapegoated Michael first, throwing him out of the band after he missed a flight to Heathrow. To this day, I still believe he deserved so much better. Wayne and Dennis got hooked on the hard stuff. Then Fred careened headfirst into alcoholism. Rob had one foot out the door for at least a year by the time the 5 were in Europe and burning through a slew of temporary bassists. He loved the music first and foremost, but at the end of the day, he had a wife and kids back home to take care of. Dennis broke down and confessed to him he physically couldn’t do it anymore and was leaving the band to get clean. In response, Rob took the out he’d been looking for and left out of solidarity. Fred tried to convince him to please just do this one last tour through Scandinavia, it’ll be good money! It got ugly. As the story goes, Rob chased Fred out of the house with a golf club, or maybe it was a fire poker.
After a complete shitshow of a tour with Richie Dharma on drums and Wayne fighting for his life to sing songs he’d never sang before, the MC5 were invited back to their old stomping ground. The Grande Ballroom, once a brilliant epicenter of the Detroit counterculture and the site of the first US performance of The Who’s Tommy, was to close on New Year’s Eve. It’d be bittersweet to see all those familiar faces; a homecoming of sorts after rambling around Europe for the past year and a half. They even got Mike, Dennis,and Rob to come back! But where the 5 once packed the Grande wall-to-wall, selling 4,000 tickets for a 1,800 capacity venue...no one came to New Year’s Eve. And from the sounds of it, it’s better that they didn’t. “The tempos were all over the map. I had no idea what Michael was playing. Rob was doing the best he could to front this mess, and Fred and I just looked at each other in dismay.” (quoted from: Wayne Kramer, The Hard Stuff: Dope, Crime, the MC5, and My Life of Impossibilities, 2018)
Frustrated, embarrassed, and pissed-off, Wayne stormed offstage halfway through the set, abandoning ship to go get high. The mighty MC5 went out not with the bang they deserved, but with a whimper.
The MC5 name would lie dormant for 53 years...
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