MC5 - Long Lost video number three from Wayne Kramer

from Dangerous Minds:

Rounding out the trio is a fan-shot video taken at the Gibus Club in Paris in 1972. The video is pretty muddy but the audio is not so terrible. Noteworthy here is that Fred “Sonic” Smith is wearing his superhero getup—as Kramer writes, “Enjoy Fred in his Sonic Smith suit!” Only two songs here but both are a treat: “Kick Out the Jams” and “Black to Comm,” one of their perennial jams going back to when the band were all still teenagers.

Rare Performance Footage of Wayne Kramer's #MC5 Performing "Kick Out The Jams" and "Black To Comm" w/ Fred Smith in Sonic Smith suit. Unedited, original camera transfer. First-time ever published; Mastered, Unedited Audio. Wayne Kramer, Fred Smith, Rob Tyner, Dennis Machine Gun Thompson, Steev Moorhouse. ©Wayne Kramer 1972/2017

MC5 - Long Lost video number two from Wayne Kramer

from Dangerous Minds:

[This] second clip, and certainly the most satisfying from the perspective of an MC5 fan who wants to rock out, was shot at Wayne State University’s Tartar Field on July 19, 1970. We actually posted a version of this footage last year. The band plays “Ramblin’ Rose,” “Kick Out the Jams,” being the first two songs off of the MC5’s first album Kick Out The Jams from 1969 and then “Looking at You” from the 1970 follow-up Back in the USA. This was the first-ever live performance of that song, it seems. This concert was recorded by multiple cameras, and it looks and sounds great.

FUCK YEAH!

Ground Zero DETROIT Rock'N'Roll: Louder Than Love - The Grande Ballroom Story Essential doc on Detroit venue where the Stooges & MC5 made their marks

from Dangerous Minds:

 

“Detroit made you good.” –Alice Cooper

Louder Than Love: The Grande Ballroom Story is a must-see film for anyone who gives a shit about the history of rock-n-roll and ‘60s counter culture. The tale of the Grande Ballroom, the legendary Detroit venue, is one that’s needed to be told for some time. Hell, just for the fact that the Stooges and MC5 made their marks there is reason enough, but the ballroom was also a popular stop on the touring circuit, with some of the biggest acts of the period gracing its stage. Through archival footage and photographs, plus new interviews with those who were there (many of whom have since passed on), first time producer/director and Detroit native Tony D’Annunzio lays out how it all went down, making us wish we could’ve been there to see it. As a Detroiter, I was often beaming with pride as I watched the documentary, despite the fact that I was only a couple of years old when the Grande closed its doors.

The Grande Ballroom is a building that drew artists of all sorts into its vortex, and is still revered by those who set foot in it. It’s a venue where bands had to give their absolute best in order to impress Detroit audiences. It’s a place that—like Alice says—made you good.



Outside the Grande on opening night, October 7th, 1966 (photo: Emile Bacilla)

Designed in the Moorish/Art Deco style and located on Detroit’s west side, the Grande Ballroom opened in 1928. The venue hosted big bands and was a mecca for dancing couples for decades (it could hold as many as 1,500 boppers), but by the early ‘60s, times had changed significantly and the Grande closed its doors. Fast forward to 1966: Detroit area DJ and school teacher Russ Gibb was attending a Byrds concert in San Francisco at Bill Graham’s Fillmore West, an updated dance hall. Inspired by the sounds and sights (he was especially blown away by the psychedelic light show) of the city’s burgeoning counter-culture scene, Gibb was determined to bring what he experienced to Detroit. After investigating several locations, he settled on the shuttered Grande Ballroom. Much like it had been during its initial heyday, the Grande would once again become the place to be.




Poster art: Gary Grimshaw

Local band MC5 performed as part of the opening festivities at the Grande Ballroom, which took place on October 7th and 8th, 1966. Russ Gibb had his friend Gary Grimshaw design the poster, and Grimshaw would continue to create advertisements for Grande events. His artwork is now synonymous with the psychedelic ‘60s. Leni Sinclair, wife of MC5 manager, John Sinclair, was part of the crew responsible for the light shows, but she is best known for the photographs she took at the Grande, as well as her films of the the Stooges and MC5. Many of the images she captured are now iconic.



Cover of the second MC5 album, ‘Back in the USA’ (1970). Photo snapped by Leni Sinclair backstage at the Grande.

Other area rock acts that honed their chops at the Grande include the Amboy Dukes, the Spike Drivers, SRC, and the Rationals. Bands that made appearances at the Grande while on tour include the Velvet Underground, Pink Floyd, the Mothers of Invention, Sly and the Family Stone, Howlin’ Wolf, the Yardbirds, Led Zeppelin, and the Who. Tom Wright, who managed the Who at the time and would later oversee the Grande, said that he “had never seen the Who try harder” than during their 1968 show at the ballroom.



The Who (photo: Tom Weschler)



Jimmy Page, The Yardbirds




Iggy Stooge/Iggy Pop, The Stooges (photo: Leni Sinclair)



Wayne Kramer, MC5 (photo: Charlie Auringer)

Unlike the “peace and love” hippie outfits that made up the bulk of the San Francisco scene, the Detroit bands were raw and gritty. One such act was more associated with the Grande Ballroom than any other, and that was the all-powerful MC5. Known for their explosive performances, the band became a staple of the venue. The 5 were keenly aware they would have to work hard to earn the love of the blue collar Detroit audiences, and incorporated the Detroit work ethic of the city’s auto workers into their act. Every group that shared the stage with the 5 learned they too had to bring it, which subsequently made them up their game—or risk leaving the place hanging their collective head in shame. In addition to being on the bill for the ballroom’s 1966 opening, other notable happenings in MC5 history took place inside the building: It’s where they recorded their debut album, the seminal live LP, Kick Out The Jams (1969), and where they played their final show the night the Grande closed for good, New Year’s Eve, 1972.



MC5

Louder Than Love: The Grande Ballroom Story has had a successful worldwide run on the festival circuit since the documentary premiered in 2012, and received a low-key video release last year. Producer/director Tony D’Annunzio has inked a deal with distributor MVD Entertainment Group, which will soon give the film the wide release it has always deserved.



Dangerous Minds recently asked Tony D’Annunzio some questions via email.

Tells us about your background.

Tony D’Annunzio: Born and raised here in Detroit. I have been in the broadcast television field for almost 30 years. I’ve had the pleasure of working with almost every network, including ABC, HBO, NFL Network, CNN, just to name a few. I had started as a production assistant in 1987 and was working my way to producing/directing award-winning broadcast television segments, commercials, and music videos. I recently was awarded the Kresge Foundation Fellows for Film, and was nominated for “Best New Filmmaker” for the LA New Filmmakers Film Festival.

What inspired you to make the documentary?

Tony D’Annunzio: I had always wanted to make my own documentary, but as I started to work in the production field I was really enjoying the commercial and live music video aspect of my profession. At the 20 year mark in my career (2008), I decided to go for it and start making the film I had been wanting to make. My love for music is one of the reasons I got into the business, and that coupled with my love of documentary films, lead me to start researching a music-based topic for my film. Although I was too young to attend the Grande Ballroom in its heyday (I was born in 1966, the same year the Grande opened as a rock palace), I had friends and family members that went there. If you grow up in Detroit, the stories, myths, and legends of the Grande are part of your DNA. After much research, I found out that a definitive story of the Grande era had not been done yet.

Did you have a narrative that you stuck to throughout the editing process or did the structure evolve over time?

Tony D’Annunzio: Great Question! The film actually started out as a music documentary, but as the interviews started coming together the film actually turned more into a cultural piece (with a lot of killer Detroit music). As someone that hadn’t attended the ballroom during its gloried past, I couldn’t figure out why it played so heavy into the musicians, poster artists, and attendees hearts. Although the music brought the people to the ballroom, it was the cultural and creative collective that inspired musicians and artists to keep coming back and performing there.

How long did it take to make the film?

Tony D’Annunzio: The film took 3.5 years to make. It was an independent film in the truest sense. I wrote, research, produced, set up interviews, and shot it on a very tight budget. I waited for the artists to come through Detroit to avoid travel expenses, and my wife Sharri even helped with catering the crew meals. You have to remember that during the making of this film I was also full time in the broadcast television field, so it was a bit of a balancing act to get the film shot and produced while still maintaining my day job.

At the very beginning of the film it was entirely self financed. We ended up having a couple benefits to not only raise funding, but to raise awareness of the project. I was contacted by a band in Australia (Young Doctors) that were such fans of the Detroit music from that era that they decided to have a benefit for me in Sydney. At that point, I knew I was really onto a compelling story that could reach out passed the Detroit area and even beyond the US.

There’s a fair amount of talk in the film concerning the idea that the Detroit work ethic impacted both local and touring acts. What’s your take on this concept?

Tony D’Annunzio: Having grown up here you don’t realize there is this work ethic ingrained in you. We work hard and we play hard! As I started to travel the globe for my profession, I became more aware of it. Detroit is a tough town, and in order to make a difference you really need to be dedicated to your profession and passionate about it. I’ll put it to you this way, I just recently saw Iggy Pop in Detroit and here is a 69 year old man that it still working his ass off and whipping the crowd into a frenzy. It’s inspiring to watch and amazing to feel that Detroit work ethic come to life on the stage!

You interviewed some pretty famous folks for the documentary, including Alice Cooper, Lemmy, and Roger Daltrey. How were you, a first time producer/director, able to convince these icons to appear in your film?

Tony D’Annunzio: Very early in the filmmaking process we cut a short trailer that I was able to send out to the artists I wanted to interview. I really believe that after the artist management and PR companies saw the level of production that I work at, they become very comfortable with allowing the musicians to be a part of it. Another big reason so many music icons made themselves available for the film is because the Grande Ballroom and the Detroit music scene has had such a big impact on all of their careers. I would always ask managers just to simply ask if the Grande and/or Detroit played a role in their artist’s career, and nine times out of ten it was a resounding YES!

Can you tell us about any upcoming projects you have in the works?

Tony D’Annunzio: Although I really love rock and roll, I have a passion for jazz too. I’m just starting the research process about the incredible jazz eras in Detroit, and since I was recently awarded the Kresge Foundation Fellows, and have been introduced to various other foundations because of this honor, I’m looking for funding to start this project. I already know I can make a good film with no budget, so I’m excited to see what I can do with one!



Pre-order the DVD of Louder Than Love: The Grande Ballroom Story through MVD

or Amazon. You can watch the trailer via the MVD link, but before doing that, check out a segment assembled just for Dangerous Minds. In the clip, James Williamson, Wayne Kramer, Alice Cooper, and others speak on the Detroit work ethic of the local bands, while super-fans Slash and Henry Rollins praise the power those groups wielded. You’ll also see awesome footage of the Stooges and MC5 on stage at the Grande.

MC5: A True Testimonial MUST WATCH!

this is fucking great, don't miss it!

from Dangerous Minds:

The absolutely terrific documentary MC5: A True Testimonial was made in 2002 but never had a theatrical run and has never been released on DVD. Other than screenings at film festivals, the movie has mostly gone unseen despite receiving stellar reviews. The reasons were legal entanglements that often cripple or doom rockumentaries to obscurity, the details of which I’m not going to get into because they involve friends I don’t want to piss off.

Here’s a rare chance to see MC5: A True Testimonial. It may not last long on YouTube so I suggest watching it now. A finer film on the Motor City 5 will doubtlessly never be made. Kick out the jams, motherfuckers!

Update: Yes, I know the film was booked briefly in NYC and a booking or two in Michigan. But, to me, that doesn’t constitute a “theatrical run.” For all intents and purposes, and I’m sure the film makers would agree, the film was never released in any significant way to theaters.

MC5 Rocking Extremely Hard on French

from DangerousMinds

MC5 on French TV. Broadcast on Pop2 on November 14th, 1972.

From the 2:16 minute point, the clip is from a 1973 episode of Pop2 and contains some really cool footage of the all-too-rarely-seen Fred “Sonic” Smith. Smith and Wayne Kramer were the only founding members of the band on this tour: the MC2.

MOTOR CITY IS BURNING: 30 Minutes of Seldom Seen Footage of the MC5

from Dangerous Minds

If you think you’ve seen all the footage there is to see of the mighty MC5, check out Leni Sinclair and Cary Loren’s short film “Kick Out the Jams.”

Sinclair was married to MC5 manager and revolutionary poet John Sinclair (author of Guitar Army) and organized the infamous John Sinclair Freedom Rally (headlined by John Lennon and Yoko Ono) when he was imprisoned ten years for two joints. She was active in the Artists Workshop, which evolved into the Trans-Love Energies commune, which then in turn became the White Panther Party. Cary Loren was a founding member of “anti-rock” art rockers Destroy All Monsters along with Jim Shaw, Niagara and the late Mike Kelley.

Here’s an excerpt from an interview with Sinclair conducted by Ken Shimamoto:

One hears and reads all sorts of things about the Trans-Love house and the different roles of men and women there…from a contemporary standpoint, it sounds very traditional. Can you comment on that?

Leni; It might look like that in retrospect, because that was before the advent of feminism, but as far as living in that situation, the women did not feel oppressed or second-rate. I mean, women didn’t pick up instruments and try to play and try to be in the band, but as far as the atmosphere at the time, we all considered ourselves equal in the endeavor. We were revolutionaries; there was no hierarchy like the males up here and the women down there. At the time, we all felt that we were contributing equally to this effort we were involved in, whatever it took. I’ve heard some things…that “the women were on the floor, scrubbing the floor.” That was a lot of hokum. Everybody pitched in, everybody did their chores and their work. We had it tightly organized. Childcare was shared, kitchen duties were shared, everything, except for playing in the band.

In fact, I wrote an article one time in the newspaper, in the Ann Arbor Sun, I think, about “cock rock” and the criticism that was starting to appear about “cock rock” guys with guitars. And my thesis was, there’s nothing wrong with that; the only thing wrong is that women have to start learning to play, too, and getting up there.

And that happened in the ‘90s.

Leni: I didn’t say it, but “Let’s have cock-rock and pussy rock” (Laughs)

When John was imprisoned in 1969, did the Five renege on a promise to help you out financially while he was in prison?

Leni: I don’t really know if there had ever been a promise. Nobody knew that John was going to go to jail, and I don’t think that he ever had any discussions prior to going to jail to see what would happen. Everybody just figured he would get an appeal bond and be out on the street in a matter of days, or maybe weeks. Well, that didn’t happen, and the MC5…first, they severed their relationship with J.C. Crawford, which we all felt was a big mistake, because J.C. was almost a sixth member of the band, he was almost an integral part. So when they fired him, we had kinda bad feelings about that, and then when they brought in Jon Landau as a manager, of course we had bad feelings about that. The financial part was…I don’t really know. ‘Cause no promises were made, John never had a written contract with the band or anything like that. It was on the honor system.

But I do know that after John went to jail, there were about 17 of us who had spent the last two years doing nothing but working for the MC5 and making them a success, never taking any money for ourselves, just room and board. All of a sudden, John is gone, and we have no money coming in. Our phones got cut off just at the crucial point when we needed to make some publicity and let people know John was in jail. We had no way; we had no phones and we were just begging for food. My mother-in-law and father-in-law helped us out like they usually did, but it was devastating for awhile. And there was probably hard feelings thinking that the MC5 should have kept John on as a manager, even if he was in jail. People told them otherwise, other people told them John would be a hindrance, because now he was too hot to handle. John was now too much of a political figure. So they said no, better get rid of John Sinclair and the revolutionary image. Which was a mistake, I think we all agree. Because they lost whatever they had going for them, they kinda got lost after that.

What did you do immediately after that?

Leni: Well, I was pregnant with Celia and we had a child, and we had to organize to make a living and we had to organize the John Sinclair freedom movement.. We kept it together by hook or by crook, and the person who’s most responsible for all that is Dave Sinclair, John’s brother, who took over the financial management of this whole shebang. The Up became the house band for the revolutionary White Panther Party wing (Laughs). They were no MC5, but they could kick it out, and so we kept it going like that. So for the next two and a half years, we were just continuing without the Five, focusing our energies on getting John out and continuing to organise.

Do you know about the Bentley archive? When John and I broke up, I had a whole roomful of all the things that I’d collected since I came to this country—all the fliers, all the magazines, all the books we published. We published, at one time, four magazines, and put out about twenty books of poetry, most of them mimeographed by hand. I’m a pack rat, so I saved every last scrap of paper, every memo, everything. So when we broke up, we donated our collection of stuff to the Michigan Historical Library, which houses the papers of the governors and the supreme court justices of Michigan and all that. And so they have the John and Leni Sinclair Papers…a huge amount of materials, and people come from far and wide to study the ‘60s now. It’s at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

Sinclair is also an accomplished photographer who has snapped iconic shots of many a Motor City madman and documented important events in rock and roll and counterculture history. She has taken photographs of Iggy and The Stooges, John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin and Allen Ginsberg among many other revolutionary counter-cultural luminaries of the 60s and 70s.

Leni Sinclair’s new book, with famed poster artist Gary Grimshaw, is titled Detroit Rocks! A Pictorial History of Motor City Rock and Roll 1965-1975.

I bought a classic print from Leni about 10 years ago of the MC5 that she took in her kitchen, actually an out take from one of her infamous sessions where the original famous frame was lost. (I know how that goes...) - GEF

John Sinclair Freedom Rally: rare 1971 rock concert for your viewing pleasure

from DangerousMinds

Ten for Two: The John Sinclair Freedom Rally, directed by Steve Gebhardt is a filmed document of the John Sinclair benefit concert held in 1971.

John Sinclair managed the MC5 and was the founder of The White Panther Party. His uncompromising radical political stance made him a target of the U.S. government. He was busted in a sting operation for selling two joints to undercover cops. He was sentenced to 10 years in jail. Musicians, politicians, artists and friends organized a rally to bring attention to Sinclair’s unjust sentence. It worked. Three days after the rally, Sinclair was released from prison when the Michigan Supreme Court ruled that the state’s marijuana statutes were unconstitutional.

Ten For Two was produced by John and Yoko, who also perform in it, and features Allen Ginsberg, Phil Ochs, Leni Sinclair, David Peel, Jerry Rubin, Ed Sanders, Bob Seger, Archie Shepp, Bobby Seale, The Steve Miller Band, Commander Cody, Stevie Wonder and more.

The rally was held in Ann Arbor, Michigan. John and Yoko came on at 3 a.m.

Why hasn’t this been released on DVD? Rumor has it that Yoko owns the rights to the film and won’t release it. In the meantime, this funky video is all I’ve been able to get access to.

Here’s an in-depth article on the concert here.

Part 1 kicks in at the 15 second point.

I'd like to add John Sinclair's "Guitar Army" is an incredible book from the man during the era. And his wife Leni shot some of the greatest band portraits of the MC5, I proudly own one.