[Today: Motor City is still burning...]
MC5 is a band whose music has been completely overshadowed by its myths. From their involvement with the White Panther party to their refusal to edit the phrase “Kick out the jams motherfuckers!” on their debut album, they led with their politics and charted a loud, uncompromising, and ideological route to oblivion. Since their demise, they’ve acquired status as punk rock godfathers and become metaphorically linked to a state that has been decaying for decades from its auto industry out. By design, it’s nearly impossible to hear their music without any preconceived notions about what they stand for.
During a 1972 interview with Nick Kent, guitarist Wayne Kramer waxed philosophical about the group’s dedication to its sound, even in the face of commercial failure. “When you’re putting over an alien vibration on a high energy level you’ve got to be tough to that kind of backlash,” he said. “But it’s the only way for us, we can’t do anything else and it’s too late to stop now. We’re totally committed to our thing – it’s a highly emotional thing and in that respect it’s always a calculated risk.”
Thunder Express captures the group live in the studio in March of 1972, just months before they went kaput. The recording retains the primal fury of the Motor City Five’s live act, but the studio environment does wonders for their sound. Over seven tracks – including a blistering 10-minute version of ‘Rama Lama Fa Fa Fa’ – MC5 exhibit the kind of driving musicianship that one wouldn’t normally associate with them. Under these conditions, it’s easy to filter out the politics and spot the influence of Motown, Chuck Berry, and John Coltrane upon their music.
The album was recorded during a one-day session at Chateau d’Herouville, an 18th century castle that was converted into a recording studio in 1969. It would later host sessions for Pink Floyd’s Obscured By Clouds, Iggy Pop’s The Idiot, and David Bowie’s Low, as well as two of the Bee Gee’s songs for the Saturday Night Fever Soundtrack. It was an unlikely location for Kramer, Rob Tyner, Fred “Sonic” Smith, Steve Moorhouse, and Denis Thompson to make one of their last stands, but Thunder Express is the sound of a band going out in a hail of brutal riffs, raw and uncompromising to the bitter end…
Listen: Motor City Is Burning
Listen: Rama Lama Fa Fa Fa
[Very special thanks to Jeff Marshall for passing this album my way...]
Tags: Bee Gees, Chateau d'Herouville, Chuck Berry, David Bowie, Denis Thomson, Fred "Sonic" Smith, Iggy Pop, Jeff Marshall, John Coltrane, MC5, Michigan, Motown, Nick Kent, Pink Floyd, Rob Tyner, Saturday Night Fever Soundtrack, Steve Moorhouse, Thunder Express, Wayne Kramer, White Panther Party
