Late MC5 members bare it all in new biography

Although its existence was short-lived, MC5, one of the seminal Detroit bands of the ’60s, lived on in the music of some of the most prominent punk and grunge bands of all time. The band was noted for its loud, hard-driving pre-punk rock, which could chase concertgoers from a venue, according to the new book “MC5: An Oral Biography of Rock’s Most Revolutionary Band,” by music writers Brad Tolinski, Jaan Uhelszki and Ben Edmonds.

The book was originally a solo project for Edmonds, who spent 10 years interviewing the late band members and their close friends. He passed the project on to Tolinski, former editor-in-chief of Guitar World magazine, and Uhelszki, a co-founder of Creem magazine, prior to his death in 2016.

The book tells of the pair’s surprise when they learned that Edmonds had left them with unedited, handwritten transcripts of interviews. Over a period of years, the authors melded the oral histories into a cogent history of the hard-rocking group.

The book follows the band from its founding in 1963, when it was known as the Bounty Hunters, to its rise to national stardom in 1968 after playing in the middle of the protests at the Democratic National Convention and being lionized by an article in Harper’s Magazine, and finally to its fall from grace.

The musicians of MC5 — vocalist Rob Tyner, guitarists Wayne Kramer and Fred “Sonic” Smith, bassist Michael Davis and drummer Dennis Thompson — were “hometown heroes” in Detroit, perhaps partly due to being one of the house bands at the legendary Grande Ballroom, where they played often. Lansing-area residents and Michigan State University students had several opportunities to catch the band locally at venues like Grandmother’s and the MSU Union.

The band was anointed by the counterculture movement as its revolutionary balladeers and was at mid-career managed by John Sinclair, a proponent of cannabis legalization and a founding member of the White Panther Party. The band’s reputation caused conflict with the Detroit police, prompting a move to Ann Arbor in 1968. The stories of the Hill Street commune in Ann Arbor will tickle your fancy if you ever made it to the city during those heady days when Sinclair would hold court while sitting on a toilet.

What makes the book insightful are the interviews with the band members, except for Smith, who wasn’t interviewed. Reading these interviews is like sitting on a couch with MC5 — they’re very casual and honest, pulling no punches about who they were in their youth. A couple of the band members talk candidly about their juvenile delinquency and jail time.

In one section of the book, Sinclair, Tyner and Thompson all trash psychedelic-rock band Big Brother and the Holding Company. Thompson calls vocalist Janis Joplin a “screeching bitch” for browbeating her own band.

The musicians are as blunt about their fellow band members. One interview relates how the group’s style evolved into what Tyner calls “sparkly, futuristic clothes.” 

Toward the end of the book, both Thompson and Kramer take a swipe at the band members’ use of heroin. Tyner’s wife, Becky, says, “I think drugs had a lot to do with what went wrong with MC5.”

Other book news:

Michigan Humanities announced Curtis Chin as the 10th Great Michigan Read author at its author reunion last month at the Wharton Center. Chin’s memoir, “Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant,” is a 2024 Michigan Notable Book.

Chin’s family owned a successful Chinese restaurant in Detroit for more than six decades until it was bulldozed for an expressway. His memoir is a touching description of his love affair with Detroit. It also describes his family’s move to the suburbs, where they faced racism. These stories are told against the backdrop of Chin coming to embrace his life as a gay man.