Outside of the Grateful Dead, no other
band is more closely associated with the ’60s hippy,
free love, abundant drug, activism movement than Detroit’s
MC5. The hard rocking five-piece band poured body and soul
into fomenting a social-psychoactive revolution that they
hoped would reshape the buttoned down, conventional landscape
of contemporary American culture. The MC5 was founded on
the notion that rules are to be broken and they became the
very embodiment of no-holds-barred rock and roll.
Though never as widely popular as The Who, The Kinks, Dylan
and other ‘60s icons, The MC5’s influence amongst
musicians is pervasive. They pioneered approaches to wall-of-sound
“sculpted noise”, free form art rock, improvisational
guitar freak-outs and even glam rock that are emulated by
modern bands to this day. If anything, The MC5’s legend
grows with each passing year.
One key figure in The MC5’s rise to fame was photographer
Leni Sinclair whose images of the band have become emblematic
of the ‘60s and ‘70s themselves. She and her husband
John Sinclair – the radical left-wing activist and psychedelic
guru who some believe used
the band to inflate his own fame and power – were daily
companions of The MC5 throughout the highpoint of their careers.
One result of that deep access is a collection of 8mm films
of the band that Leni shot at various shows in the late ‘60s
and early ‘70s. MC5 Live: Kick Out the Jams is a collection of these clips, many of them available for
the first time on home video.
 MC5 Live: Kick Out the Jams doesn’t
have a traditional narrative structure. In fact, it doesn’t
have much structure at all. The vintage footage of the band
is cut together with random images of war protesters, soldiers
fighting in Vietnam, band posters, oil-on-water light show
effects and flashing strobes. Meanwhile, the audio tracks
come from completely different performances, so the two seldom
match up. Both images and sounds are subject to hard jump-cuts
of a kind that were thought of as cutting edge entertainment
thirty years ago but seem very dated today. And on a certain
level it does work. By giving the audience a jumble of images
against the relentless crash and twang of the band, an impression
of The MC5 builds up and suggests the power that their music
must have had in the moment it was being performed.
Clocking in at just over 30 minutes, MC5 Live: Kick
Out the Jams includes most of the bands
best known songs. You’ll hear Ramblin’ Rose,
Black to Comm, Starship, Motor City is Burning and Rocket
Reducer No. 62 among others. Casual fans will have a
hard time connecting with the movie, which looks only slightly
better than the average cable access show at times. Hardened
MC5 devotees will enjoy the rare footage but will be left
wishing that the audio matched the video performances. Unfortunately,
either way, the DVD is a disappointment. It gives the viewer
no new insight on the band and only a fragmentary glimpse
of the act’s raw power.
Image is Everything
Presented in the standard, full-screen aspect ratio,
the images on this DVD are about what you’d expect from
8mm transfers of 1960s home movies. There are tons of holes,
scratches, flares and other flaws. The colors are faded and
the contrast is off the scale. It’s far from unwatchable
but don’t go into it expecting anything better than
VHS because you won’t find it here.
The
Sound of Music
The audio track is available in both
Dolby 2.0 and Dolby Digital 5.1 surround. Since the various
recordings were made at live shows with fairly low quality
equipment, it should come as no surprise that this disc won’t
put your home theater through its paces. The Dolby 2.0 option
renders a sound stage that most closely matches the original
stereo (and in some cases mono) recordings. The 5.1 track,
while doing a reasonable job of splitting the sound amongst
the entire array of home theater speakers sounds more muddy
and indistinct, more gimmick than bonus.
Extra! Extra!
The only extra content on this release is a 25-minute
“interview” with John Sinclair. The production
values on this segment are abysmally low. Sinclair’s
comments are almost entirely drowned out by the background
music and the interview itself is completely unedited. Sinclair
seems burned-out and confused as he relates his memories of
meeting and working with the band. Over the course of 25 minutes
he comes up with one or two interesting comments but the rest
is essentially confusion and dead air.
Closing
Argument
MC5 Live: Kick Out the
Jams isn’t going to satisfy casual listeners or hardcore
fans. It is interesting in a cultural throw-back kind of way,
but doesn’t deliver the goods in terms of audio, visual
or narrative content. If you’re interested in The MC5,
you’d be better served seeking out the excellent film MC5: A True Testimonial. You may have a hard
time finding it though since MC5 guitarist Wayne Kramer has
taken the filmmakers to court for violating his rights to
the band’s songs. So, unless and until MC5:
A True Testimonial emerges from litigation, fans
of the band are best served avoiding this release and seeking
their fix elsewhere.
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