MC5/Back In The USA
1970...it was a very good year
It’s been a while since the last post, but I have my excuses ready. This week marked the first anniversary of my Jazz On The Beach radio show, while its ‘badass little brother’ Blues Beach launched in June. I’m delighted that both shows are now being sponsored by our friends at Wellingtons Restaurant (Deal’s favourite breakfast and brunch location™) proving yet again that good food, coffee, jazz and the blues go well together.
In the time that’s left between preparing shows, walking on the beach and sitting around drinking coffee, I’ve been writing more album reviews for London Jazz News, attending a couple of Gearbox Records advisory board meetings and helping set up a new advisory board for Deal Radio. Links
On to the MC5 and a record that connects me straight back to Summer 1970 along with Jimi Hendrix’s Band Of Gypsys, Mountain’s Climbing! and Free’s Fire And Water. I was 16 and more interested in playing guitar than anything else, and there was so much to hear and learn.
Back In The USA wasn’t perfect, but I loved it. After the raw sonic exuberance of their debut album (the live recording Kick Out The Jams), this was a highly structured affair quite out of sync with the sprawled out jam music of the time. Framed by two rock and roll classics, Tutti Frutti and Back In The USA, the album blasts through eleven tracks in 28:08, a template for The Ramones, punk and power pop to come. The MC5 wrote great songs, Teenage Lust, Shakin’ Street, The Human Being Lawnmower, Lookin’ At You and especially The American Ruse which is as strong a rock protest song as Pete Townshend’s Won’t Get Fooled Again.
The record was produced by journalist Jon Landau who four years later became Bruce Springsteen’s manager, and still is today. There’s hardly any bottom end on the album, apparently Landau, engineer Jim Bruzzese and the band worked at such high volume in the studio that everything sounded great to them! The guitar playing is incredible, Wayne Kramer and Fred ‘Sonic’ Smith were pure rock and roll with styles so similar it was hard to split them apart. Both had killer tone and although there are great solos that are straight to the point - especially Kramer on Looking At You and Smith on American Ruse - it’s their interplay that remains so exciting after 52 years.
I was lucky enough to see them play live, at the Phun City Festival in July 1970 and at the L.S.E. two years later when they were falling apart. Like The Velvet Underground, the MC5’s influence far outweighed their success during their existence.
Play the album on vinyl if you possibly can and preferably as loud as possible.
"A-wop-bop-a-loo-bop, A-lop-bam-boom!"