MC5 - A True Testimonial

Finally seeing this. As everyone says, it's damn worth it.

one of my faves, if not my favorite rock doc.

i lent my bootleg copy out a year or more ago and never got it back. must remedy this pronto.

i like the bit about five minutes from the end where they mention heroin for the first time. GLARING OMISSION.

that and the bit where robin tyner paints himself gold.

gotta admit, it's pretty hokey/endearing the way they come off as tough guys but then do that goofy synchronized kicking routine on stage...

i always love that bit in soul documentaries when they start talking about the influence of sly stone and vietnam and acid on the sixties and motown, and how it went from like baby love -> lovechild all over, etc, and the temptations released ball of confusion. and it's this badass temptations song with a real message to it, but they're still doing that silly elfin tip-toe dance routine in green suits.

c'mon guys, make this happen

I have seen this movie and it is awesome btw

Kick it up again, deadline approaching.

RIP MC5 bassist Michael Davis

http://www.vintagevinylnews.com/2012/02/michael-davis-of-mc5-passes-away-from.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEi1-FSec24

RIP

Watched this again last night. Still love this movie a lot, but I never bothered to check out the extra features on the DVD (this is the advance DVD that was never released). Great interview with Charles Moore about "Skunk (Sonically Speaking)" where the studio engineer is seriously questioning the horns "you really want the horns to sound like that?"

Some really great performance videos on there too.

Really god film, shame it wasn't officially released. Can't remember the details as to why it wasn't at the moment. It obviously had a great deal of input from members, Wayne Kramer is seen driving around narrating the story for a large part of it.

Think it's pretty exemplary in fact so it should be allowed to be seen.

I see there are available 'copies' on a famous auction/sale website..

I think it was due to a disagreement over money and rights after the doc was completed. i'm bummed because it's a fantastic movie, but i can understand, given his history, why wayne might be averse to being ripped off again.

from wiki:

In April 2004, Kramer sued Legler and Thomas. In his suit, Kramer alleged that Legler and Thomas had promised he would be the film's music producer, an assertion the film-makers denied.[13] With the lawsuit, distribution of MC5: A True Testimonial ended and plans for a DVD release in May were canceled.[3] In March 2007, the court ruled in favor of Legler and Thomas,[14] and the Court of Appeals upheld the decision on appeal.[15] Nevertheless, MC5: A True Testimonial has not been released on DVD, although in 2011 the film-makers began a fund-raising campaign to pay for rights to the band's music.

I seem to recall Kramer saying at the time that at the 11th hour the film-makers approached the surviving members with some sort of scheme that would cut them in as copyright holders on the group's name and publishing.

Timely revive. I finally picked up a boot of this for $10 at the Austin Record Show yesterday. It's a rip of the advance disc, down to the menus but sans bonus features.

Odd, thought if you got the menus you'd gt the bonuses. THey worked on mine.

No, I'm just stupid. I put the disc in again and I do in fact have the extras, it's just slightly tricky to get to them on my pc dvd player program. I have to go past the animated menus to the static screen ones to get the slection star to work. I just couldn't get my head around that last night.

oh hey, this is on YouTube at the moment, if you haven't seen it. good stuff.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=1UrP9jxKzOU

awesome! it's a great movie.

Gone from Youtube while Amazon says:

MC5: A True Testimonial Starring Dennis Thompson (II), Fred 'Sonic' Smith, Rob Tyner, et al. (1970)

(3)

DVD

1 used from $299.99

Was listening to "Back in the US" for the first time in awhile, and it still sounds great.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEt3RyuJn80&feature=youtu.be

And all these years later, a legit release!

https://www.facebook.com/VictimofTime/photos/pb.36660069378.-2207520000.1520377788./10156353388289379/?type=3&theater

What did it say, Ned? There's nothing there when I click.

Is long-shelved MC5 documentary 'A True Testimonial' finally being released?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCzjo8y7QB4

Hope that doesn't get pulled down. Good doc.

it's such a fantastic doc. i wish wayne could find some way to allow it being released somehow, it's the perfect tribute to his band and i don't see anyone going to such lengths to make another.

Dennis Thompson wasn't happy with the doc, either:

http://web.archive.org/web/20040608070332/http://www.dkt-mc5.com/index.cfm?pg=editorials&SN_id=3

F/N chose to do my personal interviews during the most incredibly painful time of my life. My mother had passed away four days before, and I fell back into drug abuse and alcoholism with a vengeance. I had pleaded with Dave and Laurel to postpone my interviews until I had a chance to bounce back, but was told, “You can do this! You gotta. You must do this now!” I didn’t want to be interviewed until I got a grip on myself. In short, I allowed them into my home.

(You see, it can appear I was singled out to be portrayed in the film as the angry, bitter, resentful, foul mouthed, stoned, and controversial “bad boy” member.)

I had been clean and sober during the whole of 1998. It’s so odd that there were no on-camera interviews then. Not the least bit surprising, in retrospect. After some time elapsed, I called them and asked them to film me again. I knew it didn’t go well. I was apologetic and willing to do right by them and myself. Dave dismissed my plea. He accused me of trying to “screw them over,” and that the footage they had would do. So much for “righteous” behavior.

Wayne Kramer just did a live Q&A online on Facebook. I stumbled on it towards the end.
https://www.facebook.com/waynekramer/videos/250813685949530/?comment_id=250847342612831¬if_id=1585162900092395¬if_t=video_reply&redirect=false
Not sure if that link gets you there. It just finished and i have a playback going on.

Also answered some questions typed into FB>

Looks like he's been looking for studio recorded material from their Elektra days for the last 50 years and still not found it.

Also that there doesn't seem to be a lot of unreleased MC5 footage. I had been told that people were looking through stacks of it when A true Testimonial was being made. BUt heard taht 2nd hand from somebody who said he knew people who were working where it was being edited , if not directly involved. Did hope there might be some more. What there has been has been great.
I thought there was a studio set from Tubeworks but it looks like the Tubeworks footage is that outdoor performance where Wayne starts dancing on one leg.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyrcUlX7sPg

😢

RIP Wayne

Wayne S. Kramer
“PEACE BE WITH YOU” 🕊️
April 30, 1948 - February 2, 2024

https://www.instagram.com/p/C23AQzQPeHR/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74jS3dW0DtE

RIP

(Side note, TIL that Spotify excised the opening “kick out the jams motherfucker” line from the song on the album version, what the actual fuck? it’s there on the hits comp version but still…)

RIP

this sucks

OH NO

RIP

seen it a hundred times but still the greatest shit ever:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXlMTUpKwuc

“Brother Wayne Kramer…. Brother Wayne Kramer…”

https://media.gettyimages.com/id/85368290/photo/wayne-kramer.jpg?s=2048x2048&w=gi&k=20&c=pvbh7JCgbRx-HWPDS4tg3gfDXExbkSQfsgjJOuUIhms=

https://i.pinimg.com/564x/25/ae/10/25ae107b34abfb4b6088ee6829bf7ca7.jpg

HOW DARE U

Disco Stu thought it an appropriate tribute to a legend.

the video NickB posted, as well as one I include below, shows a band every bit as good as the Who; I often think that the Five could have been the American Who were it not for such shitty luck; like, they shoulda had the career Grand Funk had, just as I would prefer the Stooges to have had Alice Cooper's trajectory; similarly, you see him truly incarnating the "townshend from the waist up, JB from the waist down" description someone coined many years ago…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74jS3dW0DtE

That Tartar Field footage was what I was referring to (*gasp*) nineteen years ago upthread.

that was sloppy of me, not noticing that Cgrisso already put that up…so I'll just say that that band and the Stooges smoked every other white guy band in America from 1967-1971, except maybe Creedence, VU…and who else? Who else could stand up to the Five? Certainly not the Bay area acts…

Is there any backstory to the KOtJ testimonial? That's bar none my favorite intro to any album ever.

The song title comes from the response of one of the 5 to I think a San Francisco band that didn't rock convincingly. I think bit was Fred Sonic Smith shouted it at the stage.
Detroit seemed to have a high bar for its reception of bands.or that's what I read a while back.
So it's the first line of a song the band did regularly about enjoying rocking out.

They had an mc they used a lot at the Grande Ballroom where the MC5 were pretty much the house band.

yeah for real who was the mc? did he just invent that? "are you ready to testify?! I give you a testimonial, the MC5!!!" takes five seconds, one guitar, two guitars, explosion, I would have died if I was in that audience, in '68! nobody was heavier or gnarlier

The spoken bit at the beginning is by John Sinclair, the White Panthers guy... I used to have a pack of US flag rolling papers with that speech on the inside cover...

imagine that exact testimonial being given before the grateful dead lead into "turn on your love light"

Brothers and sisters, the announcer is Brother JC Jesse Crawford. Crawford replaced Iggy (I mean Jim Osterberg) in the Prime Movers before becoming a DJ on underground FM station WKNR in Detroit as well as the MC for the Grande

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOD9e7I6bHs

More photos, etc. here:
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2016/jan/28/rock-photographer-leni-sinclair-kresge-eminent-artist-2016-in-pictures
http://secondarysound.blogspot.com/2010/01/brother-jc-crawford.html

!!
I always thought it was Sinclair...

That "five seconds" bit is one of the all-time great band intros. I'm not even sure what comes close.

I'll just say that that band and the Stooges smoked every other white guy band in America from 1967-1971, except maybe Creedence, VU…and who else?

MC5 were more ballistic at times, but Teenage Head era Flamin Groovies, Brownsville Station, probably Amboy Dukes sometimes…

https://www.freep.com/story/entertainment/music/brian-mccollum/2024/02/04/wayne-kramer-ted-nugent-friendship-detroit-music/72466031007/

Nugent rattled off some of the A-list names he has shared bills with through the years.

“So I've been to the mountaintop. And I'm sorry, man, nothing comes close to the Five at their peak, and what Wayne brought with his James Brown dance and dynamic fury,” he said. “When you can inject a genuine James Brown-Motown dynamic to that voluminous R&B-driven rock ‘n' roll … my God, the, soulfulness of that band and Wayne Kramer. And not only musically, but as a man.”

Yeah, something like Looking at You is kind of in its own realm. But if we’re asking who was as rocking as the VU or CCR, that’s a different story.

I'll just say that that band and the Stooges smoked every other white guy band in America from 1967-1971, except maybe Creedence, VU…and who else?

Buffalo Springfield in a live setting (I think Neil said in Shakey their recordings never matched their live sound) and 13th floor elevators

I'd like to hear live Springfield for sure, but judging by their studio albums, it's hard to imagine how their sound could with the MC5/Deeetroit is Burning aesthetic---roots rock, r&b, free jazz, chaos, flying garages---as well as the VU, 13th Floor Elevators and even live Creedence could do---also some outrageous Janis-era Big Brother & The Holding Company shows on YouTube from tyme to tyme---

Moby Grape.

The Sonics

this is up there...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_nRmX0ZGvo

Tony Orlando

Tony Williams Lifetime

Hendrix but that's probably obvious.
James Brown and a few other soul types but they're not white guy bands and are probably what's being differentiated from. Same with energy jazz players I guess. & were consciously being drawn from as influences.

The Who seemed to be a bit of a template too but the 5 added a 2nd guitar. & a few inches if what I heard/read Danny Fields say about the 5s height is true which i never fully confirmed but have seen a couple of images suggesting to be true. That like the Coachmen they were all 6ft something. Had assumed they were medium height until I heard that.

When is somebody going to compile a photo book of their sartorial greatness as made by wives and girlfriends. I think it's one outstanding feature and I'd assumed they were jeans and t-shirt oriented until I started seeing photos of the band.

I thought the high bar for audience reception in Detroit or Michigan meant that bands needed to deliver. So we're likely to behigh octane and intense live.
But not sure what there is to show that outside of the Stooges and the 5 cos not sure what live footage video or audio survives. There is Midsummer Rock from the 1970 Cincinnati Pop festival with some Alice Cooper and GFR but not sure what else. Some Tubeworks episodes too. & i cant remember what the SRC live audio i had sounded like apart from not like the stun guitar of the first l.p.

One band that does sound like it did deliver far better than one might have thought is the Electric Prunes. Their Stockholm 67 set sounds pretty proto Detroit but I think they had split by the time the 5 were widely known outside Detroit. Gradually replaced and their name recycled. The 5 have some great recordings from 66 too Total Energy compiled 1/2 hr of as 66 Breakout.

Not unlike the Stooges who I was not impressed with on first brush (I had already heard the Birthday Party at that point), the MC5 were a bit...disappointing initially, I wanted the punk/free jazz/soul collision to hit me harder, and frankly they probably weren't well served by the BMG music club CD copy of "Kick Out the Jams" I first heard them on but so I hung with the records and thanks to some boots & cruddy VHS tapes I eventually I got it (it took more than 5 seconds, sorry brothers)

Wayne's then recent solo records on Epitaph & the Dodge Main LP with Denis Tek & Scott Morgan were crucial to me in the 90s, the Dodge Main take on "They Harder They Come" is a million times better than it has any right to be, I got to see him play a couple times and it was always an honor to be in the same room with him, RIP to a great one

They've never been served well on reissued CD's. I used Rhino's Big Bang! compilation to fix the sloppy edit that restored "motherfucker" on that CD of Kick Out the Jams. I kept it because I was glad to have the original cover - albeit on the back of the booklet - that was submitted to and rejected by Elektra, but the CD's been switched out with my CD-R. Also threw the original 45-only releases as bonus tracks.

Babes In Arms (the ROIR tape/CD) is pretty damn good, I just listened to it a couple weeks ago

Supposedly there was a "Complete Sessions" set for KOTJ being worked on over at Rhino Handmade that ultimately never happened.

The Total Energy vinyl set Rhino did was nice. I got a barely used copy on eBay a few years back for like $30.

It's too bad there wasn't a CD companion to that vinyl set, with each album augmented with bonus material, or at least spiffing up Babes In Arms as a 4th disc.

FWIW, you can fit everything released during the original group's lifetime on to a two CD's without splitting any of the LP's, so it wouldn't have been a bad idea to release a "complete" set on a nicely-packaged two-CD set just as Rhino had done with other great groups of similar stature (in terms of sales and critical reception). Kick Out the Jams and singles plus other bonuses on disc one, the two studio albums plus other bonuses on disc two.

Well, yeah. But by then Rhino was leaning into the mini-LP reproductions for things like that so what would make the most sense would not necessarily been the route they would have taken.

"High Time" is such a fucking great record

I'll just say that that band and the Stooges smoked every other white guy band in America from 1967-1971, except maybe Creedence, VU…and who else?

Buffalo Springfield in a live setting (I think Neil said in Shakey their recordings never matched their live sound) and 13th floor elevators

― jbn, Sunday, February 4, 2024 3:31 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

alice cooper band

Yeah, the original Alice Cooper band were part of the Detroit scene, man, although I think I reed in Michigan's own Creem that they lived on a farm, came into town for shows. Hot as hell live, augmented on record by Detroit guitars of Dick Wagner ( who led the also hot live Frost; his later Ursa Major I've only heard in studio, think Billy Joel left before they started making albs), and Steve Hunter. Alice/Vince hired Wagner and Hunter and I think the rest of Reed's Rock and Roll Animal line-up(arranged and led by Wagner) for Welcome To My Nightmare, and that was it for the originals, although they later recorded as Billion Dollar Babies, never heard that.

O wait, forgot: they started in Phoenix, moved to L.A., then Michigan---wiki:

Slow sales of the band's first two albums, as well as Californians' indifference to their act, led the band to relocate again in 1970, this time to Pontiac, Michigan near Furnier's original home town of Detroit. Here, their bizarre stage act was much better received by Midwestern crowds accustomed to the proto punk styles of local bands such as the Stooges and the MC5. "L.A. just didn't get it," Furnier stated. "They were all on the wrong drug for us. They were on acid and we were basically drinking beer. We fit much more in Detroit than we did anywhere else."[24]

Hooking up with young producer Bob Ezrin, Alice Cooper released the single "I'm Eighteen" in November 1970, and it became a surprise Top 40 hit by early 1971.

Picking up from C.G/McC's post in the obit thread I noticed that many of the links upthread have expired, but this Chicago Reader story on the documentary from 2004 is still alive and goes over in detail how it all came apart. In short, get it from archive.org if you want to see it - it'll never come out. Also if you're a filmmaker, don't ever assume that goodwill and a good movie will magically fix your rights issues.

Thanks for that!

In other news, the final MC5 album (Wayne & numerous guests, including two tracks with Dennis Thompson) is still coming according to producer Bob Ezrin

https://www.loudersound.com/news/mc5-album-update-bob-ezrin

It's too bad there wasn't a CD companion to that vinyl set, with each album augmented with bonus material, or at least spiffing up Babes In Arms as a 4th disc.

I don't think there is any (unreleased) bonus material. When Rhino looked into a releasing a 50th anniversary KOTJ, it seems that all the original Grande Ballroom tapes are lost - all that's available is the final two-track master and a folded down mono master. All of the masters from the two Atlantic albums were lost when the Atlantic tape warehouse burned up in the 1978 Long Branch fire :(

Good to know. So pretty much the best they could have done was remaster the three albums, clean up the Babes In Arms stuff as best they could*, and add in "Thunder Express".

*Does anyone know how/where those Atlantic-era alternates on it were sourced from?

Fresh Air replayed the 2002 interview w Wayne (28 minutes---can also read, download, as well as stream)
https://www.npr.org/2024/02/09/1230071788/remembering-guitarist-wayne-kramer-founder-of-the-mc5