MC5 - A True Testimonial

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