The MC5, possibly somewhat refreshed, with a jam kicking motherfucker session live on TV for a full eight minutes and thirty eight seconds.
The MC5's debut album gained mythical status when I was younger, much mentioned but never heard. No re-issues back then, no Youtube. Just hunting for a second hand copy. Eventually I found one. It was all very rockist- maybe that's stating the obvious- but over time it's power and energy became clear and never less so than on the title track which comes across like a call to arms for an entire generation. The lyrics to the title track are pretty loose, not really about anything political other than the power of electric guitars and loud drums and the feeling that they provoke, but they feel revolutionary. More than enough in 1969.
Two decades later, in 1991, Manchester's World Of Twist recorded a version for a John Peel session which shows what a ferocious live band they could be too.
Kick Out The Jams (Peel Session)
3 comments:
I remember Stiff picking up a copy in a record shop in Virginia Galleries in Glasgow when we were 14/15 and when we got home and listened to it being totally underwhelmed but we persisted with it and I eventually got it, Stiff got there a lot sooner than I did.
Underwhelmed on first listen describes my reaction too.
The first time I heard Kick Out The Jams, I thought it was Hard Rock (whatever happened to that term) pretending to be James Brown's Funk Soul. Listening to the whole album, I understood how it could have such a heavy influence on early Punk Rock - especially the American kind.
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