MC5

A riveting biography of the proto-punk Detroit rockers the MC5, based on original interviews with the band and key members of their inner circle.

Most of what people know about the MC5 is contained in those five little words. The first four have become a permanent part of the culture. That fifth word can still get you in as much trouble as it did the MC5 back in 1968, but trouble was also what this band was known for. Although, through a modern lens, much of it was what we would now call "good trouble." Managed by legendary Sixties radical and hippie spokesman, John Sinclair, the MC5 preached the gospel of Black Lives Matter, police reform and cannabis legalization 50 years before those topics became part of the mainstream discussion. And for their efforts, the rabble-rousing musical arm of the White Panther Party, the scourge of J. Edgar Hoover's FBI and other defenders of public decency, were often beaten with clubs, threatened at gunpoint and tossed into jail. The police regularly raided MC5 shows, record stores were busted for selling their albums, and the group was unceremoniously dumped by its record company even as their record was storming up the charts, all this transpiring while the Sex Pistols were still on training wheels. What has been lost in this proto-punk notoriety is the MC5 itself. The MC5 are worth remembering not because they were bad boys, but because they were so damn good. In MC5: An Oral Biography of Rock's Most Revolutionary Band , music journalists Brad Tolinski and Jaan Uhelszki join forces and invite readers to take another look at this legendary band. The book is centered around a series of interviews with the MC5 and their inner circlemany of whom are no longer with usthat Tolinski and Uhelszki inherited from respected author and late Rolling Stone contributor, Ben Edmonds, prior to his death. What emerges from these candid interviews is a genuinely funny and extraordinary portrait of rock's most uncompromising and articulate band. In addition to new insights on Sinclair and the band, the book also features a virtual who's who of Sixties rock musicians, including Iggy and the Stooges, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, promoter Bill Graham, John Lennon, the Jefferson Airplane, and political firebrands like Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Tom Hayden and Black Panther Eldridge Cleaver. As innovative, insightful, and inspiring as the band itself, this book is a fitting testament to the legacy of a band long considered one of the most influential rock bands of all time. Despite forming over half a century ago, MC5 still have 200,000 monthly listeners on Spotify and have recently started touring again and releasing new music. In 2018, the band launched an international 50th anniversary tour and in 2022, they performed a successful tour across the US. Brad Tolinski was the editor-in-chief of Guitar World magazine, the best-selling magazine for musicians in the world, for over twenty-five years. His is also the author of Eruption: Conversations with Eddie Van Halen, Light & Shade: Conversations with Jimmy Page and Play It Loud: An Epic History of the Style, Sound, and Revolution of the Electric Guitar. Jaan Uhelszki is a respected music journalist and co-founder of the legendary music magazine CREEM. As head of the news department at Addicted to Noise, Uhelszki won Online Journalist of the Year, the National Feature Writer Award from the Music Journalists Association and three Deems Taylor Awards. She is one of the first women to work in rock journalism.