 "It NEVER Gets Old" | 2008-08-01 |
| - Reviewed By User: A1Z24K7EIE9EEH |
This is one of the BEST hard rock CD's from the early days. I NEVER get tired of listening to this. Each song rocks like there is no tomorrow. These guys gave it all and it really shows on this recording.
I've always wished there was more music like this, but I'm also glad that this CD exists. It'll definetly get you through the day!!! This CD is definetly hard rock heaven!!!
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| "Legendary" | 2008-07-26 |
| - Reviewed By heas@alltel.net |
This is the '90s CD reissue of this iconic band's 1969 debut on Elektra, with liner notes by the late Rob Tyner, the group's vocalist. Nobody, but nobody, rocked harder than the Five in the late '60s, and this album, recorded live on Halloween, 1968, at Detroit's Grande Ballroom, proves it. The group was actually politically active, too, which set them apart from, say, the West Coast psychedelic bands of the same period. "Come Together" is indescribably chaotic. These guys make fellow Detroiter Ted Nugent sound like Lawrence Welk. The group is long gone, having succumbed to the usual, but its name is still invoked with a certain amount of awe all these years later. This record demonstrates why.
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| "You don't have this already?" | 2008-06-20 |
| - Reviewed By chrismacdermott |
If not, quit wasting time and get it NOW.
If you already have it, check out Mighty High...In Drug City. |
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| "Perfect" | 2008-03-22 |
| - Reviewed By User: A18A0XA89W8MV9 |
| MC5. Punk rock heroes. This live performance is the perfect view on them and their times. |
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| "CD MC 5" | 2008-03-14 |
| - Reviewed By harleychiksrul |
| MC5 was one of the best rock bands in the 60's. Kick Out The Jams is my fav. I rate it a 10. |
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| "I give you a testimonial......" | 2007-09-14 |
| - Reviewed By gtr41 |
| For the uninitiated..hold onto something, this cd will blow you away!! Not punk..not metal..not jazz or blues..but containing elements of all and blasted out with more volume and energy than humanly possible! Yep, it's from Detroit..and even contains a bit o' soul for good measure. Although many bands are credited with being the 1st at a specific genre..Blue Cheer-metal...Ramones-punk...etc....the Mc5 predate them all.{and blow 'em away} This was ahead of it's time and still sounds impressive today. I saw 'em live back in the day and still have the hearing loss to prove it! If you are into anything remotely heavy, you owe it to yourself to check this out...these guys invented "heavy". |
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| "DOCUMENTO EXPLOSIVO E IRREPETIBLE!!!!" | 2006-10-04 |
| - Reviewed By pappokari |
| ESTA EDICION ,QUE GUARDA LA INCANDESCENTE ACTUACION DE MC5, DEBE SER UNO DE LOS TESTIMONIOS EN VIVO MAS CREIBLES DE TODA UNA EPOCA, MUY PARTICULAR, POR CIERTO... LA CRUDEZA, DESPROLIJIDAD Y CREDIBILIDAD DE ESTE SONIDO REALMENTE ERIZA LA PIEL...ES COMO HABER ESTADO AHI..EN ESE PRECISO INSTANTE DONDE DOS GUITARRAS DESQUICIADAS DESMORONAN CONVENCIONALISMOS QUE LAMENTABLEMENTE HOY SIGUEN PRESENTES... ES LA EXPLOSION DE UN VOLCAN QUE LUEGO SE APAGARIA PARA SIEMPRE, PERPETUANDO NO ERUPCIONES SINO ERUPTOS QUE TOMARIAN LA FORMA DEL PUNK ROCK..... |
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| "Best Hard Rock" | 2006-09-17 |
| - Reviewed By cjr2 |
| This is insane for 1968. Comparable to Motorhead, and years ahead of it's time. It would definately give Lemmy a run for his money, and even many modern alternative artists such as Disturbed don't even compare to the ridiculous hardness of the MC5. Rock On! |
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| "Pure genius -- but not punk!" | 2006-06-02 |
| - Reviewed By jnpatterson2 |
The only reason I mention the fact that this is not punk -- I was there at the Electric Circus in Manchester, England in 1977 to see the Stranglers, the Damned, and many others -- is that it might put people off who would otherwise be amazed by this album. I once managed to convert a rabid Ted Nugent fan, for example. Punk is essentially speedball thrash (in a good way!), but this is akin to Led Zep and the Who (the MC5 supported them at a Toronto gig in 1968: sheer musical mayhem!). The MC5 were not a Nuggets-style band (and again, I have no problem with such bands), but heavily influenced by the likes of boundary-pushing jazz giants like John Coltrane and Sun Ra (in fact, there's a Sun Ra piece on this very album). The true "soul brothers" of this all-time classic are the Who's heaven-storming Young Vic live album (Who's Next deluxe edition), Live at Leeds, Albert Ayler's Live in Greenwich Village, and Peter Brotzmann's Machine Gun.
But when are we going to get a remastered edition that really let's the dials stray into the red, like Iggy's Raw Power? |
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 "The heaviest album of the 1960s--PERIOD!" | 2006-05-07 |
| - Reviewed By stlambert1 |
When it comes to obnoxious agression and extreme volume in 60s Rock, nobody--not The Who, not Cream, not Hendrix, not even Blue Cheer--could beat the MC5 as a live act, and this disc captures this band at the height of their prowess. Not even among their Detroit peers. Compare this album to the one fellow Detroit natives, The Frost, recorded at the same spot, the Grande Ballroom, a year later. Whereas The Frost might have been more melodic and technically-proficient than the MC5--equipment-wise, even a year later, The Frost sound light years more primitive and "tiny" with their little "Beatle" amps, than the MC5 did the year before. The MC5 defintely had the latest "blastoid" gear in existence at the time--big Marshall amps cranked to the max, guitars with "whammy bars" afixed and feedback-capable. The only thing the MC5 lacked in 1968, that the bands they tried to emulate--such as The Who and the Jimi Hendrix Experience--had in their possesion, was the ability to really play well. Aside from the fact that they had one guitarist half-heartedly imitating Pete Townshend on rhythm guitar, and another one half-heartedly attempting Jimi Hendrix-type guitar solos, this band appears to have a real lack of song structure and melody. Numbers like "Ramblin' Rose", "Borderline", and "Rocket Reducer no. 62" are almost like the first attempts at "thrash-metal" ever recorded in rock and roll--no melody, just pure agression and white noise. All the talk I hear about this band having great musicians with jazz-leanings, I just don't see it here. Maybe it came later. As Michigan bands go, the Amboy Dukes (all but Ted Nugent) didn't play much better, but at least they had melody and song-structure, and I notice more "jazz leanings" in the playing of Mark Farner and Don Brewer on Grand Funk Railroad's first album than I do this one by the MC5. The MC5 seemed to have "song-writing issues" like the Stooges, and the fact that the MC5's first album here was a "live album", perhaps it took a "studio setting" to bring out their songwriting abilities. The songs (or jams) here that were apparantely written by the group sound more like improvised "on-the-spot" creations. "Come Together" is pretty-much a rip-off of The Who's "I Can See For Miles" with different, more unintelligent lyrics, and a Beatles title to boot. "I Want You Right Now", one of the songs that wasn't written by the group, sounds very similar to "Wild Thing" by The Troggs--almost as if it was a lesser-known little brother of "Wild Thing"--of course, played with extreme volume and pyrotechnics--a la Jimi Hendrix at Monterrey Pop. But of all the numbers here, the one I find most creative is perhaps the last one, "Starship". Same sort of concept as Pink Floyd's "Interstellar Overdrive" and Jimi Hendrix' "Third Stone From The Sun" (space travel), but with a "spoken word" monolgue in the middle, given with a "spooky", ghost-story-type delivery by singer Rob Tyner, reminiscent of the kind Alice Cooper would give later in his stage shows--perhaps the MC5 did have some sort of influence on Alice Cooper during his brief stay in Detroit around that period.
As much as I may deride the MC5 for their playing ability, and being as overrated as musicians as I feel they really were--altogether, this is good, agressive heavy metal music, much louder than anything else until the first appearnce of Black Sabbath two years later. Just don't expect their later output to be anything like this album, because their future studio work was apparantely as different from this album as night and day. Once they settled down in the studio and really had to learn how to play better, and actually write "real songs", the heavy stuff fell by the wayside, and their music became much more tame, subdued, and restrained. Just the perfect "Jeckyll-and-Hyde"-type band--mild in the studio, wild in concert.
But this band's sloppy playing has really grown on me. Hooks-and-grooves, regardless of the sloppiness, can, as Rob Tyner sings on "Kick Out The Jams"--'stick in your brain, and drive you insane'. Really good music to listen to if your feeling angry, defintely gets a "10" on the head-banging scale, even for 1968. This is the kind of disc that must only be played "loud" for best effect. |
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