MC5 — Back In The USA

• Artist: MC5
• Title: Back In The USA
• Year: 1970
• Format: Vinyl 12 in.
• Rating (1-10): 8
• Owner: Tracy
• Acquired: 1987 ? – Another MC5 platter with mysterious origins. I’m pretty sure I got this one at Vinyl Solution in London. Which is way ironic…
• Keeper: Yes

This is the second record by MC5 and it was stunning in its restraint compared to the freaked out Kick Out The Jams. Of course I didn’t buy their records when they first came out but I did buy them in order. So, I was just as baffled as the original fans. That said, this album has grown on me over the years. It’s still high energy, and I’m tapping my foot as I type this, a good sign. Very catchy stuff for the most part. Roots rock/power pop/proto-punk if any of those make sense.

I’ve read that their third album was insane, more like the first, and that nobody listened. I’ve never heard it. I really need to start looking…

Read Leg McNeil’s Please Kill Me for some funny background on MC5.

MC5 — Kick Out The Jams

• Artist: MC5
• Title: Kick Out The Jams
• Year: 1969
• Format: Vinyl 12 in.
• Rating (1-10): 9
• Owner: Tracy
• Acquired: 1984 ? Maybe later. I think I might have bought it in the UK, even though it was a US release, and that would be dumb.
• Keeper: Yes

“Kick Out The Jams…” No, not that one, unfortunately. I have a later release where the offensive, to some, language was replaced with “brothers and sisters.” It’s a laughably clumsy sounding edit to boot. The voices have completely different room sounds. But at least my version has the gloriously Metallic/Psychedelic gatefold album cover.

Everybody knows the title track, but my favorite may just be the show opener on this in-concert record, “Rambling Rose.” The whole record/show is so intense and frenzied, so heavy at times, it’s hard to believe it happened in 1969. Thank God it did.