Title: MC5 - American Ruse Source:
motor city five URL Source:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6pfU9wli8g Published:May 30, 2007 Author:mc5 Post Date:2007-05-30 21:44:53 by Dakmar Ping List:*Music Club* Keywords:None Views:527 Comments:9
One of my fave MC5 songs. Along with Human Being Lawnmower. I only got to see them just before they broke up, when they were, frankly, a shambles, although part of their show really rocked. But all three of their albums are terrific, and now there are several really good live CDs available. Also, the ROIR CD of demos and alternate takes, The Big Bang, has rawer, better versions of several songs, although I think American Ruse on Back in the USA is a better take.
Wayne Kramer, the rhythm guitar player, has several solo albums out, and he's great live, if your're interested.
I remember my uncle turning me on to MC5 when I was like 9 or 10 years old. He had a sort of suite in big old house my dad was renovating, two rooms and a full bath, I vaguely recall the house had been sectioned out as apartments and ripping out a bunch of walls. Anyway, my uncle had recently bought a high-end reciever and turntable, and must have thought he'd struck stereophonic gold with the aquisition of Kick Out The Jams, and looking back I can see how it would have been hard to come by in central Indiana in 1974 or so. MC5 played hard, that appealled to me.
Fast forward twenty years and there I am reading High Times and what is featured in their record review but Wayne Kramer's Citizen Wayne? I was a bit surprised that the big-box electronics outlet had it.
Fast forward to a couple weeks ago, when I posted Wayne's Back to Detroit
Not many comments on that thread either, but I think it's an awesome song.
"Be just and if you can't be just, be arbitrary." - William S Burroughs
I'm such a junkie I just bought the Gang War "album" by the band with Wayne and Johnny Thunders and some other junkies. Wayne wrote a song about it, I think on Citizen Wayne, about how they'd steal the club's receipts and rip off anything they could to feed their habits. Wayne eventually took a fall for setting up a big coke deal, and spent several years doing HARD time. It's interesting (recorded live at The Channel in Boston) for its historical role but what a mess.
When the Heartbreakers first came out, they were one of the best live bands I ever saw. When they reformed after Gang War, they were purely playing for drug money.
If you get a chance to see Wayne live, he's pretty terrific. He usually has the guys from Was/Not Was backing him up, and it's a lot of fun.
I have a bootleg of the MC5 movie that was made a few years ago. The filmmakers, some local Chicago people, just assumed that Kramer would be delighted to sign over the rights to the MC5 songs, which was a big mistake. He gave them all kinds of footage and live tapes to put together the movie, and all he wanted was the right to put out the soundtrack himself, since it was all MC5 music. The film guys played hardball, and now the whole thing is in court and probably will stay there forever.
The movie played one time, in Chicago, as a benefit. A friend of mine found the DVD in a store on the South Side and snapped it up. She was kind enough to burn me a copy, and it's one of the best music documentaries I've ever seen, up there with Dig (Brian Jonestown Massacre).
It's criminal that so few people can see it. But Kramer is right on this one; the film people would have made a fortune on the box office and the DVD sales, and I'm sure they could have negotiated a small chunk of the CD sales.
Is that related to Jonestown Rapture? Is it too late to reserve a domain name?
" Junk is the ideal product... the ultimate merchandise. No sales talk necessary. The client will crawl through a sewer and beg to buy." - William S Burroughs
" Junk is the ideal product... the ultimate merchandise. No sales talk necessary. The client will crawl through a sewer and beg to buy." - William S Burroughs
" Junk is the ideal product... the ultimate merchandise. No sales talk necessary. The client will crawl through a sewer and beg to buy." - William S Burroughs
Is that related to Jonestown Rapture? Is it too late to reserve a domain name?
Yeah, probably. But check out the band. Anton, the leader, has a bad case of obsessive-compulsive disorder, but he's brilliant. The music is more or less based on the Stones' psychedelic period (We Love You, 2000 Light Years From Home, Citadel, etc.) with a lot of Dream Syndicate and other neo-psychedelic bands thrown in.
Here's the Widipedia entry. I recommend buying Tepid Peppermint Wonderland. A greatest hits sorta thing. If you like long droning instrumentals with great pop vocals and hooks, it might be for you.
Since its formation, the band has undergone a large number of personnel changes. Multi-instrumentalist and main songwriter Anton Newcombe is the only member who has stayed with the Brian Jonestown Massacre since its beginning, when it was founded by Newcombe and guitarist/bassist/vocalist Matt Hollywood. Currently a member, tambourine man and "Spokesperson for the Revolution" Joel Gion has clocked the most time with Newcombe; he has also quit and rejoined the band more times than anyone else. There are at least two dozen musicians who have been in the BJM at one point or another.
Ex-members include: guitarist Jeff Davies; Matt Hollywood, a founding member of Portland band The Out Crowd; Peter Hayes, founding member of San Francisco rock trio Black Rebel Motorcycle Club; Oliver McLaughlin, founding member of The Mothership; Joel Gion, a founding member of San Francisco band, The Dilettantes; Rob Campanella, a Los Angeles studio producer and engineer who has worked with The Tyde, Beachwood Sparks, Dead Meadow, Mia Doi Todd, Frausdots, Scarling., and his band The Quarter After; Sune Rose Wagner, founding member of Psyched up Janis, The Tremolo Beer Gut and The Raveonettes; Bobby Hecksher, founding member of Los Angeles band The Warlocks; solo recording artist Miranda Lee Richards; Matt Tow (formerly of Drop City), founding member of Australia's answer to the BJM, The Lovetones; Brian Glaze, solo artist and member of psych rock band, The Gris Gris; and David Koenig of Spindrift and the Clean Prophets.
Current long-term members include Collin Hegna and Frankie "Teardrop" Emerson. Long-time guitarist Ricky Rene Maymi was recently replaced by Irina Yaikowsky, who was in turn, replaced by Ricky Rene Maymi.
Much has been made of the fact that Newcombe is head-strong and has just one vision in mind: his own. However, many of the musicians who quit his band have stayed in his orbit and continue working with him in some capacity. Newcombe was, at one point, a drummer in Hecksher's Warlocks. Campanella produces or engineers many of the records on Newcombe's record label, the Committee to Keep Music Evil. Gion is forever showing back up shaking the tambourine at BJM shows. Ricky Rene Maymi was a drummer in an early incarnation of the band, then came back playing guitar several years later, and has since quit and rejoined the band at least once. Even The Dandy Warhols appear to have buried the hatchet with Newcombe, as he joined them onstage at Lollapalooza in July of 2005.
[edit] The name The Brian Jonestown Massacre Logo. The Brian Jonestown Massacre Logo.
Newcombe's art is heavily influenced by the surrealist techniques of pastiche and image appropriation, and this influence is readily apparent in the name and logo of the band. The Brian Jonestown Massacre is a portmanteau of the name of original Rolling Stones guitarist Brian Jones, and the infamous mass cult suicide at Jonestown, Guyana. The name was also a reaction against a trend toward monosyllabic band names at the time, in particular the British band Ride. [citation needed]
Newcombe's interest in cults like that of Jim Jones and Charles Manson is well-known, and made quite plain by songs such as "The Ballad of Jim Jones" and "Arkansas" (written by, and supposedly performed with, Charles Manson.) Similar interests include a fascination with the Masons.
[edit] The music
The first BJM album, 1995's Methodrone approximates the UK shoegazing genre. Their second, Take it From the Man! is reminiscent of the majority of the Rolling Stones' sixities catalog. By their third album,Their Satanic Majesties' Second Request (a homage to the Stones' 1967 album entitled Their Satanic Majesties' Request), they began the pastiche of '60s psychedelia that has characterized most of their music. Even the incorporation of influences from world music such as Middle Eastern and Brazilian music seem to be filtered through the matrix of their '60s heroes, who also include The Beatles, The Velvet Underground, Donovan, The Byrds and Bob Dylan.
The album track Jesus from Their Satanic Majesties' Second Request is extremely reminiscent of the early Spacemen 3 sound on The Perfect Prescription.
Stylistic divergences have occurred. A country/roots rock approach was applied to the Bringing it All Back Home - Again EP (another homage title, this time to Dylan), and electronic music crept into 2003's And This Is Our Music, whose title (a reference to a 1990 album by Galaxie 500) betrays much more recent influences. Thank God For Mental Illness displays a stripped-down sound, relying mostly on voices, and acoustic guitars. This is a format that Newcombe has occasionally resorted to presenting live during times of transition in the band.
The most recent BJM release is the mini album We Are the Radio.
[edit] Trivia
* BJM and former (?) friends/rivals The Dandy Warhols were the subject of the acclaimed documentary DiG! - [1].
* "You Look Great When I'm Fucked Up" was featured in the last minutes of Episode 5 of the British comedy/drama television series Skins which was shown on E4.
* "Not if You Were the Last Dandy on Earth" appeared in the Jim Jarmusch film Broken Flowers - [2].
* Jarmusch also appears as the centre shot on the front cover of the BJM album, Bravery, Repetition and Noise.
* "Going to Hell" appeared in the 1999 film American Pie - [3].
* "Open Heart Surgery" appeared on the soundrack to the TV series Rescue Me.
[edit] Descendants
* Black Rebel Motorcycle Club * The Warlocks * The Out Crowd * The Quarter After * The Dilettantes * Dead Meadow * Spindrift (band * Sarabeth Tuceck * Miranda Lee Richards * Sky Parade * The Peoples Temple Of Godstar Children * Frankie Teardrop
The band has also influenced many other indie bands noted in the Brian Jonestown Massacre Covers Project - [4].