On the day I passed my driving test almost 30 years ago – almost 30 years ago, oh my God – I was waiting for the bus home, as I didn’t actually own a car. I found £20 on the floor. Did I hand it in to the police station? Did I hell. I bought two albums with it. One was “What’s the Story Morning Glory?”, and the other was the debut album from the magnificent Presidents of the USA.
There was a cover of “Kick Out The Jams” on there, and I was 20 then, completely unaware of the MC5. So I investigated. Which leads me neatly to this: more MC50, a band I’d only ever seen once when they opened for Alice Cooper back in 2019. “10 More” was recorded on their tour in both Ohio and Germany, and it’s a 10-song companion piece to this year’s “10xMC5 Live”.
It bursts into life with “Call Me Animal,” all swing and raw heat, before they slip into a blues-drenched “I Believe to My Soul,” the sort of loose 60s shuffle only a band with nothing left to prove can pull off. There’s bluster and groove all over it. And if MC5 were a punk band, they’d sound something like this… but then again, punk bands didn’t really cover numbers like this with such ragged soul, did they?
“Rocket Reducer No. 62 (Rama Lama Fa Fa Fa)” is seven minutes of glorious chaos. Marcus Durant dedicates it to “my brother, your brother, everyone’s brother – Wayne Kramer,” and it’s the perfect moment of communion: one man shouting out another who has kept this music alive through sheer force of will.
Then “The American Ruse” appears, and it has absolutely no right to be 55 years old. It still snarls with the same political bite it had half a century ago. “Skunk (Sonicly Speaking)” feels like it’s been dusted off, rewired and plugged straight into the mains. “Teenage Lust” proves you can still believe in the dream even when you’re long past the age of living it, and on “Looking at You” they’re still yelling “we can change the world” like they mean it.
And can they? Billy Bragg says no. I say yes. Because if you can still move people – really move them – then you can change people. And change enough people and you beat the populists, you beat the racists, and everyone is better off.
“High School” is as reckless and ready-for-detentions as ever, while “Baby Won’t Ya” remains gloriously timeless. Then comes “Starship,” so trippy and spaced-out that it really does sound like the soundtrack to whatever acid feels like. I wouldn’t know, but I’m confident.
The MC5 legacy still lives on. I heard Patti Smith on Radio 4 recently talking about Wayne Kramer and about Fred “Sonic” Smith with such reverence and love that it made you look at the band in an even better light than before. Quite wonderful, really.
And if this is your entry point to them, then welcome. This is a fitting, vital document of the wild abandon they always conjured.
8.5/10
