back to dee-troit...again
old obsessions die hard.
between '97 and '02, i spent what lotsa folks would consider an inordinate amount of time researching the mc5 and the stooges, idols of my misspent yoof ('cos they made the who sound _tame_) who finally got proper recognition starting with the publication, in '93, of clinton heylin's from the velvets to the voidoids (the pre-punk history i've re-read more times than please kill me because, i suppose, i giveashit more about music than i do about anybody's sexual proclivities/substance abuse patterns). after five years of interviewing folks and chasing down every bit of minutiae i could in regard to said bands, i guess i kinda burnt myself out on the subject and didn't really listen to a lot of dee-troit stuff for a few yrs; was even kinda indifferent to the band reunions that commenced in 2003. this yr, however, after playing in stoogeaphilia, hearing the easy action sonic's rendezvous band box, and finally getting to peep the mc5: a true testimonial doc, i've gotten _re-obsessed_.
looking on amazon today, there's a sheeitload of books about da five 'n' stootches, so many in fact that it's enough to make one's head spin (myself, i'm holding out for ex-mojo editor paul trynka's igbook, fuck all the dumb shit), and an equally dizzying number of cd 'n' vinyl reishes (altho a sane 'n' sensible person would prolly just buy rhino's the big bang five comp and remastered funhouse and forget about all the rest). if you have any interest at all in this stuff, you should snap 'em up quick, 'cos just as the plethora of bootlegs in heylin's 'riginal discography was replaced by all those bomp/alive/total energy versions in his revised edition, so _those_ in turn have since been superseded by easy action's more-logically-sequenced boxsets and their vinyl versions on the italian get back label (kinda like xeric did with revenant's captain beefheart box a few seasons back). of those, i'd be most interested in get back's mc5 1965-1968 double elpee, which covers the trajectory from basement rehearsals through early singles (the era documented on total energy's '66 breakout) into pre-elektra sinclair/trans-love energies daze and is a lot more r&b-heavy than you might expect.
a reasonable way to approach the morass of five bootlegissimo is via easy action's single-disc best-o'-the-box purity accuracy, compiled by hardworking yukiko akagawa (owner-operator of the mc5 japan site; dig her splash page). opens with some outtakes from best five alb high time: "gotta keep movin'" is the same version that appeared on roir's babes in arms (from before rob figured out the lyric would work better if he slowed down his delivery); "baby won't ya" lets you hear fred's (inferior) vox and his pristine gtr track before wayne's overdubs were added; "sister anne" sounds like the high time version with better sound; "pledge song" is the same toon the salvation army band plays at the end of "sister anne," with different instrumentation. "train music" from the gold soundtrack anticipates saccharine trust as well as wayne's epitaph output. back in the u.s.a. is represented by "tonight" and rob's "human being lawnmower" (best track on that silly mistake of an alb besides "shakin' street"), followed by the "looking at you" single and miscellaneous live wonderment from the sinclair years, "black to comm" from saginaw, new year's '70, and "skunk" from the 2003 london "mc3" reunion show. not a bad hour's worth of noise.
between '97 and '02, i spent what lotsa folks would consider an inordinate amount of time researching the mc5 and the stooges, idols of my misspent yoof ('cos they made the who sound _tame_) who finally got proper recognition starting with the publication, in '93, of clinton heylin's from the velvets to the voidoids (the pre-punk history i've re-read more times than please kill me because, i suppose, i giveashit more about music than i do about anybody's sexual proclivities/substance abuse patterns). after five years of interviewing folks and chasing down every bit of minutiae i could in regard to said bands, i guess i kinda burnt myself out on the subject and didn't really listen to a lot of dee-troit stuff for a few yrs; was even kinda indifferent to the band reunions that commenced in 2003. this yr, however, after playing in stoogeaphilia, hearing the easy action sonic's rendezvous band box, and finally getting to peep the mc5: a true testimonial doc, i've gotten _re-obsessed_.
looking on amazon today, there's a sheeitload of books about da five 'n' stootches, so many in fact that it's enough to make one's head spin (myself, i'm holding out for ex-mojo editor paul trynka's igbook, fuck all the dumb shit), and an equally dizzying number of cd 'n' vinyl reishes (altho a sane 'n' sensible person would prolly just buy rhino's the big bang five comp and remastered funhouse and forget about all the rest). if you have any interest at all in this stuff, you should snap 'em up quick, 'cos just as the plethora of bootlegs in heylin's 'riginal discography was replaced by all those bomp/alive/total energy versions in his revised edition, so _those_ in turn have since been superseded by easy action's more-logically-sequenced boxsets and their vinyl versions on the italian get back label (kinda like xeric did with revenant's captain beefheart box a few seasons back). of those, i'd be most interested in get back's mc5 1965-1968 double elpee, which covers the trajectory from basement rehearsals through early singles (the era documented on total energy's '66 breakout) into pre-elektra sinclair/trans-love energies daze and is a lot more r&b-heavy than you might expect.
a reasonable way to approach the morass of five bootlegissimo is via easy action's single-disc best-o'-the-box purity accuracy, compiled by hardworking yukiko akagawa (owner-operator of the mc5 japan site; dig her splash page). opens with some outtakes from best five alb high time: "gotta keep movin'" is the same version that appeared on roir's babes in arms (from before rob figured out the lyric would work better if he slowed down his delivery); "baby won't ya" lets you hear fred's (inferior) vox and his pristine gtr track before wayne's overdubs were added; "sister anne" sounds like the high time version with better sound; "pledge song" is the same toon the salvation army band plays at the end of "sister anne," with different instrumentation. "train music" from the gold soundtrack anticipates saccharine trust as well as wayne's epitaph output. back in the u.s.a. is represented by "tonight" and rob's "human being lawnmower" (best track on that silly mistake of an alb besides "shakin' street"), followed by the "looking at you" single and miscellaneous live wonderment from the sinclair years, "black to comm" from saginaw, new year's '70, and "skunk" from the 2003 london "mc3" reunion show. not a bad hour's worth of noise.
posted by stashdauber at 6:17 AM
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