Left Coast Observatory

Just viewed a documentary about the rock group hailing from Detroit, the MC5. Their music and their image has always been important to me. Though I never got to see them perform as a group, I think I have seen each of the individual members in various groups in the years since their breakup.

It's funny, but I think my musical sensibility has always been pretty much nostalgic. Even as a teenager. There was something magical about the stuff from years before. This movie put me in mind of the times I grew up in, the late Sixties. The hair, the fashions-- it all looked like old family snapshots.

Revolution was in the air. The White House and the FBI were prone to spy on musicians. Cynicism began its ascent, with the assassinations of moderate leaders like King and Kennedy. One of my early memories is watching the light flicker on the eastern horizon as Detroit burned in 1967. But I wasn't really involved. I was only a kid. But from my perspective, the adult world was looking pretty spooky. I didn't have much direct information.

But I did hear music coming from my older siblings' rooms. Of course, there were the international heroes: the Beatles, the Stones, the Who, the Doors. But there were also the home boys: the Stooges, the SRC, Bob Seger and leading the pack, the MC5-- the loudest, the fastest, the tightest and most uncompromising of them all.

It was good, seeing these guys on the screen, doing their thing, and hearing their story. Things I thought were true were debunked, but certain things remained. But the power of the music never faltered. They really did kick out the jams.