A courageous conservationist speaks out ...

[Granny Gremlin]

I tried to get into the MC5 based on Patti Smith's obvious endorsement, but just couldn't dig it. It's a shame I bear as a punk that the best thing, IMO, to come from their career was being sampled by The KLF (and how good their T Shirt looked on Smith).  So yeah, GFR getting bigger than them totally makes sense to me.

Now the Stooges; them I' like.  Dolls were alright too.

[westen44]

GFR were no doubt the more organic, groovier band and better, more experienced individual players than MC5 though early Grand Funk was still a rough sounding, earthy affair (which was part of their appeal, but they honed their sound quite radically and quickly). I'm a great fan of GFR though I prefer their later phase with Craig Frost as added keyboarder.

That "proto-punk"-badge was in my impression attached to bands like MC5, Stooges and New York Dolls in hindsight (long after they had actually all split up) by British journalists (especially the NME) when punk raised its spiky head in the UK in 1976. Before that all these bands were simply considered "hard (or heavy) rock" bands,

the bland definition of hard (or heay) rock in my book being
mid- to uptempo music with a focus on distorted guitar riffs,

just not instrumentally very skillful ones. Sort of hard rock without the Cream-indebted virtuoso/improvisational component. But in the summer of 76 it was all of the sudden de rigueur as an up and coming Brit punk musician that you were of course weaned on MC5, Stooges and NYD records, when in fact - as the singer of Eddie & the Hot Rods once admitted - "none of us had actually heard these records, but saying instead that we grew up with The Rolling Stones, T. Rex, Bowie, Sweet, Status Quo, Led Zep, Deep Purple and Black Sabbath wouldn't have sounded nearly as cool".

Sex Pistols Svengali Malcolm McLaren had of course managed the New York Dolls (when they were already disintegrating after having failed to crack the US market with their first two albums), so he was always keen to point out a connection there.

One of the things which drew me to GFR was Mel Schacher's loud and aggressive bass.  There are actually people who seem to think bass can be too loud.  That is unimaginable to even think such a thing.  That's like saying a girl can be too pretty. 

[the mojo hobo]

This needs a "like" button.

[Granny Gremlin]

*like*

[uwe]

Mel was wonderful on bass, doubleplusgood!

[doombass]

Maybe you're on to something. The MC5 records had just about nothing below 180Hz.

[uwe]

That was only that one studio album where their nutty manager (John Sinclair) wanted an extremely bright, "it jumps at you from the turntable"-sound. The band themselves were distraught about the production. Was it Back In The USA or High Time, I don't remember ...

I remember hearing Kick Out The Jams for the first time in the mid-70ies - it was for me at that time the most aggressive, heaviest piece of music I had heard (and I was reared on Black Sabbath, Deep Purple and the Grand Funk Railroad Live album).

BÖC would do a credible version of it though the song (albeit non-political in nature) is invariably tied to MC5's pronounced counterculture shtick & John Sinclair's romantic/half-assed concept of lefty-anarchist ideology - BÖC aren't really a political enough band to do it justice. Also, I guess that preaching revolution and (by today's standards: slightly sexist) wild abandon when you're playing an Alembic bass raises general credibility issues. 



That's probably two more reasons why the MC5 didn't make it: They were overtly political (though GFR in their early days dabbled with counterculture too - before Farner's reborn christian beliefs and his "the only way to keep America free and Number One, is for every brother to have a gun"-nationalism set in) and then of course ... DRUGS!!!

[TBird1958]

I like the Presidents...But hey, Seattle and all.

[uwe]

I like the Presidents of the USA too!

Mostly. There are exceptions. Abhorrence spawned by common sense and general standards of human decency do trump my general well-disposition in specific cases. But that will all soon be in the past now, I'm just biden my time.

Returning to the subject of the song: very power-poppy! Do I get this right: He chords on two (?!) bass strings Lemmy-style strung on a regular SG guitar, i.e. short-short scale? Are the two strings tuned the same, in fourths, in fifths, in octaves? It sounds like power chords (i.e. fourths or fifths) to me in places. And does it go down to a low E or just a low A or B, baritone style?

Ah, this explains it somewhat ...

[TBird1958]

I don't think there's a total of six strings in use between those two guys! 

[Pilgrim]

Ya gotta love a group that works "Shout" into a gig like that!

[uwe]

Yup, they're spirited.

Brits would say "ebullient".

[Highlander]

Eh...? 

[uwe]

Unruly northern tribes. Even when they are not wearing kilts, they're still skirting mischief.

[Dave W]

I like the Presidents of the USA too!

Mostly. There are exceptions. Abhorrence spawned by common sense and general standards of human decency do trump my general well-disposition in specific cases. But that will all soon be in the past now, I'm just biden my time.

Returning to the subject of the song: very power-poppy! Do I get this right: He chords on two (?!) bass strings Lemmy-style strung on a regular SG guitar, i.e. short-short scale? Are the two strings tuned the same, in fourths, in fifths, in octaves? It sounds like power chords (i.e. fourths or fifths) to me in places. And does it go down to a low E or just a low A or B, baritone style?

Ah, this explains it somewhat ...

Chris used a .60 gauge string tuned to C# and a .36 tuned to G#