Customer Reviews

Power Trip

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

While in Michigan I went to a record store where an old rocker form the good old days of the stooges and the 5, recommended this album to me. It really is all that. Far better than all of their studio albums, and right up there with all of the stooges albums. It has the big sound, and is pure punk rock. Like when I listen to this album I'm totally convinced that punk rock was invented by the MC5. I'll also say this, I gave this album 5 stars because I think that all of the material here is mind blowing but I'll also admit that 'Mad Like Eldridge Cleaver' isn't for everyone. First it's very angry, and second it goes way out there. Picture a basic blues riff like John Lee Hooker, that mutates into the most intense Sun Ra song you have ever heard. Well that is what this song is about. The rest of the album sounds primitive, but is like a bomb exploding. Even by today's standards there is no one rocking this hard. Long live rock.

This album compiles some of the MC5s most emotive, crowd destroying music available on CD. All songs are savage and raw, much closer to the Kick out the Jams live album than the two subsequent studio affairs when Electra were obviously looking for a commercial hit album. The vocal intesity on I'm mad.., I put a spell and I want you are beyond anything else I've ever heard, even Iggy Stooge during his primal beginnings, If anyone who's heard this version of I want you, cranked way up, can suggest anything of equal comparison, I'd like to hear it. Yes the sound is not like a studio album, but this is what the MC5 were really like, this was the energy of the time. Other live stuff worth checking out includes the Sturgis Armoury '68 cd and the Teenage Lust '70 cd (same as the Black to Comm and Looking at You cds on Repertoire), and of course Kick Out the Jams!!

The version of Black To Comm alone is worth every cent for this.This is one of my most played MC5 cds

Of the many John Sinclair-"produced" old tapes released on CD in past years, this is one of the worst. The sound quality is bad, the packaging is fair, the performances are average...you get the picture. It's difficult to listen to for a variety of reasons. There's even a warning on the CD for anyone who would take time to read it, stating this is raw material and directing newer MC5 fans away from it and to their 3 original albums. Take that advice and skip this mess.