MC5
Kick Out The Jams

THE REVIEW

What a Shame 

I was reading, just a few minutes ago, about a complete rejection of today's society, its structures, its customs, its trappings. A criticism that is certainly understandable, yet incredibly false in content. Undoubtedly, we have much to complain about, everything around us, in our reality controlled by GPS and a thousand other satellites that monitor our every move and keep track of our every movement, without our beloved powerful ones, and their media services, changing their smiling expression to inform us. Of course, knowing how many times we go to the toilet each day might prove useful, for the sake of a potential interrogation.

Doesn't it seem like a nightmare? Doesn't it seem like we are living it too calmly? I wonder why we sometimes still feel that thrill, that adrenaline, in doing certain things, in planning, in action. We are incredibly foolish to continue living every day in the same way, to serve and foster a system more idiotic than us, to rejoice in our brands. Only now do I realize this dichotomy between what we know to be right and what we do.

The saddest, most shameful aspect of the matter is that we are the children of a generation that was the first to raise its head, chant its slogans, loudly express its indignation and anger. The '68 was a miserably wasted opportunity. I remember my grandfather talking about kids going to school armed, the vibrant atmosphere of that era, the sense of impending changes that, month after month, year after year, never came. Sexual revolution? Let's not tell ourselves stories. Most of the sixties' activists ended up in devouring and parasitic companies, which base their profits on the exploitation of human and natural resources. Opportunists. Even my grandfather, against his will, gave in.

One of those who believed in it was John Sinclair. A true "gray eminence" of the MC5, Sinclair from Detroit etched a part of last century’s history among the grooves of this unforgettable live album. Screams, incredible riffs, outbursts between punk and something else, a scorching magma of anger and desire to be united. Bearers of the "torch of Guccinian anarchy," in a way, the MC5 represents what the world could have been today. Not a commune, of course, but a fundamentally different entity. His naive yet so heartfelt sermons on revolution, awakening, on being proud of one's identity as social agitators, still offer a particular feeling. Listening to them, it's hard not to nod and smile, and think about how to make a change,

Perhaps there's nothing left to do, many say. A civilization that tends towards self-destruction logically loses the acquired supremacy and the privilege of existing. But in the depths of your heart, don't you feel an irresistible urge to unite and participate in something new, something better? I'm tired of putting on my grandfather's leather jacket and thinking about what I could have done if I had lived in that era.