MC5 On Track Short

<br/>Of all the loud, rebellious rock groups forged in the white heat of America's Motor City, MC5 were the most uncompromising. A high-octane force of nature, saluted now as punk pioneers, MC5 were streetwise Detroit factory rats, assembly-line escapees who lit the touchpaper on some of the most combustible rock'n'roll ever heard.<br/> It's 1968. An incendiary debut album fuses the raging pungency of free jazz with dislocated cosmic blues and brutally confrontational garage rock. A second will strip the music bare and become an ur-text for Britpunk. A third, exuding maturity and professionalism, will be widely praised. Yet by 1972, their advance ruptured by accident, deception and often self-sewn misadventure, MC5 are done.<br/> Despite the tendency to self-ignite, the distractions of activist tomfoolery and management seeking only a soundtrack to sedition, MC5's aim was pure: to get down, party and blow every other rock'n'roll band into insensibility. Now Richard Butterworth dissects MC5's chaotic, magnificent history, their records and the fevered countercultural ecosystem that spawned them: the speedfried music; the bristling posture; the duplicitous record deals; the corrosive drugs. And, of course, the significance of MC5's infamous catchphrase. So right now, it's time to ... kick out the jams, (brothers and sisters).<br/>