Mc5

While lacking the monumental impact of Kick Out the Jams, the MC5's second album is in many regards their best and most influential, its lean, edgy sound anticipating the emergence of both the punk and power pop movements to follow later in the decade. Bookended by a pair of telling covers - Little Richard's "Tutti Frutti" and Chuck Berry's "Back in the U.S.A." - the disc is as much a look back at rock & roll's origins as it is a push forward into the music's future; given the Five's vaunted revolutionary leanings, for instance, it's both surprising and refreshing to discover the record's emotional centerpiece is a doo wop-inspired ballad, "Let Me Try," that's the most lovely and gentle song in their catalog. The recurring theme which drives Back in the USA is adolescence, its reminiscences alternately fond and embittered - while cuts like "Tonight," "Teenage Lust," "High School," and "Shakin' Street" celebrate youth in all its rebellious glory…

Alongside their Detroit-area brethren the Stooges, MC5 essentially laid the foundations for the emergence of punk; deafeningly loud and uncompromisingly intense.
In 1969 they signed to Atlantic, where producer Jon Landau was installed to helm their second album, 1970's 'Back in the U.S.A.'; with their manager, political activist Sinclair out of the picture, jailed for possession of marijuana, the music's political stance vanished as well, with a newly stripped-down, razor-sharp sound replacing the feedback-driven fury of before. Jason Ankeny AMG

Sonic's Rendezvous Band - Sweet Nothing (CD 1998)
WV-IMG+CUE+LOG or MP3 CBR 320 | Complete Scanwork | 406 or 128 MB
Scorching live recording from the Second Chance, Ann Arbor, on April 4, 1978, +

Sonic's Rendezvous Band - City Slang (CD 1999)
WV-IMG+CUE+LOG or MP3 CBR 320 | Complete Scanwork | 525 or 170 MB
Live recording from various venues in 1978-79 that captures the band in full flight

In the Midwest during the 1970s, you would be hard-pressed to find a rock group with a more impressive pedigree than Sonic's Rendezvous Band, which brought together members of four key bands from the fabled Detroit/Ann Arbor rock scene of the late '60s – Fred "Sonic" Smith of the MC5, Scott Morgan of the Rationals, Gary Rasmussen of the Up, and Scott Asheton of the Stooges. Among fans of high-energy Michigan rock, Sonic's Rendezvous Band would – with the passage of time – become nearly as legendary as their forebears, but it would be years before listeners outside of the Midwest had much of a chance to hear their music; fate seemed to conspire against them while they were together, and one of the most talented and powerful acts of its day ended up releasing only a one-song single during its six-year lifespan.