MC5 Looking At You - Borderline (7inch, 45rpm, BC, RSD)

(Modern Harmonic) 2 tracks - Record Store Day release

(Modern Harmonic) 2 tracks, Record Store Day Veröffentlichung

On January 5th, 1968, the MC5 returned to United Sound—the Detroit studio where they recorded their debut single the previous winter – to document their quantum leap as a performing vengeance. Guitarists Wayne Kramer and Fred 'Sonic' Smith, singer Rob Tyner, bassist Michael Davis and drummer Dennis Thompson spent 1967 firing up their riot act almost weekly at the Grande Ballroom, upstaging visiting bands like Cream and Vanilla Fudge with their soul-revue charge, free-jazz improvising and street-mutiny message. The result on A-Square 333—made for $500 put up by Grande promoter Russ Gibb, issued by manager John Sinclair on that Ann Arbor label without asking the guy who ran it, Jeep Holland —was unhinged confrontation, so overloaded with reverb and distortion that it sounded like Detroit itself: a city of revolutiqnary youthquake  and black outrage, nearly burned to the ground by civil violence that July.

In a 1966 live recording, the MC5 played 'Looking at You' like Motown raga. At United Sound, the band hit the zigzag riff at light speed and stayed there, framed by searing lead guitar and explosive drumming. 'Borderline' was a frantic jigsaw of power-chord jolts and sheet-like harmonies detonated again, at the Grande, for the live recording of the MC5's first LP, Kick Out the Jams. 'Looking at You' would return too, fierce and sleek, on 1970's Back in the U.S.A.. But A-Square 333 was the MC5's truest moment in a studio: power and insurrection, barely under control and daring you to hang on tight. —David Fricke Rolling Stone/Sirius XM