CD Details
- Released: March 11, 2002
- Originally Released: 1994
- Label: Alive Records
Entertainment Reviews:
Rolling Stone - 12/29/94-1/12/95, p.174
"...Nobody--not even young brutes like Bad Religion and the Melvins--does that Detroit-dementia thang like the original 5. The proof, if you still need it, is on POWER TRIP..."
Alternative Press - 3/95, p.81
"...This nine-song vault-clearing of rare live performances, demos and studio rehearsals opens your ears to the 5's more, um, exploratory side....POWER TRIP reveals a band joining revolutionary politics to liberating music you can party to, dude..."
Tracks:
- 1.Looking At You (Instrumental Version)
- 2.I'm Mad Like Eldridge Cleaver
- 3.Black To Comm
- 4.The Pledge Song
- 5.Head Sounds (Part Two)
- 6.Powertrip
- 7.I Put A Spell
- 8.Born Under A Bad Sign
- 9.I Want You
Product Description:
MC 5 includes: Wayne Kramer, Fred "Sonic" Smith (guitar).
Includes liner notes by John Sinclair.
Personnel: Rob Tyner (vocals, flute, percussion); Fred "Sonic" Smith , Wayne Kramer (electric guitar); John Sinclair (tenor saxophone); Michael Davis (electric bass); Dennis Thompson (drums).
Liner Note Authors: Dave Marsh ; Dave Segal; John Sinclair; David Fricke.
Recording information: Chez Flames Recording, New Orleans, LA (09/08/1968-??/??/1994); First Unitarian Church, Detroit, MI (09/08/1968-??/??/1994); Grande Ballroom, Detroit, MI (09/08/1968-??/??/1994); Head Sounds Studio, Ypsilanti, MI (09/08/1968-??/??/1994); United Sound Studios, Detroit, MI (09/08/1968-??/??/1994).
Photographer: Leni Sinclair.
Unknown Contributor Role: Keith Keller.
Arranger: MC5.
One of the more interesting (if not necessarily the most essential) of the posthumous MC 5 vault plunderings of the '90s, POWER TRIP is a rag-tag anthology of concert tapes, studio rehearsals, and outtakes, with a healthy offering of the band's (today rather quaint) political rhetoric (thank you, Brother Wayne Kramer). The bulk of the album is dedicated to some of the 5's more free-form numbers, including a few open-ended jams (like "Black to Comm") that were staples of their live show but never recorded officially. There's also a stupendously heavy version of the blues stanadard "Born Under a Bad Sign," plus the title tune, an early workup of the 10-years-ahead-of-its-time punk/funk/free-jazz fusion they later renamed "Skunk (Sonically Speaking)."
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