Detroit Rock City by Steve Miller Read Free Book Online Page B

basement of Trans-Love. And now they’re worth thousands—what did we know? We were all so freakin’ high, no one thought about any kind of future after the revolution.
    Becky Tyner: We only had money for groceries and for laundry and cleaning. And we would sew. Wayne’s girlfriend, Chris, Fred’s wife, Sigrid, and I all got sewing machines. Making clothes for the bands and anyone else. I made a pair of pants for Iggy that was out of a vinyl material. I made those while we were living in Ann Arbor. And you know we would fit the pants to the person and to make them really, really tight. Gotta be tight. And Iggy was really insistent on them being very low. So at the end the top of the pants came right at his hair line. From what I understand, it was that he was playing in those pants and his little thing came out—I guess I shouldn’t say “little thing.” His organ kind of slipped out of the top of the pants.
    John Sinclair: The band was always on; they looked good too. They come out an hour after they were supposed to and then they played a great set, you know. It was always just real straight ahead rock and roll, man. And they would end with playing “Black to Comm,” where they just go totally out from the first time I saw them. That was how they ended their show—that was Tyner’s concept. Different every night. It was just an incredible thing. Incredible.
    Russ Gibb: MC5 played “Black to Comm” the first time at the Grande Ballroom. I had just had two strobe lights made for me by the guy who made them for BillGraham. And so this night the MC5 figured them out, and I walked into the ballroom and they were playing “Black to Comm” using them. It was like some far out, Middle Ages village, with people dancing without shoes in this horrifying stop-motion flicker, and it was almost like no one understood what was going on but just reacting. The room was vibrating and the feedback was screeching, and my audience was reacting.
    Wayne Kramer: It took three seconds to write “Black to Comm.” We were experimenting with this sound, and Fred found a way to play this chord in this big amp—it was just thunderous. This was before Michael and Dennis were in the band, and we had a great rhythm section. They were a package: they had worked together before, and they were terrific; they really powered the MC5. But they were conservative guys—no experimental anything. And we were all taking acid and listening to Sun Ra, and they just weren’t down. Fred was a provocateur, and he knew they could really irritate the drummer by playing this riff, and one night on the job Fred played the riff, and eventually the drummer gave in and played along with it; it all came together, and that was the song. We all started improvising our parts; the bass player was just swinging.
    John Sinclair: They’d set up “Black to Comm” with “I Believe to My Soul” by Ray Charles. And then that would end with a huge ending, and then they’d go on to doot doot doot (humming the beginning) and they’d start with that “Watch your world come down,” and then it would just go, and Tyner would make up lyrics and they would make up parts—saxophones would come in, and they would all just get crazy.
    Robin Sommers: The first album on Elektra everyone was really excited to get out there. You know, we had this LP that said, “Kick out the Jams, Motherfuckers.” Gary Grimshaw had done the cover with a pot leaf. That’s what we wanted. Elektra hated that as well as the dope smoke that looked like it was in front of the American Flag. But Elektra’s cover sucked. I mean, there was a picture of Bruce Botnick in the corner, on the cover. Why? Because he was an executive at Elektra. Then there’s another executive, Jac Holzman, with a suit on the front. The faces of all the kids in the audience are blurred because Elektra thought