A guest series by Steve McLean
Not all of the disputed band trademarks are controversial. Sometimes fans of the band are just glad that any version of their favourite artists exist. This is often the case when a group has a revival career.
I don’t think I need to go too hard on the history of the MC5, it’s well documented and I can add nothing to it. By 1972 the band were on their last legs. It’s hard to imagine the now near mythical MC5 as not being popular but music history is a strange mistress (for example: read the positive reviews of the 1996 Sex Pistols reunion from the time and then how the shows came to be poorly regarded by much of the same press). Like a lot of bands from the USA who have a downturn in fortunes, they toured Europe so they could enjoy larger crowds and a few more pay days.
The proto punk that terrified the industry less than five years before were now on slightly less credible circuit. Hello York Rowing Club! Hello Epping! Hello Scarborough with late transport back to Hull!
(1972 UK Tour press cuttings)
There was one ‘HELLO WEMBLEY” moment where the band appeared, somewhat curiously, on the a bill of 50s rock and roll stars at the old Twin Towers. The band made an ill-advised attempt at flirting with glitter rock, testing out a new sci-fi image. Their set was cut short after they were pelted with beer cans by the Teddy Boys in the audience.
(Poster for the Rock and Roll festival at Wembley Stadium.. there is a lot of crime on this bill)
During the tour, the group were reportedly in the process of making plans to relocate to mainland Europe and the UK. It was in the autumn when Rob Tyner and drummer Dennis Thompson and bass player Michael Davis decided to quit while Wayne Kramer and Fred Smith hired touring members to complete the remaining commitments.
The split meant that any hopes of the relocation and relaunch evaporated and by the end of the year, what remained of the group threw the towel in completely.
December 31st 1972 at the Grand Ballroom in Detroit the full line up of Tyner, Smith, Kramer, Thompson and Davis played together for a fee of $500. According to Splatt Gallery, the final gig went down like this; there were only a couple hundred people in attendance. About twenty minutes into their set, Kramer told Smith he couldn’t play anymore, they’d been paid in advance so he had his money, he unplugged his guitar, jumped off the stage, and, in his own words, “drove over to the dope house”
And that was that. Let’s all enjoy the seminal work from a band no one ever heard of again.
Except with all of these things, it absolutely wasn’t. In 1974 Kramer put a band together and called it the MC5. A line up of Mark Manko on rhythm guitar, Tim Schafe on bass, Bob Schultz on organ, and Frank Lowenberg on drums played gigs for drug money. The venue Humpin’ Hannah‘s in Milwaukee might sound like a redneck boob-bar but it’s still more rock’n’roll than the York Rowing Club (Rock’n’Row’l?).
Kramer’s time was up when he was busted for drugs and incarcerated until 1978.
When there is a dubious version of a band then the hardcore fans will often sway one of two ways… If it’s a later day member of the original group that keeps the band going then fandom with, with few exceptions, judge that member poorly. The previously mentioned Doug Yule copped a hell of a lot flack all through the 1980s and 1990s, before his side of events were truly told.
If it was a beloved member of the group that used the ‘New’ prefix then watch the fans scramble to justify or at least excuse the action. Read almost any Youtube comment section of The New MC5 from the late 1970s and you’ll see a load of comments about how the group was supposed to be billed as The Rob Tyner Band but in actual fact it was dishonest promoters who took advantage of Rob’s goodwill and billed the group as the New MC5. It sounds all very wholesome that Rob didn’t want to trade on his past and that it confirms all of our suspicions about the musicians we love being the good guys at odds with an industry that is trying to fuck them at every turn .
It’s also absolute bollocks.
“So first off this was not a MC5 tribute band it was never intended to be, Rob just decided to use the name New MC5. It was never once called the Rob Tyner band or ever billed as such”Ralph Serafino drummer. The New MC5. Via Email 2024.
Arguably the MC5 were the first punk band. The meshed garage rock with politics. Rob had spent years trying to gain a place for the band so when punk became a movement in the late 70s who could frankly blame him for reactivating a version of the band. Blondie, The Ramones and all the other CBGBs movement were singing their praises… All of the bands that came after them made a dollar off the MC5’s ground breaking work. Why shouldn’t Rob too?
It seems that it was no nostalgia show put together to please the safety pin set. Rod still had artistic dreams so the show featured only a few of what could be considered MC5 ‘classics’
“We only did three or four MC5 tunes in our set. We were a new original music band. We would generally open the show with 19th Nervous Breakdown by the Stones and end with Kick out the Jams, but we had a whole lot of new original music” Ralph Serafino drummer. The New MC5. Via Email 2024.
Incidentally there are a couple of MC5 bootleg live albums that have been released over the years that were actually recorded by the Tyner led group and erroneously marketed as the original group, If you have a live album with 19th Nervous Breakdown on then it’s almost certainly The New MC5 on the record.
Another piece of duplicity that seems to be norm in these circumstances is that local promoters would be selective on billing the band. Some would be happy to use the New MC5 but there are also records of The MC5 Featuring Rob Tyner, The MC5 Detroit and predictably, just The MC5.
One notable gig in 1980 found them billed as The MC5 Detroit opening for Deep Purple (who themselves should have been billed as The New Deep Purple Featuring Rod Evans.) Rod Evans was the original Purple singer who had decided to chance his arm with a Deep Purple tour.
Money is often considered the motivation for such an enterprise in the industry. That may be true but not in the sense of ‘getting rich’ but more akin to the notion of ‘paying rent’.
The problem with touring a band with a name but without any record label support is that they have no other revenue streams other than live shows. They have all the expenses of popular outfit, including insurance and security and road crew. So the band without a label would likely have to play more gigs than a band with one, to make up the cash shortfall. Serafino’s memories of this time betray just how exhausting the constant touring was.
“(We) did some shows in Canada, but I really don’t recall playing with Deep Purple, but that’s not to say that we didn’t. We were doing a lot of gigs with different bands every night, so I wasn’t really paying a lot of mind to that at the time. I do remember one particular Canadian show, I believe it was a rock festival of sorts where we had to wait for hours to go on, it must have been running late or something, and that could have been the Deep Purple show.” Ralph Serafino, The New MC5 / MC5 Detroit.
Serafino paints a bleak picture of the slog a working band must undertake to make a living. Although anyone who attended that show had a great story to tell about two very unique line-ups of legendary bands.
The New MC5 toured for over three years, surviving on the continued interest from the new wave scene. They found themselves added to festivals and playing support to notable larger acts. Promoters shrewdly recognising that the MC5 name was of interest to the casual fan even if the hardcore had trouble with the billing.
“One night we opened for Blue Oyster cult, and they came to our dressing room to find out what the lyrics to Kick out the Jams because they covered it, I said to then you aren’t doing that tonight are you?” Ralph Serafino drummer. The New MC5. Via Email 2024.
BOC’s version of KOTJs was recorded in the late 1970s and finally released in 2024’s album Ghost Stories. It’s a decent but who out there thinks they can do this one better than the original?
mp3: Blue Oyster Cult – Kick Out The Jams
From the time the MC5 had broken up to the formation of the New MC5, the rock world had started to massively change, both morally and artistically. The new decade heralded a whole new world of merchandise and sponsorship. The music industry was increasingly less about music and more about industry. It would be interesting to hear what the counter-culture Rob Tyner of the late 1960s made of the early 80s Rob Tyner who headlined a festival sponsored by McDonalds..
(1980’s Music Festival Advert sponsored by McDonalds)
It’s fair to say that rock’n’roll is filled with duality, especially when people have bills to pay. Ritchie Blackmore of Deep Purple had a lot to say about Rod Evans reactivating the DP name in the 1980,
“I think it’s pretty disgusting that a band has to stoop this low and take somebody else’s name. It’s like a bunch of guys putting together a group and calling it Led Zeppelin. I don’t like this at all.” Ritchie Blackmore, Rolling Stone magazine, August 1980
But it seems he wasn’t so disconcerting when it came to the bands picked to support him.
“Also, we did do shows with Richie Blackmore’s Rainbow, those were killer shows.”Ralph Serafino drummer. The New MC5. Via Email 2024.
One thing that has become evident to me as I delve into more of these stories; the clapback against the ‘New’ version of a band from the original members is often only really noticeable when others insist it should be. In other words when a fan-base or a body of journalists make enough noise about it. Most of the time the other members of the original group are happy just to live and let live, especially if they want to get on with their own thing. I’ll bet you Hugh Cornwell formerly of the Stranglers is actually pretty glad that there’s a band out there playing the Stranglers hits. It means he doesn’t have to.
Unlike with other ‘New’ acts, there’s no gory court case from the other original members of The MC5. There was no real muck slinging or public fall out. The band’s record label weren’t bothered since the back catalogue was rarely in print and if the other members were bothered by Tyner’s actions it was certainly not enough to spring for lawyers that they almost certainly couldn’t afford.
The New MC5 just kind of fizzled out in the early 1980s. Tyner later re-emerged during the decade in several outfits like “Rob Tyner & the National Rock Group” and “Stev Mantiev” a band who were comprised of Vietnam vets.
By end of the decade Rob and the band were being held in the mainstream esteem which they deserved. By 1990. it wasn’t just the cool hipsters that were name checking them as an influence but absolute raging gobshites like Bono were also singing their praises. The MC5 records were being reissued and he was in demand again.
Tyner passed away in 1991 of a heart attack that also killed off any hopes of a proper reunion. The remaining four members played a tribute show to him in 1992. Fred Smith followed Rob to the afterlife in 1993.
They reunited as a trio in 2003 as DTK – MC5 playing with a revolving door of special guests before settling on a line up that including Gilby Clark of Guns’n’Roses and the ironically titled Handsome Dick Manitoba from the Dictators. They lasted until 2012 when Davis passed away. They were the most stable line up of the MC5.
In 2018 Kramer went out again this time as the MC50 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the band. It was really just Wayne Kramer and pals… Guests included Don Was of Was Not Was, Stephen Perkins of Jane’s Addiction and Billy Gould of Faith No More. In 2024 he released an album called Heavy Lifting, it was a de facto Kramer solo album with star name guests like Slash and the guy from RATM that isn’t the shouting one. Thompson did play on a handful of the songs but his ‘featuring’ credit on the album tells a story.. Can’t Be Found has the most MC5 feel, albeit a sanitised version for the 2020s. It features Thomson and Vernon Reid from Living Colour.
mp3: MC5 – Can’t Be Found
Kramer didn’t live to see the album release, passing from cancer in February 2024 and Thompson joined him a few months later of a heart attack. We have no classic MC5 members left but every member of Mumford and Sons is still with us, which doesn’t seem fair.
As well as the live album mentioned above there have been multiple bootlegs of the Tyner’s new MC5. A good way to hear the band legally was on a release by the Japanese label ‘Captain Trip.’ In 2007 they released an album from the New MC5 under the title Rob Tyner Band. It was recorded in 1977 and he’s backed by Robert Gillespie lead guitar, Ralph Serafino drums, Mike Marshall bass and Billy Wimble guitar. The sound quality is iffy but it’s great document of the time.
The show can also be found here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejDUcBjPFeo
I’m going to pick a Tyner song to end the blog; in 1977 he recorded a single with the Hot Rods (without Eddie) called Till The Night Is Gone.
mp3 : Rob Tyner and The Hot Rods – Till The Night Is Gone
I’d like to thank Ralph Serafino for taking the time to answer my email.
THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN 