Hey fellow rockers,
Have I got a treat for you today. Check out these rare photos of the MC5 rocking out in West Park. My good friend Sean Carroll hooked me up with these pics. The story behind these photos is sort of strange. Back in the late 70's a friend of Sean's had to split town in hurry and gave Sean some stuff to hold onto for safe keeping. Unfortunately (or fortunately for us) his friend never returned for his stuff. Among the items was a roll of film simply dated May 1969. It ended up in a storage box at Sean's place for 40 years until one day after some spring cleaning he rediscovered the film roll and decided to see what was on there and had it developed. To his surprise the film contained photos of an MC5 performance at West Park in Ann Arbor from May 1969. Sean was gracious enough to pass some prints on to me, so now we can all enjoy!
Have I got a treat for you today. Check out these rare photos of the MC5 rocking out in West Park. My good friend Sean Carroll hooked me up with these pics. The story behind these photos is sort of strange. Back in the late 70's a friend of Sean's had to split town in hurry and gave Sean some stuff to hold onto for safe keeping. Unfortunately (or fortunately for us) his friend never returned for his stuff. Among the items was a roll of film simply dated May 1969. It ended up in a storage box at Sean's place for 40 years until one day after some spring cleaning he rediscovered the film roll and decided to see what was on there and had it developed. To his surprise the film contained photos of an MC5 performance at West Park in Ann Arbor from May 1969. Sean was gracious enough to pass some prints on to me, so now we can all enjoy!
Up first is a shot of (future) Stooges sax player
Steve Mackay performing with opening group Carnal Kitchen.
Steve Mackay performing with opening group Carnal Kitchen.
The MC5 take the stage!
Rob Tyner and Fred "Sonic" Smith
Wayne Kramer
The photo above of Rob Tyner is really interesting because one can see a teenage Deniz Tek in the audience wearing dark aviator sunglasses. I showed this photo to Deniz and he confirmed that this is him in the crowd.
Fred "Sonic" Smith
Wayne Kramer
Dennis "Machine Gun" Thompson
These next MC5 photos I purchased off of ebay a while back. Not sure who the photographer is but I believe these are from a show in Cleveland in 1968.
Finally here are some photos from the Rob Tyner Memorial Concert that took place Feb. 22, 1992. This was the last time that the group played together with Fred Smith. Photos by Brian (?)
Stay alive with the MC5!
-Chris
5 comments:
Is that Sean who had the "Isolated Rat Hearts "Fanzine? Frankie Palazolla had an instamatic photo of Fred and Wayne by themselves playing in the West Park bandshell, both plugged into the same Twin reverb amp. her folksinger sister took the photo IIRC.
I was at the Rob Tyner Tribute on 02/22-23/1992. There was loads of video equipment all over the place.
I have seen no video footage of that show. These few still pictures are the only thing that I have seen to date.
Lee Malaspina
I was at the Rob Tyner Tribute on 02/22-23/1992. There was loads of video equipment all over the place.
I have seen no video footage of that show. These few still pictures are the only thing that I have seen to date.
Lee Malaspina
Great pics! Just to comment on the second series of MC5 live pics: Wayne Kramer is playing his black Ampeg Dan Armstrong guitar in a couple of them and those guitars didn't exist before '69. They first came to prominence when Keith Richards used a couple on the Stones tour of late '69. So I think those pics would be from '69, probably late '69?
Saw the MC [3 of] 5 at Black Cat and they did Kick out the jams! Rock in Pax Rob Tyner & Fred 'Sonic' Smith!
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