DETROIT ROCK N ROLL MAGAZINE: Michael Davis

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8.18.2018

MICHAEL DAVIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY: HOW I TOOK DOWN THE MC5!

Michael Davis passed away February 17, 2012 and 6 years later Cleopatra Records has released this book... I read it and I have say it was unvarnished and highly readable. The title is appropriate, but it took all 5 members for the high performance group to stop.

There are all of the deadly sins and quite a lot of humor in the telling of the MC5 and Mike's life. It is as honest as any autobiography I have ever read. Mike is hard on everyone he meets but just as hard on himself...I give it 5 stars as it is light years better than any of these "Detroit" rock books of late. RK

New Book By MC5's Bassist Michael Davis “I Brought Down The MC5” Now Available!

Los Angeles - Famed bass player from MC5, Michael Davis, takes us on a rollercoaster ride of triumph and tragedy in his superb new 350-page memoir titled “I Brought Down The MC5”! The book includes rarely seen photos and original artwork by Davis!

“I basically wanted to be the MC5. The attack! They were really on! They were brilliant!” - Lemmy

MC5 was an American rock band from Lincoln Park, Michigan, formed in 1964. The band line-up consisted of vocalist Rob Tyner, guitarists Wayne Kramer and Fred "Sonic" Smith, bassist Michael Davis, and drummer Dennis Thompson.

The MC5's ANTI-WAR political views, rebellious lyrics and complex music positioned them as emerging innovators of the activist musical movement in the United States. Their loud, energetic style of back-to-basics rock and roll included elements of rock, rhythm and blues, and jazz fusion. Quite a feat for 1966!

MC5 had a promising beginning which earned them a January 1969 cover appearance in Rolling Stone and a story written by Eric Ehrmann before their debut album was released. They developed a legendary reputation for energetic live performances, one of which was recorded as their 1969 debut album Kick Out the Jams.

In 1972, just three years after their debut record, the group disbanded. The MC5 is often cited as one of the most important American hard rock groups of all time.

Their three albums are regarded as classics, and their anthem “Kick Out the Jams” has been covered by Kid Rock, Presidents of the USA, Pearl Jam, Rage Against the Machine, Blue Oyster Cult, Bad Brains, and countless numbers of up and coming young bands.

“For me, Michael was the original cool guy... He belongs in the Hall Of Fame, along with his whole group, for their contributions to American music and its politics.” - Iggy Pop

CHAPTERS:
Intro
Sandals And Needles
The Apple Bites Back
Like A Rolling Stone
Everybody Must Get Stoned
I Can Only Give You Everything
Getting Down
The New York Minute
The Promise Is Broken
Atlantic Crossing
Out Of The Frying Pan
Into The Fire
The Bridge To Nowhere
Delirious Alcoholic Megalosaurus
Play With Fire
The Oven
The Mind Shifts
The Road With No Name
My Time After Awhile
Epilogue

To purchase Michael Davis's “I Brought Down The MC5” book

CLICK THE LINK BELOW:

I Brought Down The Mc5

5.16.2018

MC5 BASSIST MICHAEL DAVIS' NEW AUTOBIOGRAPHY RELEASED POSTHUMOUSLY

To purchase Michael Davis's “I Brought Down The MC5” book

CLICK THE LINK BELOW:

I Brought Down The Mc5

11.15.2016

LETS ALL VOTE FOR THE MC5 2017 ROCK HALL OF FAME INDUCTION!!!

GREAT News from AP just came in today that the Cleveland Rock Hall of Fame has once again nominated the Mighty MC5!!

The number of punk fans who can ID an MC5 song that doesn't begin with a profanity-laden promise of jam-kicking-out is ever-dwindling, but they still feel Important -- one of the defining names of proto-punk -- and no one would be tremendously surprised to find out they'd been a down-ballot inductee a decade ago without anyone really noticing. The Stooges are already in and the New York Dolls haven't been nominated in 15 years, the MC5 seems like a solid pick here.

VOTE FOR THE MC5 HERE

Legendary Drummer Dennis Thompson feels it is a great honor to be nominated with all the many greats of rock and roll history!

So all of you legions of MC5 fans get on all of your devices and let's share this story world wide... VOTE FOR THE MC5!!!!

AND A BIG SHOUT OUT TO HBO, MICK JAGGER, MARTY SCORSESE, AND TERENCE WINTER FOR USING KICKING OUT THE JAMS ON VINYL!!!
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1.27.2015

DESTROY ALL MONSTERS:SHINDIG! MAGAZINE ARTICLE IN ISSUE #45

destroy all monsters

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Shindig! Magazine Issue #45

www.shindig-magazine.com

submitted by Jon 'Mojo' Mills

“Motherfucker it’s comin’ out of your pay”

The genre breaking band DESTROY ALL MONSTERS featured a cast of Detroit deities including Mike Davis (The MC5) and Ron Asheton (The Stooges). COLIN BRYCE talks with them about art, noise and trees

The genre breaking band DESTROY ALL MONSTERS featured a cast of Detroit deities including Mike Davis (The MC5) and Ron Asheton (The Stooges). COLIN BRYCE talks with them about art, noise and trees

The Destroy All Monsters story began as an art project in around 1974 with the meeting of University Of Michigan (based in Ann Arbor) art students Mike Kelley, Jim Shaw, Carey Loren and front-person (most commonly known as) Niagara. Their love, respect and interest for all things trash, outside, artistic, unconventional, free, unfettered and noisy brought them together and paved the way for sonic excursions and sound treatments that should most probably be described as un-easy listening, or even – as a fitting tribute to their hero Godzilla – monstrous; unless of course you have an ear for that sort of thing. An artistic and musical mix up of Sun Ra (a Detroit area favourite), The Velvet Underground, Beefheart, comic books, Beardsley, Man Ray, countless B-movies (gangster, monster, exploitation) and a healthy distrust and distaste for authority and the mainstream and you’ll very nearly have a half-cup of the kool aid the Monsters were drinking.

After a close encounter at a one of their (very few) performances you may have found yourself in love with the bands mixture of cheap organs, effects, feedback, moaning, saxophone, violin, clanging, bashing, squealing, squalling and their interpretations of classics like ‘Nature Boy’ or even Sabbath’s ‘Iron Man’. Alternately you may have wished you skipped dropping that second hit of purple micro-dot.

“The art collaboration was a group of us that jammed in a basement for about a year,” explains Niagara. “No one ever heard or saw us, except at a college art show. The earlier stuff was quirky and funny, in an anti-music way. We invented noise music, so they say.”

Hiawatha Bailey is a long-standing face on the Ann Arbor/Detroit scene, a close friend of the band who worked as road crew/sound man for Destroy All Monsters. As a performer in his own right he also shared many bills as a member of The Cult Heroes. He recalls seeing an early DAM show at the college: “It was kind of ’50s beatnik and way out in a way.”

It is after the departure of founder members Shaw and Kelley that Larry and Ben Miller joined the Monsters and helped to set off a newer, jazzier and refined approach to the art sonics of the earlier incarnation. But it was once former Stooges and MC5 members Ron Asheton and (a freshly released from prison) Mike Davis joined the gang that all bets were off and Destroy All Monsters became a more fully-fledged rock band with Niagara front and centre sipping on her (now legendary) can of Tab, her wild mane streaked and piled atop her head, and dressed in some of the finest mini-skirts, heels and leopard print brassieres the budget of an aspiring artist will allow.

“Mike (Davis/MC5) and I were in together at Lexington,” recalls Hiawatha. “After I was released I ended up staying at a friend’s place at Whitmore Lake on about 100 acres... Mike came up there for New Year after being at his father’s place in Detroit... I had set up some space to play... More people ended up coming over and Ron told me about Niagara.” It was up at this property that the new high-energy version of Destroy All Monsters first began to get it together.

It is without doubt that the signing on of Ron Asheton and Mike Davis and their contributions musically brought Destroy All Monsters out of the artistic shadows and onto the much larger world stage. The increasing profile of all things “punk rock” and the influence of Asheton’s and Davis’s former bands on the new “punk” groups – even though their previous bands had only been broken up a few years at that point – allowed Destroy All Monsters to get their mugs in magazines like Creem, Rock Scene, Bomp and others. Asheton’s knack for a crafty, hypnotic riff and his experience working with one-of-a-kind front persons clearly also helped broaden Niagara’s often monochromatic vocal styling’s and appeal.

You could say that Ron and Mike brought a bit more “chrome” in general to the Destroy All Monsters camp (pun intended). As interesting as some of the ideas of the early DAM incarnation were they were still a group of young artists exploring and learning how to apply their chosen aesthetics. Nothing wrong of course with artistic experimentation and it certainly works for Destroy All Monsters on the early tracks like ‘From Edgar Cayce’ or ‘Silver Noise Kill Kill’.