Yvonne Gallagher Sep 10, 2020:

@ Michael, very long fed-up sigh last thing I'm saying on this as I don't like your dismissive attitude at all. I went to my first concert at 14 as my older brother was roadie to a rock band, wrote for music magazines and was running discos at 16. I saw ALL the great bands and performers in concert, from 1965 right through the 60s and 70s. Still go to concerts a lot. Was also dancing in clubs from age 16 to bands like Skid Row/Thin Lizzy and Rory Gallagher. I was in Leningrad (St Petersburg) 3 times for around 11 days each time in winter to spring '81 /82 and it looked like itwas about 30 years behind the West in terms of fashion. Nothing to buy in the rouble stores. People were coming up to us in the street wanting to buy our clothes and boots. I spoke with quite a few Russians because I wasn't a tourist. I was working on a Canadian ship bringing (American) grain from Hamburg to there and we even got a tour from the Seafarers' Union as we were workers! We could wander freely and speak freely to people and we went to bars where there were "hostesses", in reality prostitutes, who told me some eye-opening stories. Anyway, this is all OT. "whipping up enthusiasm" only thing I can agree with, as in my answer

Althea Draper Sep 9, 2020:

John Sinclair - the band's manager - was the 'minister for information' for the White Panthers. Wayne Kramer, Fred Smith, Michael Davis, and Denis Thompson - the band members - were the 'ministers of war' for the White Panthers. All 5, plus J.C. Crawford were members of the White Panthers central committee. Also, as Michael Sarni says, Crawford wasn't an independent master of ceremonies he was part of the hangers on that were constantly around the band which included Pun Plamandon, 'minister of defense' . It has been said that they saw MC5 as a cash cow for the White Panthers. Much of the language used by them was of a religious origin but it was used in a political context as a call to rebellion (e.g. look at the White Panthers committee meeting minutes or Sinclair's liner notes). As time went on, band members began to regret becoming a political entity and wanted to distance themselves from the image of armed aggression as they faced pressure from local and federal law enforcement, the media, and their record label, and as they started to see that they had drifted from their ideal of a rock band.

Althea Draper Sep 9, 2020:

John Sinclair - the band's manager - was the 'minister for information' for the White Panthers. Wayne Kramer, Fred Smith, Michael Davis, and Denis Thompson - the band members - were the 'ministers of war' for the White Panthers. All 5, plus J.C. Crawford were members of the White Panthers central committee. Also, as Michael Sarni says, Crawford wasn't an independent master of ceremonies he was part of the hangers on that were constantly around the band which included Pun Plamandon, 'minister of defense' . It has been said that they saw MC5 as a cash cow for the White Panthers. Much of the language used by them was of a religious origin but it was used in a political context as a call to rebellion (e.g. look at the White Panthers committee meeting minutes or Sinclair's liner notes). As time went on, band members began to regret becoming a political entity and wanted to distance themselves from the image of armed aggression as they faced pressure from local and federal law enforcement, the media, and their record label, and as they started to see that they had drifted from their ideal of a rock band.

Michael Sarni Sep 9, 2020:

@Yvonne (with a sigh) To sort out personal stuff.
"I am probably older than you". Yet you failed to answer my direct question - when did you start going to rock concerts? There is a big difference between late 60s and 70s (and beyond). There's an excellent record of the watershed in Joan Didion's The White Album. Warmly recommended.
As for age, I think you are wrong. I am 71. I played guitar and bass in two popular bands in Kiev in late 60s and early 70s. Yes, it was behind the Iron Curtain. But we knew well what was going on 'on the other side'. I don't think many people in the West know about the rock culture in the USSR. There were things like official rock band competitions (e.g. Big Beat '68, organised by the people from the Kiev Young Communist League in Nov. 1968). Enough about that.

Are you talking about an English language situation here? A classroom setting? This was a rock concert. There was a band on stage, about to play the most violent music then available. And there was an MC, doing his stuff in the idiom he knew. He wasn't paid by the concert promoters. And he didn't care whether the audience was attuned to his message or not. He was doing his thing, whipping up people's enthusiasm.

Yvonne Gallagher Sep 9, 2020:

@ Michael I am probably older than you so don't try talking down to me at all about the 60s! I'd say I was at far more rock concerts and knew more of what was going on than you especially if you grew up behind the Iron Curtain. You are misunderstanding the English here and then bringing in extraneous material to try to back your case. I really disagree with your interpretation of this. I asked you a simple question which you haven't answered yet: Please explain what "witness the belief" means (to you)? What IS "the Belief" here? I repeat that this is an concert audience not a congregation in a church. There IS a difference you know!

Yvonne Gallagher Sep 9, 2020:

@ Andrea exactly! certainly not "preaching". And not a "religion" in the religious sense either

Althea Draper Sep 8, 2020:

J.C Crawford J. C. Crawford of the First Zenta Church of Ann Arbor, was the "spiritual advisor" to the band. If you read the whole speech/exhortation he made in this part of the concert, he also says, "I want everybody to kick up some noise, I wanna hear some revolution out there brothers, I wanna hear a little revolution" (in the parts missing from Ion's quote in the ellipsis). Later on in the concert, after the band performed 'Borderline' he came back out on stage again with an anti establishment message for the audience.

He was also the 'minister of religion' for the White Panthers, an "anti-racist political collective" (Wikipedia). So, if you read the whole of the speech, and knowing what was said later on in the concert, combined with his standing in the White Panther movement, and that 'brothers' and 'sisters' were the terms used by the White Panthers when speaking of their fellow members, then it looks a bit more of a call for support for the political movement than a call to follow his religion which was based around ritual use of weed and hallucinogens.

Michael Sarni Sep 8, 2020:

To clarify: preaching has indeed taken place This is taken from the in-depth notes on the album in question, Kick Out the Jams by MC5.
(http://makemyday.free.fr/33series.htm)
The paragraph preceding the quote presented by the asker:
"From the start , the crowd is pumped, carrying a higher change before the bands even takes the stage than most concerts generate with the encore. First comes the invocation by "spiritual advisor" Brother J.C. Crawford (aka John , aka Jesse), the encore as street preacher, merging James Brown's "Star Time" intro with a gospel call-and-response and a militant's call to arms:"
The album itself can be heard here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONGBe0QLj_M

Michael Sarni Sep 7, 2020:

60s cultural context MC's own words:
"The time has come for each and every one of you to decide whether you are gonna be the problem or whether you are gonna be the solution! You must choose, brothers!"
"Five seconds to realize your purpose here on the planet."
Isn't it preaching?
Music was promoted as a new religion for the Age of Aquarius.
Bibliography on the subject: https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1...