John Sinclair
MC5
Detroit
John Sinclair
MC5
Detroit
John Sinclair
MC5
Detroit
John Sinclair
MC5
Detroit
John Sinclair
MC5
Detroit
John Sinclair
MC5
Detroit
John Sinclair
MC5
Detroit
John Sinclair
MC5
Detroit
John Sinclair
MC5
Detroit
John Sinclair
MC5
Detroit
John Sinclair
MC5
Detroit
John Sinclair
MC5
Detroit
John Sinclair
MC5
Detroit
John Sinclair
MC5
Detroit
John Sinclair
MC5
Detroit
John Sinclair
MC5
Detroit
John Sinclair
MC5
Detroit
John Sinclair
MC5
Detroit
John Sinclair
MC5
Detroit
John Sinclair
MC5
Detroit
John Sinclair
MC5
Detroit
John Sinclair
MC5
Detroit
John Sinclair
MC5
Detroit
John Sinclair
MC5
Detroit
John Sinclair
MC5
Detroit
John Sinclair
MC5
Detroit
John Sinclair
MC5
Detroit
John Sinclair
MC5
Detroit
John Sinclair
MC5
Detroit
John Sinclair
MC5
Detroit
John Sinclair
MC5
Detroit
John Sinclair
MC5
Detroit
John Sinclair
MC5
Detroit
John Sinclair
MC5
Detroit
John Sinclair
MC5
Detroit
John Sinclair
MC5
Detroit
John Sinclair
MC5
Detroit
John Sinclair
MC5
Detroit
John Sinclair
MC5
Detroit
John Sinclair
MC5
Detroit
John Sinclair
MC5
Detroit
John Sinclair
MC5
Detroit
John Sinclair
MC5
Detroit
John Sinclair
MC5
Detroit
John Sinclair
MC5
Detroit
John Sinclair
MC5
Detroit
John Sinclair
MC5
Detroit
John Sinclair
MC5
Detroit
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The Cooters have been a pain in the ass for the nervous authorities who rule the little college town of Oxford, Mississippi since the release of their first recording, a 7” disc on the Assault With Intent To Free label with “Crusty (The South Shall Burn Again!)” on one side and “I Don’t Know!” on the flip, in 1994.
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The single was sleeved with a striking photograph of a hooded youth apparently preparing to hurl a Molotov cocktail at the county courthouse on the town square, an image that struck fear in the hearts and bowels of the local establishment.
But the Cooters were already known to the forces of law and order from their weekly series of wild parties at
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the infamous Cooter Family Estate on Highway 334 in Lafayette County the previous year. By their final show on the last night of 1993, the cops had already been busting up every single party.
The Cooters moved their headquarters to a place near Abbeville, Mississippi known as "The Funny Farm" and began to formulate their ferocious songs of world domination from there. For the next ten years they have ravaged Mississippi and the South, touring with abandon and causing trouble nearly everywhere they go.
The Cooters first hooked up with their brother Bomber (Brad Boatright) in 1995-96 and cut the sides that were released on their first CD, Invasion of The Cooters, then teamed with a strange preacher called Reverend Eloy Alfaro who delivered fiery sermons on the virtues of chaos and psychotic anarchy until the day he was snatched up and shipped back to the schizophrenia clinic in Detroit from which he had apparently escaped.
Left to their own devious devices since 1997,The Cooters have kept hammering away at the hostile world around them, wreaking havoc on an endless string of audiences and leaving behind evidence like their exceptional 2002 compact disc for T-Bones Records, "The Moon Will Rise Again," recorded by Rick Clark at Ardent Studios in Memphis.
Now The Cooters are back on disc again with their self-titled new album, produced with current co-conspirator Tomas Chaos (Tom Queyja) and including music from sessions made with metal guitar madman Max Hipp. Except for Tait Graves’ “Society Sets The Stereotype,” sung by Raw Cooter, and Max Hipp’s words for “Woo Lord!” (sung by Tomas Chaos), all the lyrics were composed by Newt Cooter and the music created in collaboration by Newt, Raw and Judas Cooter.
Newt gets most of the lead vocals, raging and clawing at his listeners and riding the pounding rhythms thrown up behind him by the band. Mercy is simply not in the picture, and from the first cut to the last it’s just like the Cooters say: “We make music like it's meant to be heard—loud and proud with blood and sweat to burn.” They’ve got it turned up flaming hot, and—the authorities be damned— there’s no way to stop them now.
—John Sinclair
Detroit
August 3, 2004
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Raw Cooter and John Sinclair, February 24, 2005.
Photo by Will Bet-Sayad.
Poet, blues and jazz historian, former manager of the MC5, radio host, and political activist all describe John Sinclair, but the consistent profile is one of a dedicated music enthusiast. Sinclair was born October 2, 1941, in Flint, MI, where he discovered rhythm & blues radio as a grade schooler. Disc jockeys like the Frantic Ernie D possessed the gift of consistently being able to speak in rhyme. His initial exposure to this music and unique banter had a life-altering effect on Sinclair. Upon graduation of high school he attended Albion College, University of Michigan at Flint, and went to graduate school at Wayne State University in Detroit for an M.A. in American Literature — he did his graduate thesis on William S. Burroughs' Naked Lunch — before dropping out in 1965.
Throughout college Sinclair became enamored with jazz, embracing not only bebop but also the burgeoning avant-garde. Sparked by the love of this music, Sinclair took notice of the surrounding political culture that formed it. He heard Malcolm X speak, sided with the emerging antiwar movement, and had been introduced to a beatnik lifestyle. The combination of influences led to the creation of the Detroit Artists' Workshop, which would gradually morph into Trans Love Energies. Forming a commune with like-minded friends, they brought film, music, painting, and literature to anyone in the community who was interested, presenting art as universally tangible, not an unknown entity wrapped in an academic elitist shield.
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In the midst of these high-energy surroundings, Sinclair was first introduced to the MC5 and thereafter worked with the band as manager. In the midst of this creativity, the Detroit Riots took place in the summer of 1967. Coupled with years of police harassment aimed at the workshop, the tension forced Sinclair and friends to take refuge in the college town of Ann Arbor, MI. After setting up a similar communal situation in Ann Arbor, Sinclair followed the lead of the Black Panther Party and created their counterpart, the White Panther Party. The MC5 provided the musical vehicle for "total assault on the culture" propelling radical political statements to a national audience through rock & roll. The antagonistic rhetoric surrounding Sinclair found him among other political dissidents that were targeted by government officials.
| Sinclair was finally railroaded off to jail after giving away two joints to an undercover narcotics agent. Since this was his third conviction on similar offenses, Sinclair received the maximum sentence of ten years. While in prison, the Free John campaign was founded and culminated in a benefit concert to get Sinclair released. Taking place in Ann Arbor, the benefit featured Phil |
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Ochs, Stevie Wonder, Allen Ginsberg, Bobby Seale, and the main attraction, John Lennon and Yoko Ono. Lennon took up Sinclair's plight on the suggestion of newfound friends and radicals Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin. He even wrote a song about the case, "John Sinclair," that was released on the Sometime in New York City album.
Three days after the concert took place, the Michigan Supreme Court overturned his conviction and Sinclair was released from prison after serving two years. A thorough investigation into these years of revolution was chronicled by Sinclair in his book Guitar Army, originally published in 1971 and featuring many sections written while in prison. Following his release, Sinclair hesitantly got back into music management and promotion, despite feeling burned by the MC5, who had discharged his services immediately when he went to prison; they dropped the White Panther rhetoric, made two more albums, and self-destructed in 1972.
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Meanwhile, Sinclair co-founded the Rainbow Multi Media Corporation and the Ann Arbor Blues and Jazz Festival. When the funding for these projects ran out, he turned his attentions to local grassroots community issues, hosted radio shows, worked for NORML as state coordinator, and continued freelance writing for various publications. In 1991 the lifelong Michigan resident moved to New Orleans. The eclectic music scene flourishing in the Crescent City provided a rejuvenating base for the development of his spoken word poetry performances, backed by his band the Blues Scholars. He also started broadcasting at the award winning jazz and heritage radio station WWOZ.
1994 found Sinclair releasing his first musical project If I Could Be With You, featuring the Ed Moss Society Jazz Orchestra, from a performance in Cincinnati. In 1995 another live piece Full Moon Night was issued, this time featuring the Blues Scholars from a date at Kaldi's Coffeehouse in New Orleans, containing a freer musical backdrop more in tune with Sinclair's poetic style. Full Circle followed in 1996, reuniting Sinclair with early Detroit cohorts former-MC5 guitarist Wayne Kramer and former-trumpeter of the Contemporary Jazz Quintet Charles Moore. The labor of love tribute to pianist Thelonious Monk, Thelonious: A Book of Monk, followed after years of red tape hassles, featuring Sinclair reciting his poetry sans musical accompaniment. In the late '90s, Sinclair also started digging through his taped archives of early Ann Arbor Blues and Jazz Festival performances releasing discs by Sun Ra, Victoria Spivey, Roosevelt Sykes, Little Sonny, and various obscure Detroit blues artists.
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By John Sinclair
Detroit
August 3, 2004
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