A love letter to Zip-Gun Teenage Punk Thunder from The Garage Band Appreciation Society, Maidenhead, May 1976
Just 18 catalogue entries separate the MC5’s Back in the USA and The J. Geils Band’s debut on Atlantic, released in March and December 1970 respectively. The matched pair share the same sleeve photographer, Stephen Paley, stripped back aesthetic and belief in full-throttle rock ‘n’ roll that spins out of the garage greased up, burning alcohol and smoking its own exhaust fumes.
The two albums were reviewed in Rolling Stone, in May ‘70 Greil Marcus covered the MC5; he thought Back in the USA a valid but flawed effort:
Phil Spector once talked about the difference between ‘records’ and ‘ideas’ – ‘The man who can make a disc that’s a record and an idea will rule the world’, he said in his typically moderate fashion. The MC5 album for the most part, remains an idea, because in the end it sounds like a set-up. ‘Teenage Lust’ and ‘American Ruse’ and ‘Human Being Lawnmower’ break through, and they belong on singles, and on the charts. All the way up the charts.
Bostonian, journalist and the MC5’s producer, Jon Landau reviewed The J. Geils Band’s debut in January ‘71. He loved it all:
The best album I’ve heard in sometime . . . It is a goodtime, modern piece of rock and roll; it is also totally devoid of the self-consciousness and pretentions that usually mar this kind of thing.
Where Back in the USA was all edgy, dry and hard-wired, the J. Geils album pulled in the oppositie direction with keys and harp filling out the middle and the upper reaches. The J. Geils Band’s choice of producers were Atlantic in-house Muscle Shoals and Critierion studio tyros Dave Crawford and Brad Shapiro, producers who brought the funk with them. Landau’s neophyte production of the MC5 careens into the corners and then skitters down the lanes. Crawford and Shapiro play for a less immediate impact. It is a more comfortable ride, but equally thrilling when they pile-in and threaten to spill out of control. Landau took what he heard here and used it to help shape the E. Street Band.
On the otherside of the Atlantic ocean, the matched pair's impact was most keenly felt in Essex, in its suburbs and in Southend and Canvey Island. Wilko Johnson was an admirer of the MC5 after witnessing their performance at Wembley in 1972. He was there backing Heinz, (you can catch him in the movie of the gig if you keep your wits about you. His hair is long, so be warned) and one of the few who wasn’t throwing cans at Rob Tyner. In April 1976, Eddie and the Hot Rods told the NME’s Max Bell that they were ‘bored to tears with long songs. We play short and punchy . . . We don’t want to be a heavy albums band. We come on with high energy . . to get the MC5 feel from Back in the USA, bang, two minutes, over and carry on.’ J. Geil’s ‘Hard Drivin’ Man ‘was a keynote cover version in their live set and in Lew Lewis they had, at least for a while, their own Magic Dick and his lickin’ stick.
The Feelgoods and Hot Rods never exactly hid their debt to either band, it’s written all over their lp sleeves.
The J. Geils Band’s ‘Wait’ was a Lew Lewis Reformer showstopper. Like J. Geils, the Feelgoods covered Otis Rush’s ‘Homework’ (on Stupidity), but the influence of the Beantown band on Canvey’s finest doesn’t really show through until Gypie Mayo gets on board. ‘Milk and Alcohol’ had copped its lyrical imagery from John Lee Hooker’s ‘It’ll Serve You Right to Suffer’ – “Your doctor put you on milk, cream and alcohol” – but they (and co-writer Nick Lowe) most likely nicked it from the J. Geils Band, who on their debut had taken the song uptown, downtown and all around. The whole of Be Seeing You, Otis Clay’s ‘Baby Jane most evidently, is cut from the same cloth .
Eddie and the Hot Rods finally got around to releasing ‘Hard Drivin’ Man’ on their second EP, about the same time as they backed Rob Tyner on his solo 45. Their keen pursuit of amphetamine psychosis meant they never really acquired the funk n’ grease of the J. Geils Band but that attack strategy did help them align with the MC5’s razor-edged rock ’n’ roll, even if it was more a shared attitude than aptitude that took them up and down Shakin’ Street. Whatever their merits, and there are many, I got to the MC5 and J. Geils Band by riding in the slipstream left behind as the Feelgoods, followed by the Hot Rods, pelted along the A127
Letters page, The Garage Band Appreciation Society, Maidenhead, Sounds (May 8, 1976) no doubt Hot Rods’ manager Ed Hollis’s concoction but mark me down for membership
