MC5 The American Ruse (www.easyaction.co.uk)

[Tralfaz666]

R.I.P. Michael Davis

[manganzoncineymusica]

Descansa en paz, Michael Davis!!! RIP

[jetrage69]

I LOVE IT WHEN SONIC SCREAMS ANNN :) AT THE END OF THE LIVE PERFORMANCE OF THIS ROCKING MC5 SONG : AMERICAN RUSE

[jetrage69]

ROB SURE CAN DANCE AND SING AND THE REST OF THE BAND ROCKS HARD :)

[L2505]

what year is it?

[wavydavy2000]

The soundtrack for Occupy Oakland.

[metafis]

I think punk evolution goes something like..

Rock and roll->Rock a billy->Surf music-> British Invasion->MC5's/Iggy pop->Ramones.

[metafis]

That guitarist has the original punk stare! :)

[bombthrower77]

@metafis That's Fred "Sonic" Smith....He was married to Patti Smith, the alt-queen of the mid-seventies.

[no1rockfan]

@bombthrower77 I never realized they looked so much alike until this video. She's not been the same without him either. 

[jetrage69]

@bombthrower77 Wait a minute?? Fred "Sonic" Smith?? How could he have had the same last name before he married Patti Smith?? That would make them legally brother and sister :) if it was before marriage by name change of course :)

[xXGoreXKillerXx]

these guys having a real stoner life xd

[stupidumbastardsly]

@xXGoreXKillerXx

[FracturedStrat]

@2Tricky who got their moves from Chuck Berry and Little Richard ask any of the "British Invasion" bands of note and they'll agree.

[TheTimeforthefire]

CHECK OUT MIDNIGHT CHAINSAW ON FACEBOOK! We recognize the need for real music back in the culture of America. Bands like this, The Who, Rolling Stones, they were the enemy for a reason! government was afraid they fought it. they know if the people are free they cannot control them. THIS WONT LAST. IM NOT GIVING UP!

[2Tricky]

I love 'em but without the British Invasion there would of been no MC5, their mannerisms remind me so much of The Who from 64-66.

[AlazarinMobius]

Yeah!!!!!!!!

[javier911019]

i tink this is the best rock band ever, they are originally

[MaceMn]

The US Government will cut Soc. Sec. & Medicare, but will keep funding the military industrial complex, corporate welfare, bailouts & tax cuts for the rich. Personal liberties and the middle-class are dying. WTF? Nobody seems to give a damn. They have the citizens all chasing their tails. Com'on kids Lady Gaga, Bieber & Li'l Wayne aint the way to be. Fuck people, wake up and realize things before it's too late. I'm just glad I'm old & hopefully will be dead before I see the worst to come.

[DrugStabbingTime]

@MaceMn I agree. And on top of all this, there's no good "dangerous" rock bands to help us realize this like there was in the 60's with free mindedness, and in the 70's with punk.. it's all crappy safe stuff in the top 40.

[undeadgods]

this song applies to the state of things now just as much as it did back then. No wonder I never heard it on the radio as a kid.

[DeeWadee]

jackass borught me here

[10ccalanarkush]

this is 50 times anti american than al zawahiri will ever be. take that sumbitches.

[SuperMydakota]

still rings true!

[SiempreBunny]

Listen up all you teeners and 20 somethings...

[nomorecoolones]

1:08 THATS some fuckin ROCK'N'ROLL

[Brob8181]

His vocals in this remind me of Keith Relf of the Yardbirds. great tune

[projecth112]

That's not 100 Club.

It's CKLW-TV Channel 9 in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. The show was called Swingin' Time. The voice you hear introducing show host Robin Seymour at the end of the song is that of David Compton, who many locals remember as the channels news anchor throughout the '70s.

[notsovelvet]

Now thats a tune right there.

[Hister333]

I said this before, I'll say it again. TELL me a band was better than the MC5, other than the Stones. And then tell me where you live. I'll fight to the death.

[BloodJunkieFireFly]

This is the song i grew up to

[bankyandbrodie]

ive been chain smoking cigarettes and watching mc5 videos for a while now... it's annoying how few people nowadays rock this shit...

[dradlok]

the sound of this video belong's to the cd and not is the live song! but doesn't matter

[toecutter1969]

can't find anything better,no cover can compare

[LateNotes]

MC5, NY Dolls, then all rest..

[rockhardugly]

kick 'em out!!!

[rockhardugly]

kick 'em out!

[Louiseskybunker]

"cheap guitars!" : )

[sonofsound]

godfathers. all hail.

[scaredsoldier]

thumbs up cataclysmic abyss

[gatefoldrecords]

Oh no! it' cuts out before Ann Murray! LOL

[gatefoldrecords]

Oh no! it' cuts out before Ann Murray! LOL

[mattb1369]

American Ruse=No amps or cords

[SanJoseEarthquakes74]

The lyrics of this song have never been more accurate!!! I love the MC5 for life!!!

[IceTitanPrime]

ROCK EM BACK SONIC!

[Heckle100]

I love it at the end ,the MC announces Ann Murray! ha haha.Unfortunately she made a billion dollars and they didn't. Shows ya what the general population knows about music.

I'll be listening to these guys till the day I die.

[akakyvich]

Song was recorded in 1969. Its message is almost more appropriate now than back in the day..

How sick is that?

[roots787]

wayne kramer must be up there as one of the great guitarists of all time!

fantastic band

[bunzy11]

this was actually filmed at the cbc tv studio here in windsor ontario

[begrackled]

Midwest American hardcore. First among equals.

[Hectorschizoidman]

Best group ever!!!!

[alltheblacks]

I hate how the standard in American TV was to get bands to lip sync in order to not have to pay them to appear.

[newenglishsound]

@alltheblacks Back in the 60s, a lot of the time the TV studios didn't have good enough gear to do a live recording that sounded at all good fidelity.

[Phineas1944]

that is one impressive jewfro

[lethrneck4]

what happened to the Looking At You clip from this same show..cant find it anymore

[cathoususie]

Yea, I've been wondering about that too. I used to look at it a LOT, and suddenly it's nowhere to be found. Wayne Kramer was amazing on it!

[lostaglio6666]

sonic rules

[lundkd10]

Freakin Great!!!!!

[ExUSSailor]

All hail the Godfathers of punk rock!

[soupstyles]

Anne Murray!

LOLLLLLLL!

[yourtubesteak]

It's not "Swingin' Time". It's from Robin Seymore's later show called "The Lively Spot".

[DenDet]

I hate to be picky but this clip is not from some club in london but its from robin seymour's swinging time tv show (the groovy guy at the end of the video)..the show was on daily in detroit and was on cklw...

[Dougal70]

Who fucking cares about any shit that any one post' (includuding mine) Dig 'em if you're young. Dig 'em if you are old. Who cares? Just dig the MC5. A great band. They are like the Dr Who of Rock and Roll. Completly timless. Fantastic Stuff.

[mvonwahlde]

The late Sonic and Patti Smith have faces that are so similar!

[duanerichardson]

@mvonwahlde She is his wife

[mvonwahlde]

She was his wife. They're both very talented. I just thought it was interesting that two people with similar faces would marry.

[jahbamba]

i do :) great song for a great part. greetz from germany

[rochjordan]

who else saw this on gareth stehrs part for catyclysmic abyss?

[diegopunk]

the james brownes of rock n roll

actually

the james brownes a pretTy good name for a band :):):)

stoked!

[phildirt3]

great tune very unappreciated band

[kidcalabria]

The exchange between Jblacktree & Nickmart is hilarious, in a pathetic sort of way, & far sadder than The MC5 lyp-synching, Xyloplax. Are these people who leave comments 10-year-olds or just retarded? Anyway, Fred "Sonic" Smith didn't die of "drugs", but of cancer, although he had a severe alcohol "habit". The MC5 will always be one of the best R&R bands ever, because of their music, not because they died, did drugs, lived in dangerous times, were around in 1968, etc... Thanks for posting this

[xyloplax]

MC5 lipsyncing, how sad.

[mixtape123]

I don't care if you are playing on little bandstands or staying in nice hotels. They had the balls to write songs and get on TV, to spread that message. We need someone like that, right now in the US. Because, only mindless pop and rap, are on TV. no message, no fury, no balls, no heart, no power and no attitude.

[hollyhood24s]

Why would you want to see balls on TV lol

[nicmart]

The message of what? Mindless, macho nihilism and self-destruction? There are plenty of radicals who are dissenting -- but they write books you don't read.

[nicmart]

I imagine they believe what they professed, but they were young musicians who stayed in nice hotels and were happily played on little TV bandstands, not freedom fighters with muskets. Once I shared a drink in a UK pub with most of the band members. They were talking about how great the affluent and very white Detroit suburb Birmingham was when suddenly one of them remembered his obligation and said, "But it's so bourgeois." How very hard core.

[itsfromdaddy]

I'm old and my 15 minutes of fame was sitting in the same bar as some people who actually did something with their lives. Now I'm bitter and slag people on youtube.

How very hardcore...

[nicmart]

Having a drink with these kids was "fame"? I think not. Just one of life's little anecdotes. You don't like the anecdote? Your problem.

[lasfinisimas]

I liked it, I liked it

[jblacktree]

2 dead from drugs one spent 8 years in jail and no they weren't rich 7 never had a drink with you and in the USA when they played in 68 it was really truly war--like danger like kick the shit out of you--and Detroit wasn't safe--It was hard core and not youtube porn or world's biggest tongue but invested music--art--culture hardcore.

[nicmart]

Incoherent.

[jblacktree]

They were not pretenders. They were doing dangerous things in dangerous times and three of the band paid dearly, two with their lives. They did not have a drink with you--you lied--and they did make art whereas you seem interested in dorky shiite. I suggest they threaten you somehow, the way lives of consequence throw shadows over wasted lives.

[nicmart]

I should think it obvious that if you were not in Aylesbury the night of the MC5 concert, as I was, you would not know who drank with whom. It turned out that the greatest threat to the survival of the band members was their own behaviors.

[jblacktree]

1. They wouldn't drink with you and 2. if you're the age you say you are then the band had long since broken up by the time you were pub-worthy. 3. To quote Iggy: "I lived in Berlin and visited East Berlin and neither was as scary or as bad a police state as an Ann Arbor in 1968." Think World Cup Hooligan riots times 10 with live ammo, not rubber bullets.

[nicmart]

You can have the last say in this ridiculous exchange after this. It is hilariously ironic that a person so enamored of the "kick out the jams," badass MC5 would be righteous about the pub laws in England. Radical, man! It was legal to drink beer in England at 16 in 1972, and it may still be. I get a kick out of remembering my long-haired self sitting down with 3 MC5 members while you get indignant that I might have been below the legal drinking age. Sorry to rain on your pop star worship.

[jblacktree]

Pub laws never entered my mind ! Interesting and telling it's what you thought I meant by "pub-worthy." I meant, rather, who'd want to have a pint with you? Then or now.

[hoctor]

saw the 5 June 14, 1969 in Peekskill NY with the Left Banke as warm up, I will NEVER forget their guts, power, attitude, and fury against the war machine that endures in America to this very day, I was 14 that week and I will never forget it

[retardedo]

awsome!