The mere idea of an MC5 book is enough to make any red-blooded reader of this blog wanna swipe money from daddy's wallet while he's fast asleep, but is a book like this worth getting switched up the backside???
It's not that THE FUTURE IS NOW is a turdburger of a read, but it's just how shall we say lifeless. A shame, since the entire MC5 story if told with the right 'n proper zest 'n zeal of 1972 CREEM article not written by Dave Marsh can really rejuvenate the senses and remind you just why this rock 'n roll sludge is such a beautiful, resensifying experience. Y'know, actually bring back all of those ginchy googly memories of the days when you'd rip open your latest BOMP! parcel trying to scam some of that high energy kultur that was so deeply in demand way back into those high energy times. But feh!, this 'un just reads as if the authors googled "MC5" and went about it as if they were doing a high school term paper on the subject, perking it up here and there for publication purposes as well as a nifty "A" from Miss Fafoofnik. Oh yeah, and you kinda get the feeling that they also won a bunch of 1970-vintage Five photos (along with one of Stooges-period Iggy) on ebay and slapped the whole thing together to peddle to the lumpen and unrepentant MC5 fans out there...nothing wrong with that (after all, I did the same thing in the final ish of my own fanzine which I won't link up for your benefit anymore since none of you are buying any back issues) but in this case it just reeks of shortcut city!
We all know with a passion that the Five saga is worth a whole lot more'n slash-outs such as this. I should know being that I heard a local FM jock (who I believe had been fired from about five deejaying jobs over the past thirty years for being such an asshole) badmouth the band on the local once-AOR station and called him up to tell him just how pussified he was. (Actually before that I wrote him a long, nice letter explaining the error of his way and decided to see if he had received the missive...apparently he had and boy was I naive thinking that my efforts woulda done his attitude a bit of good!) We (even at this late stage in the game) need a tome for the times that would have appealed to the young 'n rabid me who'd go to those crazed extremes actually believing that I was a modern day Lester Bangs if not Paul Revere born to fulfill my duty of spreading the high energy news across the land, and if only a Bangs if not a Jymn Parrett or Nick Kent or just about ANYBODY with a white-hot passion coulda done a Five history complete with the soul and rock 'n roll energy their writing exudes then we REALLY woulda had a book to contend with.
But instead we got this well-intentioned yet particularly stuck-in-neutral read which I would only recommend to the up 'n coming rock neophyte who just heard about the band and can't figure out how to use search engines. Good for the completest I guess, but us old fogies sure could go for something a li'l more tasty to sink our gums into.
I ordered a copy of this book for the Borders I was working at. I figured I would buy it. I borrowed it and read it, it was not worth a purchase, it was dull
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