Watching MC5 * A True Testimonial, David C. Thomas' rise-and-fall documentary about the late-'60s/early-'70s Detroit rock group MC5, it's easy to wonder how one band played so many roles in its short life. From classic garage-rock beginnings, MC5 went on to serve as a house band for Detroit's hippie scene, helped make the world safe for loud-and-fuzzy rock, turned radical thanks to an association with the White Panther party, provided the soundtrack for the '68 Chicago riots, pissed off major labels, sparked censorship debates, turned into a drugged-out, mercenary touring act, and disappeared before the Nixon administration did. MC5's legacy rests as much on its legend and the bands it inspired as the handful of albums it produced, but its influence extends to any music lover ready to complete the phrase "Kick out the jams" with an angry "motherfucker!"
Alternating archival footage (partly taken from government surveillance files) and interviews with the quintet's three surviving members, Thomas brings a meat-and-potatoes approach to his subject, but MC5's story hardly needs embellishment. This, after all, was a group that went from besting Cream in band showdowns to living in the Trans Love Energies commune to appearing on stage in outlandish gear, years before David Bowie. MC5's mix of showmanship, hippie idealism, and brawling Detroit muscle makes it tough to categorize, and A True Testimonial carefully moves through each step of the progression.
MC5's survivors—Wayne Kramer, Dennis Thompson, and Michael Davis, some of whom look worse for wear than others—each seem unwilling to leave the past behind. (Fred "Sonic" Smith and vocalist Rob Tyner both died in the '90s.) They share the sense that drugs and infighting ended the band before its time, and for Thompson, at least, that sense has slipped into his unconscious life: "They're always in my dreams," he says of his old bandmates. He doesn't seem comforted by the notion that he now shares that dream with others who heard MC5, and decided that rock and revolution belong together.