A member of the pioneering Detroit punk band MC5 who also worked as a producer, visual artist, and music education activist, Michael Davis died Friday of liver failure. He was 68.
While Davis in recent years busied himself as a painter, collaborating with Shepard Fairey and designing skateboard decks and T-shirts, as well as heading up his own non-profit music education organization called The Music Is Revolution Foundation, he will forever be best known as the bassist for the MC5, still one of the most overwhelming bands in rock history. After the MC5 broke up in 1972, he joined up with Ron Asheton of the Stooges in Destroy All Monsters; he also played in other bands like Blood Orange and Rich Hopkins And Luminario.
Davis endured health problems in recent years, contracting Hepatitis C in 2005 and injuring his back in a motorcycle accident the following year. But he was also able to revisit the MC5, playing for a new generation of audiences during reunions in 2003 and '05. After Davis' death, the only remaining members of the band are guitarist Wayne Kramer and drummer Dennis Thompson. [via Rolling Stone]