The MC5 motors on

 

There is quite a bit of material on the MC5 on YouTube, from documentaries to clips of live performances and some full shows.

 

My favourite MC5 clips are two songs at Tartar Field in 1970, where they perform “Rambling Rose” and “Kick Out the Jams” and a longer set recorded for the German rock music show Beat Club in 1972, presumably during their European tour of that year.

 

The Tartar Field show features a blistering rendition of “Rambling Rose” during which guitarist Wayne Kramer, whose song this is, puts on a real show for what seems to be a small audience, but Rob Tyner en Fred ‘Sonic’ Smith also are no slouches at throwing rock ‘n roll shapes.  The two songs give us a brief glimpse of what the powerful, incendiary force the  MC5 must’ve been on stage in their heyday.

 

The Beat Club performance is filmed in brilliant, high-definition colour against a blue screen probably because of the Beat Club producers’ penchant for psychedelic backgrounds to these kinds of shows. Rob Tyner wears a bright, spangly jacket and Wayne Kramer sports a slightly oversized green spangly jacket. This must be their homage to glam rock.

 

The band does a short “festival” set of their best-known tracks, mostly from Kick Out the Jams, in less high energy fashion than the Tartar Field clip, but still with a lot of power and one is always impressed with how they play. It’s a pity that the band seems to have rarely performed anything off High Time, the final studio album, and therefore repeated the same set lists drawn from the first two records.

 

Currently, Wayne Kramer is the only founding member of the MC5 who still performs, seeing as how Tyner, Fred ‘Sonic’ Smith and Michael Davis have died, and drummer Denis Thompson doesn’t seem to be as active, and Kramer has led various incarnations of the MC5, under that name, or as MC50 or We Are All MC5, with various different musicians.

 

Nowadays, Kramer is a bald, middle class looking guy in stark contrast to the rock ‘n rebel looks of the first coming of the MC5 though his socio-political views remain pretty much the same. He’s had a solo career but presumably never became more popular than the MC5, not commercially successful at the time but increasingly influential amongst musicians and the hip, and now, in line with so many acts from the ‘60’s and ‘70s who’ve realised how much money there was still to be made from playing to their old fanbase, now as old the band members, and the occasional younger, new convert, Kramer can cash in on the huge  name the MC5 has in rock history. The pity is that he  can draw on only  three albums’ worth of music, and perhaps some unreleased tunes, which makes for good times if you’re a fan and want to hear the classic tunes from those classic albums but seems a bit sad to me.

 

The band performing as We Are All MC5 are obviously proficient and can rock as hard as anybody, but none of them are in their early twenties anymore, with none of the brio, arrogance and simple energy the MC5 would’ve had back in the late ‘60s or very early ‘70s and for most part they do sound like an MC5 tribute band, with a contemporary rock sound,  rather than the real thing.

 

The cliché is that so many now famous bands claim that they never thought it could happen, never imagined that they could have a career lasting beyond about 5 years and, like Mick Jagger, didn’t think they would be, or would want to be, in the rock and roll game at the age of 30 or beyond. However, many, many bands have had very long careers, with varying degrees of success and generally a reduction in popular profile and record sales to boot, but are still able to tour, if they want, and to play to audiences all over the world and make a decent living, provided the live set contains all hits and the crowd pleasers. These bands have become brands and own the commercially viable Intellectual Property of their songs, and why shouldn’t they exploit these opportunities?  So what, if Wayne Kramer must play and sing  “Rambling Rose” every night and repeat “Kick Out the Jams,”  “Motor City is Burning,”  “The American Ruse,” “Looking At You” and  “Tonight” at every gig. The paying audiences want to hear those tunes.

 

As I’ve said, the Tartar Field clip is the best MC5 I’ve seen, with the Beat Club show second, but other than that, I’d rather just listen to the records than watch and listen to the more contemporary shows that can’t replicate the freshness and sharpness of those albums.

 

Frumpy

  

Frumpy came to my attention during a period when I watched a series of YouTube videos featuring or showcasing German rock of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, the so-called Krautrock years. Unlike the experimental Can, the ethereal Tangerine Dream, the anarchic Amon Düül II, the brutal jazz-rock of Birth Control, the metronomic electronics of Kraftwerk or the experimentalism of Neu! and Faust, Frumpy seemed to be a pretty enjoyable, straightforward blues rock band with progressive urges, from the video examples,  and I paid them no more attention.

 

Recently, also on YouTube, I came across a Rockpalast (the German WDR television service’s premier live rock show) presentation of a documentary about Frumpy’s lead singer, Inga Rumpf, called My Life is a Boogie.  Not only did I learn that she had quite a career before Frumpy but also well beyond it, but I also learnt that she has a solid grounding in blues and gospel, hence her vocal style.  Frumpy was also a band that obviously aimed at an audience well beyond Germany, with Rumpf singing in English.

 

Frumpy was relatively short-lived in its first incarnation, was more popular in Germany than anywhere else and released three studio albums and a live album.  There are also two compilation albums of that first period.  The band reunited, with only Rumpy, Kravetz and Bohn,  in 1990 and released two studio albums, with a crowd of additional musicians, and a live album with a smaller core band.

 

Of course, the earlier albums are very much of their time and probably somewhat dated but they are quite good, and with some tunes  being quite excellent, and Rumpf elevates any song she touches.  Frumpy may not have had much international success because it was simply selling American style rock to the English language community, which had plenty of similar bands already, but I believe that Frumpy is a cut above most of their contemporaries and should’ve had more success and Inga Rumpf should’ve been an international star.

 

 

 

 

All Will Be Changed (1970)

Tracks: 

1. Life Without Pain             (3:50)
2. Rosalie, Part 1                 (6:00)
3. Otium                                 (4:22)
4. Rosalie, Part 2                 (4:14)
5. Indian Rope Man             (3:19)
6. Morning                             (3:24)
7. Floating, Part 1                (7:39)
8. Baroque                            (7:36)
9. Floating, Part 2                (1:25)

Bonus tracks on reissues:

10. Roadriding                      (4:02)
11. Time Makes Wise          (2:49)

 

The debut album is performed by an instrumental trio of keyboards (mostly electronic organ) (Jean-Jacques Kravetz), bass ) (Karl-Heinz Schott)  and drums (Carsten Bohn), with Inga Rump as lead vocalist.  I guess you’d call it heavy, progressive blues rock with some tunes, such as early hit “Indian Rope Man.”

 

“Rosalie, Pt 1 -  Otium - Rosalie Pt 2” and “Floating, Pt1 -Baroque - Floating, Pt, 2” are two sets of suites with extended instrumental passages, mostly organ, and even a drum solo in the second one. These are obviously the progressive heart of the record which would otherwise be a more orthodox blues rock outing.  The three instrumentalists all have a chance to shine and one doesn’t miss the absence of guitars;  Schott is a very agile, versatile and rhythmically solid yet melodic bassist.

 

Opening track “Life Without Pain” is a rousing, gospel rock track that one can see as a concert highlight, en penultimate track, “Roadriding” features heavy guitar by an uncredited guitarist.

 

“Roadriding” and “Time Makes Wise” are bonus tracks on CD releases.

 

 

Frumpy 2 (1971)

Tracks: 

1. Good Winds                                 (10:02)
2. How The Gipsy Was Born         (10:05)
3. Take Care Of Illusion                  (7:30)
4. Duty                                                           (12:09)

Rainer Baumann comes into the line-up as guitarist.

 

The album has four tracks (presumably two a side of a conventional single LP), of which three clock in at 10 minutes or longer and the shortest track is seven and a half minutes.

 

“How the Gypsy Was Born,” “Take Care of Illusion” and “Duty” seem to have become concert staples.

 

The immediate impression is that the production smooths out some of the edges of the debut, is slightly muddier  and reduces the volume and the power. I suppose this is what one calls becoming more sophisticated.

 

“Good Winds” is more elegiac, psychedelic groove opener than the bravura of “Life Without Pain” from the debut and sets the tone for the extended pieces that follow.

 

“How the Gypsy  Was Born” sounds like an instant classic, with Rumpf’s fragile, brittle, soulful yet powerful vocals front and centre, plenty of hooks and excellent lyrics. Two Baumann solos are overdubbed to create a twin lead guitar effect.  Kravetz is still the dominant, star soloist, though.

 

“Take Care of Illusion” and “Duty” pale a bit by comparison but both are excellent examples of psychedelic, experimental Frumpy, with the latter tune an examination of a possibly characteristic event (parents turning in their deserting son) of Nazi Germany during World War II.

 

 

By the Way (1972)

Tracks: 

1. Goin' To The Country     (3:40)
2. By The Way                      (8:51)
3. Singing Songs                  (7:02)
4. I'm Afraid Big Moon         (6:25)
5. Release                             (8:50)
6. Keep On Going                (5:25)

 

Erwin Kania plays additional keyboards on the record.

 

“Goin’ to the Country” is a lively blues stomper with slide guitar and rollicking piano and it’s as good an up-tempo opener as “Life Without Pain” is on All Will Be Changed,  and by far the shortest track of the 6 on the record.  

 

Both the title track and “Release” are almost 9 minutes long,   and three other tracks are respectively longer than 5, 6 and 7 minutes.

 

The title track is a jazzy-prog, grand philosophical rumination and most connected to the style of the debut album, while “Singing Songs” is about the equally philosophical reflections of a musician on stage, musing about the relationship between performer and audience, and the first of the rousing four final tracks that emphasise the blues and soul roots of the song writing and Rumpf’s vocal style, and are the engaging kind of songs that hooks one in to the band. 

 

There were many progressive hard rock bands, and many German rock bands, of the early to mid-‘70s who ploughed the same instrumental and conceptual furrow as Frumpy, but none of them had the ultimate weapon of Inga Rumpf as vocalist.  

 

 

Frumpy Live (1973)

Tracks:

1. Keep On Going                (12:06)
2. Singing Songs                  (8:54)
3. Backwater Blues              (4:56)
4. Duty                                   (17:35)
5. To My Mother                   (11:34)
6. Release                             (22:00)
7. Take Care Of Illusion      (8:54)
8. Duty                                   (7:33)
9. Floating                             (12:14)

"Duty" and "Floating"  are bonus tracks on later versions of the album, having been previously released in 1970. 

 

Live is a great, rip-roaring mid-‘70s memento of Frumpy’s signature style of psychedelic blues-rock, with plenty tracks to stretch out on and jam, with accomplished musicians on top of their game and fully capable of improvising at length yet  still keeping it interesting and compelling. I suppose it’s a snapshot of the typical underground, progressive rock  band of the time. Rumpf’s soulful, blues inflected vocals are always worth the price of admission on any Frumpy release and she’s in her element here, communicating and connecting with her audience.

 

For some inexplicable reason, “How the Gypsy was Born,” Frumpy’s most identifiable hit, isn’t featured.  

 

xxx

 

I don’t know what the three ‘90s albums sound like but my guess is that they would be considerably different to the ‘70s band, if only for the mass of contributing musicians, and with considerably less charm.  After Frumpy first broke up,  Rumpf went on to front Atlantis, a typical mid- to late ‘70s AOR that sought, unsuccessfully, to find a break in the USA but this band was truly selling ice to Eskimos and the product, however technically proficient the musicianship, has nothing like the power and charm of full-throttle Frumpy.