Guitar Army: Rock & Revolution With MC5 & The White Panther Party
by John Sinclair

Guerrilla rock kicks out the jams

Underground journalist, activist, MC5 manager and Minister For Information in the White Panther Party, John Sinclair didn’t just fight in the 60s cultural revolution, he pretty much dug the trenches, armed the people and almost martyred himself for the cause. He compiled Guitar Army in 1972, having served well over 29 months of a 10-year sentence handed down for supplying an undercover policewoman with two joints (a conviction overturned after a mass publicity campaign led by the likes of John Lennon and Allen Ginsberg). This collection of his musical and agit-prop reportage was by turns a memoir of the halcyon optimism of the previous decade, a battle-weary resume of a desperate and sometimes degrading battle with the establishment forces, and a manifesto marrying politics and rock music in a realpolitik cause. Thirty-five years on, the passion for the alternative culture and the profound belief that rock could intrinsically contribute to a more viable community still burns through the pages of this anniversary edition. Republished with a plethora of previously unseen photographs and a CD of recordings by the MC5 and other revolutionary bands it’s a valuable historical document shredding any notion of rock’s disposability. Instead, it sees the idea of rock’n’roll melded with social idealism as being a cultural touchstone.

4 stars 4 stars 4 stars 4 stars

ISBN 9781934170007

Reviewed by Ian Abrahams
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