“Our mission was to get high, fuck, write poetry, make some music, dance. We weren’t bothering anybody”
IT’S almost 60 years since John Sinclair co-founded The Detroit Artists Workshop, hoping to stir up some radical jazz action; a terrific new compilation on Strut is testament to his efforts in that field. But by 1968, Sinclair had achieved greater notoriety as manager of the incendiary rock group MC5, affiliating them with his White Panther Party and proposing a “total assault on the culture by any means necessary, including rock’n’roll, dope, and fucking in the streets”.
Sinclair spent two years in prison on trumped-up marijuana charges before a freedom rally headlined by John Lennon and Yoko Ono hastened his release. Since then, he’s recorded more than 20 albums of jazzy beat poetry, as well as almost 1,000 shows for Radio Free Amsterdam. But now he’s back in downtown Detroit, feeling glummer than ever about the prospects of cultural revolution.
“They’re bringing in new white people!” he complains.
