Excerpt from chapter 7, Encore:

Tyner continued to work within the Detroit rock community, mentoring young musicians as a producer and promoter. In the wake of revived interest in the 5, he released a hard-rocking 1990 CD titled Blood Brothers. The next year, he died of a heart attack at the age of 46.

Following the breakup of the 5, Smith picked up the pieces by joining forces with other Motor City rock veterans in Sonic's Rendezvous band - an uncompromisingly loud, aggressive guerilla attack (documented through the release of an underground classic of a single, "City Slang")....

The guitarist subsequently achieved the highest-profile of any of the 5 through his marriage to punk priestess Patti Smith.... the two were introduced by Lenny Kaye, who'd jumped from the pages of Rolling Stone to the stage as the Patti Smith Group's guitarist. Though Smith and Smith subsequently spent much of their time together away from the spotlight, raising a family in Michigan, Sonic became Patti's musical inspiration (most obviously on "Frederick" and the entire Dream Of Life collaborative CD) and creative partner.

Three years after Tyner, Sonic Smith died in 1994, of heart failure, at the age of 45.

It was a tragedy that two artists whose music had so much heart should die so young of heart problems. But it was a blessing at least that fans would be spared the possibility of an MC5 reunion. It would have been unthinkable to see this band reduced to an exercise in middle-age nostalgia, with five musicians who no longer had much in the way of common bonds huffing and puffing away through the radical rhetoric of the late 60's, straining to simulate the high energy that had surged through their reckless youth. thousands of diehards cherished their memories of the most killer live band they would ever experience, but the rest of rock would know the MC5 mainly by reputation -- a reputation that has continued to grow.

It appeared that the band would be given an epitaph befitting its reputation with the scheduled release in spring 2004 of a two-hour documentary, MC5: A True Testimonial. Mainly narrated by Kramer and mixing archival footage with interviews with most of the principal players (including Sinclair and Landau), it comes closer to capturing the explosive madness of that musical era than memory ever could. During more than six years of research and shooting, Chicago filmmakers David C. Thomas and Laurel Legler enjoyed full cooperation from the three surviving five and imbued the project with the labor-of-love devotion the band deserves.

A New York Times review by Elvis Mitchell on the eve of release (April 23, 2004) heralded the film as a "riveting, all-elbows-and-knuckles documentary" about a band committed to "delivering bodyblows to the dozing status quo." Unfortunately for fans of the band and music lovers in general, a dispute between Wayne Kramer and the filmmakers over musical rights blocked the release at the last minute, with no sign of a resolution a year later. Kramer claimed the filmmakers had reneged on a promise that he would produce a companion soundtrack that would feature contemporary bands receiving the 5's material.

The dispute drew blood from wounds that had never completely healed, with Tyner's widow Rebecca Derminer (also featured in the movie) taking the side of the filmmakers and Patti Smith and son Jackson expressing resentment toward Kramer as well. The band's legacy was very much the legacy of these two men, a legacy honored by the film that a squabble over money would suppress.

"It's a travesty that it would be blocked," Jackson Smith, himself a fledging musician, told Susan Whitall of the Detroit News. "It's a great document of the band, it's a great document of life, and it's a great document of things... far and beyond the band" ("MC5 in turmoil again," March 31, 2004).

Antagonism intensified with Kramer's release that summer of a concert DVD titled A Sonic Revolution: A Celebration of the MC5. Though Kramer was very careful to avoid billing this as a "reunion" -- as unthinkable without Rob and Sonic as a Beatles' reunion would be without John and George -- but a "celebration." Kramer regrouped the rhythm section of Davis and and Thompson and recruited a motley array of British 5 fanatics -- Motorhead's Lemmy, the Cult's Ian Astbury, the Damned's Dave Vanian -- to front the band and say nice things about the 5.

Ironically, it was the 5's emergence as a fashion symbol that provided funding for the project. Levi's had appropriated the band's logo to promote a line of vintage wear, without obtaining the clearance that Kramer felt was his to grant. The company settled by agreeing to subsidize a free show at London's small, sweaty 100 Club, a concert that could be shot and sold as a documentary. Some charged that Kramer didn't want a project from which he would profit to compete with a documentary in which he had no financial stake, though the guitarist insisted that the True Testimonial filmmakers had only themselves to blame for failing to fulfill their agreement.

While both documentaries share some archival footage, Sonic Revolution falls well short of the scope, impact and significance of A True Testimonial. Kramer then compounded the insult, in the eyes of the survivors of his late band mates, by launching a club tour of the States with Davis and Thompson as DTK/MC5. Fronting the band, as if selected by random lottery, were pretty boy Evan Dando, popster Marshall Crenshaw (Detroit native who had long prized the 5 and covered their material) and Mudhoney's Mark Arm.

For DTK/MC5 to provide the last gasp of the MC5 would leave an aftertaste as bitter as that breakup New Year's Eve show. Whatever the legalities surrounding the A True Testimonial, the legacy of this revolutionary band should be a higher priority for all involved than profit potential and dueling lawsuits. For all enmity, entrenchment and legal maneuverings of rival camps, music so extraordinary that it transformed the lives of all who experienced it demands the release of a documentary that does the MC5 justice.

Few bands have ever seen so much go so wrong so quickly and have been so misunderstood in the process. A True Testimonial represents a belated opportunity to set things straight, put things right. The fans deserve it. So does the band. And so does the music.