LOS ANGELES, MAY 2007

THE 35TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION OF GUITAR ARMY FROM AUTHOR AND FORMER WHITE PANTHER JOHN SINCLAIR

Process Media Title Features Bonus CD Featuring Rare Music Recordings of MC5 and Original White Panther Party Meetings as well as 40 Previously Unpublished Period Photographs, a New Introduction and Recent Writings from the Author


LOS ANGELES - The 35th anniversary edition of GUITAR ARMY from author and 1960s activist John Sinclair, who spearheaded the cultural revolutionary vanguard White Panther Party and managed the Detroit rock band MC5, was released this month (May, 2007.)

This new expanded and updated Process Media edition of GUITAR ARMY (publication date May 1, 2007) is packed with 40 previously unreleased period photos, an introduction by Michael Simmons, and a bonus CD with rare music recordings.

Tracks include music from the MC5 and other Detroit-area bands as well as Black Panther Chairman Bobby Seale on the White Panthers and previously unreleased White Panther Party meetings. "The rock & roll revolution posed a threat for a few years there," said John Sinclair from his base in Amsterdam. "But they bought it off, covered up their tracks and pretend it never happened. They won't even let the MC5 into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame! But you can see and feel it happening in the pages of this 35th anniversary edition of Guitar Army—that's why I wrote it. The excitement and thrills of a real rock & roll revolution in progress are still in there." Published in 1972 following Sinclair's release from prison after serving 29 months of a 9 and a half to 10 year sentence for possession of two joints, GUITAR ARMY raised the White `Panther battle flag inscribed Rock & Roll, Dope & Fucking in the Streets and proclaimed "Rock and Roll Is a Weapon of Cultural Revolution". John Sinclair had led that revolt from the ferment of the Detroit riots in 1967 to the Chicago Democratic Convention of 1968, where the band played just minutes before police clubbed demonstrators. The John Sinclair Freedom Rally of December 1971 that starred John Lennon & Yoko Ono, Allen Ginsberg, Stevie Wonder, Phil Ochs and a host of others led to Sinclair's release from prison just three days later. The recently released documentary film THE U.S. VS. JOHN LENNON documents this event.

GUITAR ARMY
Rock and Revolution with The MC5 and the White Panther Party
By John Sinclair
With introduction by Michael Simmons


35th ANNIVERSARY EDITION
* First time in print since 1972
* 40 additional photographs
* Includes 18-track CD with rare recordings

"Guitar Army was our manual for revolt. It's a rainbow-colored Howl, still resonating today with the singular value of idealism."
—Michael Simmons

Guitar Army is the incendiary book that proclaimed "Rock and Roll is a Weapon of Cultural Revolution" for young, revved-up readers in 1972. Author John Sinclair spearheaded the leftist revolutionary vanguard White Panther Party and managed the Detroit rock band MC5, leading them from the ferment of the Detroit riots to the Chicago Democratic Convention of 1968, where the band played minutes before police clubbed antiwar demonstrators.

In October of 1970, the FBI referred to the White Panthers as "potentially the largest and most dangerous of revolutionary organizations in the United States." However, just three years earlier, the group's leaders hosted a "Love-In" on Detroit's Belle Isle, presided over by Sinclair, whom the Detroit News proclaimed "High Priest of the Detroit hippies."

In 1970 he was arrested and sentenced to 9 ½ to 10 years for giving an undercover officer two marijuana joints. Sinclair then became the most celebrated political prisoner of the original war on drugs. After 18 months in prison, John Lennon, Allen Ginsberg, Stevie Wonder, Phil Ochs, and others demanded his freedom with a televised benefit concert attended by 15,000 people. Three days later, Sinclair was released.

Guitar Army chronicles these years of revolution through Sinclair's "street writings" and prison writings, with over 80 photographs, illustrations, concert flyers and comics from the period.

This 35th anniversary edition of Guitar Army includes two dozen previously unpublished period photographs, recent writings from John Sinclair, and an introduction from Michael Simmons that leads the reader through the revolutionary times to Sinclair's life today. Author John Sinclair is the still-charging embodiment of a dazzlingly optimistic time in which change felt necessary and possible.

A bonus CD contains rare recordings of MC5 and other Detroit-area revolutionary bands, Allen Ginsberg, Black Panther Bobby Seale on the White Panthers, and original White Panther Party meetings.