"20 To Life: The Life and Times of John Sinclair"
By Mark Groubert Friday Nov 30, 2007 12:01amC&L's November Film of the Month Review:"20 To Life: The Life and Times of John Sinclair"
Documentary reviewed by Mark Groubert
“Apathy isn’t it. And we can do something. So flower power didn’t work. So what! We start again.”
John Lennon
John Sinclair Freedom Rally, Crisler Arena, Michigan - December 10, 1971.
If it was up to Richard Nixon, 20 To Life: The Life and Times of John Sinclair, a documentary by Steve Gebhardt, would never have seen the light of day. Hired as the private experimental filmmaker for John Lennon and Yoko Ono back in 1971, Gebhardt was working on a full-length music video to help promote Lennon’s upcoming album, Imagine when he and Lennon heard about the benefit concert to help free political activist John Sinclair from prison.
Sinclair, head of the White Panther Party, manager of the seminal rock band the MC5 and one of the leading radical elements of the Midwest had been targeted by Detroit undercover cops who arrested him for passing two joints. Facing 20 years to life and actually sentenced to 9 1/2 years for the crime, Sinclair became the focus of a huge benefit concert at the Crisler Arena in Ann Arbor, Michigan featuring John Lennon, Stevie Wonder, Bob Seeger, Phil Ochs, MC-5, Allen Ginsberg, Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen, Mitch Ryder & the Detroit Wheels and others.
Over 20,000 people attended the show.
Having already spent nearly three years behind bars, John Sinclair was freed from prison just three days after the event.
Talk about All Power To The People.
With never before seen performance footage of many of those listed above, including John Lennon himself, 20 To Life, is worth the price of admission. The film, now available for the first time on DVD, had its beginnings as a full length concert film originally entitled Ten For Two. It ran for one week in London before being pulled from the theatre in 1973. There it died from intimidation. John Lennon, the film’s ad hoc producer did not want to make his immigration and political situation in America any worse by distributing the film across the pond. Two years prior, due to the success of the John Sinclair Freedom Rally, Lennon and others had concocted a plan to shadow then President Richard Nixon with a series of roving rock concerts as he ran for re-election. This musical protest plan landed John Lennon on Nixon’s infamous enemies list (See U.S. vs John Lennon). With the looming threat of deportation hanging over his head Lennon eventually scaled back his political activities and retreated into fatherhood, Central Park, heroin and eventually a fatal gunshot wound in 1980.
But this film is not about the legendary John Lennon.
It’s about the legendary John Sinclair.
No longer just a cultural footnote to the 1960’s, Sinclair is now acknowledged as one of its cultural benchmarks.
Born in 1941 in Flint, Michigan, Sinclair could be considered the counter-cultural mentor of another famous Flint native – activist filmmaker Michael Moore (Indeed, Moore once told this reviewer that Sinclair’s mother, the progressive Elsie Sinclair, had been his English teacher at Davison High School from which both he and Sinclair graduated). Sinclair helped restructure the Fifth Estate, the Detroit underground newspaper that continues to this day. He also helped form the Detroit Artists Workshop Press, which published Work magazine.
Between 1966 and 1969, Sinclair, himself a horn player in the style of Albert Ayler and Roland Kirk, befriended and managed a local hard rock band called the MC5. Under his political guidance, the band embraced the revolutionary politics of the Black Panther Party, actually forming an offshoot called the White Panther Party. Their politics were not merely theoretical. They were street-wise, hard edged and at times, explosive.
The band, which would receive a major record deal with Elektra Records, took target practice with members of the Black Panthers, were involved in a series of bombings, and more famously, became the house band at the local Grande Ballroom where they performed their hit song, the raucous “Kick Out The Jams, Motherfuckers.”
In August of 1968, Sinclair took the band to Chicago to perform outside the National Democratic Convention. While the whole world was watching, Sinclair, the MC5 and thousands of other protestors became victims of a police riot ordered by then Mayor Richard Daley.
In July, 1969, Sinclair, quickly becoming a national figure, was sentenced to 9 ½ years for giving 2 joints to an undercover officer. As thousands of stoned counter culture critters attended the famous Woodstock Music Festival a month later, a fed up Yippie activist named Abbie Hoffman seized the mike while Pete Townsend and The Who were tuning up. He screamed, “This is a pile of shit while John Sinclair rots in prison.”
(Townsend took the opportunity to stab Hoffman in the neck with the neck of his guitar.)
While in prison, Sinclair penned his book, Guitar Army, which, like fellow activist Jerry Rubin’s Do It!, and Abbie Hoffman’s Steal This Book, served as cultural comic book manifestos to their loyal followers.
By December of 1971, with Sinclair in prison almost three years and no end in sight, supporters launched a massive “Free John Now Rally” to be held at the Crisler Arena in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Lennon, the headliner, sang his recently penned song, John Sinclair calling on prison officials to "Let him be, set him free. Let him be like you and me.”
Three days after the concert, the Michigan Supreme Court did just that. They overturned Sinclair’s conviction and set him free to a different America than he had left. His case was a landmark in the reduction of drug sentencing and the decriminalization of marijuana (In fact, it would lead to Ann Arbor having the most lenient marijuana possession laws in the country – a fine of five dollars for simple possession).
Returning to his avante-blues musical roots, Sinclair developed as a musical performance poet utilizing talented jazz sidemen as backup bands while touring the world and recording numerous albums.
Over the years has hosted his own award-winning radio shows, first in Detroit and then laater in New Orleans.
In 2004 Sinclair moved to Amsterdam where he now hosts a weekly radio show, appropriately titled; The John Sinclair Show.
He continues to tour and record with his band, the Blues Scholars and if you’re lucky, he’ll be coming to a venue near you.
Not everyone can say they have had a song written about them by a Beatle. Go ahead. Sing along.
John Sinclair
Artist: John Lennon
Album: John Lennon Anthology
It ain't fair, John Sinclair
In the stir for breathing air
Won't you care for John Sinclair?
In the stir for breathing air
Let him be, set him free
Let him be like you and me
They gave him ten for two
What else can the judges do?
Gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta,
gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta,
gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta,
gotta, gotta, gotta set him free
If he'd been a soldier man
Shooting gooks in Vietnam
If he was the CIA
Selling dope and making hay
He'd be free, they'd let him be
Breathing air, like you and me
They gave him ten for two
What else can the judges do?
Gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta,
gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta,
gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta,
gotta, gotta, gotta set him free
They gave him ten for two
They got Ali Otis too.
Gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta,
gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta,
gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta,
gotta, gotta, gotta set him free
Was he jailed for what he done?
Or representing everyone
Free John now, if we can
From the clutches of the man
Let him be, lift the lid
Bring him to his wife and kids
They gave him ten for two
What else can the bastards do?
Gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta,
gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta,
gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta,
gotta, gotta, gotta set him free
Long Live The Big Chief!
A screenwriter/producer/journalist based in Hollywood, California, Mark Groubert is the Senior Film and Book Reviewer for CrooksandLiars.com. As a filmmaker he has produced numerous documentaries for HBO. Groubert is also the former editor of National Lampoon Magazine, MTV Magazine and The Weekly World News. In addition, he writes for the L.A. Weekly, L.A. City Beat, Penthouse, High Times and other publications. He is currently at work on his memoirs…or so he says.
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If it has been mathematically proven that Bush stole Ohio, what will stop some other swing state from falling prey to these vipers in 2008?
odanny @ 1:
No one, get ready for the New Century.
Buy Euro's. Now. Before it is too late.
damn it, we need to legalize weed already
what's the big deal
while we are at it legalize LSD and all drugs
the war on drugs has failed
Yeah, well, how many people can say that they've smoked joints with the two living people, David Peel and John Sinclair, that were named by John Lennon in songs that Lennon wrote?
Not many, but I can, and in my life, that makes me a lucky man.
For those of you in New York City Mr. Sinclair plays intermittently at the World Famous And Renowned Yippie Museum at #9 Bleecker Street, keep an eye on the schedule and you might get lucky.
~nwa
PS: The anniversary Prohibition Repeal Day Is This December 5th.
Wouldn't it be awesome if Herr Busch were to go all 1933 FDR with a Martini in hand on us and spark up on that day and tell us that this New And Improved Prohibition is finally over?
Pipe dream, I know, but one can hope against hope, can't one?
i graduated from Wayne State in Detroit in the early 90's...... for a few years, John Sinclair TAUGHT at WSU a class called "The history of rhythm, blues and rock and roll". I took the class (one of the few) and still have the tapes and notes. The classes were informal and were basically smoking sessions (you could smoke in class in those days.....) where we learned of the real world BEHIND the music, for without understanding the context of the music, it was always impossible to understand the music. Brilliant guy, and quite a character!! Detroit was the epicenter of the 60's in so many ways most people dont realize...... more so than san fran. You had the posers out west. In Detroit, people were real about that shit.
.
Most apprapo' video... Thanks for posting it ! :)
I found a good video to watch. Enjoy the conversation...
http://www.johnconyers.com/node/174#comment-6683
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just goes to show what an organized group of filthy hippies can do...when they set their pot addled minds to it!Power to the people!And all that other related hippy shit.
John ruled BTW.:)
damn, i lived by ann arbor in 1971 (ypsilanti) when this show went down.
sad i missed it. but i was only 9 years old then. oh well.
I was about 15. We would skip classes and cross the border to hang at the Moratorium Protests. Remember those. Then the annual Ann Arbour hash bash.....so many memories, if only I could remember them.
Kick out the jams.
John and I go back to the early Sixties. I was barely a teenager and along with my brother and cousins we would find our way to the wild parties John used to have at his place near the WSU Campus in Detroit. Everything that was "Verboten" was going on at his festivities. You could just walk in and have a good time. Those parties were legendary.
I remember when John was sentenced to all that time for two joints. I have the distinct honor of having walked the same prison yard at Jackson State Penetentiary with John in 1969. He was then sent to Marquette, a facility for the most incorrigible inmates, if my memory serves me correctly. Incidentally, I had been returned from Viet Nam to face charges in 1968. His prison number is A123507 and mine, A123511. I was there because of a COINTELPRO Frame-up. Years later in 1982, I would be arrested again on charges stemming from the "original" charges, the alleged shooting of a Michigan state police "Red Squad" Cop. A fundraiser was thrown at WSU for the "Free Darnell Summers campaign and John was the MC. Thanks John. Yep, the 7-11 Boys. We kicked their asses in and out of court and because of the support of people like John Sinclair and the many organizations that stepped forward I walk the streets Today, a relatively free man. Power to the People.
Go to my Pictures on Myspace check out the photo of John Sinclair, Bernard Stroble an myself at the benefit Concert At WSU in 1983.
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendI...
Need to clarify about John Sinclair "passing two joints". He GAVE AWAY two joints to a narc who had been pestering him for some time to sell him some weed. He said no, but I will give you a couple of joints. Boom - 9 1/2 years. All drug laws suck! They are counter-productive, extremely costly to enforce and are tearing our society apart.
OT: I'll be quick. Is anyone having trouble opening the Smirking Chimp site besides me?
"I told my brother and my wife once
the first time we all took acid, sitting out in the car
in front of 4825, and before we took the trip by car
all the way to Chicago to hear 'Trane
still full of the acid, that we would see the day
after the post-Western revolution
when the language would work again
strictly as a function of the body, its
glow & gesture, that after enough of us had eaten the acid
we could then speak through our cells
as our cells, that the language would be stripped
of all negative force, and the new poetry
would burn itself down
to just one word, and the poets would say it
and everybody would be a poet, and the word would burn itself
into everybody's meat, and men would hold hands and smile,
and the word would fill the world
vibrating through it and through every part of it
merging all men into ONE, the force for
unity in life, and that ONE to be taken
in the only way possible, in a totally
post-Western sense, all senses brought together in the flesh,
and the world seen only one possible way,
AS IT IS, and the word would be there to
speak for us, and for the world, and Jimmy Garrison
would be playing bass, yes he would, and the music
would move through the world, and the music
would BE the word, and the voice of John Coltrane
would speak the word through to world
through the bell of his horn, and the word he sang
would pass through our eyes, through every cell
of our lovely meat, and yes, the vibrations
would BE the world
and the word is LOVE
Yes it is
The Word Is LOVE
And it is here on earth
Yes it is
And the world is love
Yes it is
Oh Brothers, Yes it is"
- John Sinclair, 9 February 1967
Somewhere, in a drawer or a box in the attic, I have an old t-shirt from The Michigan Marijuana Initiative. I never met John Sinclair, even though we both lived in Flint at the same time. I remember those days well. Kick out the jams, and keep kickin'. Thanks for this post.
Flower power STOPPED the Vietnam War. It did what it was supposed to do. Peace wins out in the long run.
It was around this time, '70-'71 that I saw MC5 in Springfield Mass. I was in the Air Force and just getting active in the anti war movement. I came to find out later that some local community activists had approached this "radical band" for a donation because their gig was conflicting with a fundraising event in the city. A band member pulled some change out of his pocket and gave it to the organizers as they were hustled out of the dressing room.
And......from the mouth of a dead man....PROOF. People...many people can change things but they didn't have the internet back then....what they did that was so powerful was, they got off their collective arses and rallied. Rallied and sacrificed. Not when it was convenient but when it was necessary.
We kinda rally when we can.
odanny @ 1:
the goobers in dc have known since bush stoled the last election that the electronic voteing machines are rigged for the repigs, and they have done little to get rid of them, both sides are willing to let another election be stolen by diebold, i think it was palosi who said it was to late to fix this problem and would cause to much confushion to rectify these crooked voteing machines, so much for haveing our votes honestly counted,
Bob is not a Seeger, he's a Seger. Bob Seger.
another excellent review
I got to know two members of the MC5 well in 1975 and '76. We were all locked up at the Federal co-ed facility in Lexington, KY (an experiment that failed!) Bill Davis actually got me started on bass, and Wayne Kramer had a work space next to mine. They were good guys. Another Ann Arbor activist, Hiawatha Bailey, was my "boss" at that time... I never heard from him again after I got out. Got the feeling that a lot of us were set up by the DEA in those days, including all of us named here.
I still have my "Free John Sinclair" T-shirt from that summer.
I lived in the squat on Canfield and the John C. Lodge next to the MC5 house and without going into too much detail, the MC5 were NOT involved in the bombings that various members of the White Panther Party, like Pun Plamondon were framed for.
Detroit was pretty wierd then. Never hippy dippy land, it was a city too real and too hard.
I supect that the author Elmore Leonard knows a lot about the real story as well, because his novel, Freaky Deaky is a little too close to real people for comfort...
I went to the Free John Sinclair Concert and still remember the stellar line up and the great music!
MC5 rocks! John Sinclair should understand his influence on many musican and radical activists was profound. Like Ron Kovic, Malcolm X, and Angela Davis, he represents the best of his generation.
There are two and a half million people in jail in the US. Most are serving mando min drug sentences. Most are non-violent offenses. Most are black or latino. Mostly there's silence about this. Big deal some fat white hippy dippy from the sixties got out 'cos John and Yoko did their yawn routine. Middle class white people are so blind and complacent and self-congratulatory about their power in getting justice for some cause celebre. It's the same with environmentalists. All up in arms about the trees and the dolphins, but never a damn word about the lead smelters in the inner city. This is the reason people are sick to death of boring boomer wankers. Get lost, the whole lot of you.
1971 in southeaster MIchigan...not a bad place to be. Even those of us in high school got in on the act. We had our walk-outs to protest the draft. We started our own high school version of NOW. In 2007, I blog. Sadly, I think we all need to do more.
I can't open the Smirking Chimp either.
How many people can say they corresponded with John in the prison days, then backed him up musically in the '00s? Pretty sure I have one of my original MC5 singles in a box somewhere. (Too bad they had to change "motherfuckers" to "brothers and sisters" when they signed with a major label.) Wish John still lived in New Orleans...it's a lot closer than Amsterdam.
How off the wall is that, a lot of old peers of John's here?
I can't claim that space but as a 16 year old, I recall my first rock concert at Boston Gardens. Johnny Winter, MC-5 and Led Zeppelin. One of the best concerts I ever got to experience.
There's plenty of MC5 here.
And John Sinclair here.
It's nice to see so many people around with the perspective of then to get through the now.
If you're ever in Oregon... let's.
I wrote about MC5 and John Sinclair at my blog about a month ago. There some other resources there, including two amazing brief, revolutionary essays by Sinclair anmd some photos and a nice live YouTube clip. If you want to check that out, go here:
http://freedomroadproject.blogspot.com/2007/11/mc5-john-sinclair.html
Kick out the jams!
To quote a famous cynic,
'Whoever said 'life ain't fair', sure knew his s*it'.
Spiro T. Agnostic @ 28:
That's not quite correct. Electra released 2 versions of the record - one censored and one not. Me and a friend went to this show and the lineup was amazing.
For those interested in the very unique Detroit rock scene, check out "Grit, Noise, and Revolution" by David Carson.
Another reason that the powers that be at the time wanted John Lennon out of the picture too.
John, we hardly knew ye.
whoops, I meant to pass on a link to a very interesting video on YouTube featuring Wayne Kramer and David Was called All Been Planned. A piece about the death of Sgt. Pat Tillman.
Pretty damn interestting!
a
I was also lucky and daring enough to be at several of the events mentioned. Born in 1951 I was 17 when I was in the streets of Chicago in 1968. I made it to Woodstock, the Moritoriums in DC, and at the Free Sinclair rally in Ann Arbor.
I'm still alive and still politically active. I will be voting for Dennis Kucinich in the primary and you should too.
I ran into John Lennon in Central Park in August of '69 a few days after Woodstock, but he just wanted to be left alone to hang out with his friends, which I respected.
I got a personal e-mail from Yoko Ono a few weeks ago after I wrote to her after her recent appearance on Democracy Now! thanking her for giving her a smile. "I guess I'm not the only one." she wrote.
Thanking me for giving her a smile, I should have written.
Read this about how the Feds killed Lennon.
http://www.mackwhite.com/lennon.html
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