Guitar Army

Author, poet and activist John Sinclair (born October 2, 1941 in Flint, Michigan) mutated from small-town rock & roll fanatic and teenage disc jockey to cultural revolutionary, pioneer of marijuana activism, radical leader and political prisoner by the end of the 1960s. In 1966-67 the jazz poet, downbeat correspondent, founder of the Detroit Artists Workshop and underground journalist joined the front ranks of the hippie revolution, managing the "avant-rock" MC5 and organizing countless free concerts in the parks, White Panther rallies and radical benefits. Working closely with lead singer and songwriter Rob Tyner and the members of the band, Sinclair brought the MC5 to local fame, national attention and a contract with Elektra Records. He is the still-charging embodiment of a dazzlingly optimistic time in which change felt necessary and possible. Sinclair was the martyr of the original war on drugs, sentenced to ten years in prison for possession of two marijuana joints. Guitar Army is the iconographic book that proclaimed "Rock and Roll is a Weapon of Cultural Revolution" for young, revved-up readers in 1972. Its author was released from prison just three days after 15,000 people came to see John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Archie Shepp, Allen Ginsberg, and other musicians and leaders demand his freedom. The updated Guitar Army includes two dozen previously unpublished period photographs, recent writings from John Sinclair, and an introduction from Michael Simmons that leads the reader through the revolutionary times to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. A bonus CD contains rare music recordings of MC5 band members, the revolutionary rock group UP!, Black Panther Bobby Seale on the White Panthers, and original White Panther Party rallies.