Posted September 17, 2001
REMEMBERING ROB TYNER
If you go to the Roseland Cemetery in Berkley, Michigan, today,
you can find him buried under a simple marker that reads, "Beloved Husband
& Father, Robert W. Derminer, Dec. 18, 1944-Sep. 18, 1991." On the marker
is a representation of his "spirit animal," the buffalo. Nearby is a larger
memorial, a round slab of marble (in the shape of a tire? Or a giant Afro?)
bearing the legend "Let me be who I am" (from his best-known song) and the
name by which more people know him - Robin Tyner.
It
was almost 10 years ago now that Rob Tyner, lead singer of the legendary revolutionary
rabble-rousers and punk precursors the MC5, died of a heart attack behind
the wheel of his car in his suburban Michigan driveway, aged 47. I remember
reading about it in the Village Voice when I was a year from separating
from the Air Force, doing time in Bossier City, Louisiana. The writer of the
piece was from Detroit and talked about having his radio on when all of a
sudden they started playing "Ramblin' Rose" (funny, I thought, 'cos Brother
Wayne Kramer sang that one), "Kick Out the Jams," and "Looking At You." It
was the first time he'd heard the Five on the radio in years, and he knew
that something was up.
I was sneaking up on 35 years old then and hadn't thought much about the Five
for 20 years or so, but it still seemed like the end of something important.
Born in Detroit and infused with that city's car-burger-and-rock'n'roll culture,
Rob was a teenage beatnik, cartoonist, jazz and sci-fi freak whose brother
was friends with a high school hood, motorhead, and budding guitarist named
Wayne Kambes. Rob caught the rock'n'roll bug after hearing the Rolling Stones'
amped-up take on electric blues and R&B. He was sitting outside a White Castle
burger joint, blowing harp, when he encountered Wayne and they got to talking
about Wayne's band, the Bounty Hunters.
The MC5 started out with Rob, Wayne and Fred Smith cruising around in Rob's
car, dreaming. Rob named the band MC5 (short for "Motor City Five") because
"it sounded like a car part." He used to wear a washer which he called his
"MC5-ness" on a chain around his neck. Powerful links were being forged. By
all accounts, Rob was the spiritual touchstone of the Five, starting from
the time he talked Fred Smith (who was used to using his fists to get his
way) out of kicking his ass (after he'd chastised Fred for hassling the help
in a restaurant) by asking him, "Why?" Rob's concept of rebellion didn't extend
to being rude to waiters; he believed in treating all people with respect.
It's unsurprising that Rob was the first of the Five's founder members to
leave the band, when he discovered he didn't enjoy the pressures of touring
as much as he did the simple pleasures of home and family. Rob's life gives
the lie to Chris Stigliano's ridiculous assertion in Black To Comm
#19 that Rob (like most of BTC's readers) "came from white male stock"
(a statement which reminds me of nothing so much as the King of Siam in Rodgers
and Hammerstein's musical writing to Abraham Lincoln, offering to populate
the forests of America with elephants by sending over "several pairs of young
male elephants"). Like all the early Motor City whiteboy rock'n'rollers, Rob
was steeped in the tradition of R&B showmanship which he witnessed on many
hometown stages and experienced vicariously through records like "The Temptations
Live at the Rooster Tail" and "James Brown Live at the Apollo" (the Five's
"energy model," which they'd habitually blast in the van to vibe up on the
way to gigs). Rob's vision of rock'n'roll was inclusive enough to encompass
Little Richard, Ray Charles, and James Brown as well as the Stones, Who, and
Yardbirds. (Check the Five's early set lists for proof.)
When Wayne Kambes became Brother Wayne Kramer and Dennis Tomich became Dennis
"Machine Gun" Thompson, the erstwhile Bob Derminer renamed himself in honour
of John Coltrane's piano player, McCoy Tyner. And not to forget, he sported
the largest Afro ever worn by a white man in rock'n'roll (including Jimi Hendrix'
Experience), prompting MC5 comparisons every time a band of white or brown
rock'n'rollers arrives on the set similarly coiffed (At the Drive In being
only the latest). Rob learned his lessons well, but ultimately, he sang his
OWN song. He should be remembered as the author of two of the finest, truest
descriptions of the rock'n'roll experience extant: "Kick Out the Jams," a
testimonial to the Rock's power as well as a STATEMENT OF INTENT, and "Looking
At You," a paean to the mystical connection between performer and audience
that can make the music transcendant. Lacking the physical charisma of Mitch
Ryder or Iggy Pop and the effortless soul of Scott Morgan, Rob got by on heart
as much as he did on pipes (although he DID have the power, vocally - dig
his Near Eastern-sounding vocalismo on some of the ca. '68 "experimental"
Five stuff, or his more straight-ahead R&B-based testifyin' on the early AMG
and A-Square singles and the "Kick Out the Jams" album). He had so
much heart that he didn't even appear ridiculous when he mounted the stage
in later years, a hefty man clad in leather biker/bondage gear, sometimes
brandishing a samurai sword.
His compositional gifts were musical as well as lyrical; today, Wayne recalls
how ALL of "The Human Being Lawnmower," with its tortuous twists and turns,
poured full-grown out of Rob's head during the "Back In the U.S.A." sessions.
His one solo songwriting credit was also one of the Five's most enduring pieces:
"Future Now," from "High Time." After leaving the band in '72 on the brink
of a European tour which Kramer and Smith unwisely opted to undertake without
him, Rob continued to keep one foot in rock'n'roll (once it's in your blood,
you've got no choice), cutting a solo single in England backed by Eddie and
the Hot Rods and fronting various bands billed as the MC5 (with young bloods
like guitarists Robert Gillespie and Joey Gados and bassist Pete Bankert)
around the Motor City, incurring the wrath of Wayne and Fred for doing so.
(The recording of a show by the Gillespie-led edition that was released by
Motor City Music as "Rock'n'Roll People" a coupla years back has just been
reissued by Captain Trips over in Japan with five bonus tracks. The
"Blood Brothers" solo album featuring the Gados line-up is discontinued and
hard to come by, but has some worthwhile moments - particularly "Grande Nights,"
the lyrics to which appeared on the '91 CD release of "Kick Out the Jams"
along with Rob's new liner notes - although it sounds a little dated, largely
due to Gados' squealing metallic guitar sound.)
It's interesting that late in his life, this former antiwar activist (if only
by association), whose performance at the '68 Yippie "Festival of Life" in
Chicago was immortalized by Norman Mailer, chose to do outreach work with
Vietnam veterans and even made music with vets (the "Ambush" album he recorded
with musicians including hornman Marcus Belgrave and former Third Power/Bob
Seger guitarist Drew Abbot under the rubric Stev Mantiev)...another example
of the webs of inclusion Rob sought to build between people and groups. Clearly
he realized (as Seger did when he wrote "2 + 2 = ?") that "it's the rules
and not the soldiers who are my real enemy." Do whatever you do to get LAID
BACK and SPIRITUAL, then throw on the first side of "Kick Out the Jams" or
maybe Bro. Wayne's "The Hard Stuff" for "The Edge of the Switchblade." Contemplate
an extraordinary life, and realize that they just don't make 'em like Rob
Tyner anymore.
READ GEOFF GINSBERG'S
REVIEW OF THE ROB TYNER MC4 SHOW
LINK TO THE PERFECT SOUND FOREVER TYNER
TRIBUTE
PHOTO OF ROB TYNER'S GRAVE COURTESY OF
FIND-A-GRAVE
