John Sinclair -- the former MC5 manager/MC and pot’n’politics provocateur – has written to MOJO, the famous, London-based music magazine, to offer his thoughts on the death last week of album and poster artist Gary Grimshaw.
“Gary Grimshaw was a great creative artist who helped define the spirit and feeling of an entire era,” Sinclair writes.
The two collaborated on the presentation of the MC5 and also on countercultural projects associated with Sinclair’s White Panther Party.
“He beautifully interpreted all my ideas for cultural and social change into public artwork that could make people want to do things they’d never done before,” continues Sinclair.
Grimshaw, left, designed the cover for the MC5’s Kick Out The Jams album (see details on MOJO) and many a poster for landmark Detroit rock shows, including the John Sinclair Freedom Rally of December 10, 1971 – the John Lennon-headlined Crisler Arena show that protested Sinclair’s draconian 10-year sentence for pot possession.
Sinclair, now based in Amsterdam, does a weekly internet program, The John Sinclair Radio Show, which is the flagship of Radio Free Amsterdam. writes a blog, and performs music and recites poetry across Europe and the United States.
In the late 1960s, Sinclair was an outpsoken proponent of marijuana, and now he seems to have been 40 years ahead of the times. In 1969 he was sentenced to 9½ to ten years for giving away two joints to an undercover policewoman, but won an early release in 1971. At the 2006 Cannabis Cup in Amsterdam a potent prize-winning strain of Dutch marijuana was named in his honor.
The MOJO article on Grimshaw reveals Sinclair will relive his ups and downs with the MC5 in the next issue of MOJO – on sale January 28, 2014.
Previously on Deadline Detroit:
