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ASCENSION

DENNIS THOMPSON: After the MC5 broke up, about six months later, I was living in Detroit. Fred and Michael and myself got back together again, and we rehearsed in my attic in an old-fashioned two-story brick house, the old well-built ones. That's where we rehearsed, 'cause I lived in the upper fucking flat. Well, we put out the word to Rob, "Would you like to join our band?" And Rob declined. And we put the word out to Wayne, and Wayne declined. But we did make an attempt to put the band back together again. And the three of us were up there sweatin' our balls off in the middle of a hundred and twenty degrees because we all wanted to do it again. Everyone was free and clear of all drugs, all alcohol, nothing, we were completely ready to go again, okay? Rehab city, let's go. And they declined, so it never happened.



MICHAEL DAVIS: Ascension was Fred Smith's concept; it was gonna be Fred's band; he'd write the material and I would do the singing. There was some sort of mystique about me back in those days, that I could sing; it probably came from the [pre-MC5] folkie Bob Dylan-y thing, so everybody believed I could sing. So Fred thought that I would be able to do the singing and we went out and got me a little Casio [keyboard] so I would have something to do besides stand or leap around. We hired a dude named John Hefti to play the bass, and Dennis agreed to play the drums, and we thought we had us a little supergroup. 

It was Fred's compositions and Fred's idea to have this band. I don't think we played a lot of gigs, maybe two or three, and the kinda stuff we got as gigs wasn't anything that's gonna get you in Rolling Stone, like playing three or four sets a night in a bowling alley..."What? How'd we get here?" But I found out very quickly that if you have to use your voice for more than an hour and a half, you're looking at some trouble if you're not used to singing. So it didn't last a really long time, but it was a lot of fun...practicing in Dennis' attic and sweating our balls off up there in summer in Detroit.