Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

I just saw a great documentary about the MC5, called MC5: A True Testimonial, and it had a BUNCH of footage of Fred 'Sonic' Smith and his Mapleglo 450/12. Does anyone have any photographs of him with this guitar? Seems like he used it for quite a few years.

I saw a DVD the other day with him playing a Ric, I forgot about it until just now, they were a great band huh? The DVD is a bootleg and there is no info with it unfortunately, had a lot of great stuff on it from the late 60's, early 70's, Fanny, The Byrds, MC5, It's a Beautiful day, Captain Beefheart (who were unbelievable in this video) etc.

There's a picture of Fred with his Ric on the front cover of the Sonics Rendezvous Band (his post-MC5 band) reissues from a few years back.

That documentary is great, btw, and the reunion show (no Fred, of course, RIP) I saw a couple weeks ago was surprisingly satisfying (helped by the fact that Mark Arm and Marshall Crenshaw were both very good).

Doug, where did you see them? I was supposed to go see them but my friend I was going to go with hurt her knee and couldnt go.

Hi Steve - I saw them at the Independent in San Francisco (formerly the Justice League, Crash Palace & Kennel Club). One cool thing they've been doing on the tour is bringing up local "classic punk" (for lack of a better term) stars to guest (Handsome Dick Manitoba of the Dictators in NYC, for instance), so we got Roy Loney (ex-Flamin' Groovies - hey, that's even Rickenbacker content!) singing the Chuck Berry / Little Richard covers from 'Back In The USA' (Evan Dando sucked BTW, but Arm, Crenshaw & Loney more than made up for him).

They played at a little theatre here (Magic Stick in Detroit) and I really wanted to go, but it didnt happen. I'm glad they rocked!!
Handsome Dick is also late of Manitoba's Wild Kingdom, whose only CD I am really fond of.

Kick out the jams...

I think he used it as a 6

Fred's 450/12 strung as a 6 has been discussed here: viewtopic.php?f=11&t=399070