The '60s radicalized a significant portion of the American populace. Most of those folks have since that time given up the ghost, though. It's pretty clear at this late date that the revolution failed pretty miserably. Of course there are out croppings of social programs and the women's movement that were effected, but apart from that, there hasn't been a great shift towards liberating the down trodden in this country or elsewhere across the globe. But even with this apparent failure of these genuinely well intentioned times, a great deal of art, music and literature resulted.

John Sinclair might not be a name that all too many folks know off the top of their heads - some might think it sounds familiar. And really the reason most might sight for ever having heard the name is the resultant effect of John Lennon writing a little ditty about the guy. But even before Sinclair got shipped off to a Michigan state prison, he was inextricably linked to the radical culture in Detroit and Ann Arbor.

Being educated in Michigan, Sinclair had made a name for himself - no matter how limited - by writing and reading his poetry in either the college town he called home or the big city. As the '60s progressed, instances occurring around the writer served to politicize him to a pretty great extent. And eventually, he began to advocate for a self sustaining counter culture to begin forming in order to eventually take over the government when the dying federales eventually met their demise.

Part of this position came as a result of Sinclair managing a rock band called the MC5 (Motor City Five). The dealings Sinclair and his band - who he radicalized as well - had with not only concert promoters, but local and state law enforcement showed him that something needed to be done. Unfortunately, for Sinclair, his vocal chastisement of the man didn't sit too well with police and he was eventually sent up the river for ten years as a result of selling two joints to an undercover officer.

Even prior to this, Sinclair had begun writing for various independently run, local newspapers in which he advocated for the freedom of the oppressed. That sentiment can't really be disagreed with, but in some instances it seemed as if he was basically taunting the law - although frequently he was simply recounting bizarre run-ins that probably couldn't have happened to anyone else.

In some ways, Sinclair's prescient writing seems like a forerunner of the personalized nature of the internet. He maintained that if everyone contributed a minute amount, the counter culture would eventually be able to exist independently of the dominant US culture, but folks needed to voice their individual dissenting opinions via a series of local papers, free festivals and social groups. Often, his writing are smothered in optimism, which he even acknowledges occasionally. But alongside these moments, Sinclair remains unmoving in his perspective. Regardless of how unrealistic any of this seemed then - or now - Sinclair believed that it needed to be tried.

So, if you think you can make it through a series of ten to fifteen page screeds on how the people need to act in order to achieve change, pick up Guitar Army.