I am a girl who likes boy music and you can't get much more boy than the MC5. They've got it all: grinding guitars, screaming singing, general loudness, heroic posturing, political extremism, snake-hipped dudeness, semi-obscurity, close family ties with the Stooges, endearing belligerence, aggression, blue-collar authenticity, guns, heroin addiction, jail time, dirty hair and, frankly, a lot of foul language. They are also from Detroit, the centre of the rock 'n' roll universe. Apart from the photographer Leni Sinclair, girls did not figure in the world of the MC5, unless they could cook, make babies, sew or fuck. In the excellent new documentary MC5 * A True Testimonial, Danny Fields remarks that these guys were BUTCH.

It's over 30 years since the band finally dissolved, and boys still want to be the MC5. The audience at the screening I went to was testosterone heavy, with a ratio of at least 30 greasy, skinny, droopy boys to every righteous woman. It was weirdly similar to being in a room full of lesbians. The guys drank their beer and whooped and hollered at the screen as the titles came up whereas me, being a girl, well, it just made my hair stand on end and tears well up in my eyes.

Right now...right now...right now it's time to...KICK OUT THE JAMS MOTHERFUCKERS!

Even though I am a girl, that music makes me feel bigger than life, fearless, as though my belly is exploding, it makes me feel totally energised and alive, like I could run down the street screaming and shaking like a demon. It makes me want to kill and fuck like a man.

MC5 * A True Testimonial is a standard rockumentary with little then-and-now bios of the band members, the early days, the success and then the fall of the whole thing. It's full of little anecdotes and regrets, follies, clippings, trips down memory lane. All the central players are here, at least those who are still alive - it's astonishing that any of them are alive - and the left-behind wives are there to fill in the gaps for the two who are gone (check out Rob Tyner's gravestone, shaped suspiciously like his gigantic afro).

But then there's the footage of the band, and the music. I've never seen film of them before and fuck fuck fuck they are incendiary. Wayne Kramer and Fred Sonic Smith brandish their guitars, they spin and do funny James Brown type steps. Rob Tyner's wigging out doin' alright. Michael Davis and Dennis Thompson's rhythm section is charged and driven. It's a total sonic assault. The MC5 even look incredible on the surveillance film made by undercover cops at the Chicago Democratic Convention. I got audience jealousy watching those drippy kids watching them tearing up the stage night after night. At the screening people applauded as though they were there in 1968 seeing the band play for real. What can I say? This shit is hot.

Brothers and sisters, that is not all. The MC5 got caught up in a lot of late-60s revolutionary craziness, which only adds to their appeal. JC Crawford, the band's "Spiritual Advisor," would drive the audience into a semi-religious frenzy with his wild man introductions. Read his rap. Their ex-manager, the über-hippy and White Panther leader John Sinclair now admits that they were as far away from being a political party as it was possible to get, and although they allied themselves with the Black Panthers, that group described them accurately as "psychedelic clowns". Still, they looked fantastic.

At times the MC5 come across a little bit Spinal Tap. When things went downhill, they really went bad, and then there's Fred Sonic Smith's silver spaceman outfit, which can only be described as insane. The film is bittersweet too, showing how a group of beautiful young men turn into a handful of craggy relics. But fuck, what a band. Go and see this film if you can. Even if you know nothing about the MC5, I'm sure you'll love it. Girls, you go too.

MC5, MC5, Motor City Five, it even feels good to say their name.

http://www.futurenowfilms.com/