Wayne Kramer, RIP

Wayne Kramer, the guitarist for the Detroit rock band, The MC5, has died at the age of 75. From Rolling Stone:

"Formed in Detroit in the mid-Sixties, MC5 (shorthand for Motor City Five) first came to prominence as the house band for left-wing rallies in the city at the time. Following a performance outside the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 1968, Kramer and company returned to Detroit and its Grande Ballroom in October of that year to lay down what would become their landmark album Kick Out the Jams.

The live LP — with its rallying cry “Kick out the jams, motherfuckers” — would ultimately land on Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. “Kick Out the Jams writhes and screams with the belief that rock & roll is a necessary act of civil disobedience. The proof: It was banned by a Michigan department store,” Rolling Stone wrote of the album. “The MC5 proved their lefty credentials the summer before the album was recorded when they were the only band that showed up to play for the Yippies protesting the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago.”

While MC5’s tenure was short-lived — the band only released two studio albums, 1970’s Back in the USA and 1971’s High Time before their initial break-up — the group had a lasting impact on what would become punk rock, both in its overtly political lyrics and the Kramer/Smith tandem’s explosive riffs."

I never managed to see them perform, much to my regret. But I did wear out my copy of "Kick Out the Jams", one of the loudest, rawest, and political albums of the 1960s. Kick out a few jams in his honour.