WZBC recommends ...
MC5's Kick Out The Jams
By John Sobolewski

Is there a cultural equivalent to the Motor City 5? Theologians might call them the Christ figures of hard-nosed rock, suffering and dying so that the world could later be redeemed through punk and post-punk. The scientifically inclined could compare the MC5 to dark matter (we know it's there, we don't quite get it, but it's pretty cool). As a history major, I like to think of them as the James Polk of bands - short-lived, wholly accomplished, unjustly forgotten, and hard as nails. But maybe Detroit's original MC5 just doesn't have an equivalent.

The Motor City 5 were too crazy for the '60s and too rough for rock and roll. They drank, they tripped, they baked, they fought, and they made ridiculously good music. The government came after them and the record industry ran away from them.

In 1964, when they got together, the band was a teen party act boasting cute matching outfits and pop covers. Then the counterculture hit Detroit. And by the time of the 1968 riots, the MC5 weren't just a part of the revolution, they were the soundtrack.

They came under the wing of John Sinclair, the former English teacher and proclaimed "king of the Detroit hippies." Sinclair politicized the MC5 and made them the official mouthpiece of his "White Panther" party, which had a mission statement of "total assault on the culture." Of his membership, Sinclair remarked, "We are LSD driven, total maniacs in the universe ... We will not be f­­­-ed with. We will use guns if we have to, we will do anything if we have to."

Their ideology established, the band members pretty much spent the next four years living up to it. Compared to the Motor City 5's live act, Jim Morrison's Doors were about as benign as Big Bird on Ice. The band, dressed iconoclastically in leather and denim, rip-roaring full of substances and carrying the banner of "rock and roll, dope, and f-ing in the streets," was trouble anywhere they went. When the Yippies festival at the 1968 Democratic convention exploded into a riot, it was during the middle of a live set by the MC5.

The resulting record, Kick Out the Jams, didn't win the band much in the way of commercial success. A controversy flared up over the album catch phrase, "Kick out the jams, motherf-ers!" Several major stores refused to carry it, sales fell, and the suits at Elektra dropped the contract and ran. But if the record didn't sell, it sure did everything else.

Kick Out the Jams might be the best live recording ever. There's the MC5 take on call-and-response dialogue ("I hear a lot of talk by a lot of honkeys, sittin' on a lot of money, telling me they're high society. They're not. We're high society!"). The maniacal, afro-sporting lead singer Rob Tyner puts a napalm burn on every vocal. Guitarists Wayne Kramer and Fred "Sonic" Smith solo like Hendrix and synchronize like a watch. It is all held down by the tightest rhythm section this side of Count Basie's Orchestra - bassist Michael Davis and drummer Dennis Thompson. The record had more grit than the Velvet Underground, more fire than the Rolling Stones, and all the machismo of Howling Wolf.

Every track is a classic. The dual guitar surge on "Rocket Reducer No. 62" hasn't found an equal in 35 years. "Kick Out the Jams'" good-timing anarchy has made it a punk rock standard. "Motor City is Burning" might be the most compelling blues number ever pulled together by a bunch of white boys, with all due respect to Paul Butterfield.

The band was never able to outdo Kick Out the Jams. Their two subsequent studio albums rocked, but they couldn't replicate the intensity they had on a stage. Shortly after Jams was released, hippie king Sinclair was thrown in jail for distributing marijuana. Record labels were staying as far from the band as the police were staying close, and the mainstream still hadn't warmed up to the idea of armed hippie revolution. The stress (and the drugs) proved too much, and the band disbanded in 1971.

But though the band was dead, their following wasn't. Groups like Crass, the Sex Pistols, and the Clash routinely credited MC5 as their inspiration. Acts like Spacemen 3, Love and Rockets, and BRMC are all clear Motor City disciples.

And who knows, maybe you could be too; maybe we all could be. Maybe we could turn BC into the spark that finally ignited the revolution. But before we do that, check out the album and make certain you know what you're getting into.