MC5's WAYNE KRAMER Dead At 75

Blabbermouth ^ | February 2, 2024 | N/A

[DoodleBob]

Wayne Kramer, co-founder, guitarist, and singer of the influential Detroit rock band MC5, has died at the age of 75.

Kramer's passing was announced on Friday (February 2) in a post shared to Instagram.

A simple black-and-white photo of the rocker was posted with the caption: "Wayne S. Kramer 'PEACE BE WITH YOU' April 30, 1948 – February 2, 2024."

Kramer died at Cedars-Sinai hospital in Los Angeles, according to Jason Heath, a close friend and executive director of Kramer's nonprofit Jail Guitar Doors. Heath said the cause of death was pancreatic cancer.

Following the news of Kramer's death, RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE guitarist Tom Morello took to social media to write: "Brother Wayne Kramer was the greatest man I've ever known. He possessed a one of a kind mixture of deep wisdom and profound compassion, beautiful empathy and tenacious conviction. His band the MC5 basically invented punk rock music and was the only act to not chicken out and performed for the rioting protestors at the 1968 Dem National Convention."

MC5's sonic thunder continues to reverberate a half-century after they first stormed the rock world with 1969's "Kick Out The Jams", the galvanizing live document that introduced a major voice of late '60s counterculture and proved incomparably influential on metal, punk, stoner rock and almost every other form of loud, boundary pushing music that would follow. The original MC5 lineup recorded two more albums before imploding: 1970's "Back In The USA", produced by rock critic (and future Bruce Springsteen manager) Jon Landau, and their 1971 creative zenith, "High Time". The last days of 1972 also marked the final performance of the original MC5 lineup, thereby ending a turbulent existence marked by their anti-establishment political stance, mainstream radio banishment, FBI harassment, and lots of uncompromising, unequaled rock and roll fury.

Iggy Pop has said the MC5 belong in the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame "for their contributions to American music and its politics… They were hugely charismatic and influential. Their beliefs and approach had to do with things much larger than music and these things are coming to light more and more today on the world revolutionary stage. There is no band that I know of as dangerous as the MC5."

Kramer was a well-respected and prolific film ("Talladega Nights", HBO's "Hacking Democracy") and television (HBO's "East Bound And Down") composer. He was recognized by Rolling Stone magazine as one of the "100 Greatest Guitar Players of All Time".

In recent years, Kramer toured as the MC50 with SOUNDGARDEN's Kim Thayil and Matt Cameron, FAITH NO MORE bassist Billy Gould and ZEN GUERILLA singer Marcus Durant. Four years ago, Kramer announced the formation of WE ARE ALL MC5, a touring "reanimation" of the pioneering band.

[frank ballenger]

I was there at exactly the time they were rising in local popularity and notoriety. Probably saw them 25 times or more since they were usually on the bill opening for Cream, the Grateful Dead, Canned Heat and so many more at the Grande Ballroom in Detroit. My 128 page senior essay at the honors college at Wayne State University was partially about the mutual influence of the rock music and Beat Generation of the 1960s. I got an A.

The MC5 were genuine and contributors to the evolution of popular music. They respected and learned from black jazz artists as well as the Who and Jimi Hendrix, and used jazz improvisation as well as psychedelic sounds. Their record company brass destroyed them in my opinion, not the drug use. Tried to tone them down and re-shape them. But the point had been they were originals and mavericks like Dirty Harry or Bob Dylan. Outlaws misunderstood.

Side note: in Norman Mailer’s Miami and the Siege of Chicago
he mentions that of the rock groups signing up to protest against the Humphrey nomination at the Democratic National Convention during the riots, only the MC5 honored their promise and played there before police rounded everybody up.
Original bill had all the headliners but they all chickened out.

Each loss of another old timer makes me feel even older.

[maddog55]

Kick out the jams MF !!!

[Some Fat Guy in L.A.]

Let’s not forget the really shocking stuff in the Bugs Bunny cartoons - you wascawwy wabbit.

[Psalm 73]

His band-mate, Fred "Sonic" Smith was married to Patti Smith (Patti Smith Group).

She wrote the song "Frederick" about him - one of the few songs she actually uses a singing voice with.

[dakine]

MC5 is an American rock band formed in Lincoln Park, Michigan, in 1963.

I was born in Lincoln Park.... In 1963...

[George from New England]

More irrelevant black history month info in our face