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The Motor City Five also known as MC5 was a garage punk band from Lincoln Park, Michigan
who easily secured their place in Rock N’ Roll history with their debut album and also
their most famous called “KIck Out the Jams.”
They were one of the groups who set up the musical foundations for later punk bands like
The Sex Pistols, The Clash and The Misfits.
And they’ve been nominated for the Rock N’ Roll Hall of Fame 5 times but never admitted.
Not that the rock n' roll hall of fame matters anyways.
The original MC5 lineup put out 3 albums together over a 3 year span from 1969-1971.
The band formed during a very tumultuous time in American history.
The Vietnam war was still raging, and racial tension was intensifying across the country,
with Detroit being one of the hotspots of the conflict.
MC5 consisted of band members Rob Tyner on vocals, guitarists Wayne Kramer and Fred "Sonic"
Smith, as well as bassist Michael Davis, and drummer Dennis Thompson.
The band officially formed in 1964, the same year that the civil rights act was signed.
The name MC5 was made up by Tyner and chosen because it sounds like a car part, which was
fitting given the band was from Detroit, which is known for their car industry .It would
be 5 grueling years of playing local venues before they put out their first album “Kick
Out The Jams.”
In 1966, the band met activist, jazz poet and counter-culture icon John Sinclair who
would become their manager.
He would prove to be the creative anchor of the group, while at the same time exposing
them to different types of music and artists like John Coltrane.
They became well-known for their electrifying live shows and playing venues like the Grande
Ballroom regularly.
The band also opened for some pretty big artists at the venue including Cream and Blood, Sweat
and Tears During an interview with NME in 1977, guitarist Wayne Kramer reflected on
the influence of Sinclair telling the publication Being the young hustlers we were, the MC5
started to see that this hippie thing was gonna go, man...So we figured the way to get
the hippies to like us was to get the chief hippie to like us, who was John Sinclair.
Wayne Kramer 'Please Kill Me' In 1968 John Sinclair took our experience
and articulated and defined it so it became something political.
He know where our interest in the music movement stopped, we were primarily interested in rock
'n' roll music he'd say.
In 1967 the Detroit race riots broke out.
It lasted 8 days and 43 people died.
And another 467 were injured and 72,000 arrested in addition to a 2000 buildings being burned
down.
This changed the band’s outlook on society forever, and cemented their anti-establishment
sentiments.
In 1968, the MC5 and John Sinclair joined the White Panthers, which was an anti-capitalist,
anti-racist group.
The group was firmly against flower power and believed that armed conflict was inevitable
and competed with folk groups using their aggressive sound.
It was the same year that the band signed with Elektra Records.
In a 2018 interview with NPR online, surviving band member Wayne Kramer claimed that “"It
certainly was a radicalizing experience.
I had misgivings about the older generation and the establishment before the rebellion
of '67, but that just pushed me into militancy, in terms of my frustration, and my anger with
the way adults were running the country" he'd say.
It was also around this time the group posted for a series of promo shots posing topless
with guitars as well as guns And this was a bold and dangerous move displaying
themselves as hardened revolutionaries.
It was the perfect way to attract the attention of the authorities and that they did.
The group’s phones were tapped, their van was firebombed and their house was raided
by marines based on reports of sniper fire.
At the end the members of MC5 weren’t violent revolutionaries, but they had balls.
And the band would be political during their time together In 1968, they played a at a
Vietnam anti-war protest in Chicago during the Democratic convention.
It was a violent day as none of the other bands who were scheduled to play showed up
and following their performance violence and riots erupted.
.In 1969, the band hit its stride and finally bottled the electricity of their live shows.
Their first album, “Kick Out the Jams,” was recorded live over two nights at The Grande
Ballroom in Detroit.
That same year, manager and friend of the band John Sinclair was sentenced to 10 years
for possession of pot.
This would later prove to destabilize the band in a way that they couldn’t recover
from.
And the title track opened up with vocalist Rob Tyner screaming “Kick Out the Jams“M****F****,”
Obviously the album was slammed for being obsceen and the Local Detroit Department store
Hudson’s refused to carry the album because of its content.
Never one's to back down or give in, MC5 refused to censor the album to keep it on Hudson’s
shelves, so they retaliated instead.
To retaliate, the band took out a full-page ad in an underground magazine called ‘The
Fifth Estate’ that said ""KICK OUT THE JAMS, mother fers! and kick in the door if the store
won’t sell you the album on Elektra.
F HUDSON’S!"”
The Department store pulled all Elektra albums from their stores in retaliation.
The Head of Elektra Records Jac Holzman fired the band from the label on April 16, 1969.
Holzman was best known for signing The Doors, as well as The Stooges and Queen in the United
States.
And After this,the band re-signed with Atlantic and Jac Holzman sold Electra for $10M to Warner
Music and move to Hawaii.
The group's second album, 1970’s Back in the USA was produced by future Bruce Springsteen
mentor Jon Landau.
It was polished and commercial, but the band’s sound was barely recognizable except for the
vocals.
The album peaked at #137 in the U.S. charts.
It proved to be a low point for the band as they were exhausted from touring and increasing
drug use.
Their third album, 1971’s High Time was more experimental and included a number of
longer pieces like Future/Now.
Their last two albums lost Atlantic money and the band was subsequently dropped.
In 1971, Hudson’s flagship store closed down and the brand went on to be forgotten
(unlike the MC5.)
Bands like Aerosmith and Grand Funk Railroad would take what the band did with 1971 album
high times and shape it in their own image.
But by 1972 the band broke up after a poorly attended show at the Grande Ballroom, where
they had once played to a packed house.
After a few songs Guitarist Wayne Kramer left the stage in frustration.
A few years later he got busted by the police and ended up in Federal Prison from 1975-1978
for dealing drugs.
He’s the only surviving member of the original lineup to this day.
Meanwhile Fred “Sonic” Smith married Patti Smith in 1980.
It’s a coincidence that they have the same last name.
Their son Jackson would end up marrying White Stripes drummer Meg White in 2009.
And Guitarist Fred Smith and vocalist Rob Tyner both dies of heart attacks in their
mid-forties Members of the band reformed in 2003 with
the lead singer of The Dictators Handsome Dick Manitoba until bassist Michael David
died of liver failure in 2012.
MC5 is one of the most important hard rock groups, and helped define the sound that was
later called “punk.”
Kick Out Jams is a frequently covered song by bands including Blue Oyster Cult, Rage
Against the Machine, Jeff Buckley and about 20 other groups.That does it for today's video
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