kick out the jams

The Motor City Five unleashed the irresistible force of their revolutionary live performances on this incendiary proto punk polemic.   The group had started in Lincoln Park, Michigan when teenage friends Wayne Kramer and Fred Smith combined their separate rock groups (the Bounty Hunters and the Vibratones) into MC5.  Rob Derminer came into the group initially as a manager and played bass for a short while until they discovered his unique vocal talents.  He took on the name Rob Tyler and came up with the name of the band.  The lineup was solidified with the addition of the rhythm section of Michael Davis and Dennis Thompson.  Kramer and Smith experimented with feedback and an explosive energy to emulate their free jazz heroes like John Coltrane and Sun Ra.  They built a following in the Detroit area and caught the attention of White Panther Party radical John Sinclair, who became their "advisor".  MC5 became involved in protests against the Vietnam War, playing for several hours at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago where riots broke out between protesters and police.  It was around this time that the band was offered a recording contract with Elektra Records.  Rather than go into a studio, they decided to record their debut album during two nights (Devil's Night and Halloween) at the Detroit's Grande Ballroom.  'Kick Out the Jams' was produced by Jac Holzman and Bruce Botnick with Rob Tyner on lead vocals; Wayne Kramer on lead and rhythm guitar, backing vocals, and lead vocals on "Ramblin' Rose"; Fred "Sonic" Smith on rhythm and lead guitar, and backing vocals; Michael Davis on bass guitar and backing vocals; and Dennis Thompson on drums.  

Sinclair says:    "We did it over two days, October 30 and 31. We didn’t think it was at all strange that we were going to record 'Kick Out The Jams' live. We thought it was the way we should do it. Over the years, Wayne has made comments that he didn’t like the way it turned out, but you couldn’t have a more accurate representation of how the band sounded. It was bold to do a live album as a first album, but that was our aesthetic. We were a band that put on a show when nobody put on a show, except for The Who. We cut two nights at the Grande. It was a free concert, so our fans were there. We wanted everybody to enjoy this with us. We felt they brought us there." 

'Kick Out the Jams' was a national sensation, breaking into the top thirty on the album chart, despite the fact that several retailers refused to carry the album because of the rhetoric of Sinclair's liner notes and the opening salvo of the title track:  "Kick out the jams, motherfuckers!"  The album was re-released in an edited version that removed both the notes and the profanity.  

Kramer reveals:    "We picked '...Jams' as a single because it best summed up what we were doing at that moment. Most of that generation of songs, Rob and I wrote in the kitchen at our house near the John C Lodge Expressway in Detroit. We had this kitchen that used to be a dentist’s office. I had a little amp and we would sit there and I’d throw riffs at Rob and chord changes, and he would usually have a couplet or two of lyrics and we’d just try to fit them together. We just tried to knock something out pretty quickly. Which we did. The song came out of bandspeak. Tyner heard the expression and it fitted in with this idea of total commitment, total assault on the culture. So we used the expression to harass other bands. I couldn’t tell you which bands, because we harassed every band we played with. Well, if they were losers, we let them know that. We’d stand by the edge of the stage and holler: 'Kick out the jams or get off the stage!'    So it was like an expression, and Tyner crafted that into a tune. He talked later about how he was writing it to us in the band. He was telling us, “Don’t try and change me, let me be who I am.” He was framing it like the story of what happened on a night when we played. We all got in tune. When the dressing room got hazy, it got hazy with reefer smoke. And then we got crazy. And those other lines, Miss McKenzie, that just rhymed good with leaping frenzy. There was no Miss McKenzie. Hate to deflate the thought, but that’s how it is in the songwriting business.   Everybody got credit on the songs because, you know, we were communists...I think the reason the song lives on is because it seems to sum up that slightly over-the-top enthusiasm that youth have, that 19-year-old punks on a meth power trip have? I say that quoting Lester Bangs. We were 19 years old and we were punks, but we weren’t on a meth power trip. We were just on a power trip."





http://www.mc5.org/










'Kick Out the Jams' full album:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAGIIopsBLI



All tracks written by MC5 (Rob Tyner, Wayne Kramer, Fred "Sonic" Smith, Michael Davis, Dennis Thompson), except as noted.

1. "Ramblin' Rose"   Fred Burch, Marijohn Wilkin 4:15
2. "Kick Out the Jams"   2:52
3. "Come Together"   4:29
4. "Rocket Reducer No. 62 (Rama Lama Fa Fa Fa)"   5:41
5. "Borderline"   2:45
6. "Motor City Is Burning"   Al Smith 6:04
7. "I Want You Right Now"   Colin Frechter, Larry Page 5:31
8. "Starship"   MC5, Sun Ra 8:15

from the liner notes:
"The MC5 is totally committed to the revolution, as the revolution is totally committed to driving people out of their separate shells and into each other's arms...The MC5 will make you feel it, or leave the room. The MC5 will drive you crazy out of your head and into your body. The MC5 is rock and roll. Rock and roll is the music of our bodies, of our whole lives...They are a working model of the new paleocybernetic culture in action.  There is no separation.  They live together to work together, they eat together, fuck together, get high together, walk down the street and through the world together.  There is no separation...Separation is doom.  We are free men, and we demand a free music, a free high energy source that will drive us wild into the streets of America yelling and screaming and tearing down everything that would keep people slaves.   The MC5 is that force."