Photo by Hugh Candyside via Wikimedia Commons
Wayne Kramer, 1974
Wayne Kramer, 1974
Rock and roll and revolution make strange bedfellows. While Elvis, Little Richard and Jerry Lee upset the apple cart of Eisenhower’s hum drum 50s, little had changed socially until Bob Dylan arrived—a rock ‘n’ roller in bumpkin guise, complete with work shirt and Greek fisherman’s cap, lifted from his hero, Okie troubadour Woody Guthrie. With a high intellect, command of the English language and an acoustic guitar he howled “Blowin’ in the Wind,” “Masters of War” and “The Times They Are A Changin’,” throwing down the Zeitgeist like a line in the sand for all to see …
Your sons and your daughtersAre beyond your commandYour old road is rapidly agin'Please get out of the new oneIf you can't lend your hand
Bob continued to confront and unnerve “Mr. Jones” by challenging the norms of polite society with reams of surrealistic lyrics, juiced by a mad careening electric jug band that caused many of his loyal fans to compare him to “Judas.” With a choir-boy clear voice and neatly combed hair, Phil Ochs wrote and sang some of the best op-eds ever strummed, while Dylan, who some complained “couldn’t sing” abandoned protest songs, leaving “the cause” to the likes of Pete Seeger, Peter, Paul and Mary and Joan Baez who regularly warbled his edgy verse. But revolutionaries tend to be a rather tone-deaf bunch. Melody is lost on them. They are more concerned with agendas and ideals. Clipboards and bullhorns are their standard equipment.
While the Argentine Marxist Che Guevara was a romantic figure, a militant saint with far-away eyes, as portrayed by Cuban photographer Alberto Díaz Gutiérrez (AKA Korda), I never heard any music emanating from his famous portrait. Only marching boots and machine gun fire. Following his execution on April Fool’s Day 1965, Che’s black beret was bequeathed to the Black Panthers, a deadly serious bunch—and for good reason! Huey Newton and company couldn’t “get on up” to Sly and the Family Stone’s “Dance to the Music,” as they were too busy being gunned down in the streets of Oakland, Chicago and New Haven.
But I was just a kid when all this was happening and hadn’t met any revolutionaries until years later when I was hired to play sitar for Tom Hayden, to give a ‘60s touch to an evening commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Port Huron Statement in 2012. The former Senator of California and member of the Chicago Seven didn’t seem to hear a note of my exotic noodling, as his attention was focused on some long-forgotten manifesto that may have been a far better blueprint for America’s future than the quagmire we find ourselves in today.
Immediate, Direct, Visceral
While books like Eldridge Cleaver’s Soul on Ice and Jerry Rubin’s Do It!provoked legions of teenage white kids from coast to coast to pump their fists and chant “Free Angela,” it was the music that always spoke to me—immediate, direct, and visceral.
Inspired by the “Prague Spring” (which began with mass protests on January 5, 1968) the Rolling Stones’ released a new single, “Street Fighting Man,” that August which glorified “marching, charging feet” which led to a “palace revolution,” while The Doors’ “Five to One,” featured Jim Morrison’s mad command, “We Want the World the World and We Want It Now!” I saw The Doors live at Asbury Park Convention Center in the summer of ‘68 and naively believed the Lizard King, our psychedelic savior would surely deliver on his promise.
August ‘68 also saw the Beatles finally take a political stand with “Revolution.” But the song, which was recorded twice—both slow (for The White Album) and fast, as the B-Side to “Hey Jude,” inadvertently revealed just how out of touch the band was when Lennon couldn’t decide if he was “in,” or “out,” when it came to the issue of “destruction.”
In 1971 John returned with his agitprop anthem, “Power to the People.” But John and Yoko’s traipsing about the countryside in their Silver Cloud Rolls Royce and donning military chic—gun belts and army helmets, was seen by many as a pose that “didn’t mean shit to a tree,” as Grace Slick sang in “Eskimo Blue Day.” Which brings us the Jefferson Airplane’s 1969 album, Volunteers, which featured the band chanting, “We are all outlaws in the eyes of America,” like a Wagnerian choir on the opening track. The record closed with the Airplane sounding another clarion cry:
“Look what's happening out in the streetsGot a revolution (got to revolution)”
Fooled Again?
One would have thought Roger Daltrey’s hair-raising scream on the Who’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again” was enough to eviscerate “the old boss,” but with the passing of time the song has come to resemble an old statue in the park, a sad remembrance of what might have been.
None of these bands were as rad as the Motor City Five, except perhaps The Fugs, formed in 1965 by a pair of anarchist hippie poets—Ed Sanders, and Tuli Kupferberg—who tried to levitate the Pentagon on October 21, 1967. Hailing from New York’s Lower East Side, The Fugs were anti-establishment to the core. They hated war, extolled smoking dope, and loved sex. But their hysterical/satirical songs were rooted in folk music and lacked the explosive dynamic of the MC5’s Molotov rock.
While The Fugs inadvertently got me suspended in ninth grade for leading a singalong of their song “Wide, Wide River” (which contained the refrain “Flow on, river of shit) on the bus ride home one day, a fistfight nearly broke out, two years later when I played the MC5 in my music appreciation class. To like the 5 or the Stooges at the time, was a dangerous business. The MC5 were a raunchy, scraggly, ugly bunch, that made the Stones look … dignified. Check out Rob Tyner (nee Derminer—who dubbed himself Tyner, after John Coltrane’s pianist McCoy Tyner) prancing about like a beady-eyed, speed-addled witch doctor with his wild frizzy mane and gap-toothed grin.
Most East coast kids dismissed the 5 and Stooges as second rate, “white trash” bands from the Midwest. But once again, they got it wrong. They weren't “white trash,” although Iggy was raised in a trailer park until Bowie came to his rescue. They were White Panthers! Radical? Hell, yes … What’s more radical than freedom? And the White Panthers wanted everything and everybody to be free. Their manifesto called for Free Music! Free Love! Free Food! and Free Dope! And that reckless free-for-all soon brought the heat down on the band’s manager, the outrageous and outspoken poet John Sinclair.
“There weren’t too many people in prison with marijuana charges at the time,” Sinclair told me. “So, what was the big deal? It was alright for Thomas Jefferson to grow marijuana in Virginia. Sadly, dope is a product. When they realized how popular it was, it turned into this big fight over who was going to control the sales. Either they will put you in jail for it, or they will make you buy it.”
“Some good things came out of that terrible mess,” John reckoned, referring to his entrapment. “They held that big rally and John Lennon got me out of prison. I liked The Beatles a lot before I got to know him, but I mean, that was heaven sent!”
Free John Sinclair
Whether the public considered them revolutionaries or sell-outs, Lennon/Ono flew to Ann Arbor on Thursday, December 9, 1971, to loan their cultural clout to the rally aiming to free John Sinclair, who had been found guilty and faced an extremely harsh ten-year prison sentence for selling two marijuana joints to an undercover agent. Other high-profile luminaries scheduled to appear included Allen Ginsberg, Black Panther Bobby Seale, and Yippie instigator Jerry Rubin (who convinced John and Yoko to play the concert) along with Stevie Wonder, who soon would start addressing the problems faced by Black America on his 1973 masterpiece Innervisions.
This was Lennon’s first public acoustic set since playing skiffle with his old mates, the Quarrymen back in Liverpool. John’s brief performance was comprised of new political material: “Attica State,” “Luck of the Irish” and the bluesy “John Sinclair,” which he wrote in honor of the marijuana martyr.
The next day The Detroit News slammed John with a headline complaining that “Lennon Let His Followers Down.” Following Stevie Wonder with a 15-minute acoustic set of four short songs (and none of them old familiar Beatle hits) undoubtedly inspired the negative review.
I should point out that Brother Wayne Kramer’s brand of guerrilla chic was not on sale down at the local Army/Navy store. He flaunted corkscrew hair, frilly shirts ala early Kinks and a silver cross at his throat – style and moves (wiggling his arse at the crowd while unleashing a flood of mean leads from his guitar) that gave the glamorous Marc Bolan a run for his money. And Kramer could jam, like… well, a “motherfucker.” But it wasn’t just a flashy display of chops. It was about “bringing it.” Givin’ everything he had. As guitarist/singer/songwriter Johnny Hickman of Cracker put it upon hearing of Wayne’s recent passing… “His TONE! It’s like Godzilla with soul!” Wayne’s special sonic sauce blended the mad/rad skronk of free jazz saxophonists Albert Ayler and Ornette Coleman with all the volume and visceral metallic edge the electric guitar had to offer. And this was years before punk, boys and grrls ….
Surprisingly Detroit homeboy Lester Bangs wrote some clank about the 5 in the Nov./Dec. 1970 issue of Creem, dismissing their cover Sun Ra’s “Starship,” as an “embarrassing dud.” (Hey Lester, name another bunch of white boys playing Sun Ra at the time!) The late/great Bangs also bemoaned the hype that initially surrounded the band which “promised the moon and failed to get off the launching pad.”
In the Moment
And there’s some truth to that. But for the 5 it was the moment that mattered most. Their records never compared to experiencing the band live. The sheer adrenaline of watching the video of the MC5 at Tartar Field at Wayne State University in Detroit, taking no prisoners with “Ramblin’ Rose,” and “Kick Out The Jams/Looking At You” will make you a true believer: youtube.com/watch?v=74jS3dW0DtE. If not, better get your pulse checked. Wayne was so great they named the damned college after him!
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Rock on Wayne Kramer and thank you for no holds barred - full throttle rock—unapologetic, lusty, and dangerous!
And now for a brief postscript recalling Wayne’s generosity of spirit. “A few years ago, Wayne brought me in to teach songwriting to men in prison,” singer/songwriter/ producer/multi-instrumentalist Marvin Etzioni (of Lone Justice fame) said. “Once a week I went to Jail Guitar Doors in downtown Los Angeles for a semester. It was an eye-opening experience, to say the least. I suggested they each write every day, every night. Even if it's just a word, a sentence. Soon after, a former crack head told his mom he discovered writing poetry and songs. She said, ‘I didn't know you could even write.’” And remember, as Marvin advises… “Kick out the jams for as long as you can.”
Here’s the link if are able to donate to Wayne’s cause, Jail Guitar Doors: jailguitardoors.org/donate.
