I'd been away from things for a few days, limiting my online time to strictly necessary shit. So I didn't find out until this past weekend that Wayne Kramer had passed away (on February 2nd). Kramer was one of the guitarists in the MC5 (the other being Fred "Sonic" Smith). Proto-punk influence, "Kick Out the Jams", guitar hero, blah blah, blah. He was a great musician, if you know the MC5, you know that. But he was so much more than just another hot shit guitarist.
If you don't know about his incarceration and his prison reform activism after his release, Capital & Main, a Califonia based non-profit site, has a great article about all that. That part of Kramer puts him on a whole other tier. Read the article. For now, here's my favorite clip of him, doing a cover of Ted Taylor's "Ramblin' Rose" with the MC5 (followed by "Kick Out the Jams"), from 1970. Check his foot work. (Look out Prince.) There's a few other MC5 things down there to keep you from the dishes..
Listen:
MC5 - Ramblin' Rose mp3 at Internet Archive
Ted Taylor - Ramblin' Rose mp3 at Probe Is Turning-On the People
MC5 - Kick Out the Jams mp3 at Internet Archive
MC5 - Rocket Reducer#2 (Rama Lama Fa Fa) mp3 at Internet Archive
Video:
MC5 - Kick Out the Jams (live) at YouTube Colorized version of the clip above. Had me fooled.
Visit:
Wayne Kramer’s Rage Against the Prison Machine at Capital & Main "Years behind bars for drug dealing led the influential proto-punk rocker to work for criminal justice reform."
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