3 February 2024

Only 18 months ago WAYNE KRAMER, the guitarist and only surviving member of Detroit‘s legendary noise rock crusaders, announced that a new album would come out in October 2022. It would have been the band’s 3rd studio LP, following Back In The USA (1970) and High Time (1971). But it was with their first LP, a live on, named KICK OUT THE JAMS that they cemented their name for history. Since 1992 the band reunited regularly to play live.

The new longplayer, titled Heavy Lifting was planned to be released in October of 2022. But it wasn’t finished by then and last year Kramer announced that the album would be launched in 2024. Along the news came a snippet of the title track, written by Kramer with new MC5 singer Brad Brooks and longtime collaborator Tom Morello, guitarist of Rage Against The Machine. They shared a snippet of the song. Watch/listen below.

Final tour.

This morning, I was shocked by the sad, surprising news of Kramer‘s untimely death.
He passed away yesterday due to pancreatic cancer. Rest in piece, motherrocker.

“Kick out the jams motherfuckers
Yeah I, I, I, I, I’m gonna
I’m gonna kick ’em out, yeah”

MC5: Bio – Discography

Little note: after writing a piece about the 50th birthday of MC5 back in 2018, and
the accompanying tour, Wayne Kramer became a follower of my Twitter account. A very, very special moment I will never forget.