ALBUM OF THE WEEK # 286 MC5 - KICK OUT THE JAMS (1969)

[RJhog (Admin)]

Artist: MC5

Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame Member: No

Album: Kick Out The Jams

Producer: Jac Holzman/Bruce Botnick

Disclaimer: All info that does not reside in my brain is gathered from wikipedia.com (mostly because Jon can't stand it) unless otherwise noted.

This week's album is Kick Out The Jams by MC5.  MC5 is a protopunk band out of Michigan and Kick Out The Jams is their debut album.  It's a live album, which is strange since it's their debut.  But whatever.  It did reach number 30 on the Billboard 200, but it didn't have a Top 40 hit.  It's largely known for it's title track, and you'll want to make sure that you wear head phones while listening to it.  Other than that, I know nothing about it.  I'm not a fan of punk and I haven't even listened to it yet, although I've owned it for some time now.  I'll listen to it this week just like you do.

How 'bout a vintage review from Rolling Stone's Lester Bangs written on April 5th, 1969?

Whoever thought when that dirty little quickie Wild in the Streets came out that it would leave such an imprint on the culture? First the Doors (who were always headed in that direction anyway) grinding out that famous "They-got-the-guns-but-we-got-the-numbers" march for the troops out there in Teenland, and now this sweaty aggregation. Clearly this notion of violent, total youth revolution and takeover is an idea whose time has come — which speaks not well for the idea but ill for the time.

About a month ago the MC-5 received a cover article in Rolling Stone proclaiming them the New Sensation, a group to break all barriers, kick out all jams, "total energy thing," etc. etc. etc. Never mind that they came on like a bunch of 16 year old punks on a meth power trip — these boys, so the line ran, could play their guitars like John Coltrane and Pharaoh Sanders played sax!

Well, the album is out now and we can all judge for ourselves. For my money they come on more like Blue Cheer than Trane and Sanders, but then my money has already gone for a copy of this ridiculous, overbearing, pretentious album; and maybe that's the idea, isn't it?

The set, recorded live, starts out with an introduction by John Sinclair, "Minister of Information" for the "White Panthers," if you can dig that. The speech itself stands midway between Wild in the Streets and Arthur Brown. The song that follows it is anticlimactic. Musically the group is intentionally crude and aggressively raw. Which can make for powerful music except when it is used to conceal a paucity of ideas, as it is here. Most of the songs are barely distinguishable from each other in their primitive two-chord structures. You've heard all this before from such notables as the Seeds, Blue Cheer, Question Mark and the Mysterians, and the Kingsmen. The difference here, the difference which will sell several hundred thousand copies of this album, is in the hype, the thick overlay of teenage-revolution and total-energy-thing which conceals these scrapyard vistas of cliches and ugly noise.

"Kick Out the Jams" sounds like Barret Strong's "Money" as recorded by the Kingsmen. The lead on "Come Together" is stolen note-for-note from the Who's "I Can See for Miles." "I Want You Right Now" sounds exactly (down to the lyrics) like a song called "I Want You" by the Troggs, a British group who came on with a similar sex-and-raw-sound image a couple of years ago (remember "Wild Thing"?) and promptly disappeared into oblivion, where I imagine they are laughing at the MC-5.

Tracks:

1. Ramblin' Rose

2. Kick Out The Jams

3. Come Together

4. Rocket Reducer No. 62 (Rama Lama Fa Fa Fa)

5. Borderline

6. Motor City Is Burning

7. I Want You Right Now

8. Starship 

[Jon]

This more hard rock than punk to me. There's smatterings of punk, but it mostly sounds like a hard rock band just playing LOUD.....and messily, especially the lead and background vocals. Hey, that's just like punk! 

Wonder what it would have been like to be a kid and bring this home in '68. Go to your room, put it on the record player and turn it waaaay up. Probably drove parents crazy. I'm just guessing. Hey, that's just like punk!

It's a decent album in the whole history of music thing, but repeated listening will drive you batcrap crazy. Hey, that's just like punk!

So, maybe it IS a punk album. Nah, I'm sticking with hard rock, because I want to be different. Hey, that's just like punk!

[Scott]

eh... uh, hmmm, ugh...  ahem...  I know I've seen these guys mentioned as influences by some bands, which I cant recall who, but I don't hear it. But then again, maybe I do...

I can maybe see that these guys brought something new to the table for the time, but it feels too loose, kinda like punk, so maybe they achieved exactly what they wanted to.  But, this is really just noise bleeding into more noise.  Motor City Is Burning seems to be the one song that at least you can listen to easily.

I cant say that if I'm a teenager at the time this came out that I wouldn't have latched on, I probably would have, so it has that anti-establishment quality.  But then again I never dug the Sex Pistols, but I did latch onto The Clash, so who knows! (Note to self:  Its been way too long since I pulled out London Calling)

Yet another slice of history that I needed to hear...  Nice job Boss!

[Niels (Mod)]

I don't think, I've heard this one before, but I'm not sure.

A live-album as a debut?! Yes, that's pretty weird.

Proto-punk isn't a word that sounds good to me. Iggy Pop & The Stooges and New York Dolls comes to mind, and neither of them has made more than maybe half a track, that I like. I like 1 Punk-band and 1 album, and that's Sex Pistols and Never Mind The Bollocks, but it also reminds me of 1977.

1. Yeah, god damn noise, if you ask me.

2. Uuuhhhh.....he said a dirty word Another bunch of noise.

3. I can hear, they stole this from The Who. Why take a song, and make it worse? I never could understand that. 

4. I can hear, that The Clash had some inspiration from this band. I HATE The Clash. This is total CRAP!!

5. An okay start........But that singer should shut the f... up!! Again it reminds me of Clash live, and it's not a good thing 

6. "Brothers and Sisters".....yeah what ever. This is certainly not a punk/proto-punk-song. Again I picture me The Clash on stage. 

7. Hey, it sounds like Sabbath at the beginning. Look aside from the singer, this is the best track so far, and the heaviest. The guitar-solo even reminds me of Ace Frehley. But being the best track in a bunch of CRAP doesn't make it very good at all and around 2.30 it bores the shit out of me, and it turned out to be as crappy as the rest.

8. 

I can honestly say that I hate MC5 and I hate this album. I will never ever listen to this crap again, if I can help it!!!

Thanks for that experience, RJhog. 

[Scott]

Uh...  I like London Calling...

[Niels (Mod)]

The song perhaps, but the whole double-album is a mess, and I certainly don't like it.