Wayne (Kambes) Kramer, the Greek American co-founder of the MC5, a seminal infuence on rock, punk and grunge, and most formidably, the anti establishment chorus of Vietnam generation, died last Friday at 75 at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles.
Jason Heath, a close friend and executive director of Kramer’s non-profit Jail Guitar Doors USA, said he died from pancreatic cancer.
Kramer was born Wayne Stanley Kambes in Detroit in 1948, to a French-American mother and Greek-American father. Kramer’s grandparents migrated from the Ionian Island of Kerkyra (Corfu).
The MC5’s ruthless, grinding rock and anti-establishment ideology were an authentic apotheosis of working-class anger fermenting in Detroit Motor City – America’s car manufacturing centre – which was soon to be decimated by globalisation.
Vocalist Rob Tyner, guitarists Wayne Kramer and Fred “Sonic” Smith, bassist Michael Davis, and drummer Dennis Thompson, erupted on stage with fire-born rage. The MC5 became the a much-needed antidote to the treacly protest songs of stoned middle-class hippies.
The MC5’s influence extended to bands like The Stooges, New York Dolls, Sex Pistols, The Clash, Ramones, Australia’s Radio Birdman, and the 1990s Rage Against The Machine.
“Brother Wayne Kramer was the best man I’ve ever known,” Rage Against The Machine guitarist Tom Morello wrote on Instagram.
“He possessed a one-of-a-kind mixture of deep wisdom & profound compassion, beautiful empathy and tenacious conviction. His band, the MC5, basically invented punk rock music.”
Rock journo, Thomas Dimopoulos in Punk Globe wrote on Kramer’s 2018 autobiography, The Hard Stuff: Dope, Crime, the MC5, and My Life of Impossibilities.
The book points to traumas such abandonment by his Kramer’s alcoholic father, then horrid abused by his stepfather, and the struggle with drugs, and as a result, petty criminality.
“At 25, I had flushed my fine young life right down the toilet,” Kramer wrote in his book.
“Pushing music forward, carrying a message of self-efficacy and empowerment – and just to have fun,” Kramer told Mojo magazine in 2018.
When Elektra Records’ PR man, Danny Fields saw them first, he immediaely gave them an album deal; and the band recorded a pair of live concerts in late 1968.
The MC5 released their seminal debut album, Kick Out the Jams, in early 1969 the iconic anthem covered by punk havy weights, Henry Rollins and Black Flag, Bad Brains, grunge masters, Rage Against the Machine, and Pearl Jam as well as others.
The Kick Out the Jams live album reached the top 40 in 1969, they also released studio albums, Back In The USA and High Time, before dismantling in 1972.
Video of the MC5 Kick Out The Jams live 1972 Berlin
When the MC5 first travelled to New York City, they were confronted after a gig at the Fillmore East by of militants in the East Village, who attacked the band for not being sufficiently revolutionary.
“This was a prime example of the failure of the 1960s militant mindset. They attacked their comrades. We were on the same side, but they turned their revolutionary zeal against us,” Kramer wrote in his book.
MC5 featured Kramer and Fred ‘Sonic’ Smith on guitars, Rob Tyner on vocals, Michael Davis on bass and Dennis’ Machine Gun’ Thompson on drums.
Three years and two albums after their promising debut, the MC5 ended. Kramer has left a financially broke “drug-addicted, criminal musician” who had lost his car, lost his girl, and had to move back in with his mother. He fenced hot goods, sold weed and pills and burglarized homes – which got him busted more than once. He ended up serving 2 1/2 years in a federal prison for attempting to sell cocaine to a federal agent.
“Psychologically and emotionally, being in prison changed me. I wasn’t the bright-eyed, bushy-tailed idealist anymore. Rock & roll was not going to be my solution to everything,” he says.
Kramer spent the following decades trying to pull his broken life together. There was a short-lived band with Johnny Thunders – when he fell back into the junkie cycle – and a very brief marriage with photographer Marcia Resnick.
Kramer finally reconnected with the father who had abandoned him as a boy and came to some realisations regarding the emotional scars of his childhood, especially over feelings of abandonment. His father a World War II marine veteran, as Kramer suggests may have been suffering PTSD and carrying his own traumas.
“I was an angry little boy, and I grew up to be an angry young man…I had carried a myth in my head and heart throughout my entire life.”
In 1995, he met journalist Margaret Saadi; the two were married eight years later. He continued to wrestle with his demons and coped with his addictions, yearning to understand the motivations behind his more destructive actions.
On Instagram post jailguitardoorsusa emphasised the good work Kramer was going in using music to “rehabiitate incarcarated individuals”.
“We are humbled and grateful for the enormous amount of generosity and support that you have shown us over the last few days.
“We want to thank each and every one of you who have reached out, shared our mission, donated, shopped our merch, shared personal stories, and have been with us in spirit as we mourn and celebrate Wayne.
“Wayne founded JGD-USA in 2009 to use the healing power of music to help rehabilitate incarcerated individuals. We have been in over 200 correctional institutions nationwide and we will continue his legacy of ‘changing lives one guitar at a time.’
In the end, it is clear that Rock’n’Roll lost one of its greatest guerrillas.