This fall will mark the 50th anniversary of the recording of the MC5’s seminal live album, Kick Out the Jams, at Detroit’s famed Grande Ballroom. Now, a supergroup led by original MC5 guitarist Wayne Kramer has announced a commemorative North American tour that will culminate with a show at Detroit’s Fillmore Theater.
The MC50, as the band is called, will play 35 dates in North America on its “Kick Out the Jams: The 50th Anniversary Tour.” Kramer is leading the project and has recruited a cast of punk and rock-and-roll veterans: former Soundgarden guitarist Kim Thayil, drummer Brendan Canty of post-hardcore legends Fugazi, bassist Dug Pinnick of King’s X, and frontman Marcus Durant of ‘90s rockers Zen Guerilla.
The MC5 were equally known for helping to birth the punk rock sound, their radical politics and for pissing off retailers and their own label, Elektra Records. The song “Kick Out the Jams” was infamous for the use of an incendiary profanity and was later overdubbed with a more palatable salutation.
The band was short-lived and broke up in 1972 amid financial and drug problems. It’s seen a few other incarnations over the years, though Kramer and drummer Dennis Thompson are the lone surviving original members.
“This band will rip your head off,” Kramer said in a statement. “It’s real, sweaty, total energy rock and roll, like a bunch of 40-to-70-year-old punks on a meth power trip.” So it sounds like a good time.
The tour kicks off in early September and ends with an Oct. 27 show marking the grand re-opening of the Fillmore, which has closed for renovations. Superfan pre-show experience tickets are already on sale. Kramer is also releasing a memoir titled “The Hard Stuff: Dope, Crime, the MC5, and My Life of Impossibilities,” due Aug. 14 on Da Capo Press.