Am I the only person in the world who finds the MC5’s seminal live debut, 1969’s Kick Out the Jams, terribly overrated? No I’m not. When it came out, the late, great Lester Bangs wrote it off in Rolling Stone magazine as “ridiculous, overbearing, and pretentious.” I’ll go Lester one further. I think it’s boring.
On what sophisticated scientific basis do I adjudge Kick Out the Jams dull? Simple. I’ve listened to it some 83 times, and every time I do so I find myself drifting off mid-listen. The only tracks that keep me interested are the title cut, “Ramblin’ Rose,” and “I Want You Right Now,” and the last named only holds my attention because it sounds exactly like the Troggs’ “I Want You.” I’ve spent my whole life hearing people laud the MC5 as the second greatest proto-punk band to ever crawl out of the rubble of Detroit city. I beg to differ. I don’t listen to the MC5 and hear Iggy and the Stooges; I listen to them and hear Grand Funk Railroad. Much hipper, and with more garage in their sound, for sure, but both bands are playing hard rock. Iggy sounded like no one ever had before; the MC5 sound like America’s answer to the aforementioned Troggs.
I would be the last to deny opening cut “Ramblin’ Rose” wins in the metallic K.O. department–although I’m not a huge fan of Wayne Kramer’s falsetto vocals–or that “Kick Out the Jams” is every bit as incendiary as reported. But while the latter song’s sonic propulsion reminds me of the Stooges, Rob Tyner’s vocals have Grand Funk written all over them. And while I generally like sloppy, I think “Kick Out the Jams” could be tighter.
As for “Come Together,” it doesn’t so much come together as fall apart. There’s a melody in there somewhere, but I’ll be damned if I can find it; no sooner am I done listening to it before I forget how it goes. It’s positively anti-memorable. And the same goes for “Rocket Reducer No. 62 (Rama Lama Fa Fa Fa),” which despite its memorable title is eminently forgettable–a puddle of guitar ooze into which the group vocals sink without a trace. “Borderline” is all bombast and no song; the guitar is gargantuan but it takes you nowhere, while the vocals are, to borrow a phrase, all sound and fury signifying nothing. I’ll take Madonna’s “Borderline” any day.
I don’t know how a song called “Motor City Is Burning” can fail to hold my interest, but it does. I suppose these white boys just weren’t born to play the blues. John Lee Hooker’s original is slinky and light on its feet; the MC5’s version is leaden and distinguished only by Wayne Kramer’s heavy-duty guitar wank. Which gets interesting, I’ll admit, mid-song. But when Tyner is singing my attention wanders. And once again the playing is anything but tight. “I Want You Right Now” hitches a monstrously big hook to some truly bombastic vocals and works. And Kramer’s solo does indeed bring the Stooges to mind. It’s too bad the MC5 decide to slow down the proceedings mid-song; it nearly wrecks the momentum of the thing.
As for the shockingly different “Starship,” it reminds me less of Sun Ra (the cosmically enlightened intergalactic jazzmeister who wrote the song) than the cornball Jefferson Airplane. “Leaving the solar system” indeed; “Starship” is a meandering, embarrassing foray into space rock at its worst. Tyner warbles like a songbird with an Afro, the “far out” guitar effects are the epitome of hokey, and Iggy and the Stooges–who did a bang-up job of exploring the limits of the free jazz freakout on “L.A. Blues”–have never sounded so far away.
I can’t help but wonder if many peoples’ love for this LP is due to a factor that can only be called “extra-musical”–to wit, the MC5’s White Panther radicalism. With its calls to arms (“I wanna hear some revolution out there!”) and talk of “brothers and sisters” and “honkies,” Kick Out the Jams is as much political statement as musical one. Lester Bangs wrote off the MC5’s revolutionary rhetoric as hype. I tend to think they were sincere, and not just talking the talk in order to sell records. But in the end it doesn’t much matter. An album can’t be judged by its politics; what matters is the music. And like I said before, I find the music on Kick Out the Jams less than gripping. That’s apostasy, I know. But as Kingsley Amis once said, “If you can’t annoy somebody, there’s little point in writing.” Kick out the jams, motherfuckers!
GRADED ON A CURVE:
C+
