Wayne Kramer "Citizen Wayne" 1997***

Wayne Kramer is mostly known as former guitarist of the MC5, the 60s' most out-there, revolutionary rock group. The MC5 started off as a loud garage band playing rock'n'roll covers at high school dances, but got radicalised in the polarised political climate of the times, eventually joining John Sinclair's radical left White Panther Party and playing all kinds of benefits and demonstrations. They recorded 3 hugely influential albums, inspired by free jazz and inspiring, in turn, countless punk and hard rock bands. But they soon disintegrated, as they couldn't handle the responsibility of publicly representing the whole radical left movement, getting dragged from one violent protest to another and being endlessly persecuted by the authorities. In 1969, their manager John Sinclair was framed and imprisoned for drug charges (John Lennon campaigned vigorously for his release). A few years later, an addicted and disillusioned Kramer also got imprisoned for passing cocaine to an undercover cop. His road to recovery was long and arduous. By the time he resurfaced in 1995, many of his comrades in the MC5 was already dead and gone: singer Rob Tyner and guitarist Fred "Sonic" Smith (Patti Smith's husband) coincidentally both died of heart failure at the age of 45. This is Kramer's third solo record, produced by David Was of Was (Not Was). The music is a mixture of prose, funk, heavy metal and electronic music. His autobiographical lyrics and guitar playing remain stellar, the music unfortunately less so. The CD does begin impressively with funk-metal "Stranger In The House" sounding like a cross between Frank Zappa and Guns N Roses. "Back When Dogs Could Talk" is a typically experimental piece, poetry recited over jazzy licks, metallic riffs and soul backing vocals. "Revolution In Apt. 29" is the second highlight of the record, featuring sympathetically satiric lyrics about his days with the far-left middle-class "revolutionaries": "We're having a revolution/ In apartment 29/ Someone brought bazookas/ Someone's chilling wine/ We'll write a manifesto /Just after chips and pesto/ We've got more problems than solutions/ But no one seems to mind". "Down On The Ground" is a welcome hard-rocking return to the days of MC5 and "No Easy Way Out" an earnest autobiographical mid-tempo rocker about addiction. "You Don't Know My Name" is funk-metal and "Snatched Defeat" a straight-up hard rocker a la Neil Young. Most of the rest is a combination of electronic sounds, metallic riffs and prose. The most interesting moments of these are "Shining Mr. Lincoln's Shoes"'s oriental bouzouki licks and bluesy guitar solos, and the captivating storytelling about the U.S. penal system in "Count Time" and  CIA covert operations in "Dope For Democracy". Interesting album, for sure, as is Kramer as a person. Yet a far cry from his MC5 heyday...

**** for Stranger In The House, Revolution In Apt. 29

*** for Back When Dogs Could Talk, Down On The Ground, Shining Mr. Lincoln's Shoes, No Easy Way Out, Snatched Defeat

** for Dope For Democracy, You Don't Know My Name, Count Time, Doing The Work, A Farewell To Whiskey