Lyndsey Parker, Yahoo Music (10/29/18) | On Oct. 30 and 31, 1968, protopunk protest band MC5 made the bold, ballsy move of recording their debut album, Kick Out the Jams, live at the Grande Ballroom in their native Detroit. With that fiery release (later declared one of the “500 Greatest Albums of All Time” by Rolling Stone), the anti-establishment, anti-hippie revolutionaries, alongside fellow Motor City nihilists Iggy and the Stooges, advocated for “dope, guns, and f***ing in the streets.” And in the process, the band — managed by radical White Panther Party leader John Sinclair — burned hippie idealism to the ground and laid the groundwork for punk rock.
Exactly 50 years later, the band’s music sounds just as incendiary and relevant as ever in today’s political climate, and for the second year in a row, they’ve been nominated for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. And this just might be MC5’s year.
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