Brother Wayne RIP

I was very sad to hear the news last night that Wayne Kramer had died. I met him in London 2006 when he was fronting DKT (Davis, Kramer, Thompson aka the MC3). Levis had paid for them to come over and record a DVD at the 100 Club. I wrote up our encounter as part of an article for Bucketfull Of Brains magazine. Wayne came across as warm, genuine and impassioned although he was slightly upset when our cover referred to DTK instead of DKT – I was thinking of the Heartbreakers DTK (Down To Kill). After that I would see him when he came through London, usually as a solo artist but sometimes under the MC5 brand, as in 2018 (review here). My respect for Wayne only grew when I read his autobiography The Hard Stuff detailing his personal ups and downs.

This week with ghastly timing our record label released a vinyl LP The MC5 Live In Europe 1972. Manufacturing lead times being what they are this release was approved months ago, but I still feel awkward about it coming out this week, particularly as we did the same thing to Jeff Beck

There will be many obituaries to Wayne, and rightly so. Most will talk about his time with the MC5, and rightly so. There are however a handful of solo tracks from the Who Shot You Dutch? musical he wrote with Mick Farren which have vanished into obscurity. They are well worth a listen:

Title track

Negative Girls

Take Your Clothes Off

Finally the absolute best tribute to the time Wayne spent in the MC5 is the feature-length movie MC5: A True Testimonial (2002). Legal issues prevented the movie getting a full release and copies are hard to find but it is well worth searching out. The live footage showing Wayne trading incendiary guitar parts with his partner in crime Fred ‘Sonic’ Smith whilst executing James Brown-style dance moves is just exhilarating.