Michigan rockers MC5 copped their fair share of flak - from their peers for their perceived rudimentary skills; from the music industry for being troublemakers, prone to using guerrilla marketing tactics and inflammatory language; and from mums, dads, politicians and police for their left-wing political allegiances, most notably their support for the White Panther party.
It was against this background that the band released its debut album Kick Out The Jams, a 40-minute blast of ecstatic, high-energy rock recorded live at Detroit's Grande Ballroom over two nights in October 1968.
A defiant album heavy on revolutionary rhetoric, it gave the band's detractors plenty to feed on, but no-one could deny the force of the sonic wave MC5 unleashed in front of its home crowd. To this day, it stands as one of the most successful attempts to capture the bludgeoning power of high-volume guitar music as delivered by an adrenaline-fuelled team determined to pull out all the stops in a live setting.
As both a snapshot of the times and a pointer to the punk and hard-rock revolutions that would follow, Kick Out The Jams can be seen in hindsight as an important marker. But that would be to ignore its real value as a document of a real performance in front of real people having real fun. The band's "spiritual adviser", Brother JC Crawford, calls on those present to decide between being the problem or the solution, but it is less a call to arms and more an invitation to join the band in cutting loose in celebration of a new dawn, and the faithful duly oblige.
So, if ever there was justification in heeding a band's plea to "play this record loud", here it lies. Rejoice to the gut-rattling guitar play between Fred "Sonic" Smith and Wayne Kramer, and shimmy around your living room like a sequined Rob Tyner. It's time to kick out the jams!
