Wayne Kramer
LLMF
By Dimitri
(SugarBuzz USA)
SugarBuzz Magazine
NEW ENERGY RISING! From One Up Against The Wall Motherfucker, To The Others...Dimitri Sugarbuzz USA rants about a Wayne Kramer live album, from ten years ago....
When I was 17, or 18, there was this one particularly embittered, wise-ass, old drummer/record-collecting curmudgeon where I lived, who shall remain Dale Linke, who always took the new generation of punk rock kids under his black wings, and schooled us all on the REAL classic rock we never heard on commercial radio. You know-the Stooges, MC5, Fuzztones, Cramps, Deadboys. That kinda stuff. He was mysterious and difficult to communicate with, at times, but he pointed me in the right direction, back when I was mostly consumed with Guns 'N' Roses, and Hanoi Rocks.
I had been grooming my skateboard sidekick, China White, to be my own Brian James/Andy McCoy figure, but the graying curmudgeon would always roll his eyes while I waxed ecstatic about Dogs D'Amour, or Circus Of Power, insistently muttering contemptuous noises about how we shoulda been making careful-study of the mighty Five, and all their spin-off/sattelite bands, like Sonic's Rendezvous Band, Gang War, Destroy All Monsters, New Race, Dark Carnival, Radio Birdman, etc., etc., and of course, he was right.
Years later, I had the fortune of meeting the Great Wayne Kramer, in the flesh, at a sparsely-attended mid-western show, but all I could think to utter when he approached me (!) to shake hands, after a sweaty, electrifying performance, was an awe-struck, "Thanks, man!", cos I immediately intuited that he meets another kid who looks just like me, in the leather strides, and Patti Smith Group t-shirt, in every town he goes to, every night of the year.
How else was I supposed to sound-bite my gratitude? There's just no way to effectively communicate how much this man's work, and lyrics, and legacy of ground-breaking music and social activism have meant to me, especially, in the darkening, wee hours of the brutal last two decades.
A few years later, I had the occasion to interview him, to help promote his Mad For The Racket super-group, and found him to be a really funny, whip-smart, patient, wise, and thoroughly- decent rock icon. When my friend Bootsey, from the badass Motor City rockers, Bootsey X And The Lovemasters, suffered a tragic housefire, Brother Wayne was one of the many Detroit musicians who rallied to his aid. He also took time to share his experience, strength, and hope, with yours, back when I was first just remotely flirting with the glint of an awakening, in regards to my lifelong afflictions, and urgent need for active-recovery. He was also incredibly encouraging, and supportive of my songwriting efforts, when I was still shopping all my raw demos around, seeking a label for one of my old bands. So let me just say upfront here, that Brother Wayne Kramer is a huge hero, and major inspiration to me.
Aside from a tune about Ohio Punk, I think It was Called "The Slime That Ate Cleveland", I just wasn't as jazzed about his record, "Adult World", as I had been about his prior string of excellent solo albums he released in the dreadful 90's. Songs like "Wild America", and "No Easy Way Out", don't come along everyday, even if you're Wayne Kramer. Those two songs felt torn right from the more sensationalist excerpts of my perpetually unfinished, hard-luck auto-bio, "The Blackout Diaries", edited by Shane Williams from Flipside Magazine.
I just recently glimpsed the pseudo-reunited DKT on Youtube, the MC3, accompanied by Evan Dando from the Lemonheads, and Mark Arm, from Mudhoney. Evan's lackluster performance really gave me a new appreciation for Mark Arm, I was never a big Mudhoney fan, even though they covered a song by one of my best friends, but he really had an authentic rock energy about him, that reminded me of Gary Celebrity from Celebrity Skin, and Brian O'Blvion, from Trash Brats. It's a helluva gig, trying to front the MC5. Granola-Bar-Alterna-Hunk, Evan Dando, makes a better Oasis roadie, than a fill-in for Rob Tyner.
I don't have a computer, I'm still too fuckin' poor to join the twentieth century, so I really ain't up to date on much of Wayne Kramer's current Sonic Action, but I'm lookin' forward to hearing more of his righteous, and passionate protest songs, whenever he decides he's written enough to merit another full-length's release. Seems like we need him more than ever, right now.
I'm not even sure which documentary I saw on re-dubbed DVD-his officially endorsed version, or another one that all his people were upset about, whichever one it was, starts off with footage of the long-decayed, Grande Ballroom, and Wayne tellin' stories about early MC5 fistfights, with the domineering countenance of a cop. "Get outta the car!" Very entertaining!
The reason I'm writing about this old CD is because my old lady's sister's boyfriend landed in prison for dealing meth, and we ended up with all these shitty Dokken CDs she was gettin' rid of, that I eventually traded-in, at the last of the used record stores in my area, for some music we could stand, and it was the first time I've gotten to hear "LLMF" in five, or six years, since one of my exes probably thrust my old CD's on somebody who didn't dig my taste, either, and I'd forgotten how really wildly excellent this is.
"LLMF" is still a marvel, a true revelation. The only stuff I've heard in recent years that's even close to being in the same league was by Joe Strummer, Ian Hunter, and Spencer P. Jones, although I will confess a fondness for the NY Dolls comeback album. I NEVER like live albums, I'm not a fan of jam-bands, usually, but this is Wayne Kramer. He jams on actual SONGS! This disc smokes almost everything else in my sadly spartan collection. The weakest song on this rekkid is probably, "Take Your Clothes Off"-a wry, rockin' come-on, that should probably be covered, and doubtlessly, to great-effect, by most any band, who wants to get laid, frequently.
Most albums, nowadays, might have one, sometimes-two, but rarely, three, really outstanding, songs on them. Wayne Kramer delivered motherfucking FOURTEEN absolutely killer song's on Epitaph's 1998 "LLMF". All these songs are top-notch. As valid as Steve Earle, Tom Waits, maybe even Leonard Cohen. Every tune makes you wanna get off your ass and take some action. Make a difference.
Wayne makes giving a shit look easy. He makes caring about humanity seem cool--can you dig it? I've been reading this captivating book called "Can't Stop Won't Stop-A History Of The Hip-Hop Generation" by Jeff Chang-real academic, heady stuff for an eighth-grade drop-out like me, but it tells the secret history of the past forty years, along with the evolution of an important, indigenous art-form, that was sadly undermined, by greed, and big-business. Every kid in America should read this book. If you're a prof, or you can influence somebody, add it to your school's curriculum.
Strangely, Brother Wayne's disc has been the perfect companion to all this reading. Probably cos what Darryl Gates and Rudy Guilliani did to the black, Latino, and Asian communities throughout the eighties, and nineties, is clearly, happening to the rest of us, now. www.legitgov.org www.antiwar.com www.buzzflash.com www.infowars.com It's called tyranny. It's gonna be a drag, when it happens to you, too. LOOK INTO IT.
"Something Broken In The Promised Land" tells the truth about Corporate, Irretrievably corrupt America: "The dream is sold-out in the promised land, the sidewalk's cold out in the promised land, the rich get lazy in the promised land-the poor get crazy in the promised land-the vision fails in the promised land, they're building jails here in the promised land...My Chevy died in the promised land, and Chuck Berry LIED about the promise land!"
I NEVER hear music this honest, soulful, hard-hitting, no-bullshit, and straight from the guts, no more. Which is why I keep lookin' for people to form a new group with-cos nobody seems interested in expressing the things I feel.
His song, "Junkie Romance" tells the awful truth about needle creeps, redundant lifestyle-chasers, and all my friends, I miss 'em-they died. His ode to Charles Bukowski is one of the most heart-wrenching tributes I've ever heard to anyone, and nearly as emotive as his nineties instrumental, "Farewell To Whiskey". When he talks about "Crazy, negative girlfriends...Drinkin', and fuckin' up, it feels like he's been stalkin' me, or something, it all just hits so close to home, but nowhere does anyone articulate my own internal dialog and pained struggle so eloquently as "No Easy Way Out"-one of my very favorite songs, of all-time, by any artist.
This disc just brims over, with hit after hit. This is what real rock'nroll feels like. Courageously moral, brazenly subversive, meaningful, musical, smart lyrics, and quality songs that any of you veterans reading this can easily relate to, and will likely, sing along with. When I say veterans, y'know, we're all vets here, just trying to survive the war on youth, and truth, and freedom and human rights. The war on the middle-class, and working-poor. The war on civil rights, and religious freedom. The war on rock'n'roll.
If you're not even gonna ASPIRE to creating rock'n'roll with this much real emotion invested in it, please stick to playing video-games in your old man's palace-on-the-hill, and quit wasting everybody's time.
If you already own this disc, get it out, and blast it for a friend. As far as I'm concerned, it's one of the definitive rock'n'roll landmarks of the past ten years. Anyway, I've been meaning to tell you cats and kittens all this for a cuppla weeks now, and I'm just sorry my exhausting, degrading, slave-wage, McJob and the constant struggle to raise the rent, currently prohibit me from having the clarity to say something more worthy and substantial about Wayne Kramer and his work, but for now, you just gotta take my word for it. Dig this disc out and if it changes your life, or makes you wanna change your life, you can leave word on Lucky's message-board. Alrite.
Until the Next Time We Say Gud-Bye....
(-DIMITRI SUGARBUZZ USA)