Kick Out the Jams

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Kick Out the Jams

Live album by MC5
Released	1969
Recorded	October 30, 1968–October 31, 1968
Genre	Protopunk \ Hard Rock \ Detroit Rock
Length	36:17
Label	Elektra
All Music Guide link
MC5 chronology
	Kick Out the Jams (1969)	Back in the USA (1970)

Kick Out the Jams was the first album by Detroit protopunkers MC5, released in 1969. It was recorded in a live format. In 2003, the album was ranked number 295 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. Interestingly, however, the original Rolling Stone review by Lester Bangs was unfavorable.[1]

Its title track has been covered by various bands, including The Presidents of the United States of America on their eponymous debut album in 1995, by hard rock band Blue Öyster Cult on their 1978 live album Some Enchanted Evening, Rage Against the Machine on their album Renegades (2000), Henry Rollins with Bad Brains for the Pump Up the Volume soundtrack, Africa Bambaataa, Monster Magnet, Pearl Jam on their 2005 South American tour in Mexico and Brazil, Japanese rockers Guitar Wolf on their debut album Run Wolf Run, Jeff Buckley, whose version was released on his posthumous "legacy edition" of Grace on the bonus CD of unreleased songs, Entombed on the EP Family Favourites and Give Up the Ghost (formerly American Nightmare) on their Year One comp.

In March 2005, Q magazine placed the song "Kick Out the Jams" at number 39 in its list of the 100 Greatest Guitar Tracks.

[edit] Controversy

While "Ramblin' Rose" and "Motor City is Burning" open with inflammatory rhetoric, it was the opening line to the title track that stirred up the most controversy. Rob Tyner shouted, "And right now it's time to... KICK OUT THE JAMS, MOTHERFUCKER!" before the opening riffs. Elektra's executives were offended by the line and had preferred to edit it out of the album, however the band and manager John Sinclair adamantly opposed this. Instead, two versions were released, with the uncensored version sold behind record counters.

Making matters worse, Hudsons' department store refused to carry the album. Tensions between the band and the chain got to the point where the department stores refused to carry any album from the Elektra label after the MC5 took out a full-page ad that, according to Danny Fields, "was just a picture of Rob Tyner, and the only copy was 'Fuck Hudson's' And it had the Elektra logo. To end the conflict, Elektra dropped the MC5 from their record label.

In the end, the album is considered a vital step in the evolution towards punk. The album, along with fellow Detroit band the Stooges' first two albums, was so ahead of its time that it could not be classified under any genre until after the punk movement traced its lineage back to it. Now on CD, the remastered live version is kept in its original uncensored state.

Later the same year, Jefferson Airplane recorded the song "We Can Be Together" for their Volunteers album, a song containing the same objectionable word as the MC5 track. Unlike Elektra, however, RCA Records released the Airplane's album wholly uncensored, following pressure from the band.

[edit] Meaning of "Kick out the jams"

Kick Out the Jams has also been taken to be a slogan of the 1960s ethos of revolution and liberation, an incitement to "kick out" restrictions in various forms. This is myth and fiction, however; the truth is more prosaic. To quote MC5 guitarist Wayne Kramer from his interview with Caroline Boucher in Disc & Music Echo, 8 August, 1970 [2]:

"People said 'oh wow, kick out the jams means break down restrictions' etc., and it made good copy, but when we wrote it we didn't have that in mind. We first used the phrase when we were the house band at a ballroom in Detroit, and we played there every week with another band from the area.

"We got in the habit, being the sort of punks we are, of screaming at them to get off the stage, to kick out the jams, meaning stop jamming. We were saying it all the time and it became a sort of esoteric phrase. Now, I think people can get what they like out of it; that's one of the good things about rock and roll."

The line was reinterpreted in the Illuminatus! trilogy as a secret message of mockery from the Illuminati to their former allies, the Justified Ancients of Mummu, or JAMs. From there, the expression -- and samples of the MC5 -- were used by the English band, The JAMs, in their tracks "All You Need Is Love" and (as The KLF) "What Time Is Love?" (The White Room album version).