Recollections and Recovery of a Revolutionary Rockstar: Book Review of Wayne Kramer’s “The Hard Stuff”
One cannot underestimate the significance of the MC5. They heralded the birth of the popular music counterculture in the US that was born out of Motown stardom mixed with the distortion-edged defiance of the British First Wave. Not only that, but they embodied the political angst that was to infuse American music in later decades. The MC5 weren’t just passively expressing social ills but advocated for militant politics. The prologue of the book is fittingly a recounting of their first riot in 1967, and it wouldn’t be their last. Wayne Kramer, founding member and lead guitarist of the MC5, gives a first-hand account of a nascent music scene emerging in the US in the early to mid-Sixties with a (r)evolutionary sound descended from Chuck Berry and the Rolling Stones yet infused with idiosyncratic personalities that resulted in equally notorious yet not always congenial peers such as The Stooges and The Velvet Underground.
Kramer does have a penchant for cliché in his narration, and the descriptions in the first half of the book (The Hard Stuff) are somewhat wanting; however, it improves considerably throughout, presumably along with Kramer’s memory. It’s not that the writing is bad, but it does lack a certain level of invigoration one might expect from a founding member of this proto-punk stalwart. The ideas are there from the start, though, and you get to follow their development from his precocious and turbulent youth up through his years as a Rockstar revolutionary and finally resolved in his recovery. Kramer is also incredibly modest. By not writing with a lot of flourish, these intense experiences are presented in a matter-of-fact way that gives you the sense that Kramer is the type who values his experiences without necessarily making them badges of honor or excuses to brag. The trajectory of his life therefore plays out like a propitious destiny.
Kramer’s political preoccupation is evident throughout as he speaks of his fears of nuclear holocaust resulting from the Cuban missile crisis in early adolescence, his aversion to his stepfather’s flagrant racism, and even hints of second-wave feminism in his musings on women and relationships. By the time of the eruption of the race riots in the late Sixties, Kramer was already living on his own trying to forge his way as a musician and his memoir works as a testament to the savagery of the Detroit police, particularly against people of color. Stating that they were far from a serious political entity, Kramer recounts the formation of the White Panther Party, begun at the instigation of Black Panther Huey P. Newton, for white radicals to agitate within the hegemonic culture. Culturo-musically this brought the MC5 to some of the most tumultuous arenas imaginable for aspiring musicians of the time, such as the 1968 Chicago Democratic National Convention riots to the chaos presented by the East Village Motherfuckers at the Fillmore in New York.
The story of the MC5 is a whirlwind of the perils to sticking by artistic principles while attempting to maintain the vanguard of musical rebellion. Legal proceedings, prison sentences, obscenity censures, and the general unmanageability of the band, not to mention COINTELPRO, rebound throughout the narrative. Despite their ambition to become the biggest metal influence in the US, the trend towards psychedelic and glamorous rock ensembles muzzled the assaultive stylings of the MC5. Their impact therefore wouldn’t be much acknowledged until they were picked up by the fledgling punk movement in the UK represented by groups such as The Clash and The Damned which were only just forming when the MC5 broke up in 1972.
After the dissolution of the MC5, Kramer fell into a life of larceny, semi-homelessness, and drug abuse. Kramer’s prose becomes much more dynamic as he tells of the unfortunate consequences of falling into addiction and how he ended up immersing himself in a dog-eat-dog underworld to sustain the habit. The unfortunate reality for addicts is that the scene offers you plenty of resources to dig yourself deeper and deeper, and that is just where Kramer found himself — with hold-ups and handcuffs. Kramer spent two and a half years (reduced from fifteen in the initial plea over a bust of him selling eleven ounces of cocaine to a federal agent) in federal prison and muses on a previous era of incarceration that once focused on rehabilitation but unfortunately has been transformed into a holding system of retribution.
Although the revolutionary rhetoric lessens to a pianissimo in the last half of the book as he turns his attention inward, the third and final section is prefaced with a quote by Antonio Gramsci, a prominent Italian Marxist theorist and politician: “The point of modernity is to live a life without illusions, while not becoming disillusioned.” Recovering from substance abuse myself, the struggles for Kramer to stay clean after getting out were all too familiar to me. Although I have never done hard time, the feelings of oscillating back and forth from being clean to relapse and the unique comforts offered by both were presented in a relatable way with the hustle and hassle: mundane in the non-pejorative sense of the word. Transitioning from addiction is more than just physical. It is a lifestyle and habit/mode of living and thinking that needs to be relearned, which can be just as difficult as the withdrawals. Kramer’s process was far from perfect, which helps universalize the experience while maintaining his idiosyncrasies.
What I found to be the most valuable part of this memoir, however, is in how Kramer shows that men, even famous Dionysian Rockstar men, can acknowledge their shortfalls and reach out for help without coming off as weak or less than. This process of course took him time, and there were false starts. Relapse almost becomes its own theme, since even when we know we are in trouble we are not always ready emotionally to change. When he does come to those transition points, he offers an example to those who are struggling. Mental health is a vitally important issue, and Kramer does an excellent job of modelling the process of recovery in a non-self-abasing manner.
Kramer maintains his revolutionary verve mixed with a newfound humility. Acknowledging that there is value to the orthodox practices that have helped him renew himself, he admits at the end that there is a certain amount of dichotomous thinking and a condescending discontent towards non-theism which he cannot swallow. I was a bit wary at first of the picture Kramer was painting of the life of recovery because I, too, have some qualms when it comes to certain tendencies in 12-step programs. Too often discourses on recovery feel like they are being forced upon you dogmatically. Like him I have had to forge my own values into my recovery, which is not easy, but Kramer demonstrates that it can be done.
Given his conscientious radicalism, not to be confused as immature rebellion or profligacy, I was pleased that he was taking his recovery on his own principled terms consistent with his sense of self. He has continued to perform at political events maintaining his militant advocacy for social justice that he began with — the pinnacle being his performance for prison reform at the Sing Sing Correctional Facility for the Jail Guitar Doors program which was started by Billy Brag and named after a Clash song that was coincidentally written about Kramer’s incarceration. What makes Kramer’s story so impactful is that the denouement, resolving rather than renouncing the various phases in his life, be they good or bad, settles in a satisfying way, offering hope to others who may be struggling themselves.
Wayne Kramer will be touring this fall for the MC50 Kick Out the Jams 50th Anniversary Tour.
