MC5

MC5 formed in Detroit in 1964, a Lincoln Park high-school band built around guitarists Wayne Kramer and Fred "Sonic" Smith, drawing on garage rock and free jazz to make something louder and more chaotic than anything else in the city's rock clubs. Manager John Sinclair, a poet and co-founder of the White Panther Party, folded the band directly into his own revolutionary politics, turning gigs into rallies and its five members into reluctant spokesmen for a cause as much as for a sound.

Kick Out the Jams was recorded live at Detroit's Grande Ballroom over two nights in October 1968, before Elektra dropped the band the next year over the title track's language and its jab at a department store chain that had refused to stock the record. Vocalist Rob Tyner, drummer Dennis Thompson and bassist Michael Davis rounded out a lineup known locally for chaotic live shows before any label signed them. Sinclair's imprisonment and the White Panthers' collapse drained the momentum that had carried MC5, and the band dissolved within a few years. The Ramones later named MC5 first among their formative influences.