Wayne Kramer on the legacy of MC5 - 50 years later
(WorldNews Music)

The year 1968 was an auspicious start for the legendary proto-punk band the MC5 as they readied their debut album. It was at the height of the Vietnam War while the ongoing race wars were at a fever pitch closer to home. It was the year Bobby Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. were assassinated. And in Detroit, where the quintet was born and bred, the city was still in shock mode after the infamous 1967 Rebellion, when police unleashed a raid on a speakeasy on 12th Street that quickly escalated into one of the deadliest conflicts in American history with 43 people killed and 7,200 arrested, prompting then President Johnson to send in the National Guard. MC50 PRESENTS: KICK OUT THE JAMS -...