Wayne Kramer Albums (11)
'Mad for the Racket'
Release Date 5/17/2004
Tracks 14
Label Diesel Motor
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
The notion of MC5 guitarist Wayne Kramer and Damned founder Brian James forming a band is enough to warm the heart of most any aging rock & roll reprobate, but the good news is that their project, Mad for the Racket, actually has more going for it than a few interesting names. Of course, Kramer and James aren't the only recognizable folks on board; ex-Guns N' Roses bassist Duff McKagan plays on all 12 tracks, while Stewart Copeland of the Police, Clem Burke from Blondie, and Brock Avery of Kramer's solo band all take turns handling percussion duties. The Racketeers, the ad hoc group's first album, finds all parties involved in strong form; Kramer and James trade off on lead vocals and guitar solos, and Brother Wayne's contributions are certainly up to the high standards of his excellent albums for Epitaph, especially the manic "Prisoner of Hope," the dark and politically charged "Czar of Poisonville," and his musical tribute to CNN reporter Christiane Amanpour. Brian James' offerings aren't quite so strong or confident, but given the peaks and valleys of his career, The Racketeers finds him in very fine form; his songs rock with a tough, bluesy undercurrent, his lyrics are both streetwise and sardonically witty (lots of guys might sing about getting their car stolen, but James follows that up with: "I gotta take the bus downtown/Aw, s**t!," and you can be assured it makes all the difference), while his voice seems to have acquired the British equivalent of a Southern drawl, and the twang fits him like a glove. McKagan and the assorted drummers add up to a muscular, efficient rhythm section, and the yin and yang of Kramer and James works like a charm. Mad for the Racket's debut won't make you forget what any of these guys have done in the past, but it doesn't tarnish anyone's reputation, either, and if you ever dug anything on the prior résumés of the headliners, you'll certainly find something to like here. In 2004, three years after the album was first released, The Racketeers was reissued with some puzzling changes; the billing changed from Mad for the Racket to Wayne Kramer & Brian James, and the title of the disc became Mad for the Racket, with The Racketeers falling to the dustbin (except on the spine, where the old billing remained). The album also sprouted two bonus tracks, rehearsal recordings of the songs "Nuts for You" and "Tell a Lie," which would have sounded good enough within the context of the album but are hardly lost classics; hardcore collectors might consider buying the album again to have them, but most fans will sleep just fine without them. ~ Mark Deming, All Music Guide
'More Dangerous Madness'
Release Date 5/10/2004
Tracks 13
Label Diesel Motor
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
Wayne Kramer scrapes the proverbial underbelly of society to remind listeners of the ever-present influence of his early work in the MC5 and validate his renewed creative tenacity with Dangerous Madness, his second solo outing. The punk/metal forefather delves into his seminal musical history and harrowing bouts with drug addiction and jail time to create another blast of authentic, streetwise hard rock. The title track launches Dangerous Madness with a hard-driving, wary observation of society's fringe, attacking talk-show culture and violence-prone extremism. Terrence Trent Darby adds a subtle hint of soul to the otherwise brutal rocker. Kramer's disdain for mainstream media is glaringly evident on "Rats of Illusion," a scathing diatribe against lowest-common-denominator news programming. Kramer's more optimistic-sounding songs are tempered with his experienced, cautionary tone. "Wild America" and "The Boys Got That Look" simultaneously embrace and warn against the wild bravado that was no doubt a driving force in his early years. "It's Never Enough" scorches through a quasi-autobiographical account of drug addiction and misplaced ambitions. Kramer's lyrical phrasing often resembles the dark-side-of-life writing of street-level author Charles Bukowski, and his manic guitar attack paints a similarly gritty mural of shady debauchery. Dangerous Madness is a hair-raising jaunt through dark but realistic subject matter, proving Kramer to be an incendiary poetic force. His self-produced sonic boom effectively recaptures the raw musical intensity of his days in the MC5 without sounding overly nostalgic. The faint of heart may not wish to partake, but those with an appetite for brutally honest, bone-crunching rock will not be disappointed. [The album was reissued in 2004 with a bonus track ("Steel Rails") and a video for "Back to Detroit" added.)~ Paul Henderson, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Yes, Wayne Kramer lives in one, but there's a whole lot of memorabilia cluttering his adult world these days. After three strong studio albums that reestablished him as a blue collar-cum-radical-boho-street-sage with MC5 credibility intact in the late '90s, Adult World is a pretty scattered effort with lyrics that mostly look to the way-back-when rather than to what's going on today. "Brought a Knife to the Gunfight" is a one-man-band deal with a drum machine, nice harmony vocals, and backwards guitar, while "Great Big Amp" may be intended as a sardonic send-up of the joys of making big musical noise -- but that doesn't really come through loud and clear. The drums are live but sound programmed, and the "noir moderne" title track continues in that vein, with synth sonics swirling through the song and near-spoken vocals. "Talkin' Outta School," with the Hellacopters, is the first track that sounds like a cohesive song with hooks, rather than a collection of parts, and "What About Laura?" is a straight pop song with teenage runaway street saga lyrics. Typical of Adult World, the spoken word, noir rock-jazz-cum-TV themed soundtrack of "Nelson Algren Stopped By," laid down by XMarsX with Mars Williams, and featuring Fred Lonberg-Holm's prominent cello, sounds sandwiched in the middle of nowhere. The song imagines the songwriter returning to Chicago, and everything else here deals with similar themes and memories. "Love, Fidel" is an imagined love letter from Castro in a 1950s Cuban prison and "Sundays in Saigon" is a modern-day return to the site of the generation-defining Vietnam War. The compact "The Slime That Ate Cleveland" salutes '70s rock/pop culture heroes from Chrissie Hynde to Pere Ubu. "Red Arrow" rocks hard and sounds like a tribute to bebop trumpeter Red Rodney. Adult World just doesn't hang together coherently on a musical level -- maybe Kramer was looking to flex his literary muscles, or get a few musical odds and ends rattling around his brain down on DAT. But you're better off starting with his earlier solo outings on Epitaph. ~ Don Snowden, All Music Guide
'The Return of Citizen Wayne'
Release Date 5/28/2002
Tracks 16
Label Muscle Tone
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
Wayne Kramer got more attention for serving two years in prison on drug charges than for anything he did with music in the 20 years that followed the breakup of the MC5 in 1972, so the strength, intelligence, and blazing power of Kramer's 1995 comeback album, The Hard Stuff, took many by surprise, and he showed that record's excellence was no fluke with the similarly accomplished Dangerous Madness in 1996. But after reaffirming his status as one of rock's visionary guitarists and a talented, deeply personal songwriter, Kramer decided to up the ante with an even more ambitious album, 1997's Citizen Wayne. Kramer touched on the musical and personal circumstances that shaped his life on the previous two albums, and the 12 songs on Citizen Wayne formed a loose autobiographical suite that traced his life from the early days of the MC5 ("Back When Dogs Could Talk," "Revolution in Apt. 29") though his purgatory years behind bars ("Count Time") to his redemption in music and a newly focused sobriety ("Doing the Work"). As good as the songs were -- and they're very good -- what really set Citizen Wayne apart was the production by David Was, which threw Kramer's music into an aural blender that balanced his guitar work against beds of synthesized and organic percussion, keyboards, and assorted noises. The results staked out a provocative middle ground between hard rock and electronics that avoided the clichés of the former and the stiff angularity of the latter. While Kramer had previously worked with David Was as part of his mutant funk ensemble Was (Not Was), Citizen Wayne took some of the production techniques that informed that band's recordings and used them in the service of an album that was far more personal, organic, and revealing; Citizen Wayne was a brave experiment that succeeds far better than anyone might have expected given Kramer's history, and it's a genuine disappointment that it would be his last studio album for five years, followed by the lackluster Adult World. In 2002, Kramer re-released Citizen Wayne under the title The Return of Citizen Wayne, which repackaged the album with new liner notes and three bonus tracks. "Checks for Chairman Mao" is a short but powerful rocker that was inexplicably cut from the album's running order, while the remixed versions of "No Easy Way Out" and "Back When Dogs Could Talk" are decidedly less revelatory. A ten-minute promotional video created for the original Epitaph release of the album is also included as a Quicktime file playable on personal computers; it features an interview with Kramer as well as endorsements from fellow musicians and highlights from reviews of the album. The Return of Citizen Wayne does make an album well worth hearing available again, but if you still have a copy of the original CD in decent shape, the bonus material isn't quite impressive enough to make the new disc a worthy purchase. ~ Mark Deming, All Music Guide
'LLMF (Live Like a Mutherfucker)'
Release Date 11/9/1998
Tracks 14
Label Epitaph
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
Wayne Kramer got more attention for serving two years in prison on drug charges than for anything he did with music in the 20 years that followed the breakup of the MC5 in 1972, so the strength, intelligence, and blazing power of Kramer's 1995 comeback album, The Hard Stuff, took many by surprise, and he showed that record's excellence was no fluke with the similarly accomplished Dangerous Madness in 1996. But after reaffirming his status as one of rock's visionary guitarists and a talented, deeply personal songwriter, Kramer decided to up the ante with an even more ambitious album, 1997's Citizen Wayne. Kramer touched on the musical and personal circumstances that shaped his life on the previous two albums, and the 12 songs on Citizen Wayne formed a loose autobiographical suite that traced his life from the early days of the MC5 ("Back When Dogs Could Talk," "Revolution in Apt. 29") though his purgatory years behind bars ("Count Time") to his redemption in music and a newly focused sobriety ("Doing the Work"). As good as the songs were -- and they're very good -- what really set Citizen Wayne apart was the production by David Was, which threw Kramer's music into an aural blender that balanced his guitar work against beds of synthesized and organic percussion, keyboards, and assorted noises. The results staked out a provocative middle ground between hard rock and electronics that avoided the clichés of the former and the stiff angularity of the latter. While Kramer had previously worked with David Was as part of his mutant funk ensemble Was (Not Was), Citizen Wayne took some of the production techniques that informed that band's recordings and used them in the service of an album that was far more personal, organic, and revealing; Citizen Wayne was a brave experiment that succeeds far better than anyone might have expected given Kramer's history, and it's a genuine disappointment that it would be his last studio album for five years, followed by the lackluster Adult World. ~ Mark Deming, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Wayne Kramer scrapes the proverbial underbelly of society to remind listeners of the ever-present influence of his early work in the MC5 and validate his renewed creative tenacity with Dangerous Madness, his second solo outing. The punk/metal forefather delves into his seminal musical history and harrowing bouts with drug addiction and jail time to create another blast of authentic, streetwise hard rock. The title track launches Dangerous Madness with a hard-driving, wary observation of society's fringe, attacking talk-show culture and violence-prone extremism. Terrence Trent Darby adds a subtle hint of soul to the otherwise brutal rocker. Kramer's disdain for mainstream media is glaringly evident on "Rats of Illusion," a scathing diatribe against lowest-common-denominator news programming. Kramer's more optimistic-sounding songs are tempered with his experienced, cautionary tone. "Wild America" and "The Boys Got That Look" simultaneously embrace and warn against the wild bravado that was no doubt a driving force in his early years. "It's Never Enough" scorches through a quasi-autobiographical account of drug addiction and misplaced ambitions. Kramer's lyrical phrasing often resembles the dark-side-of-life writing of street-level author Charles Bukowski, and his manic guitar attack paints a similarly gritty mural of shady debauchery. Dangerous Madness is a hair-raising jaunt through dark but realistic subject matter, proving Kramer to be an incendiary poetic force. His self-produced sonic boom effectively recaptures the raw musical intensity of his days in the MC5 without sounding overly nostalgic. The faint of heart may not wish to partake, but those with an appetite for brutally honest, bone-crunching rock will not be disappointed. ~ Paul Henderson, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
While it made sense that a label inspired by the punk ethic the MC5 helped found put out Wayne Kramer's first full-on solo album, in many ways The Hard Stuff sticks out like a sore thumb from the usual Epitaph fare -- namely, because it's not interested in toeing a particular sonic line. Kramer's youthful obsession with soul power mixed with rough and ready noise, tempered by his older and wiser years but not lacking for a section of energy, makes for a great full-on rock & roll album. Certainly when one compares this work with the neutered slop his Detroit contemporary Ted Nugent was churning out in the late '80s and into the '90s, there's little question who chose to rest on laurels and who decided to jump into things full on. Kramer's choice of musicians to work with doesn't hurt -- all of Claw Hammer back him up on a number of songs, including the great opening blast "Crack in the Universe," while elsewhere the Melvins, Josh Freese, Keith Morris, Kim Shattuck, and even label boss Brett Gurewitz sit in. In a fine nod to Kramer's soul roots, Was (Not Was)'s Sweet Pea Atkinson, along with bassist James Jamerson, Jr., take a turn on the heavy groove "Pillar of Fire." Kramer's lyrics take on the wreckage of America with compassion for those stuck at the bottom, but it's his wailing guitar work, direct and powerful, that demonstrates best of all how you can't keep a good man down. Hearing the perversely beautiful sludge/slow jam of "Junkie Romance," Kramer demolishing the heroin chic image with the eye of a weathered survivor armed with wit and compassion, or the spoken word portrayal of an argument turned violent in "Incident on Stock Island" shows how his gifts are in full swing. Fine bonus: the untitled bonus track paying tribute to Kramer's personal hero Charles Bukowski. ~ Ned Raggett, All Music Guide
