Like the hippies, but more confrontational, more armed: An obituary for the guitarist, political activist, proto-punk and rock’n’roll laurel Wayne Kramer.
No one asked whether he was more of a poser or a revolutionary. After all, it was 1969 when Wayne Kramer became one of the overnight protagonists of politically fueled rock’n’roll in Detroit. Back then there were so many real and symbolic battles to be fought, aesthetic, sexual, philosophical and street activist, that in the end it was all somehow one. And Kramer – then 21 years old and a sweet, clean-shaven guy with a mullet – as a guitarist with his band MC5 could easily combine the narcissistic with the radical. The party cannon on the one hand. The latent violent resistance on the other.