(Credits: Far Out / Hugh Shirley Candyside)
Sat 14 March 2026 0:00, UK
The counterculture movement of the 1960s might have swept up many of music history’s most pioneering voices, but not everybody was susceptible to its free-spirited, flower-crown-wearing ways. In fact, miles away in Detroit, a different, more commanding call to arms was brewing at the hands of a certain Wayne Kramer.
When looking at the broader, more definitive movements in history, it’s easy to forget where communities like counterculture emerged from and, by extension, all the reasons why some people were sceptical of it. After all, it arrived as a response to the generational desire for defiance in a more passive, psychological way, away from mainstream culture to reject consumerism and the Vietnam War.
Many of the most iconic names in music, including the likes of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Grace Slick, Janis Joplin, and more, made art for a common cause, often protesting against mainstream culture’s values and calling for societal justice and change, but amid the haze of peace and love were the growing seeds of doubt among those who weren’t sure it was all it was cracked up to be.
On the opposite side, bands like MC5 were showing up as a different, more demanding version of US counterculture that attacked the mainstream by fighting for the same type of peace, albeit in a more aggressive, proto-punk manner. Alongside forces like the Black Panther movement, MC5 sought to destroy perpetrators of oppression and unnecessary systemic barriers through wall-shattering volume and searing performances.
Their defining song, ‘Kick Out The Jams’, epitomised this rallying cry for authenticity in its purest form, taking Kramer’s mantra, “Kick out the jams!” as a catch-all term for people who presented as a certain thing but weren’t actually that at all. Inspired by bands that played in Detroit that they’d often open for, the phrase came from ways they’d “harass” the bands when they “weren’t very good”.
As Kramer explained, “We were using the expression for a long time […] We’d yell at them, ‘Kick out the jams or get off the stage, motherfucker!’ Finally, one day we said, ‘I like that expression. We should use that as the title of a song.’”
Hailed as one of the first rock songs to drop the F-bomb in a song (as well as the liner notes, written by their manager, White Panther founder, and all-round American hero John Sinclair), ‘Kick Out The Jams’ was seen by some as too provocative in some spaces, mainly among retailers, leading to an ugly fallout with Elektra Records that ultimately resulted in them being dropped from the label.
Following the release, many retailers, including a local one called Hudson’s, refused to sell the non-clean version at their store. As a response, the band put out an ad in a local newspaper saying, “Fuck Hudson’s”, thinking they’d gained the upper hand.
However, when the retailer responded by threatening to recall all of Elektra’s artists from stock, Elektra dropped them from the label and replaced all current copies of the record with the clean version – still, despite the backlash, the song itself remains a monolith in counterculture rock history, a force with a fiery message that long outlives its immediate controversy.
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