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Credit: Alamy<\/p>\n
Sun 30 August 2026 2:00, UK <\/p>\n
When Rob Tyner, Wayne Kramer, Fred \u2018Sonic\u2019 Smith, Michael Davis and Dennis Thompson, better known collectively as MC5<\/a>, went to see the dentist in 1969 complaining that all the sugar in the fruit-preserves they\u2019d been eating lately was wearing out their teeth, the dental practitioner told them that they really ought to \u201ckick out the jams\u201d, and thus, a legendary song was born. <\/p>\n If only the members of the Grateful Dead had seen the same hygienist. No, it didn\u2019t really go quite like that. But MC5 really did all find themselves together in a dental office around that time, not for work on their dentures but for work on their debut record, of all things. <\/p>\n If you\u2019ve ever seen Phoebe Waller-Bridge<\/a>\u2019s absurd 2016 sitcom Crashing, where the characters all live together in a disused hospital (as building guardians, mind, not squatters), then you\u2019ll be able to picture the digs that MC5 found themselves in quite well in the summer of \u201969. <\/p>\n \u201cThe band had just moved in together for the very first time\u201d, lead guitarist Wayne Kramer once recalled in an interview. <\/p>\n \u201cThere used to be a building in downtown Detroit that was a dentist\u2019s office on the second floor, and we all moved into different rooms in the dentist\u2019s office as our bedrooms,\u201d Kramer added. \u201cAnd then downstairs was a storefront. I covered the walls with egg crates and made it a rehearsal studio, so for the first time we could rehearse whenever we wanted to, all day, all night if we wanted to, and we all lived there.\u201d <\/p>\n Explaining that it was at one such informal (jam) session that Kramer and vocalist Rob Tyner first came up with the song that would go on to define not only their own output, but also inspire a generation of punk-rockers after them, he expanded on the roots of the phrase \u201ckick out the jams\u201d. <\/p>\n \u201cWe had the expression. We were using the expression for a long time, because we would be critical of other bands that came to Detroit that the MC5 would open for. They\u2019d come into town with this big reputation, and then they\u2019d get up on stage, and they weren\u2019t very good. So, we used to harass them. We\u2019d yell at them, \u2018Kick out the jams or get off the stage, motherfucker!\u2019 Finally, one day we said, \u2018I like that expression. We should use that as the title of a song.\u2019 So Tyner knocked it out.\u201d Pretty strange, sure, but maybe not quite the weirdest<\/a> place that anyone has ever written a classic song.<\/p>\n It sounds like those jam bands really hit a nerve with MC5. Presumably, the rest of the songs that made up their debut album, named after their most famous song, were also written in that home-studio-cum-dentists-office, though the details are a little light on the ground. I\u2019d need to brush up on my MC5 history to say for certain. <\/p>\n Anyway, in the end, the song that Tom Morello once said MC5 \u201cbasically invented punk rock\u201d turned out to be one about jam bands, rather than fruit preserves, and it doesn\u2019t really have all that much to do with the dentists, either. It should come as no surprise, though. There aren\u2019t that many songs about those sugary fruit spreads (no, \u2018Lady Marmalade\u2019 doesn\u2019t count; that one is about a different kind of sugar), but there are a surprising number of songs out there about pearly whites and trips to the dentist. Maybe even more than there are healthy teeth in most bands. <\/p>\n You\u2019ve got \u2018White Teeth Teens\u2019 by Lorde (not to mention the fact that both of her best songs, \u2018Royals\u2019 and \u2018Green Light\u2019, also mention teeth in the lyrics), and Lady Gaga\u2019s \u2018Teeth\u2019. \u2018Your Gold Teeth\u2019 and \u2018Your Gold Teeth II\u2019 by Steely Dan. Oh, yeah, and that holiday classic, \u2018All I Want for Christmas (Is My Two Front Teeth)\u2019. <\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/MC5-The-MC5-1969-Far-Out-Magazine-1024x768.jpg\")
<\/a>Credit: Far Out \/ Elektra Records \/ Leni Sinclair<\/p>\n
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<\/a> The Far Out Classic Rock Newsletter<\/p>\n