MC5's Wayne Kramer Sells His... Song to Activison

Sex Pistols and Motorhead join him

3 Sept 2008

Ageing musos everywhere, despair! Wayne Kramer, founder of punk grandaddies The MC5, has sold his... song, soul and mother to Activision. He's going back to the studio to re-record Kick Out the Jams for Guitar Hero World Tour.

He's not the only fragile old rocker giving it up for Activision, either. It's been revealed that while The Sex Pistols were busy re-recording Anarchy in the UK for Guitar Hero 3 last year they also took another pop at Pretty Vacant, which Activision has been holding onto for World Tour.

Similarly, Motorhead (the band with the ugliest front man in pop music?) have made a return trip to the studio do a fresh recording of Overkill.

Following GH3 last year and the release of a Lemmy Kilmister action figure, the old men of SPOnG expected no less from the Pistols and Motorhead, but they're most aggrieved at the behaviour of Wayne Kramer, once revolutionary leader of The MC5.
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The release comes just short of the 40th anniversary of the recording of Kick Out the Jams. Bruce Botnick, the original producer of the record, has returned while the vocals recorded by Rob Tyner in 1968 will be used.

Activision further tells us, “Wayne Kramer was joined by friends Jerry Cantrell of Alice and Chains and Gilby Clark formerly of Guns 'N' Roses - at The Woodshed Recorder, studio of composer and ex-Oingo Boingo keyboardist Richard Gibbs - to update and modernize the sound without taking away from the original visceral garage sound that made MC5 famous and helped start the Punk Rock revolution.”

The Evil Editor is weeping into his keyboard right now, while Andy SPOnG, saddened though he is, muttered “He must be at retirement age by now, anyway”. Mark SPOnG doesn't see why making a few bob out of your song on Guitar Hero is any worse than making a few bob releasing your album, but he's not old enough to even remember the punk, let alone when everything was all righteous and angry and that.

"When highly respected artists such as MC5's Wayne Kramer, Motorhead and The Sex Pistols are willing to go back into the recording studio to re-record their music exclusively for the game, the fans win by getting a unique experience of old yet new legendary sounds", said Tim Riley,VP of music affairs for Activision Blizzard.

You can find out more about Guitar Hero World Tour over on SPOnG's dedicated game page.
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