MC5 earned national attention with their first album, Kick Out the Jams, recorded live on October 30 and 31, 1968, at Detroit's Grande Ballroom.
Elektra executive Jac Holzman and producer Bruce Botnick recognized that MC5 were at their best when playing for a receptive audience.
Containing such songs as the proto-punk classics "Kick Out the Jams" and "Rocket Reducer No.
62 (Rama Lama Fa Fa Fa)", the spaced-out "Starship" (co-credited to Sun Ra because the lyrics were partly cribbed from one of Ra's poems), and an extended cover of John Lee Hooker's "Motor City Is Burning" wherein Tyner praises the role of the Black Panthers during the Detroit riots of 1967.
Critic Mark Deming writes that Kick out the Jams "is one of the most powerfully energetic live albums ever made ... this is an album that refuses to be played quietly."
