Dennis Thompson, the drummer of The MC5 – whose then-unheard of combination of total & utter command of free-jazz phrasing combined with piledriver rock & roll pounding – underlaid and drove the music of that greatest-of-all-time Detroit band, died last Thursday, May 9th, after a series of medical issues.  He was 75.  

For the uninitiated, check this out; Dennis Thompson, MC5 Drummer Dead at 75.

I loved The MC5 pretty much from the first moment I heard the words, “Kick out the jams, motherfucker!” BLARE out of my radio speaker on a two-hours-on-Sunday-afternoon “progressive rock” radio show on Columbus’ WOSU, a classical music station that broadcast from Ohio State University.  (And, believe me, that was the ONE and ONLY time that tune got out over WOSU’s Beethoven & Handel-heavy airwaves.)

My high-school best friend & bandmate Dave Blackburn and I BURNED for the music of The MC5.  Dave & I always said we were “hippies for about 20 minutes” back in those halcyon counter-culture days, mostly because our macrobiotic, country-rock loving brethren & sistren had no use for the likes of the 5 (and their little brother band The Stooges).  “That’s not mellow, man,” they would bellyache from their steady diet of brown rice & ramen, “you gotta get back to the country, back to nature.”

Dave’s and my question to that?  Where in nature were we supposed to plug in the fucking AMPLIFIERS?

The question “How did it take from 1995 to 2024 – almost 30 YEARS – for The MC5 to be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame alongside side such rock & roll luminaries (?) as Foreigner and The Dave Matthews Band really needs to be addressed here.  The MC5 were nominated – but never chosen for induction – SIX TIMES over the past 20 years.  I don’t think I’m the only person to consider that repeated snubbing to be the work of noted Starfucker uber Alles Jann Wenner – the former editor of Rolling Stone – whose magazine has maintained a standing beef with the 5 stretching back to the late 1960’s.  (My own personal belief is that the feud began when Wenner invited the 5 to one of his Marin County Celebrity Dinner Parties and they spilled or spewed wine all over David Crosby and Paul Simon.)

That’s all water under the bridge now.  Gaining entrance into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, even through the side door of The Award for Musical Excellence, is enough that The MC5 will now share the Hall with brothers-in-arms The Stooges and The Patti Smith Group.

What is NOT water under the bridge is that, in typical Rock & Roll Hall of Fame fashion, it took 39 years, and the deaths of every original member of The MC5 for that induction to come.  And Dennis Thompson, who – by all accounts – was really looking forward to that induction to honor his fallen Detroit brethren, missed it by a paltry five months.  Dennis Thompson, don’t rest in peace, kick out the jams with your brothers in The MC5. – Ricki C. (with an assist from Jeremy Porter) / May 11th, 2024

inspirational verse; “‘69 American terminal stasis / The air’s so thick it’s like drownin’ in molasses”

drummer-extraordinaire Dennis Thompson - subject of today’s blog - breaks a stick within the first THREE SECONDS of the set & video

Ricki C. is 71 years old.  He has been involved professionally in rock & roll in some capacity - performer, roadie, rock writer - since 1968 when he sang his first song for pay in public; “Magic Carpet Ride” by Steppenwolf at a classmate’s basement birthday party.