NEW YORK (AP) — Before there was the Clash, Nirvana or Rage Against the Machine there was the MC5.
“The MC5 was playing punk rock music before there was a name for it,” says Tom Morello, a Rock & Roll Hall of Fame guitarist for bands like Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave.
“They built the lattice on which bands like The Stooges, The Ramones, The Clash, the Sex Pistols, Rage Against the Machine and System of a Down ply their trade.”
The MC5 — short for Motor City Five — are getting into the Rock Hall this year, only months after the deaths of the two last original members, drummer Dennis “Machine Gun” Thompson and guitarist and singer Wayne Kramer.
The Detroit-based MC5 are part of the class of ’24 that includes Peter Frampton,Foreigner,Cher,Mary J. Blige, A Tribe Called Quest, Kool & The Gang, Ozzy Osbourne, Dave Matthews Band, the late Jimmy Buffett, Dionne Warwick, Alexis Korner, the late John Mayall and Big Mama Thornton. The induction ceremony is Saturday in Cleveland.
The band — which also included Fred “Sonic” Smith on guitars, Rob Tyner on vocals, Michael Davis on bass — had little commercial success and put out just three albums, but its legacy endured, both for its sound and for its fusing of music to political action. During the chaos of the 1968 Democratic National Convention, only the MC5 showed up to play.
“The reason why they deserve to be in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is not because of the depth or breadth of their catalog. It’s because of their influence. Without them, there is no punk rock music,” says Morello. “They're on the Mount Rushmore of founders of this particular brand of music.”
“Kick Out the Jams” was their most famous song — with the lyrics "Put that mic in my hand/And let me kick out the jam" and “Let me be who I am/And let me kick out the jams." A live album of the same name reached the top 40 in 1969, their highest-charting release. They also released the studio albums “Back in the USA” and “High Time” before breaking up at the end of 1972.
In quiet honor of the MC5, Rage Against the Machine would nickname their band's fastest song “MC5" when they were recording albums. For months, that's what “Sleep Now in the Fire” from the album “The Battle of Los Angeles” was called.
Grammy Award-winning producer Don Was grew up in Detroit and vividly remembers catching MC5 live, calling what he heard “a tsunami of sound.”
“To me, they unleashed a power. You could taste the music and see it. It was never really captured on any recordings. It was a big, monolithic wall of distortion and groove.”
Morello and Was are among several musicians appearing on a new MC5 album, “Heavy Lifting,” which comes out this month and includes songs by Kramer and Thompson. Slash, Vernon Reid and William DuVall of Alice in Chains also contributed.
“The idea, as Wayne described to me, was to make one last great MC5 record that would distill the spirit that the band had decades before but was also a product of where those influences lead,” says Morello. “I put everything I had into it. I’m like, ‘Let’s make one more really, really great MC5 record.’”
There’s also a new book, “MC5: An Oral Biography of Rock’s Most Revolutionary Band” by music journalists Brad Tolinski, Jaan Uhelszki and Ben Edmonds. It includes stories from Iggy and the Stooges, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, promoter Bill Graham, John Lennon and the Jefferson Airplane.
Morello, who on the nominating committee at the Rock Hall, says he's been pushing for the inclusion of the MC5 for years and recent changes in the Cleveland-based organization has led to more fan favorites, like Rush, Kiss, Judas Priest — and now MC5.
“The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame tells a story. It can’t tell every story, but it tells a story. I think that story is becoming broader and more reflective of rock fandom than in the past when it might have been a more delicately curated situation.”
Kramer, who spent years in prison on drug charges, later established Jail Guitar Doors U.S.A., a nonprofit that donates musical instruments to inmates and offers songwriting workshops in prisons. He helped people get sober, find jobs for former inmates, build music careers for at-risk youth and was always up to back a progressive cause.
Was says Kramer went from believing that a revolution was coming in the 1960s to realizing it might fail but still trying to make life better for people.
“Wayne Kramer was the best man I’ve ever known,” says Morello, who will help induct the MC5 on Saturday. “He possessed a one-of-a-kind mixture of deep wisdom and profound compassion with beautiful empathy and tenacious conviction.”
FILE - Wayne Kramer, co-founder of the protopunk Detroit band the MC5, plays a guitar at his recording studio in Los Angeles on Jan. 16, 2012. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello, File)
This cover image released by Hachette shows "MC5: An Oral Biography of Rock's Most Revolutionary Band" by Brad Tolinski, Jaan Uhelszki, and Ben Edmonds. (Hachette via AP)
This cover image released by earMUSIC shows "Heavy Liftin" by MC5. (earMUSIC via AP)
FILE - Wayne Kramer, co-founder of the protopunk Detroit band the MC5, performs at the after party for the CBGB West Coast Premiere Powered by Ciroc in Beverly Hills, Calif., on Oct. 1, 2013. (Photo by Todd Williamson/Invision for Ciroc/AP, File)
Israeli jets struck southern Lebanon and Beirut's southern suburbs on Wednesday, killing at least 21 people including a city mayor, Lebanese officials said.
Hezbollah acting leader Sheikh Naim Kassem declared Tuesday that the Lebanese militant group would ramp up attacks on Israel in response to an Israeli airstrike Monday on an apartment building in northern Lebanon that killed at least 22 people. Israel said it struck a target belonging to Hezbollah, but the United Nations called for an independent investigation.
Israel has escalated its campaign against Hezbollah in recent weeks, after a year of near-daily exchanges of cross-border fire.
It’s been more than a year since Hamas-led militants blew holes in Israel’s security fence and stormed in, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting another 250. Israel’s offensive in Gaza has killed over 42,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities, who do not distinguish combatants from civilians. The war has destroyed large areas of Gaza and displaced about 90% of its population of 2.3 million people.
In northern Gaza, Israel has been waging an air and ground campaign in Jabaliya for more than a week, leaving families trapped in their shelters.
U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration warned Israel that it must increase the amount of humanitarian aid it allows into Gaza within the next 30 days or risk losing access to American weapons funding. Israel said Wednesday that it had allowed 50 food aid trucks into northern Gaza.
Here's the latest:
ROME — The 16 European Union countries participating in the U.N. peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon have agreed they must keep “a stable presence” in the region.
During the meeting Wednesday, defense ministers and delegates from the participating EU nations expressed “unanimous concern” and strongly condemned recent attacks by Israeli forces on the peacekeeping mission in Lebanon known as UNIFIL. At least five UNIFIL troops have been wounded.
“The importance of ensuring full respect for UNIFIL’s mandate and the protection of its personnel was stressed, urging the international community to maintain a steady and resolute commitment,” the ministers said in a statement after the meeting.
The ministers also said they have “a shared willingness to exert maximum political and diplomatic pressure on Israel so that no further incidents occur.”
At the same time, “Hezbollah cannot use UNIFIL personnel as shields in the context of the conflict,” they said.
They said the failure to fully implement the U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701, which inspired the mission, “can in no way justify attacks against UNIFIL forces,” and they stressed the need to revise the rules of engagement so U.N. forces can operate more effectively and safely in the region.
They also agreed that to become “a credible force and contribute to the stability of the region with the support of UNIFIL” the Lebanese Armed Forces needs more training support and international funding.
The EU nations participating in the UNIFIL mission are: Italy, France, Spain, Austria, Croatia, Finland, Greece, Ireland, Latvia, the Netherlands, Poland, Germany, Estonia, Hungary, Malta and Cyprus.
WASHINGTON — The U.S. has sanctioned three people and four firms involved in a Lebanon-based sanctions evasion network accused of generating millions in revenue for the militant group Hezbollah.
Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control also imposed sanctions on three people involved in trafficking of Captagon, an amphetamine, from Lebanon into Jordan.
The majority of the world’s Captagon is produced in Syria, with smaller production in neighboring Lebanon. Western governments estimate illegal trade in the pills generates billions of dollars for senior members of the Syrian government.
The penalties aim to block them from using the U.S. financial system and bar American citizens from dealing with them.
Treasury’s Acting Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Bradley T. Smith said Wednesday’s action underscores Hezbollah’s “destabilizing influence within Lebanon and on the wider region.”
U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said the U.S. will “continue to target the illicit Captagon trade in the region.”
BEIRUT — Israeli warplanes struck a two-story building in Yammouneh, in the Bekaa Valley, killing two people, according to Lebanon's state-run National News Agency.
The victims in the strike Wednesday afternoon were a local woman and a displaced person, the report said.
Two people were killed and nine others were injured in a separate airstrike on the Rayak-Baalbek highway, the Health Ministry said. Several Lebanese army soldiers were wounded, the news agency reported.
An Israeli airstrike on Douair, near Nabatieh in south Lebanon, destroyed shops and residential apartments, the report said. It is unclear if there were casualties.
BEIRUT — The International Committee of the Red Cross has deployed a team of surgeons to treat war-related wounds at the government-run Rafik Hariri University Hospital in Beirut.
Many of the patients have been evacuated from hospitals in the south as Israeli strikes intensify in the war against with the Hezbollah militant group. About 1.2 million people have fled southern and eastern Lebanon.
The head of the ICRC in Lebanon, Simone Casabianca-Aeschlimann, said Wednesday that the country's health care system is overstretched because of a large influx of wounded patients.
“The fact that we do not know how this conflict is going to evolve and what is going to happen for us is very trying,” she told The Associated Press.
Earlier this month, ICRC delivered medical supplies including war surgery kits to treat some 2,000 critical patients across over a dozen hospitals in Lebanon.
At least 2,350 people have been killed and more than 10,900 have been wounded since the conflict began a year ago, most of them since late September, Lebanese authorities say.
LONDON — Prime Minister Keir Starmer says the U.K. government is considering sanctioning two ultranationalist Israeli Cabinet ministers.
Starmer said “we are looking at” imposing sanctions on Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir. He said the pair has made “abhorrent” comments about the situation in Gaza and the West Bank.
Britain, France and Algeria have called a meeting of the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday on the humanitarian situation in northern Gaza, which Starmer called “dire.”
“Israel must take all possible steps to avoid civilian casualties, to allow aid into Gaza in much greater volumes, and provide the U.N. humanitarian partners the ability to operate effectively,” Starmer said in the House of Commons.
David Cameron, who was foreign secretary in the previous Conservative government until its defeat in the July election, said Tuesday that while in office he was working on a plan to sanction Smotrich and Ben-Gvir over their support for blocking aid from entering the Gaza Strip and expanding illegal Israeli settlements there and in the occupied West Bank.
The sanctions were not put in place before Britain’s snap election was called.
BEIRUT — U.N. Special Coordinator for Lebanon Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert called reports that the mayor of the southern Lebanese city of Nabatiyeh was killed in an Israeli airstrike on a municipal building “alarming.”
“This attack follows other incidents in which civilians and civilian infrastructure have been targeted across Lebanon,” she said in a statement.
Hennis-Plasschaert called for an immediate cease-fire between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.
“Military solutions will not and cannot bring safety or security to either side of the Blue Line,” she said, referring to the U.N.-drawn boundary between Lebanon and Israel.
JERUSALEM — Israel’s military says it has allowed 50 trucks of humanitarian aid into northern Gaza, after the United States warned it to boost aid efforts or risk losing weapons funding.
COGAT, the Israeli military body in charge of civilian affairs in Gaza, said the delivery was made at the direction of Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and the “political echelon.”
Northern Gaza was the first target of Israel’s massive air and ground offensive after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack ignited the war. The region has suffered heavy destruction and has been completely encircled by Israeli forces for nearly a year.
No food entered northern Gaza for the first two weeks of this month, according to the World Food Program, as Israel launched another major military operation there. That raised fears that Israel planned to implement a plan by former generals to depopulate northern Gaza.
Israel began allowing food shipments in again on Monday.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, in a letter to their Israeli counterparts on Sunday, said Israel had 30 days to increase the number of aid trucks getting into the strip daily to 350 -- or the U.S. would reconsider weapons shipments.
The U.S. has spent at least $17.9 billion on military aid to Israel since the war in Gaza began, according to a report for Brown University’s Costs of War project.
The aid entering the strip Wednesday traveled from Jordan into north Gaza after passing Israeli inspection and contained food, water, medical supplies and shelter equipment, COGAT said.
BEIRUT — Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati accused Israel of “intentionally targeting” a municipal council meeting in Nabatiyeh that was convened to discuss the southern city’s service and relief situation.
The strike killed the city's mayor along with four other people and destroyed a municipality building.
Lebanon’s Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi said in a separate statement that the building was targeted during a meeting held to coordinate relief work and aid distribution for people who have remained in southern Lebanon. He said a civil defense member was killed and others injured in the strike.
Mikati accused the international community of being “deliberately silent” about Israeli strikes that have killed civilians and attacks on U.N. peacekeepers.
“What solution can be hoped for in light of this reality?” he said in a statement.
Israel has said that its increasing bombardment of many areas of Lebanon in the past month and the ground invasion it launched two weeks ago are aimed at pushing the Hezbollah militant group back from the border and destroying its weapons caches.
BERLIN — The head of the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees has called for access of international media organizations to Gaza to report about the situation on the ground.
UNRWA's Philippe Lazzarini told a news conference in Berlin on Wednesday that “most of the information that we are receiving is either by (...) local journalists or by organizations operating in Gaza.”
Lazzarini said because there are so many different types of narratives on the conflict, “it is of utmost importance ... that we continue to ask for the presence and all the access of international journalists.”
TEHRAN, Iran — Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian urged Muslim countries to be united against Israel during a phone conversation with the ruler of Oman, the president's website reported Wednesday.
The report quoted Pezeshkian as saying, “If we, Islamic countries, are united with each other, the Zionist regime will not dare to commit crimes so easily," and the U.S. and Western countries also could not support it.
Pezeshkian praised Oman’s stance regarding “Israeli crimes” in Gaza and Lebanon and demanded more pressure on those who are supporting Israel, the report said.
There was no immediate report in Omani state media on the call between Pezeshkian and Oman’s Sultan Haitham bin Tariq. Oman long has served as an interlocutor between Iran and the West.
JERUSALEM — Israeli authorities say they have arrested a man who was involved in an alleged Iranian plot to assassinate an Israeli scientist.
In a statement released Wednesday, the Shin Bet internal security agency said Iran paid 35-year-old Vladimir Verhovski $100,000 to kill an Israeli scientist. It did not provide evidence or name the target of the alleged plot.
Iran has accused Israel of being behind the targeted killing of scientists involved in its nuclear program.
The Shin Bet said Verhovski had acquired a gun, cartridge and bullets, and agreed to flee to Russia afterwards. It said he had also gathered information at the direction of Iran.
It’s one of several alleged plots the Shin Bet says it has foiled in recent months that involved Israelis accused of having been recruited by Iran.
Israel and Iran have waged a shadow war for years that burst to the surface after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack triggered the war in Gaza. Israel and Iran exchanged fire directly for the first time in April, and Israel has vowed to retaliate after an Iranian ballistic missile attack earlier this month.
Iran supports armed groups across the region, including Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
BEIRUT — Lebanon’s Health Ministry says Israeli airstrikes on the southern Lebanese city of Nabatiyeh have killed at least 5 people.
The ministry and the state-run National News Agency said the provincial capital’s municipality building was hit by one of the strikes Wednesday. Huwaida Turk, the governor of Nabatiyeh province, told The Associated Press that Mayor Ahmad Kahil was killed in Wednesday’s strikes on the provincial capital. Local media reported that the mayor of Nabatiyeh and local government staff were in the building. Rescue workers are searching for bodies under the rubble.
The NNA says there were at least seven airstrikes in Nabatiyeh and some nearby villages.
Earlier in the week, Israeli strikes over Nabatiyeh destroyed its historic century-old market district.
The Israeli military said it struck dozens of targets in and around Nabatiyeh linked to the Hezbollah militant group, including command centers and weapons storage facilities that it said were embedded in civilian areas.
BEIRUT — Israeli strikes have killed at least 15 people in the southern Lebanese town of Qana, which has long been associated with civilian deaths after Israeli strikes during previous conflicts with Hezbollah.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military on the strikes in Qana late Tuesday. Lebanon’s Civil Defense said 15 bodies had been recovered from the rubble of a building and that rescue efforts were still underway.
In 1996, Israeli artillery shelling on a United Nations compound housing hundreds of displaced people in Qana killed at least 100 civilians and wounded scores more, including four U.N. peacekeepers. During the 2006 war, an Israeli strike on a residential building killed nearly three dozen people, a third of them children. Israel said at the time that it struck a Hezbollah rocket launcher behind the building.
PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron stressed “the absolute necessity of a cease-fire without further delay in Lebanon” and called for Israel to stop operations there in a phone call Tuesday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Macron urged Israel “to put an end to this unjustifiable targeting," according to a statement from his office, which also said France would continue to work with troop contributors and alongside the United Nations Secretary-General to ensure the full implementation of the mission of the peacekeeping force known as UNIFIL.
Netanyahu said in a statement after the call that he was opposed to a unilateral cease-fire. He said he would not agree to any arrangement that does not provide security for residents of northern Israel and “does not stop Hezbollah from rearming and regrouping.”
TEHRAN, Iran — Iran is ready for a retaliatory attack from Israel, the Foreign Ministry said Wednesday.
In a phone call Tuesday with United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said his country is fully prepared to answer to any kind of “adventure-seeking.”
“Responsibility of consequences of spreading insecurity in the region will be on the regime and the United States as main supporter,” of Israel, he added.
He urged the U.N. to use its entire capacity for stopping “crimes and invasions,” as well as providing humanitarian aid to Lebanon and Gaza.
Iran launched some 180 missiles at Israel on Oct. 1 in retaliation for the deaths of Hamas Leader Ismail Haniyeh and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. Israel has threatened to strike back for the barrage.
Iran is the main backer of Lebanese Hezbollah and supports anti-Israeli groups in the region such as Palestinian Hamas.
BEIRUT — Israeli jets struck the southern suburbs of Beirut early Wednesday for the first time in six days, Lebanese state media reported. The casualty count was not yet clear.
The attack comes just one day after caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said the United States government gave him some assurances of Israel easing its strikes in the Lebanese capital.
Israel says it is striking Hezbollah assets in the suburbs, where the militant group has a strong presence, but is also a busy residential and commercial area. The Israeli military said the Wednesday strike hit a weapons warehouse stored under a residential building.
The Israeli military posted an evacuation warning on X, formerly Twitter, saying it is targeting a building in the Haret Hreik neighborhood. An Associated Press photographer saw three airstrikes in the area, the first coming less than an hour after the notice.
Hezbollah began firing rockets into Israel on Oct. 8 in solidarity with the Palestinian militant group Hamas, following their surprise attack on southern Israel. Almost one year of low-level fighting has turned into all-out war and displaced some 1.2 million people in Lebanon.
Elsewhere, Israeli strikes late Tuesday in the southern town of Qana killed at least 15 people, according to Lebanese Civil Defense.
MANILA, Philippines — A European Union official expressed regret over the failure so far of efforts to forge a cease-fire in the Middle East, saying that fighting between Israel and the Hezbollah has made it more difficult to work for wide-ranging reforms in Lebanon and create conditions to draw international financial aid in.
EU Commissioner for Crisis Management Janez Lenarčič told The Associated Press in an interview late Tuesday in Manila that stalled reforms in Lebanon include the election of a new president, the establishment of a working government and the signing of a deal with the International Monetary Fund.
“It’s difficult to see that happening in these circumstances when Lebanon is under such a strain,” said Lenarčič, who flew to Manila to attend an Asia Pacific conference on disaster mitigation.
“That’s one of the reasons why we’re calling for a cease-fire, so as to allow Lebanon to organize itself so that it can benefit from all the funding which is out there,” he said. “I regret that we have not been heard.”
The EU was also extremely concerned over the killings of civilians in the fighting between Israel and the Hezbollah militant group. “This collateral damage is simply unacceptable,” Lenarčič said.
Rescue workers carry remains of people at at site that was hit by Israeli airstrikes in Qana village, south Lebanon, Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
Smoke rises following an explosion in southern Lebanon as seen from northern Israel, Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
Rescue workers remove rubble, as they search for victims at the site that was hit by Israeli airstrikes in Qana village, south Lebanon, Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
Destroyed buildings that were hit by Israeli airstrikes are seen in Qana village, south Lebanon, Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
Rescue workers search for victims at the site that was hit by Israeli airstrikes in Qana village, south Lebanon, Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
Rescue workers use a bulldozer to remove rubble of destroyed buildings, as they search for victims at the site that was hit by Israeli airstrikes in Qana village, south Lebanon, Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
Rescue workers use a bulldozer to remove rubble of destroyed buildings, as they search for victims at the site that was hit by Israeli airstrikes in Qana village, south Lebanon, Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
Rescue workers carry remains of dead people at the site that was hit by Israeli airstrikes in Qana village, south Lebanon, Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
Zavik Zoigi checks the Sukkah, a temporary hut built for the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, placed in front of his residence ahead the weeklong holiday celebrations in Kiryat Shmona, a town located neart to the border with Lebanon, in northern Israel, Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
Lebanese Red Cross volunteers remove the remains of killed people from the rubble of a destroyed building at the site of Monday's Israeli airstrike in Aito village, north Lebanon, Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
People attend the funeral ceremony of the late Iranian Revolutionary Guard Gen. Abbas Nilforushan, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut in late September, in Tehran, Iran, Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Lebanese army soldiers stand on the rubble of a destroyed building at the site of Monday's Israeli airstrike in the village of Aito, north Lebanon, Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Palestinian activist Khairi Hanoun holds up a poster of Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah who was killed by an Israeli strike in September, while mourning Rayan al-Sayed, a Palestinian killed in an Israeli raid Monday in the West Bank city of Jenin, during Al-Sayed's funeral, Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)
Smoke rise from Israeli airstrikes on Dahiyeh, Beirut's southern suburbs, Lebanon, Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Smoke rise from Israeli airstrikes on Dahiyeh, Beirut's southern suburbs, Lebanon, Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Smoke rise from Israeli airstrikes on Dahiyeh, Beirut's southern suburbs, Lebanon, Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
