Wayne Kramer at Bowery Electric

Wayne Kramer was a teenager in 1967 in Detroit, Michigan, when he co-founded the MC5, a short-lived yet pivotal rock band which, along with Iggy Pop & the Stooges, may have been the precursors of the raw and frenzied punk rock movement of the late 1970s. Kramer experienced times in drug addiction and federal penitentiary, and now is a co-founder of Jail Guitar Doors USA, a non-profit organization based in Los Angeles, California, which provides musical instruments and opportunities to help rehabilitate prisoners. He periodically returns to performing live music, as he did tonight at Bowery Electric. He has an album coming out in May called Lexington.

Wayne’s music still rocks, but he is backed by a jazz band. Much of his set was dedicated to songs that featured jazz arrangements. For the rockers, however, he played the MC5’s signature “Kick out the Jams” with a guest appearance from Handsome Dick Manitoba of the Dictators and a cover of the Clash’s “Jail Guitar Doors,” sung with neighborhood rocker Jesse Malin. Pictured left to right are Emmy Award and Golden Globe-winning actor Jeremy Piven of television’s Entourage, who played drums on one song, Kramer and Malin.