Wayne Kramer Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

A.D. Amorosi John Sinclair, the counterculture activist and former MC5 manager who helped define that proto-punk ensemble’s radical politics, died on Tuesday at 82.

EXCLUSIVE: Global sales agent Palisades Park Pictures has signed an agreement with VIP Medienfonds to represent all available media rights to its catalog, including the Media 8 film library. 

A plaster cast of Jimi Hendrix’s penis is set to go on display next month in Reykjavik’s Phallological Museum which, its official blurb confirms, boasts “a collection of more than two hundred penises and penile parts belonging to almost all the land and sea mammals that can be found in Iceland”. That includes homo sapiens and therefore rock stars.The Hendrix cast was made by Cynthia Albritton – aka Cynthia Plaster Caster – in 1968 and was donated to the Icelandic museum shortly before her death last month.“It is with feelings of sadness and pride that The Phallological Museum announces that, prior to passing, Cynthia ʹPlaster Casterʹ Albritton decided to donate to the museum … one of a few casts of Jimi Hendrix”, said the museum in a statement on Twitter.Hendrix was not the only rock star who Albritton convinced to have their erect penis dunked in plaster – although he was the first.

Cynthia Albritton, better known as "Cynthia Plaster Caster" for the plaster casts she made of rock star private parts, died after what her representatives said was a long illness. She was 74. Although unconventional and a self-described "recovering groupie," Albritton evolved as an artist, expanding from music stars to film directors, eventually adding females.

Jimi Hendrix, Buzzcocks’ Pete Shelley, and Dead Kennedys frontman Jello Biafra.Born in Chicago in 1947, she attended art school in the 60s, where she was asked to create a plaster cast of “something solid that could retain its shape.” Instead of going for something typical, Albritton decided to turn her attention to the frontmen of her favourite bands.Jimi Hendrix was her first famous subject, having agreed to being cast while on tour in Chicago in 1968. Hendrix was followed by two members of MC5: Wayne Kramer, and drummer Dennis Thompson, though Kramer’s penis cast didn’t go to plan.“He got the container that wasn’t designed to mix alginates in,” she said in an interview with The Chicago Reader in 2002.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorCynthia Albritton, a.k.a. Cynthia Plaster Caster, the legendary artist and “recovering groupie” renowned for the plaster casts she took of many top musicians’ erect penises and other body parts, has died after a long illness, her rep confirms to Variety. She was 74.Her collection included Jimi Hendrix, Wayne Kramer of MC5, Pete Shelley of the Buzzcocks, Jello Biafra of the Dead Kennedys as well as female breasts from the likes of Laetitia Sadier of Stereolab, Sally Timms of the Mekons, Peaches, Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and many others.

MC5 have announced their first album in over 50 years and a series of US tour dates.The band took to Instagram earlier today (March 9) to post a video, which you can view below, featuring old footage of the punk veterans and a snippet of the album’s title track ‘Heavy Lifting’. The song also features Rage Against The Machine‘s Tom Morello.MC5 have reformed with original member Wayne Kramer, Pollo Elastica’s Brad Brooks, Stephen Perkins (Jane’s Addiction), Vicki Randle (Mavis Staples) and guitarist Stevie Salas.The new LP, which is due to drop later this year, will be the band’s first proper studio effort since 1971’s ‘High Time’ and sees Kramer collaborating with Morello, Kesha, Jill Sobule, Tim McIlrath, and Alejandro Escovedo.The band will also hit the road for a US tour in May, dates for which you can view below.A post shared by MC5 (@mc5alive)Tickets for the shows will go on sale this Friday (March 11) and further information is available via Kramer’s Facebook page here.Meanwhile, MC5 were recently nominated for this year’s Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame alongside Eminem, Kate Bush, Beck, Eurythmics, Duran Duran, Dolly Parton, Lionel Richie, Rage Against The Machine, A Tribe Called Quest, Carly Simon, Judas Priest, Fela Kuti, New York Dolls, Dionne Warwick, DEVO and Pat Benatar.It is the Detroit rockers’ sixth nomination over the years ahead of the final shortlist in May.A body of more than 1,000 artists, industry members and historians will help decide which five acts out of the 17 will progress into the final round of induction consideration.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorOn the heels of legendary punk progenitors the MC5’s nomination to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the group’s guitarist and co-founder Wayne Kramer has released two new songs and announced The Heavy Lifting Tour in May, all as a “reanimation” of the pioneering group, dubbed We Are All MC5.The tour begins with a special hometown show, celebrating the birthday of Detroit’s El Club, before moving on to the East Coast (Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Brooklyn) and West Coast (Sacramento, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego). Joining Kramer in the touring band will be singer Brad Brooks, drummer Stephen Perkins (Jane’s Addiction), bassist Vicki Randle (Mavis Staples), and guitarist Stevie Salas (David Bowie). “Nonstop touring, especially the last decade, I’ve come to understand that the music of the MC5 is as necessary as ever,” Kramer said.

MC5’s Wayne Kramer has sued Proctor & Gamble over its Old Spice Guitar Solo body wash, and not just because he’s offended as a guitarist at the idea of his artform being turned into soap.

Alice Cooper has announced his 21st solo album ‘Detroit Stories’, which will see the shock-rock icon heading back to his early roots.Cooper, who was born in Detroit, says the album will explore how the city helped to popularise “angry hard rock” in the US.It will feature a number of veteran musicians from the scene, including MC5’s Wayne Kramer, Detroit Wheels drummer Johnny ‘Bee’ Badanjek and bassist Paul Randolph.“Los Angeles had its sound with The Doors, Love and Buffalo Springfield,” said