Wayne Kramer: Last News

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.

EXCLUSIVE: Oscar nominee and screen icon Samuel L. Jackson (Pulp Fiction) will star alongside Oscar nominee and Grammy winner Andra Day (The United States Vs Billie Holiday) and Golden Globe nominee Edgar Ramirez (Emilia Perez) in action-comedy, The Honest Liar.

Don Was has spoken to NME about working on the first MC5 album in 53 years and the sad loss of the band’s sole surviving member Wayne Kramer to cancer just months before its release.Kramer died back in February, something that Was described as “a real shock”. “He certainly didn’t know that he wouldn’t be here to talk about it,” Was told NME. “He didn’t know that he was that sick until about 10 days before he died.”The new album, titled ‘Heavy Lifting’ and out today (October 18), is the first album under the MC5 name since 1971’s ‘High Time’ and features a starry cast of players including Was on bass and Tom Morello and Slash on guitar.Was claimed that the fittingly impassioned, political and altruistic album – previewed with the singles ‘Boys Who Play With Matches’ and ‘Can’t Be Found’ – wasn’t initially mooted as an MC5 record.“Everyone was there to work with Wayne,” he said.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Here’s one cake that didn’t get left out too long in the rain: the eternal pop pastry that is “MacArthur Park.” The song’s epic length and unusual structure haven’t kept it from turning into a decades-spanning perennial, one that is just finding yet another new life as a result of its extensive use in “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” which scores a full-on movie-musical climax with actor-singer Richard Harris‘ original 1968 version before switching to Donna Summer’s disco remake for the end credits. Jimmy Webb is one of the indisputably greatest songwriters of all time, known for undying classics like “Wichita Lineman,” “By the Time I Get to Phoenix,” “Galveston” and “Highwayman.” “MacArthur Park” is undoubtedly his most polarizing song, but that could be part of the reason for its shelf life, against all odds.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Bruce Springsteen has covered veteran New York rocker Jesse Malin’s song “She Don’t Love Me Now,” the latest single from the benefit album “Silver Patron Saints. The Songs of Jesse Malin.” The triple-vinyl album, which is out Sept. 20, on Glassnote Records, will benefit Malin’s Sweet Relief artist fund.

Green Day‘s Billie Joe Armstrong has covered Jesse Malin‘s ‘Black Haired Girl’ for the latter’s upcoming tribute/benefit album.Armstrong’s cover of Malin’s 2007 track is the latest to be released from ‘Silver Patron Saints: The Songs of Jesse Malin’, a tribute and benefit LP for Malin, who suffered a rare spinal stroke last year that left him paralyzed from the waist down.“Jesse is a dear friend to me,” Armstrong said in a statement. “I love his songwriting. He is all heart…His passion is endless.

MC5 have shared details of ‘Heavy Lifting’ – their first new studio album in over five decades. Check out the lead single ‘Boys Who Play With Matches’ below.Announced today (June 6), the project will feature both guitar and vocals from the founding member Wayne Kramer, as well as a number of special guest appearances.Framer was prolific for his work with the band over the past five decades, and the last remaining active member of the line-up. He died in February, aged 75, following a battle with pancreatic cancer.

EXCLUSIVE: Lucy Hale (Pretty Little Liars) has signed on to star in My One and Only, a psychological thriller from writer-director Wayne Kramer (The Cooler) that’s being presented for worldwide sales at Cannes by Film Bridge International.

MC5 has died. He was 75.According to a report from the Detroit Free Press, Thompson died on Thursday (May 9) at the MediLodge of Taylor, where he had been hospitalised and was in the process of recovery after suffering a heart attack in April.Thompson was the last surviving member among the original MC5 line-up. His death comes after the passing of guitarist and co-founder Wayne Kramer in February after succumbing to pancreatic cancer.

MC5 drummer Dennis Thompson, the last surviving original member of the influential group, died Thursday morning at MediLodge of Taylor, where he had been rehabilitating following a heart attack in April. He was 75.

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.

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.