Kramer is a cat with nine-lives, and he uses them quickly. Prison life does little to rehabilitate Kramer, and after his freedom he backslides with more self-abuse while trying to get on his feet. Another interesting character is Nate Cohen, a fat Jewish gangster who takes over Kramer’s “no-work gig” on the quarterly prison paper- turning it into a weekly publication, teaching Kramer valuable lessons about work ethics and con artistry. There he meets Red Rodney an old-time Jazz pro and drug addict who mentors Kramer into a more serious relationship with his instrument. He finally lands into the historic Lexington prison, with old chord changes scrawled on the prison walls. The stories fly by rapid fire, hilarious and totally insane.ĭickensian storm clouds appear often, and as Kramer slips into a seedy lifestyle as a drug addict and petty criminal, we see him swirling the drain.

Picturesque details are profuse on recording each MC5 album, or tripping on LSD with Dennis Thompson at Timothy Leary’s home in the hills of San Francisco, or the violent political shit-storm confrontation with the Motherfuckers and MC5 at the Fillmore the death of his comrades and their reunion as the DKT/MC5. The MC5’s presence in Kramer’s memoir is never fading.

The Hard Stuff is told as a chronology, with the MC5 as a returning refrain. Kramer is a natural writer providing colorful details told with sincerity and humor. Kramer opens his life up in bold ways, beginning with some horrible family abuse in childhood.

Wayne Kramer’s autobiography The Hard Stuff: Dope, Crime, the MC5 & My Life of Impossibilities, is a courageous journey into one man’s ‘heart-of-darkness’ –a road pitted with wrong turns, bad relationships, drug abuse and crap decisions that eventually lead to a prison cell and finally tiny specks of light shining at the end of a long dark tunnel.

The hard stuff by wayne kramer