Video: Mike Skill – “’67 Riot” (ft. Wayne Kramer)

Single out now.

Mike Skill was a founding member and prinicpal songwriter of the Romantics. It might be hard for people who only know the Romantics in blouses on MTV in 1983 to think of them as a Detroit punk band, but that’s what they were.

Casual music fans might not realize that Detroit continued to foster powerhouse rock and roll bands even after the Grande Ballroom closed its doors in 1972. Bookie’s was a gay disco that eventually became the home for Detroit punk. Destroy All Monsters, Sonic’s Rendezvous Band, and the Romantics played there all the time in the late 70s and early 80s.

And now, all these years later, Mike Skill has teamed up with brother Wayne Kramer who lends his Detroit guitar pyrotechnics to something of a sequel to the MC5’s “Motor City Is Burning.”

See the workin’ folks doin’ their best
Risin’ up when they’re hard pressed
They’ll take matters in their hands
Don’t be surprised by the flames you fan.

The time has come for each and every one of us to decide whether we are going to be the problem or whether we are going to be the solution. Are you ready to testify?

Video: MC5 – “Motor City is Burning”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjWTgAV4zDk

Via Beat-Club. From Kick Out The Jams (Elektra, 1969).