On the Front Line: Shimamoto Reports

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" colspan=2 height=110 BGCOLOR="#111111" TEXT="#F7F7FF" bgproperties="fixed" background="04900840dyxtip.gif"> <div> <FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#FFFFFF" FACE="Times New Roman" ><B>The First Church of Holy Rock and Roll</B></FONT><B>     |     </B><A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="The First Church of Holy Rock and Roll"><U><B>home</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id28.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="The Commandments"><U>The Commandments</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id21.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="The Sermon"><U>The Sermon</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id19.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="New Reviews"><U>New Reviews</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id44.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Short Takes"><U>Short Takes</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id20.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Blasts from the Past"><U>Blasts from the Past</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id41.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Interviews"><U>Interviews</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id55.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Books That Rock!"><U>Books That Rock!</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id47.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Movies That Rock!"><U>Movies That Rock!</U></A>   |   <B>On the Front Line: Shimamoto Reports</B>   |   <A HREF="id53.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Dimitri Monroe: Letters from a BurntOut "><U>Dimitri Monroe: Letters from a Burnt-Out Recluse</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id59.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Josh Slates on Cinema"><U>Josh Slates on Cinema</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id56.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Cravens RockORama"><U>Cravens' Rock-O-Rama</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id40.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Holy Mix Tape"><U>Holy Mix Tape</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id62.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="KCOUs Shake Em On Down! 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Every church needs its John the Revelator, and he's our'n. And not <I>just </I>our'n: read more of Ken's always-on-point perspectives at <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#330000" FACE="Times New Roman" ><I><B>The Rawk</B></I></FONT>, <I><B>I-94 Bar</B></I>, and <I><B>rockcritics.com</B></I><I> </I>(see <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#9900FF" FACE="Times New Roman" ><A HREF="id17.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Favorite Links"><U>Favorite Links</U></A></FONT>)! Also, check out his contributions to our <A HREF="id20_kenblasts.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Blasts from the Past"><U><B>Blasts from the Past</B></U></A><B> </B>segment!</div> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <B><IMG SRC="2c041a90.jpg" border=0 width="321" height="425" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></B></div> <div> <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Calisto MT" ><B>You got my blood in your peanut butter.</B></FONT> <A NAME="stooges"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></div> <div> <FONT SIZE="1" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Calisto MT" ><B>(photo courtesy of</B></FONT><B> </B><A HREF="http://www.bomp.com" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.bomp.com"><U><B>www.bomp.com</B></U></A><FONT SIZE="1" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Calisto MT" ><B>)</B></FONT></div> <bR> <div> <B>NOW LET US PRAISE FAMOUS STOOGES</B></div> <bR> <div>      The Stooges were one of the archetypes (Greg Shaw's term) for most of the music I've been listening to since I was 13 (the others are the Who and the Velvet Underground).  Sure, man for man, the MC5 were probably a better band (with the exception of the crucial frontman position), but the Stooges sounded more DANGEROUS.  </div> <div>      Compare the two Detroit dynamos album-to-album and the Stooges come out ahead every time. While the Five's live-at-the-Grande debut <I>Kick Out the Jams</I> coupled one side of the most exciting music ever committed to tape with a string of "embarrassing duds" (the Village Voice's term) on the flip, the Stooges' eponymous debut, produced by ex-Velvet Underground noise baron John Cale, highlighted the young band's inexperience (songs of moronic simplicity, Iggy's vocalismo a hybrid of Jagger and Jim Morrison mannerisms) and similarity to the Velvets (drones, fuzzed-out guitar blast), contained three bona fide classics (that'd be "1969," "I Wanna Be Your Dog," and "No Fun"), an equal number of also-rans ("Not Right," "Real Cool Time," "Little Doll"), and one interminable piece of filler (bassist Dave Alexander's stoner mantra "We Will Fall") that still had its charms (especially for VU fans). The Five's Jon Landau-produced sophomore outing, <I>Back In the U.S.A.</I>,  was too fast, too thin-sounding, and too short (except for the decidedly sub-par fuck-me ballad "Let Me Try," which only SEEMED to last as long as "We Will Fall"), while the Stooges' second, "Funhouse," was produced by Dick Clark protégé Don Gallucci (a bona fide "Louie Louie" Kingsman, he knew from basic rock), contained nothing short of THE UNDILUTED ESSENCE OF ROCK AND ROLL and surely qualifies as one of the two or three (if not THE) greatest albums of all time. The bands split the difference on their third albums: <I>High Time</I> is generally acknowledged as the best Five album MUSICALLY, but its recorded sound is murky and indistinct when it should be in-your-face (loyal fans had to wait for Wayne Kramer's nineties solo work on Epitaph to hear the Five's sonic promise fulfilled on record), while Iggy & the Stooges' <I>Raw Power</I> was even more intense than <I>Funhouse</I> (although people could scarcely believe it at the time), but David Bowie's treble-happy mix eviscerated the sound (although in fairness to the Thin White Duke, it probably woulda been a good idea for the engineer to get some levels from the bass and drums before they started recording...oh well).</div> <div>      But those were just the official releases. Like the MC5, the Stooges made loads of music which wasn't released during their existence, but has surfaced in the last decade or so. Part of this has to do with the fact that throughout said existence, as Real O Mind Records (itself a <I>Funhouse</I> reference) honcho and occasional All Music Guide scribe Geoff Ginsberg points out, "The Stooges NEVER played old stuff" - they were constantly reinventing themselves with new sets of material (at most, they MIGHT play stuff from the current album), and prided themselves on not using anyone else's (even turning down an offer from Lou Reed to write a song for them) - and they were even more adept at pissing off record labels than the Five were. By the time their first album was released, they were already developing the material that would appear on <I>Funhouse</I>, which they honed by playing live on the road for six months before recording. <I>Funhouse</I> was a sublime rock'n'roll Moment, and like all Moments, it wasn't destined to last; by the time the album was released in August 1970, Dave Alexander was ignominiously shitcanned from the band after he forgot all the songs in a drunken haze onstage at the Goose Lake (MI) Pop Festival. (A coupla years ago, Ben Edmonds thankfully unearthed, and Rhino Handmade released, the complete <I>Funhouse</I> sessions, for many of us the Holy Grail of Rawkdom.) With a succession of non-musicians (mainly roadies) drafted to fill in on bass and the eventual addition of a second guitarist, James Williamson, to augment Ron Asheton's primal fury, the band developed a new repertoire of songs which were never officially recorded, although versions of some, including "I Got a Right," exist on a bootleg (released on the Starfighter label) which Clinton Heylin correctly characterized as "excruciating."</div> <div>      The Starfighter <I><B>Live 1971</B></I> CD purports to present a performance from the Kiel Auditorium, St. Louis, featuring both Ron Asheton and James Williamson on guitars. That may well be, but you couldn't tell from the murky recording - it sounds as if it was taped from across the street; Iggy's vocals are totally unintelligible (most of his stage patter appears to be delivered in a shrill Butterfly McQueen "I don't know NOTHIN' 'bout birthin' babies" voice), and the recording of the band rivals the MC5's abysmal <I>Phun</I> <I>City</I> for sheer horrendousness. Today, Williamson himself states that they "weren't exactly a professional rock'n'roll band at that point," which is putting it mildly. The listenable portion of the disc consists of four tracks featuring the original band, starting with the audio portion of the Stooges' summer '70 appearance at the Cincinnati Pop Festival, famously broadcast live nation-wide on NBC TV with sports announcer commentary and commercial interruptions, which is a must-see in any of the numerous circulating video versions. You get intriguing fragments of "TV Eye" and "1970," the latter including the sound of an hysterical girl asking the Ig "Are you alright?" and "Can I take a picture? PLEEEASE?" while he's out in the audience preparing to do his immortal audience- hand-walking and peanut butter smearage. The last two tracks are from 1968 and provide a tantalizing glimpse of Ron Asheton and Dave Alexander in full pre-discovery flight.</div> <div>      Post-Alexander, as every good Stoogefan knows, the band entered a downward spiral, fueled by certain members' escalating substance-abuse patterns and their dismissal from their Elektra recording contract after the label declined to pick up their option on a third album. Finally the wheels came off the cart and after timely pause, Iggy decamped for London with James in tow, only summoning the Ashetons (and demoting Ron to bass) when it became clear that no suitable substitutes were available in the U.K. Signed to Bowie's MainMan management and Columbia, the band, rechristened "IGGY & THE Stooges," started preparing to record an album.</div> <div>      Iggy & the Stooges were, as Craig "The Barman" Regan of the I-94 Bar points out, a completely different animal than the Stooges that preceded them. The difference was primarily down to the men on guitar and bass. Drummer Scott "Rock Action" Asheton was a hard-hitting powerhouse and, at least in his youth, a supple, dare I say FUNKY drummer; his work on the song  <I>Funhouse</I> is nothing if not the most twisted fatback soul groove imaginable. To say nothing of the Well-Mannered Boy up front. Besides being a fallen high school preppy/class president type guy, ex-record store clerk (what high school geeks 'n' freaks become when they want to increase their coolness factor), and drug-addled Everybody's Id gone wild (when I forced her to watch the Stooges on video, my ex-girlfriend asked, "You'd like to act like him, wouldn't you?" and I responded, "Who WOULDN'T?"), I'll bet Iggy was a good drummer back in his Iguanas/Prime Movers daze. A good drummer knows all about musical structure, tension, release, kinetics, dynamics, all that stuff it takes to power a band and MOVE a crowd, and Iggy is clearly a master of all of the above. On the <I>Funhouse</I> box and some of the rehearsal tapes, you can hear him teaching the band the material. Crazy like a fox, I'm thinking. But I digress.</div> <div>      Technically limited though it might have been, Ron Asheton's guitar work in the first incarnation of the Stooges was PURE FIRE. He might have only done one thing, but it was the BEST thing. (Later, back on guitar with New Order, Destroy All Monsters, New Race, and Dark Carnival, he'd learn a few new tricks, including one signature gambit, a descending/ascending tonic-seventh-fifth-seventh-with-a-full-step-bend, that's referred to in Australia as "The Lick," but he'd never surpass his <I>Funhouse</I> masterwork... nor would he need to.) James Williamson was something else again, starting from the launching pads of Jeff Beck and Keith Richards as well as Ron's Stoogestyle, but adding a dimension of mania previously unheard anywhere. Williamson's aggression was a little more CHANNELED and FOCUSED than Ron's, though - that is to say, he wrote more fully-developed songs with actual DYNAMIC SHIFTS and a tendency to use lotsa chords that was atypical in this kind of music; his guitar style was all jagged edges where Ron's was fluid. Similarly, while the hapless Dave Alexander had been a vastly underrated contributor to the band, serving as a kind of catalyst as well as composing the basslines that underpinned "Dirt" and the title track on "Funhouse," Ron's superior technique allowed him to play busier lines with a harder attack.</div> <bR> <div>      From a discographer's perspective, there were four sets of Iggy & the Stooges "sessions":</div> <bR> <div>      1) 1972 pre-"Raw Power" demos</div> <div>      2) 1972 "Raw Power" LP sessions</div> <div>      3) 1973 tour rehearsals  </div> <div>      4) 1973-74 live shows</div> <bR> <div> Of these, the <I>Raw Power</I> demos are pretty well covered on a couple of Bomp EPs, which include several versions of the astonishing "I Got a Right," along with "Gimme Some Skin," "Sick of You," "Scene of the Crime," and "Tight Pants," a song which appeared on <I>Raw Power</I> with different lyrics as "Shake Appeal." Considering this material was recorded in 1972, its impact is staggering. At the time, no one had ever heard rock music as thunderous as "I Got a Right" (is it any wonder that the Columbia A&R department didn't know what to do with it?), and the rest of the songs were of the same stripe, if not quite equal in intensity. In a way, you could view the new Stoogesound as a mere exaggeration of the more aggressive aspects of the Stones/Yardbirds/Them/Who/Kinks/ Pretty Things axis of R&B-based Britbands, but in reality it was much more - a lot more kinetic and hard-edged than any of the above at their wildest. The template for seventies punk was drawn. Williamson's blasting block chords and explosive solo interjections over the Asheton's pummeling engine room gave Iggy the strongest foundation he'd ever have to emote over, and he took full advantage. "Sick of You" was the first in a line of Pop/Williamson compositions (others include "Gimme Danger," "Till the End of the Night," and "I Got Nothing") that combined "soft" and "hard" sections (in the case of "Sick of You," incorporating the four-note descending riff from the Yardbirds' "Happenings Ten Years Time Ago").</div> <div>      While "I Got a Right" inexplicably missed the cut for inclusion on <I>Raw Power</I>, the album Columbia wound up releasing, the lead-off track from that record actually surpassed it - "Search and Destroy." Singing "I'm a streetwalking cheetah with a heart full of napalm," Iggy defined the high-energy aesthetic, and for the next 30 years, nothing else would even come close (with the possible exception of "City Slang," the sole release by Sonic's Rendezvous Band, the late-seventies aggregation led by the MC5's Fred "Sonic" Smith and powered by Scott Asheton). <I>Raw Power</I> in all its blasted magnificence has appeared in both David Bowie (1973) and Iggy (1997) mixes, as well as Bomp's silly <I>Rough Power</I> release - a bunch of rough mixes recorded off radio - so take your pick. While I initially favored the original crappy Bowie mix over Iggy's "all-needles-on-red" revisionism, the remix - surely the funniest thing ever to happen to digital remastering - finally won me over once I learned from James that the reason for the Ashetons' relative inaudibility was inadequate recording levels, not intraband politics. Where the Bowie mix emphasized treble frequencies and lead guitar, the Igmix highlights vocals (no big surprise) and a wall of rhythm guitar noise that actually approximates better than any other record I know of the way a band sounds onstage playing at volume (and is mastered louder than any other record you can name to boot). Besides rockers "Search and Destroy," "Your Pretty Face Is Going To Hell" (AKA "Hard to Beat"), the title track (which saw the return of the Velvet Underground "Waiting for the Man" one-note piano that had driven "I Wanna Be Your Dog") and "Death Trip," <I>Raw Power</I> also introduced a new, uh, SENSITIVE side to the Stooges (the aforementioned "Gimme Danger," which actually featured ACOUSTIC GUITAR, and the shattered "St. James Infirmary" rewrite "I Need Somebody," which contains the immortal and very revealing line, "I need somebody, baby/I need some money too") - or was it just a continuation of the dark, moody strain present in "Ann" on the first album and "Dirt" on <I>Funhouse</I>?</div> <div>      Following the release of <I>Raw Power</I>, the band was dumped first by MainMain (who had used their Columbia advance to finance some of Bowie's "Ziggy Stardust" tours), then by Columbia. Undaunted, they rehearsed in Los Angeles, Detroit, and New York, then toured relentlessly through the fall and winter of 1973-74. For the Detroit and New York rehearsals, they added Bob Sheff on piano, Iggy's former bandmate in Ann Arbor blues band the Prime Movers, later to attain notoriety in avant-garde music circles as "Blue" Gene Tyranny. The Detroit rehearsals include a couple of interesting song ideas that were never fully developed ("Wild Love" and "Till the End of the Night"), as well as a smattering of covers and some jams that didn't really coalesce. They've been released innumerable times in Europe and were anthologized by Bomp in 2001 as <I><B>Wild Love</B></I>. While interesting from an historical perspective, they make less-than-compelling listening. The New York rehearsals have been released in numerous configurations, most effectively on the French Fan Club label's <I><B>Rubber Legs</B></I> and Bomp's <I><B>Open Up and Bleed</B></I>. These include the songs that formed a sizable chunk of the '73-'74 live set, and presumably would have appeared on a fourth Stooges studio LP: "Rubber Legs," "Open Up and Bleed," "Johanna," "Cock In My Pocket," "Head On" (AKA "Head On Curve" or "Head On Curb," which starts out with the declaration, "Buttfuckers wanna rule my world"), "She Creatures of the Hollywood Hills," and some jam material - "Cry for Me," "Pin Point Eyes" (a minor blues that sounds like a littermate of "I Need Somebody"), "Jesus Loves the Stooges." These songs show Williamson pushing the band to become "better musicians" and write "better songs," moving in an almost Stones-like mainstream direction (although the band's performances remained white-hot and vitriolic in a way the Stones' had never been). While "Rubber Legs" and "Cock In My Pocket" were rockers in the style of those on <I>Raw Power</I> (think Chuck Berry on strychnine), the slower songs ("Johanna," "Head On," and especially "Open Up and Bleed," which starts out with a surprise - a bleating harmonica; was Scotty Thurston deliberately trying to evoke the Stones or Dylan? - and tended to evolve in live performance into an "L.A. Blues"-like free-form freakout, as did the pulsing jam-tune "She Creatures") had almost Big Rock dynamics, wielding a power and drama that the band had only hinted at earlier, even at their most emotionally devastated. If this was the way Iggy really felt, how long could he continue? The next few months on the road would tell the story.</div> <bR> <div>      Of the '73-'74 live shows, material has been released from a number of sources:</div> <bR> <div>      1) Whisky-a-Go-Go. Los Angeles, September 1973 (5 shows)</div> <div>      2) Michigan Palace, Detroit, 6 October 1973</div> <div>      3) Latin Casino, Baltimore, November 1973</div> <div>      4) Academy of Music, New York, New Year's Eve 1973</div> <div>      5) Bimbo's, San Francisco, January 1974</div> <div>      6) Michigan Palace, Detroit, 9 February 1974 ("last-ever show")</div> <bR> <div> For the tour, keyboardist Sheff was replaced by Scott Thurston, who later played guitar on Iggy's 1979 <I>New Values</I> album and even later was a mainstay of, uh, Jackson Browne’s and Tom Petty's touring bands. Sets typically included two or three selections from <I>Raw Power</I> (the title track, "Search and Destroy," "Gimme Danger"), the rehearsal material (except for "Rubber Legs" and the jam tunes), plus "Heavy Liquid" (AKA "New Orleans," a bastardization of the Freddie Cannon hit), "Rich Bitch," "I Got Nothing," "Wet My Bed," and Richard Berry's immortal "Louie Louie." Of these, "I Got Nothing" was one of the best songs from the period, while "Rich Bitch" carried contemptuous lyrics that were even more scabrous than "Head On" ("When your cunt's so big you could drive through a truck/And every boy you meet's/Gonna know that you've sure been fucked").</div> <div>      Most of the released live material is from low-fidelity but fascinating audience tapes (although the October '73 Michigan Palace show released by Skydog/Jungle on the second disc of <I><B>Metallic K.O.</B></I> 2xCD and by Bomp on <I><B>Michigan Palace</B></I> is from an onstage recording by Williamson; Bomp's version has the edge in sound quality, coming from the master rather than a cassette dub). The greatest and most notorious is, of course, <I>Metallic</I> <I>K.O.</I> itself in its many forms, as much for the "ambience" (rabid audience-baiting by Iggy, response in the form of shattering beer bottles from the surly Detroit claque) as for the music, although the music is fine - compare Iggy's impassioned vocal and the arrangement (with added verses) on the <I>Metallic K.O.</I> version of "Gimme Danger" with the <I>Raw Power</I> original and decide which one is boss. The Latin Casino show released in its entirety on Bomp's 2000 <I><B>Double Danger</B></I> documents the most complete performance - over an hour, featuring the band's whole repertoire from that time except "She Creatures" and "Louie Louie." The second disc of that release is an audience recording of the New Year's Eve show at New York's Academy of Music (where the Stooges appeared sandwiched in between Kiss and Blue Oyster Cult) which was supposedly pro-recorded by Columbia for an aborted live album, although the whereabouts of that tape remain unknown (would it be too much to hope that they still exist somewhere in CBS/Sony's vaults?). Bomp's sumptuously-packaged (lotsa cool photos) <I><B>California Bleeding</B></I> compiles some good performances from the Whisky and Bimbo's in okay fidelity, interspersed with some interview snippets that some find annoying but seem to these ears to make it a neat little "audio verite" documentary, and is probably the only "quasi-official" Stooges release NOT to include a version of <I>Raw Power</I>. Snapper Music's <I><B>Live in L.A. '73</B></I> is notable for what just might be the best version of "She Creatures" extant, as well as a cataclysmic 13-minute "Open Up and Bleed."</div> <div>      It's regrettable (to say the least) that the Stooges scared the bejeezus out of every A&R exec in the record business during this last, supernova-like explosion of creativity. Their image as some kind of novelty act (albeit the most malignant, twisted one ever to tread the boards) rather than "real" musicians probably contributed to this, but in retrospect, they now seem to have been light years ahead of their time and a likely candidate for the title (as Dave Laing suggested in Perfect Sound Forever) "the greatest rock'n'roll band of all time." Iggy and James would collaborate again on the demos that Bomp released as <I><B>Kill City</B></I> in 1977, and James would produce Iggy's last good album <I>New Values</I> in 1979 (although the guitar playing on that album, save one song, was by Scott Thurston, not James as many of us supposed for years). An original Stooges reunion was rumored in 1997, but Iggy's lack of interest (and his snide putdown of the Ashetons in his liner notes to the remixed <I>Raw Power</I> CD) queered the deal. Over the years, Scott Asheton has worked sporadically with his ex-Sonic's Rendezvous bandmates Scott Morgan and Gary Rasmussen, and toured Europe with New York rocker Sonny Vincent (with whom his brother has also recorded). While none of Ron Asheton's subsequent musical endeavors have quite measured up to the Stooge standard (although the 1981 New Race tour of Australia with the MC5's Dennis Thompson and three ex-Radio Birdmen came close), his place in the punk pantheon is secure. Ron spent much of 2001 touring America and the U.K. with Stooge disciples J. Mascis and Mike Watt, playing all the great Stoogesongs from the first two albums. When the tour hit L.A., there were rumors that Iggy and Williamson would show. No dice. Williamson holds a responsible position in the electronics industry and has seemingly put down the guitar for good. As for the World's Forgotten Boy, Nike ads and film appearances notwithstanding, none of his solo records have approached the magnificence of  <I>Funhouse</I> or <I>Raw Power</I>, but I've been told he still has the goods to deliver in live performance. The one time I caught him solo (way, way back in 1981), Joan Jett & the Blackhearts blew him off the stage; his best song was the ancient Stones chestnut "I'm Alright."  </div> <div>      "Thanks a lot to the person who threw this glass bottle at my head. You nearly killed me, but you missed again. Keep trying next week." Sic transit Gloria Iggy? I'd be delighted to be proven wrong.</div> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <IMG SRC="29613130.gif" border=0 width="275" height="275" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <div> <FONT SIZE="4" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Times New Roman" ><B>The Dictators: </B><I><B>D.F.F.D.</B></I></FONT>  <A NAME="tators"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></div> <div> (Dictators Multimedia , P.O. Box 220-330, Brooklyn NY 11222)</div> <bR> <div> You can't keep a good city down, and Noo Yawk is certainly living proof. In the wake of 9/11, the capital of "What are YOU lookin' at?" on the East Coast has reaffirmed the greatness of its heart and spirit before the world, and the appearance of Manhattan's proud skyline, Twin Towers to the south, on the cover of this new Dictators album is not without poignancy. Not to mention those other potent symbols of Dics consciousness - babes, baseball, White Castle burgers, pizza. (Which reminds me of the story I read on Newsweek.com or one of those about the pizza guy down in Florida where some of the terrorists holed up prior to the attacks; it seems they usedta favor something called "The Works," which they made a point of ordering WITHOUT the ham. Stupid motherfuckers - what did they think was in the SAUSAGE and PEPPERONI? Dipshits! I can just picture them making it to their Heaven and being told sorry, it doesn't MATTER if you sacrificed your life for the jihad and took out a bunch of infidels in the process, you boys were a little too into KILLING THE PIG while you were hanging out down in Florida, HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!)</div> <bR> <div> To business...this is undoubtedly the most important release of what's been a better- than-average year for rock'n'roll releases (as well as a cataclysmic year for everything else). The Dictators have been cementing their reputation over the last couple of years as THE live band to see. Now they've finally delivered this, their long-heralded first new album in, uh, TWENTY-THREE YEARS. Okay, okay, there WAS the Manitoba's Wild Kingdom album "...And You?" back in '90, a Dictators record in all but name, but "D.F.F.D." restores ALL the essential elements (that is, Scott "Top Ten" Kempner returns to the fold from the rootsy-rock pastures of the Del-Lords) and picks up where they left off with "Bloodbrothers," way, WAY back in '78. As anyone who's heard 'em recently can tell ya, Andy Shernoff is the finest writer of rock anthems (remember those?) extant, Ross the Boss the greatest Guitar Hero (ditto?), Handsome Dick Manitoba the ultimate frontman, and Top Ten the unsung hero and Most Valuable Player, but this band and album are definitely a whole lot more than the sum of their parts. You gotta hear to believe.</div> <bR> <div> Europretenders step aside: the REAL Kings of Rock are back to claim their throne. Strong words, but they're borne out by the music on this shiny silver disc. "D.F.F.D." roars to life with the devastating assault of the Dics' last two searing singles, "Who Will Save Rock and Roll?" and "I Am Right!" The former is a witty manifesto, bemoaning the fact that "Murray the K/Is not here today," conceding that "My generation/Is NOT the salvation," remembering a time when "I saw the Stooges/Covered with bruises," and admitting that "I wish Sgt. Pepper/Never taught the band to play," all the while holding out the promise of kicks and fast times to come with blazing guitar action and an irresistable singalong chorus that simply can't be beat. "I Am Right" is quite simply the most full-on slab of Rock Action this writer's heard since, oh, I dunno, the Stooges' "I Got a Right," which it resembles in more than title; the guitar blast and J.P. Patterson's slamming drums are THAT classic. </div> <bR> <div> Those two tracks woulda been the highlights of any LESSER band's album, but having dropped those two gems on our collective plate, the Dics proceed to raise the ante even higher with "Pussy and Money." I recently either read (or DREAMED ABOUT) an article somewhere on the 'net wherein Long Island punk figurehead Jimi Lalumia (of Psychotic Frogs/"Death to Disco" fame, whom I usedta sell records when he was still writing about the nascent scene for the student paper at Suffolk County Community College and whom I then considered a bit of a joke, not because he was one of the first openly, nay, FLAMINGLY gay people I ever knew, but because he actually believed that real homos would dig David Bowie back in Ziggy Stardust daze, when all of the ones I usedta see in the store dug disco, not glam) was decrying a conspiracy to hide the "gay roots of New York punk." The Dictators were certainly present at the creation of NYC punk - "Go Girl Crazy!" was released in '75, for chrissakes, predating the Ramones, CBGB's, the whole shooting match - and while it's a matter of record that when hetero and homo in the form of Handsome Dick Himself and Wayne/Jayne County collided in the arena of Noo Yawk punkdom, it was Straightdom that came out on the wrong end of the mic stand, a broader study of history confirms that it's still an undeniable fact: "What's it all about? Pussy and money! And it's always going to be that way." </div> <bR> <div> "The Moronic Inferno" gets a LOT of people's numbers while positing The Rawk as a viable alternative to a plethora of modern-day pretensions ("Twelve steps worth of psycho-babble/Feel good in the Prozac moment...Last call for the Woodstock Nation," indeed). All the bands that have been trying to do Big Rock a la Cheap Trick or AC/DC over the last coupla years (Gluecifer, Nashville Pussy) could learn a lot from these badass Bronx Jewboys, who have now surpassed their erstwhile Sandy Pearlman stablemates Blue Oyster Cult (whose mojo the Dics invoke with the cry "On your feet or on your knees" on "In the Presence of a New God" - itself a possible reference, conscious or subconscious, to Australia's New Christs and their early single "Face of a New God") in the songwriting and musicianship stakes, revealing BOC by comparison to be the quirky ironists that they always were. (And speaking of Aussie cousins, could the title "The Moronic Inferno" have been inspired by the Hitmen's album of the same name? Lead Hitmen Johnny Kannis and Chris Masuak DID, after all, visit Handsome Dick and Ross the Boss during the studio sessions for "...And You?" Coincidence? YOU decide!!!) </div> <bR> <div> <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Times New Roman" >I could continue the track-by-track tease, but I'm not gonna. Suffice to say, if you love rock 'n'roll (you remember, that FUN music with loud electric guitars?) that's well-written and played (FUCK all that "it's an attitood" bullshit; while that may be true, it has so much more impact when there are melodies and hooks to pull you in before the brutal beat and raging guitars - manipulated with skill and finesse by guys who Know How - kick your ass) by a band with more than a dash of survivor's smarts and a fair amount of humor (which we need now more than ever, I'm thinking), you need to log off and run out to buy this immediately (or at least surf over to</FONT><B> </B><A HREF="http://www.thedictators.com" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.thedictators.com"><U><B>www.thedictators.com</B></U></A><FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Times New Roman" >). Currently my fave bit is the tryptich of "The Savage Beat," "In the Presence of A New God," and "Avenue A," but that'll prolly change with repeated listenings and at any rate, you'll find your own.</FONT></div> <bR> <div> Lengthy delays in album releases are often the sign of a band in trouble. Nothing could have been farther from the truth in the case of "D.F.F.D." With this album, Andy Shernoff emerges as ROCK'S GREATEST OBSESSIVE-COMPULSIVE PERFECTIONIST. He writes nothing without killer riffage and hooks galore, and also gets credit, as producer (with assistance from co-conspirators on a coupla tracks), for this album's superb sonics. The danger of having a live show as consistenly, intimidatingly great as the Dictators' is that "you'll never be able to capture THAT on record." Shernoff's done that here, and the achievement is impressive. Worth waiting for? You betchum! Here's hoping he doesn't wait another 23 years for the next one!</div> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Times New Roman" ><B>Punk Rock Dinosaurs</B></FONT><B> </B><B> <A NAME="prd"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B></div> <div> <B>Club Dada, Dallas, Texas, Friday 10/19/01 </B></div> <bR> <div> Bob Childress is a network guru for the company I work for in CorporateAmerica, but 20+ years ago, he was the bassplayer for the Nervebreakers, Dallas' very own original punk heroes who opened local shows for the Ramones, the Sex Pistols, the Clash, John Cale, and the Police, released an EP and a coupla singles locally, backed Texas pre-punk legend Roky Erickson, and toured both coasts before folding the tent in the early '80s. Being a computer-literate kinda guy, Bob surfs the 'net a lot, and he read a DMZ review I wrote for the Rawk wherein I bitched about how a lotta punk stuff I remember fondly from '78-'79 doesn't stand up so well when I hear it now. "I've studiously avoided hearing any of the reishes of stuff by the Nervebreakers," I wrote, because "[I] remember really diggin' 'em, but I donwanna tamper with the memory." "Sorry you feel that way," wrote Bob, and went on to tell me that the Punk Rock Dinosaurs (PRD), featuring former Nervebreakers guitarists Mike Haskins and Barry Kooda, were playing at Club Dada in Dallas a coupla nights later. </div> <bR> <div> At the time I first heard from Bob, I was in the middle of The Week From Hell, which started out with two days of car problems that required lengthy visits to a mechanic and the expenditure of lotsa bucks I didn't really have to spend, continued with a run-in with an executive VP at work over something really trivial and stupid, and culminated in my receipt of a letter Thursday night from the Air Reserve Personnel Center in Denver, Colorado, informing that my separation from the Inactive Reserve had been extended indefinitely as a result of the current crisis (which wound up meaning not much for now, but necessitated a lengthy spell on hold with the ARPC's answering machine before I was able to establish that fact). So, by Friday night, I was ready to throw down, and headed out to Dallas in my Dictators T-shirt (one day, someone needs to write a song called "Night of the Black Shirts" about the race of 40-year-old men in black rock'n'roll T-shirts who frequent Clubland). </div> <bR> <div> Located in Dallas' hip Deep Ellum district (equivalent to Austin's 6th Street), the area of the city with the highest concentration of rock'n'roll clubs and tattoo parlors, Club Dada isn't exactly a punk venue; it's mainly noted for booking a variety of, uh tribute bands (NOT cover bands - seen the Marky Mark "Rock Star" movie yet?): a Beatle one, a Grateful Dead one, and tonight, a Steely Dan one. Guitarist/singer Jonathan Lacey, formerly of the eighties band the Beautiful, tends bar there, and he hustled the gig for PRD, joining Kooda and Haskins to provide a formidable three-gtr-and-voice frontline, ably supported by Allan Hayslip on bass and Russell Fleming on drums (who portentously warmed up with the drum solo from Alice Cooper's "Halo of Flies"). Today, Haskins, Kooda, and Childress all live in the same Oak Cliff neighborhood. The two guitarists and original front Nervebreaker Thom "Tex" Edwards (who now lives in Austin) have all kept their hands in music. There have been a few Nervebreakers reunions over the years, and there's been talk of another one for awhile, but as Bob says, "I'm too lazy (and busy with other things)." </div> <bR> <div> I get to the club and find Hawaiian-shirted Bob there with his video camera and a box of records - there's a new vinyl-only Italian reissue, "Hijack the Radio," on Rave Up Records which combines all the Nervebreakers' single and EP tracks with some live stuff; the band has the CD rights to the material and is currently shopping a deal (go ye to <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Times New Roman" ><A HREF="http://web.tiscali.it/raveup/" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://web.tiscali.it/raveup/"><U><U>http://web.tiscali.it/raveup/</U></U></A></FONT> for the vinyl). A great storyteller, he regales me with stories of bands he saw while attending Georgia Tech in Atlanta between '71 and '73. He caught FIVE NIGHTS of the Stooges in their post-"Raw Power" daze - "I missed Tuesday" - during the stand when mescaline-addled Iggy was famously joined onstage one night by a gorilla-suited Elton John. Bob remembers Ron Asheton complaining "I wanna play guitar again" and Scott Asheton wishing he had a piece of paper to get Elton's autograph for his sister. Magnanimous Bob let the drummer have a piece of paper HE'D brought to get the Stooges autographs. (Evidently he's just that kinda guy; he also remembers giving the Huns' bassplayer a string to replace one he broke in a "punk rock battle of the bands" where the Nervebreakers were competing against the Austin band.) He also remembers seeing the New York Dolls. On nights when Johnny Thunders would wear his baseball cap "so he could actually SEE the strings," he'd play great; on other nights, not so great. Another choice show he witnessed: Captain Beefheart with the REAL Magic Band, opening for Jethro Tull (who were playing "Thick As a Brick" before it was released - remember when bands usedta do that?). </div> <bR> <div> Bob was the roadie/fan who secretly taught himself bass when he heard the Nervebreakers' bassplayer was quitting, and insinuated himself into the band just as punk was taking off. A noted wildman dancer (even today, as a middle-aged whiteguy), he said he was once the cause of a band meeting on the subject of "Bob upstaging everybody else." Reading George Gimarc's liner notes to the Get Hip CD he gave me - thanks, Bob! - I learned that they were actually together in different incarnations since '73, which explains a lot - Tex, Mike, and Barry's musical consciousness was really forged by sixties stuff; they weren't just aping the Ramones like a lot of the early Texas punks. He also bestowed me with a copy of Buddy Magazine from April '79 featuring a story about the Nervebreakers by Bobette Riner (whom I usedta work with at Peaches at Cole and Fitzhugh in Dallas, along with Mike Haskins and Paula Brown, who showed up for this gig looking incredibly unchanged from 20+ years ago...still a striking beauty). Bob met Mike when Mike was working there. "He'd never mention that he was in a band, 'cos he was used to people not liking them. But I usedta find the coolest records in this one place in the store, and they weren't out in the racks - they were under the counter!" Only later did Bob discover that he'd been buying records from Mike's private stash! </div> <bR> <div> Bob's stories got me thinking about clubs (the Hot Club in Dallas, Zero's in Fort Worth) and bands (the Toys, Superman's Girlfriend, Dot Vaeth Group) that I hadn't thought of in years. Hearing him talk about seeing the Nervebreakers at the Binary Star (a west Dallas club where bands used to perform on a balcony above the crowd) reminded me of seeing not-punk bands like Lightning there, whose guitarist Rocky Athas now tours with, uh, Black Oak Arkansas. He remembered the name of the club on Lemmon Avenue (Mother Blues) where I saw John Cale play two sets in 1979 (if you were there, I was the asshole shouting for "Waiting for the Man" throughout the show; when he finally played it at the very end of the last set, I went beyond apeshit), but couldn't remember the name of the joint on White Settlement Road with the beer garden where the Nervebreakers played with the Fort Worth Cats in '79 or '80 and got the police called on 'em - the Cats' drummer was actually arrested for wearing a policeman's uniform shirt he'd gotten from a thrift shop. (I'd like to also take this opportunity to publicly apologize to John Seibman and Mike Neal of the Cats for the night I conned my way into the Hop on Berry Street in Fort Worth, pretending to be a journalist from the New York Rocker, and "interviewed" them after I was legless drunk. That was also the night my leftie roommate burned an American flag outside the club - and the next day was Memorial Day. Ng.) Bob also remembers seeing Tex and Barry verbally assaulting each other in the parking lot of the Arizona club where they played their first gig (four sets!) enroute to the West Coast in '79. He and Mike left the band shortly after recording the '80 material that Get Hip released in '95. </div> <bR> <div> Listening to that disc ("We Want Everything!") now, I'm impressed by how well the music stands up. Like Radio Birdman or the Dictators, the Nervebreakers were a punk-era band with roots in earlier stuff who could really play and write songs. There's a fair element of humor in their music, but not in a lame, Flo and Eddie way - it still rocks. It also occurs to me how back in the day, they were so ubiquitous that it got to where I took 'em for granted. Mike Haskins was maybe the best guitarist to come out of the ENTAHR Texas punk scene. Today he's a sales rep for Godin guitars and Seagull acoustics. I ask him why he's playing "that metalhead gtr" instead of his old Les Paul Junior..."not exactly a punk rock gtr!" He assures me that "when I play it, it sounds like punk rock." (The CD by his surf-y new instrumental project "The Big Guns" relies primarily on sixties material like the theme from "The Mod Squad" and "Music to Watch Girls By," but isn't as retro-sounding as that might make you think; it has a surprisingly full and rich sound, and is probably the best PURE GUITARISMO I've heard since Andy Colquhoun's "Pick Up the Phone America.") The joke about Mike usedta be that he looked like Donny Osmond. He still does, only a more, uh, SEASONED AND MATURE, bespectacled Donny. Barry Kooda, on the other hand, still has the same battered Les Paul and Fender Super Reverb that he used in the Nervebreakers days. Onstage, he always had more attitude than any ten other guys, and used to sing like he was about to swallow the microphone. Today, he looks like the veteran rock'n'roller (and early cowpunk pioneer, with the Cartwrights) that he is, in the same way as the Dictators' Scott Kempner does. Seeing these guys together onstage again, I miss the presence of Thom Edwards, and remember the shades of his mic stand-leaning, wild-eyed mock dementia that I've seen in latter-day Texan punk bands (Sons of Hercules, Sugar Shack). </div> <bR> <div> The Steely Dan band finally quits, and the Punk Rock Dinosaurs take the stage with a warning to "Stay back. We're gonna be TOO loud!" Barry starts the set kitted out in his John Wayne "Sands of Iwo Jima" helmet and canteen (back in '71, Barry actually enlisted in the army and volunteered for duty in 'Nam, but got sent to Korea instead). Current events commentary? YOU decide!!! (He also has a giant silver fish on his amp - remember the pic in Rolling Stone of Barry opening for the Sex Pistols with a fish hanging out of his mouth?) The guitars blend pretty well, Jonathan's tone razor-sharp, Barry's meaty (P-90's rule!), Mike's slightly buried but kicking on the TS-9 to boost his solos (which flat burn). Barry takes the majority of vocal leads, with Jonathan stepping forward for a couple and bassplayer Allan singing the Sex Pistols' "Anarchy in the U.K." Bob and Erin Arthur (ex-Superman's Girlfriend) join in on backing voxxx on the Dictators' "Baby Let's Twist." The set is heavy on punk classics - in addition to the aforementioned, we get to hear the Heartbreakers' "Chinese Rocks," the Ramones' "I Wanna Be Sedated," and the Damned's "Neat Neat Neat" (Bob says they're coming around soon, too - have to watch for that one). There are five Nervebreakers toons in the set: "My Girlfriend is a Rock" from their "Politics" EP, the anthemic "Stand Up" ("Stand up and choose a side/Fight for the rights you've been denied"), "Calling for the Dead," and covers of George Jones' "The Race Is On" and the Troggs' "Strange Movies" (both highlights of the live set back in the day). I only wish they'd played "Politics" and "Hijack the Radio." Maybe next time. They close with the Texan punk classic, Bobby Fuller's "I Fought the Law" (sounding more like Buddy Holly on steroids and amphetamines than the Clash). A great night. </div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div>  </div> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <B>More Rawkin' from Ken on:</B></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="id57_sharrock_1.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Shimamoto Archive"><U><B>Sonny Sharrock</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id57_zappa.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Shimamoto Archive"><U><B>Mothers of Invention</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id57_vu.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Shimamoto Archive"><U><B>The Velvets</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id57_guy.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Shimamoto Archive"><U><B>Buddy Guy</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id57_silent.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Shimamoto Archive"><U><B>Miles</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id57_blues.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Shimamoto Archive"><U><B>The Problematic Blues</B></U></A><B>-Bucket</B></div> <div> <A HREF="id57_ryder.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Shimamoto Archive"><U><B>Mitch Ryder</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id57_tek.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Shimamoto Archive"><U><B>Deniz Tek</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id57_imlck.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Shimamoto Archive"><U><B>Immortal Lee County Killers</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id57_ornette.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Shimamoto Archive"><U><B>Ornette Coleman</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id57_rifles.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Shimamoto Archive"><U><B>Celibate Rifles</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id57_shimblasts.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Shimamoto Archive"><U><B>Blasts from Ken's Past</B></U></A></div> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>