With names like Ross Friedman (Ross the Boss), Richard Blum (Handsome Dick Manitoba), Andy Shernoff, Scott Kempner (Top Ten), Stanley Eisen (Starchild) and Chaim Witz (The Demon), I'm not that surprised! They all probably only played unplugged on Friday evenings.
Count in Eric Bloom and Donald "Buck Dharma" Roeser of the magnificent BÖC.
Jewish content in music equates quality!
Even without their names, The Dictators made no bones about their ethnicity:
The lyrics
I knocked 'em dead in Dallas
And I didn't pay my dues
Yeah, I knocked 'em dead in Dallas
They didn't know we were Jews
from this song here
captioned an article in the summer of 1976 in the Brit New Musical Express raving about this new NYC band set to be "the new MC5". It was the first time I heard about them, but I knew (and loved) "Kick out the Jams" from Deeetroit's finest and that was enough for my curiosity. I bought Manifest Destiny (and later on Bloodbrothers, that "Warriors" (movie) gang look sleeve epitomized NYC for me) and immediately fell in love with their tongue in cheek comic book "Masterrace Rock":
And when it comes to tongue-in-cheek macho rock with intelligent lyrics, I count this as a timeless classic:
The part at 4:30 where Shernoff (reverting to bass after Mark "The Animal" Mendoza had become a Twisted Sister and took his Grabber with him) switches from quarter notes to eights still makes me cream in my pants.