New video from Andy Shernoff

Dave W · October 30, 2012, 08:45:22 AM

With guests Travis and Jonathan of Red State Update fame and a sparkly Iceman

uwe · October 30, 2012, 08:56:43 AM

Lovely! Even without overt DP connections, Herr Shernoff wrote one of the most compelling piano intros of al time.

nofi · October 30, 2012, 11:02:03 AM

i think girl crazy is their best album by far. like most bands the good ideas came early. i saw handsome dick and company open for rush. i left after the dictators set was done.

no dp connections noticed or wanted. ish..

.

uwe, too bad you are such a youngster. you missed just about everyone in their hayday.

uwe · October 31, 2012, 08:30:24 AM

Hey, I'm turning 52! The Dictators only had one solitary German gig, I believe, sometime in 1977 in Circus Krone in Munich. The NME had praised them at that time as the new MC 5.

I like Manifest Destiny - often denounced as their sell-out album for its BÖCish overtones - best, Shernoff concentrated on keyboards rather than bass (and did that well) and Handsome Dick's voice was stronger than Shernoff's though Shernoff still did probably most of the singing on that album too (the vocals let down Go Girl Crazy a bit and the production was iffy, ideas were good though). I believe Manifest Destiny was the first European release of The Dictators, certainly their first German one. Go Girl Crazy had been US only.

This is almost Springsteenish, but in a good way, come to think of it the bridge part has typical BÖCish drama:

And that fifties pastiche here:

Couldn't find Steppin' Out on youtube, unfortunately, my favorite probably on that album.

Exposed sounded almost like a BÖC number, you could imagine Eric Bloom singing it:

1977 was not a good year for rock, obviously in the defense due to the punk onslaught (none of which I liked except for The Ramones and The Jam, both not really very punk), but three rock albums stood out for me that year, all of them by bands relatively unknown at the time:

The Dictators - Manifest Destiny

Judas Priest - Sin after Sin

Strapps - Secret Damage

I heard those three albums to death. Is that suitably eclectic, Nofi, and does the inclusion of The Dictators compensate at least somewhat for Judas Priest and Strapps in your eyes?

While I did notice that the NME heaped praise on The Dictators and derision on Judas Priest and the Strapps, I was unbothered by that. As unbothered as by the fact that the two standout albums of 1976 were probably The Ramones debut and Be Bop Deluxe's Modern Music for me, I saw no contradiction in that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCvWqNo8TWc&feature=related

uwe · October 31, 2012, 02:47:59 PM

Dictators-related:

http://bassoutpost.com/index.php?topic=6622.msg118813#msg118813

Highlander · October 31, 2012, 03:51:04 PM

The BOC link is deserved - check their producers...

uwe · October 31, 2012, 05:46:42 PM

I know. They were also their management. And of course BÖC were never quite so AORish that they would have been totally incompatible with NYC New Waven, they even had Alan Lanier then-girlfriend Patti Smith guesting on a track (Vera Gemini).

In the end, The Dictators were too heavy to be Punk and too Punk to be heavy. Manifest Destiny has stood the test of time though. And hats off to Handsome Dick Manitoba for stealing/aping Paul Stanley's stage raps when opening for Kiss and then getting promptly thrown off the tour! Reputedly, Gene Simmons did also not like being talked to/poked fun at in Yiddish (most of The Dictators were Jewish like Stanley and Simmons were). There is a Dictators lyric somewhere that rhymes "paid our dues" with "they didn't know we were Jews".