Handsome Dick Manitoba
Back On Broadway 7" vinyl EP
(Heavy Medication / Ghost Highway / Take the City)
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It's clobberin' time.
Since 1975's The Dictators Go Girl Crazy (Epic) first perched on shop shelves, Handsome Dick has been the prototypical Punk band's global visage. Given those decades of branding, surviving members' current attempted relaunch without their storied frontman is as futile as would be a 'new' Stones without Sir Mick.
His 2019 solo debut, Born In the Bronx (Liberation Hall), heralded the larger-than-life, one-man power crisis's return in limber fettle. As affably bombastic as ever, he tossed off brash attitude with pipes undiminished by seasons; it was as if the seventies' wise-cracking Two Tub Man was again charging from a turnbuckle. Dynamic, metallic robustness raged at each turn. It was a colorful opus whose alternating textures and ambitions satiated.
As Back on Broadway attests, he is unmolested still by the calendar. Brusque and blasting. The wall-bouncing life of the party assembled an urban squad of formidable torpedoes. Frank Meyer (Streetwalkin' Cheetahs), Scotty Slam (Circus of Power), Michael Butler (Jetboy), and Craig Berhost (Two-Bit Thief) forge and maintain a hard-line propulsive force no counter could best. Chords crush, changes unspool with lightning-flash drama.
Notable, too, is his clever way with a lyrical pen. The sunglassed brawler can contrive swaggering japes with the finest on offer. Self-penned studio cuts "Back on Broadway" and "DeLuise Nation" split waxen turf with Dictators tune "Savage Beat" and "The Party Starts Now," a free-for-all from the Manitoba's Wild Kingdom era.
Handsome Dick's trophy-belt possession remains undisputed.
Recommended: "Back On Broadway," "The Party Starts Now" (live), "DeLuise Nation," "Savage Beat" (live)
Video: "DeLuise Nation" (live at Bowery Electric, 2021, w/saxophonist Arno Hecht. Song starts at 1:50)
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