Back In the Day, 1975

The Dictators

...Go Girl Crazy!

(Epic)

Some accounts of NYC's 1970s Punk explosion erroneously cite the Ramones' iconic 1976 Sire debut as its earliest platter. But these Bronx-stomping, metallically inclined prototypes beat da brudders to store racks, issuing their own initial wax in 1975. 

Bassist and singer Adny Shernoff's wiseass junk-culture mini-anthems drew on classical Rock'n'Roll elements and remain bracing today. ("Oh, Weekend / Flashing Rock'n'Roll guitars / Cruising in my daddy's car / I do my homework in the bar!") The sadly departed Stratocaster / Les Paul juggernaut of Scott "Top Ten" Kempner and soloist Ross "The Boss" Funicello (né Friedman) imbued tracks with careening crunch. Propulsion came courtesy of Stu Boy King, his skins agility a decisive factor in the material's animation.

Producers Murray Krugman and Sandy Pearlman were unobtrusive, letting the reckless teen hijinx roar directly.

Posturing as an erstwhile pro grappler with scarlet spangled warm-up jacket, larger-than-life front man Handsome Dick Manitoba tore up club stages and bombarded audiences with inimitable gutter-blast vocals. (A contemporary Creem Magazine report noted the rip-roaring rabble-rouser once flung greasy french-fries onto stunned club goers, who dropped to their knees and stuffed their mouths.)

Though he sang only one song on The Dictators Go Girl Crazy, and shared vocals with Shernoff on several others, "secret weapon" Manitoba assumed more spotlight as time passed. Not surprisingly, given his outrageous presence and massive hairstyle, he became the group's enduring face. 

Unfortunately, the pastiche of power chords and lowbrow humor failed to charm consumers. Sales figures were paltry - the Bronx group was just too niche for mass appetites. (Captain and Tennille's mawkish "Love Will Keep Us Together" topped Billboard's 1975 Hot 100.) Epic dropped the Dictators shortly following their debut's issuance. 

(I interviewed Kempner by phone, upon the issuance of his post-Dictators band Del-Lords' maiden vinyl. When I told him I'd bought The Dictators Go Crazy when it hit shelves, he quipped dryly: "Oh, you're the one.")

The record's dash proved seminal, though, and many bands hip to the chemistry were influenced. Knowledgeable chroniclers hail it as a significant artifact.

Subsequent years saw additional releases by the Dictators, but the brass ring remained beyond grasp. Today, Handsome Dick Manitoba and the band pursue fortunes separately. 

HDM's 2019 Born In the Bronx was reviewed here upon its release. The singer went on to issue 2025's triumphal Back on Broadway, proving Rock'n'Roll had indeed made a man of him; Notable was his clever way with a lyrical pen. The sunglassed brawler still contrived swaggering japes with the finest on offer. (See my May 2025 review.)

Recommended: "The Next Big Thing," "Master Race Rock," "Teengenerate," "Two Tub Man," "Weekend," "(I Live For) Cars and Girls"

Videos: "The Next Big Thing"   "Teengenerate"   "Two Tub Man"   "(I Live for) Cars and Girls)"

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Marky Ramone: Superhero in Chuck Taylors     

"I will keep doing this 'til my body tells me to stop,"  now 74 year-old Marky told Balkan Rock, last November.

Who among the obstreperous class of '78 knew that, in addition to putting a swift sneaker to increasingly moribund Corporate Rock Product and jazzing a generation of avenue-crawling outsiders and misfits with faith that they're not only valid but probably the most so, Punk, as birthed by the cretins of CBGB (da brudders at the fore), offered the youth-sustaining thaumaturgy Ponce de Leon craved? 

In order to be productive, of course, drive requires purpose.

Again, Punk proves itself: A sincere, gut-harbored belief smolders at the core of Marky's essence. Of seventies leather-mileau survivors -- iconic talents, groupies, visionaries, trendies, and operators -- Marky looms perhaps tallest. He circles the 2026 globe, spreading the blitzkrieg gospel to every far-flung megalopolis and thatched-hut village, deflowering puritan notions of genre propriety and respectable decorum wherever he smashes a cymbal.

His career as the dyna-wrist sparkplug behind Johnny, Joey, and Dee Dee (subsequently CJ) is the stuff of carbonated lore. And his ongoing exploits in the identical capacity for successive assault assemblages not only burnishes credentials, but demonstrates strapping strength to endure.

Each of Marky's post-Ramones efforts have been true to the model. He always surrounds himself with hardy agitators easily up to the TNT task. Together, they drive fists through graffitied brick walls.

In 2024 EP Punkin' Out the Classics (Dog Snout), various erstwhile chart hits were subjected to psycho therapy. Strapped to a gurney were generational staples like "It's Not Unusual," "New York, New York," and "Octopus's Garden". 

Marky's artistic instinct to revisit standards was that of actors desiring to interpret Shakespearean protagonists, to impress personal imprints.

"Keep on Dancing" is a nonstop raver that probably plays on an endless loop in some party dimension we can only hope to reach. (The Avantis and Gentrys had waxed it, in the sixties.) As accounts at the time had it, songwriters had but a scrap; it was elongated by appending a drum solo / fake fade-out, then simply replaying the singalong scrap. 

In their accelerated reading, Marky et al repeated the artifice. Picture (with askew camera perspective) a top-down Mustang flying down a stretch of summertime white line, or a passel of heedless teens writhing in dance crazes at ocean's edge. 

The bubbly anthem was injected with a hundred surplus gallons of urban joy juice by Marky and his fast-footwork fellows, and meant 'good times for everyone.' It aligns with latter-day reinventions of JFK-era fare like "California Sun" (Dictators), "Seven Day Weekend" (Heartbreakers), and "Party Lights" (Walter Lure).

"Even when people say Punk is dead, there's a new kid in a garage playing three chords," Marky famously said. That common-sense optimism -- and the man's evergreen existence -- give us all reason to toast the morning sun.

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Videos: Marky's drum technique (3:34)   Ramones "Touring"   Marky Ramone & the Intruders: "Three Cheers for You"   Marky Ramone's Blitzkrieg "Keep on Dancing"   Live at RiotFest (Sept. 20th, 2025)

Ramones

Live at the Roxy, August 12 1976   double LP

(Sire / Rhino)

Readers may be unaware that they enjoy the right to beat on any brat that disputes the sneakered Forest Hills foursome's Carbona supremacy. Should said brats so desire, they can find edification in these performances. Muscles, velocity, and outsider perspective packed into succinct sweet/sour fusillades take bricks to pinheads of conventionality.

Recommended: "Loudmouth," "Beat on the Brat," "Blitzkrieg Bop," "I Remember You," "Glad to See You Go," "Chainsaw," "53rd & 3rd," "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend," "Havana Affair," "Listen to My Heart," "California Sun," "Judy is a Punk," "I Don't Wanna Walk Around With You," "Today Your Love, Tomorrow the World," "Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue," "Let's Dance"

No videos from new live release available at presstime. Studio versions: "Glad to See You Go"   "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend"   "Havana Affair"   "I Don't Wanna Walk Around with You"   "Let's Dance"

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Marley Bone

Red Gators

(Marleybone Records)

When this writer terms Marley Bone predictable, that's not intended to be taken as a negative. The truth is a far piece down the road. The combo is a money-in-the-bank proposition: Reliably swinging bopmen that don't want no scufflin', just all-night fun. 

"Neesey" and "Vampire" were previously available as singles. Both were appaised here: "Would that all combos were similarly adept at contriving hushed romanticism. Group vocal eminence floats. Blissful stirrings are brought to a head by womanly radiance," I wrote of "Neesey." 

And of Vampire Orgy: "No one returns to the land of the living from this revelry. Intonations adorning low-gear, chunka-chunka Rockabilly nonchalance articulate a doomful scenario."

Newer material jumps, glides, and stutter-steps with the assurance of a hepster who's been around the block a couple of times, knows what's worth attention, and can deal it out for the pleasure of all at hand.

It's in the bank.

Recommended: "Red Gators," "First in Line," "Neesey Smile," "Vampire Orgy," "Lipstick," "Same Old Swing"

Videos: "Red Gators" (live)   "Neesey Smile"   "Vampire Orgy"   "Same Old Swing"

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Marky Ramone's Blitzkrieg

"Blowin' in the Wind"   "Time Won't Let Me"   singles

(Dog Snout Inc.)

Draping Dylan's soggy plaint in leather was a lost cause (G. Bailey was wrong - not all lost causes are worth fighting for). The Outsiders' 1966 "Time Won't Let Me" was a much superior choice for kamikaze reinvention (organ intact). Kingpin Marky and band drive fists through graffitied wall.

Video: "Time Won't Let Me"

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GOONS!

Never Go Back

(Hi-Tide Recordings)

A cliche in crime entertainment is the "perp always returns to the scene of the crime" axiom; perhaps that prompted title Never Go Back. New York's rave-up Goons scheme in the same comic-book crook guises as do the Madrid-based Bank Robbers. Too, each cases seriously unserious Garage/Rockabilly joints, with Hullabaloo dance-off fun being the black-market haul - in bulging white bag with oversized dollar-sign emblem. 

Here, Farfisa abets Graham Tichy's treble-string-stinging, '60s partytime arousal. Hooks can be tracked to transister radios glued to the shaggy noggins of fastback-years teens taking sidewalk skateboards over home-built ramps. "Land of a Thousand Crimes" bespeaks Wicked Pickett emulation. 

"Crime just can't be beat!" crow the Goons. (Don't let Officer Dibble hear you say that.)

Recommended: "Never Go Back" "Parchman Farm," "Jailbird," "I've Waited So Long," "Driving Wheel," "Lockdown," "Roll Call," "Stick 'em Up," "Land of a Thousand Crimes," "Rob Cheat Steal"

Videos:   "Jailbird"   "I've Waited So Long"   "Stick 'em Up" (reel)   "Rob Cheat Steal"   

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The 'power trio' concept, once rallied 'round by scribes and audience ears alike, returned in 1995 as the Peter Head-fronted PM. Riff-equipped warriors clad in Punk/Country/Blues/Hard Rock armor, they thankfully crusade to this day. 

Video: "Whole Damn Farm" (live 2025)

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Barry Ryan: Six-string statesman                

Minneapolis, 1980 -- A strippers-by-day, Rock'n'Roll-by-night club called Duffy's was showcasing Anglo-American group the Rockats during its Octemberfest. Only a year or so had passed since they'd split with Levi Dexter and realigned, having added several new members. 

Weeks before, they'd issued "Rockabilly Doll" b/w"Tanya Jean" (Kat Tale), giving early voice to the burgeoning US rockabilly movement. (I still own the 45 I purchased back then. Sadly, the accompanying brown/white/black mini-poster was lost to the ages.)

I was in that night's jam-packed audience. I was forever changed. The Rockats were everything a rank-and-file rebel could have hoped for. A formidable and precise, swinging Rock'n'Roll spectacle, they sported tailored cat style and showy, acrobatic professionalism. Under multi-colored strobes, the whole damn stage erupted.

And Barry Ryan was a major factor in their distinction. Having arrived from NYC Punk upstarts The Victims, he stalked the stage, reborn as the six-string statesman of a pomped subculture.

His onslaughts benefited beyond gauging from judicious dispatch. His styling drew on American popular music's Blues and Country roots, and crafted a glorious pastiche. 

(Scratch that past tense usage -- he remains among Rockabilly's premier pickers.)

Several years back, Barry reflected on the era that spawned the Rockats' first LP, a live explosion of creepered exuberance.

"Island Records head Chris Blackwell signed the Rockats on the advice of Grace Jones in late 1980. We went to London in December to start recording. For one reason or another, the sessions weren't matching up to our live shows. So the project was dumped and we came back to NY. 

"It was decided that the best thing to do was to do a live record. We recorded two consecutive nights at the Ritz, but I believe only the first night was used. Both nights were sold out and that's Billy Idol who introduces the band and also sang on the encore of Chuck Berry's "Around and Around," which wasn't included on the release."

Mr. Ryan performs a vital function, linking today and yesterday. The uproarious souls of gritty Blues and traditional Country step and whirl in gladsome union, spurred into fancy-footed Rock'n'Roll transmogrification. 

His hard-lived experience -- global touring, midnight stages, simultaneous uncertainty/exhilaration of Rock'n'Roll life -- resounds in each of his twanged, thrashed or elegantly touched-off notes.

Over decades, the Rockats counted various other remarkable guitarists as transient members. But to my mind, Barry always was the band's defining guitar voice. Others contributed especial piquance, but he was that group's constant. A Rockats without Barry's inimitable fretboard touches was inconceivable. 

The final release by the legendary group came in the form of 2021's Start Over Again.

Newly minted originals "Rock, Baby, Rock (All Night Long)," "Rockabilly Swamp," "Lucky Old Rockabilly (Walking Down the Pike),"and "Working Man" were apt complements to covers of Johnny Cash, Buddy Holly, and others. 

1980 single "Rockabilly Doll" b/w "Tanya Jean" was remastered and reminded of the combo's initial promise. 

In short, the music was such a capstone as to render many competitors' toils superfluous. Enough good cannot be stated of the Rockats' cohesive deploy of rockin' mannerisms. They'd never sounded more committed to good times.

Barry had earned further global renown. He carved out a legend with New York zydeco ensemble Lucky 7, waxed volatile solo endeavors, was often tapped for live appearances by legend Robert Gordon, and recorded and gigged with Gary Setzer as Rockabilly X.

Such men, through impassioned devotion to Rock'n'Roll and the magical effect it can have to better average people's lives, accomplish something far larger and more significant than any isolated work. They give us all a finer world.

All of which seemed possible, if only hinted at, that bygone Minneapolis night.

Online examples of Barry's prowess seem ubiquitous: "Rite Time" (1981 w/Tim Scott McConnell)  "Make That Move" (1983 w/Danny B Harvey)  "Downtown Saturday Night" (1994)   "Rockabilly Barry Ryan!" (solo)  "Black Slacks / Red Hot" (live w/Robert Gordon)   "Joshua's Plea"  (2012 w/Rockabilly X - Barry on vocals + guitar)

2025

Trouble Bound

Step to the Line

(Mild Chaos)

When last we tore toward New York grenade-hurlers Trouble Bound, the melody fetishistic aggression-cell had just released its 2025, 20th anniversary vinyl iteration of Here to the End. Today, as much as then, songs are both substantial and fleet; crisp attestation that craggy substance (with stand-tall wordage) need not hinder capsule trajectory.

Recommended: "Set the Record Straight," "Cup Full of Cyanide," "The Only Way I Know," "Maximum Security," "Red Light," "Step to the Line," "Paranoia"

Videos: "Set the Record Straight"   "The Only Way I Know" (official video)   "Step to the Line"

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Back in the Day, 1974

Blue Öyster Cult

Secret Treaties

(Columbia / CBS))

Secret Treaties thrived on '74 U.S. charts for some 14 weeks, long before Eric Bloom and fellow metal-stringed cultists crooned of love's permanence despite the Reaper's inevitability. BOC commanded complex, cascading sheets of adamantium chordslides, killer riff-blitzes, and light-speed convolutions that surely were vital instructions for novice fret-neck throttlers the world over. All that and the staggering brainpower behind the Cult's fantastic lyrical spectacles (various pennings are by producer Sandy Pearlman, critic Richard Melzer, and singer/poet Patti Smith) meant such peers as were on the 1970s arena scene could only ponder their own stacked heels.

(In 1992, Treaties was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America. The LP was reissued, including by Sony and CD Media Records. A 2001, remastered CD contained five additional selections.)

Recommended: "Career of Evil," "Subhuman," "Dominance and Submission," "ME 262," "Cagey Cretins," "Harvester of Eyes," "Flaming Telepaths," "Astronomy"

Video: "Career of Evil"   "Dominance and Submission"   "Harvester of Eyes"   "Astronomy"

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Trouble Bound

"Paranoia"   digital track

(Work Whorse Records)

Rage comes via roundhouse. Knuckly chords bash away and drumsticks besiege, as amphetemine basslines ricochet off pretty much every available surface. "They want your mind they want your life they want to poison you!," Dan Szeli yowls in splenetic alarm. Hostile agents abound from inner and outer frontiers. Rather than withdrawing in defense, though, best one stand tall with fists to the fore.

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"Vampire Orgy"   digital track

(Marleybone Records)

No one returns to the land of the living from this revelry. Intonations adorning low-gear, chunka-chunka Rockabilly nonchalance articulate a doomful scenario. Unsuspecting, flat-gone merrymakers will soon join legions of the blood-thirsting undead, like it or not. Axe strings pounce, here and again. Were instrumentation less precise in its practice - in such leanness, every note must be vital, and herein is - effectiveness would not be so utter. Beats are agile and poised. All is sinister substance. Some 3 minutes in, players shift into a Jazz-accented breakdown during which tasteful turns enchant. Bass steps nimbly. "Then he ruffles her hair, and his fangs are bare / And it's way too late to scream..." A laugh echoes, thunder rumbles, and lids are sealed against rising sun.

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Half Dizzy

Yard Sale

(Punkerton Records)

All tunes were crafted, either entirely or partially, by Daniel Marchelewski; he honestly reports human circumstances and has the gut-fistedness to wield his guitar like the battle-axe all surly Punks know it was meant to be. The live-wire rowdies with whom he's thankfully fallen in careen through escapades, not unlike back-alley torpedoes on a thrill-ride straight to some sideshow-mirror 80s Skatepunk target. Splitting voice tasks with Daniel is esteemed pinup title-holder Dizzy Doll, which means there's pulchritude along with the bashings.

Recommended: "Yard Sale," "Fade Away," "Turn This Up," "Darkest Days," "Sidelines," "Late Nights," "Easton," "Starting to Believe"

Videos: "Fade Away"   "Darkest Days"   Live (1/10/2026)

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The Mooks

Doo Wop Punx!!   digital album

(Self-issued)

The matter-of-factness with which Simon Chardiet and Vic Ruggerio toss off finger-popping, juke-solid ditties owes to their adeptness - skill earned during a thousand-and-one late nights treading stages in venues fancy and crummy. Imagine rip-and-stitch upstarts huddled beneath street lamps, crooning mellifluous, savage harmonies. Mr. Bassman, meet the Razor Contingent.

Recommended: "Danielle," "Cotton Pickin' Rocker," "Sardine"

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Rockats

Live At the Ritz   digital LP

(Island)

Though Danny B. Harvey wasn't on Live At the Ritz -- the guitarist later joined the Rockats for Make That Move and American Bandstand -- he has just posted all tracks from the historic LP on his Bandcamp site. 

Recently, Barry Ryan, the group's definitional guitarist and backup singer, shared behind-scenes recollections of the record and its origin: 

"Island Records head Chris Blackwell signed the Rockats on the advice of Grace Jones in late 1980. We went to London in December to start recording. For one reason or another, the sessions weren't matching up to our live shows. So the project was dumped and we came back to NY. 

"So, it was decided that the best thing to do was to do a live record. We recorded two consecutive nights at the Ritz, but I believe only the first night was used. Both nights were sold out and that's Billy Idol who introduces the band and also sang on the encore of Chuck Berry's Around and Around, which wasn't included on the release."

In 1981, I grabbed Live At the Ritz the moment I glimpsed it in an Iowa record store. An Iowa-to-Minneapolis transplant the year prior, I'd purchased the "Rockabilly Doll" b/w "Tanya Jean" Kat Tale 45, and gone on to see the Rockats play local club Duffy's two October nights in a row. (I picked up a gray Rockats t-shirt the first night.)

Ritz is as close to a time machine-trip back to Duffy's as I'll ever secure. 

That night, the cavernous club was dim and seemingly filled beyond capacity. Frequently, stories passed around morph during the process. It was true that former New York Dolls drummer Jerry Nolan had previously been a Rockat. But by the time talk reached my ears, someone said the group would that night be debuting a new member -- Sylvain Sylvain. Of course, that proved to be false. But as soon materialized, the actual line-up made a flamboyant-enough splash, themselves.

When house lights dimmed and multi-colored stage ones shone, every starring cat threw himself into frenetic gymnastics while dealing rowdy bop impeccabble in its precision. The outrageously pomped and nattily attired group was much more riveting spectacle than mere pastime. 

Punk-era brashness cranked volume and reinvigorated classic Rockabilly swagger. It surefooted in modern raiment before the Stray Cats loomed on MTV. Originals abrim with rollicking fun shared set-space with covers reinvented with jaw-jutted flair.

Singer Dibbs Preston was and remains in the uppermost tier. Barry and Tim Scott (McConnell) constituted a six-string dyad versed in both tradition and fresh thinking. Drummer Lewis King (nee Curt Weiss) urged others on with the dynamism of a gone superman. And no one could navigate a doghouse -- and dance in circles with it -- like Smutty Smiff; his exultant yelps intensified the sprawling ballyhoo.

I jostled through the crowd and stood transfixed before a thundering speaker for some 15 minutes. And it wasn't until two days had elapsed that my full hearing returned. But I was 21 and didn't care.

Ritz was recorded, mixed, and pressed in only 48 hours, a land-speed record that furthered the disc's urgency. 

The t-shirt I bought at Duffy's in 1980 disappeared sometime over the decades. But my original Live At the Ritz vinyl remains in my collection. And it's not going anywhere.

Recommended: "Rockin' Baby," "Rite Time," "My Way," "Go Kat Wild," "Love This Kat," "Start All Over Again," "Krazy Baby," "50 Miles From Nowhere," "At My Front Door," "Wrong Rite Reason," "Room To Rock," "All Thru the Nite," "I Wanna Bop"

Videos: "Rockin' Baby"   "I Wanna Bop"

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