Beware the Second Coming of Lords of the New Church

Sometimes this blog has a mind of its own. After all, I had no plans for a series of Lords of the New Church posts till Nazz Nomad mentioned Stiv in a list of the Ohio's greatest female vocalists. This brought the disturbing cover image of "Like a Virgin" to mind, so I scurried off to find out what was in print, only to find that all of the band's album are deleted. So, as a public service, MRML posted all three of them, resulting in many visitors and some some great comments (the more valuable of the two). One such commenter, Seattle punk guitar legend Paul Solger, inadvertently led to me to this vignette concerning his band-mates in Solger and their Stiv story.

"TR: What's this about getting into a fight with The Dead Boys? KN: The Dead Boys came to town and we put the word out that Solger was going to beat the shit out of them. We didn't actually go the show of course (Laughter). But me, Doug, and my girlfriend showed up to the after show party. One of the guys in The Dead Boys' road crew kept trying to get me to swing at him. I just ignored him. Then, I remember sitting on the steps and seeing that same guy from The Dead Boys' crew fly above my head! Apparently he said something to Doug and he (Doug) was real strong. After he landed, Doug and my girlfriend started kicking the shit out of him with their steel tipped boots. Then Stiv Bators comes up and says 'Who's Kyle Nixon?' and I say 'I am'. He was real short and had this pointed stick with him. At this point, I was just honored he knew my name! That was the whole point of saying we wanted to fight them, y'know? To get this guy to know who the hell I was. So I told him his whole Punk Rock act was old and he should move on like Lydon did. I guess he listened to me because he started Lords Of The New Church and it bombed!"

Lords of the new Church may not have bombed but it's amazing how long after their dismissal from IRS that the band limped on, bloodshod. With some new New Lords in tow, Bators and James, re-did "Dance with Me" (bigger beat, not much else) in 1987 on the (West) German label Perfect Beat.


Download Dance With Me (1987 version) 12"

This near-dead version of the band also released the pedestrian Makin'' Time 12" on Perfect Beat in 1989. By 1990 Stiv would be dead from internal bleeding suffered after being hit by a car, thus forever ending the Lords of the Church as we knew them.


Download Making Time 12"

(Huge thanks to the generous 666Good for the rips and scans!)



P.S. I think I may have found Live at the Spit just labeled differently, I'll keep you posted.

Don't miss the live Lords video now posted on Punk Friction