Cheap Trick: Dream Police

Talking about Pink Lady and their grisly variety show (see here) got me thinking about seventies excess and Cheap Trick's contribution to it. Between "Surrender", (a near-perfect single as the innumerable weak cover versions prove) "I Want You To Want Me" and "Ain't That a Shame" Cheap Trick were as ubiquitous in the late seventies as Star Wars merchandise. Everyone owned Live at Budakon and many bought their relatively less successful sequel Dream Police, the bulk of which, as we speak, lie resting in the bins of Value Villages across North America.

What of the place of the lush, in many senses of that word, single "Dream Police" in the firmament? It's disco-rock sound is so vast, produced in layer upon layer like a cross between Queen and Giorgio Moroder, that it practically turns into science-fiction spectable. Sit back and enjoy the show as the forces of good (played here by a chainsaw-wielding Rick Nielsen) battle against evil incarnate (played here by the 101 Strings) for The Future of the Galaxy. All of the weaponry of seventies excesses; the cocaine subtext, the white outfits and the feathered hair are deployed here but ultimately it's a victory for good. That's because, despite it's grandiosity, there's a palpable joy in this song as each verse, bridge and chorus ascends to dizzying heights, without losing the pounding rhythms and staccato riffs that ruled the band. But from here on Cheap Trick would steadily, as if caught in a tractor beam, be drawn to to the Dark Side (insert echoey mu ha ha here).





(The B-side is "Heaven Tonight" the even druggier title track of their last album and as a bonus I've added the strings-less version of the A-side so you can decide if it's better for the subtraction.)



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The Spazzys: Aloha! Go Bananas

And so the Spazzys (see here) story ends with a cliffhanger. Not long after the release of Aloha Go Bananas a seismic schism split band and their record label, Fur Records. Though their second album was finished, it's lain in limbo while the lawyers grow fat and the twins teach little kids how to trash their instruments via a program called Kiddie Rock.


For the album the Spazzy women refused to stand pat. While the the rockers, like album-opener "Zombie Girl" are thicker and heavier, the pop songs, like "Shake and Twist" and "You Left My Heart in the Garage" are all dolled up with layered vocals.




There are a few singles that overlap with the album (and even a more recent one called "I Want a Divorce" which even though they only pressed five hundred copies in Japan still got the lawyers all riled up). This interview from September 2009 claims the release of their old new album Dumb is Forever is imminent. To be continued...



Aloha Go Bananas (plus bonus tracks)

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The Spazzys and Marky Ramone: Live

The Spazzys sure make for odd back-up. The oddness of that video (see here) of them with Chris Bailey is that it looks (and sounds) a bit like a set-piece from a seventies variety show, it's like the Spazzys get to play Pink Lady to Chris Bailey's Jeff.

(That line-up is fucking gob-smacking - BJ with Bear in tow, Hef plus six centerfolds, Cheap Trick not doing "I Want You To Want Me' and a hot tub - is it any wonder viewers like me were ruined for life?)

Then there's this 2004 concert from Sydney with Marky Ramone. Marky's role in all of this, aside from playing the drums, was to introduce all of the songs with this sub-Vegas stage banter which sounds somewhere between Paul Stanley and Wayne Newton - "We're gonna get some sun in California now" - and to thereby prove the validity of the iron rule, "Never Let the Drummer Talk". All the rest of the music is provided by the Spazzys, with usual drummer Allly taking some lead vocals. Almost the entire set list consists of Ramones classic done with good spunk but the two exceptions, a take on Joey Ramone's version of "It's a Wonderful World" and the Spazzys own, very fiting "I Wanna Cut My Hair Like Marky Ramone", make it odd in the best sense.

(both photos courtesy of i94bar.com)

The Spazzys and Marky Ramone Live (.flac*)

I Just Want Something To Do
California Sun
Sheena Is A Punk Rocker
I Don’t Care
I Wanna Be Sedated
Rockaway Beach
Rock’n’Roll High School
The KKK Took My Baby Away
It’s A Wonderful World
Chinese Rocks
Pinhead
Blitzkrieg Bop
I Wanna Cut My Hair like Marky Ramone

* all tracks claim to be by Einstürzende Neubauten, which was too funny to fix.

Supporting the band is currently next to impossible. If that changes (or if someone credible informs me that these posts would in any way harm the band) then I will update this.

The Spazzys: My Boyfriend's Back

Covering the Angels and the Riverdales on one little record shows just how good the Spazzys' (see more here) taste is. Their version of "My Boyfriend's Back" while fuzzed-up and rocked-out is ultimately pretty faithful, right down the hand-claps and the hey-la's.



The Riverdales cover, "I Don't Wanna Go to the Party" is fittingly Ramones-ish but adds a bit of the spunk occasionally lacking in that section of Ben Weasel's catalog.


My Boyfriends' Back 7"


(A fascinating video of the Spazzys backing up Saints' leader Chris Bailey on the same song. Odd.)

Supporting the band is currently next to impossible. If that changes (or if someone credible informs me that these posts would in any way harm the band) then I will update this.

The Spazzys: Hey Hey Baby

Ramonesaphillia is not as disabling as most overwhelming influences. Bands from the Undertones to the Mr. T Experience to the Queers to the Spazzys (see here) can steal Ramones-isms at will, chuck in their own lyrical and musical peculiarities and instead of sounding derivative it's fucking exhilarating. And there's lots of stolen exhilaration on this little record. The Spazzys' song-writing, good from the get-go, is now in full force. Just listen to the glorious blast of pop that is "Hey Hey Baby"and try not to sing along, either to the dopey lyrics or those joyous Beach Boys backing whoo-hoos. (And enjoy or be creeped out by Marky Ramone's guest appearance in the video.)



Ramonesaphilliacs live or die by their fidelity to Bob Dylan's dictum that to achieve greatness artists need to go back and dig deeply into what works originally influenced their influences. By establishing that any late fifties to mid sixties three minute rock n' roll single was a primal source the Ramones made such historical research fun and easy. The Spazzys establish their star pupil credentials by being both reverential and gonzo in their cover of the Everly Brothers "By Bye Love" and then laying down another first-class original Blitzkrieg Bopper, "Let's Keep Going to the Show" .


Hey Hey Baby 7"

Supporting the band is currently next to impossible. If that changes (or if someone credible informs me that these posts would in any way harm the band) then I will update this.