DEAD BOYS - Young Loud & Snotty 1977

Not really new in Blogland, but I recently saw a movie about the former New York music club CBGB that came out in 2013 and it's very entertaining and interesting, check it out, and Cleveland's Dead Boys play a major role in it. They were among one of the early American Punk combos, and one of the most rowdy, provocative, and violent groups of the era, or the first band to escalate the level of violence, nihilism, and pure ugliness of punkrock to extreme new levels. Formed 1977 by Chrome (guitar), Blitz (drums), Stiv (vocals), Jimmy (guitars), Jeff (bass) as Frankenstein but the group only managed a handful of local shows before fading away. Changing their name to the Dead Boys the band caused an immediate splash in their newly adopted hometown, due to Bators' Iggy Pop-esque, audience-bating antics, and the group's vicious three-chord Punkrock.

A superb review: "Fellow Cleveland types Pere Ubu may have won the artistic kudos for their adventurous, surprising work, but if the goal was just to rock and rock again, the Dead Boys had them totally trumped. As both title phrase and capsule description, Young, Loud & Snotty accurately defines the predominating aesthetic so well that one could just leave it at that, but there's a lot more going on here than on the face of it. With perhaps surprising great production from demi-famous '70s rocket Genya Ravan, the five-some found something sonically smack in-between the US garage/punk heritage of the past and the more modern thrashings from overseas. Bators sneers, gobs, gasps, and whines with the best of them, but he knows his rock history, as does his bandmates. Zero and Chrome aren't guitar virtuosos, but they do know what makes a song great and aren't afraid to concentrate on that, while the Magnum/Blitz rhythm section keeps things moving as it does. In some ways songs like 'All This And More' and 'I Need Lunch' simply emerge from an alternate '50s, with admittedly much more feedback and stereo sound. Stone cold rock classic 'Sonic Reducer' starts things off -- amusingly -- with all sorts of phased drums and other fripperies that later generations wouldn't consider punk at all. That said, it's still blunt, brilliantly sung by Bators and kicks out the jams with messy energy. Other all-time greats include the perfect bored-and-needing-kicks anthem 'Ain't Nothin' To Do' and the thoroughly wrong 'Caught With The Meat In Your Mouth'. There's even a rock oldie -- a cover of 'Hey Little Girl' live onstage at spiritual home CBGB's. And why not? With great punk rock and great rock, Young, Loud And Snotty still packs a punch." (Ned Raggett)

Haven't listened to it for a long time and have now rediscovered it through the movie, and I have to say, that I would have loved to have been there, back then in New York. And now, onto the stage with you.

here