Everything about The Dictators totally explained
The Dictators are a
rock and roll band formed in
New York City in 1973. Critic John Dougan said that they were "one of the finest and most influential
proto-punk bands to walk the earth."The Dictators' debut
album,
The Dictators Go Girl Crazy! (1975) was the first album released by a New York
punk group. The Dictators are represented in the "Punk Wing" of the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, in
Cleveland,
Ohio.
Steven Van Zandt called them "The connective tissue between the eras of The
MC5,
Stooges,
NY Dolls, and the punk explosion of the mid to late 1970's".
History
The original
recording line-up consisted of
bassist/
vocalist Andy (aka "Adny") Shernoff,
lead guitarist
Ross "The Boss" Friedman (aka Ross Funicello),
rhythm guitarist Scott "Top Ten" Kempner, and
drummer Stu Boy King (who was, in fact, the band's fourth drummer since forming in 1973). It was this line-up - along with roadie/occasional vocalist and "Secret Weapon"
Handsome Dick Manitoba - which recorded the band's 1975 debut album,
The Dictators Go Girl Crazy for
Epic Records, produced by
Sandy Pearlman and
Murray Krugman (best known for their work with
Blue Öyster Cult). Although the album sold poorly at the time, today it's considered one of the most important albums ever recorded by a New York punk band of the period, and still stands as arguably one of the funniest records ever made.
Frustrated by the lack of sales, the band broke up for a few months in late 1975, but reconvened in early 1976, with bassist
Mark "The Animal" Mendoza replacing Shernoff. After a few months Shernoff was persuaded to return to the group as the group's
keyboardist. This line-up soon secured a contract with
Asylum Records (at least partly due to the notoriety the group had developed following a well-publicized brawl between Manitoba and
Wayne County) and released their second album,
Manifest Destiny, in 1977. The album - again produced by Pearlman and Krugman - is usually considered the weakest of the group's first three albums, and featured a considerably more mainstream sound. The band resisted playing songs from
Manifest Destiny for several years because the album hadn't been re-released on
CD.
During this period the band was christened with their nickname, "The 'Taters." This culminated in an incident during a tour with
Uriah Heep and
Foreigner in which Foreigner's roadies strung a net filled with potatoes above the stage and released it during the Dictators' set.
By 1978 Mendoza had left the band (he soon joined
Twisted Sister) and Shernoff had returned to his original position on bass guitar. It was this line-up of Manitoba, Shernoff, Friedman, Kempner, and Rich Teeter which recorded
Bloodbrothers (yet again produced by Pearlman and Krugman). It was the first album to feature Manitoba as the group's vocalist on all the songs, though
Bruce Springsteen - a big
fan of the group to this day - can be heard counting "1-2-1-2-3-4" during the album's opening track, "Faster and Louder." The album's "Baby, Let's Twist" was a minor hit on a number of east coast
radio stations, but the lack of mainstream success caused the band to split the following year. Shortly before the split drummer Mel Anderson had left Twisted Sister and joined The Dictators, replacing Teeter. After the break-up, Manitoba drove a cab, Shernoff worked as a producer, and Friedman became something of a gun-for-hire; working first with the French hard rock band
Shakin' Street, then becoming a founding member of
Manowar in 1982, and producing the first demo for
Anthrax.
Although Friedman had spoken to the press with some bitterness about The Dictators during the early Manowar period, he and the other members of the band began reuniting occasionally in 1981, and later that year
ROIR released the cassette-only
Fuck 'Em If They Can't Take a Joke, which featured numbers from all three of the group's studio albums, covers of the
Velvet Underground's "What Goes On" and
Mott the Hoople's "Moon Upstairs," and two new Shernoff numbers; "Loyola" and "New York New York."
Other than occasional reunion shows, little was heard from The Dictators during the next five years. However, in late 1986 Shernoff and Manitoba (along with guitarist
Daniel Rey) formed Wild Kingdom, releasing a version of "New York New York" on the 1988 soundtrack to
Mondo New York. By the time of the band's 1990
MCA Records debut,
...And You? (by which time they were now billed as Manitoba's Wild Kingdom), Rey had left the group and had been replaced by Friedman, making it - for all practical purposes - the fourth Dictators album (the group was rounded out by drummer J.P. Patterson).
...And You? - clocking in at a whopping 25 minutes in length - received excellent reviews, with
Rolling Stone calling it "the first great punk rock album of the '90s." Following a club tour that year Kempner (who had been previously occupied by his work with the
Del Lords during much of the 1980s) joined the group and Manitoba's Wild Kingdom was replaced by The Dictators.
The
...And You? album cover was a source of some controversy at the time since it was lifted from a
Nazi recruiting poster dating back to
World War II. It wasn't the first time members of the band (most of whom, ironically, were
Jewish) had been associated with charges of this sort since
Go Girl Crazy had featured the songs "Master Race Rock" and "Back to Africa."
By the 1990s much about the lives of the band's members had changed markedly.
Shernoff recorded and toured with
The Fleshtones in 1989 and 1990, become a wine expert, and wrote with Joey Ramone.
Manitoba opened a successful
East Village bar called
Manitoba's, and currently sings lead vocals with the surviving members of the
MC5, and is a
Sirius Satellite Radio DJ on Little Steven's
Underground Garage channel.
Kempner had developed a certain degree of respect from roots-rock audiences due to his 1980s work with
The Del-Lords. In 1992 he released his highly acclaimed solo album
Tenement Angels and joined
The Brandos in 1993.
Friedman's work with Manowar and
Brain Surgeons had given him a certain cachet with heavy metal audiences.
However, the group - first with Frank Funaro on drums, then again with Patterson - began recording a fourth Dictators album in the late 1990s, which was eventually released as
D.F.F.D. in 2001. The album was well-received, and a couple of the songs - particularly "Who Will Save Rock 'n' Roll" and "I Am Right" - should be regarded as legitimate classics of the band's catalog. However, Shernoff has remarked that it'll probably be the group's final studio album of new material since he finds writing rock songs to be more difficult as time goes on. However, even following Kempner's move to California in 2002 and his departure from the group, The Dictators continue to perform to a devoted audience, and released a new live album,
VIVA Dictators (with Kempner on rhythm guitar) in 2005.
Most recently, The Dictators compiled an album of demos, rarities, and unreleased songs recorded at various times over their thirty-plus year career, released by Norton Records in 2007 as
Every Day Is Saturday.
Further Information
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