DICKIES MORE THAN FATHER FIGURES FOR NEW WAVE OF PUNK BANDS (original) (raw)

In the last few months, Offspring and Green Day, the hottest punk bands at the moment, have cited the Dickies as a major influence in Rolling Stone and Spin magazines. Talk about great free advertising …

The combination of the Dickies blazing, hook-filled pop punk and off-the-wall humor in songs such as “Manny, Moe and Jack” and “Trixie Toyota” and revved-up remakes of “Nights in White Satin,” “The Sound of Silence” and “Eve of Destruction” has earned the band a devoted fan base over the last decade and a half. But the California punk legends are not content to rest on past laurels.

The five-piece band, led by vocalist Leonard Graves Phillips, has just released the 14-song “Idjit Savant” CD on Triple X Records and will be stopping tonight at Lupo’s in Bethlehem. While the majority of the dates on the tour are with Gwar, the freakish theatrical metal band will be playing in Albany, N.Y., tonight while the Dickies conquer Bethlehem. Local alternative band I’d Rather Be Dead will open the show.

The Dickies were one of the first of the late ’70s punk bands to make any headway into mainstream culture. The band’s first two albums, “The Incredible Shrinking Dickies” and “Dawn Of The Dickies,” were released on a major label, A&M; Records in 1979, almost 15 years before Green Day made the jump from an independent label to a major. The Dickies also were one of the first punk bands on MTV.

The Dickies career has had many ups and downs, the most recent being bassist Charlie Alexander’s announcement eight days before the start of this tour that he was bowing out.

As drummer Jonathan Melvoin said in a recent telephone interview, Alexander was, er, (how to put this politely), emasculated by his wife. “I left my wife at home,” said Melvoin. I know that one band member left his mother at home, another left his girlfriend at home. It’s very difficult for everyone you are leaving at home, but ultimately they understand what you are doing it for. … If only (Alexander) had the decency to give us a month’s notice. It (his quitting) could have been ruinous. But we all pulled together.”

Marc Vachon is Alexander’s replacement, and if you are wondering how he’s fitting in with Phillips, Melvoin and guitarists Stan Lee and Glen Laughlin and if he’s able to do justice to classic Dickies hits, Melvoin offers this reassurance: “He’s doing remarkably well, out of pure necessity.”

The Dickies seem to take forever between albums (the band’s previous studio disc was 1989’s “Second Coming”). But the time between records hasn’t always been a premeditated career move. The Dickies have had to contend with label problems (Triple X is the group’s sixth), as well as the suicide of original guitarist Chuck Wagon in the early ’80s.

But the Dickies have not been without their successes. “Banana Splits” (yes, the theme song from the TV show) was a Top 10 hit in England. “It was a significant breakthrough,” said Melvoin. “I think it got to No. 2 and may have gotten all the way to No. 1 had it not been for Arty Garfunkel’s No. 1 song at the time.”

For all of the band’s influence, much of the Dickies’ material is out of print. “The A&M; albums were reissued (on CD) and ‘Great Dictations,’ which was a greatest hits record, also was issued, but as soon as the initial order was sold out, it disappeared again,” said Melvoin. “What I’m hoping is that with this album there will be some interest in reissuing the catalog.

“We are being recognized in a mainstream way (again). I think the timing is to our advantage to get this stuff out. … It would be great for this new audience to do a little research.”

The Dickies ties with the current punk scene go deeper than just being father figures. Bobby Shayer, drummer for Bad Religion, is Melvoin’s drum tech and stage manager when he’s not busy with his own band. And on “Idjit Savant” the Dickies do a song co-written by Pat Smear (of Germs and, more recently, Nirvana fame) and Phillips. “Pat Smear wrote the song, and then Leonard added the bridge.”

“Idjit Savant’s” 14 tracks overflow with the melodic punk energy that made early Dickies albums so popular. And if you are wondering if band members, who are twice the age of today’s new wave of punkers, still have the gusto on stage, Melvoin boasts, “We still have the enthusiasm to go out there and really kick (butt), even though we’re old men.”

The Dickies play tonight at Lupo’s, Lehigh Shopping Center, Bethlehem. Doors open at 9 p.m. and I’d Rather Be Dead opens the show at 10:30 p.m. Information: 867-4404.

Originally Published: October 21, 1994 at 4:00 AM EST