About Opentopia
Opentopia Directory Encyclopedia Tools

The Dictators

Encyclopedia : T : TH : THE : The Dictators

The Dictators are a proto-punk band from New York City. In 1975, they released their first album, The Dictators Go Girl Crazy, making them the first NYC punk band to release an album on a major label. They are considered, to this day, a very influential punk band. 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 70's".

The original recording lineup 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 lineup - along with roadie/occasional vocalist and "Secret Weapon" Handsome Dick Manitoba (born: Richard Blum, legally changed name to Richard 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 is considered one of the most important albums ever recorded by a New York punk band of the period, and still stands as 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 lineup 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)[link] 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.

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 lineup of Manitoba, Shernoff, Friedman, Kempner, and Teeter which recorded Bloodbrothers (yet again produced by Pearlman and Krugman); again for the Asylum label. Although the album was short on the humor of the first record, in every other way it's generally considered to be the best of the group's albums, and was the first 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 breakup, Manitoba/Blum 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 was not 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 had become a wine expert, and had recorded and briefly toured with The Fleshtones. Manitoba opened a successful Bowery 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. And 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 will 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. He is currently compiling an album of demos, rarities, and unreleased songs recorded at various times over the band's thirty-plus year career. 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.

Discography

External links

 

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.

Search Titles
0123456789
ABCDEFGHIJ
KLMNOPQRST
UVWXYZ?

E-mail this article to:

Personal Message: