Monday, October 9, 2017

Ain't No Loser


Dead Boys : Sonic Reducer


In October of 1977 The Dead Boys released their debut album Young Loud and Snotty, one of the best punk albums ever recorded in America. These Cleveland natives ( featuring Cheetah Chrome and Johnny Blitz of the seminal proto-punk band Rocket From the Tombs) moved to New York where CBGB's owner Hilly Kristal began managing them. Inspired by The Stooges and The New York Dolls, The Dead Boys played raucous shows full of hijinks, singer Stiv Bators turing up Iggy's act to 11. Their set lists were made up of covers, originals and more than a few songs from Rocket From the Tombs, including "Sonic Reducer" which contains the anthemic lines 

I don't need anyone
Don't need no mom and dad
Don't need no pretty face
 Don't need no human race
I got some news for you
Don't even need you too



From Robert Christgau's B rated review:

Despite Stiv Bators's mewl, which can get almost as annoying as Geddy Lee's falsetto, this is mostly well-crafted junk, tough and tuneful and in one case--the definitively deafening "Sonic Reducer"--positively anthemic. But the charm of good junk has always been its innocence, and if these fellows are innocent they're pretty perverse about it--emotional incompetents out of their depth. Alternate title (stolen from Mary Harron): Take My Life--Please



Reunited for a 40th anniversary tour, Cheetah Chrome told Blabbermouth the Genya Raven produced album wasn't supoposed to be released the way it was:

"The original album was actually a demo," Chrome says. "None of us had been in a studio before, and we figured we would go back in and do it right, but the label said no. It has stood up, but forty years later, we can do a 'What if?' What would it have sounded like if we could have gone back in? So that's what this is about. It's not better. It's just different." 

The tour had to go on without singer Stiv Bators who was killed  in 1990 when a taxi hit him in Paris.

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