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The reunited Dictators decide to by-pass the major
labels for their new CD, D.F.F.D.
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"People who got it, who got the joke, loved us," says Dictators bassist, songwriter and studio guru, Andy Shernoff. "The ones that didn't, hated us. There were a lot of hoops you had to jump through to understand what we were trying to do. There wasn't a lot of middle ground."
That explanation seems almost too simple to explain the phenomenal existence and improbable longevity of The Dictators, New York's prototypical punk-ass Metal brats, and yet, after nearly 30 years together, it could all come down to just that. For the people who did get it, it's been a long wait between The Dictators' last studio album in 1978 and their latest Hard Rock masterstroke, D.F.F.D.
The Dictators formed in 1974 after Shernoff switched from writing (he'd published the influential Teenage Wasteland Gazette fanzine) to music and picked up the bass. Joined by guitarists Scott "Top Ten" Kempner, Ross "The Boss" Funicello (Friedman) and drummer Stu King, The Dictators began forging a sloppy Rock reputation as one of New York's most outrageously fun party bands. Not long after forming, the band added their roadie Richard Blum as their wildly unpredictable frontman. Blum, obsessed with wrestling as a teenager, took on the contentious persona of an arrogant ring-rat bedecked in sequined jacket and tights and christened himself "Handsome" Dick Manitoba.
"I was a friend of the band, working for the band," says Manitoba about his debut with the group. "The evolution of me getting to the front of the stage happened not so much because I'd been studying this and wanting to do this, it was more like every time they put the microphone in my hand, there was a reaction and an excitement. Everyone should do what they do well."
The buzz attracted the labels, and Epic Records walked out of the ring with the contract. The Dictators' 1975 debut, Go Girl Crazy, was an absolute gem, filled with snarling guitars and sophomoric songs about chicks, cars and the exquisite crap of pop culture: fast food, mindless television, and, of course, wrestling. Although Go Girl Crazy was a critics pick (late Rock writer Lester Bangs rhapsodized at length about The Dictators), it failed miserably at retail and the band was unceremoniously dropped. Their next two albums fared no better and, after the chaos of a rotating membership and flagging interest from labels and the public, The Dictators faded from the national eye until the band finally called it a day in 1978.
The individual 'Tators kept themselves extremely busy. Shernoff found himself in various performance and production roles, Funicello formed Shakin' Street and Manowar (just two years ago, he was playing with the Spinatras), Kempner helped found the Del-Lords, and Manitoba found himself at the front of the stage again with Manitoba's Wild Kingdom (which also featured Shernoff). But even with their busy individual schedules, the specter of The Dictators remained firmly in everyone's view.
In 1981, the cassette-only label ROIR released a live album of a Dictators New York show, appropriately titled Fuck 'Em If They Can't Take a Joke. The album rekindled local and regional interest in the band, and The Dictators were soon back together on a provisional basis, playing limited numbers of one-off gigs on the East Coast.
A 1996 Spanish tour went over so well that the promoter invited them back the following year, which led a Scandinavian promoter to offer them a similar package, and soon The Dictators were touring Europe on a regular basis. By this time, Shernoff had become a fairly prominent producer and Manitoba had started a neighborhood bar called (what else?) Manitoba's, so they had plenty of home fires to keep stoked without resorting to a full-scale Dictators reunion.
The clamor seemed to be building, and Shernoff had already written a batch of new songs for the band to play live. They recorded a single, "I Am Right!," in 1996 to offer Spanish radio something to promote the shows there. In 1999, The Dictators showed up on the soundtrack to the Academy Award-nominated Boys Don't Cry with the track "What's Up With That?" By then, they had already been hard at work on a new album for well over a year.
Once The Dictators finished the recording, Shernoff shopped the album around and listened to label offers, but he was ultimately discouraged by the double-talk he got from the corporate music industry.
"We could have gone with a record company, but it just didn't work out financially in our minds," says Shernoff. "It didn't add up. If we sell as many records as they think we can, and we put it out ourselves, we can make 10 times as much money."
The payoff finally came late last year when The Dictators released D.F.F.D. to a world that had once barely noticed them. Twenty-three years after breaking up in the face of industry and public indifference, The Dictators finally made some substantial inroads. D.F.F.D. (which is a paraphrase of a gang slogan "Dictators Forever, Forever Dictators") popped up in a number of Hard Rock/Metal publications and Web sites as one of the best albums of 2001, and the band was suddenly deluged with tour opportunities and the kind of attention that eluded them in the late '70s.
The beauty of their current situation is that The Dictators are in no hurry to make something happen for themselves. They have no manager and no label; Shernoff handles everything from creative to business strategies, from songwriting to production to booking the tours to setting up the foreign distribution. This is a band that waited 23 years between albums: They're not likely to get anxious about the timing over their next big break.
"It's been building," says Shernoff. "It's not like people weren't paying attention and suddenly they were. I relate it to watching hair grow. You don't see it grow but you know it's growing."
Manitoba concurs with Shernoff's assessment and offers his own unique twist on The Dictators' newfound success.
"Instead of looking at what we don't have, we look at what we have," says the Handsomest Man in Rock & Roll. "We have people all over the world that care about what we've created. It's not a pat on the back, 'Good show.' You can see it in their faces. It's music that makes the difference. It's intensity that makes the difference. I'm in great shape, to put on an hour and a half show at my age. Half the audience is older people, half is kids, and they're all enjoying it. What's to complain about? I'm playing Rock & Roll, making a couple of bucks, having fun. I'm in a damn good mood. And I'll show ya."
THE DICTATORS perform Friday at the Southgate House for a celebration of Shake It Records fifth anniversary. Local Punk legends The Reduced (reunited just for this gig) and Garage greats, Thee Shams, open.
