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[Live & On Record]

THE DICTATORS
THE NEXT BIG THING?

I was all set to comment on the delicious irony of the Dictators’ playing “The Next Big Thing” last Friday at Lilli’s, more than 25 years after they recorded it. I would have pointed out that it led off an album (1975’s The Dictators Go Girl Crazy) that sold few copies yet influenced countless punks in training, and that the Dictators play it as if they neither knew nor cared that a quarter-century’s gone by. Then I might have concluded that they could be the next big thing after all.

But the Dictators never got around to “The Next Big Thing,” though they did deliver most of their other greatest non-hits. Having seen zero commercial success over the years, and having broken up and reunited too many times to count, the band still play for the best of reasons — because it’s fun, and because they never doubted how good they were.

For those of us still bummed out about losing Joey Ramone, it was some consolation to see two seminal punk figures in strong form over the past month: former Dead Boy Cheetah Chrome at the Linwood and now the Dictators, both of whom covered the Dead Boys’ “Sonic Reducer.” But the two shows also offered a study in contrasts. Chrome is a changed man, exuding the dogged intensity common to ex-junkies and playing every song as if it were his lifeline. The Dictators, bless their hearts, are still the same bunch of louts they always were. Although they’re apparently into clean living nowadays, they can still sing “Just gimme a sopor for the weekend” with full conviction, even if nobody uses that term for downers anymore. Bellowing frontman Handsome Dick Manitoba explained that his current drug of choice is ballpark hot dogs. “Don’t tell me how bad they are for you,” he admonished. “Look what I can still do, and look how fuckin’ old I am.”

It was a proud old-school night all around, with mid-’80s Rat rockers the Oysters reuniting for the opening set and the Decals, currently one of the best neo-punk bands in town, following up. Drawing mainly from their three ’70s albums, the Dictators also threw in a few from the spinoff by Manitoba’s Wild Kingdom, including the opening “New York, New York” (released in 1990, it has the best verse written by anybody that year: “I can’t stand my neighbors, screaming all the time/If I wasn’t blasting ‘Sister Ray,’ I could lose my mind”). New songs slated for a forthcoming album, including the self-congratulatory “Who Will Save Rock ’n’ Roll?”, proved well up to scratch.

BY BRETT MILANO

Issue Date: May 31 - June 7, 2001