E-Mail This Article to a Friend Clash city rockers Boston’s Street Dogs pay tribute to their hero on their new CD BY TED DROZDOWSKI
	Related Links Street Dogs' official site Phoenix's review of their 2003 album, Savin Hill

It’s 10 a.m. on a Tuesday and Mike McColgan, leader of Boston’s Street Dogs, is getting a tattoo. In Los Angeles. On the radio. Live.

McColgan is the guest of his friend and mentor Dicky Barrett, the ex-Bostonian and forever Bosstone who now DJs a morning radio show on the LA FM station Indie 103.1. And though Barrett’s policy of "Tattoo Tuesdays" may seem a bit unconventional, if Jenna Jameson can take her clothes off on Howard Stern’s radio show, why shouldn’t McColgan put something on during Dicky’s? Especially since, for McColgan, his new tattoo is a constant reminder of his values and his punk-rock roots.

"It’s six-by-six on the inside of my left forearm and the spitting image of the picture of Joe Strummer sitting down and playing his acoustic guitar on the back of the Streetcore album, his last record," McColgan explains over the phone from LA. It’s February 1, the night before Street Dogs head to Las Vegas to begin a tour with another set of heroes, Social Distortion, that will bring them back home to Avalon on February 22 and 23. McColgan is quietly psyched, reserving the more explosive side of this enthusiasm for when he and his fellow canines hit the stage to, uh, leave their mark. He says the fresh tattoo doesn’t hurt. After all, he’s already got eight more. And anyone who doubts his toughness isn’t aware of his history as a soldier in Operation Desert Storm and as a Boston firefighter. But even if the tattoo stabbed him like a thousand inky little needles, he probably wouldn’t complain. To McColgan and his friends, Strummer is a kind of punk-rock messiah.

"When I first heard ‘Clash City Rockers’ come blaring out of a pair of speakers, it changed everything," he says. That was when McColgan was in seventh grade, after he and his buddies in Savin Hill got their hands on a copy of the first American Clash album. "It rang with me. It was powerful and uncompromising. It sounded like they believed they could change the world. These guys were wearing their music and their ideals on their sleeves."

So it is with Street Dogs, whose second album, Back to the World (Brass Tacks/DRT), has just been released. The disc rocks like hell, with McColgan’s everyman’s voice backed by churning, focused guitar. Although the group’s debut CD, Savin Hill (Crosscheck), came out only two years ago, there’s a lot of growth in their new set of songs. McColgan has pushed into a higher region of his voice, the choruses stand out more sharply, and the band’s dynamics are a bit more dialed in. And these songs have range. McColgan and Marcus Hollar have always been capable of a mighty roar on their guitars, but here the wall of amps sounds a little thicker when it needs to yet tumbles back to allow the lilting Celtic rhythm and accordion of "Tale of Mass Deception" breathing room. The song is about the lies the Bush administration told to start the current war in Iraq, but with its gang vocals and swaying melody, it sounds something like a good ol’ Irish drinking song. Next comes the punk howler "Drink Tonight," a blaster about the panacea and the poison of excessive boozing. And that’s followed by the Studio One–style mix of "Stagger," which ricochets between rocksteady and full-tilt ripping after opening with McColgan’s finest Strummer impersonation.

If like Street Dogs you came up on the music of the Mighty Mighty Bosstones, you might think you hear that band’s first guitarist, Nate Albert, in the mix from time to time. Those Albert-patented needling riffs and the six-string tags that answer McColgan’s phrases in the call-to-arms "Strike a Blow" and the bed of strumming behind the main guitars of the title track all sound very familiar. Albert in fact produced both Back to the World — a personal story about soldier McColgan’s longing to return home — and Savin Hill, and the guitars sound like his because they are. "When Nate’s anywhere near a recording studio, it’s nearly impossible to keep a Les Paul out of his hands," McColgan says, chuckling. "That’s a good thing."

McColgan was a fan of the Bosstones before he and Albert became friends. And he was in the Army before he became a serious musician. He knows what it’s like to hunker down in a desert sandstorm and to survive a firefight. His military experience reinforced the codes he learned growing up in Dorchester: loyalty to friends, pride tempered by humility, self-reliance, honesty, and a belief in taking action when it’s appropriate. These are themes that arise in his conversation as well as in Street Dogs’ lyrics.

When McColgan’s hitch was up, he came back home and began exploring music in earnest, eventually co-founding and fronting Dropkick Murphys, where his unbridled passion translated into a roaring vocal style he’s since learned to control better. "The Bosstones were always reaching out to the local scene and helping upcoming bands," he recalls. "They took us out on the road for our first major tours and we became friends. They were really easy to get along with, even after Let’s Face It sold a million copies and they were huge."