The Dictators -- "Who Will Save Rock and Roll?" (2001)

Kudos to Little Steven's Underground Garage channel on Sirius Satellite Radio to get me into New York City's other proto punk group many, many years after they first arrived on the scene.

I don't know why I never got into the Dictators. Probably like everybody else in the 70's, the record company botched promoting them, they weren't played on the radio and for some reason, nobody else had the decency to turn me on to them.

Yet, the Dictators put out their first studio album in decades in 2001 and Little Steven had the superior taste to put some of the tunes on the playlist. Even if you never heard any of their previous Epic and Elektra albums from their heyday, and I hardly knew them myself, the DFFD album was a blazing rock and roll statement that basically ignored if any other style of music ever existed.

Primal yet well-recorded, loud, and funn,y The Dictators broke everything down to its basics. Not just with their instrumental makeup -- your basic guitars, bass and drums -- and no synths or keyboards. The subject matter: the rawness and beauty of rock and roll conquers all.

The first song I heard from the album on Little Steven was "Savage Beat," an ode to the "primitive sound" packed with brilliant Flintstones references. Soon enough, it was life down on "Avenue A" and the catch-phrase happy "What's Up With That?"

Yet, the album's... and the Dictators'... statement of purpose opened up the whole escapade with "Who Will Save Rock and Roll?" The overdriven guitar notes lovingly ripping-off The Clash's cover version of "Police On My Back," lead singer Handsome Dick Manitoba sounds like an angry thug on the warpath, wailing on about the loss of the greatness of the music he loves.

I fall to my knees
and look to the sky.
Who will save rock and roll?

Murray The K, is not here today.
so who will save rock and roll?

Every protest singer.
every guitar slinger.
every punk rock sinner sells his soul.

My generation is not the salvation
so who will save rock and roll?

I saw The Stooges, covered with bruises
who will save rock and roll?

Every mercenary
Three chord revolutionaries.
Choose your side and choose it well.

June 1st, '67... something died and went to heaven.
I wish Sgt Pepper
never taught the band to play.

My generation
is not the salvation.
so who will save,
who will save...
tell me who will save
rock and...... roll!?

We've all had favorite guitar players, but a listen through "Who Will Save Rock and Roll" and the rest of DFFD record convinced me that the band's Ross The Boss (yes!) can swing that high gain axe through the Marshalls about as good as anybody. You begin to sympathize with that opening anthem because how often do you hear an album full of amazing raw rock and roll like this one in this day and age?

I found out over the next several years that some of these songs were re-recordings from earlier band and solo albums, including "Who Will Save Rock and Roll?" I had to go back and check out the early Dictators albums, such as their Epic debut from 1975, The Dictators Go Girl Crazy!! when Handsome Dick had a colossal afro and they were known for their irreverent cover of the Riveras' "California Sun" and whacked out punk classic "Cars and Girls."

It was only tonight that I finally found out that DFFD stood for Dictators Forever Forever Dictators. Here they are in 1999 in Detroit, raising the roof.

Lloyd Cole -- "She's A Girl and I'm A Man" (1991)

Lloyd Cole is the true definition of an adult rock cult artist.

In the mid-80's, Lloyd Cole and the Commotions had a good success ride overseas with their folk/rock blend of Dylan and the Talking Heads. Cole stuffed a lot of words into stream of consciousness songs like "Perfect Skin" at almost early Springsteen-like levels. In States, the band was strictly under the radar.

By the time he ditched the Commotions and released his second solo album, Don't Get Weird On Me Babe, Cole had moved to the United States and recruited some of the same brilliant musicians who played on Matthew Sweet's classic power pop album, Girlfriend, like Fred Maher and Robert Quine. It may not have been a coincidence, since he was definitely aiming for some kind of crossover success, betting on intelligent guitar-driven power pop and ballads, so why not employ a similar cast?

His real gambit was the single "She's A Girl and I'm A Man," a clever tale of turning the tables sexism that probably went over the heads of many listeners not hip to the lyric's irony. Thankfully, alternative radio and college programmers got the message and dug the big echoey guitar riffs, mammoth melody and four on the floor drums.

When you first listen, you think some of the words are a bit harsh, but then you realize there's a lot more going on. The song pries into the male psyche of putting women down, getting hitched, only to find out that his wife is sharper than him: "You're not cool, you're just like me, you're a stupid man...." With lyrics this subtle, you had to listen to it a couple of times to appreciate Cole's ambitious songwriting craft.

She said she didn't understand him so she guessed he was deep.
He swore he'd never been to college and was too tall to be.
So as she led him to the slaughter thinking she'd be laughing last.
Now the lady in the question is his better half.

She's got to be the stupidest girl I've ever seen.
She don't care who, why, or where I've been.
She's got a right to be, with all that's wrong with me.
But she doesn't want to understand .
That she's a girl and I'm a man.

He thought that women and drink would make a man out of him.
But the extent of his studies left a jaded man.
So as she led him to the altar he was easily led.
And when they asked him if he did, well then, this is what he said.

She's got to be the stupidest girl I've ever seen.
She don't care who, why, or where I've been.
She's got a right to be, with all that's wrong with me.
But she doesn't want to understand .
That she's a girl and I'm a man.

Every time she's near me
She gives me a new reason to be alive
To try to get right
She looks right through me
She says you're not cool, you're just like me
You're a stupid man
Get over here, hold my stupid hand
She's all right...

If you're morose over the deteriorating state of adult rock music, then do yourself a favor and have your faith restored by buying a used copy of Don't Get Weird On Me Babe. Enjoy the video here on You Tube (there's no embed code, unfortunately) and the beautiful gold hollow body guitar Cole plays in it.

Electronic -- "Getting Away With It" (1989)

A British music supergroup teaming Bernard Sumner of New Order with former Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr, Electronic was more of a cult item in the US as opposed to the total embracing the UK gave it.

No wonder. Taking its cues mostly from New Order, the duo did all the programming and songwriting, emphasizing electro-style dance music with acid house touches. Their debut album opened with Marr's distorted wah wah to the disco beat of "Idiot Country," followed by song after song of distinct high hat patterns mixed up front and layered with synths.

Electronic follows in the tradition of solo projects veered into successful partnerships, the most famous one being when Kenny Loggins "sat in" for Jim Messina's solo album in the early 70's, resulting in a string of hit albums together. Vocalist Sumner had planned a solo album, asked Marr to join him, and together they produced three albums over an eight-year period.

What really made Electronic's debut special were their two collaborations with the Pet Shop Boys' Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe, "The Patience of a Saint" and especially "Getting Away With It." The latter was a single released in 1989, well ahead of the full 2001 album, and it's a shame Tennant and Lowe didn't do the whole album with them. Now that would have been a super-super group and one wonders what that combination of talent would have been on an ongoing basis.

"Getting Away With It" is equal doses of all the brilliant talents involved -- Sumner's emotionally bleak lyrics, Marr taking a rare guitar solo, Neil Tennant's background vocals mixed at the same levels as Sumner's, and a polished melody that could only come from the pop skills of the Pet Shop Boys.

Primed by the organic combo of an actual electric bass and an acoustic piano pounding out the chords, "Getting Away With It" glides on a mid-tempo bed of strings, surging with bells on the chorus (a Pet Shop Boys arrangement trademark) and Marr's lovely acoustic guitar solo.


I've been walking in the rain just to get wet on purpose
I've been forcing myself not to forget just to feel worse
I've been getting away with it all my life (getting away)

However I look it's clear to see
That I love you more than you love me

I hate that mirror, it makes me feel so worthless
I'm an original sinner but when I'm with you I couldn't care less
I've been getting away with it all my life
Getting away with it all my life

I thought I gave up falling in love a long long time ago
I guess I like it but I can't tell you, you shouldn't really know
And it's been true all my life
Yes, it's been true all my life

I've been talking to myself just to suggest that I'm selfish
(Getting ahead)
I've been trying to impress that more is less and I'm repressed
(I should do what he said)


I remember that after the time of this single, Marr contributed another wah wah rhythm guitar to the Pet Shop Boys' incredible decade-introspective single "Being Boring" from their album Behaviour.

For appreciators of sophisticated electro-pop, if you are a fan of New Order and Pet Shop Boys especially, you want to track this debut album down for a cheap used copy. With New Order currently broken up, it's hard not to wish Sumner would find himself with Tennant and Lowe and cut a whole album together.