The Dickies: Dawn Of The Dickies – Album Review

The Dickies – Dawn Of The Dickies (Captain Oi)

CD

Out Now

A re-release of The Dickies second album on CD with bonus tracks from a single is a prime example of early pop punk. Nathan Brown reviews.

I first heard The Dickies on the A&M power pop/new wave compilation sampler No Wave.  I hesitate to use the term “punk” as there wasn’t a lot of punk on it, and the name gave a hint that “New Wave” was the focus (and yes, Joey Shithead, you were right: New Wave Sucks).  The Dickies’ hyper speedy proto-hardcore song Hideous was instantly one of my favourite tunes.  It was the B-side to their manically sped up cut of Black Sabbath’s Paranoid along with You Drive Me Ape, which also featured on that compilation album. Some time later I managed to purloin a copy of The Dickies’ first album The Incredible Shrinking Dickies and their hilarious Banana Splits 7″ so I was set. The strength of that first album was such that it was a friend to the turntable for years and I never sought out anything else. It was enough.

This means that their second album Dawn Of The Dickies is largely new to me even though I knew the singles Nights In White Satin (yes that Moody Blues song) plus Manny, Moe and Jack. 46 years later what do I think?

The Dickies gimic was to bastardise well known songs by speeding them up (the aforementioned Paranoid, Banana Splits theme plus Barry Maguire’s Eve of Destruction,  the Christmas carol Silent Night and Simon & Garfunkel’s Sound of Silence had also been given this treatment before they got to Nights in White Satin). When they weren’t committing musical sacrilege, their MO was comedic – surreal humour not laugh out loud jokes. They were more cartoon than The Ramones – who were a clear influence.

For example, on Dawn Of…Manny Moe and Jack was about the Pep Boys automotive store. (I’m Stuck in a Pagoda With) Tricia Toyota was a tribute to an LA news anchor. I’m A Chollo was about aspiring to join the local Hispanic gangsters. They didn’t do serious. If you’re looking for answers you would not find them in a Dickies song. Even the cover image is a take on Romero’s Dawn Of The Dead starring the band.

The crazed vocal style of Phillips remains a central point of the band on this follow up. The drums of Karlos Kaballero are still frenetic on a good chunk of the songs – like the Ramones on speed – but seemingly less prevalent than they were on the Incredible Shrinking Dickies. The manic hammering of keyboards also sits back a little more. Something about the production is cleaner and less chaotic. Its like A&M worked out how to tame this bunch of crazies, and unfortunately in the process they lost something. It’s arguable that The Dickies were among the first pop punk bands, before the term really existed and Dawn Of… underlines this more than their debut. 1979 was a time when record labels (and some bands) chased the clean “new wave” tag to distance themselves from punk’s sordid reputation in the wake of Sid Vicious’s death and all those lurid tabloid headlines. A more radio friendly sound would result in more sales and that was the priority of the label so it comes as no surprise that this record is more “pop”.

Don’t get me wrong. There is nothing wrong with Dawn Of The Dickies. If you like fast pop punk and punk rock with a manic musical twist get this, but if you’re only gonna get one Dickies album, my recommendation would be to opt for Incredible Shrinking Dickies. At this point I realise I should have pitched to cover both, as Captain Oi have also released an expanded version of that classic on vinyl and CD too.

In addition to the Dawn Of album, the single Gigantor (theme from a Japanese cartoon) /Bowling With Bedrock Barney

One final point is that I can’t get out the back of my head the ugly scenes on the Vans Warped tour back in 2017 when singer Leonard Graves Phillips was held up as a prime example of misogyny. Arguments flew this way and that about the way he berated a heckler, with Shawna Potter of Baltimore punk band War on Women clear it was misogyny. Even though this record came out nearly 30 years before that outburst, this could soil the listening experience a little. Being an obnoxious old git is as much a mid life crisis cliche as the red sports car. Don’t be like Leonard.

Available from Captain Oi

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Words by Nathan Brown. You can read more from Nathan on his Louder Than War archive over here.