The Dictators: Go Girl Crazy!

The Dictators: Go Girl Crazy!

1975

Epic Records

Format I Own it on: Compact Disc

Track Listing: 1. The Next Big Thing  2. I Got You Babe  3. Back to Africa  4. Master Race Rock  5. Teengenerate  6. California Sun  7. Two Tub Man  8. Weekend  9. (I Live For) Cars and Girls




Every once in a while you hear a record and suddenly the meaning of life becomes clear...It's like, it was right there in front of your face the whole time and you just never noticed it...But here it is...In the album's final minutes, The Dictators point it all out plain as day:

"Cars, girls, surfin',  beer,
Nothin' else matter here..."

This is one of those key records that popped up in the years prior to the Ramones debut that  presaged punk...The Dictators' big contribution  was their lowbrow obsessions (TV, wrestling, White Castle hamburgers and other unsavory corners of pop culture ) and their sloppy, artless vocals...Musically, this is big, arena-shaking, power-chord hard rock, but the vocalists sound like regular guys...Adny Shernoff sounds like a sarcastic smart-ass and "Handsome" Dick Manitoba shouts hoarsely and makes wrestling style threats:

 "I don't have to be here, y'know!  I don't have to show up here...With my vast financial holdings, I could be basking in the sun in Florida. This is just a hobby for me! Nothing, ya hear? A hobby!!," he shouts at a crowd at the beginning of the album...He also calls out Eric Bloom and Haystacks Calhoun...

 ...So in a way, I would consider this also a precursor to "wrestling rock"...It shares DNA with both the Ramones and Macho Man Randy Savage's "Be a Man"...

 And man, what a perfect weekend record...There's even a song called "Weekend"...

"Oh Weekend
Flashing rock and roll guitars,
Cruising in my daddy's car,
I'll do my homework in the bar..."

Really, they didn't even have to be that on the nose...Every single note of this record screams good times...My personal favorite Friday Night songs are "Teengenerate," (which has the most bittersweet guitar hook and 50's vocal melody...Think of a man-child version of the girl-group sound)  and "(I Live for) Cars and Girls" which might be my all time favorite album closer (and party starter)...A clever/dumb hard rock update of those single-minded Beach Boys hits (complete with falsetto backing vocals)...Whenever I hear them sing, "Good good good good bye..." I get a feeling of profound sadness...I don't want this record to end...I don't want the good times to end! I understand there's more to life than fun, but I'm not interested in those parts! I just want the fun, dammit! Don't end!!! And that's why it's in my running for the greatest closing tracks ever...

Oh yea, I remember when I first bought this record and brought it home I looked at the song titles and saw, "Back to Africa" and "Master Race Rock" and was suddenly a little afraid that I had brought home a durn ratzi skinhead record!! "Oh no," I thought to myself, "Did I accidentally pick up a Skrewdriver album by mistake?!?!"  Nah...That's another one of their contributions to the punk era: They're winding you up...Trying to piss you off..."Back to Africa" is a "Back in the U.S.S.R" type song where the narrator can't wait to go back to Africa...He falls in love with an African girl and takes her back to America but then she adapts to Western ways and he gets nostalgic for how the girl was and wants to go back to Africa to find another...Alright, maybe it's a little racist...Or misogynist...I can't tell...Wait, didn't Eddie Murphy do a comedy routine based on this premise?

But what about "Master Race Rock"? Surely that must expose the band as nothing but a buncha Hitler Youth! Nawww, they're actually Jewish, as pointed out in the lyrics to "Next Big Thing":

"I knocked 'em dead in Dallas,
And I didn't pay my dues,
Yeah, I knocked 'em dead in Dallas,
They didn't know we were Jews..."

They're winding you up...What a classic record...I haven't been able to locate physical copies of their follow up album, but "Go Girl Crazy!" is readily available anywhere...So if you missed it, what are you waiting for?!! It's never a proper Friday Night without it!

So let's bust out a case of the cheapest beer possible and check out "(I Live for) Cars and Girls" by the Dictators...Enjoy...