GREG SHAW – The Dead Boys
An even better punk rock band that I have written about several times comes from the Heartland (Cleveland to be precise): the Dead Boys, led by front man Stiv Bators. I might be repeating myself here (about time I did, with more than 30 of these posts out there now), but what Greg Shaw has said of the Dead Boys is worthy of repetition, so here is the full quote this time:
“The first time I saw them . . . was in New York where I was stopping at some point in 1976, after a trip to London in which I’d seen one of the Sex Pistols’ first gigs, and checked out the Damned and whatever other bands were breaking out. I knew the Pistols were revolutionary . . . but meanwhile discovered there was a band right here in America doing it a whole lot better. For what it’s worth, the Dead Boys were far and away the best ‘punk’ band I ever saw — and I saw them all. Sure, it was largely theatrics. When Stiv [Bators] cut himself open with a broken bottle and had to be rushed to a hospital in the middle of his set (but made it back in time for the second show), he wasn’t doing anything Iggy [and the Stooges] hadn’t done before, and with less premeditation. But it was also somehow a lot more immediate, out of control, and indefinably REAL than anything English has ever been. . . . It takes an American to really pull off the ‘I don’t give a f--k’ pose, and not give in to the temptation to make a political statement out of it.”
(July 2012)
