LEONARD GRAVES PHILLIPS
No one is really doing first-wave punk rock anymore, but the scene survives in the background with the energy and vitality that punk brought back to rock and roll which has never really gone away. And a few of the early punk bands are still making music. I recently picked up an album by the Dickies called Dogs from the Hare that Bit Us (1998) having a wonderfully wacky cover. The line-up features two of the original bandmembers from their 1977 formation, Stan Lee (guitar) and Leonard Graves Phillips (lead vocals).
Of their own origins, the Dickies (Leonard Graves Phillips specifically) talk about that in the liner notes to Dogs from the Hare that Bit Us: “Back in the summer of 1977, Stan Lee took me to see what was then L.A.’s premier punk rock band, the Weirdos. . . . The Weirdos had a wonderfully inane sense of disposable fashion that was undeniably West Coast; on the other hand, their musically minimalistic sense of implied velocity, which was to become the hallmark of late ’70’s – Hey, I’m starting to sound like a freakin’ music critic – suffice it to say, I was impressed; so when doing this record, it was only natural to tip our hats to punk rock, hence the Weirdos, and in particular John Denney, the Don Van Vliet [Captain Beefheart] of Punk.”
(March 2017)
