STIV BATORS – The Dead Boys
Greg Shaw, rock music historian and founder of Bomp! Records, has said of Cleveland’s the Dead Boys: “They are the best punk rock band that I ever saw, and I saw them all.” Stiv Bators had been their front man from the beginning and was famous for his stage antics, but he was often restless and desired to move beyond the punk rock conventions.
The Dead Boys broke up in 1979 when the whole punk rock scene seemed about to disintegrate; Sex Pistols had famously imploded in January 1978 during their first American tour. Stiv Bators and Greg Shaw began working together almost immediately and continued off and on well into the 1980’s when Bators was trying to reinvent himself as a pop singer. The results were a fine album called Disconnected (which was released in 1980 and was recently reissued on both CD and LP) and several singles that were collected in a CD called L.A. L.A.
Bomp! Records also released several additional Dead Boys albums following the break-up, beginning with Night of the Living Dead Boys in 1981. The vocals had to be overdubbed, since Stiv Bators had deliberately ruined the original recording by singing off-mike, in order to get back at their record label. Even so, this is the best live punk rock album I have ever heard. Additional Dead Boys lore surfaced last year when lead guitarist Cheetah Chrome released a memoir called A Dead Boy's Tale: from the Front Lines of Punk Rock.
The Wanderers (briefly called the Allies) were born when Stiv Bators essentially replaced Jimmy Pursey as the front man and lead singer in Sham 69, which broke up in the summer of 1980. Besides Stiv Bators, the other bandmembers were from Sham 69: Dave Tregunna (bassist), Dave Parsons (guitarist), and Mark Goldstein (drums). Unlike many of the other first-wave punk bands in Britain, Sham 69 had genuine proletariat roots and eventually attracted very rowdy crowds. Despite considerable success, the Dead Boys and Sham 69 had both been somewhat under-appreciated in their home countries.
Many rock critics were not ready for a “concept album” from a punk rock band, and the Wanderers were often dismissed as “the Sham Boys” or “Stiv 69”, though they did get some favorable notices (from Trouser Press, among others). Their label Polydor Records had expected more than a cult following and made only minimal efforts at promoting the Wanderers; in retrospective paranoia, this seemed like sabotage to Stiv Bators. Today, the original album is almost impossible to find, but a reissue in 2000 on Captain Oi! Records has brought the album to a wider audience. (“Oi!” refers to a working-class subgenre of British punk rock; Sham 69 was one of the first such bands). Greg Shaw regards the album as being among Stiv Bators’ finest work, and I concur.
The name of the conspiracy theorist referenced in the album by the Wanderers, Dr. Peter Beter sounds like a weak masturbation joke. In actuality, however, Dr. Beter is a real person, an ex-CIA agent who brought news from the intelligence-community underground in a series of “audio letters”. (Oddly, the liner notes on the 2000 reissue never mentioned that, nor did those on the original album release). Not only that, Stiv Bators was obsessed with him in real life and used to regale anyone who would listen about the dangers of impending Bolshevism and the end of the world. The song “Dr. Beter” presents a synopsis of the endless conspiracies discussed by Dr. Beter and features an actual excerpt from one of his recordings. Talk about “Reality . . . What A Concept”: Only Lovers Left Alive had it all!
The band was dropped by Polydor Records and broke up almost immediately. Shortly thereafter, Stiv Bators and Dave Tregunna formed the Lords of the New Church, which had their own version of doom and gloom. This post-punk band had a more polished sound than the Dead Boys and were quite successful during the 1980’s, but Bators’ stage histrionics were as wild as ever. In one celebrated incident, Stiv Bators hanged himself on stage and was pronounced dead for several minutes. Though he recovered from that incident, he was hit by a taxi in Paris and died from those injuries all too young in June 1990.
(February 2011)
