Dead Boys

Live at CBGB’s 1977 (MVD)
by Craig Regala

Prime era kickass punk rock (capital R) from Cleveland’s skinny-assed, Iggy-fixated rocker casualties, the damned and the demonic Dead Boys! Filmed when people in NY thought that this roaring drug-booze-adrenaline-addled splatter was gonna be a big deal. Lucky for us, cuz this is pretty much pro-shot. So, the Dead Boys’ legacy and influence lives on. The arena aspirations vs. club methodology shines through the last 25 years of many of my faves. Covered by Green River, Pearl Jam, Overkill, Guns N’ Roses, the Hellacopters, and many more, the Dead Boys were the true “punk” punk rockers. The snot nosed power chord spawn of ’60s garage structure, jerked up through early ’70’s proto-metal crunch, (The Stooges, Kiss, Bang, Granicus, Alice Cooper, NY Dolls, MC5), with energy to light any town on fire. Great tunes, too.

They pretty much run through the first LP and tack on a cover of The Stooges’ “Search and Destroy.” Cool interviews from the boys in ’77 and a berserkerly funny clip from the band Steel Tips, which says more about the “culture” at the time than anything this side of an Electric Eels documentary. Go ahead and see if you can identify the artist Joe Coleman in the mayhem; he’s there. I don’t know if the filmmaker loaded the audience with girls, but shit, there’s a bunch, as well as one I went to school with! About as essential as any late ’70s document extant.
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