Go Girl Crazy

by

The Dictators

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The Dictators, for their light years ahead of their time debut "Go Girl Crazy." I remember reading an article about them in CREEM magazine as a 15 year old and thinking, "man, I gotta have this album." It wasn't till a school field trip to NYC that I managed to find it in some Times Square record store, and I couldn't wait to get back home and listen to it...and sometime after midnight, as I recall, I had an epiphany. Or was I laughing my...off? It hardly makes any difference, because this was an outrageously great album!

The problem was, my friends did not agree. I loved The Dictators' goofy patter about professional wrestling, White Castle hamburgers, and their brilliantly 'stoopid' version of "I Got You Babe." I wanted to be a "Two Tub Man," even if I had absolutely no idea what the heck it meant. This was big dumb fun that couldn't have been made by anyone but a bunch of bored smart-arsed adolescent guitar slingers, and I loved its every nutty second. The Dictators were 'Politically Incorrect' long before the phrase was uttered; songs like "Go Back To Africa" and "Master Race Rock" mocked 70's conventional serious rock with so much gusto, it's hard to believe that so few got the joke.

Somehow, despite being once written up as Epic records' worst selling lp ever, it has managed to stay in print. That's amazing, considering that "The Dictators Go Girl Crazy!" falls stylistically somewhere between Blue Oyster Cult and The Ramones. (By the way, The Ramones were still one year away from releasing their classic debut, compare The Dictator's "California Sun" to The Ramones' on "Leave Home" for an influence check.) Tough, smart, and funnier than just about anything before or since, "The Dictators Go Girl Crazy" is for headbangers with a funny-bone, and for anyone with a sense of rock and roll history.

Before I say anything, let my swear, under oath, that "I live for cars and Girls" is one of the greatest songs ever... in the history of mankind.

Be that as it may, this is an overrated record. One of the problems is that the disc uncomfortably teeters on whether it wants to be a hard rocking or comical. The silly humor sometimes inteferes with the quality of the songs and the overly muscular musical approach smears the attempt at parody. The music is very derivative as well.

"Cars and girls" is lightening captured in a bottle.

Their near neanderthal approach to " I Got You Babe" is the perfect manner to cover this otherwise poppy song. They take this previously known, sappy, Sonny and Cher, love duet and transform it into a testosterone-soaked mutation. Bullseye!

Likewise, their cover of "California Sun" also works. They pretty much stay to the original except they do it hard rock style. I think this is better than the original and even the Ramones' version.

"Back to Africa" is a notch below the aforementioned songs yet it does have a very interesting (today it may even be politically incorrect) "oooga chocka" refrain as the chorus sings about "wanting to go back to Africa".

There are no bad songs here (although some definitely lumber about) but the best are much better than the rest.

Perhaps a natural inquiry may be how these young guys start out so promising and the music never really progressed and developed. It's one thing for young, naive smart alecks in mid 1970's to write this stuff but their latter efforts were pratically in the same vein. It's good, fun time rock and roll but an artist should continually develop. Fifty something year old men singing sophomoric lyrics may be a bit creepy.