Knights In White Satin

The Dickies
Dawn Of The Dickies (Expanded Version)
(Cherry Red Records)
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We love a good cover version here at Outsideleft, with my fellow writer Martin Devenny even penning a whole article on the subject. Back in the heady days of punk, they were all at it.  The Sex Pistols started out playing Who covers, The Damned covered The Beatles 'Help' on the B Side of New Rose, and included an MC5 track on their debut album, Siouxisie and The Banshees covered The Beatles 'Helter Skelter,' and Bob Dylan's 'Wheels on Fire', The Clash, The Specials... need I go on?  However, one of the finest covers has to be The Dickies version of The Moody Blues 'Nights In White Satin', which transformed that drippy song into something entirely different and improved it immeasurably in the process.  When I was at school The Dickies were firm favourites, with their speeded up versions of Black Sabbath's 'Paranoid', and The Banana Splits theme tune also doing the rounds.  I saw them a couple of times back then and marvelled at gangly singer Leonard Graves Phillips and guitarist Chuck Wagon's ability to pump those tracks and more out at what seemed to me like a thousand miles an hour.  

Now we are in the post Napalm Death era, speed punk is commonplace and The Dickies appear lightweight and positively cuddly next to the grubbier and more dangerous looking types that form your average thrash punk band.  Discharge, the Dickies most definitely 'aint, inhabiting what we would now call the Comedy Punk genre, since taken up by acts like The Toy Dolls and Splodgeness Abounds.  But The Dickies were there first, and chewing up dull 'classics' like 'Nights In White Satin' even got them on to Top Of The Pops, even if all the royalties went to Justin Heyward.  They were probably a lot more popular here in the UK than in their native US, as seemed to happen a lot.  It happened to Jimi Hendrix, it happened to The Ramones, It happened to Blondie, and it happened to The Dickies. 'Dawn of The Dickies' was their second album, and shows that they had much more to them than frenetic covers, with tracks like 'Where Did His Eye Go'? and 'Fan Mail' being stand outs.  This re-issue includes a couple of extra tracks, including the single 'Gigantor', but is otherwise a straight CD reissue with a booklet of archive clippings and lyrics.  Surprisingly, the lyrics show a good deal of dark humour, especially 'Infidel Zombie' about running away from a female Psycho killer.

Formed originally in 1977, and describing themselves these days as "punk tricksters", they have now been going  (via multiple line up changes) for an impressive 47 years! That's real stamina, and they are still touring today, having released a further five studio albums and numerous live recordings since this one originally came out. They even have a new Single, 'Blink 183',  coming out to follow up the 'Gary Glitter Getaway' single issued at the start of the year. They always were a 'marmite' band, which you either loved or hated. I was clearly in the former camp, but if they were presented as a new act today, I would probably fall into the latter. Context and timing is everything. Their impressive debut album 'The Amazing Shrinking Dickies' would have made the ideal box set partner to this, which left me wondering why Cherry Red didn't do that? Regardless, 'Dawn of The Dickies' has stood the test of time better than most and still raises a smile in me today.  Plus, it includes that version of 'Nights In White Satin', possibly the finest re-working of a track ever, and is worth the bus fare for that alone.