I was driving through New Jersey in the middle of the night, back in 1997, on my way to do a spoken word show in Boston at The Lucy Parson's Center, back when it was still in Cambridge. They had taken most of my book-zines on a previous trip up there and agreed to have me and another writer come back and do an in-store spoken word performance. We'd exhausted most of our CDs and cassettes by the time we'd crossed the state line into New Jersey and we decided to start looking for any local college rock stations that might be playing something cool. We weren't disappointed.
We landed on a station playing something that sounded punk, but the song was ending, but it was followed by a rockabilly sounding riff that heralded an impassioned voice that yelled, "You don't care about a nuclear war/How many people die/You're always laughing in the face of death/I'll look you right in the eye/And say...I hope you get drafted!" We laughed with surprise and joy. What a great fucking song! The DJs came on right after and told us that was "I Hope Ya Get Drafted" by The Dicks. "Probably the meanest song I've ever heard," they joked. I wrote the song and band down really fast, determined to find their work.
Now, I had read a little about The Dicks and saw their name in old punk flyers, and I actually knew who their lead singer, Gary Floyd, was, but I knew him as the singer of Sister Double Happiness, who had albums on Alternative Tentacles Records and Sub Pop, and had appeared on the Tribute to the Dead Kennedys album. I made no connections, though. I had no luck finding any of The Dicks' albums in Boston, but I found the 1980-1986 Anthology from Alternative Tentacles when I got back to Knoxville (thank you Disc Exchange for always being awesome).
1980-1986 was an eye-opening, infectious, and exciting collection of 7" and EP tracks, split between the Austin Texas days of 1980-1983 (lineup of Floyd, Buxf Parrott, Pan Deason, and Glen Taylor) and the San Francisco (lineup of Floyd, Tim Carroll, Sebastian Fuchs, and Lynn Perko) version that lasted until 1986 (the band would go on to play sporadically up until 2016). Is it hardcore? The first era, I'd say yes, the second era leaned more towards a blues influenced punk, so if you're looking for loud/fast only, I'd recommend having a more open mind, because this is an essential document. The opening track alone, which, sadly, remains extremely relevant to this very day, to this very moment as I type this, is one of the purest punk songs ever recorded. "Dicks Hate Police" doesn't hold back and goes for the throat...
"Mommy mommy mommy
Look at your son
You might have loved me
But now I have a gun
You better stay out of my way
I think I've had a bad day
Daddy daddy daddy
Proud of your son
He got himself a good job
Killing N- and Mexicans
I'll tell you one thing it's true
You can't find justice, it'll find you..."
From there, the band never backs down from fighting authority with songs like "Anti-Klan," "No Nazi's Friend," "The Police (Force)," and "No Fucking War," but they were also on the frontlines of standing up for gay rights, as Floyd was a bigger than life front man and openly gay. In Texas! The gay community has actually always had a place in punk, whether it was the bi-sexuality of Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, and David Bowie and the androgeny of glam that gave way to the New York Dolls and Wayne County or the fact that gay clubs in London were safe havens for punks, not to mention the BDSM that inspired the UK punk scene's fashion sense. In addition to The Dicks, Texas also spawned The Big Boys whose lead singer Randy Biscuits was gay as well. Within hardcore though, it was rare to find openly gay bands, which were less rare in punk and other off-shoots, like death rock and goth.
The original Austin line up of the band reformed in 2004 and did live gigs until 2016. Floyd has stayed busy with Sister Double Happiness and Black Kali Ma. This past Monday, during protests against police brutality, where the cops and white supremacists started a wave of brutality that swept the nation, Floyd posted on his Facebook page this heartfelt note;
"When The Dicks first started we wrote a lot of songs about oppression...sexual, class, racial, etc. I used the N-word in a few songs. I wanted to use the shock element of punk with an anti-racist message...trying to show, and mimic the world we had grown up with. When I was a little kid I said the N-word to a woman who worked at our home...as the words left my lips a sharp quick slap on my mouth from my mother stung and taught me STOP, THINK and YOU'VE BEEN TAUGHT BETTER...I'm thankful for the slap...I will not use the word in those few songs again...I'll use something else...another word. Buxf gave me the idea to think about it and he was certainly right. No one needs a white guy trying to shock or be punk to teach lessons regarding racist cancer language. The songs were always anti-racist...now the language will be.
IN SOLIDARITY
Gary Floyd"
In these times, where everyday we feel like we're on the precipice of a Hell mouth, its reassuring to know we still have heroes out there we can count on, who get it, and who give a shit enough to keep talking about the problems eating away at the heart of our country.
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