The Dicks From Texas REVIEW from LOVE and Pop!!!

There should be a template for these documentaries… influential band you’ve vaguely heard of, famous talking heads (cue Henry Rollins), fuzzy clips of said band, more talking heads (band mates, scenesters, Henry Rollins) etc etc.  That said, this is The Dicks and they kicked arse!

Led by the charismatic Gary Floyd, The Dicks, along with The Big Boys, blew a hole in the Austin Tx punk scene with their attitude, their gumption and their sound.

Probably best known for their 1980 tune The Dicks Hate The Police (later covered by Mudhoney) this was a loud, aggressive band that yes, hung with Black Flag and Minor Threat (hence Henry’s mug and Ian MacKaye’s appearance – as well as Texas Terri and David Yow amongst others) but more importantly had a rather portly gay man as their front man, immediately shattering the punk rules whilst creating a raw, bluesy, rock and roll/punk sound that still sounds relevant today.

The film is a labour of love from Cindy Marabito and more than a fan’s view this is an insider’s view of the band, with friends who were there right from the start.

As such, you can forgive the sound problems and the way Cindy will occasionally just assume you know who they are talking about when a name is dropped into the conversation because really we are just eavesdropping on conversations and reminisces.  So yeah, this doco fits the template but there’s that personal touch that makes it just a little more ‘real’.

With a bonus half hour of live footage from 82/83 that is raw and powerful this film is a great tribute to the band but a great introduction for new fans as well.  And that’s all a documentary maker could really wish for.

Special Features:

• Bonus Live (On Broadway 1982 Akron OH 1983)

Available on DVD from MVD Visual.

The DICKS...Last Show Ever!!

Kevin Curtain covers The Dicks Last Show Ever in the Austin Chronicle:


http://www.austinchronicle.com/music/2016-08-12/playback-new-no-wave-old-dicks-and-woody-allen/

Rest Assured reviews The Dicks From Texas

"Nobody could put their fingeron why everyone liked the Dicks," assesses filmmaker Cindy Marabito. "Here's this fat, cross-dressing, flamboyant-but-macho lead man, these criminal-looking bass and guitar players who looked like they'd slit your face open, and a fuckin' kickass drummer. But it just worked.

"That music struck a chord."

The Dicks From Texas, Marabito's raw documentary about Austin's great commie punk band, traces the uncompromising quartet of Gary Floyd, Buxf Parrot, Glen Taylor, and Pat Deason from gigs at Raul's to the infamous Rock Against Reagan tour and beyond. Marabito, a lifelong Dicks friend, captures the band's close-knit family element as well as their national notoriety through interviews with band members, local scenesters, and big-name fans like Henry Rollins, David Yow, Mike Watt, and Ian MacKaye.

"A snot-stain on a wall would've done justice to the Dicks!" exclaims Dicks singer Gary Floyd, "but Cindy went out of her way to tell a very honest story of the band."

Floyd's particularly enthused about the doc's companion album, featuring 27 bands covering Dicks songs. The disc, organized by Marabito and poster artist Lonnie Layman, pairs punk heroes the Jesus Lizard and Mike Watt with local Dicks disciples like the Bulemics, El Pathos, and the Beaumonts.

"To get all these people to get together and record Dicks songs 300 years later?" Floyd wonders aloud. "I'm as touched as you can be."

Check out the intro below..

http://restassuredzine.com/news/4280-the-dicks-from-texas-documentary-teaser

The Big Takeover - Jack Rabid on The Dicks From Texas

“The Dicks from Texas”: The influential punk band who were hometown heroes to Austin’s misfits

“If you were a misfit, The Dicks’ music was for you.” Those words open up the documentary The Dicks From Texas, now featured on Night Flight Plus.


While the Ramones were the kings of punk rock on the east coast, Black Flag on the west, and the Clash coming out of England, in the late 70s, Austin seemed like an unlikely place for a punk band with a gay lead singer to emerge from.


“Here in Texas, you really have to put this into context of Austin, which kind of seems like a liberal cool place now,” reveals author and photographer Bill Daniel in the documentary. “It just wasn’t like that in 1979 and ’80.”

According to Mark Kenyon: “There was a real cliché of Austin music being hippie music and/or blues. It was an opportune time for something new to happen.”

It’s hard to imagine, especially since in the past decade Austin has become a sort of Mecca of cool — with a deep music scene and Alamo Drafthouses for the cinephiles — that residents are attempting to “keep weird.”



The band was born of conjecture from lead singer, Gary Floyd.

“I started lying, yeah, I got a band called The Dicks.”

They were a poster band, just a made up name that would show up on flyers and posters for shows around Austin. From Floyd’s ruse, an actual band was formed with original members Floyd, Glen Taylor on the guitar, Buxf Parrot on bass, and Pat Deason on drums.

The Dicks combined the hardcore sound with the sardonic silliness of the Ramones and plenty of social and cultural ideology of Minor Threat in three-minute blasts of unbridled, distorted energy.

Floyd was one of the first openly gay punk singers of the era, a behemoth of a man clad in make-up and a nurses dress, singing songs about anonymous sex in “Saturday Night At The Bookstore.”



The band became known for their drunken live performances. “They were always great, but they were always kind of shambolic,” explains Henry Rollins in the documentary.

“If they were really drunk, someone might fall over backwards…oh, it sounds like half the band is playing one song and half the band is… oh screw it, this is great.”

“It had never occurred to me before seeing The Dicks that being afraid of the band could be a cool idea,” states David Yow of Jesus Lizard.



The Dicks became fixtures of the small but loyal Austin scene, often gigging with other hardcore bands from the Lone Star state such as MDC, The Offenders, and The Big Boys. The group released their first single, “Dicks Hate The Police,” beating both N.W.A and Body Count to the punch by eight and twelve years, respectively.

The documentary, The Dicks From Texas, was released as a 16-year labor of love from film student and fan of the band, Cindy Marabito. The Dicks From Texas has an appropriately D.I.Y feel to the proceedings, with most of its interviews conducted on grainy VHS, in noisy bars, busy streets, and darkened bedrooms, places The Dicks and their fans appear to be the most comfortable.



Sometimes the interviews are hard to hear and subtitles are provided, but if you know The Dicks, this is exactly how a Dicks documentary needs to look.

Archival footage of Dicks shows are combined with photographs, old flyers, and interviews with former members of the group, other “poster bands” from the area such as The Torn Panties and fans (some of whom moved to Austin because of the Dicks and have remained in Texas) not only provide insight into the Dicks’ career, but provides those who weren’t there — which is most of us — with a snapshot of a scene.

It’s a treat watching all these elder statesmen and women reminisce about their old haunts and the bands that they loved.



Singer Gary Floyd left Austin for San Francisco with a new Dicks lineup including Tim Carroll, Sebastian Fuchs, and current Imperial Teen drummer. Lynn Perko. The band released albums on SST Records and Alternative Tentacles before disbanding in 1986, save for an occasional reunion show.

The original lineup (save for deceased guitarist Glen Taylor) got back together in 2004 and have since filled Taylor’s spot with Austin musicians such as Mark Kenyon, Brian McGee, and Davy Jones.
The Dicks’ influence can still be felt today in hardcore punk and the “queercore” movement that some would credit them with starting.

InSite Atlanta's The Dicks From Texas review

What happens when Wilco, Michael Jackson and the Dicks walk into a bar?

The Dicks From Texas New Noise Magazine

http://mvdb2b.com/i/press/MVD8173D/NEW_NOISE.pdf

Winnipeg Sun The Dicks From Texas

http://www.winnipegsun.com/2016/04/01/margo-price-azealia-banks-and-parker-millsap-top-this-weeks-new-music?token=e002b9011ee210e44f72ad8b93114352

Scanner Zine Reviews The Dicks From Texas

THE DICKS FROM TEXAS {MVD} Subtitled ‘The Men, The Myth, The Music’, this 70 minute documentary tells the story of one of the most confrontational and incendiary bands that not only Texas ever produced, but Punk Rock as a whole. For those who don’t know, THE DICKS formed in Austin, Texas in 1979 and were fronted by Gary Floyd who was openly gay and would frequently dress in drag. He was also bellicose, politically challenging, had a fixation for Maoist symbolism and had a voice that was powerful and rich, just like some of the finest Blues guys, but imbibed with the spirit and fury of Punk Rock.

After a few soundbite interview snippets, the film starts with a Gary Floyd interview telling the story of his formative years - and of seeing the SEX PISTOLS in San Fran. From there, it’s the familiar story of band formation including the fake posters Floyd made before the band got together and the band’s live debut at the Punk Prom in 1980. Those interviewed include all band members, many from the Austin scene of the time and notables Henry Rollins, Ian MacKaye, David Yow, Texas Terri, Mike Watt, Pat Doyle (OFFENDERS) and Randy ‘Biscuit’ Turner. The interviews are separated by some great stills and excellent home-movie footage of not just the band in concert but of its environs.

Of course, with a band like THE DICKS, there are myriad stories but several people mention that the band looked like it had just crawled out of prison and were a genuinely frightening experience to the uninitiated. One story included was that of Floyd stuck liver down his panties and then threw it into the audience. Elsewhere there is reference to the all-inclusive attitude of the Austin scene at this time; there were no unwritten ‘cool’ codes of dress more a case of if you were there, you were already included. Rollins makes an interesting analogy in that the Austin scene was more like a "weirdo Collective" than what he knew from the West Coast.

The legendary Raul’s venue is discussed, as is the band’s close ties with the BIG BOYS and its first move to San Francisco that resulted in its inclusion on the Rock Against Reagan tour with MDC.

The film climaxes with the passing of guitarist Glenn Taylor, Floyd moving back to San Fran and the formation of SISTER DOUBLE HAPPINESS (although no mention of THE DICKS Mk II or the ‘These People’ album) before looking at the reunion of the original line-up some 20 years after they split and the band’s induction into the Austin Music Hall Of Fame.

As for bonuses, you get a couple of live gigs. The first is recorded at On Broadway (San Francisco) in 1982 and opens with a FLIPPER-challenging ‘Kill From The Heart’. The second gig is from Akron, Ohio on the Rock Against Reagan tour from 1983 and it’s a brutal, intense gig opening with ‘Dicks Hate The Police’ that sees slammers launching from all angles and the band in totally destructive musical form while ‘Bourgeois Fascist Pig’ sees Floyd go crowd surfing.

Director Cindy Marabito has crafted an informative and highly entertaining film that’s essential viewing for anyone with an interest in this Punk Rock thing. It’s been a genuine labour of love too, having taken 16 years of work. If there is a negative, it’s that some of the interviews are either recorded somewhere with a lot of background noise (usually a bar), lack clear diction or have a DICKS backing track playing under them that’s too loud. The narrative also tends to wander a little rather than sticking to a distinct time line.

Somehow though, the lo-fi attitude kinda works to its benefit and the resulting film is sincere, intimate and grabs the attention. 

Now - I wonder if there is any chance of a sequel, called THE DICKS FROM SAN FRANCISCO? (09.03.16) 

Hit HERE for material review prior to 2015 including:
DAMNED, DINOSAUR JR, D.O.A

Austin Chronicle's Tim Stegall gives The Dicks From Texas a big old punk rock endorsement!

http://www.austinchronicle.com/music/2016-02-19/the-dicks-cd-dvd/

The Dicks From Texas, The Dicks From Texas & Friends

CD / DVD

Reviewed by Tim Stegall, Fri., Feb. 19, 2016

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The Dicks

The Dicks From Texas (MVD Visual)
The Dicks From Texas & Friends (Grackle Butter)
Gary Floyd started a joke only possible in late-Seventies Austin: a series of posters advertising fake gigs ("first 10 people with guns drink for free"). After meeting bassist Buxf Parrot and the late Glen Taylor, whose guitar work the former describes as having "notes all its own," then discovering drummer Pat Deason in time for a genuine show, the singer's prank turned serious. The Dicks' blues-based punk and wild stage presence – essentially, three sinister, convict-looking individuals surrounding what resembled John Waters actress Divine in the grips of Chairman Mao's Little Red Book – developed into a force terrifying enough to frighten Minor Threat when sharing a bill at Sixth Street's Ritz in the early Eighties.

As Ian MacKaye admits amidst the all-star cavalcade of talking heads (Henry Rollins, Mike Watt, David Yow, Texas Terri) populating cinematic valentine The Dicks From Texas, he simultaneously found them utterly compelling. Director Cindy Marabito's documentary plays as raw as its subject matter, locals including former longtime Chronicle queen Margaret Moser describing Floyd's vision becoming reality enough to energize the DIY scene fomenting around a Drag-bound bar called Raul's. Floyd, Parrot, and Deason join in, detailing the story, then appearing as their younger selves in explosive archival footage that makes one kick themselves for being born too late. Most live time capsules appear in full as a bonus, with a San Francisco gig being particularly compelling.

A similarly named CD isn't a soundtrack, but an accompanying tribute album. Austin punk luminaries from across the years (Bulemics, Surlys, Pocket Fishrmen, etc.) join bands featuring the ex-Dicks (Punkaroos, Pretty Mouth, Garish) for a punk scrum sure to please locals. Pride of place belongs to the Offenders' roaring "The Dicks Hate the Police" and Jesus Christ Superfly's "Anti-Klan, Parts 1 & 2."
(Both)

Wild Dog Zine on THE DICKS FROM TEXAS

 https://wilddogzine.com/2015/01/18/austins-the-dicks-on-new-wavoid-rejection-radical-messages-1981/

Since "The Dicks From Texas" documentary (directed by Cindy Marabito) will be released this month and was featured today on Dangerous Minds, we wanted to repost Wild Dog's interview with these legendary Austin punks from 1981.

“I think The Dicks were one of the earliest poster bands…When I returned from San Francisco, several friends said, ‘It’s too bad all of us want to be singers and none of us can play anything.’ I said, ‘Why don’t we just lie? Let’s make up a band, and call it The Dicks.'”

– Gary Floyd (Vocals) in Wild Dog Zine