"Nobody could put their finger on 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, premieres Wednesday at the Spider House Ballroom, kicking off the RxSM Film Fest. Loaded with unseen live footage, the film 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."
Wednesday's premiere party, 6pm-2am, includes a movie screening (7:30pm), a Dicks Q&A (8:45pm), and 15 bands doing Dicks covers. To Floyd, that's better than a reunion.
"Who wants to see a bunch of old dicks?" he cracks.
‘80s punk band, The Dicks, are the subject of a documentary being released this month titled The Dicks From Texas, as well as a related compilation tribute album. I recently had the opportunity to screen the documentary, which can be pre-ordered here,
and it rekindled my love affair with The Dicks—who, in my opinion, are a
top shelf American punk act, worthy of as much attention and admiration
as Bad Brains, Dead Kennedys, or Minor Threat.
Head Dick, Gary Floyd
Hailing from Austin, Texas at a time when the town wasn’t quite the bastion of liberal hipsterocity
it is today, the self-proclaimed “commie faggot band” featured singer
Gary Floyd, a flamboyantly queer, communist behemoth who often performed
early gigs in drag. Floyd’s larger-than-life stage presence wasn’t
mere shock value, he had the pipes to back it up. His, please forgive
this played-out term, soulful vocals lent an impassioned
urgency to the band’s sharp trebly guitar attack. In my opinion, no
other singer from the “hardcore” era can touch him. Bad Brains’ HR and
Fear’s Lee Ving may sit in his court, but Gary Floyd is the king.
The band began humbly as not even a band, but as a “poster band”—a fake name put on posters as sort of an “art piece.”
The Dicks from Texas producer, Cindy Marabito:
The Dicks started when singer Gary Floyd returned to
Austin, TX after seeing the Sex Pistols in San Francisco. He started
claiming he had a band called the Dicks. This was known as a “poster
band.” Fliers were made with fake shows and non-existent groups.
Gary Floyd would go around town putting up posters advertising The
Dicks with crazy ass pictures and promises that the ‘first ten people
with guns drink for free.’ It was a wild and crazy time in Austin, back
when ‘keeping Austin weird’ got you thrown in jail.
The title cut from The Dicks’ first single, “Hate the Police,” released in 1980 is one of their most well-known songs, but everything they recorded in their original incarnation from 1980 to 1986 is gold. The Peace? EP, the split live LP with the Big Boys, the Kill From the Heart LP, and the These People
LP are all monsters and I’d be torn on trying to recommend any one of
those over another. Alternative Tentacles put out a compilation titled Dicks: 1980-1986—that’s a good “greatest hits” type starting place.
If you’re among the Dangerous Minds readership that has somehow never
been exposed to the glory of The Dicks, I have a few favorites I’d like
to share that have been mixtape staples of mine for decades.
Can I pick a favorite song by The Dicks? No, but this one’s up there: “Rich Daddy.”
You got money?
Well, then you’re livin’ the good life
You got a big fat daddy at home
Writin’ checks tonight
You got nothing?
Well, then you’re livin’ a bad life
You got a big, fine car
And you eye me while you pass me by
A rich daddy? No! I never had one!
A rich daddy? No! No! I never had one
</p><p>
Another favorite, “Kill From the Heart,” off the album of the same name:
When I see you walking down the street
It’s so hard to take
Come on and give me a break
You’re spending all your fuckin’ time with school
Those lessons you learn
Are making you a fool
Daddy’s boy got some brand new cash
Now you’re messin’ with REDS
Who are gonna kick your ass
Come on fucker!
Give me a break!
You fuckin’ Pig
Death is your fate!
It’s from the heart
You need to be shot
This is the first song I ever heard by The Dicks, “I Hope You Get Drafted.” It appears on their Peace? EP and on the P.E.A.C.E. Compilation,
which is where I first heard it. I think about these lyrics every
single time I ever hear anyone arm-chair quarterbacking U.S. foreign
policy:
You don’t care about nuclear war -or how many people die
You’re always laughing in the face of death
I’ll look you straight in the eye -and say:
‘I hope you get drafted,
I hope your mama cries,
You apolitical asshole,
I hope you’re the first to die’
The new documentary got me on this kick and I’ve dug out all my original
vinyl (including that original press of the “Hate the Police”
single—don’t ask how much that set me back, I don’t wanna talk about
it). The documentary itself is an obvious labor of love.
I’m not certain
that I would recommend it to someone who wasn’t already a fan, but if
you’ve followed the history of The Dicks at all, it’s pretty charming.
It’s a lo-fi DIY affair which mainly consists of old friends reminiscing
about the group. It paints a pretty good picture of what Austin, Texas
was like in 1980—certainly a different place than it is today.
The
documentary includes some crucial live footage—I found myself wishing
there was a lot more of that! If your interest is beyond passing, I
recommend it. The importance of this band as an in-your-face outfit
singing about queer issues (check out their “Saturday Night at the Bookstore” and “Off Duty Sailor”) when it was still rather dangerous—even
in the punk scene—to do so, and as a band that influenced other groups
with their refreshing originality in a hardcore wasteland becomes more
and more clear upon viewing.
Henry Rollins, Ian MacKaye, and Mike Watt
all make necessary appearances (what? no Dave Grohl?), expounding on how
blown away they were upon paired with The Dicks on bills. Until the
documentary gets released later this month, you can always hit up the
YouTubes to further explore more of this classic “Rock Against Reagan”
band.
Flyer for the ‘Rock Against Reagan’ tour—organized by The Yippies!
So, today, can we just talk about how great The Dicks were? Here’s The Dicks live in 1984: And in 1985, with Gary Floyd looking a bit like a chubby Jeffrey Lee Pierce:
And my favorite live footage I’ve seen of them, this was originally
released as a VHS tape in the ‘80s titled ‘Fun With Dicks and Jane.’ It
has great sound quality and some fun interviews (with Gary Floyd in full
drag):
Others: We Jam Econo, The Decline of Western Civilization Parts I and III, Another State of Mind
On a certain level, it would be easy to say that punk rock as a
concept in 2016 is irredeemably stupid and retrograde (and let’s face
it, you probably could have said the same in 1977), but to be fair, the
important service it provides as a hate vaccination for stammering
misfit youth has yet to be properly supplanted (maybe someone could get
Martin Shkreli working on that?). Besides, one must concede that punk —
in its pure, non-poseur state, anyway — has also been an extremely
important signifier for freakoids searching for their place in the
world, a fact which goes a long way towards explaining why it holds a
special place in the hearts and minds of so many otherwise-reasonable
adults.
In Cindy Marabito’s new documentary The Dicks From Texas,
we get to see that special power in full and brilliant display: it is a
film which, though ostensibly about a band, is primarily a document of
the myriad oddballs which were drawn into that band’s drunken, radical
orbit during Reagan’s Morning in America.
The Dicks were, and remain, Austin’s greatest punk band (unless
you’re a skater, in which case it
might be their peers the Big Boys, or
if you’re one of those moldy figs who use “punk” as a synonym for “1960s
garage,” in which case it’s the 13th Floor Elevators… but y’all knew
that). In a time when it was still weird and dangerous to even be a new
wave band in Texas, this self-identifying “commie fag” hardcore band,
fronted by “fat queer” Gary Floyd (who frequently took the stage in loud
vintage dresses and bits of Maoist regalia), were basically asking to
get the shit kicked out of them.
Lucky for them, then, that they were
also the scariest bunch of motherfuckers in town, a sloppy, ugly band
who made little conceit to either cautious tastes or conservative mores.
That fearlessness, along with Floyd’s
Divine-meets-Chris-Farley-meets-bear stage presence and the band’s
trainwreck energy, endeared them to the nascent Austin freak scene while
also making an indelible impression upon touring heavy-hitters like
Black Flag, Minutemen, and Minor Threat (it wouldn’t be an 80s punk doc
without a couple words from Rollins, Watt and MacKaye… where are
Thurston and Jello, I wonder?).
MacKaye recalls the band as genuinely
intimidating, having been told before coming to Texas that The Dicks
“were run out of Austin because they were wanted on charges of
terrorism.” Whether that anecdote is partial truth or gleeful
mythmaking, its believability is telling.
A slick and artful documentary would hardly be the appropriate document for such notorious gnarlers, and The Dicks From Texas
is not that. No-fi and personal, the film stumbles hazily down memory
lane, interviewing its subjects in shitty bars and sprawled out on beds,
laughing about old pals and relating disjointed anecdotes for which
most viewers will have little context. This makes it a far cry, in both
construction and cohesion, from the likes of The Filth and the Fury or even We Jam Econo, but frankly, I couldn’t imagine the story told any other way. How could a Texas punk doc NOT be this folksy and weird?
The Dicks From Texas probably isn’t an ideal entry point
for the casually curious, and I would be hard put to call it a great
film. It is, however, honest and passionate as fuck; any dirty dog who’s
ever blasted “Dicks Hate the Police”
on a shitty stereo in a shitty apartment will get everything they need
out of it, plus a desire to hug the cuddly Gary Floyd of today as a
bonus treat. If you want anything more than that, you’re probably a
poseur anyway.
Screens as part of Sound Unseen in the Twin Cities on February 10th, 2016.
Gary
Floyd would go around town in Austin, Texas putting up posters
advertising 'The Dicks' with crazy ass pictures and promises that first
10 people with guns drink for free. It was a wild and crazy time in
Austin, back when 'keeping Austin weird' got you thrown in jail.
Gary
was a flamboyant outwardly gay personality with a voice that still
rivals the hardest heaviest bluesiest singers from Texas or anywhere
else. He ran into Buxf Parrot and Glen Taylor at Raul's Bar on Guadalupe
and the Dicks became a reality. Pat Deason joined the band just in time
for the legendary first live performance at the Armadillo World
Headquarters.
The Dicks were together for nearly four years and put out
'Dicks Hate the Police" 45 and two albums, "Live at Raul's" and "Kill
From the Heart" which have lived on for coming up on four decades,
inspiring other musicians and fans with songs like "Bourgeois Fascist
Pig," "Dead in a Motel Room," and "Dicks Hate the Police."
The Dicks
never sold out, never budged one fraction from their militant principles
at the cost of no big record deals and acclaim. What they got in return
was the respect of longtime hardcore followers who still turn out at
the rare live reunion shows where the Dicks still deliver.
Austin, Texas hardcore punk legends The Dicks were around in the early/mid '80s with releases on SST and Alternative Tentacles, and they've been reunited since 2004. This week (Friday, 2/12), a new documentary about them called The Dicks From Texas will hit the streets.
Before it's out, we're premiering a clip from the film that includes Henry Rollins and Ian MacKaye giving the band high praise and a short live clip. Henry talks about their Live at Raul's Club
split with The Big Boys getting heavy rotation at the SST offices, and
Ian discusses a show Minor Threat played with The Dicks opening.
Watch the clip, and the trailer and intro, below...
Trekking the stories of one of the most
underrated yet influential punk rock bands that became the harbinger for
the hardcore and more notably, the queercore movement throughout the
1980s, The Dicks From Texas cites the band that made a splash in
their hometown of Austin, TX and sent the waves crashing down on the
dawn of hardcore punk. This 70 minute feature documentary provides an
intimate insight into the weird, crude, and alienated legacy that was
one of Texas’ first big punk bands—before Dave Dictor penned his first lyrics of slandering cops, and before Randy “Biscuit” Turner
slipped on the infamous ballerina tutu with cowboy boots, the Dicks
were redefining what it meant to be a misfit in an already rebellious
subculture.
The Dicks was the brainchild of lead singer Gary Floyd who “started” the band after seeing the Sex Pistols
in San Francisco and told everyone he had a band under that moniker. In
Austin, the Dicks gained popularity as a “poster band” in which fliers
were made for fake shows for non-existent bands to play. The Dicks,
however, became a reality when Floyd teamed up with bassist Buxf Parrott, guitarist Glen Taylor, and drummer Pat Deason making their debut performance on May 16, 1980 at the Punk Prom with fellow Austin punks Big Boys.
Floyd’s outwardly gay and flamboyant personality was reflected in his
stage presence in which he’d sport the tackiest, ugliest, thrift shop
dresses, plus-size pantyhose, and intentionally whorish makeup with a
purple mohawk to round it out that would make anybody of a sound mind
gape in awe. The idea, of course, was to play some of the loudest,
fastest, and scariest music and have the lead vocalist look so bizarre
and so outlandish that it would just emphasize that nobody could fuck
with them—they were challenging a lot of political, social, and sexual
conventions through their performances. Ian MacKaye put it best, “They were a force to be reckoned with.”
The Dicks stayed as an active band for
four consecutive years before ultimately disbanding in 1986. Their
discography, consisting of a 7” entitled The Dicks Hate the Police and two albums— Live at Raul’s, their split live album they did with Big Boys and Kill From the Heart,which
all became inspirations for punk’s most important era. The Dicks were
instrumental in shaping not only the sound of hardcore, but also the
attitude—the fact that you can have an even more intimidating presence
when your dressed in drag and screaming songs like “Bourgeois Fascist
Pig” and “Dead In a Motel Room.”
Being comfortable with yourself and not
conforming in such a way that you stick out like a sore thumb are what
the Dicks lived by back then and still hold true in their views today.
The Dicks From Texas pays tribute
in the best way possible to a band like these guys—it’s raw, unpolished,
and choppy in some places, the lighting and audio isn’t perfect, the
live footage is all bootlegged, and you definitely get the feeling that
it went through a single editing process in someone’s basement. But, you
know what? That’s punk rock! And that was the Dicks! In my opinion, the
style of this documentary correlates well with the Dicks and their DIY
aesthetics, which is the way it should be. –Eric U. Norris
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)
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.'”
L-R: Dicks front man and 'The Dicks From Texas' filmmaker Cindy Marabito
Photo by David Ensminger
Deep in the heart of rose-scented Texas, amid the leafy
collegiate blocks and despite the barrooms spinning cosmic cowboys,
Austin developed a sense of punk that at times seemed every bit as
warped, electrifying and venomous as the Sex Pistols. Some of the names
were unassuming — Standing Waves, the Huns, Terminal Mind, the Skunks —
and then arrived the Dicks, a band to make the skin of “normals”
crawl. First no more than a make-believe band gestated in the
free-spirited, cantankerous mind of gay, left-wing wanderer Gary Floyd,
they soon become a typhoon of primal potency. He steered them like a
captain ready to slay Moby Dick, but instead of being a behemoth whale,
Moby was a metaphor for staid, common-as-mud, ears-closed middle
America.
The
Dicks wanted to destroy the typical comforts of life: the false,
slanted histories; the buried embarrassing sexualities; the rock-star
clichés and the workday routines. In their songs, porn shops and Maoism
co-existed, drunkenness and pain too. They slugged away at racist police
and the Klan, Nazis and rich daddies, and they mutated Jimi Hendrix’s
“Purple Haze” into a violent, crude tirade. Floyd dressed in drag,
tossed squirty condoms at crowds and used his big-boy body as a symbol
of defiance against the norms of social etiquette. In doing so, The
Dicks were a breathless hacksaw of renegade music eviscerating the
masses.
Cindy Marabito’s new documentary The Dicks From Texas,
about the Lone Star version of the band (Floyd later relocated to San
Francisco and jump-started a fresh lineup) tries to shed light on the
people, places and era that made it all happen. Her decades-old
friendship with Floyd, like any authentic insider, allows her to muster
up this DIY affair of the heart with down-home urgency and freshness.
David Ensminger touched base with her before Thursday night's screening
at Walters Downtown.
Houston Press: Since both versions of the Dicks were much
admired, how did the film organize around the concept of the Dicks in
Texas? Was it due to Cindy's personal connection, or is there some
significant or special quality about the Texas lineup/era you both
wanted to explore? Cindy Marabito: The Dicks changed my life and
basically influenced most of my interests since the first time I met
Gary and subsequently Pat [Deason], Buxf [Parrot] and Glen [Taylor].
With me, their politics, the lifestyle and the music most especially
provided a strength, which has fueled me throughout my life. I’ve found
the music of the Dicks, the original songs, to help me throughout life’s
challenges. I have encountered many others like myself who shared that
experience with the Dicks music.
Not to disparage the second Dicks or any of Gary Floyd’s other bands and
musical efforts, because his life and his art have been joyful and
enriching to experience, but there was a blossoming that happened for me
with that first Texas Dicks during a very special time that I felt
driven and compelled to document and share. In fact, it’s been my life’s
mission to try and capture that story and that wonderful scene in
Austin, Texas during the early '80s.
Various books, documentaries and fanzine articles have discussed
the band, and Gary, too, so what does the film reveal, uncover or
illuminate that really makes it a must-see?
One thing I wanted
to try and re-create was the feeling of community surrounding the Dicks
and the Austin punk scene. There was something really special going on
at that time when you’d walk down the street and come upon lively,
interesting people, musicians [and] artists. You might run into a big
star like Patti Smith, who hung out for a while in Austin as did other
luminaries, but there was something else going on. Everybody was
somebody special; that was the feeling one had. I really wanted to
create that feeling in the film, not only as an offering from me to the
Dicks [but] to the Austin of that time. Also, I wanted to leave
something for others to enjoy like a sort of time capsule filled with
very special people.
Unfortunately, due to deaths, both members of the band and members of
the community, some voices cannot be caught on film. How did that make
the film a challenge: How do you honor the dead?
That was hard.
It took 16 years to finally finish it, and we lost some close family. To
the best of my ability, I tried to create a montage honoring those we
lost. It works pretty well, and I can say I’m happy with the result. I
didn’t want a huge boulder of despair to hang like a pall over the
story, so magically, as always, Gary saved the show. There is an
incredible live performance after with Gary being lifted by fans in mosh
pit and very lovingly carried over their heads.
To me, that
wonderful music and that spirit literally lifts me up, too, as the
viewer. Yet again, the Dicks and their music give me a strength that
helps me to carry on. It was a spiritual move for me and when I watch
the parts of the film with those who’re gone. It’s almost like I get to
have them close once more, just for a minute.
What is always striking to me about the band's history is how many
"famous band" people really were in awe of Gary — his voice, persona,
politics, his sheer presence. As the film makes clear, this was quite
true. What was it like to round up and reach out to these people?
The famous people in the film were all very approachable. Henry Rollins
made time for me, as did Ian MacKaye, David Yow, Texas Terri and Mike
Watt and Lynn Perko. I hate to even leave out the names of the Austin
superstars because they really all turned out [and] dropped everything
to be a part of the film — Biscuit, Pat Doyle, Buxf, Pat and Gary, of
course. Davy Jones and Mark Kenyon really stepped up to the plate to
help tie together the old Dicks to the reunion shows. One thing I would
like to say: I don’t know how superstars in Hollywood act, but in punk
rock, everybody I’ve ever encountered has always been very real and
human.
There
is a whole new realm of talent creating great music right now. A lot of
artists, new and not so new, influenced by the Dicks' music have
generously and brilliantly contributed songs for the accompanying CD to
the film, The Dicks From Texas and Friends. It’s all over the
place as far as tone and style and, to me, really says how these
musicians have interpreted those classic Dicks songs. Again, the music
itself is so big.
What did the Dicks offer that you feel
transcended Austin in the early 1980s? For me, Gary's unabashed
queerness and politics completely foreshadowed the current era, for both
queer issues and left politics are openly debated, including gay
marriage and Bernie Sanders.
That was a time when a large gay
communist man in a bra and panties was uncommon. Gary put himself out
there with the Dicks in a manner which defied convention. I mean, okay,
there was and is homophobia, but Gary really made it hard to bash
someone so in your face, someone that everybody loved. I think the Dicks
have left that legacy for others both in their music and their politics
to not be afraid, a common theme in punk music, but the Dicks took it
to a whole new extreme. It didn’t hurt that the music was so damn good.
The Dicks from Texas will screen tomorrow night at Walters Downtown
(1120 Naylor) along with performances by Poor Dumb Bastards, Screech of
Death, Black Irish Texas and Scorpio Rising. Doors open at 7 p.m.
, as well as a related 
. I recently had the opportunity to screen the documentary, which can be pre-ordered 
LP, and the 
LP are all monsters and I’d be torn on trying to recommend any one of
those over another. Alternative Tentacles put out a compilation titled 
—that’s a good “greatest hits” type starting place. 
,
which is where I first heard it. I think about these lyrics every
single time I ever hear anyone arm-chair quarterbacking U.S. foreign
policy: 
