Dave Emlen's Unofficial Kinks Web Site mentioned this article about Dave Davies in The Pulse Of The Twin Cities. I'd been hoping to get to one of Dave's concerts last fall but the tour was cancelled when he had a stroke. Man, you know you're getting too old when your rock heros suffer strokes instead of overdoses.

The writer, Tom Hallett, explains Dave's reputation as the founder of heavy metal. (As Dave said, "It wasn't called heavy metal when I invented it.") Maybe you had to be there to fully appreciate how startling the opening chords of You Really Got Me sounded forty years ago. One of life's unremarked little tragedies is that you can only hear You Really Got Me for the first time, once.

The article is well worth reading in itself but I was happily surprised to see, in the item immediately following, that there's a new DVD of a 1977 Dead Boys concert at CBGB/OMFUG. I saw the Dead Boys there when I was going to school in New York City. Back then, I recall, the critics weren't enamored with the band since they couldn't play or sing worth a damn. But they sure made some classic songs anyhow. And now that people still insist on listening to the music three decades later, I've noticed there's a lot more positive critical comment.

The review stresses the Dead Boys dangerous, nihilistic image. I'm sure the boys were all very self destructive, and they did put on a great act. I suspect things get a little exaggerated in retrospect. At one of the concerts I saw, Stiv Bators menaced the audience with a big jar of peanut butter. He kept sticking his hand into the jar and whipping peanut butter into the crowd. Which didn't seem all that dangerous. Of course, I admit, I wasn't hit. For all I know it could have been chunky style.