I have just learned that a dear friend of My Dick, Lazlo Steadman, is…dead. Steadman blazed a journalistic trail and followed the band with verve and vigor. I can’t tell you the number of times Lazlo and I tore up whatever town we happened to be in. (Pause) Seriously. My twenties are a complete wash and have zero recollection of anything I did. Details are spotty (I don’t remember much of the call. It’s “cocktail hour” after all) but apparently he died of a lethal cocktail of Advil and Children’s Robitussin. So in his memory we are publishing an excerpt from his best-selling band retrospective of the band, The Ups and Downs of My Dick. Thank God for this. I had no idea what I was going to post but this gives me an excuse to trot out copy from the website.
Now…I’m off to a “key party”. I may be gone for a few days. These things tend to take on a life of their own. Cheers!
“Nobody seems to know where My Dick is. If not for the music they left behind, orphaned snot nosed crying infants of musical brilliance, it might be that they never existed at all. But My Dick does exist. It rocks…and rocks hard. And if I find those miserable drug addled bastards I swear I will take back what they stole from me.
Fucked up at the Far East News Desk… A Round of Singapore Slings… Musings on Elephantiasis
The last time I saw My Dick was during a mini-riot in a Singapore opium den where the band had a standing—although brief—house gig. The times were dark and weird and not for the faint of heart. I was trying like holy hell to do a profile of the band. For three weeks I followed them from their lice-riddled flop house to the bar and back again, asking them questions, only to be met with blank stares and shrugs.
The most disconcerting thing was that they had no problem sharing their booze and exotic drugs. Even their harem of zonked out “ladies” were made available to me (and taken advantage of with a dervish fury. The locals sold a tonic that gave any man the stamina of a herd of Indian Elephants. I poured it over cereal). But answers? Pleasantries? Fuck no. Tough nuts, all. The night of the riot was a blend of a ghastly over the top trip and the final degradation of man as he ate his own amidst the rubble of civilization…or something akin to that.
On this night the locals responded less than kindly to their particular brand of American “rock and roll”, expecting something perhaps a bit more salacious. And once the crowd got whipped into a snarling, foaming frenzy all “round eyes” were going to take it in the shorts.
I suddenly found myself up to my neck in tiny people fucked on mushrooms and a local concoction of spiced rum and monkey blood called “goofballs”. The odds were clearly against me. Thankfully, I carried a black jack in my pocket, for just such occasions, heavy at the end to explode a human temple with one swing. I landed a couple of swift blows and tried to make my way to the side exit. I turned and saw My Dick; back to back jabbing their instruments at the blood thirsty throng.
Over the din of screams and howls I shouted, “To rock and roll you magnificent depraved bastards!” The drummer looked at me, wild eyed, a human hand in his mouth (or did I imagine that?) and flung his drum stick at me, where it lodged between my dinner jacket and vest. My memory fades but suffice it to say I cannot hear their particular brand of devil music without feeling the ache of the wounds I suffered that night.
Spare the Rod, Spoil the Child… Good News Travels Fast
After that I became a man possessed. I hunted them, staying two steps behind at every turn. A flyer announcing a gig would turn up the day after they had played. Maddening. My Dick cast as Moby and I as Ahab. And in those years I began to piece together the weird and twisted history of a band that by all rights should have done to rock and roll what Ali did to Liston…fuck it up.
What information that exists rises here and there like flares from desperate seamen lost at sea. As best as the townsfolk of Lincolnshire, England can remember, drummer Peter Johnson and guitarist Rod Burns, kicked around in several forgettable bands playing the bubble gum pop tripe that was the fashion of the time. Bands with cute names like The Puddy Tats, The Confessors, Paisley Platters…the kind of names that might cause a self respecting musician to put the business end of a shotgun in their mouth.
Self respect, however, was not an issue for Johnson or Burns. Several young ladies from the area described sexual depravity and fetishes that rivaled anything from Nero’s Rome; certainly acts that went beyond the pale for most typical late aged teens. Around the time of “Paisley Platters”, Rod and Peter started hanging with a young bass player by the name of Jack Bates. He had a rap sheet longer than a foot long… with charges ranging from solicitation to drug possession and intent to distribute. Retired Chief Constable Liam Fier remembers arresting the trio over a dozen times in the Summer of 1969.
At this point, the trail runs cold. As the promise of the 60’s disappeared into the ether, so did the three Lincolnshire lads. Nobody remembers when they left. One minute they were there. The next minute they were gone.
As I consulted my notes looking for any clue that might lead me to solid answers I pictured those smug self satisfied bastards staring at the floor just shrugging their shoulders at me. The silence of them (even in my drug inspired imaginings they rarely spoke) forced me, in my desperation, to turn more and more often to my medicine bag for relief. In the throes of my drug psychosis I convinced myself that I could connect to them, literally transport myself to that time by exploring the dark places of my soul. In some sick way I was trying to channel the spirit of 1969 looking for any direction; all the while losing more and more of my mind.
And then fortune, that painted up trollop that loves me and loves me well, gave me a freebie…a juicy wet fuck of a break that defied belief. One particularly desperate morning, my editor sent me a note over the telefax from a woman who lived in the northern country of Belgium. She revealed that at one time she had been engaged to Richard Cummings, the eventual lead singer of My Dick. I hopped the ferry across the channel onto a train and made my way ever closer to the FUCKING key to the whole shit burning mystery!
How Now Sad Frau… The Mystery Deepens… The Cult of Zero Personality
Rebecca Guille, a homely, dowdy woman in her late 40’s, welcomed me into her home with a slight wave of her hand and motioned for me to sit on a small sofa. She brought out a large, dusty scrapbook with a picture of Richard Cummings. I did not see the scraggly, long haired madman that I remembered, but, rather, a clean cut nondescript young man, wearing a silky white choir robe. As Rebecca opened the picture album, she spun a tale that defied reason or reality but made perfect sense to me.
Richard Cummings gained notoriety as a member of the Chorale at St. Brieaux de Cristal in a piss print of a town in Northern Belgium. To hear her tell it, Cummings was a devout man who never touched a drop of alcohol. Tearfully, she confessed that they had planned to marry until that awful day in May of 1972. Witnesses recall that three masked Englishmen entered the church where Richard was performing and kidnapped him at gun point. For days, Rebecca and his family awaited a phone call…anything…a demand for money. Nothing. Days turned to weeks turned to months.
One year to the day of the kidnapping, a letter came in the mail. Cummings had written it (that much was certain) but the content was riddled with some monkey fuck nonsense about “Subterraneanism” and the “Power Down to Power Up.” Richard did mention a coming sonic excursion that would rip the doors off our collective consciousness. He signed off with a crudely drawn symbol; the eponymous symbol that has graced every album since the band’s third release, Snow Job. And that was the last she ever heard from her dear Richard Cummings. He had gone over to the dark side, brother. Richard Cummings doesn’t live here anymore.
As I read through the letter, my instincts told me that this story was less “rock and roll dream turned nightmare”, and more horror show Stockholm Syndrome, bad nihilistic cult trip. Those bastard British miscreants had scrambled poor Richard’s brain, sacrificed it at the altar of all that is unholy and depraved. What happened in that year between the kidnapping and the letter is anybody’s guess. None of those mealy mouthed shit birds had the decency to exchange two words with me.
The Horror, The Horror aka My Dick’s Scorched Earth Policy
Seeing as my medicine bag neared empty—as well as my expense account—I made my way back to the states to further explore the strange trip of My Dick. To call these guys cursed would be the understatement of the fucking millennium.
As I traced their steps through the lower 48 I found one incident after another that might have broken the backs of lesser men: the studio fire that destroyed the master tapes of what many consider to be their masterpiece, multiple arrests for solicitation and drug possession, rampant and scary drug abuse… the list goes on and on. Every city had a story of wreckless carnage left in the wake of a gig. One club owner described a scene so horrific that hazmat suits were required to clean up the backstage area. The boys were playing for keeps, apparently; but to what end remained the million dollar question.
And yet when you talk to the typical fan of My Dick you will find an almost steadfast, violent devotion to the music. So finding myself stymied by one dead end after another, I went to the one place I had avoided almost from the beginning: the music. I barricaded myself in my mountain retreat and started from the beginning of their catalog. Starting with “Explodes” I braced myself for the oncoming descent into utter chaos and madness. As the first note rang in my ear my fears were fully realized.
I Saw The Light and How My Dick Saved My Soul
Dear reader, I wish I could describe for you the range and depth of ecstasy and horror that I experienced during that time. It occurred to me that the drugs and booze coursing through my veins had something to do with what I was hearing. Each song, each note, the interplay of voice and instrument…brought me to a place of ecstasy and tragedy like I had never experienced before. I lay prostrate on the floor unable to make sense of anything.
It is powerful shit to be sure and one should not dare to attempt to take it in all at once. Cummings’ vocals rise above the din of this putrid world with the clarity and brilliance of angels. And the rhythm section of Bates and Johnson seemingly annihilate their instruments with each song; their desperation breaks through Rod Burns’ blistering guitar giving it perfect compliment. Between the laughter and the weeping I found myself descending into insanity and yet I found a strange sense of peace in that dark, unknown place. And as the last note lingered in my ears I understood all at once the mystery of My Dick. And just like the band, the feeling was violent, fleeting…and gone.
So now the fact remains that My Dick has disappeared, fallen off the grid, so to speak. Rumors run rampant and conspiracy theories abound. Some conjecture that they are awaiting the time for the “Power Down to Power Up.” We simply cannot know until those beautiful degenerates resurface. But one thing remains true: My Dick rocks. It rocks hard. It rocks long. Prove it to yourself. Find the music. Listen to it and you’ll understand. My Dick will leave you breathless, begging for more.”
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