Hearing is Seeing is Believing.
An excerpt from the liner notes for My Dick’s forthcoming greatest hits album, Oral History.
Written by David Fricken.
It’s hard to fathom that My Dick’s enormous legacy exists only as a footnote in rock and roll history, relegated to the land of bootleg imports and obscurity. Let’s hope that the release of Oral History, the band’s retrospective on over thirty years of music changes all that. Their influence reaches across all genres. My Dick’s sound leaves the impression of a band behind the times while simultaneously reaching beyond the times.
When one attempts to categorize their catalog it becomes immediately apparent that you cannot pigeon hole My Dick. As soon as you think you have the band pegged they switch sonic gears leaving you in their musical dust, all at once confused and invigorated by what you have heard and seen. Such was the case as I saw them play a small club on the Upper West Side nearly 20 years ago.
The sparse crowd of 10 or 15 hipsters sipped espresso at dark cornered tables. My Dick made so little an impression that no one even saw them enter the stage. I sat at the bar watching the uncomfortable interplay of personalities: robotic, lifeless, hollow shuffling from four men of indiscriminate age and non-descript features. But then Rod Burns struck the first volley of “Divining Rod” from the album Tricky on his Les Paul, a deafening monster chord that came from some deep, dark, delicious place.
One word…anarchy…rang in the resonance of that first note as it hung in the air like a poisonous gas. And then Peter Johnson hammered a crude polyrhythmic beat on his battered and abused drum kit, drawing the rest of the members out into the rolling, building swelling melody. Richard Cummings sang the opening line with his angelic falsetto, carrying the notes to a dizzying height, while Jack Bates smacked the bass strings like an insolent whore.
The rest of the evening moved as a blur while the band thrust and parried through songs like “Mofacracy”, “Sing-Sing Vacation”, “Ginger Mong”, “Ground Zero-Point Radiance”, “Alcodextrous Superstar”, and their classic songs, “Drugbrella” and “Halfway to Mumbai”. My Dick pulsated with an energy and force that left the crowd weak, anticipating another flurry. Those who saw them that night would never forget the impact My Dick had on them. We were, all of us, irreversibly changed.
Thus began my obsession with My Dick. I find it tragic that the band has not found a larger audience. I asked Richard Cummings about that as we spent some time in a hookah lounge during the Zoophilia Tour. He shrugged his shoulders and in his faint Belgian accent replied, “You either get My Dick or you don’t get My Dick.” And that’s why I say begin your journey with My Dick. Listen to this album. You’ve come this far. Go all the way. You won’t be sorry. My Dick will change your life if you let it.
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