STIV BATORS TRIBUTE CONCERT

September 18, 2004; Beachland Ballroom; Collinwood, Ohio

You didn't read about it in Rolling Stone and they aren't coming to a club near you. But for one night only, the legendary Dead Boys came as close to resurrected as they're ever gonna be. Playing in tribute to Stiv Bators — their long-dead, eternally infamous singer who split the scene after being hit by a car in Paris in 1990 — they weren't allowing themselves to be billed as the Dead Boys. But when guitarists Jimmy Zero and Cheetah Chrome, bassist Jeff Magnum and drummer Johnny Blitz played a set of all Dead Boys' material, the chemistry was still so real that it stank as potently as a bathtub of formaldehyde. For four musicians who haven't played a note together on the same stage in roughly 17 years, the living Dead Boys (or living EX-Dead Boys) were damn good.

the living Dead Boys	Jimmy Zero & Jeff Magnum	Zero & Chrome	Chrome	Zero	Zero, Magnum, Chrome & Johnny Blitz

Onstage, Cheetah Chrome (Catch him when he tours if you haven't. Check out www.cheetahchrome.net for dates) - and Jimmy Zero (whose recent and wonderfully-named band, Lesbianmaker, has broken up) shared lead vocals. Offstage, Johnny Blitz is as cheerful as throat cancer and as refined as moonshine in a gasoline container. Onstage, he kept it together and proved to still be an adequate drummer, pounding on his kit as if it were a trailerpark bride who spilled the last Schlitz. Jeff Magnum did what he always did in the Dead Boys by hanging way back out of the spotlight, keeping his mouth shut, and giving his basslines all the stage presence that he doesn't seem interested in claiming for himself. For the record, Jeff Magnum, offstage, is easily the funniest, most obnoxious man in punk rock. If Johnny Rotten woke up one morning with half of Jeff Magnum's wit, he'd be dangerous as well as having half a wit for the first time in decades. Magnum has comedic obnoxiousness down to an artform and can dish out razor-sharp insults as easily as blinking. When he talks, the words come out like text out of some great pulp novel. If he ever writes a memoir (Do it, Jeff, please.) or novel, it would be the greatest punk/pulp pieces of literature of all time, up there with the best work of any Beat poet or Bukowski.

Back to the show. In Bators' place, an unattended microphone and its stand stood at the center of the stage with a leather jacket hung over it (The jacket was not Stiv's. It had been bought at a thrift store earlier in the day). Hours before the sold-out concert, the Zero, Chrome, Magnum and Blitz made a special appearance at another special Stiv Bators tribute being held by The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Zero joked about salami-packing transvestites, Chrome and Magnum rudely referred to punk's most famous female photographer as a skank, and Chrome and Blitz lit up cigarettes after being told by the museum’s curator that it was a no smoking auditorium. A discussion about Stiv and the early days of punk quickly disintegrated into slapstick and the kind of unruliness that the band was always known for.

“This is the Dead Boys,” Chrome told the auditorium full of Rock Hall attendees. “It’s a rock ‘n’ roll band. We don’t give a fuck.”

After the Rock Hall discussion ended, Blitz, Magnum, Chrome and Zero stayed in the auditorium for a while and signed autographs for the crowd. "I'm your niece," one young girl told Johnny Blitz, who didn't seem to know how to react. A beautiful girl who said she was Stiv Bators' cousin had his former bandmates sign the back of her bright pink jacket. "You should be a stand-up comedian," someone from the audience told Jeff Magnum. Stiv's proud parents were there and, later, went to the concert.

Once again, live onstage, the once-were Dead Boys were really good. It wasn't the greatest reunion performance of all time but it wasn't supposed to be. They were missing an essential element after all, Stiv Bators, which was the very reason why they were doing this tribute concert in the first place. More specifics about the show? Maybe later. I try not to include much text on this photography website. Maybe that will change eventually. But after all these years as a rock 'n' roll correspondant, writing sometimes feels like having my spleen removed through my nose. More about the show will appear in my as-of-yet unpublished punk rock epic, NEVERMIND NOSTALGIA: The Last Book On Punk Rock (Part One). And some additional coverage and photos of the other bands (which included Rainy Day Saints and Cobre Verde) should be up sometime soon on PUNK Magazine's website.

Special thanks to Jim Lanza who set up the tribute show and who was tremendously helpful.