Rock'n'Roll Made Me A Mensch: The Dictators Reach Maturity

The Introduction

WHEN THE Dictators proudly declared themselves the "next big thing" on their rock ‘n’ roll-icking debut album Go Girl Crazy!, they were not, as almost everyone suspected, kidding. No one quite realized Andy Shernoff’s hymns to teenage fun were, in fact, the thinly-disguised plaints of a sharply satirical and critical mind. Certainly not Dave Marsh, who wrote in Rolling Stone that the only ones really crazy were Epic for actually singing the Dics. Typical of the confusion surrounding the Dictators was the disputed role of the handsomest man in rock ‘n’ roll — what exactly did the Dictators secret weapon a.k.a. Dick Manitoba, really do? Were the ‘Tators joking or were those aching Beach Boy-like harmonies on 'Cars and Girls' for real?