Note: This is one of a series of posts in The DFFD Blog Goes Girl Crazy! special — a monthlong commemoration of the 35th anniversary of the release of ‘The Dictators Go Girl Crazy!’
DATELINE – 1975 LOCATION – THE SOUTHWEST SIDE OF CHICAGO
The thrill was gone. The fun was dwindling. Awful, boring music by Pink Floyd, The Dead & The Eagles was oozing out of every radio. Led Zep was the biggest band in the world, inexplicably more popular than The Who. The Stones were still up there, too. Most of my favorite bands were either on the way to oblivion, or were already there. The Coop had just replaced his band with dancing toothbrushes. The mighty Sabbath was sputtering. Blackmore had ditched The Purps. Jimi was still dead.
Acts like Blue Oyster Cult, Aerosmith, Queen, Thin Lizzy, The Nuge & Kiss had steadily built large followings, all would break into the rock & roll stratosphere in the next couple of years. AC/DC was unknown. We upper midwest record store geeks had just found our great white hope, a band from up Rockford called Cheap Trick, who were blowing our earflaps off in the bars and clubs around Chicago. Man, they were the most exciting live band this side of J. Geils! The Trick brought back some of the thrills, fun, and power we’d been pining for, but it’d be almost two years before they got an album out.
It would be another year before the two headed dog of punk and disco would begin to howl at each other.