Forgotten Songs of the '70s: Dickies
Forgotten Songs of the ‘70s: Dickies
The Dickies were one of the most unique and poppy punk bands of the initial seventies outbreak. Coming out from southern California, they made a name for themselves for their unique take on cartoon theme songs and pop classics. Their hits range from covers of “Paranoid” and “Nights in White Satin” to the theme of “Gigantor” and the song they should be remembered for “Banana Splits (Tra La La Song).”
Doing the sixties kiddie classic at warp speed, the band immediately set off on a mess of fun by upping the ante by having great harmony vocals from the whole band and tight concise drumming, courtesy of Karlos Kabarello (R.I.P.) But the real star of the show is frontman Leonard Graves Phillips, whose high, nasally pitch became the band’s trademark and the song’s original vocals give him a chance to shine here and he does wonderfully. All of these things helped to make the band household names in England where this song went top ten on the singles chart, an unheard of occurrence for an emerging American punk band.
Sadly as punk got bigger and went darker, the Dickies got left behind. After keyboardist Chuck Wagon’s tragic suicide in 1981, the band went underground for the rest of the decade, periodically reemerging for small projects. They were that popular again but thirty years later, they’re still touring with Leonard and guitarist Stan Lee the backbone of the lineup. They still pull out “Banana Splits (Tra La La Song)” and Leonard’s voice still sounds the same. That’s one of the miracles of punk is that voices rarely change and it gives new generations a chance to hear what good pop-punk really sounds like.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flMS2gHFOH0
The Dickies were one of the most unique and poppy punk bands of the initial seventies outbreak. Coming out from southern California, they made a name for themselves for their unique take on cartoon theme songs and pop classics. Their hits range from covers of “Paranoid” and “Nights in White Satin” to the theme of “Gigantor” and the song they should be remembered for “Banana Splits (Tra La La Song).”
Doing the sixties kiddie classic at warp speed, the band immediately set off on a mess of fun by upping the ante by having great harmony vocals from the whole band and tight concise drumming, courtesy of Karlos Kabarello (R.I.P.) But the real star of the show is frontman Leonard Graves Phillips, whose high, nasally pitch became the band’s trademark and the song’s original vocals give him a chance to shine here and he does wonderfully. All of these things helped to make the band household names in England where this song went top ten on the singles chart, an unheard of occurrence for an emerging American punk band.
Sadly as punk got bigger and went darker, the Dickies got left behind. After keyboardist Chuck Wagon’s tragic suicide in 1981, the band went underground for the rest of the decade, periodically reemerging for small projects. They were that popular again but thirty years later, they’re still touring with Leonard and guitarist Stan Lee the backbone of the lineup. They still pull out “Banana Splits (Tra La La Song)” and Leonard’s voice still sounds the same. That’s one of the miracles of punk is that voices rarely change and it gives new generations a chance to hear what good pop-punk really sounds like.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flMS2gHFOH0
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