#eric davidson

It’s easy to forget that, by their initial demise circa 1980, the Dead Boys were considered a kind of dark summation of the original American punk rock explosion. A blistering live act no doubt, they were “the Stooges played fast;” glam rock sans glitter; even proto-power pop given the best hooks of the second album. One of the ultimate flameouts in rock’n’roll history, their punk status was cemented just under the ubiquitous Lower East Side canon. And heaven forbid, they were from Cleveland.

But as the years roll on, the layers of their status have shifted and deepened. Being from Cleveland – actually forming out of bands who pre-dated the CBGB scene (Rocket from the Tombs, Frankenstein) – makes them punk originators, not just the out-of-towners they were sometimes painted as when they moved to the Big Apple in 1977. Their debut album, Young Loud and Snotty, remains perhaps the most consistently invigorating American punk album of that era. Singer Stiv Bators’ too-soon death, guitarist Cheetah Chrome’s long journey to find himself, it all inadvertently lent gravity to the band’s more immediate and welcome sense of humor that put them in stark contrast to the sometimes pretentious CBGB scene.

And in the last few years, Chrome has been busy as hell, making new records, playing Dead Boys songs again with various friends, and doing occasional solo acoustic sets that can be genuinely tear-quelling in their intimacy and memory-dredging.

If you haven’t checked out Chrome’s 2009 biography, A Dead Boys Tale: From the Front Lines of Punk Rock, you should! It not only gives a flailing firsthand account from one of punk’s template tossers, it articulates to outsiders that Cleveland was the equal to NYC as THE post-industrial blank canvas for young, drunk, and broke punks to come up with their own thing. Further, you will find no trust fund kids in his story, no relocated Connecticutians sliding into ripped jeans and hoping nobody finds out their dad is a Wall Street lawyer. As “punk” has incrementally defined its soul as a working-class genre, the Dead Boys story becomes more and more foundationally iconic.

And now this beautifully bleak collection of photos and quick quotes, Dead Boys 1977: The Lost Photographs of Dave Treat. It’s a perfect companion to the first few chapters of Cheetah’s bio. Half are gloriously raw shots of the band awkwardly striking poses around the desolate streets of downtown Cleveland as a newly minted, four-piece Dead Boys. The second half is color photos from two 1977 Cleveland shows. Then the book closes with achingly alone solo shots of Stiv, also shot during one afternoon (Treat lived in the same building where Stiv and Chrome roomied.) Stiv had an uncanny visage that could be simultaneously madcap and melancholy. For a guy who would whip it out anywhere on command and who spent the majority of his adult work life yelling loudly on stage, he remains a mystery man in many ways. And you see that mystery in his eyes and bent body through these pix.

As you arrive at the end of this book, you feel as if you just spent a day and night with the Dead Boys. Your inclination on closing it is to swig back the last backwash, throw the bottle down, and say “See ya later” to the guys, walk out onto Detroit Ave., and never look back, just like they did.

The photos herein were meant as a no budget attempt at “promotional rock photos,” but the band soon added a fifth member and moved to NYC, so these photos have been sitting in a box since then. Save for one small gallery show where a few of them were displayed, this is the first time they appear.

I asked Treat about the book and more.

The Dead Boys pose for Dave Treat on Huron Avenue in Cleveland, 1977, a time when the central city was so desolate you could do this in the middle of the day and hardly see another soul. L-R Johnny Blitz, Cheetah Chrome, Stiv Bators, Jimmy Zero. Photo credit: Dave Treat

Did you grow up in the Cleveland area?

Yes, on West 41 St., off of Clark Avenue.

So when and what were the initial inspiration to drag these pix out and do something with them?

Actually, I didn’t know I still had them. I was cleaning out some boxes and there they were. That was three years ago. I went to Blue Arrow Records and started talking to Pete the owner, and he liked the pics. He had Brittany Hudak look at them and she wanted to do a gallery show at Gallery 61-- owned by Byron Miller, who also printed them for me -- with a 25th Anniversary Show honoring the loss of Stiv Bators. That is how it all started. Clem Burke of Blondie came to the  Cleveland Stiv show on Waterloo and gave us a number and recommendation to Lethal Amounts in LA. The gallery show was first, with Cheetah playing to a sold-out crowd after at the Monty Bar.

How did you first meet up with Cheetah and Stiv?

I moved to an apartment on Giel Avenue in Lakewood. About three months later, Stiv moved into the building. We met and became friends. Cheetah was always there. One note: Stiv and Cheetah wrote some of the songs for Young Loud and Snotty in their bathroom. Cheetah on the toilet and Stiv in the tub.

The pic with the band next to the dumpster – what was the impetus behind purposely shooting in garbage? Were any of the members like, “Can we take nice shots somewhere, like maybe at Swingos?” I know Cheetah mentions the first Ramones album cover as inspiration.

No nice pics, it was decided to go downtown and find the place we shot the photos. Cheetah liked the Ramones album cover. Collectively, we wanted the urban decay, the garbage and the dilapidated buildings. We didn’t want them lined up against a wall, but something unique to them.

So how present were the Ramones and the notion of this new "punk" music in your life personally? 

For me, the intro into punk was through the Dead Boys. Meeting and seeing their passion for this new sound was amazing. It pulled you in. Finally, something new in Cleveland.

What were the live music clubs you'd go to, and were there local bands you could stand? I know Cheetah's told me how it was mostly lame blues or ‘60s cover bands, if any live music at all...

Pirate’s Cove, Agora, Jicky’s After Dark, Piccadilly’s.

 Pere Ubu, The Pagans, Styrenes.

     (A history-smushing aside: The Pirate’s Cove turned into Peabody’s, which I frequented in my youth (Replacements, Pixies, Godfathers, Death of Samantha, Rocket from the Crypt, among many), and only died a few years ago; and the Agora is still there, operating on/off.)

Can you just give me a random crazy Stiv story, and maybe one that is not expected from the "wild man" he's known as?

Came home from classes, started knocking on the door, looked in the hall and Stiv was having sex with someone. He looked up, waved, smiled and put up his index finger to say just a minute. I laughed and went upstairs.

Dropped at the door of Drome Records, 1977.

Was Stiv a late night, drunkly opening up with his feelings kinda guy?

No, not at all. He was always upbeat. He liked having a good time, pulling a good prank…never melancholy.

Dead Boys singer Stiv Bators poses for Dave Treat at the Cleveland Agora with their friend and neighbor “Barb the Fat Bitch” (a joking nickname for someone who, according to Cheetah Chrome, was in fact neither fat nor a bitch). Photo credit: Dave Treat

I grew up in Cleveland - Parma Hts., to be exact -- and the whole Catholic thing about Cleveland is one of the simmering things inside the Dead Boys that I always loved, and makes them so "Cleveland," no matter their fame gained in the Big Apple. But did religion actually come up much? Or any stories of desecrating churches or anything?

Religion never came up. Nothing too outrageous. Stiv putting his finger on his throat and barfing on a Denny’s window while people were eating. Cheetah pissing out the window or back porch. Cheetah mooning two ladies walking on Giel Avenue. Not too crazy yet.

I think, while the NYC scene was peppered with slumming rich kids, reading Cheetah's book and looking through your's, you definitely get the sense there was none of that in Cleveland, that the Dead Boys and the few people in the actual "scene" were not exactly getting their rent paid for.

No rich kids here. Went to classes in the a.m. and worked in the evenings. Paid for everything myself.

That "ruin porn" early-70s punk era is always mythologized, but as Cheetah has pointed out, it wasn't some huge scene. At underground or new rock kind of shows, there might be 15 people in the crowd. Do you agree, and any stories of hanging out at shows with Cheetah and Stiv, with 10 other people or what have you?

Cleveland at that point was in a free fall. Our mayor had the city’s garbage men deliver a porn poll. We were called the Mistake on the Lake. The city would go into default. There were no jobs. My roommate, after I moved, and another student at Cooper actually organized the First Annual Cleveland Smoke-In. Attached is a copy of the flyer.  In short, good or bad, you got by.

In the book, the mentions of how dead it was downtown, Cheetah saying you could just stop in the middle of Euclid Ave. and take pictures -- do you have memories of just exploring downtown Cleveland then? And did you have a feeling that this really was the end of a city, an end of an era, or did you think Cleveland could "come back?" Would you want it to "come back?"

As far as downtown, it was dead. The malls opened in the ‘burbs and people didn’t need to go downtown. I shot the guys in the middle of Huron. We were there 10-15 minutes. No cars or people. Can’t do that now.

What did you think when the band decided to move to NYC?

They had to, there wasn’t a market in Cleveland. When they first went to CBGB’s, there was no turning back. They found where they needed to be, and I am glad they did.

How did you hear about Stiv dying, and when was the last time you'd heard from him?

I heard there was a benefit for Stiv and Babylon-A-Go-Go, 6/29/90. I went there and saw people I knew. They told me what happened. *

Where do you live today; what are you doing for a living; and what do you think of the more bustling downtown Cleveland of today?

I currently live in Solon, Ohio. I am a currently consulting in residential construction. It’s about damn time. Actually the renaissance of downtown and the Flats has been doing incredibly well. I’m proud to say I’m a Clevelander.

* -- I too was at that memorial:

http://weneverlearn.tumblr.com/post/520928279/this-is-the-funeral-card-from-stiv-bators 

These are the amazing VHS tributes that were shown at Stiv’s memorial:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FreVBEt_8BQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfIZwblztxQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOUIZIQghFY

Dead Boys guitarist Cheetah Chrome moons Dave Treat’s camera in one of downtown Cleveland’s MANY empty buildings in 1977. L-R: Stiv Bators, Cheetah Chrome, Jimmy Zero, Johnny Blitz. Photo credit: Dave Treat