BROOKLYN DOGS - 1988 Demo Tape

What’s in a name? Brooklyn Dogs, well they came from Birmingham for a start, and I first came across them when they followed The Quire Boys around on tour in a beat up old Ford something car. Nice blokes from what I remember. They supported the Quire Boys on a couple of occasions, a memorable time being one night in Wolverhampton, when a rather drunk Tyla from The Dogs D’Amour joined them on stage. He was giving it some; with a Jesus Christ/James Dean pose; mic stand behind his back arms wrapped around the stand crucifixion stylee, then he fell over and couldn’t get back up, all the while the Brooklyn Dogs trashed out their Heartbreakers, New York Dolls licks, leaving Tyla thrashing about on the floor, classic. Or maybe you had to be there. Anyway here’s their two track demo from 1988, a no nonsense glam punk rock racket. There should have been a live set from The Marquee, but somehow it has mysteriously disappeared from my tape, if it was ever there, but I’m sure it was, I digresss, no I don’t got nuffin much left to say, mmm!……..I wonder what ever happened to those Birmingham Cats?

THE DOGS D'AMOUR - The State We're In

Right then, for all you rock’n’rollers out there, it’s The Dogs D’Amour’s debut album; The State We're In. Only released in Finland at the beginning of 1984, and featuring a certain Dave Kusworth on guitar. (No this blog isn’t turning into a DK appreciation site!) Vinyl copies are very collectable, this download is taken from a tape I recorded from a vinyl copy many, many, many moons ago, hence the dodgy homemade cover and reduced sound quality, but it’s still very, very listenable and a great long lost relic, so if you dig the dogs, it’s just a click away.

THE DOGS D'AMOUR - The BBC Broadcasts 88/89

This post may well send some of you running to the hills, or running down from the hills, but hey whatever…it’s all rock’n’roll, and you don’t get much more rock’n’roll than this bunch of debauched bar room boozers, slightly less like Glam than Hanoi Rocks and less Stones/ Faces than The Quireboys, (should really do a post on ‘em, after all I did spend a year and a bit roadieing for ‘em) any way back to those Luv Dogs, they had a bit of a Iggy Pop punk edge to ‘em as well plus a greater lyrical depth to ‘em, and then there was lead singer Tylas artwork that adorned their record covers and flyers. Saw ‘em loads of times in London around 1986 -88 at places like 100 Club, Marquee, Fulham Greyhound, Ad-Lib, but not where these BBC Radio One recordings were from, both large seated venues Hammersmith Odeon and Dominion Theatre, not my idea of rock’n’roll, but getting yerself banned from LBC Radio for saying that you wanted to fuck Princess Diana and beat up Jason Donovan, now yer talking, which is what happened to Tyla in Aug 1989. The only man who grew up in Wolverhampton and talked like an American. By 1989 their singles hit the charts and they’d appeared on Top Of The Pops, in 2008 they are a great lost British rock band. Moving on all that’s left to say is that if yer like Thunders/Lords Of The New Church/Only Ones along with previously mentioned bands you may fancy getting year ears round this, and if you wanna know the set lists they played, you’ll have to read this, cos for some unknown reason I forgot to put it in the download folder, prat! One final thing for trivia fans, former band member Steve James now roadies and makes guitars for The Levellers. Right, that’s yer lot and something a little different for the week end. Enjoy or Destroy! And see ya next post.