Dictators – "Two Tub Man" (1975)

They all know that I’m the one

Not to let your son become

Sirius/XM has hundreds of channels, but the only two that I listen to regularly are CNBC and “Little Steven’s Underground Garage.”

“Little Steven” Van Zandt – a longtime member of Bruce Springsteen’s band who later became a regular on The Sopranos – has described the “Underground Garage” playlist as featuring mostly “the bands that influenced the Ramones, the bands that were influenced by the Ramones, and the Ramones.”

One of the bands that clearly influenced the Ramones was the Dictators, whose “Two Tub Man” – today’s featured song – I heard on “Underground Garage” earlier tonight.

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In 2016, “Handsome Dick” Manitoba of the Dictators said in an interview that the two bands influenced each other, but it seems to me that the Dictators – whose first album, Go Girl Crazy!, was released a year before the Ramones’ eponymous debut LP – were the influencers and the Ramones the influencees. 

From a 2001 appreciation of the Dictators in the Village Voice:

It’s been over a quarter-century since the band started delivering swift kicks to the groin of overproduced cock rock. . . . Go Girl Crazy! established a blueprint for bad taste, humor, and defiance that would be emulated by the Ramones and live on in acts like the Beastie Boys and Kid Rock. 

Michael Little of the Vinyl District website made the same point but much more emphatically in a 2014 review of Go Girl Crazy!:

[Y]ou can draw a direct line between [Go Girl Crazy!] to the Ramones and straight to the Beastie Boys. . . . If the Ramones (who later did a version of “California Sun” off Go Girl Crazy!) and the Beastie Boys didn’t cop their entire shtick from the Dictators’ debut [album], I’m Michael Bolton, mulleted version.

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Speaking of “California Sun,” click here to listen to the Dictators’ cover of that classic paean to California babes – it could not be more perfect.  

It pones both Ramones’ versions of the song – the one of the 1977 Leave Home album, and the much faster version that was used in the 1979 movie, Rock ’n’ Roll High School.

No one in the world loves Rock ’n’ Roll High School more than I do, but I think it would have been even better if it had featured the Dictators instead of the Ramones.

Unfortunately, the Dictators – frustrated by their three albums’ utter lack of commercial success – had broken up before that movie was filmed.

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Click here to listen to “Two Tub Man.”  In case you didn’t grow up watching “Wrestling from Chicago” when you were a kid – a 1950’s-era syndicated TV show hosted by Russ Davis that featured professional wrestling from Chicago’s International Amphitheatre – you may be confused by Handsome Dick Manitoba’s spoken introduction to the song, which name checks “golden age” wrestlers like Verne Gagne and Dick the Bruiser.

Verne Gagne

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Rolling Stones – "It's All Over Now" (1964)

Tables turning now

Her turn to cry

The first thing the Rolling Stones did on their first visit to America in 1964 was to drop in on legendary DJ Murray the K’s “Swinging Soiree” radio show.

Murray the K played a new record titled “It’s All Over Now” for the Stones, and they loved it.  “It’s All Over Now” had been recorded by the Valentinos, whose members included Bobby Womack (who had co-written the song with his sister-in-law Shirley) and his four brothers. 

Murray the K with the Stones

Only nine days later, the Stones recorded “It’s All Over Now” at Chess Records in Chicago.  (Oddly, the Stones didn’t play in Chicago on this tour.  They played in Minneapolis-St. Paul and Detroit, but instead of stopping in Chicago between those two performances, they stopped in . . . Omaha?)

Their record company wasted no time releasing “It’s All Over Now” in the UK as a single.  The record entered the British pop charts on July 2 and became their first #1 hit only two weeks later.

That’s just short of seven weeks from the Stones hearing the Valentinos’ recording of “It’s All Over Now” for the first time to their cover of the song hitting #1.  (Record companies didn’t f*ck around in those days.)

Bobby Womack

Bobby Womack later said in an interview that he had told Sam Cooke – the famous soul singer who had released the Valentinos’ version of “It’s All Over Now” on his record label – that he didn’t want the Rolling Stones to record it.  Cooke persuaded him to let the Stones cover the song, which proved to be a wise move.  After receiving his first royalty check for “It’s All Over Now,” Womack told Cooke that Mick Jagger could have any of his songs that he wanted.

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I’ve been a Rolling Stones fan since I was 12 years old, but I never knew how they came to record “It’s All Over Now” until I heard the story that’s recounted above a couple of weeks ago on Steven Van Zandt’s “Little Steven’s Underground Garage” radio show.

I’ve been listening to “Little Steven’s Underground Garage” off and on for almost 20 years.  The show started out as a two-hour syndicated radio show, which usually aired on Sunday evenings on FM stations throughout the United States, but eventually got a channel of its own on Sirius XM radio – which is where I listen to it these days.

“Little Steven’s Underground Garage” focuses on sixties rock ’n’ roll bands – the various “Underground Garage” DJs mix records by well-known groups like the Beatles and the Stones with music from more obscure one-hit wonders and garage bands.  (Van Zandt has described his playlist as featuring “the bands that influenced the Ramones, the bands that were influenced by the Ramones, and the Ramones.”)  

Van Zandt – a long-time member of Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band who for some reason was given a prominent role on The Sopranos – launched his own record label, Wicked Cool Records, in 2004.  The worst thing about “Underground Garage” is that it features a lot of Wicked Cool releases, which are rarely very good.

But I’ve discovered a lot of great sixties records by listening to “Underground Garage,” and I’ve learned a lot about the history of those records and the artists who recorded them from Van Zandt.  Either his knowledge of rock ’n’ roll history is encyclopedic, or he employs some very good researchers.  (I’m guessing it’s the latter.)

“Underground Garage” isn’t as good as Steven Lorber’s late, lamented “Mystic Eyes” radio show was, of course.  (That goes without saying.)  But it’s not bad.

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Click here to listen to the Rolling Stones’ cover of “It’s All Over Now.”  (To paraphrase what Voltaire said about God, if Mick Jagger didn’t exist, it would be necessary to invent him.) 

Click on the link below to buy the song from Amazon: