45 RPM

One of the first things I did when I moved to Phoenix was leave. I was friendless here and so booked a ticket out to see my partner-in-musical-crime, the always-sartorially-splendid Robert. Having come of age near Manchester in the 70s and 80s, Robert has at least one story of getting the crap kicked out of himself at the Hacienda (if I recall, it had something to do with his pants), making me green with envy. When he learned that Glen Matlock would tour with Mike Peters (The Alarm), Slim Jim Phantom (Stray Cats), Kirk Brandon (Spear of Destiny), and Billy Duffy (The Cult) as Dead Men Walking, he knew who would want to see a Sex Pistol badly enough to get on a plane to LA. Coupled with rumoured UK guest appearances by Mick Jones (The Clash) and Bruce Watson (Big Country), I had been singing God Save the Queen under my breath for a week when I learned that Matlock would be replaced by Captain Sensible (The Damned). I was crushed.

Crushed, until it took Captain (who loves the Bee-Gees) 15 seconds to charm me and the rest of the thin crowd. The show was at an ill-fitting venue (the House of Blues) in a surreal location ("Downtown Disney") where the bouncers do everything but a retinal scan before granting you access. (Captain would rag on the venue during the course of the night, and DMW played CBGBs to a packed house two nights later.) A bit of a buzz developed when Brian Setzer materialized in the audience, but disappointingly, I never saw Steve Jones (Pistols) who was also there and due to take the stage for the encore, until he apparently got lost in the building.

DMW is very much a Mike Peters project. 45 RPM, about a kid discovering punk and probably the edgiest song the Alarm ever recorded, was for me a highlight of the show (it has also become the anthem for a musical ruse soon to be the subject of a major motion picture; in the film, the song and ensuing events are inspired by the death of Joe Strummer). Still, the night was about four guys sharing the stage and the vocals on some of the great punk/punk-influenced songs they produced...Neat Neat Neat, Never Take Me Alive, Do You Believe in the Westworld, Rumble in Brighton, Smash It Up, Pretty Vacant... It had been a long time since I had seen a band having such a blast on stage. Regardless of how one feels about any of their individual material (I only ever owned one Alarm record), I would get out to see them at any opportunity. There are some great Jonesville Station interviews about the DMW project archived on wfmu.com (a NJ station named the best in the country by Rolling Stone and the Village Voice).

I read the sad news today that Mike Peters' cancer has resurfaced, in a different form.