Dogs D'Amour - A Graveyard Of Empty Bottles

Having recently obtained a turntable (my last one came to a sticky end around five years ago) I have been trying, as cheaply as possible, to rebuild my once-extensive vinyl collection. It could be argued that maybe I shouldn’t have sold on as much as I have over the years, but if nothing else at least I’m in a position to only buy those records I feel I’ve missed and so can be selective in what I replace.

Recent deliveries have included Singles Going Steady by the Buzzcocks, the Quadrophenia soundtrack (I actually lent that to someone’s now-ex but never got it back) and yesterday, A Graveyard Of Empty Bottles. 10" vinyl edition of course.

Criminally all the ‘classic’ era Dogs D’Amour albums remain out of print (be careful with 'Dynamite Jet Saloon' as that's been re-recorded - more on that another time), and their CD versions can command silly money. Vinyl editions though, with a little patience and a degree of luck, can still be picked up at decent prices. Although not quite the ‘acoustic’ album it claims to be, it includes the definitive version of ‘Errol Flynn’ (ignore its later appearance as a title track) and was arguably their last essential release.

Previous posts:
Dogs D’Amour – Bristol Bierkeller 13/03/89
Dogs D'Amour - The State I'm In
Punk Knits

Shooting Gallery

It’s 1992. Andy McCoy has just plundered the Kill City Dragons and put together a new band featuring their vocalist Billy G Bang and bassist Dave Tregunna (also noteworthy of course for his stints in Sham 69 and the Lords Of The New Church, as well as the pre-Lords outfit The Wanderers, his previous work with McCoy in the Cherrybombz and his contributions on the Dogs D’Amour’s ‘Unauthorised Bootleg Album’), along with Psychedelic Furs’ drummer Paul Garisto. For their live line-up the band, christened Shooting Gallery, will add Jo ‘Dog’ Almeida.

Gotta be good, surely?

To be fair the resulting album started off okay with ‘Restless’ and ‘Teenage Breakdown’ before hitting a wall with ‘Don’t Never Leave Me’ and ‘House of Ecstasy’. Sound familiar? Yes it’s that ‘Don’t Never Leave Me’, of which at least six recordings by Hanoi Rocks exist, the definitive one surely being the version on ‘All Those Wasted Years, and that ‘House of Ecstasy’ by the Cherrybombz. A glance further down the track listing and you get ‘Devil Calling’, hardly a classic but nevertheless recorded twice by the Kill City Dragons and, having been co-written by Nasty Suicide, also formed part of Cheap and Nasty’s set and made an appearance as a live b-side).

Housed between these needless trips down memory lane are three of the album’s weakest tracks, plus a decent enough cover of Van Morrison’s ‘Brown Eyed Girl’ (nb: I was not familiar with the original when I first heard this album and would probably have been far less accepting of the Shooting Gallery version if I had). Surprisingly the album finishes on a bit of a high with ‘Leave Me Alone’ and ‘Dandelion’, but the general laziness that went into the album left me with a pretty foul taste in my mouth (and I never wore lipstick so it wasn’t that).

What I will see in its defence is that it’s a damn sight better than the Michael Monroe / Steve Stevens collaboration, Jerusalem Slim....

Dogs D'Amour - The State I'm In

Apparently it's Dogs D'Amour week. Not sure why, but later on I will be meeting some friends up in Hoxton Square, who were planning a Dogs D'Amour 'tour' of London sites, i.e. Kensington, Powis Square and up in Highgate (you all know where).

Instead I anticipate rounding off the evening pondering the state I'm in, particularly as I'm hoping to find somewhere between work and Hoxton that sells that delightful beverage, Thunderbird. A regular tipple between 1989-1993 (along with Clan Dew and 20/20), I haven't touched a drop since approximately 1996 and am fairly certain that my older taste buds will be appalled ...





Previous posts:

Dogs D’Amour – Bristol Bierkeller 13/03/89