{"id":34885,"date":"2012-11-06T16:38:56","date_gmt":"2012-11-06T21:38:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/?p=34885"},"modified":"2022-06-02T18:30:03","modified_gmt":"2022-06-03T01:30:03","slug":"handsome-dick-manitoba","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/handsome-dick-manitoba\/","title":{"rendered":"HANDSOME DICK MANITOBA"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

HANDSOME DICK MANITOBA<\/strong>
INTERVIEW by STEVE OLSON<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dick Manitoba is Handsome. Hard work and love is the answer. Following one\u2019s faith, or whatever it’s called, is the common thread. You do what it is that has to be done. Handsome Dick is just that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hey, Dick Manitoba. Steve Olson.<\/strong>
How are you, boss?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m doing okay. I saw you at the Cat Club when I was a younger. I wasn\u2019t at CBGB\u2019s, but I\u2019m passionately curious about all of it and about you. Are you originally from New York?<\/strong>
Yes, I grew up in the Bronx. I\u2019m New York born and raised.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How did you ever get into rock n\u2019 roll?<\/strong>
I grew up in the \u201860s, an amazing, amazing era of rock n\u2019 roll. I was ten years old when the Beatles hit, so that pretty much laid the groundwork for the rest of my cultural life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What was it about The Beatles that grabbed you?<\/strong>
It was all encompassing. If I had grown up in the \u201850s, it would have been Elvis. When you\u2019re a ten-year-old, you\u2019re pretty impressed by the culture around you. For me, it was the Beatles, the Stones and the British Invasion. Everything with a British accent was magical. To this day, I look back and think, \u201cMy God, it wasn\u2019t just the band and being ten years old. It was the Beatles.\u201d [Laughs] It all really makes sense now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So the Beatles had this crazy impact and there was so much shit going on in the \u201860s. You had the doo-wop thing and the British invasion. Did you like The Beatles in leather, like in Hamburg?<\/strong>
I didn\u2019t know of the Beatles then. That was \u201862. It was \u201864 when I first heard the Beatles. The Beatles on Ed Sullivan was what we like to call the Big Bang. That was the beginning of the universe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI FEED OFF YOUR ENERGY. I WILL GIVE YOU 100%, BUT IF I GET NOTHING BACK, I\u2019M NOT JUST THIS AUTOMATED THING THAT YOU TURN ON. I HAVE TO GET SOMETHING BACK TO INSPIRE ME. IF I DON\u2019T INSPIRE YOU AND YOU DON\u2019T INSPIRE ME, THEN IT\u2019S NOT HAPPENING.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Did you immediately realize that you dug rock n\u2019 roll?<\/strong>
Yeah. The Rolling Stones had a very similar effect on me. With the British Invasion, I learned about who they listened to, like Muddy Waters, Buddy Holly and Howlin\u2019 Wolf. I was like, \u201cWhat do these blues guys sound like?\u201d One led to the other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When did you realize that you wanted to be in a band?<\/strong>
Well, I always thought it was the coolest thing in the world to be in a band, but I never thought like, \u201cWow, I can be in a rock n\u2019 roll band.\u201d At first, you just love it, talk about it and immerse yourself in the culture. It wasn\u2019t until my friends started a band, that I thought about it and I wound up becoming a roadie. I wasn\u2019t really a very good roadie, so I used to get drunk a lot. One night, I got up on stage and sang \u201cWild Thing.\u201d Every time I got up on stage and did a song, people would go more crazy then they did at anytime during the Dictators concert, so I wound up being thrust into the lead singer role, even though I never aspired to be a singer. It was just one of those natural evolutions in life that happens because it\u2019s supposed to happen. It just so happens, people responded to me with a microphone in my hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why do you think that was?<\/strong>
It\u2019s because I have a lot of charisma. [Laughs] I have something in my personality. I don\u2019t know how to describe it. I\u2019ve been like that since I was a little kid. When I get in front of a crowd, I light up and people respond to that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It just turns you on.<\/strong>
It\u2019s magical to me and people respond to it, so I sort of developed and honed my craft. I\u2019ve used rock n\u2019 roll as a vehicle. J.P. Patterson, the drummer, and I have been working on doing some spoken word. To me, it\u2019s just a Manitoba rant. It\u2019s just me blabbing about a story and him playing percussion in the back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What do you rant about?<\/strong>
I\u2019ll write a little short story and rant about that. The first one we did was called \u201cShiksa Goddess.\u201d It was about my great lust and desire to always have a Shiksa goddess in my life. You know, it\u2019s the unattainable blonde, blue-eyed beauty that us Jewish guys aren\u2019t supposed to be able to get and then I got one and it was horrible. It was the worst relationship ever. There\u2019s also a story about a woman I lived with and took a lot of drugs with who is in a very famous punk rock picture. I found out she is in jail for murder for the rest of her life, so that\u2019s going to be my next story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do you get the same kind of feedback with the people and the charisma with the ranting?<\/strong>
It\u2019s a work in progress. I\u2019m too long-winded right now. It\u2019s a skill, so I have to hone it down. I was told to do seven minutes and I wound up doing 20 minutes. [Laughs] Most people would be terrified of the time, but I was just going on and on. People were giving me the hook, like \u201cOkay, get off stage!\u201d I definitely have a talent. I just have to learn how to work it. It\u2019s like the first time I got up on radio, I wasn\u2019t so great, but I\u2019ve learned how to hone my radio skills. Now I\u2019m going to work on learning the skill of telling a story in a succinct manner without going on too long.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You\u2019re honing your craft.<\/strong>
I\u2019m honing it. All those kind of crafts take work. I\u2019ve got the basics. I have the gift of gab. I have the ideas. It\u2019s a matter of honing it. There\u2019s a sweet spot. It takes time. I\u2019m not in a rush.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How was it to grow up in the beginning of the movement of new rock n\u2019 roll that was punk rock?<\/strong>
We didn\u2019t really have the self-consciousness of being involved in the punk scene. We were just a bunch of 20-year-olds looking to get high and get laid and have some fun making rock n\u2019 roll. We knew we were part of something cool, but we were just having fun. Years later, it\u2019s like, \u201cOkay, there was Haight-Ashbury and the psychedelic scene. There were all of these different scenes and we were one of these subsets of rock n\u2019 roll.\u201d I\u2019m able to look back at the history books and say, \u201cOh shit! I was a part of a cool scene.\u201d At the time, we knew something special was happening, but we didn\u2019t have the self-consciousness to figure it out. When we were going through it, we were just living it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You were getting chicks and having a great time, yeah?<\/strong>
It was a lot of fun! [Laughs] There was no AIDS yet. Everybody was doing heroin and making rock n\u2019 roll and traveling around the world. You could fuck and not die. As I always say, the ascent was astronomical fun and the descent was crash and burn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How was it going from being this little band to becoming the Dictators?<\/strong>
Well, we never were a big band. The Dictators were there at the beginning and we\u2019re still here. We\u2019ve lived through this whole thing, but we never sold a million records or a million dollars worth of t-shirts. We were just a band that was there. I hear we were pretty influential to a lot of people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s what I\u2019m getting at. I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s always about selling a million records or traveling and getting paid millions of bucks. From my perspective, you laid down some groundwork and that\u2019s way more important than all that monetary shit. Do you know what I mean?<\/strong>
I\u2019m happy to have been a part of something that was so cool. I tell you this honestly and from my heart. Kids come up to me now, and thank me. They love the music. They thank me for my radio show. They thank me for what I have done, and I always say to them, \u201cYou don\u2019t realize how much that means to me for you to take the time to tell me you appreciate the work I do. That\u2019s what I do in life. I entertain people, and for you to stop and tell me that you enjoyed it, it\u2019s great. That\u2019s a great compliment.\u201d I\u2019m really grateful for that type of applause or notoriety.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a beautiful thing. How did you ever come across doing the Beach Boys style?<\/strong>
Well, I don\u2019t think people have to be one thing, just because they grow up in a housing project in the Bronx. I think music goes in through the ears and travels through the mind and wherever it takes you, it takes you. You can listen to beats from Africa and have strong feelings. You can listen to beats from the Caribbean and have strong feelings. If anything, it makes total sense to me as an escape. As a kid who grew up in the housing projects in the Bronx, I closed my eyes and listened to Brian Wilson and I was in Huntington Beach on the pier. I\u2019m like, \u201cWow.\u201d I love bluegrass music, but I couldn\u2019t be further from a guy in the Appalachian Mountains. My point is that music is for the ears and the brain and the imagination. Music always got to me, so I wasn\u2019t locked into just urban street music. I love urban music, beach music, country music and soul music, but I always had a thing for the Beach Boys and surf music. I really liked Dick Dale\u2019s surf music too. It was more hardcore surf music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What was it like doing the CBGB\u2019s thing when that whole movement was going down?<\/strong>
It was so much fun. It was the \u201870s in New York, so it was a different city. We\u2019d go out seven nights a week and there were after-hours clubs open until noon. Everybody was fucked up and out all day and all night. We had our own rock n\u2019 roll reverse lifestyle. There was a lot of self-destruction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Did you guys ever get to tour Europe?<\/strong>
We toured Western Europe and England with the Stranglers when punk rock was exploding in the fall of \u201877. We toured around the States a lot and played with a lot of big bands. We played a lot of smaller headline shows and clubs all over the country. I\u2019ve driven the 48 States many times. Since then, I\u2019ve been to Europe a dozen times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How did they appreciate the Dictators coming in with the Stranglers?<\/strong>
[Laughs] I don\u2019t remember how we were taken at the time. I guess it was good. I remember playing a bunch of shows. I think we went over fairly well. We weren\u2019t booed off the stage. There were nights we would play these horrible shows in the states with Frank Marino & Mahogany Rush and we would be booed. It was these horrible pairings that we had, but we did pretty well in Europe. We\u2019d go to Spain, Scandinavia and Italy and people loved us. People wanted us to come back. Now we do better there than ever. The irony. [Laughs]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Exactly. What was the timeline of the Dictators?<\/strong>
We really were only a band from \u201874 through \u201878. We did three major albums and then broke up. In the early \u201880s, we put out a Roir album called Fuck \u2018Em If They Can\u2019t Take a Joke. We played reunion shows once or twice a year for a few years and then it seemed like the history books started being written and there was more of a yearning to see us play. Starting in the mid-\u201990s we started playing regularly again. We would do a week of shows on the West Coast, a week of shows in Spain, and a couple shows in Italy every year. We went to Spain every year for about ten years straight until it took us to a point where Andy [Shernoff] didn\u2019t really want to play anymore on a regular basis. He was the bass player and songwriter. Scott [Kempner] got busy with the Del-Lords recently. Ross [Friedman], J.P. and I decided that we had the rock n\u2019 roll itch again, so the three of us got together. We added Daniel Rey, who played with the Ramones and Ronnie Spector, and this great bass player Dean Rispler. We\u2019re just going out and playing and having some fun and enjoying ourselves. I\u2019m really enjoying it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

FOR THE REST OF THE STORY, ORDER ISSUE #70 BY CLICKING HERE…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

HANDSOME DICK MANITOBAINTERVIEW by STEVE OLSON Dick Manitoba is Handsome. Hard work and love is the answer. Following one\u2019s faith, or whatever it’s called, is the common thread. You do what it is that has to be done. Handsome Dick is just that. Hey, Dick Manitoba. Steve Olson.How are you, boss? I\u2019m doing okay. I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":34886,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4028,4034],"tags":[12490,3996,5281,12494,12492,12487,12488,4624,14255,12424,12489,14598,4302,4160,12495,12493,12491,8825,14362,5335,5843],"class_list":["post-34885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interviews","category-music-2","tag-andy-shernoff","tag-beach-boys","tag-buddy-holly","tag-daniel-rey","tag-del-lords","tag-dick-manitoba","tag-fuck-em-if-they-cant-take-a-joke","tag-howlin-wolf","tag-juice-magazine","tag-juice-magazine-70","tag-muddy-waters","tag-nyc","tag-ramones","tag-rolling-stones","tag-ronnie-spector","tag-ross-friedman","tag-scott-kempner","tag-sirius","tag-steve-olson","tag-the-dictators","tag-the-stranglers"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/MANITOBA.jpg","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34885"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34885\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":89314,"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34885\/revisions\/89314"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}