| Months
before I received their CD in hand, I caught Dead by Dawn at the famous but
fallen El Mocambo a couple months back. OK I admit, I was actually there to see
someone else. And getting through a set by DBD was merely a rite of passage en
route to what I had deemed to be 'the main attraction.' After rolling my eyes a
few hundred times (I must have looked possessed doing this but I was just
impatient) I seized my beer in hand and succumbed and submitted myself to be
beaten and battered by the onstage antics and verbal abuse of TC (his official
DBD job description) and their jumping bean on acid guitarist Staci T. Rat -
who didn't seem to miss many notes while making Pete Townshend look like a
slug. If you like Primus, you'll definitely be interested in Dead By Dawn. Said
influence shines brightly on their "Devilution" CD, especially on
tracks like "Soylent", "Misery" and "Procedure
769" - plenty of punch to help you keep your neighbours from getting a
restful night's sleep... and I say all the better! One song I easily recognized
from their gig was "Headcase." I recall TC yelling "Fist fuck
Fuck face Face fuck Fuck This This fuck Fuck head Headcase." Hey! Are you
talkin' to me mister? Seriously, if you ever get a chance to be yelled at by TC
and Dead by Dawn, seize the opportunity cuz it's lots of fun (not to mention
personally enriching and therapeutic) in an ass-backwards sort of way. It
wasn't until the closing number of their set that my ears really perked up,
giving my dizzy eyes a break. Their show was gently ground to a halt when they
took the piss out of our favorite caped crusader 'Batman', the last - and
hidden - track on the "Devilution" CD. Now some bands cling to one or
two crowd-pleasing covers to get them through the day, and although Dead by
Dawn do a good job with the tune, the rest of the CD is just as worthy. Get
your copy at fine record stores and psychiatric wards everywhere.
-review by Robert Musil
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