Have you ever discovered an artiste – a musician, say, or a writer – and had your world rocked so hard by this one’s work that it seemed like the whole world ought to have known about a talent of that nature, but there wasn’t hardly anyone you knew who seemed to even know the name? Have you ever asked yourself something like “What the fuck’s *wrong *with people? So-and-so should’ve been huge!” and then shrugged it off to the public’s taste for the familiar and mediocre? Well, that’s the way I’ve been wrt Chris D (and his work with various other musicians) for many years, so I’ve decided to write up an appreciation for the Dope. Maybe there’re some of you who know how great the guy is already; maybe you’ve never heard of him and this’ll get you interested in his stuff, or maybe you’ll just shrug your shoulders and go on to the next thread – I don’t mind one way or the other, I just wanted to sing his praises. Because he’s a freakin’ genius.
I’d never heard of Chris D myself, until after I got hit real hard by Roky Erickson (a god in my world from the moment I first heard his voice) and started reading up on his career; there was an article I found somewhere which said one of the guitarists on the LP that introduced me to Roky had also played in a band called the Divine Horsemen. So the next time I went shopping for tunes, I looked for Divine Horsemen material as well as anything by the esteemed Mr. Erickson that I could get my hands on. What I found was their 1984 opus Devil’s River. And it was a goddamn revelation.
This was a thing I’d not heard the like this of ever before. The songs went from mutant C&W to vaguely bluesy to straight up hard rock. The main things that tied it together were Senor D’s voice (both rough and tender, sometimes sinister and at other times sweet and vulnerable, always whiskey-edged and coyote-fluid) either alone or in harmony with the female vocalist Julie Christensen, another person I’d never heard of – and those words. Oh my god, the words to those songs! Sometimes they sketched out a story. Sometimes they just sang, themselves. They made poetry by sound and sense and both of them together. They were usually … perfect. I was hooked.
So then I had to go out and find the previous Divine Horsemen release, Time Stands Still. It was even more countryfied and balladous; but now I also knew about the legendary LA punk band he’d also fronted, The Flesheaters. As soon as I heard them (they already had out a greatest hits collection which was the first thing of theirs I got my hands on) I knew for sure that it was him, Chris D., that made all the difference.
So I followed his career as best I could, grabbing all the Flesheaters tapes and discs I could find; the next Divine Horsemen release (Snakehandler) and the one after the Horsemen rode into the sunset, I Pass For Human with Stone by Stone. Then Chris reformed the Flesheaters and released the stellar Dragstrip Riot. I have listened to those albums while I was high, low, drunk, wired, tripping, and stone cold sober, when I was happy and angry and deep in melancholy. I still do, and there’s still great shit there.
It’s his voice, yeah. And the way the musical style goes from punk to blues to C&W-infused hybrid to straight-out genre busting HARD FUCKIN ROCK. His voice and the lyrics. The way they can be just a song lyric and brutal poetry at the same time. The combination of grittiness and romanticism and drive-in-movie luridness. How he name-checks so many boss writers (Ellroy, Himes, Thompson, Goodis, Salas…) or creates resonances that evoke their best work. I’m a poet myself, and I read a bucketload of poetry and know the difference between it and song lyrics, and this guy’s words just wow me as both; there’s lines – hell, whole verses – whole freakin’ SONGS – that I wish I’d written myself; to me there are few more meaningful compliments. Besides which, it was through my interest in the Flesheaters/Horsemen that I got turned on to The Blasters and Gun Club and Tex and The Horse Heads, all of whose work has enriched my musical universe beyond description.
But he never got as huge as his talent seems to deserve. Sometimes I think that’s totally unfair and sad; other times I just think it figures. People would rather hear another bland bushel of pop sop or whatever they heard was cool from some shill on TV or writing in Spin mag…their loss.
There’s not a lot more I can think of to say, but I can’t figure out how to end this little dithyramb properly, so I’ll just sign off abruptly.