In an interview shortly before his death last week, the frontman of the Dicks remembered how ‘defying anybody’ led to some of the best US punk of the 80s – and mayonnaise-filled condoms
Between its vitriolic hatred of cops, Nazis, the Klan and the bourgeoisie, and the ecstatic joy of losing oneself to gloryholes and porno stores, few punk albums sounded like the Dicks’ Kill from the Heart when it was released in 1983 – and as it gets reissued this month, few still do.
Frontman Gary Floyd – who died last week aged 71 – was loudly, proudly, brilliantly out and the Dicks were fondly described as a “commie faggot band” by punk fanzine Maximum Rocknroll, even if plenty of others would have spat those words at them. Floyd didn’t care. “I always felt that if you don’t like me because I’m gay, fuck you. You’re wrong,” he told me in February from his home in San Francisco, as he was looking forward to the album reissue.
