Of Daniel Romano's Outfit, Bob Dylan, and the Plugz: some thoughts apropos of Thursday's Rickshaw show

I do not know the Dirty Nil at all, playing with Daniel Romano's Outfit at the Rickshaw on Thursday. Their current album is called Fuck Art, which is a fun title. The music sounds like melodic, even romantic pop-punk, and they seem to have pretty witty lyrics, including a line in an apparent love song ("Doom Boy") to the effect of, "Do you like the Cro-Mags?" They do not sound like the Cro-Mags at all, but it's cute to contemplate someone using that question in the context of dating: "We could hold hands and listen to Slayer/ in the back of my Dodge Caravan." Sounds like a good time to me! ...But my reasons for being curious about tomorrow's show at the Rickshaw ultimately have more to do with the other band on the bill, Daniel Romano's Outfit, and even more to do with Bob Dylan. And the Plugz. If you care about Dylan (or the Plugz) you might want to go to the Rickshaw tomorrow night, too, or at least read the rest of what follows. What does Daniel Romano have to do with Bob Dylan, you ask...? 

Maybe some of you know where I'm going with this, but let's back up for a second. 

Do you like Infidels? It's seen as Bob Dylan's return to form after his less-than-popular digression into Born Again Christianity, which dominated 1979's Slow Train Coming and 1980's Saved, but which was moving into the background on 1981's Shot of Love and not really a factor at all in Infidels, which came two years later. It was kind of a comeback album, and garnered a lot of attention, but after having owned it and played it dozens of times, having genuinely tried to like it, I have to face the fact that I just (mostly) don't. I do like some of the songs on it - especially "Neighborhood Bully," the hardest rockin' and most lyrically daring song on the album, which is a spirited, entertaining, creative allegory for the way Israel gets bashed by the left - the most energetic and committed political song Bob had written in some time, at that point! But even that song I have mixed feelings about, because in a couple of its verses, at least, it is dishonest to the point of scandal: "he's got no allies to really speak of," he says of his fictional bully, an allegory for Israel - no allies, that is, except for the most powerful country on earth, Bob; did you forget about that? Because you really can't; you score a fair number of points for Israel with some of your images, get me to regard the country from a point of view I normally wouldn't, but that whole angle - plus the bit about "buying obsolete weapons" - is a "yeah, right" eye-roller that gives lie to the whole song. You can still appreciate the spirit of the thing, observe it as a piece of craft, appreciate how catchy and rockin' it is, but the whole allegory of the poor misunderstood isolated bully, friendless and alone, falls apart when his best buddy is feckin' Rambo.

And I like "I and I," too, and "Man of Peace" (especially as covered by Lucinda Williams) and "Union Sundown" (with some standout guitar from Mark Knopfler, whom I might otherwise try to blame for aspects of Infidels I don't care for, but I like him on that track!). But overall, the album is overproduced, over-thought, and kind of too damn laid back for its own good. I don't need soppy, pastel lounge tunes like "Don't Fall Apart on Me Tonight" or "Sweetheart Like You." Even on those songs, I do enjoy some of the lyrics - "how much abuse will you be able to take?/ There's no way to tell from that first kiss" - but the songs are so sleepy and harmless and boringly arranged that whatever potential they do have just makes me wish for something rawer, rougher, less processed. It's not a Dylan album I have kept (and I have Street Legal, Slow Train Coming and Saved, and might reunite myself with Shot of Love next time I see it, so that's saying something... Dylan's big 80's comeback is kinda where I got off the boat...).

Coming back to Thursday's show: just like I don't know the Dirty Nil, I don't really know Daniel Romano's Outfit, either - but I've peeked a bit deeper, and am more curious, for reasons that have everything to do with Bob Dylan (and the Plugz), which I will get to presently. Romano's new album, La Luna, each side of which is a suite of interlocking songs, sounds pretty damn cool. The one album of his I've picked up, How Ill Thy World is Ordered, which is the one Ford Pier recommended of those in stock at Red Cat, is pretty rich, too; he's the sort of songwriter I want to sit and read the lyric sheet of (or maybe the Genius lyrics page, because there's no lyric sheet included). It's intelligent, emotive indy rock made by someone who clearly knows his Beatles and Dylan (and Neil Young and the Grateful Dead and Ray Davies and...). I gather he performs in other modes as well, some rootsier, some punkier, while self releasing on his own label, You've Changed Records. I am early in my explorations and maybe even a bit reluctant to get too enthusiastic, since I can't afford another deep dive into a prolific artist, not having the money, the shelf-space, nor the room in my head to take one on...   

But Daniel Romano's Outfit did at least one thing that is absolutely, undeniably fucking brilliant, seizing on one of the great lost opportunities in rock history and making something of it. Something which was never released on physical media, and which has since been removed from his bandcamp,  which furthermore probably won't be manifesting in his Rickshaw set, and - depending on Romano's personality - he might even be annoyed to be represented by, in this piece of writing, in preference to his own music - but it's all I've got, folks, I barely know Romano, and I won't be able to fix that, given his dozens of releases, in time for tomorrow's show...

But there's one thing he's done... this one thing...

Back up again. Do you know the Plugz? They were a Los Angeles Latino punk band, active in the early 1980s, fronted by a guy named Tito Larriva, who you have probably seen (or whose music you have probably heard) in a Robert Rodriguez movie or two. You may know the Plugz' later incarnation, the Cruzados, but you've probably encountered the Plugz before, too: they contributed to the soundtracks to Repo Man - doing some of the score and contributing a couple of songs to the soundtrack album, including the instrumental ("Reel Ten") when the car flies away. The title track of their first album is used in the notorious porno New Wave Hookers; Tito is also the vampire rockstar in From Dusk Til Dawn; and the Plugz late drummer - Chalo Quintana - lived for years in Vancouver, which I never realized until after he died.   

...And two of the Plugz backed Bob Dylan on television. I highly recommend reading this interview with the Plugz bassist Tony Marsico about the experience. It's really a fun read (which I found on Facebook thanks to the Scenics' Andy Meyers; thanks, man!) and actually mentions the Romano project briefly. You see, Marsico and Quintana (and a guitarist friend of theirs, JJ Holiday) were picked to jam with Dylan, to back him on the David Letterman show, where they did punchy, raw rock versions of Infidels songs. It was way, wayyy better than the material on Infidels, and way rougher, including an infamous gaffe in the midst of "Jokerman" (about 3:20 into the clip, below) where Dylan grabbed a harmonica set to the wrong key, tooted a couple of notes, and set off on a quest, while the band played on, to get the right one, returning to finish the solo. If you don't know "Jokerman," and have a minute, check out the Infidels version and the Letterman version and compare.  

Now, I dunno about you, but to my mind, that Letterman version kicks the Infidels version into a soft pastel pulp. Sadly, the collaboration turned out to be a one-off, a road not really taken, a digression in Dylan's musical career that he chose not to explore further beyond that appearance. From what I've heard, his next album, Empire Burlesque, far from taking up the punk potential of the Letterman set, dilutes things even further; if Infidels is an album I have grappled with, at least wanting to like, Empire Burlesque is one I have been quite content to ignore. Can you imagine what it would have been like if Dylan had actually done a whole album with Marsico and Quintana and Holiday? If he had chosen - instead of Knopfler's slickness - to approach Infidels with the sort of verve you see in that Letterman clip? It's one of those haunting What Ifs of musical history, up there for me with "What if Phil Ochs' gold lame shtick had been a hit with the public, instead of drawing boos?" or "What if Lemmy had recorded a whole album of acoustic blues?"

Daniel Romano's Outfit press photo

Well, Daniel Romano - who can do a damn fine Dylan voice when he wants to - must have had the same idea, because a few years ago, he recorded an EP devoted to realizing the potential of that project, re-recording a fistful of Infidels songs exactly as they might have sounded had they been recorded with the Plugz. I don't even know what to call it - can something be a reconstruction of an original that never existed? I stumbled across this EP quite by accident on a file-sharing program, trying to find if anyone had some decent audio of the Dylan/ Plugz performances (there's a complete rehearsal recording, too, which is also fun, though even rougher). When I found the Romano versions, not knowing Romano, I was completely blown away by how much they really did sound like a polished recording of Dylan and the Plugz, complete with - about three minutes into "Jokerman" - a replication of the harmonica gaffe. What the hell was this? It took me longer than it should have to figure it out, in part because some part of me really just wanted it to be a real recording of Dylan and the Plugz. 

It ain't, but it is a damn fine facsimile. The perfect "might-have-been" trip to an alternate universe. Plus it's just flat-out BETTER than those Infidels recordings, y'know? I don't want to listen to Dylan do "Jokerman" ever again - at least not the studio version - but Romano? Hell yeah!

Anyhow, I don't know Daniel Romano, not really, but that one project is so inspired and comes so close to my own weird heart's desires, I'd love and respect him even if his own material sucked. Which it definitely does not. I have a bit of a conflict of interest tomorrow, so I don't know if I'm going to be able to see his full set, but I think I'm going to pop by the Rickshaw to buy his new album, La Luna, and maybe hear at least one song. He's probably not going to do any of the Dylan stuff anyhow - he's removed it from his bandcamp and probably doesn't really want to be known for covering someone else's material, however creatively this has been accomplished. But maybe I should check out Cobra Poems, too? He does sound quite Dylanesque on that opening track, and I'm digging this album Ford recommended... hmmm...

Just to emphasize, there is very little chance you're going to hear any Bob Dylan covers tomorrow; I've written Romano to check in, but he hasn't responded, and may not, but odds are, you're going to hear nothin' but originals. I'm hoping that the coolness of his Dylan project is enough that it might get a few people curious about Romano, regardless. It's certainly had that effect on me. 

For more information about Daniel Romano's Outfit and the Dirty Nil, Thursday June 15th at the Rickshaw, go here...