Dallas Denery is a man of many faces. Beside singing and composing for bands
such as Sweet Baby and the Bomb Bassets, he also has an academic background in
which he has earned a degree in philosophy and is currently working on a Ph.D. in
medieval literature. Furthermore, he has written some stories, one of which, "A
Kitty Kat Christmas," was published in "I Love Cats." A poetic man for all
seasons, Denery combines the literary element with the musical element, as does
alliteration in poetry. Whether you understand this or not, Sweet Baby is boss and
so are the Bomb Bassets. Enter Dallas Denery, a man of the old "courtois" loving
generation in the world-ridden madness of polymorphous Cybersex on the Internet.
Official Torturer, Plagiarist and Interrogator: Gustav Verhulsdonck.WARNING: This interview contains moments of poetic extravaganza.
What have you been doing lately?
After the demise of Sweet Baby, I tried my hand at writing. For a short while,
I enjoyed considerable success, including an oft reprinted piece in the popular
cat lover's journal "I Love Cats." My story, "A Kitty Kat Christmas," concerned
the events surrounding Kimberly Kitty Cat's discovery of the true meaning of
Christmas. Unfortunately, rents are high in San Francisco, and my annual income
as a writer barely reached $40. Faced with the streets, I opted for a dismal
existence as an over-paid legal secretary at a truly despicable law firm. About four
years ago, I returned to school and now teach philosophy at one of our local
universities and am in the process of earning a Ph.D. in Medieval History. The
influences of these studies are painfully evident in the opening number of our
latest release ("Please Don't Die"). A continuing interest in Medieval
theories of physics resulted in the song "My Love Like Gravity," which analyzes
the vagaries of love from the perspective of classical Newtonian and
Einsteinian theories of gravity.
Since the Bomb Bassets are composed of folks from Mr. T Experience and the
Hi-Fives, is it a full-time band?
What constitutes a full-time band? Sweet Baby never practiced, but it certainly
seemed to take up a lot of time. The Bomb Bassets try to practice once every
month or two, but it doesn't seem to take up any time. One advantage to the Bomb
Bassets is that the songs only last about 65 seconds each, which makes practices
quick, painless and easy. In fact, I've managed to reduce our newer songs to
under a minute, which means we'll probably only have to practice every four months
or so. Some of this is necessity of course. My brother John is in the fabulous
Hi-Fives, and they have a pretty full schedule of shows and tours. Dr. Frank,
Jym and Joel are the Mr. T Experience, and seeing as they are pretty much the
power-pop-punk kings of the universe, they're also pretty busy. So the answer is
yeah, the Bomb Bassets are sort of an ongoing side project for all involved.
We do the occasional show, the occasional record, the occasional television
appearance (We just recorded a segment for an upcoming Rikki Lake episode
entitled "Help, My Daughter Is in Love with a Smelly Punk."). Rikki was very
nice to us, but I think she was a little nervous when she saw Joel's sister's
Nicole's nasal piercing.
Weren't you originally called Cuban Rebel Girl? Weren't the Hi-Fives
originally called the Ne'er Do Wells? Why the name changes?
John thought Cuban Rebel Girl would make a great name. It's a song by the one
and only and ultimately worthy of devotion Tav Falco. Anyway, we were then told
there already was a Cuban Rebel Girl with a record out and everything (a sure
sign there are too many bands in the world), so we switched to the Bomb Bassets
in honor of the remarkably humorless comic strip Fred Basset (which details the
daily happenings of an English basset hound who generally spends his time watching
his master play chess with the local pastor). The Hi-Fives were the Ne'er Do
Wells and changed their name when they discovered that being called the Ne'er Do
Wells tended to attract a rather subversive element to their shows, which, in
turn, led to an increased police presence and the arrest of a number of their
devoted fans. Things have settled down a bit now that they are called the Hi-Fives,
but they intend to change their name once again for their next release. Look
for them under the name Up with People.
All your songs concern girls and love, but you now have a harder, garagier
and faster sound with Sweet Baby. Why?
I think my progression as an artist is fairly typical. In our youth, we can
afford to be idealists. Our futures seem endless and infintitely exciting. Life,
unfortunately, is a cruel mistress whose unasked-for beatings quickly rob us
of our optimisim. Look at any composer's works. Invariably, their more youthful
compositions are sweeter, more melodic, more hopeful. But as the years pass by, their
outlooks dim; their sound becomes rougher and angrier. The vitriol in Paul
McCartney's "Ebony and Ivory," for example, far surpasses the more youthful
sentiments contained in "Long and Winding Road." Anyway, Sweet Baby was sort
of an Everly Brothers with a punk-rock rhythm section whereas the Bomb Bassets
are a punk rock band that wishes it had better songs.
Do you have any upcoming releases?
We will have a song on the upcoming Lookout!/Kill Rock Stars compilation
"Slice of Lemon." We hope to record again in January or February. We figure
that will allow us to release our first full-length album in time for
consideration by the 1996 Grammy award committee.
Because nobody knows about Sweet Baby, are you excited about the upcoming
Sweet Baby/Brent's TV release? What will be on it?
The Sweet Baby CD will be a 40-song split affair with 20 songs by Sweet Baby
and 20 songs by Brent's TV. The Sweet Baby songs are from our very first recording
session in 1987. I think we did the entire thing for $200 over the course of
a weekend. Kevin Army was the producer. A number of songs which were later
re-recorded for "It's A Girl" are included as well as a few others. Nevertheless,
all songs concern love and the fairer sex. Brent's TV, by the way, is my brother
John's first band and features C. Sterling Imlay [Chris], also from the
Hi-Fives.
Why can't I ever find "It's A Girl"?
Slash Records was deeply concerned about Sweet Baby's credibility. After all,
a punk band from Gilman Street on a major or semi-major label seemed something
of a contradiction in 1988. Slash Records adopted a novel strategy to combat the
potential backlash from our 30 or so fans. Instead of giving the record a wide
release, its ubiquitous presence in the marketplace thereby announcing our fatal
collusion with The Man, they opted to make it nearly impossible to find. They
pressed 10,000 copies, of which 9,000 were stored in an underground vault near
La Brea in Los Angeles. No CDs were pressed, and the 1,000 LPs that made it to
the marketplace were mostly placed in Wal-Mart $1.99 bins next to the complete
"Best of Juice Newton" collection, which was all the rage that year. Our
credibility was saved, and for that I am eternally grateful to the
conscientious staff at Slash Records.
Talk about the Sweet Baby tour. I heard Rich and Sergie quit during it.
The Sweet Baby tour was troubled at best. Of course, Sweet Baby was a
troubled band at best. Sergie never liked us or our music and had joined the band to
meet girls (He was, by the way, voted one of the most gorgeous hunks in punk rock
by some guy in Pansy Division.). Anyway, the woman who booked the tour had a habit
of not telling us when our shows were or booking us into clubs that had been
closed for three months. In other words, about 40 people saw us in the course of
20 shows. Sergie had dreams of stardom and decided he wouldn't find it with us.
He stopped playing drums entirely after the third show of the tour and instead
accompanied us on the didgeridoo for the remaining dates. Interestingly enough,
our tempo problems improved during this period. Needless to say, he and Richie
left halfway through the tour, so we replaced them with Aaron Cometbus and the
enchanting Ivy DuBois (from Kamala and the Karnivores). This was for the best
because Matt and I were not interested in exploring the possibilities of
Australian aboriginal music.
How did Sweet Baby get started?
Matt and I began writing songs together in high school. Our first work was a
rock opera based on the movie "Bambi." We entered it in a local music competition
and took third place. Success went to our heads and the ensuing depravity of our
lifestyles prevented us from any further productive work until 1986 when we
began writing songs in West Berkeley. The original Sweet Baby Jesus actually
had Dr. Frank on snare and a guy named Crispy Jim (the only person I've ever met
who both knew of and liked Crispy Ambulance) on bass. At the time, we were sort
of like a punk Everly Brothers (except we had problems singing the harmonies).
When Rich and Sergie joined, we became more of a mess, but the kids liked it
more that way, so we stopped practicing entirely and then the kids really loved it.
We actually broke up at the end of 1987 (before signing to Slash). We reformed
so we could stick it to The Man. We must have cost Slash a good $20,000.
What books, movies, girls, etc. do you think are cool?
It's hard to pick a best book, movie, etc. A good rule of thumb is that any
movie that costs more than about $1 million will suck. Sequels will always be
better than the original because of the sedimentation of acquired meeting. I
liked James Ellroy's "Hollywood Nocturns" a great deal, and anything with Adam
Sandler is bound to be thought provoking. "Cabin Boy" was good. My wife Lorry
is a great chick, the keenest, and call me patriotic, but I really dig South Dakota.
What is cool? What isn't?
Did you hurt yourself in Sweet Baby? I heard you flailed around a lot.
What people failed to understand was that Sweet Baby was a performance art
spectacle. The music was secondary to the visual/aural totality that we hoped to
achieve. As lead singer, I was someting like a Jim Morrison figure. I was the
shamen of this tribe, the link between the natural and supernatural. To establish
these links, it was at times necessary to "flail" around. I once broke my knee
caps and on another occasion managed to break an obscure bone in my foot. I
also once gave myself a black eye. Matt, however, almost always began bleeding
during our shows--a truly stigmatic effect. Once his image appeared on a garage
near Gilman Street. It disappeared when the clouds cleared.
What are your musical influences?
The Beatles, the Ramones, the Melvins, blahblahblah, and my general inability
to play guitar, which limits me to bar chords.