 |
Johnny Blitz | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | John Madansky |
| Origin | Cleveland, Ohio |
| Genres | Proto-punk, punk |
| Instrument(s) | Drums |
John Madansky, known as Johnny Blitz, [1] is a punk rock drummer from Cleveland, Ohio, best known as being a member of the bands Dead Boys and Rocket From The Tombs. [2] With the Dead Boys he helped pioneer the punk rock sound, look and attitude of the mid to late 1970s.
Johnny Blitz met Cheetah Chrome through a classified ad, and together went on to play small gigs in short-lived bands. [3] In early 1975, Blitz and Chrome were recruited to Rocket From the Tombs. The band broke up within the year. After the break up, Blitz and Chrome teamed up with singer Stiv Bators, rhythm guitarist Jimmy Zero, and bassist Jeff Magnum to form a band called Frankenstein. Eventually, the band renamed themselves Dead Boys and recruited James Sliman to be their manager.
A Boston Globe retrospective described a Dead Boys concert with Blitz on drums:
"The first time I saw Stiv Bators and his band, Dead Boys, was at the Rat in 1976, with about 50 other people. At one point, the bare-chested Bators stuck his head inside the kick drum as drummer Johnny Blitz played. Bators followed by jumping to his feet and slashing his chest with a broken bottle."
Jim Sullivan, The Boston Globe , June 7, 1990 [4]
On April 19, 1978, during his time with Dead Boys, Blitz and a group of friends were in Manhattan's East Village when they became involved in an altercation with a separate group. During the altercation, Blitz was stabbed 5 times. The injury caused him to be hospitalized for months. A four day benefit (Blitz Benefit) was held at CBGB to help with medical bills. Over 30 bands performed and a t-shirt was designed by Arturo Vega.
After leaving Dead Boys and New York City in 1980, Johny Blitz moved to Toronto with his wife at that time, “B Girl" Lucasta Ross. He joined up with singer/guitarist/songwriter Leo DeLyon (né Leonard Nieberg) and bassist Tommy "Gun" Keating from power punk trio The Blitz (unrelated to Johnny's stage name). Blitz and DeLyon later formed a band called Slaughterhouse with Mark Crosley on bass. The band played Toronto's top clubs and concert venues with a large fan following that guaranteed a packed audience at every gig. Slaughterhouse and Cheetah Chrome's band, Cheetah Chrome and Skells, headlined on Saturday, August 6, 1983 at New York City's CBGB. Dead Boys bassist Jeff Magnum came to the show to see his old bandmates. Later that night, Magnum joined Chrome and Blitz on-stage to play some Dead Boys songs for the show's encore.
After Blitz and Lucasta Ross split, he remarried and fathered three boys. Blitz and DeLyon went on to form The Tribe with keyboard player Polly Gruen and bassist Tommy "Gun" Keating. Together, The Tribe recorded originals that were a little more mainstream. After taking a few years off to focus on family, Blitz, DeLyon, and Keating regrouped back to their power punk three-piece hardcore roots to form Raw Dog. Over their twenty-five years together as band mates, the group co-wrote and arranged all original material. They recorded a number of unreleased songs at Comfort Sound and Metalworks studios. These songs included "In From the Cold", "I Like Girls", "Television Religion", "Call of the Wild", "Anxiety", "Kill 'Em All", and many more.
Blitz returned to Cleveland for the Dead Boys reunion gig in 2004 at Cleveland's Beachland Ballroom. The reunion included a question-and-answer session at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. The reunited Dead Boys also performed at CBGB in 2005. Blitz and DeLyon went their separate ways in 2007. Between 2007 and 2012, Blitz continued as a drummer in a number of rock outfits including The Highschool Hookers (2007-2008) and Smash the Hammer (2012).
In September 2017, Blitz and Chrome reunited the Dead Boys with a new lineup for a 40th anniversary tour along with a new album, Still Snotty: Young, Loud and Snotty at 40, a re-recording of their debut album. The new lineup included vocalist Jake Hout, guitarist Jason "Ginchy" Kottwitz and bassist Ricky Rat, alongside Chrome and Blitz.
The Dead Boys are an American punk rock band from Cleveland, Ohio. The band was among the first wave of punk, and regarded by many as one of the rowdiest and most violent groups of the era. They were formed by vocalist Stiv Bators, rhythm guitarist Jimmy Zero, bassist Jeff Magnum, lead guitarist Cheetah Chrome, and drummer Johnny Blitz in 1975, with the later two having splintered from the band Rocket From The Tombs. The original Dead Boys released two studio albums, Young Loud and Snotty, and We Have Come for Your Children.
Steven John Bator, known professionally as Stiv Bator and later as Stiv Bators, was an American punk rock vocalist and guitarist from Youngstown, Ohio. He is best remembered for his bands Dead Boys and The Lords of the New Church.
Slaughter and the Dogs are an English punk rock band formed in 1975 in Wythenshawe, Manchester. Their original line-up consisted of singer Wayne Barrett McGrath, rhythm guitar Mick Rossi, drummer Brian "Mad Muffet" Grantham, lead guitarist Mike Day and bassist Howard Bates.
Rocket from the Tombs is an American rock band originally active from mid-1974 to mid-1975 in Cleveland, Ohio, United States. The band featured David Thomas and was reconstituted several times with various line-ups starting in 2003.
The Lords of the New Church were a British-American rock band. A supergroup, the line-up originally consisted of four musicians from 1970s punk bands. This line-up comprised vocalist Stiv Bators, guitarist Brian James, bassist Dave Tregunna and drummer Nick Turner. Launched in 1981, the band released three studio albums prior to their dissolution in 1989. During this time, they underwent several line-up changes.
Young, Loud and Snotty is the first studio album by the American punk band Dead Boys. It was recorded and released in 1977 on Sire Records, produced by Genya Ravan. The album is the only Dead Boys album to chart, peaking at 189 on the Billboard 200 in November 1977.
We Have Come for Your Children is the second and final studio album by the American punk rock band Dead Boys. It was recorded and released in 1978, on Sire Records. The recording of the album was problematic for the group and sessions were halted when the band became convinced that producer Felix Pappalardi did not understand their music. The band subsequently tried but were unable to get James Williamson of the Stooges to salvage the sessions; they broke up a short time later.
"Sonic Reducer" is a punk rock song written by Cheetah Chrome and David Thomas during their tenure in Rocket from the Tombs, which made its recorded debut on the Dead Boys 1977 album Young, Loud and Snotty with a change of lyrics that were rewritten by Stiv Bators.
"Ain't It Fun" is a song written by Peter Laughner and Gene O'Connor and performed by their protopunk band Rocket from the Tombs. The song was first released by O'Connor's later group Dead Boys on their 1978 second studio album, We Have Come for Your Children. Laughner died a year before.
Demolition 23 was a rock band formed in 1993 in New York by former Hanoi Rocks frontman Michael Monroe and former Hanoi Rocks bassist Sami Yaffa following the ending of Monroe's Jerusalem Slim project with Steve Stevens and Sami Yaffa.
Night of the Living Dead Boys is a 1981 live album by the American punk rock band Dead Boys. It was recorded in March 1979 at CBGB. Since Stiv Bators purposely did not sing into the microphone at this show, the vocals were overdubbed later, causing mixed opinions on this album.
"Poison Heart" is a song by the punk rock band Ramones. Written by Dee Dee Ramone, who had retired as their longtime bassist in 1989 but still wrote songs for the band. "Poison Heart" was included on the 1992 album Mondo Bizarro and was also released as a single. The song was given to the band by Dee Dee in exchange for bailing him out of jail and has a slower tempo than typical Ramones songs.
Walter Lure was an American rock guitarist and singer. He was a member of the rock group The Heartbreakers.
Eugene Richard O'Connor, better known by his stage name Cheetah Chrome, is an American musician who achieved fame as a guitarist for Rocket from the Tombs and the punk rock band Dead Boys.
Buzz Clic is an American musician and songwriter best known as the lead guitarist for the punk rock band, the Rubber City Rebels.
CBGB is a 2013 American biographical drama film about the former New York music venue CBGB. It follows the story of Hilly Kristal's New York club from its concept as a venue for Country, Bluegrass and Blues (CBGB) to what it ultimately became: the birthplace of underground rock 'n' roll and punk. The film uses devices such as comic book-style panels, as well as onscreen text to identify important figures in the punk movement.
Cleave Anderson is a Canadian punk rock, alt. country, rock, pop, etc drummer. Anderson has played and recorded with several well-known groups, including Blue Rodeo, Battered Wives, Viletones, Sherry Kean, Forgotten Rebels, and the Beat Club ].
Disconnected is the debut solo album by Stiv Bators, released in December 1980 on Bomp!. The album is a radical departure from the punk rock sound of his previous band the Dead Boys, and sees Bators venturing into 1960s-inspired power pop.
The 'B' Girls were a Toronto punk rock band from the first wave of punk rock in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Where Toronto band The Curse was North America's first all-female punk band, the B-Girls were the second such band in Toronto.
Still Snotty: Young, Loud and Snotty at 40 is an album by the American punk band Dead Boys. It marks the band's third studio album and is a re-recording of the band's 1977 debut album Young, Loud and Snotty. It is the first album of newly recorded music by the band in 39 years.
| Authority control databases: Artists |
|---|
