The Incredible Dickies, Live (part 2)

A Dickies show was sure to include chaos, pandemonium, bad taste, slam dancing, and band members flying, jumping or breaking their leg. Here's Leonard Graves Phillips unleashing some confetti on a happy and crazy crowd.

And here's one of the Dickies' biggest fans:



That's right, a pre-Go Go's Belinda Carlisle staring lovingly up at the stage. For a brief moment in time, Belinda and Dickies drummer Karlo Kaballero were a couple. And quite a handsome one, too.



Even though they weren't yet in a band together, Charlotte Caffey who was then in The Eyes and Belinda were hanging out, as Leonard and Charlotte were known as the "golden couple of punk."

Here's Charlotte under the super bright and blinding fluorescent Starwood backstage light.



Backstage was never a great place to take pictures, so when you did get a great backstage picture, it was so dear. One doesn't want to pop a flash when hanging in a band's inner sanctum, and more often than not, the light in any club's backstage area is pretty bad. But it does add some mood. Thankfully for me, the person I photographed most - Stiv Bators LOVED the flash! But back to the Dickies...



Every band has a good prop up their sleeve, but the Dickies pulled out every stop at every show. They wore strange clothes and here, Leonard's wearing a wolf mask.



Then there was that period of time he had a monk's haircut.



I think everyone in Los Angeles of a certain age remembers when Leonard tried to take a magic leap from the Starwood's upstairs balcony to the stage and crash landed, breaking his leg. It was a two-day stint, and he showed up the next night playing with a cast on his leg, with both a crutch and a wheel chair.



Stan Lee may have been dressed more normal than Leonard (who had costumes and masks) or Billy Club (who as you can see here, is not wearing pants under that trench coat), but he was just as animated and wacky.



And then that issue of bad taste....



The Dickies had this midget, or dwarf.... little man who performed roadie duties of a sort and endured these "beatings" from Leonard. A fantastic stage show, to be sure.

You see, the Dickies were live action human versions of cartoons. From Leonard's helium-balloon voice to Billy's no-pants thing... and the songs -- "You Drive Me Ape You Big Gorilla" featured Leonard in a gorilla mask and furry things around his hands. And when they played "Walk Like An Egg," they did.

The best part about the Dickies is that you can still see them -- Leonard and Stan still play as the Dickies and they do all those songs. Last time I saw them, it was in 2004 I think - at the annual Joey Ramone Birthday Bash concert at Irving Plaza in NYC. They were in top form.

Next installment in the Dickies tribute: Dickies descend on KROQ