Ripped Apart By The Dogs

Just how good can a live band be? Well, when a band is on stage and on their game they can make you forget that your life is drudgery and that nobody fucking cares whether you live or die. Few bands can achieve this kind of cathartic rocking, and even fewer can do it so thoroughly that it translates to tape. Allow me to present The Dogs, two hairy neanderthals and one demure little lady from Detroit, who at some time in 1977, rolled into San Francisco's Mabuhay Gardens and absolutely tore the roof off the fucking place. I work near the site of the Mabuhay, and when I walk past it I can't help but think of The Dogs, and wonder if the roof has since recovered. Fortunately, somebody had the good sense to record the event, and an event it was. See, San Francisco has always sort of had a certain air of pretentiousness surrounding its music scene, and I imagine that even the most unflinching of the city's elite were just floored by The Dogs' gut-level rocking that night. These tracks were culled from a cd retrospective of The Dogs' work titled "Fed Up." The band only released a couple of singles and they're really cool, but clearly their strength was their live show, so I have opted to just post that. It's a study in just how good a band can be in the rawest of environments. No studio, no overdubs... just band, gear and audience. I was just 7 when this was recorded, but had I been in attendance that evening, I would have burned my Kiss records immediately. The Dogs, the greatest live rock band of the 1970's, perhaps all-time? You decide, I think it kicks ass.

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