DIRTY TRICKS
Live at CBGB, New York, January 7th, 1976
"New York Daily News", January 1976, Article by Ernest Leogrande
Dirty Tricks not Punk
The arrival of Dirty Tricks in New York was heralded by a campaign which had pedestrians gaping. Some considered it the most outrageous poster plastering sinc the Rev. Moon´s blitz. The poster shows an androgynous bikinied figure, what seems to be provocative blonde female above, undeniably male below.
The presentation made at CBGB´s over the weekend by Dirty Tricks, British group in their American debut, had nothing to do with the poster. The rock quartet had come here to make music fully clothed and that´s what they did, entertaining music which could be characterized as reasonably heavy metal of good quality.
Dirty Tricks, though tarred by the punk-rock brush, say they don´t deserve it and they don´t, although that poster, a management idea, doesn´t help. For one thing, they feature long instrumental, exploratory breaks and these are not an aspect of punk rock´s brief-and-basic tenet. Sometime guitarist Johnny Fraser-Binnie evokes a Jimi Hendrix feeling and he delights in pushing his instrument in rapid-fire, string-bending fashion. He and vocalist Kenny Steward make a showpiece of trading off echoing call-and-response by guitar and voice. Bassist Terry Horbury and drummer Andy Bierne, a replacement for the original man, have their showcase moments beside providing strong support.