Dash Rip Rock

Artist Information

Biography

For over 25 years, Dash Rip Rock has conjured up countrified country punk music along with wickedly twisted versions of popular tunes.
Dash Rip Rock formed in 1984 when drummer Clark Martty brought together guitarist Bill Davis and bassist Ned Hoaky Hickel Jr.
The hillbilly trinity flavored their music with the styling’s of The Stray Cats, Jason and the Scorchers, and Rank and File.

Dash and the gang started hanging out in New Orleans with the likes Johnny J and the Hitmen and the Mistreaters. During that time they met Fred LeBlanc, a self taught rockabilly devotee. Fred and Bill had the same vision of developing music with deep south rock art bred with wild roots punkabilly. To bring this dream to fruition Bill replaced drummer Clark with Fred and Dash Rip Rock started touring all over the South.

The band has gone through numerous production, management and musician changes over the years.

Through it all Dash has managed to put its honky tonk spell over fans from Austin to Boston, with 26+ US tours, 7 European tours and 15 CD's.
Dash Rip Rock has become the quintessential college rock band of the South, touring with The Cramps, Los Lobos, Beat Farmers, Rev. Horton Heat, and the Circle Jerks. They have played in festivals with No Doubt, 311, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
The 2005 release, Re-Cyclone, a "best of" collection of beer-guzzlin' party music, serves up a healthy serving of Dashology to anyone with the misfortune of never hearing Dash.
The band brings the musical mojo with a raucous high energy stage show accented by Bill's twang, Eric's frenetic drumming, and Patrick's cool but whacky approach.

Bill Davis, the 'old boy' genius who pens Dash's songs, attacked highfalutin subject matter in Hee Haw Hell, their 2007 rendition of Dante's Inferno, Hee Haw Hell. Bill turns the otherwise daunting read into a hoe down with a host of colorful characters.

Hot off the flames of the release of Hee Haw Hell, Dash released its 2008 offering, Country Girlfriend. At first glance, Country Girlfriend seems simple, but one listen to the hit "Google This" and you'll be amused by the clever commentary on the "coffee house generation". “Country Girlfriend” also celebrates the simple, sudsy fun of living in the bayous, back alleys, and countryside of USA.

August of 2010, Dash Rip Rock releases yet another collection of party favorites on their new CD "Call of the Wild".

Instrumentation

Bill Davis - Lead Vocals, guitar
Eric Padua - Backing Vocals, drums
Patrick Johnson - Backing Vocals, bass guitar

Discography

Dash Rip Rock (688 Records, Mammoth) George Pappas, producer 1987
Ace of Clubs (Mammoth Records) George Pappas, producer 1988
Not of this World (Mammoth) Jim dickinson, producer 1989
Boiled Alive (Mammoth) Keith Keller, producer 1991
tiger Town (Dr. Dream) Michael Hutchinson, producer 1993
Get You Some of Me (Sector II, re-released by Ichiban 1995
Testosterone (Exile Records) Australian only release, 1996
Gold Record (Ichiban Records) 1997
Pay Dirt (PC Music) 1999
Hits and Giggles (Rip Rock Records) 2000
Sonic Boom (Write On Records) 2002
Re-Cyclone, (Alternative Tentacles) 2005
Hee Haw Hell, (Alternative Tentacles) March 2007
Country Girlfriend, (Abitian Records) Oct 2008
Call of the Wild, (Alternative Tentacles) Aug 2010

Links

• greenfrogmusic

Audio

• Track 2
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• Google This
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• Southern Rain
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• String You Up
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• Eventually Evangeline
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Video

Photo Gallery

Press

• New York Times [+ Show ]
  

  "Dash Rip Rock is the kind of band that provides a lesson in American rock-and-roll history wrapped ..."Dash Rip Rock is the kind of band that provides a lesson in American rock-and-roll history wrapped up in a party package. Skillful musicians with a penchant for getting reliably wild, the roup mixes up rockabilly, blues and country stomp for a guaranteed good time"

• Spin Magazine
  

  "Undeniably the South's greatest rock band."

• Amazon.com CD review [+ Show ]
  

  Amazon CD Review “Hee Haw Hell Dash Rip Rock’s been bumming around as a band since 1984, providing ...Amazon CD Review “Hee Haw Hell
  Dash Rip Rock’s been bumming around as a band since 1984, providing a blend of Southern roots-rock and old-school rockabilly that puts them right next to Southern Culture on the Skids in the category of Bands Most Likely To Provide You With a Hootin’ and Hollerin’ Good Concert Experience. Unfortunately, despite continuing to release new studio albums every few years, the band has never really risen above a cult profile, an issue that hasn’t exactly been aided by the fact that each of its last five releases has come out on a different label. With Hee Haw Hell, not only has Dash Rip Rock managed to settle in for a second album with Virus/Alternative Tentacles, but they’ve also delivered…wait for it…a country-punk concept album. And it’s not just any old concept, either: it’s based on a rather high-falutin’ literary work, taking its inspiration from the “Inferno” portion of Dante’s The Divine Comedy.
  You can’t blame Dash Rip Rock for giving a concept album a try. You can easily envision a scene where the boys in the band spend a Saturday night sitting around their practice space, drinking beer and listening to the Drive By Truckers’ Southern Rock Opera, then throwing their empties at the stereo, yelling, “Motherfuckers, we invented Southern alt-rock!” The next logical step (after another couple of six-packs) would be for the band to scrawl out a drunken plan to top the Truckers – and when you hear “Southern Rain,” you’ll be impressed at how well they’ve succeeded.
  Fans of the band will immediately discover that Hee Haw Hell is another no-holds-barred, highly un-PC extravaganza. “MOAF” takes a familiar acronym from the “American Pie” flicks and takes it to the next level (“She’s got a real fine ass / She’s a hell of a fucker / As a matter of fact / She’s the mother of all fuckers”), and while there are probably already enough songs entitled “If You See Kay” (the Poster Children did one, as did April Wine and R. Stevie Moore), but Dash Rip Rock’s entry is a damned catchy one. In fact, most of the songs stick with you for the long haul; in particular, “Friendly Fire” is a good approximation of how the Connells would sound if they’d only try to rock a little harder. If there’s anything on the album that sounds like a blatant bid for airplay, it’s the cover of “Man of Constant Sorrow,” but it certainly can’t be argued that the band’s subdued their sound any on their version.
  Unfortunately, while the good news is that the songs themselves kick ass far more often than not, the bad news is that the sequences which string the album together – spoken word segments that ostensibly aid in the maintaining of the concept – are the sort of tracks that your CD player’s program button – or, for our more tech-savvy readers, selective downloading – were designed for. Given that Dash Rip Rock has brought in special guest stars to perform portions of the narration – including Bill Lloyd and Mojo Nixon, as well as the owner of their label (a.k.a. one J. Biafra) – this is a real shame, but the segments prove to be nothing but an annoying distraction from the tunes. It’s, like, dudes, you are totally killing the flow here! For what it’s worth, of those guest stars, the only one with more than a line or two is Nixon, who, in his guise of Beezelbubba, offers a rambling, obscene diatribe over a Southern-fried version of Vangelis’ “Chariots of Fire” (renamed “Chariots of Hellfire” for the occasion). It’s probably supposed to be funny, but it gradually grows so graphic that you’re soon praying for it to end.
  Buried within Hee Haw Hell is a collection of songs that, had they been presented consecutively, would’ve verged on hitting the lofty and rarely achieved five-star rating. It might seem harsh to dock an album’s rating so dramatically when its duff bits only account for about eight minutes of its 37-minute run time, but when you consider that we’re declaring half the tracks on the album to be unnecessary, perhaps it’ll seem a bit more fair.
  ~Will Harris wharris@bullz-eye.com
  

• Billboard Magazine [+ Show ]
  

  "The time has come for the rest of the country to climb aboard and revel in DRR's barrage of crunchy..."The time has come for the rest of the country to climb aboard and revel in DRR's barrage of crunchy guitars, toe-tappin' beats and amusing lyrics."

• Wall Street Journal [+ Show ]
  

  "Someone is always yelling out (Freebird!). 'I don't know that I've ever seen a show where it hasn'..."Someone is always yelling out (Freebird!). 'I don't know that I've ever seen a show where it hasn't happened', says Bill Davis of the veteran country-punk band Dash Rip Rock."

• The Advertiser [+ Show ]
  

  "No matter what moniker you place on the trio, there's no doubt they are a wild, evergentic, inspira..."No matter what moniker you place on the trio, there's no doubt they are a wild, evergentic, inspirational, witty, ingenious and contagious live act."

• Creem Magazine [+ Show ]
  

  "One of the first things that impressed me about (Dash Rip Rock's) show was (the) antics onstage...t..."One of the first things that impressed me about (Dash Rip Rock's) show was (the) antics onstage...the first time I saw the band Hoakyt slid onto his back, threw one foot up in the air, and (Davis) played slide with the heel of his boot"

• Offbeat Mag N.O. [+ Show ]
  

  Hee Haw Hell Alternative Tentacles By Alex Rawls How do you review a Dash Rip Rock album? It...Hee Haw Hell
  Alternative Tentacles
  By Alex Rawls
  
  
  How do you review a Dash Rip Rock album? It’s hard to compare it to other Dash albums because the band doesn’t put a lot of stock in those albums? Does the best Dash album have the most songs you want to shout along to? If so, Hee Haw Hell stands up pretty well with “MOAF” and “Fall Down, Go Boom” delivering solid, anthemic fun.
  
  Or is the best Dash album the craziest one? If so, this is once again up there. First off, it’s a concept album loosely based on Dante’s Inferno, complete with a narrator and his guide going through the circles of hell, where he finds Lynyrd Skynyrd, meth-heads, George Clooney and jam band fans. Mojo Nixon preaches as Beelzebubba over a Dash take on the theme to “Chariots of Fire.” That’s nutty enough.
  
  Or, is the best Dash one that displays Davis’ underrated songcraft? Sure, there are a lot of boneheaded Dash songs such as “Let’s Go Smoke Some Pot,” but there are also genuinely well constructed songs such as “I Want to Be Stuck Inside a Liquor Store with You.” Here, “If You See Kay” is that sort of song. The title is the main joke, but the song itself is musically unpredictable and verges on—dare I say it?—complexity.
  
  Doubters who think the album might suffer from too much concept have good reason. It’s easy to imagine the people who made the album having more fun thinking stuff up than you’ll have listening to it. And to some extent, those concerns are borne out; Hee Haw Hell is rarely ha-ha funny, and the between song narration isn’t as pointed it needs to be to really draw blood.
  
  Still, the concept focused Davis on taking care with the album to make sure it was fully realized. That resulted in the best-sounding, best-performed, most consistent Dash Rip Rock album yet. The question remains, though—does that make Hee Haw Hell a good Dash album?
  
  

• Where ya at [+ Show ]
  

  Hee Haw Hell Alternative Tentacles Records Wow, I’m stunned. Dash Rip Rock’s Hee Haw Hell is one o...Hee Haw Hell
  Alternative Tentacles Records
  Wow, I’m stunned. Dash Rip Rock’s Hee Haw Hell is one of the best, most entertaining and solid albums I’ve come across in a long time. I’m mystified as to why this Baton Rouge outfit, formed over 20 years ago, has not blown up nationally yet. Playing “southern-fried party rock” with traces of Skynrd, Cowboy Mouth, jam, punk and more, but with a southern twist, Dash Rip Rock is an unbelievable amalgamation resulting in the spectacular. They are literate as well; Hee Haw Hell is an entertaining, modern interpretation of Dante’s Inferno complete with laugh-out-loud moments. Do yourself a favor and discover Dash Rip Rock; I promise you won’t regret it.
  
  
  -Stuart Linder
  

Setlist

Typical set consists of mostly original songs peppered with comically twisted versions of classic rock and country standards.
Set last 60 minutes to 2 hours.

Basic Requirements

Calendar