(initially run last spring. but with dirtbombs being back at 930 club with spiritualized tomorrow-we figured, why not?)

Mick Collins is not bashful on the subject of his own awesomeness.
From the swagger of calling an early album, “I Know You Fine, But How You Doin?” to the temerity to claim that a recent record was made to sound like car commercials (and subsequently selling a song to Buick), he’s never been one to shy away from confrontation with critics or celebration of his success.
But who can blame him?
He jumpstarted a nascent garage rock scene in Detroit with the Gories in the early 90s, and then once people figured out how great that scene and it’s descendents were, he switched gears with the Dirtbombs and started making concept records that took soul, or funk or arena rock and made them dirtier and bluesier than any scraggly-haired kid half his age could manage. Some people just have a right to be full of themselves, because they are constantly pushing past whatever outside observers want them to be and focusing on the next challenge—the next concert or concept or direction.
His latest mission-implausible is to take the soulful bass-heavy punk rock he’s been honing and make a blueprint of what’s happening right now in America.
His lyrics have always been clever, but on “We Have You Surrounded” his sudden attention to the dismal condition of urban decay and governmental transgressions is as startling and timely as “What’s Going On,” or “Superfly.”
Plus the sound is like Kellogs Rice Krispies: crispier and crunchier, so that the guitars on songs like Leopardman at C&A, Pretty Princess Day, and I Hear the Sirens snap and crackle with the blunt menace of Radio Birdman or T-Rex while the lyrics pop like an 80s hardcore band. It’s a singular achievement to make a record that so expertly captures the desperation and paranoia of the current moment, while rocking out harder than a kick in the dick, so why not do a little strutting and hi-fiving?

Mick Collins brings his two bassists, two drummers, and his own bad self to the 930 Club tomorrow. I know you comin’, but will you be there?

BYT: I want to start by saying that I really love the new record, and from what I hear so do you. Is this the best Dirtbombs album?
Mick Collins: Oh totally. Without a doubt.

BYT: It’s pretty rare that someone comes right out and declares something to be the best they’ve ever done…why do you think it’s so good?
MC: Well, because I heard the other three. [Laughter]

BYT: [Laughs]
MC: [Chuckles]

BYT: Wow. [LOL]
MC: [Chortling] Well you know, I’m my own worst critic. I don’t feel any need to be disingenuous about it. So yeah, it’s our best album.

BYT: Do you think it was recording process or the songwriting or…
MC: Everything about it really. I’m happy with the songs, I’m happy with the way they turned out, I’m happy with the packaging.

BYT: What was the initial impetus to go from a five song EP like you planned to a full length?
MC: I was talking to the record label (In The Red Records) and they pointed out that it had been four years since I had done one. I was like “Oh, I’d better get on that then.”

BYT: I’m sure they appreciate that. I keep hearing that this album’s theme is urban paranoia…
MC: That’s on the one-sheet they tell me…

BYT: Heh, yeah, so was that the plan all along, or was it more an afterthought?
MC: Well it turned out that of the original five songs, three of them had to do with urban violence or paranoia in some or another so we said, let’s go with that! Let’s run with this and that will be the record. And then, watching the news didn’t help, or should I say didn’t hurt anything. Every song on the record started out to be about something else. They all eventually all became about our country’s slide into a corporate dominated police-state.

BYT: I was going to ask about that because I think “urban paranoia,” doesn’t really cover the feeling I get from these songs, which seem to be as much about fear of our own government as anything else. This is the most overtly political thing I’ve heard from you, is that a response to the times?
MC: Yes, definitely.

BYT: Even the cover looks like an 80s hardcore album cover…
MC: [Snickers] Well it was done by Gary Panter…

BYT: [Too dumb to know that is the guy who created punk rock comic Jimbo and drew album covers for bands like Bongwater and the first Chili Peppers album] Oh, OK. There you go. So this turn to political subjects and larger issues, did that inspire some of the new musical directions you all are going in?
MC: That’s a tough one. The songs just sort of happen. I don’t sit and consciously think about what they were going to sound like, they just kind of happen the way they happen. There wasn’t any sort of conscious effort at making songs sound the way they did, with the sole exception of Fire in the Western World. I was really trying to sound like Bauhaus on Leopardman at C&A. Not sure I really succeeded, but—

BYT: I doubt Bauhaus has ever rocked out quite that hard…
MC: [Guffaws]

BYT: Speaking of that song, Alan Moore the comic book author wrote it, is that right? How did that collaboration happen?
MC: It wasn’t a collaboration at all. What happened was, I had heard that he had written that song for Bauhaus. I thought, well that’s cool, I’ll try and check it out. So I spent eighteen months trying to track down this song, which apparently does not exist, since he didn’t write the song for Bauhaus, he wrote it for (Bauhaus bassist) David J. Neither one of them ever recorded it. I didn’t know that, so I was looking for the song. I had the lyrics but I didn’t have the music, so eventually I just decided to write my own music.

BYT: Yeah the music is clearly something you wrote…
MC: I don’t know, Alan Moore can rock out when he wants to.

BYT: Maybe with a few more choppy minor key synth chords. So that song was written in the 80s?
MC: It was written in 1993. But we only found that out a month ago.

BYT: Isn’t there a line about cell phones in the song? Were those even around in the 80s? But it makes sense it was written in that time period, I feel like there’s a real similarity between what’s going on politically right now and what was happening in the early 90s. Speaking of current events, for a while at the height of the media attention on Detroit and its music (and the constant emphasis on the “G” word) you seemed to be grossed out by all the hype. Are people still moving to Detroit to become rockstars?
MC: No. No, people are moving away from Detroit in droves actually, it’s really quite distressing. But there’s nothing that can be done about it.

BYT: Has that affected the arts scene?
MC: It’s affected everything in the town really. It can’t not affect what’s going on. Every week there’s fewer and fewer people there.

BYT: It’s one of the places that has been hit hardest by this mortgage debacle right?
MC: Right. And Detroit has more houses inside its city limits than any other city in North America. And it was already economically depressed. Put the two together…and you get what you get.

BYT: Pretty fucked up. I hate to do it, but could I ask you about the “G” word?
MC: [wryly] Sure.

BYT: [giggles]
MC: Sorry, I bet you can feel my excitement from there.

BYT: Well I sort of feel the same way. Calling the Dirtbombs a garage rock band is ridiculous and it must get annoying to be lumped in with those kinds of bands all the time, but what about the genre as a whole. Is it possible to be part of that genre without being an embarrassment?
MC: No. [general mirth]

BYT: There’s no way to do it?
MC: No. Sorry. I would love to have a reasonable and balanced answer to that question, but I don’t.

BYT: That’s not unreasonable. You must feel like the Dead Boys or someone felt about the word “Punk” in 1982…
MC: Or the Stranglers. They weren’t a punk band…they just got shoved in with it. I’m sure they hated being called a punk band as much as I hate being called a garage band.

BYT: To completely change genres, I wanted to ask you about house music. Did you start out as a house music producer?
MC: I did, I started out making electronic music. Back in the late 80s I made house music. I was trying. I was recording but nobody was picking up anything to actually release. And I also had a performance art group at the same time, called the Yeti Sanction. I still keep my hand in. I was really happy to put out a techno record this year, or last year or whenever I cut it anyway. It’s finally out, they tell me. I got my copy.

BYT: Have you thought about doing any remixes of Wreck My Flow, since that’s essentially an electroclash song?
MC: There is a twelve that was done when we mixed the record. But nobody’s offered to put that out. I did a mix and a producer named Moodyman did two different mixes of Indivisible.

BYT: If anyone that reads this wants to put out a techno-punk record give me a call. But do you think there’s a connection between your interest in house and the kind of rock and roll you’ve played with various bands over the years?
MC: I would hope not! [ROFL] I’m not doing it for the similarities man, I’m doing it for totally different audiences! If I cut a techno record and the people who like the Gories like it, then I did something wrong.

BYT: I feel like there’s a lot of crossover these days, there isn’t that cliquish…
MC: Well in Detroit there isn’t because we all know each other, we come to each other’s shows. Well yeah I guess there’s a lot of dancey bands doing remixes, but I never think of it that way. But I guess there is a lot of overlap these days. But the fact is you see far fewer techno guys trying to make rock records than you see rock bands trying to make dance hits.

BYT: I live near Baltimore, where ever former failed indie-rock kid is trying to be a DJ. Does the hipster appropriation of house music concern you?
MC: Nah. See, the UK already went through all that. They already went through the proliferation of bands that were trying to have a big dance hit, and that’s already been weathered. The result is the three billion little sub-genres of dance music that we have now, but by the same token, given people’s propensity to instantly categorize anything at first sight those bands won’t make it into actual house music or techno.

BYT: How’s the tour going? What are crowds like at your shows since the “G” word boom has faded?
MC: Our audience is changing in that at first it was all garage-punk people who hated us because we didn’t sound like garage punk. So what would happen was they would drag their friends to come see us, and the next time we came to town the garage punk fans wouldn’t be there but the friends they dragged would, and they would bring friends. SO we’ve really completed an audience change-over, from hipsters to people who just want to see a good band. So as far as the Dirtbombs goes the change has been great! Now we have an actual audience, people who like the Dirtbombs not people who are part of some scene who only like one sort of band or one sort of music. They’re just here to see us.

BYT: I feel like that’s a similarity between DC and Detroit, since our scenes are so small we have to go to all the same shows, be in the same bands…
MC: It’s more of a conscious thing in Detroit, not because it’s small, we just all hang out together. Sure it is small, but it’s because everybody likes to play different kinds of music.

BYT: Finally—what’s next? Is there ever going to be a bubblegum record?
MC: Sure, one day. When the sun burns out.

BYT: This isn’t the last Dirtbombs album?
MC: No. We’ll do the bubblegum record. I did promise. It was supposed to be this record but it didn’t happen. Hopefully it’ll be the next one.

BYT: Maybe by the time it comes out we’ll have a more appropriate situation for the Archies in this country.
MC: [Hahaha!]

BYT: Thanks for your time.
MC: No, thank you.

want more:
go here:http://www.thedirtbombs.net/
and be here Friday.

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