CD Review: Dust – Hard Attack/Dust

CD Review: Dust – Hard Attack/Dust

Kama Sutra/Legacy

All Access Review: A-

The cult following that’s grown up around Dust is about to get bigger. That’s because Sony Legacy has seen fit to reissue the proto-metal legends’ only two albums, 1971’s Dust and 1972’s Hard Attack, two highly influential documents of heavy blues-driven rock that had been out of print for eons. Time and neglect haven’t eroded their extraordinary power one bit.

Dust was, quite possibly, a bit too hasty in calling it quits so soon after the release of Hard Attack, but they all moved on in impressive fashion, hardly taking a moment to reflect on their brief existence. They were only teenagers when they formed, but the precocious threesome of Richie Wise, Marc Bell and Kenny Aaronson – plus Kenny Kerner, who helped out with production and songwriting – had a loud, fully-realized sonic vision in mind for Dust, but it wasn’t getting them anywhere. So, they parted, and Dust was history. Wise, the band’s guitarist, singer and main songwriter, went on to produce the first two KISS records with Kerner, his partner. 

Aaronson did session work for Dust’s label, Kama Sutra, and toured with just about everybody who was anybody in the ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s, including Bob Dylan, Edgar Winter, Billy Idol and Billy Squier, to name but a few. He also played with both the New York band Stories, who struck gold with the chart-topping single “Brother Louie,” and the short-lived super group HSAS, which stood for Hagar, Schon, Aaronson and Schrieve. And as for Bell, the drummer, he joined The Ramones in 1978. You might know him better as Marky Ramone.

Had the world known what they'd accomplish post-Dust, perhaps those records released in the dark ages of American heavy metal wouldn’t have fallen on deaf ears. And maybe, just maybe, Dust would have lived a little longer, changing the course of rock history forever. Alas, it was not to be, and with serious concerns about their management, their label and their future, Dust called it a day and everybody scattered to the four winds. And Dust and Hard Attack, they just sat on a shelf gathering … well, dust.

Remastered for maximum impact, the sound of these lost treasures – both the product of good, solid songwriting – has been cleaned spotless and is fuller and richer than the original recordings. Hard Attack, in particular, comes on like a hurricane, with the untamed energy of “Ivory” – a rolling tank of an instrumental – and “All in All” whipping around as violently and furiously as any of the wild storms brewed up by The Who or Cream. Heavy weather is experienced on “Learning to Die” and “Full Away/So Many Times,” as well, with Aaronson’s muscular bass and Bell’s galloping drums racing with the wind. And the Sabbath-like “Suicide” swings a big hammer, one that could drive spikes through railroad ties.

Variety spices up Hard Attack, however, as the exquisitely arranged ballad “Thusly Spoken” – blanketed in gorgeous strings and twinkling piano – might be the most sophisticated pop music Burt Bacharach never wrote. Golden flecks of bent steel pedal sparkle in the quiet acoustic country rumination “I Been Thinkin’” and its kissing cousin “How Many Horses,” giving Hard Attack some tasty twang.   

Dust is the black sheep of the family, as “Love Me Hard,” “Chasin’ Ladies” and “Stone Woman” – all cut up by gliding, shooting stars of slide guitar – ramble on like Zeppelin in their prime. Nothing on either album, though, compares to the heavy, 9:53 psychedelic trip “From a Dry Camel” on Dust, a blustery, hallucinogenic dreamscape of alien shapes and a searing, extended guitar solo that goes deep into the recesses of the brain.

Handling dynamic shifts in tempo and mood with deft chops and synchronized charges into the breach, as a band, Dust was bold, adventurous and exceedingly confident of their abilities. Few would appreciate their talents when they were around. That’s what often happens with artists who are ahead of their time. But, eventually, the world catches up, and with this reissue, augmented by a fantastic selection of vintage memorabilia and photos, along with concise, but revealing, liner notes comprised of passionate remembrances by band members, it seems the time is right to reassess the impact Dust had on heavy metal. Get to your independent record store early on April 20 for a lush Record Store Day exclusive vinyl version of this archival treasure.

 –   Peter Lindblad

Marky Ramone remembers Dust ... and tries to solve a mystery

Sony/Legacy reissues proto-metal band’s two cult albums

By Peter Lindblad

Dust - Dust/Hard Attack 2013

The trail has gone cold ... ice cold. Any evidence of the crime is, in all likelihood, gone forever, and yet Marc Bell, aka Marky Ramone, is still determined to catch the culprit and find justice.

For context, when the incident happened, Bell was a founding member of Dust in the late ’60s and ’70s, a band that simply could not catch a break in its all-too-brief existence.

Management was at a loss as to how to market the pioneering proto-metal outfit and few, if any, American producers had any idea how to get the most out of them in the studio. Meanwhile, their record label, Kama Sutra, was focusing its energies on promoting its more commercial folk-rock acts, like the Lovin’ Spoonful.

All of these things, according to Ramone, combined to doom Dust. One thing that did go right for them was a tour with Alice Cooper as the supporting act, although he’d like to get to the bottom of something that happened to him while on the road with the shock-rock sensations.

On the one hand, there was “the fact that people were giving us two encores,” says Ramone, something opening acts don’t usually receive.

“And then came initiation,” says Ramone, setting the scene. “I go to my hotel room … I mean, this is stuff that teenagers do I guess, but we were teenagers I suppose. Somebody took a dump in one of my drawers in the hotel room. And I knew something smelled pretty strange. I opened it up and there it was, and I never knew who did it, but I look back at it now, and I thought it was pretty funny. Would I do it? No, I wouldn’t do it, but somebody did do it, and whoever it is, I wish I could find them.”

It’s a mystery that probably will never be solved. And though Ramone may never ferret out the offending party, there is renewed interest in Dust, now that their only two albums, the self-titled debut from 1971 and their 1972 sophomore LP, Hard Attack, are being reissued – with a fantastic remastering job – by Sony Legacy on April 16. A Record Store Day vinyl version is being released on April 20.

“Maybe these reissues will make that person come forward (laughs),” jokes Ramone.

Prized by collectors for years, Dust’s records were the stuff of legend, their gale-force blues-based hard-rock sound tempered by touches of folk and progressive-rock in a formula that Led Zeppelin was perfecting overseas. Although they disbanded not long after the release of Hard Attack, the members of Dust would go on to bigger and better things.

Bell hooked on with a various U.S. punk rock icons, including Wayne County and Richard Hell & the Voidoids and, of course, The Ramones, the band he joined in 1978. Kenny Aaronson was Dust’s bassist, and he would later play with the likes of Joan Jett, Bob Dylan, Foghat, Brian Setzer and a host of other rock luminaries. As for Richie Wise, the band’s guitarist and main songwriter, he and Kenny Kerner – who wrote lyrics for Dust and helped out with songwriting and production duties – ended up producing the first two KISS records.

Ramone thinks that it is high time these two long-out-of-print Dust records see the light of day again.

Explaining why the reissues are coming out now, he said, in a rather matter-of-fact manner, that “the contract was finally up with the other record company that really didn’t do [Dust] justice. So, Sony/Legacy … we remastered it, packaged it in numbered vinyl, collectible vinyl, and the packaging is unbelievable. And when you hear the remastering, it sounds twice as big as the original recording. So we were very happy to put it out again to show the public what we were doing 40 years ago in America, which was heavy metal, ‘cause at the time there was hardly any metal in America in 1970. It was all coming from England. And also in America, there weren’t that many producers who knew how to produce this genre of music. So, now it has a second chance.”

After all this time, Ramone still sees the influential Dust, cult favorites for years, as trailblazers in the metal genre.

“Well, one of the few, yes,” says Ramone. “Black Sabbath in England solidified it there, and then when we started in ’70, we got our record deal in ’70 and recorded the album and it came out in ’71. So we were kind of ahead of the game in America, along with a few other bands. There weren’t that many, and the term ‘heavy metal’ wasn’t even a phrase yet.”

As for the Cooper tour, Ramone thinks of it as the highlight of Dust’s short life. Another one was playing Cobo Hall, the site of many great concerts by Jimi Hendrix, The Doors, the Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen and, of course, KISS. “I mean that place was packed,” says Ramone. “And also St. Louis … they really took a liking to Dust. And I think that if we continued to play to the Midwest, and we’d spread out to the East and West … but again, we just stopped that quick.”

We’ll have more of our interview with Marky Ramone and his memories of Dust in future posts, so keep watching this space for that. In the meantime, visit http://www.legacyrecordings.com for more information.