''Disconnected'' is the debut solo album by

Stiv Bators Steven John Bator (October 22, 1949 – June 4, 1990), known professionally as Stiv Bator and later as Stiv Bators, was an American punk rock vocalist and guitarist from Youngstown, Ohio. He is best remembered for his bands Dead Boys and the L ...

, released in December 1980 on Bomp!. The album is a radical departure from the

punk rock Punk rock (also known as simply punk) is a rock music genre that emerged in the mid-1970s. Rooted in 1950s rock and roll and 1960s garage rock, punk bands rejected the corporate nature of mainstream 1970s rock music. They typically produced sh ...

sound of his previous band the

Dead Boys The Dead Boys are an American punk rock band from Cleveland, Ohio. The band was among the first wave of punk, and regarded by many as one of the rowdiest and most violent groups of the era. They were formed by vocalist Stiv Bators, rhythm gui ...

, and sees Bators venturing into 1960s-inspired

power pop Power pop (also typeset as powerpop) is a subgenre of rock music and form of pop rock based on the early music of bands such as the Who, the Beatles, the Beach Boys, and the Byrds. It typically incorporates melodic hooks, vocal harmonies, ...

. Describing the album, Mike Stax of music magazine ''

Ugly Things ''Ugly Things'' (''UT'') is a music magazine established in 1983, based in La Mesa, California. The editor is Mike Stax (born 1962 in England). The magazine covers mainly 1960s Beat, garage rock, and psychedelic music ("Wild Sounds From Past Dime ...

'' wrote that the album was "a surprisingly melodic power-pop effort" and that it showed the affinity Bators had for

British Invasion The British Invasion was a cultural phenomenon of the mid-1960s, when Rock music, rock and pop music acts from the United Kingdom and other aspects of Culture of the United Kingdom, British culture became popular in the United States with sign ...

-inspired 1960s

garage rock Garage rock (sometimes called garage punk or 60s punk) is a raw and energetic style of rock music that flourished in the mid-1960s, most notably in the United States and Canada, and has experienced a series of subsequent revivals. The style is ...

and

pop music Pop music is a genre of popular music that originated in its modern form during the mid-1950s in the United States and the United Kingdom.S. Frith, W. Straw, and J. Street, eds, ''iarchive:cambridgecompani00frit, The Cambridge Companion to Pop ...

, "favouring ringing

Rickenbacker Rickenbacker International Corporation is a string instrument manufacturer based in Santa Ana, California. Rickenbacker is the first known maker of electric guitars, with a steel guitar in 1932, and produces a range of electric guitars and bass ...

power chords A power chord , also called a fifth chord, is a colloquial name for a chord on guitar, especially on electric guitar, that consists of the root note and the fifth, as well as possibly octaves of those notes. Power chords are commonly playe ...

and tough but harmonious backing vocals."

Background

After the disbandment of the

in 1979, Stiv Bators had begun to look for other projects, wanting to do something different musically. He decided to move from the

East East is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth. Etymology As in other languages, the word is formed from the fact that ea ...

to the West Coast and settled in

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. He contacted his old friend bassist Frank Secich, formerly of

Blue Ash ''Fraxinus quadrangulata'', the blue ash, is a species of ash native primarily to the Midwestern United States from Oklahoma to Michigan, as well as the Bluegrass region of Kentucky and the Nashville Basin region of Tennessee. Isolated populati ...

, and the two started writing songs together and recording

demos Demos may refer to: Computing * DEMOS, a Soviet Unix-like operating system * DEMOS (ISP), the first internet service provider in the USSR * Demos Commander, an Orthodox File Manager for Unix-like systems * Plural for Demo (computer programming ...

during early 1979. The songwriting showed a strong 1960s influence, as Secich explained: "Stiv was a huge fan of

American garage ''American Garage'' is the second studio album by the Pat Metheny Group, recorded in June 1979 and released on ECM in November 1979. The quartet features rhythm section Lyle Mays, Mark Egan and Dan Gottlieb. Background The album represented t ...

and

. He loved it." Bators then went to

with his girlfriend Cynthia Ross, whose band the B-Girls was signed to Bomp! Records, and played the demos for Bomp! founder

Greg Shaw Greg Shaw (January 1949 – October 19, 2004) was an American writer, publisher, magazine editor, music historian and record executive. Biography Shaw was born in San Francisco, California. He began writing about rock and roll music as a yo ...

. Liking what he heard, Shaw offered Bators a contract in spring 1979. Bators and Secich (working under the alias Jeff Jones) had now assembled a band including guitarist Eddy Best and drummer Rick Bremmer. Their first Stiv Bators solo

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release, a cover version of the Choir's "

It's Cold Outside "It's Cold Outside" is a song by the American garage rock band the Choir, written by member Dann Klawon, and first released on Canadian-American Records in September 1966. It was later re-released in 1967 on Roulette, with Dann's last name inco ...

", was backed by the selfwritten

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"The Last Year" and released in May. A few months later, with new drummer David Quinton, they recorded the follow-up single "Not That Way Anymore" b/w "Circumstantial Evidence", which was released in January 1980. Both singles were produced by Bators and Secich as the Gutter Twins. In October 1979, the Dead Boys was set to go on tour again with their original line-up, including Bators. When Dead Boys bassist Jeff Magnum reconsidered at the last moment, Secich was called to replace him for the tour. It lasted until December, when guitarist

Cheetah Chrome Eugene Richard O'Connor (born February 18, 1955), better known by his stage name Cheetah Chrome, is an American musician who achieved fame as a guitarist for Rocket from the Tombs and the punk rock band Dead Boys. Career Rocket From the Tomb ...

broke his wrist and was replaced by George Cabaniss. This line-up of the Dead Boys toured

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for the next six months, all the while promoting Stiv Bator's solo singles. Drummer

Johnny Blitz John Madansky, known as Johnny Blitz, is a punk rock drummer from Cleveland, Ohio, best known as being a member of the bands Dead Boys and Rocket From The Tombs. As a member of the Dead Boys, he helped pioneer the punk rock sound, look and attit ...

left the band in May 1980 to be replaced by David Quinton, followed by guitarist Jimmy Zero's departure in the summer. With a recording date set in August at Perspective Studios in Sun Valley, California, the personnel for what would become ''Disconnected'' consisted of the last touring line-up of the Dead Boys: Stiv Bators, Frank Secich, George Cabaniss and David Quinton. Most of the basic tracks for the album were recorded on a basketball court next to the studio, due to its wooden floor having an "extremely "live" sound", according to Secich. "We generally slept through the days and worked through the night", said David Quinton. "The whole process took about 2 weeks. There wasn’t a lot of planning or pre-production. Decisions on arrangements and overdubs were made quickly on the spot and the mood was usually upbeat." Co-produced by

Thom Wilson Thom Wilson (died February 8, 2015) was an American punk rock record producer and engineer. Career Wilson began his musical career in the mid-1970s, engineering recordings by soft rock artists Burton Cummings and Seals & Crofts. He began worki ...

and Stiv Bators, the album marked Wilson's first time as a producer. All band members contributed material for ''Disconnected'', with Bators only co-writing three of the album's nine tracks. One track, "Evil Boy", had been co-written by Secich and Jimmy Zero during the Dead Boys tour that summer. The album also included the single " Too Much to Dream", originally recorded by

the Electric Prunes The Electric Prunes are an American psychedelic rock band, formed in Los Angeles, California, in 1965. Much of the band's music was, as music historian Richie Unterberger described it, possessed of "an eerie and sometimes anguished ambiance." T ...

in 1966. ''Disconnected'' was released by Bomp! in December 1980. When the album was released in December, Bators did a three-week tour of the

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with former Damned guitarist Brian James in the band. Quinton: "We actually toured quite a bit in 1980/1981. ... We always did a combination of Dead Boys songs with the ''Disconnected'' stuff and other Stiv solo material, like "Circumstantial Evidence" and "Not that Way Anymore"." Secich: "Just before we released ''Disconnected'' Stiv went to England to record with the Wanderers. He wanted to have both groups going at the same time, but the rest of us didn't…so that's how it wound down. It was just impossible to do both." The ''Disconnected'' band ended in early 1981.

Track listing

Personnel

Credits adapted from the album's liner notes. *

– vocals * Frank Secich – bass, backing vocals * George Cabaniss ''(credited as Georgie Harrison)'' – guitar, backing vocals * David Quinton – drums, piano, backing vocals * The B-Girls – backing vocals and handclaps on "Swingin' a Go-Go" ;Technical *Stiv Bators – producer, cover concept *

– producer, engineer *Gary Cooper – assistant engineer *Phil Singer – assistant engineer *Diane Zincavage – design *David Arnoff – front cover photography *Theresa Kereakes – back cover and sleeve photography *Paul Grant – typography *

– executive producer

References

External links

* {{Authority control 1980 debut albums Bomp! Records albums Albums produced by Thom Wilson