The New Order-s/t; Cleopatra Records, 2023

 

The swordsman in the middle, the one with the odd pageboy haircut is drummer Dennis Thompson. News is breaking that Dennis has passed away. It feels kind of odd to Disaster Amnesiac in that I've been digging Cleopatra Records re-issue of the music of The New Order, Thompson's mid-1970's band, a lot of late. It's not clear to this writer if The New Order was the first band that Dennis joined after his grinding time manning the drums for the MC5, but I do know that at the time former and future Stooges guitarist Ron Asheton joined him within this Los Angeles-based Heavy Rock group. As one listens to The New Order, one is treated to a rockin' assortment of for that time contemporary stabs at the sounds and feels that rocked. Rock 'N Roll Soldiers could serve as their calling card and mission statement within those parameters. Every time that Disaster Amnesiac hears it, I reflect on Asheton's noting that The New Order played with a nascent Van Halen; the latter took the glory alluded to with the song's lyrics, while the former, sadly, dissolved after a few years of fun within what reads as a pretty surreal Los Angeles underground assortment (if you're inclined to believe a few more of Ron's anecdotes, which I do). Other standout songs include I Can't Quit Ya with its Power Pop inflections, especially the version on which Jeff Spry sings, the slinky 7/4 time Sidewinder and the heavily "Deetroit" jams of Lucky Strike and Declaration Of War. Thompson rages on his drums on all of these tunes and more, of course. Disaster Amnesiac has read somewhere that when the MC5 were recording their major label demos, the consensus among a lot of the suits was that a better studio drummer would be needed by the Sonic Smith and his dudes, and I can hear what they were missing. This is by no means meant to throw shade at Dennis's drumming. The wildness of his style is not that suited for Pop Hits. This can be a cool thing, and indeed Dennis Thompson's drumming is very cool. Just not that "subtle". In a word, crazed, and crazy is a feeling that the various members were intimately familiar with, as the evidence presented within The New Order shows.