The New Order (band)
Encyclopedia
The New Order was an American hard rock
and proto-punk band. The band was based in Los Angeles and existed from early 1975 to October 1976.
imploded in 1974, former Stooges lead guitarist Ron Asheton
formed a new band, ultimately acquiring drummer Dennis "Machine Gun" Thompson
, bass player Jimmy Recca
and keyboardist Scott Thurston
. For a while, the new band shared rehearsal space at a house owned by Ray Manzarek
, during his collaboration with Stooges' lead singer Iggy Pop
.
When The New Order's first singer Jeff Spry was forced to quit the band (due to jail time incurred from a drinking/quaalude related DUI
coupled with failure to perform community service), The New Order's first drummer, K.J. Knight, recommended Dave Gilbert
as a replacement. K.J. and Gilbert had both been veterans of the 1971/1972 incarnations of Ted Nugent
's Amboy Dukes. After keyboardist Scott Thurston quit, his position was filled by a second guitarist, Ray Gunn, another Detroit veteran who was recommended by Dennis Thompson.
Leading up to the making of The New Order's first demo tapes, long time Blue Öyster Cult
producer, Sandy Pearlman
, was approached to produce the band but ultimately this didn't come together. The back cover of the Declaration Of War album bears the inscription: "This album is dedicated to the CULT", furthering the links with the Blue Öyster Cult.
A projected collaboration with '60s and '70s Rock impresario
, Kim Fowley
, was also talked about, but never came to fruition.
The New Order had at least one classic, the song Rock 'n' Roll Soldiers, later covered by The Hitmen
and more recently covered by The Hellacopters
. One of the lyrics from the song, the infamous battle-cry "The War Against The Jive", is used as the heading to the liner-notes of Radio Birdman
's 2001 release, The Essential Radio Birdman (1974 - 1978). The exact heading is: "Total Victory: Radio Birdman's War Against The Jive".
, featuring Ron Asheton and Dennis "Machine Gun" Thompson, with Radio Birdman's lead singer Rob Younger
, lead guitarist Deniz Tek
and bass player Warwick Gilbert. This band started and ended in 1981, with no studio material recorded, but three live albums released, with two of the three first released on Revenge Records, then re-released recently on Vivid Sound Corporation.
Some years after leaving The New Order, singer Jeff Spry and his guitarist brother, Joe Spry, formed the New Wave
band, Felony
, which had a much played 1983 hit song ("The Fanatic") on the influential Los Angeles radio station, KROQ-FM
. The song was featured on the soundtrack to the 1983 movie, Valley Girl. On March 9, 1992, Jeff Spry shot himself, leaving behind his wife, Tamara and daughters, Desirae & Natasha. His real name was Jeffrey Scott Spirelli.
Following The New Order's split in the fall of 1976, Dave Gilbert eventually joined The Rockets
, a straight ahead rock band formed in 1972 that evolved out of the famous Mitch Ryder and The Detroit Wheels. The Rockets made six albums, on three major labels, from 1977 to 1983. Dave Gilbert died in 2001 from cancer of the liver after a lifetime struggle with drugs and alcohol addictions, although he had embraced sobriety sometime before being diagnosed with cancer and was survived by his wife, Dee Gilbert.
label and distributed by RCA Records
. The album's lo-fi quality was the result of it being produced from Ron Asheton's inferior cassette copies, instead of the original master tapes. The album was later reissued with different cover art and a bonus track as Declaration Of War in 1987. Declaration Of War was reissued again in 1991, this time on CD.
has been revamped and changed. Vivid Sound Corporation also re-released the second and third live albums by the related Ron Asheton/Dennis Thompson band, New Race
.
Hard rock
Hard rock is a loosely defined genre of rock music which has its earliest roots in mid-1960s garage rock, blues rock and psychedelic rock...
and proto-punk band. The band was based in Los Angeles and existed from early 1975 to October 1976.
History
After The StoogesThe Stooges
The Stooges are an American rock band from Ann Arbor, Michigan first active from 1967 to 1974, and later reformed in 2003...
imploded in 1974, former Stooges lead guitarist Ron Asheton
Ron Asheton
Ronald Frank Asheton was an American guitarist and co-songwriter with Iggy Pop for the rock band The Stooges.Asheton is ranked as number 29 on Rolling Stones list of 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time....
formed a new band, ultimately acquiring drummer Dennis "Machine Gun" Thompson
Dennis Thompson (drummer)
Dennis Thompson is the drummer with the 1960s/1970s Detroit proto-punk/hard rock group MC5, which had a #82 US single with "Kick Out The Jams" and a #30 US album with the same name....
, bass player Jimmy Recca
Jimmy Recca
Jimmy Recca is an American musician best known as a former bass player in The Stooges via an incarnation that existed from early 1971 until their first break-up on July 9, 1971....
and keyboardist Scott Thurston
Scott Thurston
Scott Troy Thurston is an American guitarist, keyboardist, songwriter, and session musician. He is currently a member of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, in which he sings harmony vocals and plays guitar, keyboards, and harmonica....
. For a while, the new band shared rehearsal space at a house owned by Ray Manzarek
Ray Manzarek
Raymond Daniel Manzarek, Jr., better known as Ray Manzarek , is an American musician, singer, producer, film director, writer, co-founder and keyboardist of The Doors from 1965 to 1973, Nite City from 1977–1978 and Manzarek-Krieger since 2001.Manzarek is listed #4 on Digital Dreamdoor's "100...
, during his collaboration with Stooges' lead singer Iggy Pop
Iggy Pop
Iggy Pop is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and actor. Though considered an innovator of punk rock, Pop's music has encompassed a number of styles over the years, including pop, metal, jazz and blues...
.
When The New Order's first singer Jeff Spry was forced to quit the band (due to jail time incurred from a drinking/quaalude related DUI
DUI
DUI is a three letter acronym that may stand for:* Driving under the influence * Democratic Union for Integration — the largest ethnic Albanian party in the Republic of Macedonia* Data Use Identifier...
coupled with failure to perform community service), The New Order's first drummer, K.J. Knight, recommended Dave Gilbert
Dave Gilbert
David Robert 'Lizard' Gilbert is a former Australian cricketer who played in 9 Tests and 14 ODIs from 1985 to 1986. He also played for New South Wales, Gloucestershire County Cricket Club, and the Tasmanian Tigers.Gilbert got his chance at international cricket due to player bans as a result of...
as a replacement. K.J. and Gilbert had both been veterans of the 1971/1972 incarnations of Ted Nugent
Ted Nugent
Theodore Anthony "Ted" Nugent is an American guitarist, musician, singer, author, reserve police officer, and activist. From Detroit, Michigan, he originally gained fame as the lead guitarist of The Amboy Dukes, before embarking on a lengthy solo career...
's Amboy Dukes. After keyboardist Scott Thurston quit, his position was filled by a second guitarist, Ray Gunn, another Detroit veteran who was recommended by Dennis Thompson.
Leading up to the making of The New Order's first demo tapes, long time Blue Öyster Cult
Blue Öyster Cult
Blue Öyster Cult, often abbreviated BÖC, is an American rock band, most of whose members first came together in Long Island, NY in 1967 as the band Soft White Underbelly...
producer, Sandy Pearlman
Sandy Pearlman
Sandy Pearlman is an American music producer, artist manager, professor, poet, songwriter, and once was a record company executive...
, was approached to produce the band but ultimately this didn't come together. The back cover of the Declaration Of War album bears the inscription: "This album is dedicated to the CULT", furthering the links with the Blue Öyster Cult.
A projected collaboration with '60s and '70s Rock impresario
Impresario
An impresario is a person who organizes and often finances concerts, plays or operas; analogous to a film producer in filmmaking, television production and an angel investor in business...
, Kim Fowley
Kim Fowley
Kim Vincent Fowley is an American record producer, impresario, songwriter, musician, film maker, and radio actor. He is best known for his role behind a string of novelty and cult rock pop singles in the 1960s, and for managing The Runaways in the 1970s...
, was also talked about, but never came to fruition.
The New Order had at least one classic, the song Rock 'n' Roll Soldiers, later covered by The Hitmen
The Hitmen
Hitmen are an Australian Hard rock band. The group went through a large number of lineup changes in its short late 1970s and early 1980s run, then regrouped under a new name, Hitmen DTK, between 1989 and 1992. They reformed in 2007 and continue to play....
and more recently covered by The Hellacopters
The Hellacopters
The Hellacopters were a Swedish garage rock band that was formed in 1994 by Nicke Andersson , Dregen , Kenny Håkansson and Robert Eriksson . Andersson had been the drummer for death metal band Entombed and Dregen was taking a break from his full-time band Backyard Babies...
. One of the lyrics from the song, the infamous battle-cry "The War Against The Jive", is used as the heading to the liner-notes of Radio Birdman
Radio Birdman
Radio Birdman was one of the first punk bands in Australia along with The Saints. Deniz Tek and Rob Younger formed the group in Sydney, Australia in 1974...
's 2001 release, The Essential Radio Birdman (1974 - 1978). The exact heading is: "Total Victory: Radio Birdman's War Against The Jive".
After The New Order
After the similarly bitter ending of Radio Birdman, the two groups (Radio Birdman and The New Order), merged and become New RaceNew Race
New Race was a punk/proto-punk super-group based in Sydney, Australia formed in April 1981. New Race was a concept band featuring three members of Radio Birdman: Deniz Tek, Rob Younger, and Warwick Gilbert, along with their inspirational mentors: Ron Asheton of The Stooges, and Dennis "Machine Gun"...
, featuring Ron Asheton and Dennis "Machine Gun" Thompson, with Radio Birdman's lead singer Rob Younger
Rob Younger
Rob Younger is an Australian rock musician, vocalist and songwriter. He is best known as a member of the influential Sydney-based punk rock group Radio Birdman, which formed in 1974. After the Radio Birdman break-up, Younger joined the super-group, New Race, who were active in 1981...
, lead guitarist Deniz Tek
Deniz Tek
Deniz Tek is an American singer, guitarist and songwriter and a founding member of Australian group Radio Birdman who broke up, for the last time, after their last European tour in 2007...
and bass player Warwick Gilbert. This band started and ended in 1981, with no studio material recorded, but three live albums released, with two of the three first released on Revenge Records, then re-released recently on Vivid Sound Corporation.
Some years after leaving The New Order, singer Jeff Spry and his guitarist brother, Joe Spry, formed the New Wave
New Wave music
New Wave is a subgenre of :rock music that emerged in the mid to late 1970s alongside punk rock. The term at first generally was synonymous with punk rock before being considered a genre in its own right that incorporated aspects of electronic and experimental music, mod subculture, disco and 1960s...
band, Felony
Felony (band)
Felony is an American new wave and rock band formed in Los Angeles, California in the early 1980s by brothers Jeffrey Spirili and Joe Spirili. The brothers were also known as Jeff Spry and Joe Spry.-History:...
, which had a much played 1983 hit song ("The Fanatic") on the influential Los Angeles radio station, KROQ-FM
KROQ-FM
KROQ-FM — branded 106.7 KROQ — is a commercial modern rock radio station licensed to Pasadena, California serving the Greater Los Angeles. The call sign is pronounced "kay rock." It is the flagship station of Loveline hosted by Dr...
. The song was featured on the soundtrack to the 1983 movie, Valley Girl. On March 9, 1992, Jeff Spry shot himself, leaving behind his wife, Tamara and daughters, Desirae & Natasha. His real name was Jeffrey Scott Spirelli.
Following The New Order's split in the fall of 1976, Dave Gilbert eventually joined The Rockets
The Rockets (band)
The Rockets are an American rock band from Detroit, Michigan founded by guitarist Jimmy McCarty and drummer Johnny “Bee” Badanjek, both former members of the group Mitch Ryder & The Detroit Wheels....
, a straight ahead rock band formed in 1972 that evolved out of the famous Mitch Ryder and The Detroit Wheels. The Rockets made six albums, on three major labels, from 1977 to 1983. Dave Gilbert died in 2001 from cancer of the liver after a lifetime struggle with drugs and alcohol addictions, although he had embraced sobriety sometime before being diagnosed with cancer and was survived by his wife, Dee Gilbert.
First album and Declaration Of War
The New Order recorded demos twice in Los Angeles: First in 1975 with Jeff Spry as lead singer and then in 1976 with Dave Gilbert as lead singer. Both recordings were later released in 1977 as a single album on the Fun Records/IsadoraIsadora
Isadora is a 1968 biographical film which tells the story of celebrated American dancer Isadora Duncan. It stars Vanessa Redgrave, James Fox and Jason Robards....
label and distributed by RCA Records
RCA Records
RCA Records is one of the flagship labels of Sony Music Entertainment. The RCA initials stand for Radio Corporation of America , which was the parent corporation from 1929 to 1985 and a partner from 1985 to 1986.RCA's Canadian unit is Sony's oldest label...
. The album's lo-fi quality was the result of it being produced from Ron Asheton's inferior cassette copies, instead of the original master tapes. The album was later reissued with different cover art and a bonus track as Declaration Of War in 1987. Declaration Of War was reissued again in 1991, this time on CD.
Victim of Circumstance
In 1989, Victim of Circumstance was released on vinyl and CD on the Revenge Records label. This release consisted of eight unreleased rehearsal recordings, with side one of the original vinyl release presented as four bonus tracks on the CD version. In April 2008, the CD was re-released on the Japanese import label, Vivid Sound Corporation. This new release has the same title and track listing as Victim of Circumstance, but has the same cover art as the original 1977 vinyl release - although "The New Order" logo's fontFont
In typography, a font is traditionally defined as a quantity of sorts composing a complete character set of a single size and style of a particular typeface...
has been revamped and changed. Vivid Sound Corporation also re-released the second and third live albums by the related Ron Asheton/Dennis Thompson band, New Race
New Race
New Race was a punk/proto-punk super-group based in Sydney, Australia formed in April 1981. New Race was a concept band featuring three members of Radio Birdman: Deniz Tek, Rob Younger, and Warwick Gilbert, along with their inspirational mentors: Ron Asheton of The Stooges, and Dennis "Machine Gun"...
.
External links
- The beginning of The New Order by Dennis ThompsonNew Order Part Two by Dennis Thompson
- New Order Part 3 by Dennis Thompson
- New Order Part 4 by Dennis Thompson
- New Order Will Get Ya Posters
- New Race by Deniz Tek
- New Race Deicated to Ron Asheton by Dennis Thompson
- MySpace page
- Dennis Thompson Interview with Jarrod Dicker (2009)