The Dogs | Interview | “Proto Punk Heroes”
The Dogs are an American proto-punk band originally formed in Lansing, Michigan, in 1968. They are underground heroes of the Detroit scene.
Originally formed by guitarist/vocalist Loren Molinare and bassist Mary Kay with drummer Ron Wood, and based in Lansing, The Dogs played with the rock and proto-punk bands of the time including Amboy Dukes, The Stooges, MC5, and The Up. The band relocated to Detroit in 1973, and then to New York City in 1974 where they played with other bands of the glam and pre-punk scenes such as KISS, The Dictators, Television, and The Stilettos (pre-Blondie).
“I knew we had the right name when it started offending people”
Would you like to take us back to your early teenage years? What kind of records, books and fanzines would we find in your room?
Loren Molinare: Early on in my room I had The Kinks, The Beatles, The Yardbirds, The Rolling Stones, The Beach Boys, and The Everly Brothers records, and magazines like Teen Beat Magazine, 16 Magazine, and books about history and geography.
Where did members of the Dogs grow up? What was the scene like growing up? Where did you hang out?
Mary Kay on bass grew up in Taylor, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. She had records of Johnny Rivers, The Everly Brothers and all the Motown classics. She would go to teen dances and artists like Stevie Wonder, Del Shannon would lip sync to the latest hits. Art Phelps and Ron Wood, our first drummers, were from Lansing, Michigan along with myself. Tony Matteucci, The Dogs drummer grew up in Albuquerque, NM. The scene in Lansing for myself and Art Phelps was going to school then coming home and playing records and fantasizing about starting a band and making it. We went to junior and high school dances to see bands and the YMCA dances where live cover bands played.
Tell us about the late 60s in Lansing. Did you often go to Detroit? What was it like seeing bands like MC5, the Stooges…
Lansing was a working class town with lots of factories that made car parts for the “Big Three” automakers in Detroit. For myself it was a pretty normal family life growing up till 1964 when The Beatles and The Kinks opened my eyes to rock ‘n’ roll. The city had lots of teen dances and battle of the bands where cover bands would play. By the late 60’s the free concerts would start on Sundays in the park and the larger teen clubs opened up with the Detroit bands playing them like The Amboy Dukes, MC5, The Bob Seger System, The Frost.
My aunt lived in Detroit so we would visit the city. It always fascinated me how much energy and grit the Motor City had to me in my youth. In 1966/67 we would visit Detroit and I would see young guys with shoulder length hair in motorcycle jackets. It was way more wilder in Detroit than Lansing. This had a big influence on how hip Detroit was.
When did you first get to know John Sinclair?
Actually, we only met once when we did a Marijuana Reform Concert in Midland, Michigan that John Sinclair was attending. I think John and his brother David Sinclair thought we were always a pain in their ass. I wrote a song as a tribute to him and how the government got in the way of the mission of the White Panther Party/Rainbow People Party.
Were you in any other bands before The Dogs?
Yes, in junior high school, I was in my first band The Loveables, then Blues Depression, with Art Phelps, the first drummer of The Dogs. Art and I met Mary Kay and started playing together. We then brought in an older local musician from our school named Barry Higgins and we called the band Virgin Thunder. This band was a Top 40 band playing all the radio hits. But then Barry wanted to kick Mary out of the band, so Art and myself quit and then we started The Dogs.
Any recordings available?
There were no recordings before The Dogs.
The Dogs formed in 1968 in Lansing?
Yes, in Lansing in the middle of 1968, with Mary Kay, Art Phelps.
That’s about one and half hours away from Detroit. I guess most of the bands were from Detroit.
There were bands from Lansing but the major bands were coming up out of the Detroit scene.
“With the Detroit bands I started learning about them playing their own original music”
Were there any other bands in Lansing?
Most of the bands in Lansing were cover bands playing the top 40 hits. Which was cool for me as a younger musician to hear The Kinks, The Rolling Stones, The Yardbirds et cetera. The Plaques, The Ones, The Plain Brown Wrapper. With the Detroit bands I started learning about them playing their own original music. I knew that’s what I wanted to do because I had actually had a problem learning cover songs and it was easier to write original songs for me.
Please elaborate on the formation of The Dogs.
Yes after the Virgin Thunder debacle, Art, Mary and myself started The Dogs. We felt cheated after Mary was thrown out of Virgin Thunder and we wanted to take control of our own destiny and music. The goal would be to start writing original songs and also start playing outside of the Lansing area, especially going to Detroit and other cities in Michigan.
Was the Stooges’ song inspiration for your band name? Name itself sounds very “fuck off”… very punk. It must have pissed some people off at the time?
Yes, Mary had come to band practice one day with the 45 single on Elektra Records of the Stooges ‘I Wanna Be Your Dog’. The sound of the opening feedback from Ron Asheton’s guitar scorched my soul. And Iggy’s lyrics of being a loyal dog. It hit a nerve with me because we felt like underdogs in the Lansing music scene and of course we all know a dog is man’s best friend. I knew we had the right name when it started offending people, especially my mom.
You opened for the MC5 as early as in 1969. What was that like?
We played with them in 1969 north of Lansing at a place called The Crystal Lake Palladium. It was after their LP ‘Back in the USA’ came out. This was the first time I had seen them. They were the most powerful and connected band to the audience I have ever experienced in my life. For myself witnessing the MC5 live was like a rock ‘n’ roll spiritual turning point in my life, it was a driving force in my psyche to be a part of a high energy band like the MC5/Stooges and hopefully make a difference in the world of indifference.
How much of your own material have you written by the time? What did your repertoire look like back then?
I had slowly started writing songs. By then the first original song was called ‘Beatin The Floor,’ other songs like ‘Come On Baby,’ ‘The Indian Song’ .We worked up a cover of the 60’s song ‘Are You a Boy or Are You a Girl’ [The Barbarians]. There was some other cover songs by Ten Years After, The Who, … We played ‘Jailhouse Rock’ by Elvis Presley and of course we played ‘I Wanna Be Your Dog’ by The Stooges.
“We were late for the session because we ate marijuana cookies and got lost”
It took quite some time until you released your first single. What did you do at that time? Play gigs?
Well that’s true, yes, in 1976 was the first single, ‘John Rock’ / ‘Younger Point Of View’. We did lots of home 4-track reel-to-reel tapes in Lansing and at our house in Detroit. Some of these recordings came out on the Japanese release ‘Doggy Style’ on Future Now Records. We went into United Sound Studios in Detroit in 1971 for Dunhill Records and did like 5 or 6 songs. We were late for the session because we ate marijuana cookies and got lost finding the studio. The label ended up passing by signing the band. Lesson to be learned on time and hopefully not to be stoned, haha.
I found a mention of a gig at Grande Ballroom in 1972, again opening for MC5. Tell us about it.
Yes, we played November 10th 1972 at the Grande Ballroom in Detroit, which was my birthday. We were living in Lansing and our new manager from Detroit Bill Sheets got us the audition in the daytime for the promoter to possibly book us at some point. When we showed up at the Grande Ballroom for the supposed audition the promoter told our manager that he did not tell us to come there to audition, it got very heated since we had driven 90 miles to have the possibility to play our favourite place we had known about with all the great shows there. The promoter asked us what kind of amps and drums we had and we told him 4 Marshall stacks and a set of Rogers drums. Well, that was the magic ticket for us, because he said we could play if we loaned our backline to the MC5 and of course we jumped at the chance. We got to share the dressing room with them. It made my 21st birthday a rock ‘n’ roll treat. They were still amazing, but the drugs had taken a toll on them. Rob Tyner, the singer, told Mary and myself that when your train comes into the station you better jump on board because it won’t wait for you. Good advice from our hero that we looked up too.
“The Dogs started getting a bad reputation for being hellraisers and troublemakers”
What was the reason for several relocations? We were always searching for the vibrant original and hip music scene.
We knew if we left Lansing we would learn so much about living in the big metro cosmopolitan cities and meet other musicians and the music scenes where we might travel to. Playing music in the Lansing area most clubs and venues wanted “Top 40” and we wanted to be an original band so we knew we had to leave on our rock ‘n’ roll journey.
The band relocated to Detroit in 1973. Living and growing up in Lansing we always looked up to Detroit as the biggest city in Michigan and with the most vibrant and coolest music and fashion, With Motown Records and the ever growing Detroit hard edged bands and audiences. So we met our new manager, Bill Manager at a free concert we played at River Rouge Park in the Detroit area. Bill got involved with the band and eventually convinced us to move to this old 13 bedroom Victorian house in the slums near Wayne State University. We loved living in Detroit and playing and putting on our own shows all over Michigan.
We eventually got blacklisted by the top booking agent in Detroit DMA Agency who booked all the great Detroit bands a la MC5, Brownsville Station, Ted Nugent, The Bob Seger System. The Dogs started getting a bad reputation for being hellraisers and troublemakers. So one day Ron Wood, our drummer, was speaking with Mary and they had the great idea to move to New York City. In a few weeks we packed up all our stuff and music gear and hit the road for NYC.
Then to New York City in 1974 where you performed with KISS, The Dictators, The Stilettos (pre-Blondie) and Television et cetera. How would you describe the scene in New York?
We arrived in Manhattan, NYC, August 3, 1973 the day Mercer Arts Center collapsed, this is where New York Dolls played a lot.
Yes we played with KISS at The Coventry in Queens, and had the cool chance to meet The Dictators and play with them several times around New York. We also played with Television at the trendy Max’s Kansas. We met Chris Stein and Debby Harry when they had The Stilettos. We actually only helped them with their music gear transport to a show where they opened for The New York Dolls at the Club 82. We also opened for Chuck Berry in Brooklyn at a 50’s type show. Eventually living in NYC got to be too much for us and we moved back to our house in Detroit in the Winter of 1973. We moved back to NYC in the Spring of 1974 and stayed for another 6 months and then moved back to Detroit in late 1974.
It was not until you relocated again to the West Coast that you recorded a single. Where exactly did you move?
In the Spring of 1975 we booked a tour from Detroit through the south playing Nashville and Memphis working our way to Florida. On this tour we started getting fired from a few shows for playing too loud and fast. We did some great shows in Florida, but it was in Orlando that Ron Wood quit the band. So Mary and myself and the crew and our manager decided to go west to Hollywood and there we went climbing all the way to LA with no money and no place to live when we hit the streets of Tinseltown.
For the band coming to Hollywood was a breath of fresh air. Lucky for us we met people to let us stay at their houses and gave us the opportunity to get into the LA Scene. We ended up finding a temporary drummer till Ron Wood came and re-joined the band in late 1975.
‘John Rock N Roll Sinclair’ / ‘Younger Point Of View’ 45 was released on Dynamic Recording in 1976, please tell us what’s the story behind the tracks?
Our manager at that time in LA suggested we do the 45 single on his own label Dynamic Recording. We got a lot of mileage from the single. Rodney Bingenheimer at KROQ started playing the ‘John Rock N Roll Sinclair’ single. It was one of the first single’s that came out in the early indie new wave scene in LA. In June 2022 Almost Ready Records did an authorized re-release with photos taken from a live concert at Griffith Park in LA 1976 of The Dynamic Recording single from 1976.
What inspired the songs?
Well ‘John Rock N Roll Sinclair’ was about the MC5’s manager John Sinclair and how he was busted for two joints and was unjustly set up by the cops and sentenced for 10 years. I wrote the song in honor of him and our hope was to spread the message of his unjust arrest. With ‘Younger Point of View’ it was inspired by a young person and reader of the Detroit underground local paper “The Fifth Estate”. This teenager wrote how he didn’t make Woodstock. He saw the 1968 Democratic Convention riots in Chicago and how children of love faded away and how he was not going to lose his younger point of view and sell-out as he was watching the whole political and hippie peace & love start to disappear by 1972. So I thought it was an interesting perspective to see a young person say my generation had already sold-out to be the establishment.
Was it basically a private press as I can’t find much about Dynamic Recording on the web?
Yes, it was basically a promotion tool to build up the exposure for the band. It was a smart thing that Roy McMillan, our manager, decided to have us do. His management and booking agent company was called Dynamic.
What kind of instruments, gear, amps, pedals, effects did you use at the time?
We used early four 1970s era Marshall stacks with Rickenbacker 480 guitar and Rickenbacker 4002 bass, no effect pedals and Rodgers drums on the recording.
Where did you record the two songs?
We recorded the songs at Dave Patten’s 4-track studio in the LA suburb of Whittier, CA.
As a private release, how many copies were made? Did you sell them after shows? Or send them to the radio stations and labels?
I think a few hundred were made. Yes we sold them at shows and got radio airplay on KROQ in LA.
“We both were in jail tripping on acid”
Did you like to experiment with psychedelics?
Yes we did a lot of it back in those days. Mary was taking acid before I met her. I didn’t take any till early 1971, but it was a common thing in The Dogs’ band houses that we had in Lansing and Detroit to get tripped by someone putting Orange Sunshine in a drink or in the sugar bowl. High Times! I was arrested with Ron Wood when playing in the front yard of a fan’s home in Lansing and we both were in jail tripping on acid. We loved it, got arrested for playing rock ‘n’ roll and ended up tripping in jail.
On the West Coast you played with bands like AC/DC and Van Halen, as well as The Ramones, The Pop and The Motels. We were lucky to be able to help start the Radio Free Hollywood scene with The Motels and The Pop. It was a mindset of original indie bands at the start of the new wave scene as the media called it. The great thing about The Dogs music was, because we came from the hard edged Detroit scene, we could play with Van Halen, AC/DC and The Ramones and transcend between hard rock and punk. The show with AC/DC was their American debut. We played 2 shows a night of the 3 night stand at The Whisky in Hollywood.
What led you to move to the UK in 1978?
After a while on the LA scene there seemed to be a backlash to The Dogs. From the new LA hardcore scene that was developing out of the underground club the “Masque”… To us it almost seemed because we could play our instruments and had a semi pro sound and approach. The young punks in the LA scene looked at us like a pop band. Like Journey or something. So less and less gigs were being offered and with a management change things were looking like our future was starting to fade in LA. During our stay in LA we met an English chap who booked bands around LA and he told us we should go to England. He had a partner who could help back us financially. So we sold everything and packed up for moving to London with a tour being set up. If it was good enough for Jimi Hendrix why not The Dogs move to the UK and hopefully be discovered and get a major record deal.
What’s the story behind your second single, ‘Slash Your Face’ for Detroit Records?
The story behind the ‘Slash Your Face’ 3-song EP was that we needed a product to push for our UK move and tour. The songs were recorded in 1978 at the Mabuhay Gardens in San Francisco. Our manager at the time, Lou Bramy, thought it would be cool to record the band over 2 nights at the emerging punk palace in San Francisco. He hired the Record Plant 24-track mobile truck to record the 2 night stand with Jimmy Robinson producing.
Tell us about the label, songs, and studio.
The label was a creation of our own paying homage to the Motor City, so Detroit Records was born. Lucky for the band, two brothers from LA, Steven and David Tipp put the money together to press 1000 copies of the EP. David Tipp shot the front cover photo in LA and a local friend did the artwork. The songs we picked were ‘Slash Your Face’ and ‘Fed Up,’ which were songs written out of frustration with the lack of acceptance and elitism we felt the LA punk scene was giving us a band plus the cover of the 1966 song ‘Are You A Boy Or Are You A Girl?’. Like I mentioned, it was recorded live, not in the studio.
What was the songwriting process like in the band?
I bring in song ideas and thoughts to the band, and Mary and drummers Art Phelps, Ron Wood and Tony Matteucci give their input or lyric ideas. And also background vocal parts, much like Pete Townshend in The Who I am the primary songwriter.
Upon return from the UK you decided to stop, would you like to tell us about the circumstances around the ending of The Dogs?
Do we have more lives than a cat you might ask? After the UK management pulled out financial support of the UK move and tour things got very tough in January of 1979. We were crashing on peoples floors around London, very depressing times for a band that sold everything in LA to end up on the streets in London penniless. Lucky for my parents they paid for our one way tickets to fly back home to Lansing.
I personally was very depressed once again after Detroit, NYC, LA and now London, reaching some level of success and a major record deal still evaded the band. I told Mary and Ron that I was over it and just wanted to forget playing music and was just going to stay in Lansing to be a farmer or find something that had nothing to do with the music business. Well that was short lived and they convinced me to head back to Hollywood for one more try. Which we did in late 1979. We hit the streets of Hollywood and tried to regroup which didn’t work too well. We went back to Michigan then to Boulder, CO then back to Hollywood. With different members and girl singers. In around 1982 Ron Wood our drummer quit again which is where Tony Matteucci on drums came in and along with Mary and myself I decided to go back to calling it The Dogs with me singing…trying to get back to our roots.
I guess you were always a bit too much of an underground to be able to get a proper album deal, which is a shame. Did you have any opportunities at all that didn’t turn out?
Yes there were a few times over the years, where we got close. In 1971 Dunhill Records passed on us. 1978, with live recording from Mabuhay Gardens our manager thought Jet Records in the UK would sign us but they passed on us. 1989, we got super close with Atlantic Records, but they passed. So thank god bootleggers in the US were the biggest boost to our career and longevity.
What would be the craziest gig that you ever did?
I feel probably the craziest gig over the years was when The Dogs played co-headlining for Bob Seger at the Toledo Sports Arena in Ohio in 1974. We had waited all day at this hockey arena over the state line from Michigan. Right before we were supposed to play we were all set up on stage with 9,000 rock ‘n’ roll fans waiting for a show. Well Bob’s road manager came into our dressing room and said Bob was tired and wanted to play early and for The Dogs to close the concert after Bob played his set.
Our manager said we were already set up and we would just play one song and then Bob could play. Well his road manager told us to fuck off and if we played we would go to jail. Well we said fucking rock ‘n’ roll, we are going to play. We hit the stage and the security and police cut the power to the stage so no amps would work, Ron our drummer, started a drum solo and then the Toledo City Police came on stage with billy clubs and started beating up some of our road crew and we were arrested.
What followed?
Mary, Ron and 4 other crew members. They were all charged with felony charges of inciting a riot. The next day in front of the judge he threw the case out and set the band free. This was way before it was called punk rock. We were standing up for what was right and for rock ‘n’ roll! The Dogs right or wrong when it came to push or shove we would always try to stand up for what we felt was right. Sometimes it got us in a lot of trouble.
Tell us a bit more about Little Caesar.
Little Caesar was started in 1988. I knew the bass played Fidel from the 1970’s around The Dogs’ house in Hollywood. I joined as another project to keep me out of trouble because of my drinking and drug abuse. I felt if I stayed busy I would stay out of trouble. It was great playing in this band of misfits and before we knew it we got signed in a big bidding war to Geffen Records. We were the opposite of the sunset strip hair metal scene, more of a working class blues based gritty rock ‘n’ roll band. In 1990 our LP came out that Bob Rock produced. This band had so much potential but like so many bands we got caught up in the bad side of the music industry. We broke up in 1994, very disillusioned with music biz, and inter band drug and personal issues. In 2008 we put the band back together and now have 4 LP’s out and we have done at least 9 tours of Europe and selected stateside shows and mini tours.
I would also love it if you can share some further words about the projects members were part of including Attack, Kanary, Pagans, She-Rok, Ampage, Cruzados, Glitter Trash, …
Attack was the name we used before we started calling ourselves The Dogs. Again it had several different line ups with different singers and guitarists. Kanary was Mary Kay and Tony Matteucci with Leslie Knaur. It was a fun band with a few LP’s. Pagans, I helped Mike Hudson from the Cleveland punk band reform and record a new record called ‘Hollywood High’. She-Rok, this is an all female metal band that Mary joined for a few years. Very metal..Ampage is a band I did some writing and recording in. There is a new Ampage movie called “Falling Higher” on all digital platforms. Glitter Trash is originally a Detroit band with the transgender singer Jenna Talia that moved to LA and I helped Jenna put together a west coast version of the band. Glitter Trash drummer Brian Irving and myself left to help start The Slamdinistas which has been getting a lot of radio play around the world. The Cruzados is a new version of the 1980’s LA band led by original bass player Tony Marscio. We are working on a new EP and a European tour April/May 2023.
The band reformed and new material followed on Dionysus Records in 2003 in the form of debut album ‘Suburban Nightmare’. What was that like for you?
Being again together, working on new material? You know it was something we didn’t think would ever happen, especially with Ron Wood back on drums. We got booked at the LA Shakedown and brought Ron out to LA and rehearsed for a couple of days for the show and worked up the songs to record. We went into the studio and in 2 days completed the LP. Ron wrote a couple of the songs and sang one called ‘Spooky Tricks’.
The band played SXSW festival in 2009 and 2014 and NXNE festival in 2009. Second album, ‘Hypersensitive’ was self-released in 2012 and an EP ‘Ain’t Going Nowhere’ in 2016. Tell us about those two recordings.
Well Tony Matteucci came back into the band on drums in 2007 when Ron Wood could not go to Japan in 2007 and Tony has been with us ever since. Around 2009 we got a call from Mario Escovedo from the famous Escovedo family. Of musicians. Mario had his band The Dragons and had got into managing bands. He booked us in for both appearances at SXSW and NXNE. We loved working with Mario but he left to pursue his married life and career.
In 2009 we went into the studio to record ‘Hypersensitive’. The record was a blast to record. We did the first ever song I ever wrote called ‘Beatin The Floor’ and finally recorded our early 70’s song called ‘Motor City Fever’. The LP is filled with lots of bone crushing songs.
The ‘Ain’t Going Nowhere’ EP was an interesting 4-song EP with a great cover. It’s another self-produced record of songs of angst of the middle class and the struggle to stay afloat in these turbulent times that we are living in.
Are you working on something new?
Yes, we are working on getting our 2009 LP ‘Hypersensitive’ re-released on vinyl with a great record company from Warsaw, Poland called Heavy Medication Records. It will be coming out in the Summer of 2023. We are hoping to finally get to come back to Europe to play a tour in late 2023 or in spring of 2024.
We also have the song ‘John Rock’ coming out in 2023 on this amazing 5 CD box set called ‘Blank Generation’ on Cherry Red Records out of the UK.
Looking back, what was the highlight of your time in the band?
To me the highlight would have to be our first tour to Tokyo to support the release of The Dogs tribute LP ‘Doggy Style’. It was like we died and went to rock ‘n’ roll heaven the way the fans treated us and knew all about the band. It was the most humbling and amazing experience for all of us in the band.
Which songs are you most proud of?
That’s a tough question, but ‘Slash Your Face’ and ‘Fed Up,’ ‘Years Gone By,’ ‘You Can’ Catch Me,’ ‘What Goes In Quiet Comes Out Loud’…
“The club manager told us to turn down because we were louder than AC/DC”
Where and when was your most memorable gig?
When we got to open for AC/DC in the USA, … Debut at the Whisky in LA. The club manager told us to turn down because we were louder than AC/DC…
Is there any unreleased material by the Dogs?
Yes we have the long lost LP from the band from 1987 that we just digitized and will be editing and mixing and releasing sometime late 2023. And we also have new songs we are going to record soon too.
Thank you for taking your time. Last word is yours.
If you haven’t seen or heard of the band please check us on our social platforms and the videos on YouTube. The music is timeless and stands the test of time. We are just very thankful to still be rocking harder than ever and going to continue till the day we die!
Klemen Breznikar
Headline photo: The Dogs at Ann Arbor (1971) | Photo by John Lindem
Cruzados Tour 2023
04/05/2023 Zaragoza-Spain @ Rock & Blues
05/05/2023 Aviles-Spain @ Centro Niemeyer
06/05/2023 Cangas-Spain @ Salason
07/05/2023 A Coruña-Spain @ Mardi Gras
11/05/2023 Orihuela-Spain @ La Gramola
12/05/2023 Castellon de la Plana-Spain @ Sala Because
13/05/2023 Barcelona-Spain @ La Textil
14/05/2023 Vitoria-Spain @ Urban Rock Concept
16/05/2023 Marseille-France @ Cherrydon
17/05/2023 Chambéry-France @ Brin De Zinc
19/05/2023 Kufstein-Austria @ Fufa
20/05/2023 Lauchhammer-Germany @ Real Music Club
22/05/2023 Norderstedt-Germany @ MusicStar
23/05/2023 Bremen-Germany @ Meisenfrei
26/05/2023 Krefeld-Germany @ Kulturrampe
27/05/2023 Fürth-Germany @ New Orleans Fürther Fest (Open Air)
The Dogs Official Website / Facebook / Instagram / YouTube
One of the best interviews on one of the best and one of the most storied obscure Hard Rock / Punk bands. Nice photos too which bring those great times back to life. Good to see Loren Molinare still going strong.