Dash Rip Rock

Comments (0) By Chris Gray Wednesday, Jan 23 2008

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Dash Rip Rock performs 10 p.m. Friday, January 25, at the Continental Club, 3700 Main, 713-529-9899. dUNE TX is also on the bill.

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F. Scott Fitzgerald couldn't have been more wrong: There are indeed second acts in American lives. How else could Dash Rip Rock go from one of the biggest draws on the Deep South college-bar circuit to respected cowpunk elder statesmen and buddies with Live Kennedy Jello Biafra? Actually, that says more about Dash's shifting audience than the New Orleans trio itself — now founder/sole original member Bill Davis up front, with bassist Patrick Johnson and Eric Padua on drums — because their unruly, Southern-steeped sound has changed precious little from early nuggets like "Pussywhipped" and a rip-roaring version of Hank Williams's "I Saw the Light." Since 2005's two-decade retrospective Recycloned, they've also been Biafra's employees on his San Francisco-based label Alternative Tentacles, which released last year's ambitious Hee Haw Hell; the title track ranked No. 5 on XM Radio punk channel Fungus 53's 2007 most-played list. A full-blown reimagining of Dante's Inferno as the contemporary South (Skynyrd tribute "Southern Rain"; "Chariots of Hellfire," featuring Mojo Nixon as "Beelzebubba"), HHH finds Dash nearing their 25th anniversary as every bit the fire-breathing, fun-loving sons of the swamp they always have been. Boudin sales at the Continental's back-room barbecue stand should be especially brisk Friday.