Biography All Media Guide Wikipedia
Group Members: Gary Floyd
One of the few hardcore bands from the early '80s to feature an outspoken and openly gay frontman -- in Texas, no less -- the Dicks, alongside the Big Boys, were the national scene's voice from the Lone Star state. Formed in Austin in 1980, the Dicks released their first and most famous single; Hate the Police, shortly thereafter. The track, which would later get a most reverential treatment by quasi-grunge hucksters Mudhoney, is considered one of the best from the heyday of American hardcore. Their debut, a live split LP with fellow Texans the Big Boys, Live at Raul's Club was released in 1981. Gary Floyd would leave Texas and relocate to San Francisco, putting together a new lineup of the Dicks, and releasing that roster's debut -- this time a studio release -- Kill from the Heart on legendary California punk label SST in 1983. The band would release one more album, 1985's These People on Alternative Tentacles. The band split shortly afterwards, with Floyd starting the more blues-rock influenced Sister Double Happiness in the late '80s. Floyd's ability to identify with the gay experience in America in the late '70s/early '80s in a genre that was heavily macho and resistant to such ideas made him a great influence to subsequent bands, especially those who would make up the queercore movement in the mid-'90s. The original lineup of the Dicks (sans Glen Taylor, who died in 1997), played a serious of reunion shows in 2004 and 2005.
from Wikipedia:
Edmond de la Fontaine (24 July 1823 – 24 June 1891), better known by his pen name of Dicks, was a Luxembourgian jurist, poet, and lyricist, known for his work in the Luxembourgish language. He is considered the national poet of Luxembourg, and, along with Michel Lentz and Michel Rodange, one of the most important figures in the history of Luxembourgian literature. In addition, his Luxemburger Sitten und Bräuche was one of the most influential early ethnographies on the Luxembourgian people.
Fontaine was the third son of Gaspard-Théodore-Ignace de la Fontaine, who was appointed Governor of Luxembourg in 1841, and subsequently served as the country's first Prime Minister in 1848. Fontaine studied at Liège and Heidelberg from 1844 until 1847, before becoming a lawyer in 1850. From 1867 until 1870, he served as mayor of Stadtbredimus, in eastern Luxembourg's Moselle Valley. He lived in Stadtbredimus Castle from 1858 to 1881 when he became a Justice of the Peace in Vianden, where he would live for the last decade of his life.
