Photo via Summerfest
The Smithereens
Back in March, the Smithereens with Marshall Crenshaw were set to play the Northern Lights Theater. The gear was set up onstage. But at the box office, fans ready for a night of music were greeted with the news that due to illness the show was abruptly cancelled. Four months later Milwaukee gets another chance when the tour rolls back into town, this time at Summerfest.
Smithereens’ drummer and band historian Dennis Diken recalls the fateful day. He wanted to form a band with someone that could play “I Can’t Explain” by The Who. The very first day of high school, the kid sitting directly in front of him—the one with the Beatle haircut, opened up his folder and Diken saw a photo of The Who, cut out from a Hit Parader magazine.
Since then, it has been an interesting ride for Diken (who began playing drums in 1968, when he was 11 years old), Jim Babjak, and Mike Mesaros, who formed The Smithereens with the late Pat DiNizio in Carteret, New Jersey in 1980.
The band released a debut EP that year and in 1983 The Smithereens followed with another EP, Beauty and Sadness. In 1985 the band self-recorded a handful of songs including the DiNizio-penned “Blood and Roses” and “Behind a Wall of Sleep” which caught the ear of California-label Enigma Records. “Blood and Roses” turned up in the movie Dangerously Close; it was a video hit with MTV and garnered FM radio airplay before the album Especially for You was even released.
Best of ‘60s Rock
Off and running, the Smithereens best songs pointed back to the songcraft and hooks of American garage and English Invasion music of the ‘60s. Without being a retro act, they stood apart from the glossy production and big hair that marked the MTV era, eventually moving up to Capitol Records.
Diken has fantastic memories recording at the iconic Capitol Tower studio and for the label “that was home to our heroes, The Beatles and The Beach Boys. We cut the (1988) Green Thoughts album plus about a baker’s dozen of B-sides there. I think we cut the basic tracks in two days and had access to roam the building after hours!” In 1990 the group made an appearance on Saturday Night Live. “We just worked our butts off, really,” Diken said.
By the aughts, The Smithereens recorded albums paying homage to The Beatles and The Who, but DiNizio began experiencing health problems and died in 2017.
“It was a seismic shock to us when Pat passed,” he said. “We had shows booked. He left us in December of 2017, and we already had shows booked for 2018, including a date at the Count Basie Theater in Red Bank, New Jersey.” That show was going to be presented by Little Seven Van Zandt who suggested they turn the show into a tribute to Pat.
Diken remains grateful for his life in music. “It is next to impossible to find musical soulmates who dig the same stuff, and it is hard to imagine it being any other way.”
Enter Marshall Crenshaw
A number of singers joined to celebrate DiNizio, including Marshall Crenshaw (who the band had crossed paths with over the years) and Robin Wilson of The Gin Blossoms. Diken said those singers fit with the band while not imitating DiNizio. “It made sense that we would go out and do dates with them and our fans have been supportive.
In 2015 Crenshaw played a Milwaukee show backed by country rockers The Bottle Rockets. Like Diken, Crenshaw is a musical historian as well as author and DJ. His Zelig career has found him shapeshifting from John Lennon in Beatlemania to taking part in a re-formed MC5 project. Like The Smithereens, Crenshaw’s own music remains rooted in smart pop with memorable hooks.
