Johnny Blitz - Early Career

Early Career

Johnny Blitz met Cheetah Chrome though a classified ad, and together went on to play small gigs in short-lived bands. In early 1975, Blitz and Chrome were recruited to Rocket From the Tombs. The band broke up within the year. After the break up, Blitz and Chrome teamed up with singer Stiv Bators, rhythm guitarist Jimmy Zero, and bassist Jeff Magnum to form a band called Frankenstein. Eventually, the band renamed themselves Dead Boys and recruited James Sliman to be their manager.

A Boston Globe retrospective described a Dead Boys concert with Blitz on drums:

"The first time I saw Stiv Bators and his band, the Dead Boys, was at the Rat in 1976, with about 50 other people. At one point, the bare-chested Bators stuck his head inside the kick drum as drummer Johnny Blitz played. Bators followed by jumping to his feet and slashing his chest with a broken bottle."

“ ” Jim Sullivan, The Boston Globe (Boston, MA), June 7, 1990

During his time with the Dead Boys, Blitz and a group of friends were in New York's Lower East Side when they became involved in an altercation with a separate group. During the altercation, Blitz was stabbed in the chest. The injury caused him to be hospitalized for months.

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