Biography
Ward Dotson explained his departure from the Gun Club by noting his fatigue with performing for unsmiling crowds dressed in black leather, prompting him instead to launch the Pontiac Brothers and their markedly sunnier brand of hard rock. Following the Pontiac Brothers’ dissolution in 1989, Dotson shifted further from that earlier good-natured crunch toward the melodic pull of 1960s pop, yielding the Liquor Giants and their sharply witty, tuneful sound. The project’s debut, You’re Always Welcome, appeared in 1992 on the short-lived Lucky Records; certain overseas editions carried the alternate title America’s #1 Recording Artists. From the outset the Liquor Giants operated as a collective in name only, since Dotson alone performed on every track, handling guitar, lead vocals, and the bulk of the songwriting while a rotating cast of Los Angeles associates contributed bass, drums, and keyboards, among them former Pontiac Brothers drummer Dave Valdez, drummers Dan Earhart and Bill McGarvey, and keyboardist Dan McGough. The songs deliberately softened the Pontiac Brothers’ hard-rock drive in favor of catchy yet agreeably rough-hewn pop-rock numbers steeped in the era of 1960s AM radio. The follow-up, Here, surfaced in 1994 on ESD with guitarist Steve Dima, bassist Joel Katz, and returning drummer Bill McGarvey rounding out the lineup. Any notion of a settled roster evaporated with the self-titled 1996 Matador release, on which Dotson performed nearly everything save drums—handled by another ex-Pontiac Brother, Matt Simon—plus scattered keyboard parts and female backing vocals. That album expanded Dotson’s pop palette, reintroducing touches of hard rock while retaining British Invasion tunefulness and blending caustic humor with an unsentimental yet sincere romantic outlook. Dotson again shouldered most of the instrumental load on 1998’s Every Other Day at a Time, appending several little-known 1960s and 1970s pop covers as unlisted bonus tracks; those same recordings later formed the standalone all-covers collection Something Special for the Kids issued the same year. Every Other Day at a Time marked the Liquor Giants’ final Matador outing, after which Up With People was recorded for Australia’s Elastic Records, capitalizing on Dotson’s devoted following in that country.
Albums