Richard Manitoba

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Richard "Handsome Dick" Manitoba (born Richard Blum in The Bronx, New York, January 29, 1954) is a Jewish American punk rock musician and radio personality, best known as the lead singer of both the New York City band The Dictators for 30 years and the reformed MC5 since early 2005.

Manitoba started out his music career as a roadie for The Dictators. He made his "official stage debut" with The Dictators at Popeye's Spinach Factory in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, in 1975. On their first major-label album, The Dictators Go Girl Crazy! (Epic Records, 1975), he was listed as the "Secret Weapon". This is because he sang some lead and some background, but was still considered a "mascot" of the band. He sang more lead on The Dictators' second offering, Manifest Destiny, a 1977 release on the Asylum label. On Bloodbrothers, the third and final Dictators studio recording from the 1970s (also on Asylum, 1978), Manitoba sang lead on almost all the tunes.

The Dictators disbanded in late 1978, but played reunion gigs occasionally until 1996, when they started to play again regularly. In 1989, Manitoba — along with Andy Shernoff (bass, songwriter), JP "Thunderbolt" Patterson (drums) and a man known as the "fifth Ramone", Daniel Rey (guitar)—released an album under the name Manitoba's Wild Kingdom, on MCA Records. Ross the Boss, the original lead guitarist for The Dictators, eventually replaced Rey.

On January 14th 1999 Handsome Dick opened his own bar in the East Village in Manhattan, simply called Manitoba's, where the customers can find "no trendy bullshit", just "good beer and a killer juke-box" and plenty of rare punk gigs posters and rare pictures on the walls.

In 2001, The Dictators released their first studio album in twenty-three years, D.F.F.D, on their own label, The Dictators Multimedia. A live album, Viva! Dictators, was released on the Escapi Music label in 2005.

In 2004 Canadian artist Daniel Snaith]] was asked by Manitoba to stop using the name "Manitoba". Manitoba, whose name had been legally changed some years before, had used the surname Manitoba since before Snaith was born. Unable to afford a legal fight, Snaith opted to rename his project Caribou. Both artists appear to have prospered from the change in the years since.

Since February 2005, Manitoba has been singing lead with the MC5, a Detroit band who were progenitors of American punk. Manitoba also has his own show, "The Handsome Dick Manitoba Radio Program" on Little Steven Van Zandt's Underground Garage channel, on Sirius XM Radio.

• Kiss Loves You (2004)

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• "Manitobas Bar New York, NY. Located in the East Village. NYCs Premier Rock and Roll Bar"
• "The 360° Manitoba", article in Seattle Weekly
• "Handsome Dick Manitoba Steps Behind a Different Mike"
• "Still Handsome After All These Years: Going the Distance with Dick"
• "Punk, and Jewish: Rockers Explore Identity"