Stiv Bators, the Dead Boys singer, was probably the nearest thing American punk had to Johnny Rotten.

Scrawny and spiky-haired, he combined the sneering, sarcastic attitude of Rotten with the moves of Iggy, cutting his chest onstage and thrusting his head into the bass drum.

He was punk incarnate, epitomising the title of his band’s debut album – Young, Loud And Snotty.

In one of their songs, All This And More, he sang that he wanted to be a dead boy. He got his wish 38 years ago this week at the age of 40 after being hit by a taxi in Paris.

Bators, who had gone on to form Lords Of The New Church after The Dead Boys, went to the hospital but left before seeing a doctor, feeling well enough to go back to his hotel room, where he died.

Originally from Cleveland, Ohio, The Dead Boys evolved from an earlier band, Frankenstein, which had emerged after Rocket From The Tombs split in two, with the other half becoming Pere Ubu.

Bators and guitarist Cheetah Chrome discovered the emergent punk scene at CBGBs in late 1975 and were given a break by Joey Ramone who introduced them to the bar’s owner – and the band’s future manager – Hilly Kristal.

I’m pretty sure I saw them supporting The Damned sometime in 1977 though I seem to remember thinking they were a bit too derivative of their sources, almost to the point of parody.

But they sound pretty good here.