John Madansky, known as Johnny Blitz,[1] is a punk rock drummer from Cleveland, Ohio, best known as being a member of the bands The Dead Boys and Rocket From The Tombs.[2] With the Dead Boys he helped pioneer the punk rock sound, look and attitude of the mid to late 1970s.
A Boston Globe retrospective described a Dead Boys concert. "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."
He is not to be confused with Bryan Adams 1983/84 tour keyboarder Johnny 'Blitz' Hannah.
After leaving the Dead Boys and New York City in 1980, Johny Blitz (né John Madansky) moved to Toronto, Ontario, Canada with his wife "B Girl" Lucasta Ross. He hooked up with singer/guitarist/songwriter Leo DeLyon (né Leonard Nieberg) and bassist Tommy "Gun" Keating from power punk trio The Blitz (unrelated to Johnny's stage name). Johnny and Leo later formed a band called Slaughterhouse with Mark Crosley on bass, playing Toronto's top clubs and concert venues with a large fan following that guaranteed a packed audience at every gig. Johnny's band Slaughterhouse and Cheetah's band, Cheetah Chrome and Skells headlined on Saturday, August 6, 1983 at New York City's CBGB. Dead Boys bassist Jeff Magnum came to the show to see his old bandmates and later that night, he, Cheetah and Blitz encored the show with some Dead Boys songs that brought down the house.
After Blitz and Lucasta Ross split, he remarried and fathered three boys. Blitz and DeLyon went on to form The Tribe with keyboard player Polly Gruen and bassist Tommy "Gun" Keating, recording originals that were a little more mainstream. After taking a few years' break to focus on family, Johnny, Leo, and Tommy regrouped back to their power punk three-piece hardcore roots to form Raw Dog. Over their twenty-five years together as band mates, the group co-wrote and arranged all original material together. They recorded a number of unreleased songs at Comfort Sound and Metalworks studios; these songs included "In From the Cold", "I like Girls", "Television Religion", "Call of the Wild", "Anxiety", "Kill 'Em All", and many more.
Blitz returned to Cleveland for the Dead Boys reunion gig in 2004 at Cleveland's Beachland Ballroom. The reunion included a question-and-answer session at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. The reunited Dead Boys also performed at CBGB in 2005. Johnny and Leo went their separate ways in 2007. Between 2007 and 2011, Johnny continued to drum in a number of rock outfits including The Highschool Hookers (2007-2008). Johnny still actively plays, writes, and arranges with his band Smash the Hammer.