Text by Jim Downs / FFanzeen fanzine, 1984
Introduction © Robert Barry Francos / FFanzeen, 2019
Images from the Internet
This column was originally printed in FFanzeen, issue
#12, dated 1984. It was written by musician, photographer and friend Jim Downs.
In 2011, Jim also interviewed cult band Human Switchboard for us, for which I
was fortunate to be present. And just to make a quick note, at the time, Jim
was a fan of the Smiths, who didn’t get much radio play back then. I’m just
sayin’. – RBF, 2018
I sit across from my cousin-in-law.
Both of us have been talking and playing records for a good part of eight
hours. Occasionally he’ll urge me on and I’ll roll the knobs on my guitar amp
to “11” and he’ll don the headphones (which surely kept my aunt from calling my
parents and the police about that @#*S%!
noise) and he’ll squint and giggle while I drill a hole through his eardrums and into his
brain.
“Man, that was great!” he says. “You
know, you should be in a band.”
I barely smile at him and am grateful
for the compliment, but mumble something about getting it really together
before that.
“Well, man, if you want to really be
tight, you should listen to the British bands. The only really good bands come
from Britain. Like Zed Zeppelin or Cream, or the Yardbirds. What does America
have? Kansas! The J. Giles Band! The Eagles! No, man, the British know what to do with music!”
* * *
It seems that “New Music” programming
has taken firm grasp of American’s entertainment consciousness. More and more
people want to “rock” more. Jackson Browne and his sky blue electric guitar,
Billy Joel and his nylon curtain (Levolor Blinds), Michael Jackson beating it,
Kenny Loggins trying to be less cute. Why? Is it really because it’s time to
get back to basics, or take a good “hard” look at music? No, I don’t think so.
I think that it’s time for these guys to get back to making money. Because
rock, or as it’s called, “New Music,” is helping to pull a desperate music business
out of financial limbo.
As I am writing this, the cold
weather seems to have taken a firm foothold on Manhattan. But only about a
month or so ago I was watching the return of kids back to school. On NBC’s “Overnight,”
a segment was shown about fashion for the student ’83-’84, and the word was
“New Wave.”
Minis, straight-legs, colored-spiked
hair, sneakers (not the old fashioned Nikes), shades, and lots of black, purple
and pink. Just think: all those kids and they’re going to need this year’s New
Wave note pads, pencils and lunch boxes. Thank God for the U.S. Patent Office!
* * *
“Well, uh, I mostly wear, well… you
know. New Wave or punk clothes; it’s in,
you know?”
* * *
“So,” you ask me, “What does this
have to do with your cousin-in-law and the British?”
“Well,” I say, “Lots.”
Let’s think back over this past year,
specifically the new bands that broke through chart-wise, or as the accountants
look at it, bands that finally made money. Now name for me all the British New
Music bands that had a breakthrough this Summer: Madness; Duran Duran; Culture
Club; Kajagoogoo; Big Country; Eurhythmics; A Flock of Seagulls. Great, now
name all the American bands that were able to come up with the goods: … Well? …
Come on, I’m waiting! Give up?
Well, it seems that radio has also given up on
American bands, or more accurately, has never given them much of a chance in
the first place. I can turn on the radio and listen to a so-called “progressive”
station play rehashed rockabilly, Blues, Motown, punk or rock’n’roll by groups
who got their inspiration from the U.S. artists, but what about the U.S. artists?
Hell, it’s gotten so bad that they’re taking credit for originating forms of
music that started here. Bernard Rhodes, manager of the Clash, was quoted by Rolling Stone magazine as saying, “When
Malcolm (McLaren) and I invented punk in 1976…” What is this?!?! That’s like saying that “When George Martin
invented rock’n’roll…” or “When Mick Jagger invented Country & Western…”
Seems to me there were bands such as
the New York Dolls, the Ramones, the MC5 and the Stooges long before Malcolm
McLaren decided to sell clothes to “trendies.”
But what difference does this make to
radio? Absolutely none whatsoever. Have you ever heard the New York Dolls, the
Ramones, MC5 or the Stooges on the “hip” radio stations? I sure haven’t.
Granted these bands have been around for a while (or haven’t been around for a
while) and most of the “New” stations play current music. Well, so what
happened to the Dream Syndicate (taken off the air in L.A. after only 30
seconds of play), the Minutemen, the Blasters, X, Pylon, Black Flag, the dB’s,
the Cyclones, the Individuals, etc.?
The logical mind reasons that if a
record or song is good, people will want to hear it, so it will get airplay. Or
that Program Directors and DJs have your interests in mind, so when hearing
some good music, they’ll want you to hear it, so… that you will hear it and
like it, then buy the record, see the concert, so… the group will create more music
which the Program Directors and DJs will like, then play the music, etc.
However, it isn’t this way a great
deal of the time. In fact, it goes more like this: the Program Director and DJ
hear music which is easy to digest and not obtrusive. They figure you’ll put up
with it and not turn the radio off, so they play the hell out of the bland
record with the catchy hook (you know, where it goes “da-da Da-da”) until you
can’t help but think about the music. It’s pleasant and doesn’t upset you about
the real world, so… you go out and buy the album ‘cause it’s as pleasant as the
single, but it’s longer, so the group makes money and churns out more mood music,
the DJs and Program Directors keep their jobs ‘cause nobody (almost nobody)
turned off the radio, and you’re stuck with a musical vocabulary, a stack of
records, and radio station that all sounds exactly the same: bland.
* * *
“Bland? Are you crazy? Have you seen what
these groups look like, let along sound like? I mean, just one look at that Boy
George will clue you in that something new is happening to music…”
* * *
In an anniversary issue of Guitar Player magazine, Frank Zappa
wrote a mini-parody of the music business from dust to diamonds and back again.
In the article (which outraged many in the conservative guitar community that Guitar Player support) Frank talks of a
boy who puts on his mother’s dress, figures out how to bash out some songs, and
ta-da – instant fame. So, in 1983, we have this bloke who
puts on his mother’s dress, cops lots (tons) of licks off of every Motown and
Stax record that you’ve ever heard and some you haven’t, and ta-da – instant fame [“So ya wanna be a rock’n’roll star / Well
listen now to what I say…” – RBF, 2019]. He’s now at the top of the MOR New
Music pile, and all the mums in Britain love him and have placed him numero uno on all the music polls.
* * *
“But Christ, he looks like a girl!”
* * *
Sorry, but not in all my wildest
dreams would he ever look like a
girl. He looks like what he is: a guy
dressed like a girl. It’s a joke and people love it and think it’s cute. He
doesn’t sing about hate, poverty, war, anarchy or anything that’s unsettling.
He sings about love, time, and great stuff like that. Plus, he’s got a good
voice and smiles on stage a lot. What more could you want? It’s just alike Pat
Boone or Paul Williams: mellow, happy and cute.
And this happens to be the spearhead
of the British Invasion. The rest don’t quite measure up to the standards that
Boy George sets. Great! New bands make it across the Atlantic weekly and all of
them are trying to take the crown away from Culture Club, the crown for
rampaging mediocrity.
* * *
“Well, as the Jackson Five once said,
‘One bad apple don’t…' So is there still hope for the British?”
* * *
Sure, not by any stretch of the
imagination are all British bands bad. There are quite a few people turning out
good-to-great music; it’s just that this Invasion consists of only what the
radio will allow to fit in next to Billy Joel and Air Supply. Sure there’s hope
for the British, but what I wish for is hope for the Americans.
* * *
Paul Revere races along the road
trying to make the seconds last as long as they can. He feels the British
close, very close behind him. “Just a little bit more,” he thinks. “Just a
little bit more and we’ll have a nice surprise for them,” he chuckles to
himself. “The Minutemen will enjoy this.”
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