JOHN COUGAR MELLENCAMP: Hoosier Hysteria [1982]

Text by Cary Baker / FFanzeen, 1982

Introduction © Robert Barry Francos / FFanzeen, 2019

Images from the Internet

This interview was published in FFanzeen, issue #9, dated 1982, by then-Chicago-based writer, Cary Baker.

When this was first printed, he was just John Cougar, and Jack and Diane were still in his future. While I’ve never been a Mellenhead, and always considered him a depressive Springsteen wanna-be (to me, both are overrated, but see below), I respect the work he’s done, considering he rose from the ranks of the MainMan label splitting record sides with the likes of Cindy Bullens, to the small Hoosier label Gulcher, and then onto an international stage. – Robert Barry Francos, 2019

* * *

We catch up with John Cougar in the environment we’re told he feels most at home – among hundreds of Harley-Davidson motorcycles. We browse through a Harley dealer, located on the fringes of a massive car dealership row that could be one of thousands of such stretches between Van Nuys and Norfolk. But John has selected his dream toy: a black beauty listing for $7,000 to add to his present menagerie of bikes.

“I’m gonna get me one of these and put new jammer parts on it, and paint over that emblem. You know it’s a Harley – you don’t have to advertise it.”

From the street we hear a deafening VAROOM!

“Hear that?” he asks. “That’s a Harley. I don’t even have to look. It ain’t like a Suzuki, which goes RRINGG. That’s not thrilling. It’s like, if you had the chance to see Gene Vincent or Bobby Rydell, who would you go see?”

John Cougar takes his ride as seriously as his rock. And with his unequivocal small-town veneer – a rube’s voice that presumes him sooner a native of Raleigh then Seymour, Indiana – we don’t doubt the rough and tumble nature of his songs come from real-life experience. In that sense, he’s a true rock populist, a neo-Buddy Holly whose side of the Mason-Dixon Line is at first uncertain. But Cougar, who speaks with an emphatic drawl and in often too-emphatic language, will be the first to point out he’s no different than any other self-respecting Harley rider. His self-image appears to be one of a sated Hoosier, the one-in-a-million who clicked.

“I’m no songwriter,” he says. “When you say writer, you’re assuming you’ve got something to say. What did “I Need a Lover Who Won’t Drive Me Crazy” say? It didn’t say shit. Now Tennessee Williams was a writer. Let’s give credit where credit is due.

“I string some words together. Kids and people my age might like it, but what I’m really doing is communicating. There’s nothing wrong with communicating, but it’s a whole different thing from writing.

“I write about very insignificant parts of life. I ain’t got nothing to say that you don’t already know. I may refresh your memory; but some of these cats are heavy fuckin’ writers and I don’t want that responsibility on my shoulders.”

We mention Dylan, Lennon and McCartney, and Cougar is reticent to acknowledge their place in rock’s annals, save for some early Dylan perhaps. He stops to consider our suggestion that after five years of Fabianism, Meet the Beatles was easily on par with A Streetcar Named Desire.

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” he acknowledges, “but I mean, ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’? If somebody wrote that song now, we’d probably never hear it!”

John Cougar, nee John Mellencamp, is a youthful 30. His styled, not-exactly-punkish black hair reveals sprigs of silver. The eyes are oceanic blue and intense. The perennial 5:00 shadow is in full-bloom at 2:30 on a Saturday afternoon. Within two minutes of sitting down with him at McDonald’s across the street from the bike dealer, there’s no mistaking him for an urbanite. Even a few years of ripening in Europe and the dubious tutelage of David Bowie’s ex-manager haven’t changed his headstrong outlook.

John Cougar, you might recall, started out as a hype. He’d straggled into Tony DeFries’ MainMan Productions around 1975, “where everyone looked like Bowie.” DeFries was about to lose his paramount client and it wouldn’t have hurt to prove he could do it again. Enter the then-23-year-old Mellencamp of Seymour, and soon there was an album on MCA that displayed little more integrity than More of the Monkees.

“I had a year’s unemployment coming, right?” he shrugs. So why not use it to become a star? MainMan even staged a “Johnny Cougar Day” one nippy October afternoon in Seymour, Indiana [2 hours west of Cincinnati, OH – RBF, 2019], and wondered why half of Soho didn’t turn out.

But Johnny Cougar, MainMan and the MCA deal weren't terribly long-lived. Not exactly crushed, Mellencamp headed for London where he spent two years. Eventually, he teamed with producer John Punter, a Roxy Music alumnus, and cut “I Need a Lover Who Won’t Drive Me Crazy.” The song caught fire, so he returned to these shores, inked with the Riva division of PolyGram and cut an album around his hit. He also shed his pristine “next-Bowie” image, adding that, “what you’re seeing now is the way I’ve been from the start.” What then? “I got lazy.” But by that time, the real starmaker machinery was in motion and “I Need” was safe in bed with AOR.

The next Riva album may not have panned out to be the smash its predecessor was, but well-espoused the philosophy of John Cougar. It’s title: Nothing Maters and What If It Did?

“I’ve learned it’s not really important that everyone likes John Cougar. People’s opinions aren’t that important, not even mine. The good news, though, is that the music’s still gotta be good for people to buy it.”

We cite Christopher Cross as an example to the contrary.

“I don’t like him either and if I hear that ‘Arthur’ record again, I’m gonna puke. But there are 35-year-old women out there and I’m not gonna be the one to tell ‘em they’re crazy for liking Christopher Cross ‘cause they ain’t.”

Cougar’s populist image becomes intensified or deflated, depending on how one views populism, when Cougar insists his songs are written for him alone.

“I don’t write songs for the people. They’re for me. I don’t really think about them being hits. I could be a hit by selling cocaine. You and me could be rich and famous much quicker and with more leisure than this job!”

What, we query, would happen if Riva Records one day decided, “Sorry, John-boy, you’re too personal and esoteric for today’s marketplace?”

“I couldn’t leave the record company now,” he says. “I already tried and they said, ‘That will cost you $5-1/2 million’.”

But what happens – God forbid – when obsolesces does rear its ugly head and John’s washed up? [Note: He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2008, the Americana Lifetime Achievement Award in 2010, the ASCAP Founders Award in 2016, and the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2018, among many others – RBF, 2019.]

“Oh, I’ve got job security,” he chimes. “When I get tired of makin’ records, I have another job I can do. I know this business inside and out.”

He points to the PolyGram promotion rep.

“I know what he should be doing. I know what his boss should be doing, and when they’re screwed up. I met this Atlanta guy who’s the man if you wanna get on the radio – and let’s face it, you’re nowhere if you’re not on the radio. If I’d met this guy five years ago, I’d’ve quit the business.”

He does a mocking imitation of a radio programming mogul.

“’You mess with him and your records won’t be on the radio.’ But I’m at a point where I mess with him and get away with it.”

John Cougar, his “old lady” and the “the kids” presently reside in Bloomington, Indiana, “The Gulch” – quieter then New York or London, but “not as embarrassing as living in Seymour.” A college city with a music scene that now and again dents the national consciousness, Cougar claims the locals know him and accept him as a burgher.

“”They see me so much there that they say, ‘Oh, there’s that guy who makes records.’ They all know I live there so it’s not any big deal,” he says.

A typical off-the-road day for John Cougar might begin with “a few business phone calls to check in. then I might smoke some cigarettes, sit around for a bit, talk to the old lady, play with the kids and ride my Harley to the lake and back.”

Cougar probably loves his Harley as much as he does music or the aforesaid old lady [second wife Victoria Granucci at the time, but he’s been married more times since, and linked to a few others, including Meg Ryan – RBF, 2019].

“I ain’t one of these guys carryin’ guns, rapin’ women and shit like that. There are some who ride to heaven – or to hell, whichever they choose – and back. For me, it’s just a hobby outside music.”

We ask what kind of music he does listen to at home, only to elicit a rather surprising response.

“I’m into Paul Rodgers [lead singer for Bad Company and Free – CB, 1982]. I went into a record store to buy a Free tape last week; I’ve had the record for 15 years. I told the guy at the counter, “It tested out; telephone response has been great over the last ten years, so I’m buying it.” Another jab at radio.

Cougar is hardly considered villainous to New Wavers, but he personally deplores trendiness – a category, which by his standards, includes Bruce Springsteen, a singer with whom he’s been exhaustively compared. “He does have a little integrity left,” he shrugs. “I wonder how long that’ll last [try getting a Springsteen on Broadway ticket in 2018, ‘nuff said – RBF, 2019].

“But I make a point out of not being hip. I’m not into Bow Wow Wow. But don’t get me wrong – that’s only my opinion. If the kids are into it, great for the kids. If the song is good, I could care if they have mohawks. I had one once when I was a freshman in high school as an initiation. And I cut it all off the next day. Mohawks ain’t new to me – I had one for one day in 1967!”

His comment is silenced by the thunderclap of a bike pulling into the dealer’s parking lot.

“You know,” he says, “All the guys who ride Harleys even look alike. It’s a little like punk rock…”

Cougar obviously hasn’t seen the customer – squat, brawny, balding, faded denim jacket, chains, like a Hell’s Angel 12 years after Altamont.

Savoring the $7,000 bike he’s decided he’ll eventually own, Cougar gives a sheepish grin.

“Well, maybe we don’t all look alike.”

QUESTION MARK Answers [1981]

Text by Cary Baker / FFanzeen, 1981

Introduction © Robert Barry Francos / FFanzeen, 2017

Images from the Internet, unless indicated

At Cavestomp! 2002 - Pic (c) RB Francos

This article was originally published in FFanzeen, issue #8, dated 1981. It was written by writer-turned-press agent extraordinaire Cary Baker.

There is no denying that “96 Tears,” ? and the Mysterians biggest hit from 1966, has one of the most infectious organ lines in rock’n’roll. I had the good fortune to see the band play in 2002 at CBGBs during “Cavestomp!,” a garage revival showcase series they were headlining. Between songs, he used the term “bay-behhh” a lot, as in “Hello, bay-behhhs. Great to be here, bay-behhh!” Needless to say, they were amazing. – RBF, 2017

Of all rock’n’roll’s “one-hit wonders,” perhaps the least is known of the arcane man by the name of Question Mark (hereafter referred to as “?”) who, with the equally-inscrutable Mysterians, created the Vox-riffing masterpiece of pop ephemera known as “96 Tears.”

The song, innocent as it was when ? wrote “Too many teardrops for one heart to be crying,” has enjoyed a phenomenal revival, thanks more than partially to Garland Jeffreys (who returned it to the Hot 100 this year) and to “Joe “King” Carrasco, whose Mex-merizing version was a live showstopper on last year’s Son of Stiff tour.

Now ? is back with four all-new Mysterians, touring at the peak of commotion brought on by Jeffreys’ cover. And without dispelling too much self-perpetuated “mystery” at the center of his non-myth, ? would like to make a few things crystal clear. Well, translucent, anyway:

Mystery No. 1: While certain rock texts espouse that ? is the nom de disque of Rudy Martinez, the mystery man himself insists it has been legally changed to, well, Question Mark. Asked to see an ID to that effect, he replies that he’s been refused one because no one believes him. Especially the immigration authorities, who deny him passports to the UK. “After all,” he reasons, “anyone can make anything up.”

Mystery No. 2: ? & the Mysterians are not from Brownsville, El Paso, or Austin, but rather from Flint, Michigan. “Outside of town and in the country,” specifically. The other original members (Bobby Bladerrama, guitar; Frank Rodrigues, keyboard; Eddie Serrato, drums [d. 2011]; Frank Lugo, bass guitar; Robert Martinez and Larry Brojas) were from Texas, he explains. Asked if ? himself, of obvious Hispanic descent, was born in Flint, he shrugs, “I won’t say.”

Mystery No. 3: After “96 Tears” topped the charts (the week of October 29, 1966, between “Reach Out” and “Last Train to Clarksville”), ? rebounded with “I Need Somebody” (peaking at No. 22), “Can’t Get Enough of You Baby” (No. 36), and “Do Something to Me” (which, karma aside, reached its apex at No. 96). Then, one would have thought, according to all logic, that ? would take the hint and disband the Mysterians. Therein lay Mystery No. 3. Fact is, there has never been a time that ? was without some version of the Mysterians. What’s more, he recorded (though not released) an album every year since 1969. “It was continuous,” he says. “Whoever came in, he was the new Mysterian. But every time I had a new group and it looked right to go on the road, someone would mess it up. I do have albums worth of material for each year.”

Mystery No. 4: A major record trade magazine recently reported that the original Cameo single of “96 Tears” was cut in a garage. Not only is that incorrect, but ? never sought coverage in the magazine. “I just called to see how Garland Jeffreys’ version was doing,” he says. “We were going to play in New York so I thought I’d drop in on ABKCO Records, who took over Cameo.”

* * *

The ? of today is of indeterminate years (“I never tell my age”) and sports a hirsute mane of shoulder-length black hair. Constant are the dark, convex shades that became his trademark a decade before there was a Ramones.

Coming to terms with the New Wave aided his renewed popularity. ? is proud to say that, “Elvis Costello bought an original copy of the 96 Tears album for $250.”

He likes much of what he’s heard, he claims, but doesn’t have a lot of time to spend listening to anyone. “I have heard Kraftwerk,” he says. “They play music with no drummer, no guitarist, no bass player, and no keyboard. Just four guys, and each has an electronic pad. If music goes in that direction, I can’t appreciate it. I wrote a song called, ‘He Plays Guitar.’ In ten thousand years, people are going to ask, ‘What’s a guitar?’ Just get a group of guys up there playing guitar, bass and drums.”

And you didn’t believe he was from within earshot of Detroit?

Central to the ? sound – then and now – is the organ. One hears a lot these days about the Farfisa, the matter-of-fact keyboard that spans an entire four octaves. Vox is the Farfisa’s close cousin, and served the original Mysterians well. “Now the guitar’s more out front,” ? says, “and we’re using a Hammond B-3 instead of a Vox. If I could find one, I’d love to have it because that’s the sound that happened then and can happen now. In Boston, we played with some new group and they had a real Vox. I almost walked out with it.” In an affected tough-kid Mexican inflection, he recapitulates his reaction: “Hey, we need that Vox, you know?!”

? has another taboo topic besides his age and birthplace: he refuses to interpret the vision behind his lyrics.

“They’re personal. I write for everybody. I figure everybody has the right to fantasize and put in their own possibilities. As soon as an artist says this song’s about so-and-so, that spoils the mystery.”

Why the recurring theme of mystery in his personal? ? won’t say.

“I didn’t just happen to say, ‘Do this.’ It evolved. See, I’ve been in show business since I was five. I was always dancing, always onstage with lights.

“My parents bought me a tape recorder. They would’ve bought me a piano if I’d wanted. I came from a family of ten, so it wasn’t easy. Anyway, I just sat down in a room and sang whatever was in my head and ‘96’ was one of those songs, instrumental arrangements and all.”

But, ?, is it not correct that Sir Doug’s “She’s About a Mover,” and Sam the Sham’s “Wooly Bully” preceded “96 Tears?”

“Yes, they came out first. But I had “96” conceptualized before they came out. As I said, my parents said they’d finance a piano if I wanted it, but I took a look at all those keys and thought, ‘It’d take forever to play this thing. And I have so much music in my head. I can sing it, but I have to find someone who can play what I hear.’”

? consulted the father of a neighborhood record store clerk who attempted to teach him to read music. “He tried to teach me the ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb” bit, but I didn’t have the time,” ? says, “So, he played ’96 Tears’ and for the first time, I heard the music I’d been hearing in my head, thanks to his old man.

“Right away, I started tracking radio stations, writing down how many times they played each song. People thought I was crazy, but I just had to do it. I mean, one day, I was going to be on the radio,” he says.

“96 Tears” was taped in a friend’s living room on a two-track perched outside on a patio. It was March, and the friend’s storm windows were still in.

“Not very acoustical,” he concedes.

The session cost $50. The organist came up with the two-chord run that set the tenor. “And I told him, ‘Hey, I’ve heard that before.’ Then it dawned on me. I wrote that. The old man at the music shop played it for me.”

“’96 Tears’ hit the top of the pops, while follow-ups were no more household than the Seeds’ “Can’t Seem to Make You Mine” or the Shadows of Knight’s “Willie Jean.” The band embarked on a Dick Clark tour and played Chicago’s Aragon in 1967 with the Four Seasons and Mitch Ryder. A version of “Do Something to Me” (“a year before Tommy James & the Shondells made it a hit”) made No. 5 in Louisiana and Hawaii, and No. 1 in their native Flint.

“If we’d stuck with original material, I’m convinced people would have related better,” he feels. Instead, producers kept feeding them outside contributions.

The eventual demise was far more external than choice of material. The Cameo label, whose president was Neil Bogart (later of Buddah, Casablanca and Boardwalk), collapsed. And since ? was on the road nearly perpetually, he didn’t hear the news until after the Cameo office phone had been disconnected.

Unreleased albums and countless personnel changes ensued. Finally, when the original organist found he couldn’t get along with the new members, the Mysterians took on a new, low-profile visage “with the guitar more out-front.”

There were plans to tour this year, as with every year prior. And then, suddenly, “96 Tears” was on the radio again, and ? was blown out of the water.

“I’ve never heard of Garland Jeffreys. And a friend called and said she’d heard my song on the radio. So I called the radio station and they played it for me. Then, in Columbus, Ohio, someone that called a radio station wanted to know, ‘Where’s the original Question Mark?’ I guess someone from Flint had a sister in Columbus. The DJ said, ‘If you know where he is, call us. If you have an original copy of the record, we’ll pay you $200.’ It just created a whole new interest.

“I like the Jeffreys version. He really listened to the bass line,” ? adds.

In concert, the new Mysterians have a Detroit sound and have the tendency to illuminate a ‘70s influence more than a ‘60s or and ‘80s one. Mitch Ryder’s current band comes to mind, as do the Rockats. And to the letdown of many, ? saves “96 Tears” until the tail end of the second set.

* * *

Mystery No. 5: This tour has been said to be a cash-in on the Tex-Mex craze with no more artistic merit than the return of, say, the Grass Roots or Crazy Elephant.

“I never get sick of doing my songs,” ? says. “One thing about a good song is that you can do it anytime. The band (conducting their soundcheck as we spoke) is playing, ‘Do Something to Me,’ which I recorded in ’68. It still sounds good to me. It doesn’t have to have a time period. If I’d done something disco, someone would have said, ‘Well, that’s good but it’s disco,’ and they wouldn’t appreciate it five years from now.

“That’s the one thing about an original: you can do it any time. The songs relate to any time anyone wants them to.

A later version remake:

THE CITY OF CHICAGO: Rock’n’Roll Paradise? [1980]

Text by Cary Baker / FFanzeen, 1980

Introduction © Robert Barry Francos / FFanzeen, 2016

Images from the Internet

This article was originally published in FFanzeen, issue #6, dated Year-End 1980. It was written by writer-turned-press agent extraordinaire Cary Baker.

Baker, who is well regarded in the music historian field, studied journalism at Northern Illinois University, and despite all his protesting below, moved to Los Angeles to work at Capitol Records and Discovery Records in the publicity field. He now owns and runs the Conqueroo PR firm, where he works long hours promoting some major talent. 

As for Chicago, well, I’ve never been there – yet. A good friend and musician/writer, JD Glass, moved to the Windy City (aka Chi-Town) recently, so who knows, I still may get there; then you can ask: “Chicagee? Did you drove or did you flew?,” in the words of Sid Dithers. – RBF, 2016

I’ve spent countless weeks in both New York and L.A. and you know what? I like Chicago better than either of ‘em. Enough so that if I could afford it, I’d buy a house right in the center. I’ve had ample opportunity to relocate; could’ve kissed a little ass and taken an editorial job in L.A., had I been willing to zero in on Bee Gees, KISS and Boston (to provide some time reference). Looked over Cleveland, Detroit, Nashville, Minneapolis (an almost, if it weren’t for the climate), Atlanta, Dallas, Milwaukee, Tulsa, St. Louis – Nothing compares. This city gives me the best feeling of all.

Chicago has borne the brunt of several misconceptions. Gangsters are relegated to the 1st Ward, which is miles from my neighborhood. Chicago (the group) plays here no more frequently than, say, the Eagles and go just as shunned by the rock’n’roll intelligentsia. At its worst, it is practically true that everyone knows someone who knows someone whose sister went out with Cliff Johnson of [the band] Off Broadway. Chicago is WLUP (“The Loo, FM 98”, Steve Dahl’s largely-metal AOR station) [now a Classic Rock station – rbf, 2016], but it’s also WXRT (“Chicago’s Fine Rock Station,” with lots of New Wave, Blues, Jazz, R&B and Reggae – hip enough to flail stills of Marley, Costello and Springsteen on its TV spots) [now an Adult Album Alternative station – rbf, 2016].

Whereas New York is The Village Voice, Soho and the Aquarian, Chicago is the Reader [aka The Chicago Reader] (free very Thursday night) and the Illinois Entertainer. While L.A. is pastrami tacos in hotdog-shaped outdoor stands, Chicago is El Taco Loco, Korean grills, gyros, corned beef and stuffed pizza. Where New York’s not the Mudd Club or CBGBs, Chicago‘s not Tuts or Jamie’s or Neo. Soho-style lofts are relegated to Printers Row in the North Loop; Chicago’s “look” is 1930-vintage Greystone six-flats which look like home and still hold up and cost $305-350/month – lower than New York but higher than Louisville or Rockford. For that, you have proximity to subways, the beach, restaurants, clubs and a copy of the Reader. You can also park your car out in front, some of the time anyway.

There’s no James White or Lydia Lunch in Chicago; there’s no Skafish or Desmond anywhere else I’m aware of; the Chicago influence (hale’n’hearty, blues bars in the neighborhood, X-rated flicks three blocks over) is particularly evident in the style of the latter. Chicago has never had a band like X – I doubt we could; Immune System, Dadistics, Bohemia and Phil ‘n’ The Blanks – for better or worse, are more our style. You don’t have club DJs as universally recognizable as Phast Phreddie or “Get-Off-the-Air” Rodney [Bingenheimer – rbf, 2016]; then again, the records you hear at Neo in Chicago are far better.

Chicago’s a pedestrian city. You can walk it at any hour of the day, except for certain sections (like Clybourne & Division or 63rd and Woodlawn). It used to be the good schools and corner grocery stores that kept people in the neighborhood; now it’s actually the Reader, which you can’t find in the auto-oriented suburbs. Chicago’s not an industrial city – most such activity occurs largely to the east in Gary or Hammond, Indiana, or south in the Calumet regions. There are suburbs that look variously like Westchester, Hackensack, Rockaway Beach, Edison, Shaker Heights, Culver City and Southfield. Some, like Schaumburg (home of B. Ginnings – the Capitol Theatre of the Chicago area) are mini-metropolises, with phenomenal growth rates over the past ten years (Schaumburg rose from 18,000 to 62,000 in that time [at last official count, in 2013, the population there is 74,907 – rbf, 2016]. Others, like Evanston, are old, landlocked, racially balanced, collegiate and comfortable. The less-descriptive suburbs have metal/glam groups that play shopping-strip nighteries like Studio One and Pip’s. No doubt Trillion, M&R Rush and the Boyzz recall Twisted Sister and their ilk. Such species have been tar’n’feathered from all but a very few inner-city clubs. Every so often, you’ll hear of an R. Stevie Moore disciple living in an exurb like Joliet or Aurora or Elgin. Occasionally, you meet someone who grew up in Rockford (2 hours by Interstate), where the five best minds are doubtless Cheap Trick [inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2015 – rbf, 2016] and John Anderson. Or a place you never through about twice, such as East Chicago, Indiana, turns out of be the home of Skafish; or the nuke-invested Zion, Illinois, which unassumingly gave us Shoes, as well as six-inch spiders.

Chicagoans don’t ask a lot. A nice apartment/condo/coachhouse, a good meal (Schezwan, Sushi, fondue or Thai will do), a concert at Park West ($8.50 covers a two-drink minimum [tickets are in the $30 range now – rbf, 2016]) and a weekend for two in nearby Lake Geneva will hold you for a week.

Better pick up the Reader before you get too comfy on Thursday night or else all your phone pals will be quoting Don McLeese’s reviews despite you. They’ve been bombasting the reviews in the dailies all day. Saturday afternoons are spent at Wax Trax, possibly the best record store in the world with everything from Mickey Gilley’s Drive-In-Movie, to Human League, with videos, old fan mags, new British fanzines, Russian Beatle imports and very elaborate décor.

Sunday mornings are leisurely brunches at the 2350, Otto’s Coq Rouge, Oxford’s or the neighborhood hash house. Sometimes, brunch is followed by a sojourn to Maxwell Street Market where you can still see Big Walter Horton [d. 1981] and Blind Arvella Gray [d. 1980] playing Blues outdoors on the street corners. You can buy anything from a hot Fender bass to your stolen hubcaps there. In ten years, this strictly Chicago institution will be a memory, as the adjacent University of Illinois-Chicago Campus engulfs. Sunday afternoons – when a blizzard hasn’t hit – are well-spent exploring unknown sections of the sixty-square-mile metropolitan area. Or visiting friends in the ‘burbs for a brief respite. Or Cubs games or Bears games or corner laundromats or records in the living room. Or people-watching on the subways or at record collectors’ conventions or the Chicago Public Library.

When it comes down to it, Chicago is the most livable city in the U.S. that’s still exciting and omnipotent. The real lack of enlightenment is not among us-by-choice-Midwesterners, but rather those convinced there’s no life more intelligent than nocturnal fungus existing west of the Hudson and east of Riverside/San Bernardino. If you don’t believe it, visit. Bring lots of cash, plan to pick up (and devour) the Reader. Check out Tuts, eat at a decorless Korean grill for $4, spend $50 on rockabilly singles at Wax Trax, tune in WXRT between 7-11 PM, and visit the Maxwell Street Flea Market (home of Aretha’s soul Food Café). Take in a museum. Walk the lakefront.

I guarantee you’ll be profoundly moved.

CHEAP TRICK: Interview [1978]

Text by Cary Baker / Big Star fanzine, 1978
Introduction and photos © Robert Barry Francos / FFanzeen, 2015
Videos from the Internet

This interview was originally published in Big Star fanzine, issue #3, dated Spring 1978. It was written by Cary Baker. Thanks to Bernie Kugel, the fanzine’s publisher, who kindly granted permission for this reprint.

Thanks to uber-rock writer Mary Anne Cassata, I had the chance to hang out with most of Cheap Trick in the very early 1980s, during a promotion for a USO Tour. I stood outside the New York USO headquarters snapping pix of guitarist Rick Nielsen and drummer Bun E. Carlos goofing around, while vocalist Robin Zander bought a pretzel off a street vendor. Over a decade later, I would work with Carla Dragotti, who was a huge fan, and actually became their tour manager (I had met her just a year earlier in 1991 at the Marquee NY Johnny Thunders Memorial Concert). With all of that, I’ve never seen the band perform live. – RBF, 2015
 

Rick Nielsen and Bun E. Carlos hanging out on Times Square

Cary Baker: After getting off the road with KISS a week ago after two months of solid touring, what impressions do you have of Gene Simmons and crew?
Rick Nielsen (lead guitar): I can give you a scoop. That’s not really makeup they wear at all: it’s tattooed right on their faces. It’s amazing to me as a musician that they’d be into their act enough to do that. I mean, this baseball hat I’m wearing is not sewn to my head. It does come off every time I go for a transplant.

Cary: I’d imagine it must be quite different touring with Foreigner.
Rick: It’s geared way down. KISS’s set is very elaborate with hundreds of people behind the scenes. Foreigner is a normal tour. My parents go out and buy albums by anyone we’re touring with. Foreigner was easy – they have only one album. KISS posed a problem.

Cary: Who is the handsomest man in rock’n’roll?

Rick: I’m not going to say Dick Manitoba. I read that somewhere. I guess it’s Bun and me. It’s a tie. Bun E. and I are the two most eligible bachelors in the rock’n’roll business. I did tell Paul Stanley [of KISS – RBF, 2015] that the four most eligible bachelors in the world today are Gene Simmons, Robin Zander and himself, not necessarily in that order, and if the Mexican divorce goes through, Bun E. Carlos.

Robin Zander buying a street pretzel

Cary: I heard there’s a live LP of you guys.

Rick: We did record live in the Whisky in the middle of recording In Color, but it probably won’t come out.
Tom Peterssen (bass; 12-string guitar): Who wants a boring live LP?
Rick: We’ve got other projects we’re more concerned with. Someday we’ll get to the point where we’ll be auditioning the Vienna Boys Choir, the London Philharmonic, the London Symphony Orchestra – but only if they rock. We’ll draw up the ultimate charts. It won’t be Cheap Trick and Orchestra. It will be an entity of its own. But we’ll always be pounding rock’n’roll in warehouses. We’re doing TV too. Just taped shows in New York and Atlanta. Also, we’ll be appearing on Lloyd Thaxton [d. 2008], Hullabaloo and Shindig.

Cary: The single from In Color, “I Want You to Want Me,” reportedly has a B-side that’s not on the album.

Rick: It’s called “Oh Boy,” and it marks the singing debut of Bun E. Carlos. But since Bun E. has never sung, there are no vocals on it.

Cary: What if it’s the runaway A-side?

Rick: I doubt it. But it’s neat. You’ll never guess who’s whistling on it. When you get a copy, listen to the whistling at the beginning. I’d tell you who it is only it would be like dropping names. We did our LP at Kendun [Studios] in L.A., where the greats have done albums, like Fleetwood Mac. Just think, it could have been Stevie Nicks whistling, but nah!

Bun E and Rick bookend Steven Stills on his birthday.

Cary: Word’s reached us here that there’s a Cheap Trick bootleg on the West Coast. You must be very flattered.

Bun E. Carlos (drums): There was. But not since the FBI’s been out there.
Tom: The idea was flattering…
Rick: …the recording was terrible. They made my voice sound so stupid.
Bun E.: They took a $75 cassette machine in the 50th row or something with no EQ added.
Rick: Though I must say, the performance was brilliant!

Cary: Rick, are the rumors true that you played on a couple of Yardbirds’ singles?

Rick: Jimmy Page said he never saw who did the keyboard stuff. He was always gone before that stuff was added. The editor of Trouser Press asked Page about that. He said if he does remember me, he called me Pete Townsend, 10 or 12 years ago. He called me Pete Townsend because he wanted to buy some guitars from me. Instead, I stole them from him. No, I never stole a guitar, though he did get some stolen. Really, though, he wanted to buy my guitars. I didn’t sell them to him and his career went right down the drain.
Bun E.: Serves that guy right.

Robin Zander stands amid member of other groups
such as the Eagles and Kansas

Cary: What new songs have you written for the new album?

Rick: I’m in a real slump. One I just wrote – and the band hates it – is “Oh, Claire.” I think it’s a cool song, though. In 3-1/2 minutes, this couple, well, they meet, they get married, they have kids, they grow old, the guy dies and goes to heaven. It’s cool. Look for it on our next album.
Bun E.: Kind of like Love Story.

Cary: After working with two producers, Jack Douglas and Tom Werman [who currently owns a luxury B&B in Lenox, MA – RBF, 2015], who do you feel handled the group best?
Tom: I’ll put it to you this way and let you guess which is which: one guy was unbelievably great. One guy didn’t know what the hell he was doing.
Rick: One of them cheats on his wife. I’m sorry; they both cheat on their wives. The first album that Douglas did had more of a live sound; the second was more of a studio album. If we use a different producer for four albums – and I’m not saying we will, but if we do – we’ll call in the producers and we’re gonna produce them and see what they sound like. That will be after Cheap Trick Four, which is the tentative name of our fourth LP [their fourth album was, of course, 1979’s Dream Police – RBF, 2015].



Rick Nielsen motor-vatin'

Cary: Has there been radio action on the album?

Rick: Sure, all over. We were even interviewed on Clairol Essence Earth News Radio, you know? We did that a year ago. They ask you your favorite color on the taping. Then on the show, they ask you, “Rick, you look a little down in the dumps. How do you feel today?” “Blue.”

Cary: What’s on the boards for the third album [Heaven Tonight – RBF, 2015]?

Rick: The Ten Commandments. It’s really very clever. We’ll dedicate it to the growing Bun E. Carlos is God sect in Chicago. We’ll have “In the Bun-ginning” or “In the B. Ginnings” and “On the Third Album.” It will be a total concept. The Ten Commandments etched in vinyl. Watch for it around Spring.

 

 

 

The Magic of WALL OF VOODOO

Text by Cary Baker, 1983
Epilogue by Robert Barry Francos, 2011
© FFanzeen
Images from the Internet



“L.A. is the land of borrowed culture,” says Stanard Ridgway, motormouth frontman in Wall of Voodoo, and a rare specimen of native Angelino. “I mean, you’re likely to see a Spanish roof atop Greek columns with a Turkish fountain in the yard and an Irishman living inside.”

Sorry to disillusion anyone who thought La-La Land was the Mesopotamia of the Western World. But its culture – Philly-cheesesteak-taco-dog mongrel that it is – is anything but un-American. And the call of the West still, after more than a century, lures millions away from real steak ’n’ potato cities. Like Chicago.

It’s this sorry pattern that inspired Ridgway to conceive Wall of Voodoo’s Call of the West LP, from which comes the left-field radio MTV hit, “Mexican Radio.” The single spread like a brushfire on Laurel Canyon and penetrated the uncontrolled migrancy, even if ancient Mayan tribesmen could have built a bridge across the Rio Grande in half the time. Released in September of last year, the record simply refuses to roll over and play dead. Stan is particularly bemused that a record with references to barbecued iguana in Tijuana penetrated the very same airwaves that wouldn’t really wanna hurt you.

“We must have been at the right place at the right time,” he reasons, “because while I’m anything but a radio pundit, I do sound like a guy singing in the shower. And the song starts with that ‘ree-dee-dee-dee-dee.’ I don’t know about you, but I’ve never heard anything similar to it on the radio.”

Inspiration for this decidedly non-Salsa, non-Mariachi slice of techno-Dali struck as Woodoo (as their windy-jawed publicist calls them in a syllable-saving measure), would pile into what may as well have been a ’64 Fairlane and drive to rehearsal.

“We’d always tune to the Mexican AM stations,” he says. “It struck me as funny that all these people scour the dial in search of ‘real’ music, and there it is on the ethnic stations, bouncing off of mountains.”

KROQ-FM (not to be confused with its, ahem, Hispanic AM counterpart) gave “Mexican Radio” a running start, and album-rock radio across the nation carried the ball.

“It gave people the chance to leave the country without leaving their car,” he laughs.

But strong club and MTV video play took the record over the threshold. Again, Stan’s reaction is amusement; the kind of amusement that scratches its head all the way to the bank.

“Me, I never watch MTV,” he chides. “It’s visual pollution. And the funny thing is that we’ve only made two videos so far. However, I’ve always had visual things in mind when I write music. There was a time I would have settled for being a studio musician and playing third chair on the Baretta soundtrack. But I was always frustrated with the lack of imagery in some popular music, which always seemed to be about getting a girl or buying a new pair of shoes.”

His interest in musical / visual marriages preceded the formation of the band. It was 1977 and L.A. was punk-crazy. And Stan was mixed, at best, in his advocacy of the movement.

“It was liberating in one sense and confusing in another. In terms of aggressiveness and acting as a cleansing enema for the music industry, fine,” he says, “but I found it to be three chords, a cloud of dust and a hearty ‘Hi-O Silver’.”

So he and guitarist Marc Moreland formed a film music firm called Acme Soundtracks. They opened an office on Hollywood Blvd., across from the Masque punk emporium, “and began growing our own mold.” Soon, the name of the company was changed to Wall of Voodoo.

“It started as a joke,” he recalls, “but I was serious. Everyone else was sitting around eating pancake mix, but they were still behind me. We had all the accoutrements of a business – a file, rolodex, desk light – but no one called. Born to lose, once again, out there on a long, lonely sandbar.”

They eventually did find work – the films they scored fell somewhere in the long continuum between sticky-quartered peepshows and Emmanuelle. One, entitled Night Dreams, featured a convoluted version of “Ring of Fire,” at the client’s request. The band Wall of Voodoo presently opens their show with this version. But don’t forget – this is a company, not a band. A little like PiL…

Until Wall of Voodoo Soundtracks became a band, that is.

“My only hesitancy was that I didn’t want to be the exciting vocalist with the 10-foot mike cord like Iggy Squiggy,” Stan says. “I thought we could always find someone better than me. They demoed “Ring of Fire” (which served much the same purpose as Devo’s “Satisfaction”), opened for the Cramps at the Whiskey, and IRS Records A&R man John Guinereri was singularly impressed. The following morning Woodoo’s manager found the following message on his answering machine: Hello, this is [IRS chief] Miles Copeland and I want to sign the Wall of Voodoo.” “Great,” Stan recalls of the band’s reaction: “Let’s take this guy for a ride!”

When they found out Copeland was for real, Woodoo couldn’t blow the ink dry fast enough. But all was not well. The band embarked on an extended phase of identity crisis. They knew what they were, but no one else seemed to.

“There was confusion with the Cramps because of the Voodoo thing, people coming to our gigs with bones around their necks,” he says. “But worse, they wanted us to be colder, like robot men. And this was pre-Styx, too, I’ll have you know!”

What Woodoo has actually come to represent is a quartet of heady L.A. kids who turn out high-Gothic, other-worldly imagery in a eurythmic mélange of horror, humor and more than a little mood for modernist. One guesses they’d give it all up in a minute to usurp Brian DePalma in the director’s chair.

“My childhood was dull, see,” says this Pasadena survivor, “a velvet ghetto environment – lawns, picket fences. I used to make monster models and hang them from the kitchen wall or set them aflame. My dad used to have Marty Robbins’ album, Trail Songs & Gun Fighter Ballads, on which every song was a moralistic good-guy / bad-guy story. And I love Ethel Merman – she’s first on my list of singing influences. So you could say I’ve been influenced by everything I ever got involved with for more than an hour.

“The trouble is, all my influences are either dead or not feeling very well.”

The Woodoo mandate was to do something that “wasn’t destined to go down as so much milk on a spoon. We’re thrilled that so many people don’t like us.”

Is this to infer that their self-imposed bohemianism would cause them to shun the spoils of, say, a Culture Club?

“Each of us has realized individually, at least one night every week, that we have to pay our rent and buy new socks,” he responds. “But in terms of commerciality, we’d rather break old musical behavioral patterns. Some people need five or six friends to tell them something’s okay and then embrace it.

“It is conceivable,” Stan adds, Billboard bullets momentarily eclipsing the whites of his eyes, “that if we could bamboozle the public with a song that sounded like Culture Club, maybe the public would buy an album that also contains all kinds of poisonous material. That would really be fun, wouldn’t it be?”

One more question: What became of Woodoo’s road manager – a Chicago celeb named Wazmo Nariz? And why isn’t he on the road this time out?

“When he joined us,” Stan says of the former IRS and Stiff recording artist, “it enabled him to get free and clear of some thoughts. Now he’s back in L.A., working on a comedy album, an opera, and an album of his own material. The opera’s a whole cast of characters in two ties, only styled after Wagner. He’s also grown and shaved a beard four times since Chicago saw him last.”

Wazmo was yet another Northern Industrial expatriate who left the land of broad shoulders in quest of milk, honey and traffic jams, exactly the myth Woodoo loves to prey upon.

“Y’know, I used to work for Time/Life Books, selling them: ‘Hello, Mrs. Jones, do you have any plants in your home? If so…’ And those books are every bit as sophomoric as you remember them to be – their book on the Old West is like reading the back of a cereal box. There’s always some place to go if you didn’t enjoy where you were. L.A. is the last stop – everyone out!

“You can’t go much further – you’d end up in Japan, I guess.”

But the legend of the Old West, Woodoo-style, is now larger than life. Visions of starlets walking pink poodles to take Depression victims’ minds off the breadlines, and a playful alignment with Nathaniel West’s Day of the Locust, that L.A. is the continent’s largest hospice, is hot stuff now. “Mexican Radio” is playing in Peoria; Wall of Voodoo is confirmed for the U.S. Festival. Thinking back on four months of touring to support the record that’s taken that long to stick to the wall of pop ephemera, Stan has come to know himself inside and out, just by doing so many interviews.

“It’s caused me to do more self-analysis that I can ever use in this lifetime,” he ruminates, and reaches for another Miller’s.

Shortly after appearing at the US Festival, “Woodoo” broke up. After a solo career, Ridgway formed the trio Drywall in 1994, who would occasionally play together live and record. Meanwhile, Ridgway has scored a number of films, including Rumble Fish and Pump Up the Volume. As for Larry Grennan, also known as double-tie wearing Wazmo Nariz… – RBF 2011




Bonus videos: