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 GIZMOS: Quims, Queens, Teens and Screens

Interview text © 1977 by Lincoln D. Kirk;
RBF intro © 2012 by Robert Barry Francos
Images from the Internet

The following article about the Gizmos was originally published in Big Star magazine, issue #1, dated May 1977. It was conducted by music historian Lincoln D. Kirk (who wrote for FFanzeen as well), and reprinted here with the writer and publisher’s kind permission. Text added by me in 2012 is in [brackets].

In their day, the multi-peopled Gizmos were as revolutionary as many of their idols, such as the MC5, KISS, and possibly the Stooges. Oh, they may not have had the chops of those bands, but that is part of what made them the enfant terrible of the Midwest in general, Bloomington, IN specifically.

This article is definitely a piece of its time, and certainly not current PC. The Gizmos were not the only group to write salacious songs, and are in a noble group such as the Angry Samoans, or even W/Jayne County, but the ‘Mos were among the first in the indie recording world of the mid-‘70s. And that they came from the middle of the Bible belt makes it all the more intriguing. Looking back, a lot of this material is cringe-worthy, with comments that would now be considered misogynist, racist, homophobic, and even anti-Semitic, but much of it was done in the ignorance of youth (note that this was years before punks were wearing swastikas) and a twisted sense of humor. But peeking at this material through 2012 social eyes is like reading Kate’s speech at the end of The Taming of the Shrew by way of that same lens. Even Victor Hugo and Charlotte Brontë came out with some doozie questionable lines by today’s standards, and the Dr. Doolittle books and Bugs Bunny cartoons were full of racist material. No, I’m not making excuses, but I also know that some ex-members of the Gizmos look back and wince at some of these lyrics as well.

The entire Gizmos catalog is currently available from gulcher.gemm.com. – RBF, 2012

Introduction: Gizmos Invade Dunkirk

April 6, 1976, was a pretty hectic day all around. So a bit of chamber music seemed like a good way to inject some sanity into my tired body and soul. Melos Trio, Diers Recital Hall, Fredonia State – excellent recitals, especially the Beethoven. Nonetheless, arrival home at 10:30 PM (after a half-hearted and unsuccessful attempt at hustling my buddy’s fiancée – not that I was in any condition to do much with her anyway; the day was that hectic) found me ready to drop in my tracks.

Walk in the door, ready to force myself upstairs to my room, when my mother stops me in the hallway. “There’s a couple of fellows here to see you.” So I drag myself into the living room, spot two dandies I’d never laid eyes on before, and figure they must be long-lost cousins or something. The grinning, red-headed Prince Valiant who looked like an oversized John Denver (his partner looked too rock-star cool to pin down so specifically) twangs out in his thickly accented, molasses-in-January Alabama drawl, “Ah’m Eddie Flaw’rs and this here’s Kin Hah-lun.” Or maybe it was Ken Highland who introduced Eddie Flowers. Remember, I was so knocked out from sheer fatigue (and so, it turns out, was Eddie) that my memory’s a bit hazy. Put it this way – from Beethoven to Highland is a greater culture shock than any mere mortal can be expected to absorb!

It turns out that Eddie and Ken had been entertaining my mother and grandparents for about a half-hour before I stumbled home. Well, actually, Ken had done the entertaining; a High-Energy Highland is as garrulous as Eddie (leading contender for the 1976 Calvin Coolidge Memorial Trophy) is silent; Eddie communicates by grinning. I ask you: how many of you have had real live rock stars in your very own home? Of course, Eddie and Ken weren’t rock stars yet (are they now?). They were both merely two long-haired civilians without a record on the market, like any two people reading this.

The next three hours or so are exceedingly difficult to sort out in my brain. I probably should have scribbled down notes knowing that someday I’d take up Ken’s suggestion to commit their visit to paper, but my yawning cerebral cells and shot nerves would have forbidden my mind and hand to coordinate properly. So all that’s left is impressions; some very bizarre ones, but impressions nonetheless.

The impression that’s relevant here (as if anything I’ve said so far is relevant) concerns a cassette Eddie and Ken tried to get me to listen to. The Gizmos, Ken said. Gizmos? The name didn’t mean a thing, but I figured it was some hot new Columbia band like Aerosmith / Dictators / BOC / whatever. In any case, here we are at Eddie’s car parked up a few houses from mine, ransacking the back seat for a huge crate of LPs I was about to get my pick of, when the chilly Lincoln Avenue midnight (and, like most Dunkirk neighborhoods on a spring weekend Lincoln Ave. is almost always mausoleum quiet) was suddenly shattered by the hard smash of wild, mental-jumping guitars and frantic singing, at an obnoxiously loud volume. “Hey, you guys, better turn that thing down. This is a respectable neighborhood!” Thank goodness I wasn’t paying attention to the lyrics or I’d have had a coronary right there in the street! [Dunkirk is a small town in western New York State, southwest of Buffalo and near the shore of Lake Erie. – RBF, 2012]

To be honest, I don’t remember actually listening to that tape, even after it was turned down and even with Ken prodding me for an opinion. I suppose I mumbled something really critic-heavy like, “That seems pretty good” or maybe, “It’s not bad.” I don’t really know now (if I knew then!). When I think of the journalistic coup I blew, I’m virtually heartbroken (slight hyperbole). Here I was, probably the first bigshot-reviewer-type (discounting those directly involved with the project) to hear the Gizmos, and I was too dragged-out and dog-tired to know the difference!

4 x 8: The Rolling Gizmos

And who, you may ask (that is, if you’ve been hibernating or have spent the last six months in a monastery) are the Gizmos? I grew up thinking a “gizmo” was somewhere between a “gadget” and a “whatchamacallit”; a mechanical contrivance the name and / or specific use of which was unknown to the person using or perusing the object. According to Gulcher Records’ president, Bob “Mr. Bear” Richert, “’gizmos’ = stooge / squirrel / Yankee Doodle Dandy / loner / outcast / gimp / etc.” But that definition is so broad it can be applied to nearly every man, woman and child in North American (except maybe Karl Malden). These Gizmos are a savage-young, brutish, doltish, zippy little octet with a four-song 33-1/3 EP (at one time it would has been classified a 7” LP, the term EP being reserved for extended-play 45s; however, producer Bear blanches when the term LP is used in connection with his product, as he’s afraid prospective purchasers will expect a 12” model, which it ain’t) that says it all (a useful advertising slogan that doesn’t mean a thing, but impresses the feeble-minded).

Any musical legitimacy the Gizmos may possess grew out of a band from the northern Indiana community of Highland (no relation to Ken Highland; indeed, it’s one of the few municipalities in the U.S. of A. where Ken has not resided) called Cerberus. At the time of the EP’s recording (March ’76), Cerberus consisted of Rich Coffee (no connection with Coffee-Rich), now 19, on guitar and vocals; Rick Czajka, 17, on guitar; Dave Sulak, 20, on bass; and Jim DeVries, also 20, on drums. Aside from DeVries, who played with polka bands (great training for keeping a steady beat, mixing accents and the like) in the Hammond, Indiana, area, none of the Cerberi had any real musical experience before mutating into the Gizmos.

This mutation came about in a manner perhaps unique even in the annals of rock’n’roll history. Ken Highland, 20, famed fanzine editor (Rock On! and Trash) and writer (Gulcher, and its earlier incarnations Beyond Our Control and the WIUS Tip Sheet) struck up a correspondence with Rich Coffee’s girlfriend in Highland, IN, as a result of her reading Trash. About a year later, Ken (already a fledgling rock’n’roll guitarist and songwriter) pulled up stakes again, moving from Brockport, New York, to Bloomington, home of Bob Richert’s Gulcher publishing / recording empire, the scourge of Southern Indiana. In late ’75, Ken took a sabbatical northward to Highland to meet his correspondent and, while there, jammed with Cerberus (this was some time before DeVries joined the band). In March of ’76, when producer Richert decided it was time to unleash Ken Highland’s concepts on vinyl, Cerberus was the natural choice to become the instrumental portion of the Gizmos.

Three more Gizmos were added as lead and backing vocalists. The legendary Eddie / Eddy / Edde Stenson (take your pick) Flowers, 19, the personification of the rock fanzine sprit in print (although a surprisingly slow-moving, slow-drawling good-ole boy in the flesh) journeyed north from Jackson, Alabama, to Bloomington (which he calls the “hippy-homo haven of the Midwest”). Two other Gizmos were recruited from the Indiana University student body (IU is, of course, located in Bloomington; you didn’t think all the hippies and “homos” congregated there by accident, did you?): Ted Niemiec, 19, is the black lipstick, black nail polish, white-faced “just a regular dude” of the band and co-author of the Gizmos’ greatest hit, “Muff Divin’,” with Davey Medlock, who is, at 21, the senior Gizmo and a college DJ. The Gizmos’ producer and ninth star, Bob Richert, is in his late 20s, comes from Attica, NY, and hopes to see his publication become “the Creem of the ‘80s.” So much for vaunted ambitions.

What do they sound like? Remember the Sonics’ “Psycho”? Divorce it from its “Louie Louie” spasto-rhythm blend in unequal amounts of early Stones, Velvets, Shadows of Knight, Stooges, Barbarians, Chuck Berry, Yardbirds, and hot-flash boogie rave-ups, and then and only then will you catch a glimpse of what all the Top Critics are shouting about. (Case in point: the Gizmos even managed to get a certain Richard Meltzer [who would later form the Angry Samoans] to write the EP’s liner notes.) If you dig wild, two-note guitar solos (remember, it’s not the quantity of notes that counts, it’s the quality, and Highland picks high-quality notes!), chaotic group-shout vocals (and that, too, is a compliment; who needs punk vocals that sound prissy?), over not-quite-organized yet steamrollin’ accompaniment (neither inept nor particularly ept, either), then… [at this point, Kirk directs the reader to Gulcher’s then-address; the new e-address is above in my introduction].

”Kick Out the Giz-jams” – E. Flowers

Hmmm, I haven’t even mentioned the Gizmos’ pornographic lyrics yet – that’s what’s attracting so much of the attention the band has been getting. The aforementioned “Muff Divin’” – aside from its obvious and fully intended offensiveness to women (ardent feminists should sit this one out; they’ve got enough to worry about without these eight nerds lousing up their lives even further) – is the most inventive, most humorous, most perverted, and most educational (Paul Simon might have called it “50 Ways to Lick Her Pussy”) porn-rocker ever written. Really clever stuff, “Muff Divin’” is an instruction guide to the kinkier aspects of cunnilingus, involving the use of such common household items as peanut butter, ice cubes (“muff cocktail on the rocks”), Alka-Seltzer, shower nozzles, and the like. None of this fruit-scented love-cream aphrodisiac nonsense; this song is as raunch-filled lyrically as it is musically. Written by Highland, Niemiec (who sings lead), and Cliff Wolff (a friend of Niemiec’s who lives in Willkie South, the IU dorm which figures prominently in the lyrics), “Muff Divin’” alone is worth the $2.50. Indeed, it was “Muff Divin’” which delayed the EP’s release, as the original pressing plant (a religious-oriented outfit) refused to handle it after sitting on the masters for a couple of months.

The other three songs are less hardcore pornish, but far removed from the WYSI playlist, nonetheless. “That’s Cool (I Respect You More),” a Stones-type which is the only less-than-up-tempo-track, was written and sung by Highland from personal experience, as he tries to seduce a teen lovely who refuses to “go all the way” (now, if Ken were Eric Carmen…). “Mean Screen” (“Dick Clark oughta be my poppa”), written by Ken and Eddie (who sings it) from an original poem by fanzine writer Scott Duhamel, concerns masturbation while watching American Bandstand. “Chicken Queen,” the grand finale, is an “inside joke” of sorts. How many bands do you know with the gall to insult and embarrass their own producer on their first recording?: “Well, five-to-eight of hairy bear / Some don’t know and the rest don’t care / Boys and girls, inbetween / You’re all fine to the Chicken Queen.” It so happens that Bear is a friend of mine, and he never made any improper advances my way, so I won’t get involved with the question of the song’s accuracy (even thought the facts are well-known!). Written by Eddie (with embellishments by Ken and Dave Sulak) and sung by Ken, “Chicken Queen” includes some honest-to-goodness musicianship in Rick Czajka’s clean, neo-Santana guitar on the fade (which conjures up Chuck Berry’s “Little Queenie” and “Johnny B. Goode”: “Go, Queenie, go-go-go”), following an ingenious rap featuring Rich as the Queen and Ted as the Chicken, in a parody of the Doors’ “The End” (“The bear awoke before dawn… / He walked on down to the chicken coop and he said, ‘Chicken?’ / ‘Yes, Queen?’ / ‘Chicken?’ / ‘Yes, Queen?’ / ‘I want to…’,” etc.). The EP’s engineer, Richard Fish, appended a subtitle, “The (Ass) End,” to the track; I could say that this subtitle was pregnant with meaning, but reproduction of the species has nothing to do with it!

The Gizmos were originally intended as a one-shot project, existing on and around March 20, 1976 (the date of recording). But stardom, even on the fanzine level, brings its pressures – public demand for an encore being one of them. So the Gizmos reunited for a second round of rock’n’roll lunacy. In April, they reformed for a double-EP / triple- / album (which format it will eventually assume has yet to be decided; albums are less cumbersome, Bear) and their first live appearances. There’s at least one change as Rick Czajka has quit Cerberus (which has since changed its name to Loner) to become a folkie. When not Gizmoing, Ken Highland admitted he is in the United States Marine Corps (a family tradition), Stenson Flowers is in Alabama, Messrs. Coffee and Sulak are in Chicago, and Jim DeVries was busted on a dope charge, while Ted Niemiec and Davey Medlock remain in Bloomington.

Upcoming on future Gizmos vinyl you should hear such instant classics as “Gimme Back My Foreskin,” “Human Garbage Disposal,” “Amerika First,” and “Pumpin’ to Playboy” (which I have a tape of; believe me, it’s a killer, built around an irresistible Iberian guitar riff).

Gulcher Records may also issue an album by Loner without Ken, Eddie, Ted and Davey; and possibly one by Bob Richert’s answers to the Runaways and the Quick, a group of 13-to-15-year-olds called the Chickens (I’m not so sure I believe that one, myself…).

Now, would you like to know about MX-80 Sound?

[I saw a later version of the Gizmos play at Max’s Kansas City in the ‘70s, which was released as a live EP titled, Never Mind the Sex Pistols, Here are the Gizmos. It was a wild and hairy show.]

Here is some “Where are they now” info:
Rich Coffee: Was in the bands Thee Fourgiven, the Unclaimed, and the Tommyknockers.
Eddie Flowers: Now in the experimental, lo-fi, noise rock band Crawlspace; CDs available from Gulcher.
Ken Highland: A long and varied musical career, mostly in the Boston Area, including quite a large number of bands that he has fronted, such as the Hopelessly Obscure and Kenne Highland and his Vatican Sex Kittens. Still touring after all these years. Nice guy, too.

The Rage May Surface: An Op-Ed Piece

Original text by Alan Abramowitz, 1978
Introduction by Robert Barry Francos, 2011

This opinion piece was originally published in FFanzeen No. 3, dated Winter / Spring 1978-79, which was the first newsprint version of the ‘zine. Art Editor of the issue Alan Abramowitz discussed the then-current state of music and the cultural milieu in which it existed. During the 1980s, Alan would go on to create the music and arts-centered cable access show Videowave, which is not only still on the air in the tri-state area, but new shows are in the process of being created.

Some further commentary from me follows the piece. – RBF, 2011

“Oh, get off!” you cry. “You don’t think music; you just listen to it.” I scream back, “Oh! The poor little angel. Thinking burns up too many calories.” That’s right, don’t try to reason out the lyrics, just enjoy it. Just because you spent hours spinning records backwards… “Paul is dead… Paul is dead… Paul is…” Wouldn’t it be nice for once to think about where you’re going? Radio is about as interesting as sidewalk cracks. Most of those kids out there are most lost than the Pepsi generation.

This is the age of diversity. There is southern rock, acid rock, punk, d***o, jazz, MOR, pop, R&B, new wave, and so on. Not only is the music scene fragmented, but the fragments are fragmented. And most groups or soloists stick to more than one style. What is the trend for the next decade? Will music continue as it is or merge like the Beatle era?

Sixties music dominates the airwaves, along with d***o, pop, and ‘50s revival music. Listeners still look at the last decade trying to recapture that lost sense of purpose. We in the ‘70s are dissatisfied. The nostalgia we admire not only includes periods 20 or 30 years ago, but recent times such as the early ‘70s. Something in modern music is missing so we look to the past. Oldies sell like hotcakes. Frozen into a trend since 1969, music begs for a revolution; but people have to change their attitudes first. The issues of the war years have changed – for the worse. Alienation and dehumanization are still here. Your draft number doesn’t bother you but your Social Security number does. The revolutionary tirades of the hippie age have become the complacent tunes of the ‘70s. Crosby, Stills & Nash sing of “Dark Star’; gone are “Nixon’s soldiers.” Music only appears to be rebellious when really it’s as conformist as you can get. People tend to forget the shock of the flower people, long hair, the Beatles, the Mod look, miniskirts, protest marches and living together – the counter-culture. Today’s sound reflects that. Gone is the controversy. No more daring on the airwaves. Just complacency.

Look at the past. That’s where the future lies. Every 20 years a new generation must face new truths and tear up old lies. Like a snake, we shed our skins of old values. Occasionally the skin sticks and we have to rip it off with a vengeance. A fit of rage. It’s the kids who see it first. They view the world from a vantage point. In the ‘20s, they broke from the past with the Charleston, the fast cars and flappers. Most of their parents still lived in 1896, mentally and morally. People changed and the music changed. In the ‘40s, the war kept the kids preoccupied; nevertheless, in the ‘50s, their culture, such as the “Fonz’s,” like rock’n’roll, existed mostly in the cities. This rock’n’roll was an omen for the ‘60s. It said being involved was like torture. It said your parents are a hassle. It said, look around you; isn’t it all stupid? Then it all broke open on the Ed Sullivan Show. And there was turbulence. But like before, it was absorbed. When the Beatles arrived in America, reports mentioned how long their hair was. It covered the tops of their ears! By 1972, Lyndon Baines Johnson had hair down to his shoulders. And again, the omen has arisen. It is the new wave. Since 1967 is still fresh in our minds, the next explosion will resemble the last.

Music… rock needed some earthiness. Blacks were then welcomed into the pop scene. Their music dealt with the reality of day-to-day life (until then, they had mostly been left out of the mainstream). It was called soul music for a reason. But now, look around you. Is there any soul in d****o? The music creates money – the money creates music. No meaning; the turbulence is gone.

Vietnam made all our standards obsolete. The rat race was just what it described: people reduced to a groveling state, not a description told at cocktail parties. Mr. Businessman was a square. All we were taught wasn’t true. Nothing else made sense anymore. War wasn’t glory. Suburbia wasn’t living. College wasn’t an education. Frank Sinatra wasn’t music. Sgt. Pepper’s heralded the total experience. Rock metamorphosed from jukebox tunes into a view of life – the “trip.” Other movements long in the sidelines moved into the forefront. Elvis came in with rockabilly, Joan Baez with folk, and the Supremes with R&B. Violence, sex, love, frustration, alienation, were now part of the art. The art was alive. To those on our side of the generation gap it was “the living are dead and only the dead are truly living.”

Music always changes. We must deal with confusion, compassion, rejection, and reflection. That is the way music appeals to us. Unconscious emotions play in the sound and the lyrics confirm it. What we’re thinking becomes popular music. You live the sound. You like it because you think, “Hey!... that’s part of me!” But a culture can be forced down your throat through radio, television, records, and elevator Muzak(t). That is the mellow sound. That is imposed music. ‘Sixties-ish rock has lost much meaning in the last few years. Issues and talents are ignored. The roots of pop rock have been forsaken for the derivative R&B.

As rock’n’roll outraged the generation of Ozzie & Harriet, new wave upsets the modern Archie Bunkers. It seeks publicity and seeks to astound. Absurd realities that are accepted as fact of life because all they are is old, worn-thin ideas. Like rock’n’roll, new wave reveals the dumb.

Corporate America has taken over. Imposed culture means stable, predictable profits. Rock once protested big business; now it is big business. Hype creates the event. Hype creates the group. Talent becomes an insignificant part of the formula. Groups like KISS rely on mystery, action and gossip, but little originality. “Record companies are run by accountants and lawyers,” David Crosby* admits. Being profit seekers, they have little contact with the artists. They control radio, TV, magazines, etc. Radio, as a medium of expression, is incredibly conservative. The trend has gone from Top Forty stations to Top Ten. What upsets people’s preconceived notions of music simply is not aired. The real meat is sacrificed for dough. What makes money is what reaches the most people. The gold record, which was a rarity, is now a common thing. The music of the ‘60s was incorporated into Muzak(t). When you hear “She Loves You” by Percy Faith, you wonder how long it will be before there is “Sheena Is a Punk Rocker” by the Ray Coniff Singers. The creative artist is at the mercy of administrators who think in terms of feeding the machine. The machine is shocked by the Ramones, Television, Blondie, Dead Boys, Iggy Pop and the Adverts. The machine loves only $$$.

Sex is money to the corporations. If it appeals, it can be exploited, is their motto. What is Donna Summers Selling? Music? Talent? No, it’s sex youtube.com/watch?v=UPXizlnS7go]. “Move it in / Move it out” (that well played d****o single [“Disco Lady” by Johnny Taylor: youtube.com/watch?v=-3JkEoQ0Cz8]) isn’t about dancing. It manipulates your emotions. Is there any soul in Barry White’s moaning? You become programmed to like what you hear. If you don’t believe the sex part, just pick up a popular album and look at the cover.

Do you notice how big stars are touted? Not to say they have no talent, but you can tell by the push behind those concert tours. Hype pushes it and talent is used up. It pushes the Wings, Elton John, the Stones, Fleetwood Mac and Barry Manilow. They push the groups who’ve lost their glory, like Led Zeppelin. They are illusions of the past. “He who is first, he will be last / The times they are a-changing.”

And what does this add up to? Violence, turbulence, and change are building up. Rock and roll led to “1-2-3-4 / We don’t want your fuckin’ war.” Music isn’t answering the questions of life anymore. New wave does. What will this new wave lead to? How dynamic it is depends on the resistance to change. Kids are angry, unemployed and pissed off. They see dad work for 50 years only to get laid off. Is England 1978 an omen for American 1984? Will this anger lash out? The music reflects the times. And the frustration is overwhelming.

If there is turbulence, rock’n’roll will take in elements of new wave, jazz, reggae, punk and folk. Like pre-Beatle America, today’s music is in pieces. From cause, it became a taste or preference. Turbulence would merge elements of all music. D****o will be revealed as a fad. In social upheaval, it would be tossed aside as “not relevant.” Country will - and is - becoming institutionalized Muzak(t), MOR and pop. A new wave comes in hard times (i.e., U.S. –> Vietnam, England –> depression).

Jane Fonda once said, “It is the age of nothingness. Even with the problems of the “60s, there was this moral issue that got kids off their feet. Below the layer of apathy, in today’s young people, is a tremendous amount of rage.”

The rage may surface…


While I don’t agree with everything Alan said (e.g., sex always sold rock’n’roll, which itself is named for a blues term for sex), his argument is pretty solid, and only proven to be more so in retrospect. There have been other commentaries about much of what he brought up back then, such as the commercialization of music; check out The Mansion on the Hill: Dylan, Young, Geffen, Springsteen, and the Head-on Collision of Rock and Commerce by Fred Goodman, for example. As for “hype creates the event,” I recommend reading Daniel J. Boorstin’s 1962 book The Image: A guide to Pseudo-events in America.

At the same time saying it’s the “age of diversity” of style and about the stagnation in experimentation sound like opposites, it is actually an oxymoron, in that it’s opposites that work. While the genres are splintered, there is also a dummying down and overlapping that make event the difference minimal, despite the shards. Country is more pop than bluegrass these days; rock by groups like Slipknot, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Kid Rock have incorporated rap into its sound. And don’t get me started with the auto-tune making it all a lie on top of a lie. It seems all the shards of genres have pretty much the same sharp point, but no edge. To add to when Alan said, “What we’re thinking becomes popular music,” now in the 21st Century, popular music becomes what we’re thinking.

That is why independent music is more important now than ever. What used to take a whole studio of equipment to produce can now be done on a laptop. What took factories to make a physical product can be done with a disk copying program (if hard copies are needed at all).

Every type of music has been co-opted at some point. The scary Elvis, Chuck and Little R. are turned into Pat Boone, Frankie Avalon and Fabian. The Beatles resurrected it with the Mersey Beat, which became muddled in its own use of technology, causing it to cease with Sgt. Pepper’s. The Last Poets and Public Enemy turn into Lady Caca and Christina Arugula. The Byrds and the Yardbirds lead into hair bands like Poison. The Ramones and Television get bought out by the disco (aka d****o) of Blondie. Sadly, in many cases, the compromised get a larger market share than the originals, because unlike the indie groups that started it, there is more control, therefore more money in the homogenization.

Someone once said to me after I had commented about how much better the Heartbreakers from New York were compared to Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, “Oh yeah, then how come Tom Petty outsold that other group by so much?” My response was, simply, “Look how many people voted for Nixon.” Just because something sells more, does not mean it is better. I’m still waiting for that rage to surface, all these years later.

* In the original piece, this quote was attributed to Elton John, but an Internet search reveals it to be David Crosby.