GET WET, Wild and Wonderful

Text and photos by Robert Barry Francos; interview by RBF and Alan Abramowitz
Interview text © FFanzeen; Photos © RBF; cover sleeve image from the Internet

The following article originally appeared in FFanzeen Number 5, which was issued in 1980. The intro and outro text is from 2009.

I do not believe it would be accurate to say that I had a crush on Sherri Beachfront, the lead singer of the group Get Wet, but I will admit that I thought she was an amazing and exotic looking woman. In the times I saw the band play, I don’t think I’ve ever taken a picture of her that was factual enough to capture her looks. In fact, I’ve never seen any photo that did that honor.

Alan Abramowitz joined me the first time I saw the band, at a co-gig with Brenda Bergman, a shared bill these friends would often partake. And frequently, Alan and I would be in the audience.

It was the music that kept us coming back, though. Get Wet’s songs, written by co-member Zecca Esquibel, had a strong pop backdrop with a mixture of Motown and Connie Francis, if one can picture that. Their songs ranged from happy (“Lucky You”) to sad (“Lonely”) to downright desperate (“Morton Street”), to a powerhouse encore of Sherri in crinoline doing a cover of “Where The Boys Are.” Sherri could belt out a number that could be felt on a Richter scale.

Alan and I interviewed Sherri and Zecca at their apartment in the West Village, before we all headed out to the opening night party at the Ritz on 11 Street, which became known as Webster Hall.
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GET WET, Wild and Wonderful (Issue 5, August-September 1980)
By Alan Abramowitz and RBF; original intro by AEA (not included here)

FFanzeen: Zecca, what’s your history – before you were a member of Cherry Vanilla’s back-up group a few years back, the Staten Island Band?

Zecca: That’s a long story. I played piano as a kid. I did a lot of piano competitions ... and always with a sharkskin suit.

FF: Was this in America?

Zecca: This was in the States. I came to the States [from Brazil – ed.] when I was seven. And when I was 14, I just OD’d on this classical piano trip and left home, hitchhiked to New York a few years later, goofed around ... I joined a band called the Jimmy Castor Bunch. I was very unhappy with that. And a friend of mine said Cherry Vanilla needed a piano player that played rock’n’roll. I didn’t know what their kind of rock’n’roll was about, so I went to the audition and just faked what I could remember hearing off their record.

FF: How did you eventually evolve into Get Wet?

Zecca: Well, the Staten Island Band dissolved only a month after I joined, so it was just me and Cherry. There was nobody else. We lost all our musicians. I think they’d all gone to [David] Johansen. So we had a howling gig up in the mountains and we had three days to come up with a band. We picked up Manny Mancuso, Jay Napp – who is now with the Boyfriends – Louis Lapore and, in three days, we had a band. From that we fragmented even further. Me, Cherry, and Louis were from New York and eventually met Howie Finkel. And out of that band, we have Howie Finkel on bass and Manny Mancuso on drums. The first three out of the five members of the Cherry Vanilla Band that’s on the first album [Bad Girl on RCA, 1978 – ed.] formed Get Wet.

FF: Sherri, what’s your rock’n’roll history?

Sherri Beachfront: My rock’n’roll history is very small. I was just singing backup in two groups for three months in, unfortunately, what was a real job gig. That’s where I met Zecca and that was my first rock’n’roll stage scene. First time, I was in Max’s Kansas City. I had taken vocal training before that and stopped, and that’s it. And I had a job singing on a tape. I invited [Zecca] to the studio because he thought I could only sing backup vocals. “I could do it; really, I can sing, I can sing.” So I invited him down to Electric Ladyland to [let him hear me] tape for certain producers and lead vocals for what, ten hours?

Zecca: Eight hours.

Sherri: Yeah, one song for eight hours, and finally we finished. And Zecca walked out and said, “Yeah, you can sing – you can sing real shitty songs real good.” And then we decided that we have something worth it because I knew we did. I didn’t believe it took so much work. After that, he spent Labor Day weekend writing tunes for Get Wet, but that time it was for my voice. Get Wet wasn’t even a name yet or anything. It was just, “Play tunes for Sherri and what I had in mind for Sherri,” and he saw me getting my vocals out the same way I do. He saw I always wore gloves and had a lot of physical gestures on stage.

FF: How did you finally get around to picking the name Get Wet?

Sherri: We’d finally decided that after a week or something. We didn’t have a real concept or visual or anything, so we just tried to figure out a way something would relate to the group as much as we could discover, and what we discovered was that we were drenched (with sweat). We were really very wet. So we said, “Wet.” Then we said “Get Wet” so we might have the audience participate with the band – and it was final.

FF: I see advertisements all over the place for Wet magazine that reads, “Get Wet.” Has anything erupted from that?

Sherri: They were a little irritated with us. They got in touch with Interview magazine, and they gave them our phone number. The first phone call wasn’t all that irritated; it was just “We know you’re alive.” The posters uptown were getting scratched (by our fans) ... “Magazine” was being scratched out. They got in touch with us and we met each other. Then we did posters (for a club), but our “W” was the same as the magazine’s “W” and we got another phone call from them telling us not to use that “W” anymore. We told them it wasn’t our idea; it was the club’s.

FF: You seem to be very influenced by rhythm and blues, sixties rock, and the Motown sound.

Zecca: Well, I grew up in Washington, DC, and that is a predominantly black city. To be white in Washington meant one of two things: you live in the affluent corridor from Georgetown Northwest – that slice of Washington – or you were a white in a black neighborhood. I grew up sneaking in the back of places like the Howard Theatre and the Loew’s Palace Theatre to see eight soul bands back-to-back in a soul show. And that was the music I fell in love with. Gladys Knight, the Temps, etc. All those kinds of bands and a lot of times, six, seven, or eight (bands) in one night. A Soul Spectacular. The first record I remember hearing was “Baby Love.” I heard a neighbor play it. Now, that’s not that far back. It’s just that until that time I listened to nothing but classical music, so I didn’t hear too much of anything else besides that, unless I snuck out of the house and went somewhere.

FF: How have you incorporated that into what you do today? Do you have any trouble getting a transition going?

Zecca: No, I remember hanging around with Bruce Foxton from the Jam, and he was talking about what the Jam were doing, about getting back to the roots of the music; that that was the most important thing. They loved to play that kind of pop music. I couldn’t understand why his kind of roots didn’t make any sense to me. Then I realized that his roots were totally different. I didn’t grow up on the Who; I grew up on Otis Redding and James Brown. So the minute I realized that, everything was easy, everything snapped right. It was a natural groove. It was not, “How come my group sounded different from everyone else”; this was the natural groove where I belong.

FF: Have you ever seen The TAMI Show?

Sherri: What is it?

FF: It’s a film of, like, great rock’n’roll groups in 1965: the Dave Clark 5, the Rolling Stones, Barbarians, Jan and Dean, the Supremes, James Brown – the best I’ve ever seen him. He throws himself on the floor and fights with the Flames (his backup group) to keep possession of the stage. They play it at Max’s between sets. They show the same clip all the time of the Supremes singing “Baby Love,” and it’s a little off-sync.

Zecca: You mean that clip that they’re showing at Max’s is from The TAMI Show? We were tuning up while they were playing it. Behind the curtain, we wanted to really see this. We couldn’t go out and watch because we were busy backstage. That whole kind of show is ... the word “show” is weird because in the punk bible it could almost sound like an insult. “It’s not real, man. You’re putting on a show. A show is not real.” But those are some of the most realistic theater experiences I ever saw as a child – watching the show of James Brown singing a ballad; singing, “It’s A Man’s World.” The guy really reached inside himself in some incredible way that was not cheapened by the fact that he did it the best he could.

FF: What gave you the idea of doing “Where The Boys Are” as a finale?

Sherri: I just started singing it one day and he said do it.

FF: Everybody goes crazy when you do it.

Sherri: It still shocks me when they do this. Either they think it’s a new song that’s really good or it’s trippy because nobody’s done it but Connie. It’s a beautiful song. The first line in that song really grabs you.

FF: I knew the set was over when you did that.

Sherri: It’s good for a closing ... I like it; it’s a real sum-up of the show.

FF: What impressed me is “Which Window.” The chorus has a great hook that, two or three days after hearing it, you catch yourself singing it.

Sherri: That’s the one that seemed to go over well on WPIX-FM. When they played (our demo) tape, we got a phone call to play “Which Window” again.

Zecca: That’s what a pop tune should be.

Sherri: Ya know, the first time I sang it like if I had to sing with the notes I’d fall apart. All I did was pretend I was in a movie. That was the first way I could get myself into it. It’s a very emotional song. And I used myself as a vehicle for the song. Because it as a weird song, all the hard rockers were there and I was afraid for my neck what would happen to me.

FF: People are opening up. It’s not like, “Gonna kill, gonna kill.” Now that’s settled down a little and people are getting more to the pop side of things. And songs like “Where The Boys Are” are starting to catch on. And people are dancing again.

Sherri: Seems like there’s an obvious change going on here. It’s like disco broke New Wave in. It was just a passageway to what we have now. Like when Get Wet gets a break, we don’t have to do anything that’s disco-related. We’ll be accepted as rock’n’roll you can dance to. We won’t have to do a disco-beat song in order to get a good deal or to get a popular record like “Which Window.” It certainly is good to get ahead in rock’n’roll, but we won’t settle for something out of the disco crowd.

FF: It’s a bigger catch-song than “My Sharona,” which is not meant to insult you.

Zecca: It’s a funny thing. Someone yelled at me when we were playing at the Meadowbrook. This guy was decked out like 1977 and he leaned over the railing, all in black – really punked out – and made a face using a beer can, and I thought, he must have seen this in a movie. And he’s yelling, “Your ears are governed by the charts.” And I was thinking, so are Paul McCartney’s. Charts are a totally irrelevant thing. Your ears ... you hear what makes you happy. When I started writing these tunes we decided we’d risk making the music we really like, no matter what anybody said about it. And it was weird to get the most negative reaction from the most negative people.

Sherri: To our music?

Zecca: Yeah.

Sherri: We didn’t get a bad reaction.

Zecca: No, the first night we played, no.

Sherri: Max’s, we had a great reaction.

Zecca: It’s weird to know that there’s this whole system that preaches belief in negativity. When something positive comes around it can’t give it enough freedom to exist, because being negative is hip: “positiveness should be stamped out.” I noticed that at a lot of places.

FF: Have you had any trouble in the places you’ve played?

Sherri: The only place is the New York Connection; we were three months old and punk was so popular that there was no way you could do anything but that. But Max’s always loved us. The only time Max’s was bad to us was this last time – we had three really shitty ... punks. Shootin’ up dope in the bathroom. With some slob of a girl who comes over to me and says, “This isn’t music, your show sucks,” so I squirted her in the face with my squirt gun [laughter]. She threw her scotch on me and I told the bouncer that I didn’t want her near the stage, but that was the only time I got a bad reaction in a club. And then there are just people that like to make noise ... Jordache punks/drunks. There are people that like to make noise about everything – sort of frustrated souls.

Zecca: And we’re going to continue doing the positive music because it’s what everyone needs.

FF: Do you feel that having a woman fronting the band really changes its appeal?

Sherri: You mean as an asset? Well, this is a very anxiety filled lot because Blondie broke it for women in rock’n’roll. Then you have solo artist like Ellen Foley, Pat Benetar ... and the Pretenders. I love Chrissie Hynde because she’s female and a total musician and I really respect that. And for me, I want to be a member of the band. I don’t want to come out as Debbie Harry and get a little upset at the thought of, “There I am a female singer who doesn’t play any instrument,” but my roots and my feeling is to act – I perform my songs. I don’t just use my voice, I use my heart and I use my vision as a total instrument and, of course, there’s a lot of focus on me, but I still want to be a person in a band. I wanna be Get Wet; I just don’t want to be Sherri Beachfront. I got plenty of time for Sherri Beachfront.

Zecca: I don’t think it’s much of a turn-on to be on stage with musicians who are so far behind you that they deserve to be your backup musicians. It’s much more of a turn-on to know that the people on stage with you are your equals.

Sherri: It took so many years that I wanted to do this. I wanted to be a singer and I went through musicians and musical directors. I didn’t have this kind of relationship with (Zecca) – not that he was my boyfriend – on a musical level. There was reason to work with him because we had the same tastes, which is very hard to find. We have the same ability to communicate, intellectually and musically. We have a very good musical marriage.

FF: Any offers to sign with a label?

Zecca: Yeah, we got a couple of offers. I don’t know what to say about that.

FF: Would you rather sing or have your own independent label?

Zecca: We thought about it, but not too seriously.

Sherri: It seems so unfeasible.

Zecca: We’re still worried about fixing notes on the piano. It’s kind of absurd to think about scraping together enough money to put out a single. So basically, we’re looking towards the big record labels.

Sherri: We have been going to managers and checking out all sorts of leads. We’ve been giving out our tapes like crazy.

Zecca: We’re looking for managers more than anything else at the moment. We’re looking for that fifth Beatle; that team member who’s going to feel like a team member. It’s very important to do it on vibes that rate as well as every other one. To really find someone that you feel is your buddy, is in your team with you and is not somebody strapped on just to help smooth out some rough places. He’s going to be another one of us. And we’re looking for that person.

FF: Do you want people to dance to your music or listen to it?

Sherri: Dance! We want them to be part of it. That’s why we’re called Get Wet; it’s an action.

FF: How do you feel about playing at places where people can’t dance?

Zecca: When I was a kid, the best thing I could say about a band was that I didn’t sit down all night. That was the most exciting thing. The minute that guy in the wings was coming out from behind and when that band or that act or that man or woman hit that stage, I was up there standing and dancing all night. That was the highest point, the best thing that could happen. That’s what I dream of, too. Putting a band together that, the minute we walk out, everyone’s dancing. And then when we leave they want more.

FF: Is there any one band now that you like a lot?

Zecca: We used to see Brenda Bergman a lot. We’d be dancing all night to that. The last time we saw her was at the Mudd Club. She’s got both a Motown and pop song beat at the same time. Irresistibly delicious.

FF: She used to work for the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Sherri: I can’t imagine that. I can just see her posing in one of the cases in the fifties section doing cheesecake.

Zecca: Calendar pix.

FF: What’s your message, quote-unquote?

Sherri: Death to negativity.

Zecca: Yeah, death to negativity.

FF: Yeah, I think that a good ending. And besides, it’s five to nine and the show starts at ten.
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They finally did get a record deal with Boardwalk Records and put out their one and only eponymously titled album. It did not succeed, mainly because it did not present an accurate picture of the band’s sound. As with the Nervus Rex album, the production on the Get Wet release, produced by Phil Ramone, was in high-gloss form (as was the modus operandi of the larger record companies caught between the disco and Brit synth-pop periods), stealing whatever energy, roughness, and spark made the band unique. There was still some power left in “Morton Street,” but most of the other songs, including the showstopper, “Where the Boys Are” and “Which Window?” were left limp through no fault of the artists. The record got lost in the glut of the major’s vision of the New Wave zeitgeist, which was actually tied more to the wallet than the music.

Sherri and Zecca are divorced now, with Zecca involved in a same-sex relationship, and Sherri an AIDS activist on the West Coast.

Meanwhile, thanks to singer/chanteuse Kathy Zimmer, I have managed to hoop up again with Zecca, and thereby Sherri. Here is what Zecca recently “Facebook’d” me, in part, in a manner to catch up:

“I was just in D.C. with my lover Tom Smith, for the HUGE National Equality March where, coincidentally, Sherri was the MC for the Fight AIDS Rally on the Ellipse in front of the White House! 48 hours earlier, my Tom held a press conference on the steps of Brooklyn Borough Hall with Borough President Marty Markowitz, re. Tom's founding of the multi-million dollar Brooklyn LGBT Community Center (like the one on 13th street in Manhattan). Can I pick 'em or what?! Meanwhile, after five years touring with Garland Jeffreys (ending 2007), I've basically left the rock stage for the theater. I was just in San Fran. with John Kelly and have a show coming up at the Gershwin Hotel with Hattie Hathaway on Nov. 10th. My life now is as a music director for radical nightclub and the kind of theater that, in the ‘60s, would have been called "avant-garde", so I don't work on original CDs.”

Remembering The Bay

Text (c) Robert Barry Francos
Photo by Helen Rosen, from Robert Francos's personal collection

In Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, there is a thoroughfare called Bay Parkway. It cuts through southern Brooklyn from North to South for a 3 mile stretch, and ends in what we one time called, surprise, The Bay.

When I was growing up in the early 1960s, one would drive or walk down Bay Parkway and after a mile, travel below an overpass for the Belt Expressway. There we would scream at the top of our lungs to hear the echo reverberate against the concrete walls.

Once past, there was a long and narrow amusement park designed for children, named after journalist and traveler Nellie Bly (1864-1922), in honor of her feat of traveling around the world in less than 80 days. It may seem like an odd choice, but as children, we were more focused on the rides than the name. I still have photos of myself having a joyous time there. On the other side of Nellie Bly was the Bay. That point in Brooklyn is the opening of what is known as the Verrazano Narrows, or Lower New York Bay, where the waters from the Hudson and East Rivers funnel into the Atlantic Ocean. In fact, from the Bay, we could see the Verrazano Narrows Bridge being built three miles away, rising and growing until its completion in 1964.

The Bay was essentially a quarter moon shaped inlet. The concrete of the road gave way to large rocks leading down a sharp incline from the street to the shore. Being small children, we were never allowed on the rocks, and for good reason. You could easily see the green algae that covered the boulders, making them slippery and treacherous. A person, especially one as uncoordinated as a child, might easily slip and either hurt themselves on the stones, or fall into the brine.

The ocean water meets the mighty freshwater rivers just to the north, which caused both dangerous tides and occasionally some wonderful spray on those hot summer days, especially delicious after being whipped around on some of the Nellie Bly rides. We were fascinated by the white foam rising up higher than our heads even as we were standing on the cement, many meters above the sea.

While we were not permitted below the unfenced street level, there was still plenty of activity to observe among the rocks. Fishermen were a common sight, each with their pole (sometimes more than one) jammed and secure between the stones, waiting for a bite, which apparently came fairly often, thanks to the way the water jetted in and out between the rocks.

Along with these hearty souls who were willing to hunt for fish despite dubious health risks inherent to the waters in which they were found, there were also those with traps who were looking for crabs, and mollusks, such as mussels. You could hear the exclamations of joy or cursing, depending on the results of the hunt, well above the roar of the waves slapping the rocks.

Then there were the teens, who would sit on the rocks with friends or partners, holding hands and necking in the coolness on a humid summer’s day.

It was always a pleasure to walk there, to feel the wind as it came off the water, to hear the sounds of the waves lapping and crashing, and be jealous of those climbing on the stones, as they seemed like crabs themselves, carefully approaching the water’s edge. The salt water spray would fill the nostrils to the point of being able to taste its sharpness at the back of the throat.

The Bay as a whole always seemed alive to me, with constant movement and sounds, drowning out the carousel calliope and motors just a few meters away.

While I was in fifth grade, in 1965, they started to fill in the Bay. First they removed the rocks and put them further along the shoreline towards the recently opened Verrazano bridge, turning the beaches my mother used to visit with her friends into unforgiving boulder piles that essentially ended local bathing.

I remember the year well for other reasons. Having my first male teacher in grade school was a sign for me to prove myself. That is, until he suddenly disappeared a couple of months later. Apparently he vanished into the blue without notice. Later that year, I learned that he had been, well, inappropriate with one of my peers, the daughter of someone involved in organized crime. We other students quickly surmised that he was somewhere in the Bay, as it was being filled up by a construction company with which this shady dad had connections. Taking care of a pedophile was personal back then, as the law didn’t acknowledge the crime as seriously as it deserved.

Day by day, the Bay disappeared under concrete, steel and eventually asphalt. The final stage of the death of the Bay at Bay Parkway was marked by fixing it with a new name, Ceasar’s Bay. Heck, they even spelled it wrong.

In the place of the motion of nature watched by the people who moved above and among the rocks and spray, was a brand new shopping plaza: a department store called E.J. Korvette (opened by, as we erroneously believed, Eight Jewish Korean-War Veterans), a series of smaller stores, and a huge supermarket called Food Fair.

For us kids, the saddest part was the closing of Nellie Bly, which was replaced by a Wetson’s fast food restaurant (evolving over time into a Nathan’s, A&W, Burger King, and eventually Wendy’s). By the time a new Nellie Bly was opened up down the road about half a mile away, I was too old to go on those rides.

Over the years, there have been many more changes. The department store was split, with one half becoming a Toys ‘R Us and the other a collection of smaller stores known as Ceasar’s Bay Bazaar. The supermarket transformed into an automobile parts chain store called Strauss. Nowadays, the Toys ‘R Us remains, the Bazaar has become a discount clothing store called Kohl’s, and Strauss is a Best Buy electronics store.

The once vibrant Bay is not only flat, black tar, and nearly impossible to get into around the holidays, with cars jammed onto what was once a beautiful natural spot (well, for a city anyway). It became boring and pedestrian.
Indeed, they paved paradise, put up a parking lot.

THE VIBRATORS: Into the Future

Text by Mary Anne Cassata
Images from the Internet
© 1985 FFanzeen

The following article/interview with British punk band The Vibrators was originally published in FFanzeen magazine, issue #13, in 1985. It was written by Mary Anne Cassata. – RBF

The Vibrators. With a name like that, what else can it be put a punk era band? This brute British quartet reunited a little over a year ago and since then has continued to drive their audiences into a frenzy at each performance. The members, Knox (guitar / keyboard / vocals), John Ellis (guitar / keyboard / vocals), Eddie (drums / vocals), and Gary Tibbs (bass) have defied sensationalism by screaming at their audiences, incorporating bondage themes on stage, and smashing guitars and amplifiers.

The Vibrators, who original formed in 1976, consider themselves to be the only true innovators of British punk music. One of the group’s early performances resulted in the premier Punk Festival, in London, which also featured the Clash, the Damned, and the Sex Pistols. Their debut single, “We Vibrate,” caused quite a stir in Britain upon its release, and the album, Pure Mania, won the support of new fans in America. The second single from the album, “Baby Baby,” followed with massive European press and helped sell out shows all over the country.

[Pure Mania (1977)]
The music is extremely harsh on the ears, but the Vibrators equally satisfy an ever growing army of punk maniacs. Lead vocalist Knox, who refused to reveal his last name, was asked to comment on the group’s penchant for violence. “All this talk about violence is rubbish, really,” he stated. “It isn’t like that at all with us. Our music may be violent, but the people that come to our shows are there to have a good time and that is what we give them. That’s all.”

Sounds like a contradiction to me.

Recently, the Vibrators performed in the New York City area to highly enthusiastic fans. Knox and Eddie took some time out to speak with FFanzeen about their first arrival in America, and their Stateside album, Alaska 127 What entailed from the interview was a very open and frank discussion about the group’/s career and future plans.

["Baby Baby) (1977)]
FFanzeen: This is your first time touring in America. How do you think it’s going?

Knox: Tonight will be our third show in the States. The first shows we did were not very good. We didn’t like it too much.

FF: Why is that?

Knox: First of all, we are on a very punishing schedule. We are not used to the heating here in the hotels and all. You get laryngitis and colds. We are sort of knocked out. Everything has goon really well. There wasn’t a disaster or anything like that; it was more equipment failure than anything else.

FF: I heard you got a very good reception in Canada.

Knox: Oh, yes, the people really liked us a lot there. We have a domestic release there called “Baby Blue Eyes.” It is doing quite well on the charts there. I really didn’t like Toronto too well. There are a lot of expensive buildings there. I saw all these people on the streets begging for money. It made me very paranoid. All this money and the people are really poor.

FF: New York audiences are among the toughest to perform for. How did you feel about that?

[V2 (1978)]
Knox: We knew it would be. It was alright. We came in from Cincinnati and ended up here only in time for the soundcheck. We have hardly had any sleep at all. We thought we played well, I guess. It wasn’t really an over-the-top show, but that is how we wanted it. We know we are capable of doing much better than we did. Besides, it wasn’t the right kind of place to do our show. We like it to be a certain way. There wasn’t enough fooling around. It seemed more like a presentation than anything else.

FF: In 1976, what was it like to perform at the very first Punk Festival, in London? I can imagine all the violence that night.

Knox: Oh yes, it was very violent that night. We didn’t get any proper reviews on that show either. Such a shame; a real pity and all. People just thought it was distasteful, but it put punk on the map. Just to talk about it is very exciting. Punk music, more or less, just had to happen. It was really always in the air. It was a new kind of music that brought people about that were bored with the old stuff.

Eddie: Punk means a different thing now than it did before. It used to mean to be individual, to be yourself. It is very much a one-dimensional thing now. Personally, I think we belong to it now just as much as we did before.

FF: How has punk music changed over the years?

Eddie: Today, every song is played in 2/4 and it is fast and furious. There is little room left for craft anymore. As it stands in 1983-1984, it means a different thing altogether. It is up to us to make the music and let the people fit into their little bags. I have heard kids say we are an amazing band.

Knox: If you look at early pictures and styles of punk, they have changed quite a bit. The hardcore look and the hardcore sound has changed. In those days, it was better and more inventive. We were before the Clash and the Pistols – no, we were about the same time as the Pistol. We knew all these people from before. We started our band in school. We had always talked about starting a band. Most of the successful people in punk seem to have gone through the art school syndrome. I did.

FF: What events led to the band’s breakup in 1980?

[Alaska 127 (1984)]
Knox: Some of the people in the band began to go off in different directions. Some got into drinking and things like that. All they did was fuck it up for the rest of us. It was more like a family splitting up, or a marriage gone wrong. It is one of those things that is very difficult to talk about. Sometimes when you become very successful and our, you find out some people aren’t really into doing a lot of that. The band never really reached its full potential.

Eddie: We just carried it on and on ‘til it came to a grinding halt. When the others left, I kept going. When we got together last year we put out an album called guilty. Our latest album is Alaska 127.

FF: Eddie, why was “Baby Blue Eyes” released in the States and “Flying High” in England? Why not the same song for both countries? It’s harder for us to obtain British imports.

Eddie: It wasn’t us, it was the record company. They thought it was the best thing to do. But we think “Baby should be a better choice for America.

FF: Do you usually write the songs as a unit?

Eddie: We usually come out with ideas between us and work on them together. It seems to work out fine between us. We get four different varieties; sort of like the Beatles.

FF: Judging on what music is popular today, is there a remote possibility of the Vibrators becoming more mainstream rock?

Eddie: We seem to be moving in an upward direction and punk, so to speak, seems to be going down a blind alley. Punk music has moved away from where we are now. We have sort of retained a position where we have created music that is exciting and intelligent, as well. I think punk has moved away from being an intelligent source of music. Hopefully, it will move in a forward direction again. What we are trying to do is experiment with new ideas without losing that sort of flavor.

[Guilty (1989)]
Knox: We have run over rocky ground before, so we are used to it. We are very adaptable and getting better all the time. Punk people don’t realize that without change it becomes stale, or a dead form of expression. We have to change our music to get better. Punk music is just another type of rock music, and one day it will be assimilated into ordinary rock.

FF: Do you still spit on the audience?

Eddie: Yeah, but the audience spits at us, too. When we first started out in London, there was a lot of spitting and things like that. It has sort of died out now.

Knox: Those kids had really gotten good at gobbing from 20 feet away. We used to let them gob and shake their hands.

FF: While on stage, why all this aggressiveness toward the audience?

[Pure Punk (2009)]
Eddie: We have a tremendous amount of energy. If there is violence, it is done in a constructive way. From time to time we do break tings on stage. It’s the excitement and all.

Knox: I can get reasonably aggressive now. I am very much into playing. The violence at our shows is very small. When the violence is done on stage it seems like the right thing to do. Sometimes I think I can really smash this bloke one in the head.

FF: Then the audience still plays an integral part in your performance?

Eddie: Yes, the people are there to enjoy themselves. They dance and jump around, leap and scream. That is why they are there. Wee don’t want them to sit and politely clap. We want them to have a good time at our shows.

Knox: If you go to our concerts the kids really go crazy knocking each other about. It looks like they are fighting but when they leave they wring out their shirts, and take a deep breath and stagger on home. I want to give the people that come to our shows the buzz that the Who gave me.

TOM PETTY: A Petty Interview

Text and live at CBGB’s photo by Robert Barry Francos
Album images from the Internet
Interview text © FFanzeen 1977; intro and outro text © 2009

The following interview was originally published in the first issue of FFanzeen (issue dated 7/7/77).

I had done a few interviews for groups that were handled by Shelter Records, and the staff was quite excited about a new, freshman album that was about to come out by a yet-unknown Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. They gave me an advance copy of the first album, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers. While it didn’t bowl me over, I enjoyed the quirkiness of it, a feeling which would not be repeated for following albums when the group became the musical mid-ground between John Cougar Mellencamp and Bob Dylan, both of whom would profit from Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ success. The first album was sharp and its minimalist production, reminiscent of the Modern Lovers’ earliest recordings. Songs were based on minor keys and about a wider range of subject matter than just “love / hate”. The two best cuts were also the two hits from the album, “Breakdown,” and especially “American Girl.”

The publicity machine let me know that Petty would be playing at CBGB and I could be on the guest list, so I headed on down to the showcase. No one that I asked was interested in going to see the weekday show with me, since Petty was a total unknown. The place was filled with suits and very few of the public, who were possibly turned off by seeing all the aforementioned corporate types, or the lack of product by the artist. They weren’t a New York band, so they had no following here. I sat in front, which was easy since the record and publicity cogs circled the bar like flies on shit. I had my instamatic camera and took some slides to record the moment.

Soon afterwards, I was able to catch Tom Petty and his band again (and again be on the guest list) for his show at the Bottom Line, where he opened for Roger McGuinn. Originally I wasn’t going to go, but I thought it would be cool to see McGuinn, whom I had never seen perform before. It is very rare to find a rock writer / critic / reviewer / fan who will admit they want to get on a band’s guest list to actually see the group sharing the bill. It was actually a strange billing since McGuinn had just released a cover of “American Girl.” Both of them sang it during their own sets (and with different arrangements).

The day after the McGuinn show, I interview Petty. I dragged Alan Abramowitz along. Petty had two interviews before mine (also college writers, I believe), until finally it was our turn into the conference chamber. You would think that for someone who was facing only his third interview, Petty would be excited and into it. Well, if he was, he sure didn’t give any indication. He just droned, in that nasal voice, and went on like we were more in his way than trying to get us on his side, something that might help get a favorable article and serve to produce fans. He sat there and talked with a monotone, giving the impression he was thinking more about doing something else, like his laundry, than being in the moment. As this interview shows, as short as it was, Petty was egocentric and self-important, even back then. When asked a question, he’d follow his own course, whether connected or not; and when asked to clarify, he’d just go on without even realizing anyone else besides his voice was in the room. All in all, he was quite boring. In fact, after a few minutes, Alan fell asleep in the corner, and began to loudly snore. I envied him. I don’t believe that Petty was purposely trying to be nasty in any way, he was just highly involved with himself. That is why I gave the piece its title.

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Tom Petty: A Petty Interview

Although Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers are considered a West Coast band, they have been fairly well accepted by the rockers on both coasts. They’ve played on the same bill with such groups as Blondie and the Runaways. When I interviewed them last March 8, 1977, they were playing the Bottom Line with Roger McGuinn. They had played at CBGB a few months past. They have a definite rock’n’roll sound that, to some, may take some getting into (remember the first time you heard Television?).

While doing this interview, I kept getting the feeling that, at times, Petty wasn’t listening to what either I, or he himself, was saying. You may catch this on some of the answers. Despite this, I feel that, in most cases, Petty answered to the best of his ability.

FFanzeen: With all the names for the music being played these days, what do you call what you play?

Tom Petty: We just consider ourselves a rock’n’roll band.

FF: Have you seen any other New York bands when you were here?

Petty: Yeah, I’ve seen, well, I just played in L.A. with Blondie for four nights. I saw the Ramones. I haven’t seen a lot of them but I have a friend here [in New York] at Sire Records who sends me a lot of records for me to hear so I’ve heard some of it. I’m not really aware of it. No, we’re not trying to jump in on that one. We’re a young rock’n’roll band and that’s it. Gene Benson was punk as far as – I mean, he was probably more punk than the Ramones are. So was Elvis.

FF: When you played New York, did you find that anyone got confused between Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and [Johnny Thunders and] the Heartbreakers?

Petty: Yeah, the first time we came here we didn’t know about that band for a long time. We heard about it right before we played CBGB’s; that there was another local band called the Heartbreakers. But by that time, I said, I haven’t heard them to this day, and, well, ours is Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, and they can’t get too confused, and sorry and all that but we ain’t gonna change our name or nothing. That’s really a New York problem. It doesn’t come up everywhere.

FF: How did you like playing CBGB’s?

Petty: Good gig. When we came that time, we wanted to play the street place, you know. All I said about New York is “Alright, I’ll play there, but I don't want to go to the Bottom Line, come on with a big press party, and I hate that sort of thing. It just ain’t my nature. I’d like to play the street place where the kids go.” Went there and all the press came.

FF: You picked a bad night, a Tuesday night.

Petty: Yeah, it was a lot of fun. I enjoyed it. I met a lot of people here and it was a really good couple of days. I like New York.

FF: Did you like playing the Bottom Line?

Petty: Yeah, I had a great time. I think, you know, that the audience, they weren’t quite ready for what happened on the first show, for either show, but coaxed with it, ya know, they dug it. I could tell they dug it. They were with us.

FF: Are you on tour now?

Petty: I’ve been on tour about at least five weeks and I’m gonna be out for another two months. We were with the Runaways the night before we were with McGuinn. Roger was a strong influence on me when he was with the Byrds. They were some of the first records I ever bought. I met him in L.A. I like him, I really do. He’s a cool cat. No matter what he does, I dig him. He’s a legend, ya know? Roger McGuinn. I’m really going to enjoy this gig. The last night of the tour is in Long Island at some university.

FF: What was it like playing with the Runaways?

Petty: Well, we’ve only played with them once. We have another date in Cleveland. We played with them in Detroit with a band called Cheap Trick. It was just this Detroit rock show, you know, just give me blood, you know. We went down fine. It was really simple for us. I had never seen the Runaways till then. They were what you might call weird. It was kinda like a teen porn show, or something. I didn’t get to know the girls really well. I know them but I don’t know them. They just look like sex teens. They’re just some kids trying to play. They just happen to be girls. It was strange to see the guys go nuts.

FF: You’re from [Jacksonville] Florida.

Petty: That’s where I was born and raised. I haven’t lived there for ... four years. I live in L.A.

FF: How did you meet the Heartbreakers?

Petty: They’re from Florida, too. They were all in different bands. I was in a band there that got pretty popular. We came out to L.A., and got a record deal, and I quit about halfway through the album. The band broke up and the album never came out. Then I signed another record contract, sort of an artist-in-residence thing with Shelter for about three years. I would sit back and play in the studio ... Then the other guys drifted out to L.A., like Michael Campbell, the guitar player, was with me all the time. We’re playing together about five years. The rest of them just drifted out for various reasons. Through a series of chance meetings, we showed up on the same demo session and it was so good ... so we got together and we did a couple of tracks and we said all right. I went to a record company ... with my hat in my hand, “I’m joining a band, the Heartbreakers.” They were real understanding.

FF: What was the group (you came to California with) ...

Petty: The Heartbreakers.

FF: No, what group was it ...

Petty: We’ve been together now for about a year. It’s a great band. I’m still on the rush. I don’t understand how it happened or what went right. I dig this band, and I’m pretty hard on bands. No ego trips. No leader and nobody’s got more say than anybody else. It works very well.

FF: I take it you’re satisfied with the way the album came out?

Petty: For a first album, it’s pretty true to where we were at the time. It’s getting played on (W)NEW (New York) with moderate airplay. We got a single that’s a hit in England.

FF: What single?

Petty: “American Girl.”

FF: Roger McGuinn has the same single out ... are you satisfied with the way McGuinn did it?

Petty: Well, I wouldn’t have done it that way. I obviously didn’t do it that way.

FF: I haven’t heard his single yet. I heard him do it last night though.

Petty: He did it very Roger McGuinn-ish. A lot different. A lot more laid back. We do it like Bo Diddley. Roger does it a little cruizier, and he changes some of the words. When I played one day in L.A., I was teaching the song to Roger. Like, we just sat, and it was a real standoff situation. I came in and they say, ”Whoa, a real punk. What a punk.” Like Roger would call me a punk. “Who the fuck are you callin’ a punk? I ain’t no punk.” I put on my guitar and I say, “It goes like this: One, two ...” But I respect the guy a lot. He knows what he’s doin’. His audience is probably better that way, than my audience. This is really sort of a great compliment to me. I’m really second generation to Roger. I’m flattered he did it at all.

FF: What music do you listen to now?

Petty: Now? Sort of the same stuff I used to listen to. I listen to everything. I really do listen to all kinds of music. I have not heard Bruce Springsteen. I mean, I heard him once and that’s it. Right before I went on tour I listened to the Everly Brothers’ greatest hits. I listen to Aerosmith and I tend to go by tracks. The ones I listen to all the way are usually classic albums, like the Kinks. The Low album is probably a classic.


FF: What do the Heartbreakers listen to?

Petty: There isn’t really much we disagree on. Stan (Lynch, drummer) is definitely into heavy metal and Ron’s (Blair, bass) into heavy metal. Michael (Campbell, guitar) is into Stones stuff, Beatles. Ben’s (Tench, keyboards) a thousand things.

FF: Will a time come when a Heartbreaker will sing a solo?

Petty: No, I don’t think so. It might happen. If it does, it will be a group thing. I’m the lead singer because I’m the lead singer. We didn’t dye our hair, we didn’t curl it, no one did any of that. People actually ask me, “Did you dye your hair?” We’re just a straight rock'n’roll band. No smoke machines. None of that. We’re straightforward guitar, drums rock’n’roll. We’re song-oriented.

FF: What is your ultimate goal?

Petty: We want to be successful. Not just money. You know, just making a successful record and a successful show. Whatever that means, that’s what it is. I just want to be successful. I could feel successful without selling a million records.

FF: Do you see yourself branching out into other media, like television?

Petty: We ain't never gonna do no TV special. I don’t think we’d do the Midnight Special. I wouldn’t go on with one of those “Alright, the stage is gonna go upside down. Here’s this camera angle. Here’s the same old fuckin’ set we look at every week.” I would like to do a variety show. I could dig that.

FF: Do you have any hobbies?

Petty: Girls are my latest hobbies. I think that’s the Heartbreakers’ latest hobbies now-a-days. Yeah.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Perhaps it’s only my hometown pride, but I was pissed about the way Petty was dismissive about Johnny Thunders’ Heartbreakers, as well as the Ramones. Sorry, TP, but the Heartbreakers are not just a local band, and still have an international appeal that, on some level, your Heartbreakers could never reach. While Tom Petty’s band may have a wider audience demographic and sell more product, the New York Heartbreakers have influenced many more musicians, even if they didn’t have the music business industry behind them (most likely due to the industry’s fear of their unreliability and their, er, peccadilloes). Petty’s music became ever more mundane and tiresome, while Thunders’ would be innovative until he died. How many Tom Petty bootlegs compared to Johnny Thunders. And more importantly, how many people have listened to Tom Petty and wanted to play music as compared to Johnny Thunders. For both of these, I would lean toward the latter.

I became more convinced of Petty’s shallowness – if just lack of withallness – when he appeared on one of the Friday night concert shows, the very kind he stated he’d never be on, within a year or two of his decrying the genre. And sure enough all of the weird camera angles and close-ups were on display. Most likely he thought it was a “good gig” and “dug it.”

I’m not trying to harp on Tom Petty, as I really don’t have anything against him, even though I’m not a fan (again, except that for that first album). I’m sure he’s a southern gentleman who plays a decent guitar. With his band, he’s done a lot of fine work in his career, especially backing up musicians like brother-in-monotone-nasality, Bob Dylan. What I was disturbed about was his “whatever” attitude, which made him appear so oblivious (and seemly uncaring) of what is going on around him.

On a positive note, Petty was the leading force in getting a headstone for Jackie Wilson, who had died penniless after years of being a shut-in as a result of an on-stage heart attack; so, I guess Petty does have his compassionate side, and assured himself a place in the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland.

JIM CARROLL: Poet Turned Rock’n’Roll Star

Text by Julia Masi
Images from the Internet
© 1980, 81 FFanzeen
All song lyrics: © 1980 by Earl McGrath Music / Jim Carroll Music; ASCAP All Rights Reserved

The following article/interview with poet/musician Jim Carroll, written by Julia Masi, was originally published in FFanzeen magazine; part one appeared in issue #6 (1980), and Part II in issue #7 (1981). Jim Carroll passed away in September 2009, so I republish this in tribute; even though I personally was not a fan, I respect his accomplishments. I did see him perform a number of times at CBGB’s, however, jumping in with the Lenny Kaye Connection. – RBF

Part I: The Poet

[Jim Carroll]
He may be a rookie to the rock’n’roll stage, but already Jim Carroll’s got a following. Last summer, a group of his devoted fans traveled from San Francisco to New York for his Fourth of July gig at Irving Plaza, where his music was more dynamic than the firework symphony in the street.

If he has any gimmick at all, it’s his honesty. He’s as willing to lay it on the line during an interview as he is in his most recent book, The Basketball Diaries, or his stunning debut album, A Catholic Boy, on Atco Records.

In fading blue jeans and a plaid shirt that matches his reddish blond hair and off-sets his clear blue eyes, Jim seems younger than his 29 years. He’s spent the past few years living in California, but he hasn’t lost his New York accent or his effection for the City. On August 22, he spoke almost non-stop to this awe-struck reporter, explaining his evolution from Pulitzer Prize nominated poet to up-and-coming rock’n’roll star.

[Organic Trains (1967)]
“Poets were always rock’n’roll stars. It’s kind of like the poet’s right to sing, as loudly and as vulgarly as he wants to. Poets now-a-days have forgotten that. Poets now-a-days are more concerned with a kind of style and not so much [with] heart. A good poet should work on two levels. The heart effects someone who is virtually illiterate. The heart level really has no verbal sophistication at all. And then [the poem] should effect the intellect as well.

“The whole thing that puts me off to the poetry scene is that it’s become kind of petty and incestuous. That’s out of frustration and I understand it, because of the way Americans take on poetry, you’d think of him as a wimp; so it’s out of frustration that poets say, ‘Fuck everything. I’m not writing for the public anymore, I’m writing for other poets.’ And they start to get into all these systems of style, like minimal poetry, which really has to do with head games, you know, intellect games.

“I wanted to get back to what the traditional role of the poet’s always been, the way he’s honored in France as the most noble profession. Doctors and lawyers envy poets there – still. And, in America…” he pauses to light a cigarette and leans forward, “I don’t give a shit that most people think poets are faggots. Or whatever their fucking ideas of poets are. I decided that I was, in the traditional sense, gonna make poetry a noble profession again.” He recalls the conversation he used to have with Patti Smith and how he would tell her, “’You just have to write your lyric and put it there. And not worry about publishing or effecting people. It’s just writing for history. Actually, it’s a great honor to be a poet now,’ I’d say to her, “’because the world is probably gonna fuckin’ blow itself up before we die and we’ll be the poets to record the end, even if there’s no one left to read it… No, we should be concerned about life and effecting people while we’re still alive.’”

[Upside Down (1970)]
After giving some thought to the way he was, and wanted to effect people, Jim realized that he needed a larger audience. And rock seemed like a perfect medium. “Kids perceive lyrics through the heart that they can’t intellectually. Say certain lyrics by the Velvet Underground; certain illusions and stuff would be over kids’ heads, but they’d get them.” His musician friends were always asking him to write lyrics. He had collaborated with Patti Smith and Allen Lanier, of the Blue Oyster Cult. “At first, I thought I would just do lyrics. But then, when I saw punk happening, I realized that I didn’t need all the technical ability that was traditionally needed. I could do my songs myself because no one can interpret the songs as well as the person who writes them.

“I wrote the music to my songs to my vocal limitations. And I had the band write the music to my own limitations. As I got better, I took more risks with my voice. I wanted to be careful. I didn’t want to write art. I didn’t want to make an art record. I hate that. I didn’t want poems with just music behind them. I wanted them to be songs. Maybe on the next record we’ll have some songs with spoken introductions that go right into the songs,” he kicks his foot and pushes the palm of his hand forward to emphasize, “that kick right into songs. But that’s easy for me. That’s what I’ve always done and it’s my strength. But I wanted to get the hard part out of the way first and just find myself with this first record.

“Kids are the hardest to lie to and most rock’n’roll lyrics are like an afterthought: in 90 percent of the cases, they’re more like the musician’s idea of what a lyric should be. And they’re not integral to that person’s experience. And so that way, when you sing them, they’re not real. They could be sung by anyone. You’re singing them but you might as well be a stranger yourself then, because they’re not about your experience. They’re about what your idea of a rock song experience should be like. Like limiting the subject matter to getting laid or not getting laid; those songs might as well be sung to some fucking fly stuck to some roof of some abandoned Chateau somewhere, for all the relevance they have to that guy who sings with no experience. They might as well be instrumentals. What I care about is putting all my vulnerability up front, especially on stage.

[Living At the Movies (1973)]
“When we first started doing shows, that’s what people recognized. I was always worried about what I was going to do when I got on stage. When I’m singin’, it’s okay, but when the instrumental break comes… Mick [Jagger] could dance around and stuff and it’s fantastic, but I can’t do that. I’d look like a fool. I can dance and shit but it wouldn’t be real to me. So I just decided that when I get out there, what I’ll just do is not rely on being influenced by anyone in my stage presence. If the songs are integral, if the words are integral to my experience, then my moves on stage will be integral to the words. Just let them move me. It was incredible the way it happened.” Jim’s eyes grow wide and a look of genuine surprise takes over his face: “ When I got out on the stage for the first time, I had fun on stage. I had music there instead of just doing poetry readings. I was moved out of my head. When I saw a video tape for the first time of myself on stage, I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t remember doing all those things…making any of those moves. I make very minimal moves most of the time.” That’s when he’s on stage. During an interview, he moves constantly. His long legs wrap themselves around each other, dangle over the arm of the chair, and stretch out in front of him as if he were unconsciously performing a yoga regimen. He explains, “[My movements] reflect my vulnerability the same way that the lyrics reflect their vulnerability fro their experiences. When people mention that, they say it’s mesmerizing when it’s right…when the magic happens.

“When a person puts forth their vulnerabilities – their weaknesses and their strengths – then it can’t be anything but an experience for the other person to relate to it. And I make the lyrics just abstract enough so that people can see that they come out of my experience, but they’re also abstract enough so that they can take them and make them their own, too. They just hit a chord in the heart.

[The Basketball Diaries (1978)]
“If you write lyrics just for the intellect, it comes out some phony stream of consciousness bullshit. It’s like rhetoric. Or else, you try to be clever, like some art band, and it’s like some tenth-rate William Burroughs. I hate groups like that. They’re trying to be clever and it’s all paraphernalia and gimmickry. They take no risks at all. They don’t show anything of themselves. It’s all hidden behind gimmicks and outfits, and things like that. That’s theater. Rock’n’roll is just about putting it out with force. And it’s real. It’s immediate. They lyrics need immediacy. Their own vulnerability’s right there. Let everything show.” He speaks with disgust of the “cock row” (heavy metal) bands, calling them “devious. Rock’n’roll is about sex, sure, but it doesn’t have to be completely. I don’t believe that and I don’t buy it. It should have some kind of integrity. As a poet, that’s what I’m trying to do: show that poetry does have integrity.

“But the line I have that sums it up most,” he quotes his song, “It’s Too Late,” “’I’m here to give you my heart and you want a fashion show…’ I saw that with the punk scene. There’s certain element of it, in San Francisco, where they make punk clubs into singles bars. They don’t listen to the music. They just come decked out in outrageousness. They don’t realize it’s like the hippies of the ‘60s. As I see here [in New York], the people in clubs, more and more lately, are evolving back into just looking like street kids. Fashion is great, but inconspicuousness allows you to get a lot of things done that you don’t, if you look outrageous.

“I want to be part of life. I don’t want to be standing on the edge looking into it. I have to do that by the nature of what I am anyway. Why should you outcast yourself in some kind of outside environment? I went through a whole period when I had my hair long and stuff, even through I wasn’t into the hippie scene. I just thought it was wrong. I was a street kid. I guess the reason I grew my hair long was just to get laid and be an outcast ‘cause the girls I was with dug it. But now I just think differently. My art’s too important for that anymore. If people do it, then it’s fine. But in my position, the way things are for me, I just find I can be more effective without it. Without having any particular style or fashion: ‘It ain’t no contribution / To go and rely on an institution / To validate your chosen art / And to sanction your boredom, and let you play out your art’ [“It’s Too late”],

[Book of Nods (1986)]
“And then I talk about the negativity of the whole scene. I say two things. In some song I say, ‘It’s when the body at the bottom / That body is my own reflection / But it ain’t hip to sink that low / Unless you’re gonna make a resurrection’ [“Into the Night”]. I’m speaking more about my own experiences with drugs and stuff,” which he speaks more about only in the past tense. “You know, there’s nothing heroic about it. You know, that whole thing about, like, a lot of people get into it because it stacks you up above everyone else – the whole romance of the whole thing? They think it’s heroic. And it is heroic in the sense that at least you’re not a dilettante. You’ve thrown yourself over into it completely. You have a chance to be heroic in the real traditional sense of poetry, to start a second life, by coming out of the fuckin’ pit. And I say also in that same song, ‘When they got nothing to give / They parent their legs for what’s negative / They’re so decadent, until their daddy’s money from home is all spent… / So I think it’s time / Because it’s too easy to rely / On worshipping devils and strangers in bed / Though they get good drugs and they do give good head’ [“Into the Night”]. I like those lines,” he smiles. “It is true, you know? I can’t completely deny them, myself. The attraction of the negative. It’s been a part of my life for too long. To look for the good is so much harder.

“”The mythology and the ritual of Catholicism, I’ve come back to. I think it’s fantastic. The whole cult of the Virgin is very attractive. It’s the only feminine side to Western religion. The Virgin is hardly ever mentioned in Protestant religions.

“A good poet should have a feminine side to him. The thing that made me feel best about a review one time, was that [the critic was] saying that I had the ‘best feminine side of any poet in America,’ which has nothing to do with homosexuality. The guy pointed out that. It’s usually homosexuals that have the least feminine side in the works. It’s like Jung said, [that] every guy has a female side and every woman has a male side. Which, as an artist, is imperative to have. And it comes naturally to me.”

Referring to the title of his album, Jim comments that, “A lot of people think that’s an anti-Catholic song.” Comparing the discipline of Catholic elementary school to a jail, he recites, “’I took the doctor’s scalpel, and I slit the cord’ [“Catholic Boy”]. I wanted life. But then, all of a sudden, I got put back in the fuckin’ slammer. They confine you with dogma and put boundaries around it. But the mythology is just the opposite, to open up. It’s about the letting of blood. There’s a lot of images of blood. I call my album Catholic Boy because my whole life is based on [it]. Your history comes out of the streets and what effects you when you were young. That’s what’s in your heart and that’s what’s in your gut. You can’t escape it. People who go to Eastern religions after they grow up are looking in the wrong way. That’s only in the intellect that you think about it. But in the heart, you have to rely on what you grew up with when the heart was formed. In the heart sense, in the sprit of it. And that’s Catholicism for me.

[Fear of Dreaming (1993)]
“What could be more ‘punk rock’ than the Stations of the Cross? Following a guy around with a crown of thorns and a crucifix – His own crucifix – up to the top of a mountain, and having Him pierced in the side by a centurion so that the blood flows? And that blood! I think that’s what the crucifixion was all about. When the centurion struck Him in the side and this magical blood came forth, that was supposedly mixed with water – a Holy Water – that blood was a letting out of all man’s ego. He had to die for man’s ego because man’s ego had built up to such a point. I mean, man’s ego is overwhelming. His arrogance. And his pride.”

He leans forward and drops the level of his voice until it’s just above a whisper. “When I think about it intellectually, it makes sense to me, and that was what junk was all about. After a while, you just wanted to do it to keep watching the blood come up. And letting the blood come out to take out your own ego, because when you were high on junk, you could see the bullshit of what it was. It just slowed everything down and your vision was narrowed. Most people think you just go on the nod. Well, people who go on the nod are wasting a heroin head. I liked a good nod as much as anyone when I was on the stuff. But man, I wanted to see people and their bullshit, too.”

Sinking back into his chair, he admits that, “with this ‘Catholic Boy’ song, that’s kind of anti-Catholic school, but when I say ‘redeemed through pain not through joy,’ that’s the way it should be. The fact is that these Born Again people, you hear them speak, they testify, ‘The Lord is with me 24 hours a day. I get joy from Him. I get such a buzz.’ It’s like a methadone maintenance program for religion. They’re gonna get the buzz 24 hours a day or nothin’s happenin’. They want something back for it.

[Poems, Interviews, Photographs (1997)]
“The thing that I always thought about religion was, that if you love God, you don’t do it because you’re afraid you’re gonna go to Hell. You don’t not sin because you’re afraid you’re gonna go to Hell or because you want to get into Heaven and get this 24 hour a day buzz. You do it because God made you. And you’re alive. And that’s all! If you’re redeemed through pain; if you pray three months that this good friend of yours is not gonna die of leukemia and he dies anyway and you’ve still got faith in what you’ve been praying to before, then that’s love of God and belief. And I don’t get any buzz from that. The fact is I can’t even say I have faith in God. In an intellectual sense, I don’t even know if I can believe in It. There’s too much else happening. But I love the rituals of it. And I want to believe it in my heart. And sometimes I can believe it. But it’s very hard.

“Like Rimbaud said, ‘Charity is a key.’ And that’s what the letting of the blood of Christ is all about: charity. And charity has to be the key more ever now. And those people just don’t think about that.”

Jim tells of his friend who embraced the diet and philosophy of an obscure religious cult. He lived in the desert fasting and preparing himself for the destruction of civilization. He ate only fruit and things that grew from the trees in an attempt to purify his body enough so that he would be able to consume his own urine. Jim explains that, “apparently, during Armageddon, when the Four Horsemen come and the world’s ending, then you can get by and survive, ‘cause you don’t need any food. All the food’s gonna wither. You can get by on your own cycle of pissing and drinking it. And in theory, that works. But the whole point to me was, and I said this to him one time, what the fuck are you gonna do, hide in a cave during a nuke war and drink your own piss? Why would you want to, man? What I’d wanna do is just be around the person I love most. Or, if not, be with any stranger if you didn’t have time to make it to that person.

“I’d feel really left out at this point, if there was a nuclear war and I didn’t die. I don’t want to be in a cave drinking piss. The only thing we could do then is give comfort. I’d want to grab the hand of the person that was next to me, whether it was the person I loved, or some stranger if I couldn’t make it to that person, if the world was ending real quick, and just grab them in whatever shelter you’re in. Or in the subway or wherever you’re hiding from this fuckin’ attack; and just grab that person and hold her hand as tight as you can and just grab hands with the other people. I’m physically a cold person. Usually, I’m not into, you know, that California stuff where everyone touches and hugs people and stuff. That always made me uptight. But is this case, I’d wanna hold the person’s hand so tight. You only have a few seconds. It’s the only time that charity would win out in this fucked up world.

“People would be more alive in those last few seconds – because death was comin’ – then they would be in their whole lives. Death would be life for them then. It’s such an irony, but that’s the case. People would feel for once for the person next to them instead of just for themselves. They look into someone else’s eyes and probably see for the first time in their life, because the edge of death and that flirtation with death always brings that out.

“So this guy drinking piss, what’s he gonna do? First of all, if Revelations is right and the world is gonna end through some kind of mystical thing, the Four Horsemen and the Apocalypse, there ain’t no cave you’re gonna be able to hide in. Those Four Horsemen are gonna check out everything. The whole idea is people are gonna pray to die and not be able to die. So he ain’t gonna be able to hide. If it’s more like just a straight pragmatic nuclear war and everything’s gonna be destroyed, then he could hide from it in a cave.” He lowers his voice again. “But why would you want to? What would you come down to? A bunch of fuckin’ mutants!”

Part II: Soundtrack of the Times


Jim Carroll, 1994
Some people spend their whole lives searching for the spotlight, while others stumble into it repeatedly. Take Jim Carroll for example.

When Jim Carroll chronicles his career, he makes fame sound so easy: a published poet by the time he was 16, a Pulitzer Prize nomination at 22, a best selling author (The Basketball Diaries), and rock star at 29. But his success wasn’t’ built on pure luck. He admits he has no patience with dilatants. He puts everything he has into everything he does. And what he possesses is an incredible talent that can not be ignored.

He grew up tough and fast on the streets of Manhattan. And if it wasn’t for a scholarship to a private high school, he might have ended up like the rest of his friends he mentions in his song, “People Who Died.” But something in his blue eyes suggests that he was always too smart to be consumed by the streets. As a kid writing The Basketball Diaries, he had shown an incredible perception and lack of self-pity.

Jim Carroll took to poetry as soon as he was introduced to it. Knowing the value of voyeurism, he set out to study the best contemporary poets of the ‘60s by attending a Greenwich Village poetry workshop.

“I was hanging around down at St. Mark’s Church, at the Poetry Project down there, where Allan Ginsberg, Anne Waldman, Ted Berrigan and all these people would read. I didn’t say anything to anybody there. I just stayed and watched in the audience.” At the time, Jim had already begun to write poetry. He showed some of it to a high school friend whose brother ran the press at City College. The brother immediately wanted to publish them. “I only had about thirty pages of poems that I wanted published

Catholic Boy (1980)
“I was too shy to introduce myself to the people at the poetry scene. But then when I had this book, I could give it to them and that way I could introduce myself. And they said, ‘We wondered who you were, if you were a poet or just spyin’ on us.’ Then I started to publish when I was 16, in the magazine that they ran out of [St. Mark’s], The World. And every twelve issues, Bobbs-Merril Publishers would publish this big hardcover anthology of the best works from it. From that I started to get from the underground press into hardcover publishers and stuff. And then I started publishing in the Paris Review, because this poet, Tom Clark, was the poetry editor and he hung out at the St. Mark’s thing.

“And that’s where I first published the diaries, too. They asked me if I had any prose because they were having a prose issue of The World. I said, ‘All I have is these diaries that I kept when I was young.’ And I started to read them at poetry readings at St. Mark’s and they always went over real well. And when George Plimpton read them, he asked me to give him some for the Paris Review [for which he was editor]. I gave him twenty-five pages and I got letters form all these publishers who wanted to publish them. But I didn’t want to publish that book until I published a really big volume of poetry because I didn’t want to be known as a street writer. I wanted to show that I could write as a poet. It was stupid. It was being hung up with style.”

Jim held off publishing the diaries because most editors “wanted to make some changes in it and give it more sociological meaning. Like why I was doing all this and stuff. Since I wasn’t the same age anymore, as 13 to 15, it would’ve been bullshit to change them. Each one I kind of wrote to be a short story; to stand by itself. They weren’t day-to-day diaries. They were all subjective little short stories and anecdotes. I didn’t want to put in any, like ‘Dear Diary, why is this happening to me? Because my parents hate me, I’m shooting junk.’ Bullshit! I did it because I wanted to party.

[Dry Dreams (1982)]
“I never had any editor touch my work at all. Even when I was 16. I wouldn’t allow it. And now that I can command it, of course, I don’t let them. If an editor makes suggestions, that’s one thing. But the only thing I think of an editor as is someone who checks for typos and misspellings. I just didn’t like the idea of that. I really cared about the diaries since this was a book that I wanted kids to read. And I wanted a big distribution on it instead of just to the poetry audience. I wanted a paperback house. All I cared about was the paperback edition because it was affordable for the kids.”

After he published Living in the Movies, the book that earned him a Pulitzer Prize nomination in 1974, he moved to California and became a recluse. “I didn’t like the lifestyle in California, that kind of mellow, laid-back shit. I just wanted to use a landscape. I didn’t associate with anyone. I just lived in the country. I had dogs for the first time in my life. I love animals, but could never have them. I’d bring home strays every week when I was a kid and my mother would say, ‘The city’s no place for a dog.’ You know that line? So, once I got out there, I got, like, four dogs. And I’d take these long walks with ‘em and I was writing a lot of poetry and these prose poems, thinking about what I was going to do with the diaries.

“Then, after, I slowly decided I was going to do rock, by what I was writing and what I was reading.

“The book that effected me the most was The Time of the Assassins, by Henry Miller. It was s study of Rimbaud’s works, but it’s really a study of Henry Miller by Henry Miller. It speaks about how a poet – real poet – has to effect the heart as well as the mind. And you have to effect people who are virtually illiterate, as well as the people who are intellectuals. Rock’n’roll is the way you effect people on the social level.”

His initiation into rock’n’roll was a fluke. He had a small part in an underground film with Patti Smith, where he was reading this poem, “The Guitar Voodoo.” [The poem is about a girl with a magical guitar; whenever she plays the strings she inflicts pain to an enemy. The faster the guitar strings vibrate, the worse the pain gets.] The day after the film was shot, Patti Smith was giving a concert in San Diego. She asked Jim to go along.

[Praying Mantis (1991)]
Her opening act, a heavy-metal band, began to pose a problem, so Patti cancelled them and announced, “’Jim will open the show.’ I said, ‘Wait a minute, Patti, what am I gonna do?’ She said, ‘We’ll do what we did in the movie last night, only the whole band will play behind you.’ It was very generous of her because it takes away the whole anticipation of an opening act. Patti would just come out playin’ a guitar behind me. I said, ‘Well, that’s cool. I’ll do it, but I’m not gonna read this thing ‘cause I’d be too nervous. I’ll start shaking with the piece of paper. I didn’t have it memorized. I’ll do some of the lyrics that I’ve been writing with Allan [Lanier of Blue Oyster Cult]; but we don’t’ have time to work out the music that Allan did, so I’ll just rap ‘em and you guys can jam.’ And, of course, Lenny [Kaye] and all those guys were real good at that. In the early days, they’d just jam while Patti made up lyrics. So, they started to play and I did these two songs; just rapped ‘em. Patti came over to me and was, like, leanin’ up against me while I was doin’ it. I was totally out of it. Then I loosened up and it was great. It was about ten minutes long – just right. The audience really dug it. Everything was very clear and this energy was coming at me from behind, so it was just like this sandwich of energy. It was fantastic.”

His poems went over so well that he was invited to the Mabohay Gardens to do a gig of his own. But at this point he didn’t have a band, and Allan Lanier was busy finishing the music if the songs they’d been working on. But Jim’s never been restrained by obstacles. He knew a San Francisco bar band called Amsterdam that he’d met one day while he was hitchhiking. “I got a ride from two of the guys in the band. They said, ‘Yeah, you’re a poet. We’ve read your book and stuff. You ever think of writing lyrics?’ And I said, ‘Well, people have spoken to me about it. I’ve been doing it a bit with this old friend of mine, Patti.’ But they weren’t into punk music. They were straight out of the Stones.” He remembers telling them, “Well, maybe we’ll do something together sometime at a poetry reading or something, and you guys can play behind me.” He approached them about playing the Mabohay.

“We had about a week’s rehearsal, and we worked out the music for, like, six songs. And I wanted to make sure they were songs and not just poems with music behind hem – just jamming – like that night with Patti or even lyrics with the music. I wanted to make them integral songs, with breaks, as best I could, or else just rap ‘em. But having these songs, it went over so well that the guy [who owned the club] asked us to come back the next week and play the last show when we could really turn up the volume. We did the gig the next week on a weekend night, so there was a huge crowd. People from the poetry scene were there, as well as people from the punk scene. I was really getting into it. We saw it was working.”

Amsterdam continued to perform at their old haunts before the Jim Carroll Band was officially formed. Whenever they’d back up Jim, they would hide their long hair under berets, “so the people weren’t shouting, ‘Get these hippies off the stage.’ I just wanted the band not to have any one look and not be pinned because it turns people off – especially in the clubs. They say, ‘Oh, these guys were playing hippie music.’ And that wasn’t the case when we started to work together.

[Pools of Mercury (1998)]
The Jim Carroll Band – Brian Linsley and Terrell Winn on guitars, Steve Linsley on bass and Wayne Woods on drums – could easily stand alone. They’ve each co-written something with Jim for the band’s debut album Catholic Boy, and although their music is loud, fast and extremely easy to dance to, it never overshadows Jim’s haunting lyrics.

“I demand attention when I play. It’s not just shit-kicking music. That’s part of it. I just want people to listen. Listen with their ears and listen with their hearts, too. I want them to take something away with them. I don’t want them just to come and dance and exhaust themselves and split. I want them to go home with an image in their minds. Just one image that will stick with them and move them – feel not better about themselves or anything like that, just think about themselves, or think about some image that’s left.”

The band quickly built up a following playing around the San Francisco area, and they knew the time had come to go into the studio. They recorded a six song demo tape at an eight-track studio, and when Jim returned to New York for the release of The Basketball Diaries, he took the demo with him. He had intended to bring it around to some of the record companies, but as luck would have it, he didn’t need to.

Jim’s publisher threw a party for him at the Gotham Book Mart. One of the guests was Earl McGrath, former president of Rolling Stone Records. McGrath had heard about Jim’s band through a mutual friend, artist Larry Rivers. He was anxious to hear the band and invited Jim to bring the tape to his office. Assuming that nothing would come of it expect possibly a little honest criticism, Jim brought this tape to Rolling Stone Records.

“When he heard it, he was just silent for about five minutes. It seemed like ten hours, and I thought, ‘He hates it.’ Then he said, ‘This is very strong and very different. Keith’s been looking for something to produce so I think we’d like to do something with this.’ And I was besides myself ‘cause I knew the band would freak.”

Originally, Keith Richards wanted to produce Catholic Boy, but he was tied up recording with the Rolling Stones. McGrath stepped in as producer, and when he made a move from Rolling Stone to Atco Records, he took his pet project with him.

“It took a long time after me signing before it came out. By my own choice, we put off doing it because I didn’t want to start recording until I had a total handle on the songs, by doing them live. The tendency is to just rush into the studio with the first album and do it real quick. I think it’s a mistake to rush in. I’m glad we took our time.

“We had all the arrangements and stuff, so once we got into the studio, we did it very quickly. We did two sessions about a month apart. Five days the first time and four days the second, four hours each, and we did that in San Francisco. We mixed it here. The band stayed out there, and I came back to do some of the vocals.”

Before the album came out last October, Jim had only played two shows in New York. His first gig turned into a showcase. The tiny club was filled with so many record company people that there was hardly any room for fans of either the Jim Carroll Band, or his surprise guest, Keith Richards. “We got all this flack for hype, because Keith played with me. He can play with us any fuckin’ time he wants. It’s an honor to have Keith Richards play with us. It wasn’t any hype at all. Hype is what people make it. I’ve been a poet since I was 15 years old and I’ve supported myself any way I could, to write poetry. I’ve proven myself all those years that I’m not into things for what I can get out of them financially or any other way. I’ve always stuck by poetry and I always will. And there’s no money in that. And if there’s more money in rock’n’roll, and more in, say, The Basketball Diaries, because it’s doing well, then fine. But if it doesn’t happen, then I’m a poet, that’s what I do. It just seems like a natural evolution, the way it is now. And it’s really integral to my work. The way the album turned out, it doesn’t seem like something different, outside of it, that I just started to do. It seems like a natural extension and that’s what makes it so satisfying.”