NO DISCO FOR DERRINGER

Leaders blaze. Self-determined and destined towards a goal at an early age, they know—well, kind of know, sense it in their bones and all—how to follow through. Presented with a guitar on his ninth birthday ("an electric Harmony or somethin' "), Rick Derringer aimed to follow his Uncle Jim Thornton's fingertips—playing guitar in the country-pop, early 'lectric guitar mold. Being a great fan of Les Paul, Django Reinhardt, and Merle Travis, Rick's Uncle Jim influenced him earliest.

But, just as essential to the "organic path" of Rick Derringer's lifework could be his boyhood aversion to any organization larger than a rock group—either the Pop-R&B McCoys a-rockin' in the mid-late 60's, or the bloozy Johnny Winter And. or the keen noisome adventurings of the Edgar Winter group.

Now and here, '77, everything's hunky-dory for Rick and his current band, a steadfast knock-'em-hot quartet called Derringer. Belonging to a fun, freedom-loving group of guys like Derringer is no doubt somehow reminiscent of the Cub Scouts for Rick, in the sense that he "got off on the Cub Scouts. They just said, 'Have a good time, Rick!'," whereas, "I went to a Boy Scout meeting and decided that I was gonna be too busy for the commitment that the Boy Scouts were layin' on me, so I passed. It was great stuff, but real time-consuming, and I was gettin' involved with music..."

Here's a theory on early human character-forming as pertains to joining bands, clubs, committees, any social/ political/creative unit: people do it for amusement, approval, to feel more secure with themselves in that they somehow "belong."

Ah, but a true leader type...No, he wouldn't let insecurity blow apart his calling. Else wise, how do you think a dynamic young man with an expressive bent like Rick Derringer would've ever had the guts to go out and sock it to 'em in a smash 60's recording group, the McCoys?

"When 'Hang On Sloopy' happened, it became a big record, and we were in the music business for real. And people were treating us in a different way, calling us stars, and it was right in the middle of Beatlemania. We happened to have long hair, and we were young; people were ripping our clothes off. I was 17," Rick Derringer reckoned under interview at his Xmas-bedecked home a week before December 25th.

The McCoys' flukish fame took Rick completely unaware: "I came from a real Midwestern mentality that does not even encompass the possibility of making it in show business, in any way, making hit records and all that stuff. You could be a musician, but I never thought of being really successful at it. I always thought of getting some 'real' job; then, music would be something that I did on weekends, in a bar, with my friends."

Asked about how he avoided being sucked into the Stardom mentality, Rick stayed good-natured and talkative, spieling on about self-deluded jokers turned overnight stars who invariably wind up shattered (Rick was "lucky"), self-destructive and suicidal.

"I think that's why it all happened," Rick surmised. "It's that whole cyle of building the star into something that's not real. No matter how successful... you're still going to be a human being with normal human problems. And you're still gonna have to work just as hard to get fulfillment and happiness from life just like anybody else. You're still human and people don't understand that."

Thusly did Rick Derringer learn the drawbacks and benefits of being a rock-

star of nova brilliance back in '66. Rick and his brother Randy were two of the four mod young McCoys, a rock group that used to gig around at black nightclubs in Chicago as a sort of novelty act appreciated by the mostly-black clientele 'cause they were cute little boys who played adequate blues and entertaining cover versions of popular songs.

11 H That how I involved myself with music (technically). I get off on music. I buy records; Vm a stereo nut; I enjoy playing | 'em. H11

The McCoys, in fact, were the first American group to cut a then-unkown Beatles song, "Drive My Car," with identical playing and arrangement to the Beatles' version (which, when released later in the States, would garner the Beatles another generous pile of G's).

But dealing with his own stardom was a learning experience for Rick. He didn't care about being idolized; his nature's too realistic. The only musical goal Rick ever had, says he, was "Playin' the guitar real good—and it | had nothin' to do with being a star. £ Hang out with my friends is all I ever i wanted to do, and we'd hear some song, and go, 'Wow! Listen to that; isn't that great?!' So, I'd go home and learn it. Then I can go and play it for my friends^ and they can go, 'Wow, listen to that; isn't he great?!' Rick played lead guitar and sang most lead vocals, piercing the short grapeshot set both nights with strategic whoops of "Yeah!" and lotsa hopping down-and-upstage. Though group leader, Rick never hogs the limelight. He comes on like a regular guy (which he is, really—but I wasn't convinced until later) onstage, and the crowd eats it up ; Rick Derringer's acting out the last leg of the rock fan's total fantasy, the fan's fan as performer. Star. Bright but not brilliant. Gettin' warm but not yet hot. Derringer is a comfortable, lively, excitement-prone, personable band. Each of the guys is a pleasant eyeful too, so the spectators have more fodder to fantasize on.

"All of a sudden, you have ten new friends,' and you feel real good, and that's all I ever really wanted out of music. To this day, that's all I really want out of music."

In addition to not having developed a star mentality, neither has Rick ever considered himself a musician in that " 'Musician' is a whole trip you can get caught up in, and it's a very technical, physical thing." Like typing or painting or mopping floors, faster physical prowess with bending notes comes with practice. "That isn't how I involved myself with rhusic [technically]. I get off on music. I buy records; I'm a stereo nut; I enjoy playing 'em. Usually the same variety of music's gonna get me off that gets a normal variety of people off, 'cause that's what I am, and that's my inspiration."

And you can bet on a stack of Ampeg's that the guileless Rick tells no lies when he makes this hearty claim of solidarity between himself and your normal well-heeled music-lover. Why, while I was over at the Derringer's interviewing Rick, he sang the praises of an unremittingly popular El Lay dude group's latest effort; yeah, Hotel California by the Eagles (who are about the slickest common denouncables in the biz according to knowing music critics who despise the Eagles for their blandness, emotional sterility, and humdrum "mellowness", which assures them commerciality because it panders to the mass taste in the same way Hefty bags gave Americans another excuse to shell out cash for a comforting sanitary measure against the rages of staph and strep...). [Here, here, Trix—Ed.]

Rick Derringer's admiration for the Eagles extends, evenlo his trying to get the Eagles' producer, Bill Szymczyk, to produce the first Derringer group album, but Bill wasn't available at the time and they didn't have anybody else in mind. "So the group kind of elected me to do it," which, coming from a straightforward, non-egotistical guy like Rick, I believe—he just produced Derringer by default. Anyhow, he's damn good at producing, having the Edgar Winter group's Shock Treatment to his credit, besides his own first and second solo elpees.

But Rick doesn't like to produce himself at all: "You can't be objective if you're in the studio, touching those guitar strings or whatever it is you play. Oh, it's terrible! No matter how hard you try you drive yourself crazy and, at the same time, it's too easy to do anything. To take it out, or to leave it in. You just go crazy, tryin' to produce yourself."

happened to have long hair, and we were young; people were ripping our clothes off. I was 17.

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Double billing with Aerosmith at Madison Square Garden in mid-December, the Derringer group opened both shows, Thursday and Friday nights. The more eventful night, Thursday, was highlighted by a pleasantly favorable—let's say, favorably disposed—audience reaction culminating in a few kids having their hands and faces maimed by firecrackers. They were wheeled away in stretchers, giving the backstage Garden an aura of sedate disturbance. This happened towards the end of Derringer's set.

Derringer paced the set very quickly; Aerosmith's supporting act in an Aerosmith heated arena. Starting at 8:04, the set was over at 8:44 on the nose. A mere seven songs were played altogether, if you consider the two-song medley of "Rock 'n' Roll Hootchie Koo" and "You Really Got Me" as one number. Two-in-one to my thinking, which means that the Derringer group —Danny Johnson on vocals and lead guitar; Kenny Aaronson, bassing and backup vocalizing; Vinny Appice drumming on with plenty, o' spine— had to pack lotsa wallop into 40 minutes.

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CONTINUED FROM PAGE 33.

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THE DERRINGER BAND -

AN HISTORIC OVERVIEW

"I think the new band's, like, a snowballing kind of thing...Kenny [Aaronson] was the first one I saw of that bunch, when I was playing with Johnny Winter And at the Rockpile six or eight years ago. Kenny was playing in a band called Dust. I like him there, and he played with the Stories, on 'Brother Louie' and I went, 'Yeah! It's that same guy.' And he sounded better..."

Kenny Aaronson kept changing bands, "Really didn't feel 'at home' anywhere yet," as Rick said, "so I didn't feel like I was stealin' him from anybody if I asked him if he was interested in doin' something." Kenny liked the idea of playing in Derringer's group.

Rick also appealed to Vinny Appice: "About that same time, I was workin' at v the Record Plant...there was this band there named Bomf that rehearsed almost every day. They did a lot of original stuff, but like Tower of Power music, heavy R&B and stuff like that. Vinny—he; was 16 at the time—this guy was incredible! I called up Vinny's house in Brooklyn and Vinny's mother says, 'No, Vinny isn't here; he just went to Louisiana. Blit you're probably calling for Carmine, aren't you?' She couldn't get it in her head that she had another drummer in the real world, y'know?" (besides Vinny's brother, Carmine Appice—now beating for Rod Stewart).

Then, by freakish happenstance, guitarist Danny Johnson and Vinny Appice were playing together in Danny's hometown, Shreveport, Louisiana. In order to see this little 3-piece rock band with the intent of recruiting Vinny, Rick jetted down to Louisiana and talked to them both. A day or two later, they met at S.I.R. studios in New York City and came to the conclusion, "Wow! Sure sounds like a band to us..." The Derringer band rehearsed for a couple pf months, then cut their debut LP, Derringer. By nature, they're a hardworking road band, cohesive and full of verve in the studio as well, I'm sure.

Most importantly, Derringer music sounds like they enjoy doing it, and aren't playing trends for saleability's sake. From the very beginning of Rick's recording career, he's prided himself on possessing an "innate commercial sense," which keeps him up-to-date and means, to him, "that I don't have to 'sell out,' which is a phrase I don't really understand because it's so foreign to me; it means I don't have to play or write down to people, because I'm writing for myself as much as the most far-out jazz player or the most seriousminded classical player...once in a while, innately, I will be commercial, because I'm writing for myself.

"This band, for instance, doesn't have to try to make hit singles [oh yeah? try selling that to the record companies], although we like hit singles just as much as anybody else. We'll try to make the best music we can, and from that, coincidentally, a lot of people will like one song at some time, and that's all a commercial song is."

Immediately, the dread disco shit willies possessed me. I had to know, before giving my blessing, Rick's reply to this last question: "What about disco?"

Rick: "That's gonna be hurting... That's another weird thing—"

Trixie: "Well, I hate it, like axurse—"

Rick: "You hate the title 'disco,' and you hate the type of music that's been compressed into that title—"

I shake my head. "Null-and-void mew-sick."

In his young, Cagney-like, gritty Midwestern voice, Rick sat up in his recliner. "You just told me a little while ago that you didn't like the Garden because you couldn't dance there. So you told me you like to dance."

Affronted, I sputtered, "Yeah, but disco!—"

"Hold on, let me explain this thing, because I really think it has a lot to do with this. You like to dance, I like to dance, even though I'm not a dancer... dance music is something most people like. In other words, we're not gonna call it disco, we're gonna call it dance music. You like it, / like it, a lot of people like dance music. We always have."

Rick continued, "The longer it was popular, the longer the term disco music remains, and the narrower it gets. So the way it is now, it's nothin'." Rick proceeds to demonstrate, gathering momentum by chuffing and huffing, slapping his thigh in simulated disco syncopation. "It's got this beat, slick strings, typical formula arrangement—'We'll call it disco'—and it fits into that narrow little boundary. And you don't like it, and I don't like it, and almost nobody likes it anymore—but it's unfair to say you don't like disco music, 'cause all it is is music you can dance to."

Enough! Having almost been convinced by the Socratic Q and A ramblings of Rick Derringer on Discosheeit, I spewed out my last objection. "Okay, Disco's a rigid kind of beat, and it's very slick, and it's emotionless, and that's what I hate about it...I can't dance to it because it's so, same-y—"

And ultimately, to my relief, Rick stated, ever fair yet stubborn, a loyal rocker: "It's boring, it's narrow, emotionless, nothing music—(but) Disco should be the home of dance music!"