A Consumer Guide To Rock's Last Drag

by Robert Drizzle Duncan

[Well we couldn't leave you hanging with last month's comprehensive Guide To English Punk so we sent Robert Duncan, hopped up with tetanus shots, out into his adopted city to file this report. More CREEM writers will be set loose on the streets of other cities, so stay tuned for more punk reports. —Ed.]

Let's get this straight. I refuse to call this crap New Wave. New Wave cinema was pretentious enough, so I will not suffer New Wave music. First of all, for the most part, it's not new and it's not any sort of wave (more akin to light chop, if you ask me). Secondly, it's Punk Rock—no, make that punk rock, small p, small r—as in just another bunch of snotty punks trying to play rock 'n' roll. Punk rock is what it started as, and punk rock is what it'll finish as—soon, I hope.

Furthermore, while I believe that there is a coherence to the punk rock scene in Britain because I believe that a dying economy has galvanized the young into frantic activity (I also like and respect the Sex Pistols), I know that there is no coherence to the New York scene, just as I know that kids in America are, in general, sitting fat and pretty whether they know it or not. In New York especially, where the dole is about the easiest scam in town and most of the kids are living off their parents anyways, there is no monolithic force driving the young to rebel. Oh, wait, excuse me, the blackout made them do it. Or was it Son of Sam? Yeah, that's right: punk rockers are punk rockers because of Son of Sam. OK.

In other words, punk rock in New York is just one big circle jerk.

Oddly enough, the circle jerk is now becoming big business (you know when that starts, rigor mortis can't be far behind). New clubs are opening up at an increasingly rapid rate (the latest is the Great Gildersleeve's, another Bowery dive made over for punk, which advertises "L_ _ _ _ S FREE ADMISSION every Wednesday" in an apparent attempt not to say Ladies and sound like a jiveass sexist singles bar—surely just what it is or will become). Old clubs, like the Village Gate, are venerable beatnik hangouts changing over to a punk policy. Bloomingdale's is hawking $1,500 Zandra Rhodes "punk" dresses (they're actually torn), and Macy's is offering a windowful of t-shirts marked with "blood" stains and slogans like "PUNK".

But punk rock here in New York, which, to give the devil his due, is where it really started, was not always so bad. In fact, it was almost a good idea before it became labeled as punk. Back in the days when the Dictators were bashing it out up in the Bronx and Patti Smith was down in Manhattan giving her "poetry readings" accompanied by Lenny Kaye on guitar and later when she went over to CBGBs and this weirdo band called the Ramones started playing there too, alongside the Leather Secrets and, later, Television. Back in those days circa 1974, when everyone was reeling from massive record company hype campaigns and Deep Purple ruled the world, we needed to scale things down and see where this rock 'n' roll thing was going. We would woodshed, try out a couple of experiments—Patti, in particular, seemed to have something interesting going.

Then Patti cut the "Piss Factory" single on the homegrown Mer label. Once again, the hype had something fleshy to attach itself to and it grew and multiplied itself like the cancer it always will be. Pretty soon, the jerkoffs knew where to go to ply their meaty trade, and the writers knew where to go for copy. Even the lamest got to be called artists, which is what the writers called them when they had nothing else to say or no way to explain, and everybody's head started swelling up with the pus of grandiose notions about self.

Need I go on? Need I explain that Patti is now going to rule the world? Need I mention the Ramones' relationship to Dada? Or the luminescent poetry of Tom Verlaine? Must I reiterate the Great Gildersleeve's???

The whole thing got horrifically out of hand, suffice it to say, and I'm not exactly sure how. I know that a lot of fifth rate bar bands saw the scene as a way to continue to be mediocre and still get gigs. I know that a lot of nonmusicians saw it as a shortcut to musician's status. I know, as I say, that a lot of jerk-offs saw it as a new place to jerk off.

Were there any rules to all this, there wouldn't be so many crappy bands around. Were there rules, or a common motivation, there would be coherence. What little coherence the scene has results from the fact that a lot of these people, desperately lacking for new ideas, as well as talent, adopted a cool remoteness when appearing in public, a remoteness that is supposed to be artistic and traces back to Andy Warhol. A lot of these bands also pretend that they are teenagers, that lends a unity to the scene—as does the fact that a surprising number of them are perilously close to thirty, with several stumbling significantly beyond that. Coherence also comes from the fact that most of the groups are shitty and all of them have some sort of pretension about said shittiness (if they don't have pretension, it's assigned them by commentators on the scene). As to the punk audiences, who also deem themselves punks, for the most part they look to me like washed out glitterites on Quaaludes. And the venues, particularly the mainstay CBGBs, are thoroughly overcrowded, overnoisy, and overpriced places to while away one's high.

All in all, New York is, once again, a happening town, and the guide I offer you is merely a tantalizing taste. And I say to you: Mom may do the laundry, Pop may send me the rent, and Sis may wipe my ass, but I know one thing: Punk is my life!

TELEVISION

An ill-natured hippie band, plain and simple. Musically, they belong to the Grateful Dead; sociologically, they belong to the post-war (WWII, that is) Baby Boom generation, which is to say: rich, egocentric, and possessed of all the manners of an oyster. In other words, while Tom Verlaine's pained upper register vocalizing and his flat linear half-step guitar playing are pure Jerry Garceian, while his mythic seer's lyrics are early Robert Hunter dosed moderately with cynicism, he projects none of the familial affection onstage or on record of their band. In fact, Verlaine appears about as disinterested as the cool blue electrobic object after which he so gravely named his group. Whether this disinterest is coldness or contempt or a statement on the life and times or an attempt to scale down the frame in order to highlight the art contained within, it is thoroughly alienating and wrong—particularly when one notes that life is not dull and neither is art. A truth which even Andy Warhol, who may have inadvertently fostered a lot of these vacancies, sometimes insists on telling.

RAMONES

What started out as a sort of haphazard Fifties-Sixties camp act has recently been elevated to art (albeit, anti-art art) status by a vicious circle of writers and promoters. Now I hear about their stylistic link to sadomasochistic homosexuality, their link to minimal painting and their pure rock 'n' rollness. So where the first album sported a black and white photo by the resident Punk magazine photographer, the second album's cover is in color and looks like it was taken by Hiro (Stones' Black and Blue) or Moshe Brahka (Boz Scaggs' Silk Degrees) or anyone of the current camera artistes of the Bloomingdale's school (of fine art and high fashion).

"Beat On the Brat," which throbbed away with such stupid intensity that, were it at all listenable or danceable, (or. any able), might have been good rock 'n' roll, has been replaced by "Sheena Is a Punk Rocker," which displays complete self-consciousness and, were it not thought to be art, might be mediocre satire. The curve descends. The only thing funny about the Ramones is everybody taking them seriously. But that, of course, is condescending—which was always the problem with camp.

TALKING HEADS

I was heartened to see that one of the boys and the girl in this trio got married recently and that they went back home to Kentucky to do it. The possibility of love and a sense of community and, yes, even a sense of tradition existing within the inner circle of the New York punk scene gave me hope for the waning humanity of the rest of them. A couple of things about Talking Heads in fact demonstrate humanity: the fact that there is a female in the band in the first place and their new single, "Love— Building On Fire." The former indicates that this band acknowledges women as persons other than groupies, the latter indicated to me that they are attempting to build music —not simply ride out a fashion—as well as communicate emotion.

David Byrne and newlyweds Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz of TALKING HEADS.

Though the lyrics are ofthe simplistic arty blank verse mode of the punks, their content and their intent is much broader to the point of, god forbid, universality. At the same time while the music may be punkishly repetitive and austere for the most part, the fact that they have added a subtle horn section in parts is positively anti-punk. That the whole thing builds to an inspiring and passionate closing certifies them as distinct in the New York scene—and distinct from it, if they like. They always mention that leader David Byrne is an ex-Rhode Island School of Design student, so I'll say it too (shudder), But at its least heady, this is something unique: art rock with, feeling.

DEAD BOYS

Actually, they come from Cleveland,, so I can ignore them like I really want to. Briefly: Like so many punk rockers, they look like the flotsam and jetsam of glitter—in their, white shades and teased hair and tight pants—washed up in a Budweiser tide on the only scummy beach that would have them. S.tiv Bators, the lead singer, sings and acts like Iggy Pop who himself was always just a Mick Jagger imitator. Second rate, third generation. If you multiply those factors, you get sixth grade; if you add them, you get fifth— either way, the Dead Boys are pointlessly regressive...also harmless.

RICHARD HELL AND THE VOIDOIDS

More than anyone else, Hell (who started out with Television, by the way) stands for the punk scene. As Newsweek recently discovered, he wrote "the anthem" for the punks, namely "I Belong To The Blank Generation." I'll exempt his sidemen, the Voidoids, from this because I think guitarist Bob Quine is a good rock 'n' roll musician...anyone who even cultivates but accepts the mantle of symbol for this New York punk scene should—and will—go under with it. I'll make the disclaimer here that I've never seen him live—I refuse to— though I've heard his records and read his press.

Somehow, what is silly becomes nasty when it gets down to this Richard Hell guy. Somehow, his aggressive passivity, his offhanded negativism, and his effective imagemongering strikes me as truly sleazy and not in any romantic down-and-out sort of way. I mean sleazy the way a swinging single or the guy who writes "Ring aroun.d the collar" ads is sleazy. It's somewhere out there beyond condescension and calculation; again, like much of the scene, it's not human, at best.

BLONDIE

This one's simple: Another Fifties camp act. Nostalgia for something we wish we remembered. A Bette Midler who doesn't have to try. as hard because maybe she's better looking. Blondie is harmless and easy to ignore because nobody has been able to make her into art—though god knows they've even tried with her. A bland soprano backed by imitation hard rock.

Blondie is punk for the mainstream, a coffee table item for the young banker on the make (which is not to imply the banker is necessarily a bad guy, just a guy with traditionally bad taste in rock 'n' roll). Another one out of the Andy Warhol mold (Candy Darling). Also another one who's definitely too old for this schtick.

WAYNE COUNTY

He's been spending most of his time in Europe of late, presumably riding on a reputation that formed somewhere over the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. In New York, we (I think I speak for a lot of us) are bored with drag queens (coupled with drag queen songs)— again, we went through all of that with Warhol—and, frankly, didn't have much to give him in terms of a reputation when he departed. When he comes back, I suppose we'll be told he is some sort of European star. We still won't care. When the last fad petered out, he became a punk. Essentially he's just a tourist trap.

HEARTBREAKERS

Johnny Thunders' (exof the Dolls) grQup who've also been sojourning in Europe. Thunders, who can be rakish and pretty cool when he's trying, still has lots of New York fans. Me, I acknowledge him as an originator—if

not an original—due to his. stint with the New York Dolls, the original Dolls at the Mercer Arts Center way back when, but I don't miss him now.

ABBADON

Here's a group who deserves mention because they wrote a song about Son of Sam even before Jimmy Breslin and Dick Schaap wrote a book about him. It doesn't really matter that it was a shitty song, that Sam himself could've done better, that Sam's dog/mentor could've done better still, it was first. And that's paramount in this scene.

JOHN COLLINS BAND

I've never seen them, but like the refreshing plainness of their name and rate their cut on that Live At Max's Kansas City album as very promising and one of only two decent tracks (the other being Pere Ubu's song, penned by the much missed Peter Laughner).

DAVID JOHANSEN

I hate to say that he's a punk because he was the driving force behind the New York Dolls who back in '72 long before punk pretty much did everything the punks are doing now and claiming as their own. Johansen was not unique, but he was different and bold about it. Unfortunately, he and the Dolls were such fuckups (which, paradoxically, was part of being different and bold) that not only did they fail to go over the top in any mass way back then, but they managed to make themselves look like golden^ oldies when they turned up again (by popular demand, I think) during this punk thing.

Last time I saw him, over a year ago at Max's, it was like old home week for people who were, oddly enough, not that old or that much older, and the occasion was rescued only by Johansen singing a then-new song called "Frenchette," which was a ballad of all things and great, No more comment since he has finally extricated himself from the contractual mire which kept him out of a studio for the past several years, and is recording for Steve Paul's Blue Sky Records. Good luck, asshole.

THE CRIMINALS

This is ex-Doll guitarist—again, I acknowledge him, etc.—Sylvain Sylvain's new band. I haven't seen them, but number one Dolls groupie/cameraman Bob Gruen says they're aces. I thought Sylvain was OK in the Dolls, but without all their trappings—as I saw him with Johansen at Max's last year—he seems like a silly boy who never really understood what the Dolls were all about after all. Maybe he's changed. I'm not holding my breath.

ROBERT GORDON WITH LINK WRAY

For those of you who don't know, Link Wray has been making offbeat guitar records since the Fifties. Here he sticks strictly to rock 'n' roll. Gordon used to be the lead singer with Tuff Darts, who were and are one of the more promising bands in the scene. Gordon is a weird little guy with a big Elvis voice. Now that the King is gone (which I stil can't believe), this guy Gordon has added importance and potential, though he had a lot before, too. I just wish he, like some others, would drop that Happy Days look.

THE DICTATORS

I will spare you all but the essentials on one of the best rock 'n' roll bands in this country. They are not punks. (They are also not businessmen, as Adny has become fond of saying.) Well, they are punks, but even more directly than the Dolls, the Dictators were punks before there were punks, or at least before there was anybody to tell us they were punks. On the Dictators' Go Girl Crazy, released in spring of 75, they defined the punk style in what we called a heavy metal album, but they did it with such a lack of pretentious bullshit, with such raw teenage (and these guys were actually teenagers) humor that even before the fad had started they had made the definitive punk record.

"Next Big Thing," "Master Race Rock," "Cars and Girls," and especially "Two Tub Man" were the first and the best. Not only was Adny Shernoff's songwriting right on the mark, but in an array of diverse talent unseen since the Beatles, the band also numbered the country's hottest young rock 'n' roll guitarist, Ross the Boss FUNichello, and wrestling's selfless sacrifice to rock 'n' roll, inimitable frontman and gutterblast vocalist Handsome Dick Manitoba. Zero promotion and no tour killed that masterpiece and Epic dropped the Dictators before the world could catch up. Once the world had caught up, the band was signed to Asylum and this past spring released Manifest Destiny. Instead of repeating themselves and cashing in on the punk phenomenon that they had helped sire, the Dictators instead went after the mainstream with a remarkably slick and tuneful LP which includes new "punk" gems (which transcend punk) such as "Disease," "Steppin' Out," and 1977 song of the year, "Science etc".

The genius of the Dictators and Shernoff's writing is that they can make you laugh and dance at the same time, which is something no one else has accomplished. A new dimension of that genius exposed on Manifest Destiny is the ability to make you cry, too. The idea of this crazy, gangly kid from the Bronx "who wants to carve his name in the sun" ("Steppin' Out") somehow makes me all choked up. This is the only Universal Teenager stuff around, and you don't have to be a teenager to appreciate it. God bless 'em again.

MICHAEL SIMMONS AND SLEWFOOT

He has never played CBGBs or Max's or the Ocean Club or the Village Gate or Copperfield's or any other punk dive, but he represents all the best in punk and is holding up one whole branch of punk you may never have heard of all by his lonesome. Though he would never claim it, Michael Simmons is Country Punk. And, if you think about it, real country is about as punk as you can get. He's only 22, so he's well within the age range, and his sort-of-theme-song—or at. least the number that gets all the country punks in the audience up and screamin'—is "Up Against The Wall, Redneck Mother," which is certainly a country punk anthem if ever there was one.

A wild man who is funny as hell and never averse to having other strange wild men from the crowd get onstage and finish off his set, Simmons represents one direction for punk music when it burns—or bores—itself up.

MINK DEVILLE

Mink Deville is it, the band who will survive the unfortunate circumstances of the punk scene, a scene with which they have arbitrarily becomed linked. Their record, one of the three or four best of the decade, is still only a deliberately subtle representation of what they are capable of in concert.

Frontman Willy DeVille knows how to coax and coddle a song and how to blow it through the roof unlike very few singers in rock 'n' roll. And nuthin' fancy rock 'n' roll is strictly what he is up to from such originals as "Venus of Avenue D" to "Gunslinger" to the Latino sounding "Mixed Up Shook Up Girl" to his cover of the Crystal's/ Spector "Little Boy" (redone from the male point of view). On record, his band is tight; in concert, likewise, they can stop on a dime and then come creepin' back soft as a kitten, stop again, and start to wail, the guitarist, Louie X. Erlanger stuttering out some of the tensest solo work to be heard. But the crux of the matter, why Willy DeVille will be one of the biggest stars of the Seventies, is not his tight band, his astonishing vocals, or his crisp songwriting; it's his magic. Willy has a magic onstage that is impossible to describe, something sexy Jagger had int the early days, something Elvis had.

I went reluctantly the first time I saw Mink DeVille. I didn't want to see another punk band. When the lights went up on Willy onstage singing "Gunslinger," I literally jumped back. The girl sitting next to me stiffened completely and drew a long sibilant hiss in between her teeth. "What's the matter?" I had to ask. "He's gooood..." she responded, never taking her eyes from the stage. He is.