Supertramp: Living in a Perfect World

NEW YORK—"We're not popular because we're not sensational," Supertramp's co-founder Roger Hodgson is explaining between pina coladas. "We're boring old farts." Very true that this, bunch of voluntarily self-exiled Britishers isn't exactly swamped with salivating fans on the street—yet. But they have caused riots in a tiny Vermont town, banning the rock there forever, and been given a key to the city of Fresno by its 28-year-old mayor. And with "Give A Little Bit" from their. latest LP, Even in the Quietest Moments, comfortably gliding through the Top Ten, it's merely a matter of, say, one more tour before the bearded fivesome learns all about adulation.

For now, half the band's 30-member entourage blithely drive to their gigs in the "granolabowl." "Why, it's our mobile home," bassist Dougie Thompson dryly explains, like it's something you hear everyday. His quizzical

expression, symptomatic of the whole band, is enough to make one feel a character in a musical translation of Alice's mad tea party. Being, as Thompson puts it, "daft, British and..." has proven a haven for bored fans of the Yes/Pink Floyd axis looking for the Next Big Thing. The Canadians haven't wasted any time—up North, Supertramp is in the stadium cleanout category. Though New York's Palladium holds only 3500 fervent souls, they are equally in awe of this Force with perfect acoustics.

"If we hired out our P.A.,

we'd make more money than being on the road," Hodgson resignedly says. Their machinery is rock's own version of Fail Safe... Realizing that the curse of bands in football stadiums are guitars that sound like heavy sewage and vocals swimming in mud, thanks to some very expensive electronic deviltry, vocalists Hodgson and Rick Davies don't have to shriek over the mix of keyboards, bellowing saxophone and flailing drums. The time they don't spend worrying about sound they can throw into little props, like the Union Jack-waving age in sunglasses; or bigger tricks, like the films that accompany Crime of the Century and, Fool's Overture. Strange M.C.-horn man John Helliwell provides a running fantasy commentary, ensuring that everyone remembers a Supertramp show as something from Out There. "John never listens to lyrics anyway," Hodgson remarks in awe. "He just wants to play music forever."

Neatly tucked into a quartet of Anglos is Supertramp's quasi-American drummer, Bob Benberg, who is gliding around backstage sporting a beatific grin. "I've always lived in England in my mind since I was 10.1 wanted to be a pirate and now I'm the nearest thing to it." Well, it sure beats his Clark Kent

identity of Bob Siebenberg from Southern California. One starts to wonder if these are .all secretly, mutated aliens, sent down to play such overwhelming music that the scene would seethe and protest in reaction. Into threechord anarchy, f'rinstance.

"If that's where rock 'n' roll goes," Thompson chuckled, "we'd better give ours a new name. There's been a real void in the music after us, except for people like lOcc and Peter Gabriel" (not so coincidentally precision champs themselves). "It's motly brain-damning music. We get through on a lot of levels and that's why it works. People come up to us and say we've changed their lives', we've saved their marriage." Adds Thompson, "Our standard is really high. We reflect a lot of how people are feeling in the world today, frustrations, shattered dreams. We have a good time, but it's balanced... Human tragedy is comical."

In a very few hours, the dim light of Sunday morning will hit the mobile home as,it races, the highway. Supertramp load up their families and whisk away, leaving only Presence, which I would swear is gracefully laughing. In three-part harmony and full-dimensional sound, of course.

Toby Goldstein

Better Living Through Calcium

Now that Bee Gee bro' Andy Gibb has left the family hearth to rnbke it in the sieazoid rock biz, one of the first lessons in Life On The Road he's learned is how to shovel in the plastic puke that passes for "food" at the various multinational hotel chains that dot this country like scabies on a punk rocker's cheek. No more of Mama Gibb's wholesome Aussie kangarooburgers to build up those monstrous Gibb teeth I But Andy shows us his solution to the indigestible: wash it down with moo juice I Yowza, and you know what milk does for the choppers 1 Stay tuned for Andy's patented Molar Exercises...and exclusive pix of the Gibb Brothers flexing their gums in unison! Can you waitr.

Dont Worry, Babys... Broken Hearts Make Good Records

I had to be honest with my friend, the publicity director who is the World's Greatest Mick Jagger Fan; in between talk of obscure Stones bootlegs, I told him that I wasn't sure about his Babys. I really hadn't heard their album often when they'd first played Detroit, at a 300-seat theatre, packed with everobliging Detroit music fans (who will go to a rock show out of curiosity, if nothing else).

, As it turned out, that was their debut American show, and they were all so terrified that none of them remember any details of the evening, including meeting me.

That's OK, chumps. After all the hypfe, I relished a little honesty. Besides, I'd been too mesmerized ] with Michael's green sparkly eye shadow to be very sociable myself.

So when the World's Greatest Mick Jagger Fan (hereafter referred to as "Mick Jagger") told me to wait until I heard the new album, I filed the info in the back of my brain, under "Yeah, sure".

Later, lead singer John Waite told me that the Babys don't consciously try for any particular musical direction, and that was painfully apparent at that first show. They were groping. As the punch press operator sitting next to me exclaimed: "They're not bad enough to be good or good enough to be good!" The audience in this very theatre had laughed at the Ramones' amateurishness and gasped at Rory Gallagher's virtuosity, but with the Babys it was utter confusion. They came bouncing onstage in vintage English Faces/Led Zep/Stones leather and velvet rock god chic, but weren't able to deliver a tight enough show to justify the gaudy physical promilse.

Six months later I was in Los Angeles doing several stories, including a listening session with the new Babys album.

Before any listening could be done, I found myself at various L.A. watering holes with them, thanks to "Mr. Jagger". We were all sitting on the terrace of the Polo Lounge, singer John Waite dressed in his customary getup; tailored shirt/jacket/ scarf combination... all of this Anglo eleganza not exactly giving us the air of Valley high school seniors on a night out, which was exactly what the other Lounge customers were (not an agent or a telephone in sight). You could say that we looked rock W roll. A persistent creature in an Annie Hall pantsuit, hands properly stuffed in slacks pockets, slithered up and put her head in Tony's lap.

"Aren't you the Little River Band?" she cooed. On that note, we decided to infuse some humor into a rather banal encounter. "Mick Jagger" became "Max", the band's manager ("Max doesn't like people to know he's Jewish," we said of the white milk/ white bread WASP), and his sultry assistant we introduced as "Caroline Kennedy". When a chum of the creature started prattling about her house in Miami (so unchic, she lamented) , "Caroline" told the girls about her condo in "Bo." "That's what we call Bocaloosa, dear."

But the girls had eyes only for les bebes. "Aren't you English?" came from the guileless lips of the blowdried blonde. I was waiting for her to pull Tony under the table. "My goodness," said Caroline. "Don't you girls want to talk to us?" The blonde sneered. "Frankly, no." Welcome to L.A., Babys.

. "Forward creature, isn't she?" said John. "Let'ssplit." That marked the turning poipt in my Babys dislike. They may look English glitzy, they may sound like a mutation of Free, but there's nary a trace of the usual English rock group misogyny. None of the "You'll find your dinner between my legs, darling." When the female members of our party were

insulted by these insects, the Babys opted for instant action . It was my first glimpse of what the boys were really like, underneath the media hype campaign put out by their well-meaning record company. The best of both worlds, right? Charm sans Old World machismo.

One thing that still botheredrne: that name. Babys— oooh, groovy pix in 16, right? Has Teenbeat sent a photographer over yet? When Rodney Bingenheimer announced on his Los Angeles radio show that his program that night would feature the Babys, little weanies camped outside the studio, hoping for a glimpse of them (No such luck—it was a taped interview). Teen success, no?

But another encounter with the Maybos was for drinks at the Rainlpow (of course Rodney B. tablehopped over), and I found John to have a fairly jaded, Ray Davies "What is the world doing to me now" outlook on life, totally unsuited for a teen idol. During a heated game of "Thumper" he pretended not to know the rest of the party at first, then reluctantly joined in with his "Pepsi" (spiked of course—John's a natural victim), in between elegant moans about his three-day hangover. There was no question about drummer Tony Brock; while Rodney played sissy with his Perrierand-lime, the sultry record company assistant ("Caroline ) ordered every pink squirrel/grasshopper kind of sludge drink possible, and insisted that Tony (who has Make Mine Watneys written all over his sturdy English face) sample them all. He loved every one. When the rest of us escorted the limp John out, Tony and "Caroline" had poured the contents of every drink together in one vast punch, and were merrily toasting each other with it.

Freedom Of Noise

NEW YORK—Rockers rejoice it's now legal to annoy your neighbors with loud music, at least in New York.

Guitarist Warren Shakespeare, who blasts away on his aXe six hours a day, was taken to court by annoyed people in his apartment building. Tuff earlobes, said Judge Eugene Wolink, ruling in the musician's favor. "If noises or sound may be classified as nuisances, then all of New York City is a nuisance. Case dismissed."

Now if Warren could just learn to tune the guitar.

Rick Johnson

I tried to pin John and Tony down about their really quite revolting image later, after attending a listening session* for the new disc in Chrysalis prez Terry Ellis's office. (Interesting to watch their painfully expectant faces while their album was played—I thought John's pants would melt onto Mr.

5 YEARS AGO

Cheech & Chong Thrown Out Off Court

* The Abbott and Costello of hippiedom, Cheech & Chong, were due to have their day in court when the Bambu rolling paper people had a change of heart. Seems the company feared the pair's latest album (depicting a packet of Bambu) would cause the public to associate them with "disreputable elements." All was forgiven, howeverv when it turned out their paper sales soared.

Bedrooms of the Stars #2

Hi kids! I'm Joey Ramone. I'm tho load singer for a really great Rock 'n Roll Band cglled the Ramones and this is the room where I sleep. I don't have abed, so you can't really call it abec/-room...but what the heck, you know?

Ellis's beautiful wall until he got a round of applause for a particularly good vocal.)

Both were vague about how they'd chosen the name, dismissing it as just something silly they'd hit on. It certainly jibes with their rosy-cheeked English schoolboy look...but judging from the hangovers I knew they were feeling, appearances ARE deceiving... it's that misty English air...

"We looked so young," John complained, "that the only way we could prove that it was us playing on our tape was with a video presentation."

The famous video of the Babys performing, of course, was what had cinched them their record company contract, and made news just because no other struggling band had ever thought of it. They'd borrowed the money to make the film from their first manager, who was delicately ejected this past summer (the great Babys kidnap hoax resulted from Chrysalis' attempts to keep him away from the group). The boys still seem quite shaken over the whole thing.

"A lot of the songs on the new album (Broken Heart) are down," said John. "This year has been a real learning experience."

"We've been through some real shit," Tony added. "It's reflected in our lyrics."

Were they ready to be sprung on the American public so quickly after being snapped up by Chrysalis?

John pondered. "We were ready but we weren't. It got to the stage where if you don't take the chance, you shouldn't be in rock 'n' roll."

But hadn't they really sprung full-formed from the head of an itinerant Chrysalis promo man?

"We've done our share of starving!" John exclaimed. He stood up and smacked his slender Anglo frame. "I used to weigh seven and a half stones! (120 pounds American).

"Whatever dues have to be paid, this band has paid them. People think we just got out of school and decided that we wanted to play rock 'n' roll, and Chrysalis picked us right up. I've slept on floors—he's slept in trucks!" (pointing to the hapless Tony).

A lot, of course, depends on the new album. It's clear from a few listens that John's similarity to Paul Rodgers lies mostly in phrasing and intonation—he himself points out that Rodgers' voice $ bigger. Their description of themselves as "playing rock 'n' roll in a classic English way" is apt, although it sounds vague as hell. Make no mistake about it, they may live in El Lay but these are militant limeys.

"White American bands are so often a cliche," John grimaced. "2000 watts, tight pants and long hair. It's boring."

Broken Heart, their solution to the Yankee boredom problem, is a real mixed bag; big Bad Co. thumpers, a bump and grinder called "Isn't It Time" right out of the Clapton/Joe Cocker Soulful-Englanders-With-BlackChicks bag, and slower tunes that show off John Waite's more mature "I've suffered and boy can I sing better because of it" voice. Diverse as it is, the whole package hangs together much better than the first one.

Babys they may be no more, but they still look awfully fragile, even if it is chic when one is wearing tight European clothing... Aren't they worried about cracking under the strain?

John raked his hands wearily through his just so 9red shag. "Me and Tony, we're the nervous type...we just keep going. We twitch a lot in our sleep, but we get a lot done..."

Susan Whitall