Stiffs ’78 went to America, but did America understand it?

The Stiffs went in to New York’s Bottom Line for a week and made everybody pay to see them. Everybody. Not just the odd fan and the many curious would-be fans, who knew that last year’s Stiff tour had produced such notable trans-Atlantic transfers as Elvis Costello and Nick Lowe, and that the company had reared such a hot-house specimen as—well I think there’s something threatening about him—Ian Dury. But everybody. Clive Davis, arch-egotist of Arista, had to fork out his six dollars admission to see the acts he’d signed to his label but whose material he had, with the odd temperament that makes a record mogul, not seen fit to release.

Could he not see that Rachel Sweet could produce the same Top Twenty success with a single as she had done here? Apparently not. Could he not see, even if he couldn’t understand, that young Wreckless Eric had the kind of manic oddball charm that could launch him, at least, as an underground U.S. star? No. Did he not realise that there’s^ more to Lene Lovitch them the happy knack of tying her head up in an ornate piece of Spanish lace, but that she sounds like Siouxsee and the Banshees meet Talking Heads? The answer must, by now, be obvious .

Even the critics had to pay. It seems they were not too happy about this arrangement (look boys, you know darn well you’ll get it back on expenses . so why quibble? Don’t you know we’re 'suffering a worse recession here than you are, and anyway Stiff is only a small, self-supporting label trying hard to make a big American deal? You should be grateful they went all that way just to contribute any profits of the tour to fill in New York’s pot holes!). So really, what with one thing and another, I was pretty surprised that the American press reaction to Stiffs ’78 was as good as it was.

I’d been quite surprised the British) press had taken to the new bunch of Stiffs. Because it certainly doesn’t boast a new artist of the distinguished musical strength of, say, Costello (even though I still think he’s a misogynist at heart) and ever since the little label’s eminence grise, Jake Riviera, split the company and his partner Dave Robinson to start Radar (taking Costello with him), the press had unspoken doubts about Stiff’s survival. But when Stiffs ’78 took off ’round Britain in their own train, the journalists who trekked off to report Wreckless’ drinking habits, Rachel’s school swotting (Akrorreducation regulations must be pretty hard on 16year-olds) and trying hard to dent Dene’s mysterious background (is she from Detroit, from Latvia or—shush— from Southend? They never did find out) liked what they say almost without exception. Particularly Rachel. The tour finished at the Lyceum in a predictable shapibles, just as the one the year before. Wreckless got the best reception from London audiences. But then he’d had a minor spot the previous, year and was really the best known to home punkers.

Personally, I’d gone for Rachel Sweet right from the start. Someone was playing the Akron sampler at my place one day when I leapt into the room screaming “Who is THAT?” (I do this very occasionally.) It was Rachel doing “Wildwood Saloon”. Sometimes you just get a feeling. Seeing her proved no disappointment. How can you resist a small young woman who looks so well-scrubbed and then opens her mouth and has a really powerful, effortless voice which can probably shatter glasses? The problem with Rachells that of all the ”78 Stiffs, she’d be the easiest to manipulate into MOR and the Linda Ronstadt syndrome. Stiff, beware! On’ thd other hand I opened Soho News the week the Stiffs were in New York and thought that maybe any woman who had her photograph taken with rollers in her hair and with complete ^disregard for any “image”, may have things sussed. There she was, prickly headed and looking for all the world like Ms. Middle-America. Is she what used to be known as a “trohper”? After coming off stage after a second set at 4 a nv, Sweet stoically braved a 9 a.m. interview on WNEW where she neatly shoved the blame for Cleveland’s default on Devo.

Soho-News was the only paper to take Rachel seriously. It’s true Ira Kaplan went pretty bananas over the entire tour—even down to Stiff manager Paul Conroy who MC’d the evenings and, in true Stiff fashion, cheerfully abused the music business traditions. Kaplan Caught the spirit of Stiff’s irreverent innocence better than most, but ended up covering all bases by praising everyone. Still, something may have been necessary to wake Village Voice critic Dave Marsh and the New York Times' John Rockwell from their slumbers. They both went for Wreckless with the same enthusiasm that Dracula went for the jugular —-and to the exclusion of every other Stiff. This followed Bob Christgau’s lead earlier in the Voice. Sexism or simple British-biased chauvinism obviously held both writers firmly in its grasp. Rockwell was condescending to Rachel and Lene; Marsh managed to spell everyone’s name wrong, described Lene as: “like Patti Smith with all the pretentions and none of the vision” (she’s neither) and made Sweet come over like a complete wimp: “a pop singer . . . unsettling not because she has (or is) a good idea, she does not . . .” etc.

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LETTER FROM BRITAIN

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Most of his review focused on Eric. Now Eric is interesting, but really: “his sense of victory”? “a sense of humanity”? The night I was at the Bottom Line, Eric came oh desperately wanting to be liked, and only came to life after a group of women had actually given him something to fight against. Taunts of “Bring back Rachel!” produced just the right amount of antagonism in him to project something more than a punk waif who doesn’t like Arpericans.

So Stiff went to America. The music business didn’t understand, the critics either played safe' or singled out someone they thought they should ght into. ; • ■ ✓

But maybe the kids knew better. On a bus between 45th and 3Qth streets on 6th Avenue, two college kids were reading Marsh?s review in the Voice. They bemoaned his writing off Rachel. Her album, Fool Around, which drew such attention here, hasn’t beeri released by Arista in the U.S. “Hey we’d have bought it on import”, they told me, “bytwell nine dollars was just a bit heavy”" '

It got pretty cold in New York after that. When we came back to Britain it was 1979 and the blizzards had stopped.