(SONG) BIRDS OF A FEATHER

We didn’t know what to expect when Lene Lovich’s mom opened her door to us in a leafy suburban Detroit neighborhood. Salt and pepper waist-length braids, maybe? But no, Lene’s mere was English, it was her father who was Serbian. He’d met her Yorkshire-born mother during World War II when he was stationed in England with the Navy. They were married and returned to Detroit, where Lene (actually “Marlene”) grew up with two sisters and a brother. There were problems, though; Lene’s father had a history of mental instability and her mother eventually fled to England with the children. Her father came over some time later and tried to kidnap her two sisters; he was only successful with one, who Lene, her mother and the rest of the family haven’t seen to this day—she is wherever her father is.

Cancel our imagination, Lene’s mother is petite and strawberry blonde. She murmurs “hello,” and Lene and her Yul Brynner lookalike boyfriend/musical partner Les Chappell stepped forward to meet us; all hair and no hair.

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by Penny Valentine

In her tight jeans and t-shirt her body looks like a 12-year-old’s. Her face and her manner tell another story. Make-up across her broad cheekbones, the startlingly thick orange hair caught back in combs. Innocently worldly-wise; totally spontaneous in interview; tough in the way kid film stars are when they grow into their teens. Dump Rachel Sweet down anywhere and she’d cope because she’s single-minded enough to get from A-Z.

When I was a kid and went to other kid’s birthday parties I always dreaded that moment some bright parent would clap their hands together and say: “Right now—let’s have everyone doing a party piece”. Horror. Girls tapped their way across the carpet (ineffectually, as you’d suppose) or sang in wavery pure voices; boys told jokes, forgot the punch lines and went red or sang in wavery pure voices. I wished I was dead. On most occasions I managed to develop a bout of puking. “Over-excitement” muttered the doting parent, shoving me into the bathroom where I stayed, relieved that I’d missed having to perform.

Rachel Sweet had none of these problems. A professional at ten-years-old, she’d been on TV, out on the road for months. Which maybe explains why I took to hide behind a typewriter and Rachel is out there in the spotlight, cool as you like, about to take on America as a re-import on the Graham Parker tour. Fearlessly.

“(Upon seeing Springsteen) It’s the first time I’ve ever been glued to my seat for three hours.”

The British were thrown by Sweet right from the start when she turned up on the Be Stiff tour last year. For a start, who took Akron seriously? Only Devo. And who took Devo seriously? Only Devo. 1 thought Akron was a figment of a record company imagination. A kind of smelly Oz. If Brenda Lee had taken on the Judy Garland part on the yellow brick road would she have come out sounding like Rachel Sweet? Certainly Sweet’s first appearances in Britain reminded anyone who could remember (yes, I could I’m afraid) of Lee—both physically and vocally. Small powerhouse body, enormous powerhouse range. There’s a touch of Patsy Cline in there too somewhere and— bizarre—even Joplin’s pain, which just seems to naturally imbue her voice because, for sure, she’s never had the experience that goes with it.

Not only did Sweet not seem to have the right credentials to own this voice but she still doesn’t quite fit into a category that the British critics are willing to accept (or the American ones for that matter). Women singers, more than men, are supposed to fulfill requirements. There’s only so many places they can belong. There’s the traditional blues or country ethos (Bonnie Raitt, Emmylou Harris et a/.); the skinny nervy street savvy (Patti, Rickie Lee Jones, Siouxsie, etc.); the sex symbbl under disguise wraps (Blondie, Runaways, etc.). Sweet—white, middle-class, cleanlooking—doesn’t fit. And she doesn’t look like she suffered to get that voice. Bad news. It’s true everything has come easy to Sweet. Interviewing her makes you gawp. She rattles across a career that started at five-years-old, taking it all for granted. I guess if you’ve beep singing in front of audiences more or less full-time since you ' could follow a baseball game, you do take it fpr granted. But it floors me all the time.

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We have a date for an evening out on one of the three evenings Lene is visiting her mother1 and siblings in Detroit. Her mother had returned to Detroit when Lene left home at 15, and eventually remarried. Lene’s younger sister and brother finished school in Ferndale.

“Well, Mum,” Lene said, opening the door and stepping onto the porcb, with Les following close behind. “We’re going now.” She gave her little parent a quick peck on the cheek.

We made our introductions, climbed into what was laughingly known as the CREEM vehicle of the moment, and headed for downtown and Bookie’s Club 870, a bistro stashed among the ruins of a neighborhood which had enjoyed a certain glamor... many decades ago.

Our entrance didn’t make too much of asplash, as half the point of going to Bookie’s is to show off your latest steal from Cancellation Shoes. We mingled with Spiderwomen, Debbie Harry lookalikes (Debbies 1 and 2 were in attendance), Free Press reporters, tennis bums, zoot-suited adolescents, latter day Gloria Swansons, Whit Bissell clones. Everybody pogos, slugs beer, mingles and slags everybody else off.

We joined Lene’s sister Deirdre (“She’s much younger than I and has two children,” Lene explained), who with her husband, a Lovich cousin aftd the cousin’s boyfriend are waiting for us with a table. Deirdre (pronounced “Deetry”), who at first glance is quite a contrast to Lene, could have been actress Blythe Danner’s twin—blonde, deep-set eyes, slender. But the difference is only in coloring; they share broad Slavic cheekbones and pale blue eyes. Deirdre is garbed in a white all-American knit shirt; Lene’s black mantilla shades her exotic face—the Lovich sisters, reunited after 13 years. How would you behave with a longlost sister? Hugs, kisses, a running dialogue of catch-up? They conversed off and on, leaning over Les...a few glances, an occasional smile.

Chrome-domed Les was natty in a dark pin-striped suit. He and Lene met at art college in England, and have been together ever since. They got bored with the strictures of the art world, and dabbled in theatre, pop music, etc., for the next few years. Lene learned saxophone for a medieval rock musical they’d played in, and Les shaved off his hair, formerly orange and spikey (supposedly because Bowie had just adopted the same hairdo). We mentioned that we’d read about his being asked to do a razor-blade promotion. Les beamed. “Yes, yes, it’s true. Gillette want? me to do it.” He patted his shiny globe. “A»d, if things work out, maybe.I will. It’s to advertise a blade, you see, and they thought me the perfect specimen, I suppose.”

In between talking with us, Les tended to Lene’s every need. (“Another beer?” “Are you hungry?” “Let me know when you want to leave”), even making sure we CREEMsters were kept floating in Molson’s. He chatted freely, offering more about Lene than Lene herself.

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We talk in an airport terminal waiting for a plane that’s taking Rachel to Scotland for radio promotion. It’s months after the Stiff tour went into New York, and around the time Stiff are putting ink on the last clauses to the CBS American contract. Not surprisingly CBS, unlike Arista, are into Rachel in a big way. The combination of getting both her and Ian Dury on one deal must be irresistible.

It’s eight in the morning. We drink black coffee. Me to wake up, Rachel—her version—to keep her battle with the bulge in check. Every three minutes there’s a blast of the tanoi that shatters our heads and sends the tape recorder needle quivering onto self-destruct. Rachel automatically breaks off in mid-sentence, waits for the messages for “passengers flying to Dubrovnik” to pass, then hitches straight back into where she left off. Just ds she has very few pre-stage nerves, but simply gets out there and cuts it, so there seems nothing that will phase her.

I try to remember what it’s like to be 16.1 fail. Anyway I wasn’t cutting albums at the time. Rachel and I, years apart, may not have any common ground as contemporaries but—it would seem—we both like to do a job professionally. It’s on this level (although she stops being quite so wary later on in the day) that we conduct the interview. The surprising thing, amongst her spontaneous account of her life and times, is how much of a perspective she has on it all. She never apologizes for what she’s done; it’s very matter of fact; at the same time she has a quite odd cynicism that creeps through now and then. Like talking about managers. Her father and a' lawyer—and herself—manage Rachel Sweet at the moment. “Let’s just say I’m cautious OK? I trust people until they do something to me. Right now I don’t need other management taking 30 percent of practically nothing. I’ve had plenty of offers from Wonderful Famous People who manage Wonderful Famous People”, she laughs, “and I’m just not interested”.

OK. Her only worry right now is that unless she’s careful she could easily slip into a show business bag, not rock ’n’ roll: “It would be like going full circle, like when I Started out”. At seven. “I don’t object to that kind of Broadway singer stuff, but you can’t do that and get 15,000 kids excited, which is what I want to do”. She’ll never make it to be quite like Springsteen, she admits, but that’s where she’s vaguely aiming. When she went back to America after the Stiff tour in January she caught his concert and finally understood what all the fuss was about: “It’s the first time I’ve ever been glued to my seat for three hours. And I could see, under all that street stuff, he’s really a showman, the way he weaves those stories, uses all those little tricks...I know it will be hard for me” (she pre-empts my question). “1 mean, I know I don’t have street appeal right now. But I want to be part of that same excitement, I want 15,000 kids up.on their feet at the end of the show and...how can I finish this?...I’m taking up guitar”, loud laugh.

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“We met in art school, oh, about eight years ago,” he explained. “Then we gbt very involved in a theatre group for a while...” Do they both have aspirations to acting careers? *Oh, yes, yes/’ he smiled, “but not right now. . .there’s no time.”

Lene scooted closer to hear Les’ remarks, as well as our questions.

“I’ve had film offers—many, actually/’ she interjected, “but they’ve all been ridiculous. They all want me to portray myself, or a character like myself. I don’t want that. I want to get into a role that isn’t me, that’s a whole different character.” Her pale eyes grew stern. “It’s because of the way 1 look. So many people think I’m putting on an act when 1 go onstage. They think I have a gimmick, but I’m serious. When I’m onstage, it’s me up there—I am myself. There are ho pretensions.”

Despite all the unsuitable film offers, Lene will appear in Cha Cha, a film written by Dutch punk Herman Brood, and co-starring Deutsch punk Nina Hagen, Herman’s inamorata (last time we checked).

“I met Herman in Brussels,” Lene offered. “We were both appearing on a TV show, and became friends. He asked me to be in his movie. It’s quite good, actually, and it’s based on Herman’s life before he became a musician.” (The press release says “loosely based” as it’s about a criminal doing rotten things and liking it.)

“Nina and I play his partners in crime. You see, we’re in a band, but we have to rob banks to pay for it. But Herman can tell you much more about it.”

By now we’ve listened to several bands perform, at Bookie’s, in a benefit for the Algebra Mothers, who have recently had equipment stolen. (Les gave the pineapple a nod for a hand called R.U.R.: “Very tight.”) In between sets, the *deejay played records/but nary a Lovich. There is more than a breath of xenophobia about the persons of certain Detroiters re anyone not from Detroit cutting a record/touring/ making money. (If you’re from Detroit and make it, the unknowns hate you anyway.)

Lene, of course, is a hometown girl, but nobody seems to know it. The local radio stations do not play her records, despite her mother putting through calls every so often. yf“She doesn’t understand the music business,” Lene smiled affectionately.)

Being Slavicv in Detroit, of course, is almost more hometown than a shell of Stroh’s. When we yell out, with a Bulgarian blade, “nazdrowie’l”, the pan-Slavic toast, Lene brightens, repeats “nazdrowie!”, and raises her glass to ours. Between half of CREEM clocking in as card-carrying Poles (jello for dessert and everything), Ukrainian assistant editors, Serbian boyfriends, Hungarian Uhelszkis; from our Mustangs half the world looks to be wearing babushkas. So Lene’s exoticness is,, for us, in her wonderful getup; an Ellis Island assemblage of long dark dress, loose pants, huge droopy black shawl, and, of course, the mantilla.

Some enterprising Stiff/Epic flack should book Lene oh the Yugoslavian Hour next time she’s in Detroit—5f:00 Sundays on Channel 62. She’d fit right in, between the Yugoslavian Sergio Franchi crooners, and the Balkan dancers. “Lucky Number,’’7 maybe?

As the hour grew late, Lene turned to us and asked it we could please go get a hot dog. No steak or seafood or even a real American hamburger. It was later when we found out that the girl has a regular monkey on her back hot dog habit...which made it lucky that our favorite Howard Johnson’s Was open 24 hours. Once we’d run the gauntlet of teen boys staring at our Charles Addamsesque party in between slurps of their hangover milkshakes, we went for it; four Frankfurt Platters, lots of coffee. In between frankfurt bliss, Lene explained how she came to be associated with Stiff.

“I’d gone to see Charlie Gillett because he had an ad of mine on the air— (his radio show, Honky Tonic] ‘sax player needs work.’ Nobody had responded, but ho did—” for a band he was organizing at the time. As a result of his efforts, Lene attracted Stiff Records’ attention, with a demo of the Tommy James (Richie Cordellpenned) hit “I Think We’re Alone Now.” Gillett, of course, was also responsible in no small part for Ian Dury’sfirst recordings with the Kilburns, Graham Parker’s record contract, Elvis Costello’s first demo getting on the air. Lene feels he hasn’t gotten his shhre of all of this success-mongering; she’s tried to show her gratitude by using his production company on all of her records.

And now, Stiff/Epic has tossed the fragile redhead back onto her own turf, to do battle with a field of mostly male boogie, testosterone raging through the bloodstreams, airwave^, and record shops of America. Girl singers have had a rough time of it these past few years; file verdict isn’t in yet on the two Stiff chanteuses. Lene looks to be a delicate sheila, but she’s capable of more than her fair share of firepower if pushed. The best way to describe her is to quote her: “I’m serious. There are no preventions.”

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It may be harder too because she looks so damn healthy (no powdered milk ever went down this throat!) and has only just started to write her own songs. Which brings us to a problem. It’s the only time we get close to not getting on and she gets a bit tetchy. I’m worried, I say, about the release of her second single (Del Shannon’s “I Go To Pieces”). Seems to me Stiff may be pushing her back into the country cross-over market she once got involved with when she was 14, making her more instantly accessible to a large MOR audience. The thing about Sweet is that I first got hooked on her through the Liam Sternberg songs on her album, the ones that gave her real^originality—-pushing her out beyond the Ronstadt/Parton belt but not quite into new wave. Weird, quirky songs in odd keys; words that, taken literally, don’t quite make sense but, provide an edge to a voice that could too easily end up just a bit sugary'. In a way the songs were threatening. It worked well against the way she looked. She doesn’t agree that only Sternberg can do it for her. Even though she likes “Wildwood Saloon” off the album it’s not her favorite number on stage (and it’s true it works less well live, but I think it’s something to do with her pacing—right now she obviously , doesn’t feel she should slow up mid-set). It was through Sternberg she first came to Stiff. Liam, son of her father’s best friend, a bright kid whose classical compositions have sent Rachel to sleep on more than one occasion, used Sweet to make demos of his songs to send to Dave Robinson. Robinson flipped for the singer and had his English aplomb severely shaken to find out she was a 14-year-old.

Rachel says she cut those tapes without much sense of involvement: “1 mean, I thought those early songs were real stupid. There I was singing ‘take the red bus to Nirvana’, I didn’t know what that was all about at all.” Still it was Sternberg who produced Fool Around and the subsequent British hit, a revival of the Porter/Hayes classic “B-A-B-Y”. Although Stiff have been accused of manipulating Sweet to a degree: as a Lolita figure, a piece of jailbait (personally I’ve always thought the Fool Around cover was a piece of irony, though it’s true there’s some innuendo about putting that particular track out as a single), it’s hard to believe that they could push her too far against her will.

After all it was she who decided against Sternberg and for David Mackay for the new single—because she liked the sound of his work for Bonnie Tyler and Frankie Miller: “See,” she says matter of factly, “Liam’s basically an improvisor. I mean, ‘Who Does Lisa Like’ is in 8/7, that’s pretty difficult. Arid I needed someone a little more versed in the technology of the studio, who knew harmonies, rhythms and arrangements. Liam’s a bit arty and if it came out sounding ‘Good man’ ”, she mimicks, “then it was okay by him”. She hastens to add that she and Liam are still friendly but, with a sharp business-like acumen, disagrees that she’s risking her individuality by moving from his material.

She’s also sharp enough to realize that at the moment her age counts for her. But it’s risky. After all to make the transition from cutenfess? Tanya Tucker hasn’t handled that very well.

Right now she’s still combining singing with her education. Her parents, both schoolteachers, were perfectly happy for her to pursue a career as long as she got/ herself a decent education (on the Stiff tour she was always behind a book on the train and took her exams by postal system. Straight A’s). To the British, who have little knowledge of most of America, Rachel seems to personify middle-America. Not as street-wi$e as the New Jersey kids, not as laid-back as the Californians, not as naive as the Southerners. Something down the middle. Sweet’s upbringing took place in Fairlawns, which she hated (too snobby and the people there were only into opera). She won a talent contest on the local Gene Carroll TV show at seven; did summer stock in Ohio at nine; became a favorite with New York TV commercial makers at ten and ^ half:

“You’d walk into an office and there’d be 50 other little girls with red hair and brown eyes who could sing a bit md tap a bit. I knew it had nothing to do with talent. If you could say ‘Caravelle candy bar’ the way they wanted to hear it, you got the job”. She toured with Mickey Rooney around the same time (a not altogether happy experience as she describes it), then with Bill Cosby. She still wanted to do rock ’n’ roll. But in Akron, where her sister was more famous for being a cheerleaderand the kids were only into Boston and Chicago coming to town, she didn’t see a way of being accepted as an 11-year-old rock ’n’ roller. Instead she turned to country and went to Nashville. One single, “We Live In Different Worlds,” crept into the bottom of the 100 and fell out again. She stomped round the major record companies herself. She was turned away: “Look dear”, they said, “come back again when you’re 18. We’ve seen all the problems dealing with minors”. She woke up one day—at 14—seriously worried about being in the country market: “I thought, what am I doing? I’m going to end up like Tammy Wynette if I’m not careful. Which isn’t so bad I guess, but it’s not where I wanted to be”.

So the Stiff deal happened by accident. In the current climate, with most British acts breaking from America first (Dire Straits, The Police), the success of Rachel has reversed the process. Booking her into Parker’s tour is a shrewd move by Stiff. It’s not totally unexpected (after all Robinson also manages Parker) but it certainly gets her in front of the right kind of audience to slice away any MOR atmosphere. Ironic too that Parker’s wiry stage stance—and much of his early recorded work—owes an obvious debt to Springsteen given Rachel’s ambitions.

It’s not hard seeing Sweet cope with success. What’s almost impossible is to imagine her being a failure. It’s just not a word in her vocabulary.