Most people, when discussing/remembering the beach party movies, don't take Jody McCrea into account. There was a nerd in the surf. This relates to The B-52's. Somehow.

To backtrack. It was late winter, or maybe early spring. One of those Ozu seasons, at any rate. The year was the same as it is now.

I'd just rolled out of my basement apartment on the upper west side and moseyed on down to Hurrah, a rock disco, because a

smart person told me I should show up on this particular Saturday night, when I could have been watching Lauren Tewes' teeth.

What is this, then? A line, no—a hoard, four deep around 62nd Street, down Broadway, and at the door a burly brute

keeping this hoard at bay. "No room!" What is this? Was the word leaked that Springsteen was going to jam with Francis

Coppola and Harold Brodkey? Squirming my way to the front, shouting my credentials as rock scribe and employee of a

metropolitan record company, I made it in. The heat was tropical. The crowd was dancing. The band was The B-52's. Something was happening.

that Hurrah. At remember “Yeah, we had that popularity idea time no our we That that wds reached peak. the that it, was Our dressing right above night. was room the door, and looked the at entrance, we and these people yelling. It really all out saw all after there. started got at we once,

off, and “The monitors went were we We couldn’t off, stuck the stage. get on people. We had there many just to were so there back, huddled the dark the in jn sit up recess.”

that supposed where I’m Now to is say The B-52’s plunked the note, moment one first Fred Schneider the moment saw one the Aqua Velva, could knew, do sense one that within months their intuitively, major record album would number 70be label with that 2,000 and bullett something a the be would band word critiques on in magazines like Not CREEM. appearing jigglytheir intrigued But by one was so. kultur-vultur & roll and by giggly pop lyrics like “We the wonderful on were had towels!” matching beach/Everybody the had females And in it, quintet two one whom looked like of manicurist in a a mall beauty shop Andromeda, shopping on other like from I girl the go-go was space. a if over-humidified. amused,

B-52’s’ The half-year than later, Less a album charting, had and I debut a was them sunlight. They the chance in to see even sharper. The better, open-air were had twice-stalled. Friday been concert they and night, set storm up, a came a as fell killed Sunday bystander. and tree a on didn’t they try get onstage, to so even like looked downpour. It the heavy a was and the whether certain jinx, one was no would bill with Talking the be band on when the Central iinally Park show Heads place Thursday. day turned The took on to be and about the 5:30 perfect, at in out facing with audience afternoon, many an pairs ^sunglasses, The B-52’s of strange out “Planet Claire.” It and went into Came be all right, all. after would

dance patter—“This Short is onstage a and “This called—” his tune” is were song small long talk—but only at attempts on (he the actually demonstrates animation Tuna, the “Dance This Escalator Shy in Around”), Schneider, commander Mess with walkie-talkie bottle of and complete of kind elevates spaz-rock to art. vino, a Pierson and Cindy the Kate manicurist the Edmunds 4he share Lada Wilson new Kate stands behind the efficiently focus: and startling sqyawks. these keyboard emits

Cindy cuts loose vocally, and is somelimber

(Keith other boot. The limburger two to drums, big brother Cindy’s Strickland on guitar) visible, less Ricky are instruas on The LP’s “52 particularly mental. songs, leaping other stuff—“Devil’s live, Girls,” are

In My Car,” the encore “Private Idaho”—

goes over, Fred moves like a twisting

shellfish, Cindy shimmies her shoulders,

leans over Kate’s mike to gurgle on “Rock

Lobster.” the B-52’s have rapport, folks.

be great to voodoo almostlike Drive people people* frenzy. into a

—Keith Strickland

It’s an act, of course. Play-acting. Dress-

that wonder Alphaville. No Abba in up. 53 hours earlier, the only reception in area Warner Bros. 1 (silently, thank Records, of mistook Schneider, cleanFred God) > short-haired, with t-shirted, shaven, a lost look, The for vaguely messenger. a

remaining four B-52’s filed into the confer-

with plates loaded up pita room, ence salad mineral and and bread, sat at water,

varying distances from the cassette record-

Kate, furthest the chair Fred took away, er. her with her hoop pink but without wig

earrings, was dead center, Cindy just to her

side, Ricky and Keith at opposite ends of

the semi-circle. Quietly, politely, they

answered questions about their brief (two-

year) history, about going from Athens, Georgia, and a gig at Julia and Greg’s party to New York City and pop notoriety. No wonder The B-52’s are slightly shellshocked.

TURN TO PAGE 59

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 37

“Athens is the playground of the South, ” Kate answered in response to the kick-off query, and Cindy concurred. “Playboy called the University of Georgia in Athens the number one party school. They wanted to film Animal House there, but the administration turned it down. We used to go out dancing and'dress up.”

“We didn’t attend,” stressed Kate.

Fred was a waiter and “in charge of a meal delivery service for elderly people.” Kate worked on a newspaper. Cindy was a waitress at a bus station luncheonette , Keith “painted and listened to Trout Mask Replica and played hi-hat in the street.” Ricky did something else. They formed a band (“the line-up was real different; we used tape . recordings”) and figured that if they were lucky they’d get to play The Last Resort in Athens. After a party, “Somebody said, ‘Why don’t you take a tape up to New York? They’d love you.’ ” Just like that. The B-52’s (the name is a slang expression for an extravagant bouffant hair-do) got in a Volkswagen and went North. At CBGB’s, Fred said, “They thought it was an inferior tape. They couldn’t tell what was going on. ” Max’s Kansas City was more receptive, offered them a show, their first without accompanying tapes. *

RICKY: “We thought it was exciting that we were able to come to New York and do this. ’Cause like in Athens there are no clubs we could play at.”

FRED: “Max’s had such an aura—”

CINDY: “I’d hide behind the curtain and peek out.”

FRED: “The Velvet Underground had played there and stuff. We thought, This must be some placeV”

KATE: “That first night we played, I didn’t really know whether the audience liked us or not because a lot of our friends came up from Athens, so they were dancing and screaming and everything.”

RICKY: “We got $17 for that show.”

KATE: “We were ready to leave*and a friend of ours just ran back and asked the booker if she wanted us back and she said ‘Yes!’ I

Their next gig at Max’s was on a better night, for $52. Their third time at Max’s they were headliners. It was that simple. John Rockwell of The New York Times became an early and vocal fan. A groundswell started that swept from Hurrah to Club 57 to The Mudd Club to the A&R departments of various record companies (the privately pressed “Rock Lobster” single; “distributed haphazardly,” had accumulated airplay in key urban areas). Warner Bros, got their names in ink for the U.S., Chris Blackwell was picked as producer (the band liked his reggae background and ideas for getting live sound in the studio), and three weeks after it was started in the, Bahamas, the debut album was completed. By July it was in the stores. The story sounds made up, but it wasn’t. I promise.

“My body’s burnin’ like a lava from

Mauna Loa

My heart’s crackin’ like a Krakatoa”

-“Lava”

“If you’re lucky you get to ride in a gold meteorite

If you’re not. you get a mouthful of red Kryptonite”

—“There’s A Moon In The Sky (Called The

Moon)”

“Wanda and Janet and Ronnie and -Reba-o-o-o ,

These are the girls of the U.S.A.”

-“52 Girls”

“Some say she’s from Mars■

Or one of the seven stars

That shine after 3:30 in the morning

WELL SHE ISN’T”

-“Planet Claire”

Mythology, science-fiction, popular culture, children’s stories, puns and frveeassociation. Fred was a “nerd obsessed with Martha & The Vandellas.” Kate was “into folk-protest” and had long straight hair. Cindy Was “a hood girl.” What they had in common was a kind of humorous, American International Pictures sensibility that would turn The B-52’s’ music into the 1979 dance-rock equivalent of Horror of Party Beach. Kate admitted, “The Crawling Eye was on Million Dollar Movie twice a day for a week alnd we watched it every single time.” Cindy remembered “that movie named She with Ursula Andress. The eternal flame burned her clothes off.” >

“Attack of the Ants, The Amazing SheCreature, Wasp Woman, The Little Rascals,” Fred offered as cinematic source material. This list isn’t exactly unusual (or exclusive: they also asked me when and where the new Fellini film was opening); you probably watch the same movies on Saturday morning. But you probably weren't.a sort-spoken, slightly strange townie in a frat environment, or a folkie in the deep South, or a good-looking blonde serving coffee and biscuits to flirtatious good o!’ boys. You definitely weren’t smart enough, or desperate enough, to concoct off-beat, costumey, funny pulp-rock and jump at the opportunity to pack up. The B-52’s were, and that’s why this article is about them.

There were two major misconceptions about the band that The B-52’&wanted to clear up in the interview. One is that they are “a bass-less quintet.” Kate and Fred both play keyboard bass. The other is that they are “saccharin.” “We’re not The Archies.” No, they’re not. They are nice people, though. They remind you of kids you might have gone to summer camp with: kids who strike up a sort of neurotic alliance as a defense but who become delightfully uninhibited in the talent show.

KEITH: “We work with our limitations. We just do all we can do.”

FRED: “The visual part is real important. It’s so busy. There’s so much going on it’s hard -to focus oh any one thing, which is good.”

KATE: “I found that during the tour of England that writers made political and social connotations to the way we presented ourselves visually. As if the visual image was very calculated to mean & certain thing.”

FRED: “The 60’s.”

KATE: “Or trying tq say something about ‘American trash aesthetic.’ Different opinions. There wasn’t any specific thing they all said we were trying to say, but that it had more serious meaning than just dressing up in some fanciful way . That was the first time that we got reviews that were real analytical. We try not to pay any attention to it.”

FRED: “Other writers have the right idea. They seem to know that we’re not a nostalgia band, or a mod band. Maybe you have to be American to understand what we do.”

KEITH: “I think we’re just trying to set an atmosphere that can be interpreted however one wants, because I feel that it works on a lot of different altitudes.”

KEITH: “It’s great to be almost like voodoo people. Drive people into a frenzy.”

A Happy Ending for Intergalactic Sand Shenanigans, a low budget musical comedy with Special Guest Stars The B-52’s: the band, after being discovered doing the Coo-ca-choo on the beach by agent Morey Amsterdam, are booked to headline Vincent Price’s Monster Mash Bash. Cindy does a way-out wobble in a white fish-net one-piece. They become stars. Meanwhile, Jody McCrea holds Frankie Avalon’s head uhder water until he (Avalon) turns a deeper shade of magenta. Then, with Donna Loren on one arm and Eva Six on the other, Jody leads the/gang in a delirious dance to “Rock Lobster.” He laughs a lustful, victorious laugh.

“If you’re in outer space

Don’t feel out of place

’Cause there are thousands of others like

you”

—“There’s A Moon In The Sky (Called The Moon)” ^