BURBANK CALLING

BURBANK CALLING

J. Kordosh

They were six fine English boys Who knew each other in Birmingham They bought a drum and guitar Started a rock-roll band. *

—Randy Newman, “The Story of a Rock and Roll Band.”

...England has the music scene that is so far advanced from anything here. America doesn’t have a music scene. Whenever America invents a kind of music, it always comes from the blacks. And the Americans turn their backs on it until it goes over to England and then an English band brings it back to them.

—Stewart Copeland of the Police (CREEM Feb. ’80)

Day 8,633—America held hostage to the British rock scene. Ever since the Ayatollah McCartney and his radical band forcibly occupied the American charts in 1964 the confused nation has been unable to rid itself of the British terror. Although the invaders released America’s black population and covered all of their songs, freedom is still nowhere in sight for America’s whites. Now, as the crisis enters its 16th year...

And Johnny played little violin And Bobby Joe played the big violin The one that stands on the floor They were all in the rock-roll band.

—Randy Newman, “The Story of a Rock and Roll Band.”

We all agree, before the conversation goes back to clothes, that there is still no sign of life across the Atlantic. The Ramones have been absorbed into their comic book...

—writer Simon Frith, on talking with The Jam (CREEM April ’80)

The Jam, according to writer Frith, can still recall the “great era of rock lyric writing as the 60’s—Pete Townshend, Ray Davies, social relevance with Mod nonchalance.” This is when they can tear themselves away from talking about clothes, I presume. But The Jam dO have a point that will perhaps be made clear by a few examples.

Before the Who attained the status of mayhem-mongerers in Cincinnati, USA, they were a clothes-oriented bunch of Mods known as The High Numbers. Their first single was a classic paean to duds, “I’m The Face.” I won’t forget it, and neither, I suspect, will Slim Harpo, who wrote the song. Of course, Slimrwho probably had only a dim Concept of social relevance, called it “Got Love If You Want It.” He wisely left it to future superstars to overhaul his own obscure lyrics (“Got love, baby, is that clear?”) into something more meaning-

' ‘Copyright 1979 Six Pictures Music ful (“I’m the Face, baby, is that clear?”) .

Another splendid illustration of this great era is Ray Davies’ nonchalant version of “Dancing in the Streets,” a number he sings with the gusto of a professional entertainer using his Mr. Microphone for rehearsal. I find it remarkable that Davies was able to use this vehicle to bring Americans back to a music they had ignored, and I hope we’re grateful. Interested readers will find the song in question on that transcendent British album Kinda Kinks...Ulever title, wot?

Right off, they needed a name Someone said, “How ’bout the Renegades?”

Johnny said, “Well, I don’t know I prefer ELO.”

—Randy Newman, “The Story of a Rock and Roll Band.”

’Cause I love that dirty water London, you’re my home.

—Lyric to a popular English song.

If you spot the United Kingdom New Jersey and New Hampshire it’s almost as big as Nevada. But can Nevada match the British honor roll of musicians? Slade. Black Sabbath. Deep Purple. Mahavishnu John McGlouthlen. The social relevance and nonchalance just keep on cornin’. England has not only a music scene, they have a fucking horn of plenty. What’ll it be? Glitter? Punk? Heavy metal? Heavier metal? Ponderous metal? Not even the ska’s the limit for these ingenuous bimbos. We want it? They got it. We want legalized gambling and prostitution? Nevada’s got it.

A music scene! A music scene! Our McDonald’s franchises for a music scene! It might be hard cheese for us, but it’s clear that we s don’t enjoy England’s immense natural advantages for developing a music scene. If they can afford a car, which is unlikely, they go ahead and drive it on the wrong side of the road. They don’t take care of their teeth. They change governments like we change socks. Their bars close early. Their musicians are always getting busted by unarmed coppers, or, worse yet, by diminutive Asiatic gendarmes. Their word for french fries is our word for cow shit.

Now if we had all that going for us, we could probably get some kind of music scene going, too. But, let’s face it...over here, time is money, and over there American currency is money. We’re a bunch o’ North Americans, we are, and it’s easy for us to rely on the British to call our TURN TO PAGE 62 attention to pop sounds that might otherwise pass us by. They don’t seem to have a whole hell of a lot else to do anyway. It might be fair to consider the British the rabbits in the pregnancy test of pop.

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Fortunately , what America lacks in the way of a music scene it makes up for in music stores. Those stores, I am told, sell many millions of records without regard to race, creed, national origin, or ability of the artist. Probably more records than are sold in England, even.

So Burbank’s calling tp all the bankrupt island nations. Send us your gap-toothed, tea-swilling, social relevance. We’ll send you unlimited millions and first dibs on all the music America’s blacks invent.

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DISCOGRAPHICAL NOTE: One market in which America maintains a favorable trade balance is songwriting royalties. Britishers have always had a penchant for covering American tunes. The Kinks, for example, wrote only four of the 11 songs on their debut album, You Really Got Me...and they had the talents of that great Mod songwriter, Ray Davies, to call on. Of the remaining songs, five were Americanpenned (and so credited) and two, “Bald Headed Woman” and “I’ve Been Driving On Bald Mountain” are credited to Telmy and Talmy, respectively.

Unless there are two people with strikingly similar names that like to write songs about bald things, we can only supposed that the writer was Shel Talmy, the Kinks’ producer at the time. But “Bald Headed Woman” and “Bald Mountain” are both well-documdnted as being American black work songs of the chain-gang genre. Any attempt to credit them to Shel Talmy /Telmy amounts to bald thievery; he had as much to do with writing the songs as Dave Davies had to do with the lead guitar work on “You Really Got Me.”

Examples of this type of limey flim-flammery can be found nearly everywhere. The Who, of course, (nee the High Numbers) gave songwriting credits to their manager Peter Meaden for “I’m The Face.” Roger Daltrey might have been the face, but Slim Harpo was the writer. By the time the boys got to the big time, Meaden proved less adept at re-writing the lyrics to James Brown songs, and credit was given where credit was due.

A favorite trick is to credit the song as “traditional” and then grab credits for the arrangement. This is a time-honored practice and not really dishonorable when the writer is really unknown. Led Zeppelin laid the groundwork for their careers with traditional American folk material like “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You.” But the Rolling Stones, who should know better, engaged in a tittle fast practice with the song “Stop Breaking Down” on their Exile On Main Street opus. Credits for the song are given to “traditional,” with Messrs. Jagger, Richard, et al. taking credit for the arrangement. Any resemblance between the Stones’ “Stop Breaking Down” and Robert Johnson’s “Stop Breaking Down Blues” is purely coincidental. Sure it is. The Stones also credited Johnson’s “Love In Vain” (Let It Bleed) to Woody Payne. Just who Mr. Payne is and how much royalty monies he’s collected from Johnson’s song are as yet undetermined. It would be interesting to know what the Stones have against Robert Johnson; God knows that Eric Clapton credits him with everything, probably even changing his guitar strings. Maybe it’s just Clapton the Stones hate.

in a humorous vein, the British occasionally screw up even when they try to get the credits right. On the Beatles’ Live Hamburg LP, Chuck Berry’s “Talkin’ Bout You” is credited to Ray Charles. They all look alike to me too, Ringo. ^