THE SOUTHSIDE JOHNNY Phenomenon: RELEVANT ASPECTS

"Motion and energy's what it's all about."

THE SOUTHSIDE JOHNNY Phenomenon: RELEVANT ASPECTS

by Gregg Turner

"Sure. I know Handsome Dick.” says the guy w/cool. black shades and laconic East Coast drawl. “Manitoba (x-Dictators singer, connoisseur of fine food) and I are pals.” Johnny Lyon, product of Neptune, NJ, laughs about those wild frogbound nites in Paris with the ’Tators. He can afford to smile these days; credit a switch of labels (Epic to Mercury) and management for successful tours and current hit elpee, Love Is A Sacrifice. Consequently, retrospect and hindsight of more miserable times way back when proves less bothersome and grating.

“Few years ago, we played a show in Toronto Stadium, must’ve been 40,000 people there—80,000 maybe—some incredible amount. We were on the bill with Emerson, Lake and Palmer and the show was late in starting. It'd been raining all day, so these kids were wet and cold and they didn’t want to see us. We walked onstage with five horns and fuck.. .they threw shit at us, yelled, 40,000 people gave me the finger at one time—yelling, flipping me off.

So-called “yelling” and ill-mannered reprisals of dubious partisan participation rankles this man’s fur.

“The largest group of people we ever played to was in England with Led Zeppelin and Todd Rundgren. There was like 180,000 kids and the reaction for us was good—considering. They didn’t throw anything and they didn’t boo or yell. But I there was this other time with Ted Nugent...”

Southside Johnny (nickname an extract of Chicago blues fanaticism and Chicagoblues roots southside of the windy city) Lyon recalls th’days “when I was 13 and writing fiction, short stories, listening to records and hangin’ out. Listening to rhythm & blues mostly, and a lot of vocal group stuff. We useta hear a lot of that on the radio station in Newark. Eventually 1 ran into some people who were musicians and 1 was singing with some friends at parties, just goofing around on the streets. 1 was just sort of drifting—I sang because I liked to sing. I played harmonica because my brother Tom had one and I’d steal it and practice.

“I never really wanted to be a singer, to be a musician. All I wanted to do was have a good time, meet chicks. So when this one guy asked me to join a band, I jumped at the chance. It got to be a lot of fun, makin’ 10 to 15 dollars a night, bein’ part of the action — so I just kept doin’ it.

“I love singing. It’s a tremendous release for me. It’s the only satisfaction I’ve ever really had that I can consistently count on.”

Not until the early 70’s did notoriety, connectionJBfcth Springsteen and professionally mc^^ted waves of ambition hook up and suggest more pursuits and metaf morphosis. “Miami” Steve Van Zandt and Johnny worked with Springsteen in Dr. Zoom and the Sonic Boom, tho’ nowadays questions of early liasons with Brucey prompt sensitively quiet areas of response (“I just met him in a little club in Asbury Park; we were just musicians on the same scene—that’s basically all... ”)

Post-Springsteen recollections gain momentum: “I was in a band, and there was another band in Asbury Park—and I joined the other band called the Blackberry Booze Band, which I quickly assumed leadership of. Changed the name to Southside Johnny and The Asbury Jukes, brought in some people I knew. Steven Van Zandt came and joined after a while and eventually we made a demo, did a lot of R & B material and originals, made a big name for ourselves in Asbury Park. This was a big turning point in our career—in my professional career. Y’know, there are those elusive moments when you turn around onstage and say ‘This is what I’m doing for a living. ’ It useta be—get a day-job for as long as you could stand, in a music store or something—and you’d keep playin’ at night havin’ fun, learning about yourself. Then one time I realized that I’d been working onstage for about six months without any day-job, barely getting by, but came to the conclusion that this was all I wanted to do. And then that’s when we started getting serious about the Jukeslike, ‘hey, let’s really try to make something out of this.’”

A record deal?

“Yeah, so big deal, we made a demo, some people from Epic came down and heard us and liked us—signed us. We made three albums for them, but weren’t very pleased with the promotion they did on the third album, Hearts Of Stone. So we asked to be released and finally they agreed. Bob Sherwood left Columbia for Mercury, asked us to join him—I’ve always thought Bob Sherwood’s a good man to work for, so...”

Fortune has found the sounds of Southside John and the Jukes, messages of wildfire sales and th’like have socked radio markets semi-senseless nationwide. Current alb Sacrifice finds viable FM-fodder for promising regional breakouts and just as suddenly Johnny and the Asburys have arrived as “stars of an artform close to our hearts and souls.” Purveyors of a new, special non-coloredfolk rhythm-and-blues that has assumed programming priorities all over the place with legions of devoted, unquestioning troops tuned in, turned on and reverant to the call.

The call in Cleveland last year subsequent to issuance of the first Mercury LP, Jukes, reached 25,000; this time around the band guesses at “50 thou for two nights.” Similar “calls” ’ve been answered in Connecticut, NY, Delaware, Boston, San Francisco and “all around Jersey.” Viable translates lucrative, and the Jukes’re convinced they’ve hit a nerve, got a finger on the pulse...

Frantic fingers pulsate nervously under the stars at L.A.’s Greek Theater Sunday eve, first week of June. They jump and cheer, stoic stares punctuate exuberant outbreaks of acknowledgement, applause —more cheers. They boogie and stand up. They clap and sit down. Middle-aged men with chest-hair and bald spots in white vests and straw hats. Facial hair too, lotsa hair in general...Secretaries and housewives and kids and dads, Led Zeppers (T-shirts say so) and hippies and New Wavers—all present and accounted for. A wide and motley strata congregating for ritual and celebration.

Southside John rambles stagefront; he twists and shouts like Joe Cocker and Eddie Money, every contorted strain and twitch of anguish nailed down to musical diversion and synchronous' “sensitivity.” First reaction, mine anyway, ’s to write this simp off as some flying putz. But hey—y’can’t afford to be hasty these days, and the immediate look-see converges on new angles of tolerance finally succumbing to strange perceptions of acceptance (rockabilly veteran and longstanding crazy-man Tony Conn demands no more from his core of fandom, while the hooded Mentor, El Duce, L. A.’s chief New Wave proponent of anal hetero-sex (“Let Me Fuck Your Bottom,” wants “On/y acceptance and understanding”) It’s the Cocker shtick that sucks pumice cos it’s like watching video playbacks of the, pardon my french, Midnight Special. Alla those asswipes that get rockstar disease th’minute they see microphones. But Southside’s Sorta different—no pretense involved cos the cumulative persona projected’s more like Kevin McCarthy in Invasion Of The Body; Snatchers or Paul Birch in Not Of This Earth or John Agar in Brain From Planet Arous. “Look into my eyes they are alien, my eyes are aaaa-lien,” says Birch in Not O.T. Earth, and there’s a real plausible aspect to consider. Southside’s honed in on this reality, lemme tell ya, he’s hip—fake gives way to crazy, and that’s the bottom line.

The Jukes fall in and out of th’spotlight, in’n’out of position; solos grab attention and the’requisite space, chick singers grab for harmonies and visibility. Arrangements, contrasts musical crests and troughs with visual peaks and valleys; Johnny’s Jukes shake their booty mama behind the man wailing this fist-clenched gospel-driven blues up the spine and out the skull of x-thousand odd disciples focused in and freaked out! Suddenly they’re all goin’ nuts!! Fuckin’ apeshit over the slightest diversions and discontinuity—guitar breaks, horn improvs have ’em yapping and howling and woofing for more. Terse vocal stops and starts trigger massive brain orgasms and spiritual resurrection. Actually, lotsa the wild-eyed adulation (leader-projection!) malignant throughout the crowd suggests nothing earnest.

The contingency of facial hair and white vests are allofasudden up on their hoofs, shaking and slapping, wildly offering encouragement and approval—holding onto their sweaty scalps in incredulity of “how anything can be this good.” Words from the mouth of Chester Davis, who, at 42 years of age, remembers the halcyon days of rock ’n’ roll, but “nothing like this.1*He’s seen them all, “Stones, Jethro Tull, Carly Simon—but fuckin’ Southside, man! What can you say? The whole thing’s so goddarned heartfelt and moving, it pulls you apart. Tears your guts out. Makes you wanna cry happy.”

W/regards to such sentiment and identification imbued and obviously translated in performance theatrics, J. Lyon contemplates the nature of the show’s histronic puppet-strings. “It’s all part of the act. Contrasting moods and dynamic outbreaks with subtle passages, it’s all carefully planned and worked on. We feel that’s an important part of what we do, y’know, all part of showbiz. Cos the music’s gotta have an effect. You arrange the songs and the set and the way you play everything into an emotional roller coaster ride. It should have ups and doWns and it should end on this tremendous peak.”

"I never really wanted to be a singer..."

Funk-rockers Steven X from Glendale and Karen Death “from Griffith Park” dig local punksters Fear, Vicious Circle, Red Cross, The Circle Jerks, Vox Pop, The Love Butchers and The Angry Samoans. Yet both made the Greek pogo scene here for Southside Johnny—curiously hopping up-and-down like alia the others sometimes double and triple-timing the big beat up front. Neither considers themselves to be avid Southside Johnny fans, but both cop to digging “the motion and the energy.”

“Motion and energy’s what it’s all about,” says South, “I’ve noticed a lot of young people, a lot of punk people comin’ to our shows, into our music. Hell, I liked the Sex Pistols and that kinda stuff when it was happening. Anyone can relate to anything as long as it’s good—and we’re goodWe really work hard at our music and ft certainly is valid music. It may not be heavy-metal, and it may or may not be New Wave, but it’s certainly enjoyable. I think a lot of people are finally realizing that—people who would’ve never realized that before.”

Conceptually, a breakdown of the material and its better moments reveals vague current parallels save for occasional Springsteen flashes and Willy DeVille perimeters of thought and free-form formulas. But even that’s stretching it cos Springsteen mines folk-turf and DeVille shops Velvet Underground-induced hallucinations, so what the hey...

Local Los Angeles scene-aficianado Steve Besser, a man R. Meltzer deems “very hep” and likens to professional wrestler the Alaskan, sees the music and stage appeal of Southside and Jukes closely tied to any one of several acts. “Some interesting parallels,” notes Besser, a devout fan of wrestlers Killer Kowalski and Maniac John "The Golden Greek” Tolos himself. “There’s some very similar aspects, relevant ones. Performance-wise, Southside John’s in the same boat with Greg Gihn of Black Flag and Darby Crash of The Germs. It’s the same type of frontman hysteria unleashed and untapped. Besser, nephew of actor Joe Besser (Three. Stooges) recalls a funny incident where the FM-sounds of Southside, blaring from a portable set closeby, background a bizarre story printed in the L.A. Times. Had t’do with a father amputating his son’s penis with a butter-knife (ouch!) as punishment for the kid bein’ late to school. “I was reading this unbelievable piece in the Metro Section about this kid and his severed cock flushed down the toilet and later-on fished outta the sewers for a surgical longshot, when the Jukes’ latest,hits the airwaves. No kidding, there’s a sincerity about the guy you can’t shake. The music’s a backdrop for the visceral life-affirming reality Southside projects, condones and even attacks! There’s a future for this kind of sound

A future that the man himself describes as “a lot more work.” No doubt. “We’ll have a live album coming out later this year,” Johnny points out, “and I expect that to do very well. Then next year we’ll see what happens...polkas, we’re gonna do polkas. A triple album of the world’s greatest polkas. It’ll be big in Cleveland.”