Welcome To My Nightmare: JOE JACKSON VS. SUCCESS

"I don't believe in music as an escape from real life."

Welcome To My Nightmare: JOE JACKSON VS. SUCCESS

by Toby Goldstein

On the second evening of Joe Jackson’s 1980 mini-American tour, both the mercury and the humidity are hovering close to 100, enveloping several thousand Central Park-goers in a cloud of water vapor, warmed-over booze and sweat. Uneasily pacing across the stage, Joe Jackson, becomingly attired in a black suit, is about to expire of heat prostration. He does not remove the heavy cotton jacket. He points at the audience, largely bare-chested and in cut-offs, saying, “That’s disgusting; LOOK SHARP!” and wobbles into his first album’s title track. He swigs at Gatorade, making more rude remarks but downing v the hulk-colored liquid regardless. When he finally does doff the suit coat, revealing a tailored red and black shirt beneath, the audience goes wild—he’s one of ’em at last! But Joe Jackson, several generations down from the Victorians, would not even admit to perspiring. “Skin leakage, ” he mutters a few times, a lone voice railing against the elements.

Joe Jackson is not a man who concedes easily, preferring to coexist with perennial frustrated rage rather than relax into the lethargy that comes with being accepted. He has entered his second recorded year in the music business far more successful than he did the first—the accolades do not sit comfortably upon him. Speaking about his third album, Beat Crazy, which he produced, he declared, “I don’t wanna be too successful. I don’t want to feel too safe. This album may be a flop. I hope that either it dies absolutely dismally or is a huge success. And I don’t know which would be worse, either.”

Judging from the songs he previewed in Central Park, Beat Crazy perpetuates the beautiful loser laments so cherished by Jackson’s many admirers. He chants one called “Biology,” recalling some lust-laden misadventure that got mistaken for romance. He pokes, fun at beefy magazine heroes on “Pretty Boys,” which showcases the pulsing reggae rhythms Jackson’s been spinning on his home turntable. Ranked an insightful participant-observer in the sexual area, Jackson tries and fails to find a comfortable place with lines that read, “You’re beautiful when you get mad, or is that a sexist observation?” But one of the album’s key songs is the starkly-played “Fit,” encapsulating the anguish of the outsider. It’s more than a role Joe Jackson wears so well.

"I don't wanna be too successful."

He is picked apart and put upon by cliques “all the time. Much more so at home than here,” he indicates, glancing at a swarm of homeward-bound commuters scurrying up Madison Avenue. “Because you see, if you don’t really quite fit in with any sort of subculture, which is a very grandiose word for it—then you’re a target for all of them. If I was, say, aligning myself with the whole mod revival—which is a joke—and said, ‘Yeah, I’m really a mod and that’s it,’ then I’d have all the skinheads saying: ‘You fucking wanker,’ and all the punks saying, ‘What a cunt/but at the same time I’d have this amazing following of mods saying ‘Yeah, Joe Jackson. is the Man,’ and that would be just as uncomfortable. The situation I’m actually in is that all of them hate me!” He laughs deeply. “Which is deliberate...” That is only one of several comments contributing to the oppressively strong feeling that “you can only hope to hear me on your radio” is Joe Jackson’s most autobiographical statement.

Apart from the. intrusive atmosphere created when you chip away at his personal brick wall, speaking with Jackson is one of the more stimulating exchanges available in the record biz. The most idle comment, like throwing out a friend’s hopes for another summer of love; draw hot blood to Jackson’s chalky features. “No! Fuck that! It’s nothing to do with me. Definitely not—count me out. It’s quite the opposite, really.

“I’m the sort of person who can’t really ignore things that are happening around me, just ’cause I happen to be in a band and reasonably successful. I’m not rich, but I got just enough money to live on and I’m doing what I want to do, so I consider myself really fortunate. But I live in London and unemployment is the worst it’s ever been since the 30’s and a lot of things upset me. A Jot of things affect me the same as they affect anyone else.

“Times are generally fucking hard. And there’s just so much trouble, so many situations that should be getting better but are getting worse, ^nd I just think that it’s not good enough to go onstage and say, hey everbody, let’s have some fun. Like we did a gig with the Knack, and apart from being really awful, the guy was standing onstage shouting, ‘We’re just having fun here, that’s all rock ’n’ roll is, a bit of fun!’ And I just wanna hit people like that.”

Jackson walks onstage at Central Park, tells the audience how nice it is to be back in New York, and immediately Hfoliows his greeting with a dry, “Yeah, and how many times have you heard that one?” When he thanks the crowd, in closing, he similarly undercuts the ,cliche. In between, he accuses them: “You’re all stoned, right? 1 thought so.” Either they don’t hear it, or they don’t care. Party, Joe.

“I don’t believe in music as an escape from real life. I believe in it as an inspiration to try and carry through into real life, if you like. I try to write about real things, try to convey interesting ideas to people j but without being obscure. It’s really hard to try and be original and yet be simple and obvious and understandable. There’s no point in writing songs that say “The government stinks.’ -So what—everybody knows that. But I’m writing anti-ignorance v songs, anti-apathy songs and anti-bigotry songs, anti-stereotype songs. I’m just trying to write about things that ar^ of some use and not just a load of fucking waffle, basically.

“With this third album I’ve had a lot of . positive ideas about whatvl’m aiming for, and I think they’ve worked. I think it pisses over I’m The Man from a great height. It’s not only more interesting and more mature lyrically, but I think also musically and production-wise. I don’t think we’ve gone off into obscure realms of avant-garde music" or anything, and yet I think it is original, it doesn’t really sound like anything else, it sounds like bits of everything mixed together. And that’s another thing I really wanted to do, was to use elements of a lot of different styles, but combine them in a way that makes sense.It’s anti-style music; content is more important than style.” It’s neo-beatnik music, Joe Jackson says, in an enigmatic tone, issuing another, rare laugh.

One performance highlight is Jackson’s^" encore version of Jimmy Cliffs early reggae classic, “The Harder They Come,” souped up to a ska-like beat, though, in keeping with his distrust of manufactured style, Jackson is no fan of blue-beat revivalism, excepting the Specials. Issued as a‘ threesong EP in Britain, with two unreleased originals on the flip, the disc is under heavy pressure from Joe for American release. “I saw the film and thought it was great, and I sort of identified with the song. I think the reggae influence is probably more pbvious on the next albumy but not really. I mean, we’re the wrong color. It’s much more heavy bass and drums.”

True to his openness for influences, Jackson traipsed around from club to club during his New York foray, being spotted at gigs ranging from Magazine to Rocky Burnette. “I hope I never get to the point where I can’t accept new music any more,” he fervently declares, isolating another factor in his hatred of the Major Artiste Syndrome. He goes out constantly, whether at home in South London or as an American visitor, where he’d ideally like to spend more time, mainly because the clubs are open , late. “I hate watching TV,” he says, preferring to pull his messages from the flow of conversation around him, observing friends, • his fans and himself having their communication breakdowns, and then managing to recreate those torturous emotions when structuring a song.

TURN TO PAGE 60

"I try to write about real things."

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 39

“My feelings have to be clarified before I write the song, because otherwise I think it’s self-indulgence really, and I hate that. If I write a song and someone asks me a question about it, I don’t wanna have to say, well, I dunno, it’s just a song, I put the words together ’cause they rhymed. There’s a lot of areas I’m too confused about to write a song about. I could write a song about being confused, because I know what it’s like. I look at things on a more human level. I don’t think things get achieved on a national or international political level that really affect individuals to a great extent. It’s difficult to make any sort of statement, ’cause whatever you say gets misinterpreted. I think also, because I’m a fairly well-known artist or whatever, that I have a responsibility to the audience to not insult their intelligence by telling them that this is right and this is wrong. I try not to preach.”

This is all very serious stuff, clarifying ideas and getting down to basic theories of why Joe Jackson strikes more responsive chords than 10 Dear Abbys. Joe is aware of the peculiar circumstance of having been repeatedly interviewed by female CREEM' writers,and by now accepts the crown of feminism (not. fanatic) with a fair share of grace. Among his favorite new British bands are largely-female ensembles like the Modettes, while on the other hand, he is immensely troubled and puzzled by the ongoing Heavy Metal brouhaha.

“My theory about heavy metal is that, when people listen to music, they get different things out of it. Some people Would think, ‘Oh, that’s something that relates tome;’ And the heavy metal freaks, what they get out of music is deafening volume and people going KRAANNNGG on the guitar and making a lot of noise.”

Jackson ponders my opinion of HM as an acceptable outlet for young (usually) males’ (almost always) aggressive urges, in matters both violent and sexual. “Well, if that 15-year-old really feels he’s getting something out of it, I’d rather he went to a heavy metal gig than become a heroin addict.” But odds are, that fan will never understand Joe Jackson, walking down the lonely street of his own design, afraid of falling on his face in a conversation yet unwilling to forego an opportunity to somehow connect with another human being.

I could have been manipulated by my brief meeting with Joe Jackson, mistakenly substituting the lyrical message of his songs for an accurate glimpse of the person.' Jackson, flanked by a small management entourage, walks down an East Side street, looking at the posh singles bars. He can imagine writing a song about the singularly American institution of “happy hours”—“I 'only drink in the happy hour, staring at my whiskey sour,” or some such. Does he go to parties and take notes? Does he relax? Have friends? Cry at night? Does it matter? He walks with his colleagues toward the blessed privacy of a bar where Joe Jackson can be just another guy and it’s only the jukebox that hurts so bad. '