Leonard Cohen’s Death Of A Ladies’ Man LP, his first and only collaborative effort with Phil Spector, was never really given its due as one of the best albums of the 70’s. Along with very few other albums (Big Star’s Third, Robert Wyatt’s Rock Bottom and maybe Berlin), it explored emotionally unpleasant territory and, in the long run, things we prefer not to think about— jealousy, spite, vengeance, brutality and death among them. Yet in each case, remarkably, Cohen’s and these other albums transcended possible emotional dead-ends and emerged jubilant and ultimately positive.

Somehow—though I don’t think they’ve done it properly yet—I think Martha Davis and the Motels are going to produce an album that’s going to stand alongside these classics and then some. The connection came a few nights ago, while I was listening to Ladies’ Man and its “Paper-Thin Hotel” track. In it, a man secretly follows his lover to a hotel room where she meets a secret partner and soon makes love with him. In /the next room, the deserted lover is there, ear against the wall, listening and feeling a mixture of despair and impotence: “I listened to four kisses at the door/I never heard the world so clear before/You ran your bath and you began to sing/I felt so good I couldn’t feel a thing.../A heavy burden lifted from my soul/I heard that love was out of my control, ”

And on the Motels’ first album, here’s Martha Davis describing a situation not too far removed from the one .Cohen’s created. A woman, at a bar with her (past? potential?) lover, sits despondently watching another woman steal him away: “I went for my drink/She went for her cigarettes/ You went for your smile/The night rolled on.../I swallow my pride/As she takes you aside/I sat there and watched you/I sat there and watched you/I sat there and watched you...” These last lines repeated over a chorus of howling guitars, emphasizing the emptiness awaiting the song’s main character, a powerful moment and one of the Motels’ best on record.

And as always, the best rock ’n’ roll doesn’t preach.. It implies.

☆ ☆ ☆

The Motels have released two albums already, both on Capitol Records and both very fine indeed. .“Already” isn’t really appropriate; the Motels existed in an earlier incarnation more than five years ago. One of the earliest L.A. “punk” bands (not my terminology, CREEM’s of a few years ago), the band met little Success and eventually disbanded in 1976. Original Motels guitarist Dean Chamberlain, four years later, has now popped up as the driving force behind Code Blue, who’ve released their debut LP on Warner Bros, recently and who— along with the current Motels—seem to be about the only interesting L. A. “new wave” band to be signed to a major label.

And “current” Motels needs to be explained, too: since their debut album, . guitarist Jeff Jourard has been replaced by Tim McGovern, former guitarist with the Pop and a certified L.A. rock veteran. Thus the “current” Motels are the people who recorded Careful, the seconds Motels album: vocalist Davis, McGovern, bassist Michael Good roe; drummer and limey Brian Glascock, and keyboard-and-saxophonist Marty Jourard, brother of the band’s departed guitarist.

The current Motels have watched Careful debut on the trade charts in the low 70s and, as fate would have it, are now actually enjoying some well-deserved success for a change, something no one would have readily, predicted a few years ago. The reasons for success? The album, -for starters, which is a stronger, less quirky effort than the first. Martha Davis wrote all the material for that one (previous guitarist Jeff Jourard co-wrote two tracks, though Davis supplied the lyrics), and, talented as she is, she did stretch herself thin occasionally. Yet weak tracks like “Love Don’t Help” from fhe debut set aren’t anywhere to be found on Careful; instead, new guitarist McGovern contributes two “upbeat” numbers—“Envy” and “Days Are O-K(But The Nights Were Made For Love)”—and new Motels songwriting team Jourard & Goodroe supply three others. The latter’s “Cry "Baby” is easily one of Careful’s best tracks and, significantly, fits right in with the persona Martha Davis speaks from and projects in live performance. From all evidence, the Motels who recorded Careful axe the best Motels yet. ☆ ☆ ☆

"I'm just a mom trying to support my kids. —Martha Davis"

The band thinks so, too, though they speak about departed guitarist Jourard delicately, as if by some shared understanding. Marty Jourard explains that his brother is currently trying to put together another band in L.A., and things are left at that.

We’re downstairs in the dressing room of the Second Chance, an Ann Arbor college hangout that’s seen the likes of John Cale, Gong, and Patti Smith on its stage, and even an occasional Dead Boys not. Earlier in the day the band made an instore appearance at Schoolkids’ Records, across the street, and apparently were quite impressed. Having worked there a few years back, I’m reminded how times in Ann Arbor have changed: four years ago the store had a paltry import section and god-awful bands like “The Almighty Strut” (real name, honest) played across the street at the Second Chance; now the import bins are crammed with Echo & The Bunnymen and Residents albums while the Second Chance is packed full of “new wave" fans who’ve come to see L. A.’s Motels.

And as I walk into the dressing room and identify myself, Martha Davis—who spends most of our time together applying her stage make-up—looks up when I mention CREEM. “Is my Boy Howdy! picture gonna be in there?” she asks, somewhat enthusiastically, and the rest of the band laughs. I nod and grab a seat.

Immediately, I ask what sort of reaction the band is receiving at home. Here they are in Ann Arbor, touring to prombte a very successful album for a major record company—are the unsigned bands in L.A. jealous?

“We never see ’em,” says Marty Jourard.

“We’ve been touring since the album came but, ” explains Tim McGovern, “and a little before that, too.”

“That alone is enough to piss off any band in L.A.,” adds Jourard.

McGovern thinks it over for a minute. “Nah,” says he, “I think there are a couple of bands that when they were being interviewed said we suck. Oh yeah—the Dead Kennedys.

“But if you’ve ever seen ’em,” he trails off, “you know...”

I tell them I think I do know, at least from what I can gather here in Detroit! Somehow, bands like the Kennedys and X don’t seem to translate too well into midwestem and Eastern parlance. The too-obvious air of anachronism, which the bands and their fans try to deny and explain in terms of “attitude,” never really seems to make it out here in any sense other thjan a weak excuse. From here it just can’t escape sounding like lame, “you hadda be there”type logic.

McGovern seems to agree: “Yeah, well they’re two or three years too late, a lot of those bands.”

We start discussing the futility of using labels such as “punk” and “new wave,” especially in L.A,, and Jourard nods:

"“That's why when people say ‘Are you a new wave band?’ and then I realize that they’re also considering Van Halen and X and the Dead Kennedys new wave— ’cause they can’t call it ‘punk’ anymore— then I don’t wanna be called new wave. CALL ME NEW WAVE AND I’LL CUT YA!!” he jokes, and most of the Motels seem to get it.

Actually, the Motels seem in especially good humor tonight; perhaps one reason is that tonight is a “club night,” according to the band. Club nights, they explain, are the smaller gigs they’re squeezing in between much larger dates spent opening for the Cars. As the story forevdr goes, the Cars saw the Motels perform a while back, fell in love, and asked the band to open for them on their own Panorama tour; the response, the Motels happily report, has been tremendous for all parties concerned.

'“I think going out with the Cars is our biggest break,” McGovern admits. “I can’t think of anybody who likes the Cars who wouldn’t like the Motels. It’s really good exposure.”

I agree, telling the band that I’d seen them a few weeks earlier at Detroit’s Pine Knob Pavilion with a friend who’d wanted to see the Cars. He’d never heard of the Motels before in his' life, yet walked away impressed—and convinced he like them a lot more than the Cars. And I had to agree.

In the dressing room, we discuss touring—past and future—and the band’s oddly scattered, biggest markets. One of the largest, interestingly enough, is Australia—where the band has yet, to play, but somehow has managed to rack up monstrous record sales. “That’s our secret," says McGovern, “we stay away from places where they buy our records. ” ,

In the U.S., logically enough, L.A. is the band’s largest market, with New England (and Boston in particular) running a close second. In Europe, Ffance and Germany gave the band their warmest reception during their first-and-only tour there, but, Martha Davis admits, things could’ve worked out quite a bit better in England. Especially with the music press.

“Yeah,” she says, “England said something like ‘We give America the Clash and they give us back the Motels’...”

“It was funny,” says Jourard, “we’d read all the press and the record weeklies they have over there and it was like ‘The Motels are coming, great album, can’t wait to see ’em.’ And then we play there and read all the press afterward, after we’ve come back to America, and it’s ‘Motels don’t live up to expectations, slick L.A. session musicians, cabaret-style lead singer...’ They just didn’t dig it.

“And there’s a weird message in there somewhere. God kpows what it is.”

☆ ☆ ☆

And God knows how the five Motels are going to be able to play, after eating what roadies carry in on two tyays and put down next to my tape recorder: enough cold cuts, cheese and vegetables to feed five bands. Immediately, Tim McGovern’s eyes light up and he asks for mayonnaise.

“Hey,” I submit, staring at the food, “you guys are PIGS!?’

“Spell it right,” Instructs Jourard, fixing himself a quickie sandwich, “that’s

P-I-G-S.” I v v

Meanwhile, McGovern can’t find the mayonnaise and I ask the most probing question of the evening:

“Hey, uh.. .would you guys mind if I had some of your BEER?”

The band applauds, Martha Davis cheers “YAAY!” and Marty Jourard stalks me as I approach the Free Beer pitchers.

“What about YOU and YOUR influences?” says he, sandwich in hand. “Where do YOU stand, man? We’ve poured our HEARTS out to you and we don’t know NOTHING about you!”

“Well,” I suggest, pouring my beer, “you never will.”

TURN TO PAGE 59

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 22

Not one to be taken aback, Jourard turns to my accompanying photographer: “I notice that you’ve only taken pictures of me when 1 was putting something in my mouth..:” *

I explain, diplomatically: “That’s gonna be the whole slant of this article, Marty.”

“That’ll be a caption alongside the story,” helps Martha, who apparently enjoys picking on Marty as much as everybody else does. “Motels EAT.”

☆ ☆ ☆

And another reason the Motels are an unusual band is that Martha Davis, in her very early 30s, has two children. And the oldest is 14.

Has it become something of an issue you’re sick of talking about, Martha?

“Oh no,” she says, suddenly very much the proud mother. “I just talked to ’em—they had their first day at school today.”

“Martha likes her kids,” says Jourard.

“I love, my kids,” she corrects. “I miss my kids. I want my kids...”

Who’s staying with them while Mommy brings home the bacon? Well, seeing how Davis and McGovern are “romantically attached,” it should be no surprise that McGovern’s own mom has been flown in from Syracuse to handle babysitting chores. Which, Davis and McGovern stress, she enjoys doing very much.

And what do the kids think about the Motels?

“They like us,” Martha sayd. “And they like us better now that we’re famous—or at least getting some kind of recognition. It’s better than when we were all sleeping on the floor of a big rehearsal room.”

“They paid some dues,” McGovern adds. “And now they’re collecting on them.”

☆ ☆ ☆

Finishing my Free Beer, I realize a few inevitable questions should be asked— among them whether the band has been bothered by the considerable (and barely applicable) comparisons to the Pretenders they’ve been receiving in the press.

“Thank God that at least we’re in the same ball park,” Davis says. “I mean before that it was basically Janis Joplin. And later on, Blondie. I even got compared to Lene Lovich and Donna Summer on the same day.”

And I suppose the whole “Women In Rock” issue has been Ms.-magazined totally out of proportion, too?

“Hey, I’ve been hearing a lot about MEN in rock,” says McGovern.

“CHICKS in rock,” suggests Jourard.

“No,” McGovern says, “there’s a lot of new bands coming out with MALE singers!”

“Wait a minute,” says the suddenlyenlightened Jourard, an obvious career in rock journalism awaiting. “Why don’t YOU GUYS run a story and call it ‘Chicks In Rock?"

It, un, was already done, Marty. Sort of.

And I’ve got one or two questions remaining, one that came to me after seeing the band perform, two weeks earlier, Miss Toni Fisher’s incredible 60’s rock classic “The Big Hurt.” That song—“Now it begfns/Now that yqu’re gone /Needles and pins/Twilight ’til dawn”—couldn’t be a more logical choice for the band to cover; along with “Anticipating” and the other best Motel-tunes, it all merges together to form an archetypical but strangely new vision: that of a woman who’s been almost classically undone, torn up and abused by a callous, uncaring man. As some might have it, pissed on by life itself.

Are you being autobiographical here, I ask Martha Davis, motherpf two and in her early 30s; has life itself pissed on you?

Or, even worse, are you just making it all up?

For a brief second the room is quiet. Heads turn to Martha. She pauses. “I made it all up!” she says, and everybody laughs. “No—I mean everybody’s been pissed on in their life,” she says. And then, very adeptly, she changes the subject to movie soundtracks and our discussion takes another turn entirely and it’s as if I never asked that question at all.

MOTELS DIALOGUE AND BEST POSSIBLE SUMMATION

CREEM: Have you written any new material we might be hearing tonight?

MARTHA: I wrote one new one, so far. But I don’t know if it’s any good yet, ’cause we haven’t played it.

JOURARD: What’s it called?

MARTHA: I think it’ll be called “Don’t Want You To See Me This Way.”

McGOVERN: “Pissed-On Woman!”

MARTHA: “Hard Woman In Rock!”

JOURARD: “Hard Chicks In Rock!”

MARTHA: I’ll take a chick on the rocks, please...

McGOVERN: You can’t talk like that, you are one...

MARTHA: (pause) No...I’m just a mom. Trying to support my kids. It’s that simple, ya know?

McGOVERN: (to CREEM) Yeah, that’s the whole reason for this group.

And what’s funny about McGovern’s final statement is that no one really wants to disagree with it. Which, I think, wraps things up just fine.