ONE HUMP OR TWO?

ONE HUMP OR TWO?

STEVE STRANGE WALKS A MILE FOR A CAMEL

Toby Goldstein

Steve Strange—fashion plate, leader of alternative dance band Visage and all-around creative British person — debarked from his rented camel in front of Chase Park, yet another new club in the bowels of Manhattan. A million flash-bulbs popped at the sight of this somewhat unique boogaloo down lower Broadway. Little did anyone guess that Strange was really yearning to arrive at his party on an elephant, only he couldn’t get a pachyderm permit in New York City before 3 a.m. The breaks.

“1 don’t think of anything I ever do as a publicity stunt,” Strange insists several days later, when he’s asked to justify the event. “I wanted the night to have a circus feel so the camel was part of it, with the fire-eaters, the clowns, the jugglers, the magicians, the strippers—and it also fit with the fashions. I wanted to put across a new visual thing, that hasn’t taken place in a nightclub since the 30’s.” Including the 80’s, according to most of us who spent many hours at Strange’s fete, yet never got to see the fashion show and aforementioned spectacles, most of our energies having gone to finding a) air to breath, b) rpom to walk and c) the end of the bar line.

Despite the mixed reviews accorded his evening by those who, unlike Steve, didn’t perch in the DJ’s booth, by light of day Strange becomes an appealing individual. To arrive at his hotel room, I must walk through a lobby full of Miss Universe contestants, invisible airbrushes poised to erase the slightest deadly flaw. After encountering a stream of cookie-cutter wholesomeness, to se£ Strange’s russetbrown seafarer makeup, pancake hat and side-buttoned trouser suit was a relief. And the clever lad had his methodology on target.

“Oh, you’ve arrived at the perfect time. The tea and cakes have just come, ” he says,

pointing at a silver pot and some caloric fruit pastries. He pours. I drink and try not to think of Marie Antoinette.

When the U.S. suffered its 1930’s depression, the music played on radio and danced to in ballrooms was largely escapist fluff. “Wrap your troubles in dreams, and dream your troubles away,” the lyrics would read, inviting the audience to play ostrich or think positive, depending on one’s point of view. During the 70’s recession, disco at its worst revived many of these same songs, adding the dreaded meccano-thump. Today, as Britain’s depression engulfs huge percentages of all workers, but especially chokes 15 and 16-year-old school leavers, Strange’s Blitz pack reject the anger and negation of punk, preferring to cover themselves with fantasy costumes and dance away the heartaches, unquote Roxy Music, a major influence. Strange holds to the belief that his group is a more valid force for change than the punk scene which spawned them.

“I don’t knock punk, ’cause it gave me the initiative to move to Wales when 1 was 16 and it took me into a job. I used to work for Generation X as an artist, doing their posters. But what I learned from punk was 1 don’t think anything can survive if everybody’s tearing each other down. So we work together as a unit to make us stronger and stronger.

“This is nothing you’ve asked me but I’m going to put it in—I don’t think politics on record can change anything. You might disagree^ but I think music is just there to be enjoyed. If I wanted to be a politician, I’d stand for M.P. and I don’t believe that as what I am, 1 should dictate to people.

“People say our whole thing is very shallow and hollow because it’s just dressing up. But it’s not really. If you go down to the heart of it all, it’s being very creative—like when I opened up my club, Blitz, on two nights a week, I employed 14 people to work for me who otherwise have no source of income. People are saying there’s a depression, but I think what we’re doing— the designers, the photographers, the young bands, even the hairdressers— is more productive than people who just go home, complain about the state of Britain and the unemployment and just sit in front of the TV and do nothing about it.”

Strange must frequently be accused of fostering escapism, frivolity or worse, since the twin themes of positive attitude and productivity recur often in the conversation. While I find it a pleasant change to disagree with someone intelligent, I still differ with his views. A couple of days after my meeting with Strange, I read Simon Frith’s deft comments concerning the British street riots in the Village Voice. He writes, “Punk and postpunk music hasn’t just described squalor, tedium and aggravation—it has been a means of handling them, a source of tolerance and hope.” And Strange’s case for depth is sorely weakened when Polydor U.S., the label that signed Visage (who have never played live) is advertising their new dance EP under the banner “Fashions Of The Jimes.”

At least the party at Chase Park was open to anyone with $10, regardless of race, creed, age, sex, national origin or degree of hip attire. Before visiting the “new romantic” club circuit in London, 1 had been advised by a with-it journalist exactly which names to ask for at which door, since only the trendy could otherwise pass through. And at Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren’s club, Planets, forget it—I’d never get in. Speaking completely on the surface, one of punk’s major appeals was that you didn’t have to spend a half-hour getting ready—the time it takes Strange to put on his makeup. He insists that at none of his venues, from the Blitz in 1978 to his newest enterprise, Club For Heroes, are there exclusionary pracices, except for the assurance of tranquillity.

“The only reason why the Blitz was exclusive was because I didn’t want footballers or people that were out for the A.M. drink license or onlookers or voyeurs laughin’ and sniggerin’. Because when the kids were inside it was their club and they’d do what the hell they wanted. And they knew once they were in there they could have a good time.

“If you come to my new club, the age group spans from 18 to 70. There is no barrier, except we don’t want troublemakers in there. I don’t think anybody who comes to my clubs can say there’s not an atmosphere of enjoyment and friendliness.”

Similarly, although Strange defines hirrjself as a fashion innovator, he refuses to take responsibility for the vast sums of .money being spent on mass-produced pirate shirts, swashbuckling capes, goldtrimmed shoes, toreador pants, et. al. He doesn’t deny that he has been wearing extremely expensive Armani suits (you’ve seen American Gigolo) but tempers that indulgence by running down the cost of each item he’s wearing.

“I’ve got suits that look exactly like Armani that I paid four pounds for. The stuff that I wear with Armani, like these shoes, cost me two pounds. I know where to look for things. I go to junkshops, to theatrical costumery; like my hat was $1.50. This belt was two pounds. And it’s the way I put my clothes together that can make it look good.

“All 1 can say to people is that I hope, when they see me, they may think I look great, but in the back of their minds they can do something that’s a bit more original and not have to copy me 100% down to the ground, ’cause that’s what I don’t believe in.” Antpeople take note.

“Ever since I was 11, I’ve been influenced by clothes and music. When my mother and father were divorced, I think I grew up a lot quicker than average kids, and that’s why I didn’t get on at school. I left without any O-levels, not for being thick and unintelligent, but because I was hanging around with 18-year-olds when I was 14. I was banned from school then for having bright orange hair. But everything 1 do is a way of life, and I think visuals play a very important part in music. I think visuals, since the early Bowie and Roxy days, have been missing from British music anyway.”

And since we’ve finally gotten on to the topic of music, I must confess that Visage strongly evokes the shades of Bowie and Roxy, set to a relentless dance beat. Strange’s declaration that the band’s next album might be devoted to “classical disco” (but not like “A Fifth Of Beethoven,” he hastens to add) makes me wonder if it’s going to sound like the Moody Blues on speed.

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“The reason we started the club in 1978 was because we were disillusioned with punk and the way, to me, it had become very stale. Other clubs played Bowie and Roxy, but as background music, but we played it all night. And Rusty Egan and I looked for obscure records everywhere we went. I think we were the first people to play Yellow Magic Orchestra outside Japan. We discovered Nina Hagen, Christina and a lot of the Ze Records artists, in London. Visage started because of the lack of music we had.”

Consisting of members of Magazine, Ultravox and the Rich Kids, the band was the first of the “new romantics” to release product in the U.S. However, it took Spandau Ballet’s well-publicized American visit and especially Antmania to drum up enthusiasm for Britain’s latest trend.

Given Strange’s well-spoken determination to provide a visual dance music for the 1980’s, Visage and other forthcoming Blitz graduates . will probably successfully entertain those of Britain’s children who are more concerned about ruffling their picture hats in the tube train than they are with blood in the streets. Maybe there are a few sincere cock-eyed optimists among the feathers and furbelows, and 1 shouldn’t mock their sincerity. But when somebody says to me, “come to the cabaret,” I’d rather keep my eyes peeled on reality instead of a vision of kind deception.