THE BEAT GOES ON

THE BEAT GOES ON

Whatever Happened To... Pete Shelley?

NEW YORK—Another hotel room with a different pop star, the cynic in me is thinking as I ride the elevator to the interview. But the fan in me is too excited for this to be any other another. Pete Shelley—the name conjures memories in me like a playback on a video machine. Remember? Early concerts in ’77 back home in Manchester, when the Buzzcocks meant Howard Devoto, a ricochet lead guitar buzzed with the intensity of punk’s first steps, and the world was right around the corner. The Spiral Scratch EP’s seminal soundtoday the inspiration for a hundred Brit bands. The “Anarchy In The UK” tour plays the Electric Circus, Buzzcocks third on the bill before the Clash and the Sex Pistols. Howard Devoto leaves, is this the end? “Orgasm Addict.” Pete Shelley leads the band for the first time, debuting MK2 on the “White Riot” tour. Another Music In A Different Kitchen. Six perfect love songs on six separate singles in 13 months counterpointing clear memorable melodies, with a quasi-adolescent vocalism, a hidden depth of emotion. A Different Kind Of Tension’s Buzzcocks sound, fitted to occasionally muddled, often mesmerizing philosophy. Singles in segments, disappointments. Break-up.

“Come into my harem” Pete invites, waving me into his room. He looks older than I thought he would. His eyes have dark bags under them, and his face the beginning of worry lines. Lying on his bed is a pretty girl he introduces as Joan McNulty, editor of the American Buzzcocks fanzine/ fan club Harmony In My Head. Sitting on a chair is another girl also involved with the fan club. I place myself opposite Pete, take out a pocket tape recorder, and start with the question on everyone’s mind. Why break up the Buzzcocks?

“You could say we were playing with the Buzzcocks like a game of soccer, and I got sick of it and took away the ball.” Was part of it that he was sick of putting (guitarist) Steve Dig gle’s songs on his B sides? “Part of it, yes. 1 went up to Martin Rushent’s farm to work on the demo tracks for the next Buzzcocks album. Anyway, we did three songs and me and Martin were listening to them when I looked at Martin, he looked at me, and it was obvious. They were perfect, they didn’t need anything added. So I phoned Steve and that was that.” That was March 1981, and the result was “Homosapien,” an electronic dance-pop masterpiece. The song became a clubland hit in Manhattan, but died a death in England after getting itself banned due to gay overtones (Pete announced his bisexuality years ago). The reason Pete is in Manhattan is to talk With record companies about the release of the whole album here.

OFF TO SEE THE WIZARD!!

Look out, Toto! The zany Anti-Nowhere League, Britain's latest "new wave" crooners, are out to make history with their new version of The Wizard Of Ozl "It'll be great," offers debonair lead vocalist Animal, "Elmo here will play the scarecrow—and It'll be Dorothy for me I" How's that again? "That's right, mate, it'll be me playin' Dorothy I And this time I don’t want to go back to Kansas I" No? "This time we all want brains I And looks I And tastol And talent I And a decent chance at getting paid I And better moms and dads l And new clothes I And to go to the bathroom I And lots more stuff, tooII" Is Animal crackers? Who knows?! 11

Would you like it to be a hit jn the States?

“Yes, I wouldn’t change my music, but if I could play what I wanted and have hits—why not? I couldn’t change the way I play. It wouldn’t be my music then. I’d be writing songs for the people and playing what they want to hear. Like writing jingles.”

Do you think you could write very commercial songs if you wanted to?

“Oh yeah, easy. But it’s a feeling. I’ve got enough honesty so I couldn’t sing just anything.”

Of course all those singles were commercial.

“They didn’t sell much. What is commercial but something everybody likes?” By now I’m getting a handle of Pete’s softly Mancunian accent. Salford, I guess. He grins and leans further on the bed. I change the subject.

Since “Everybody’s Happy Nowadays” you seemed to have stopped writing so emphatically about love.

“It depends on how you put the word ‘love’ in a song. Sometimes it’s hard to side-step having to say it, but I like to find another language, another idea, another train of thought rather than use the word ‘love.’ That word becomes an icon. You sit and worship that one word but you don’t feel or understand it.”

Well, you are such a romantic.

“I don’t know. It’s an easy way out and I don’t really think about it. I think I’m more emotional than intellectual. The two are there, but there’s not an overbearing to one or the other.”

Unlike the person whose name you took.

“I think she’s a great actress.” Whaaat? “Shelley Winters. Before I was born my mum decided if I was a girl she’d call me Shirley,after the actress, if a boy, Pete. But it does come from the poet in one way; Shirley changed her name to Shelley for him.”

That’s strange, because one thing I’ve noticed about your songs is that you often juxtapose one set of things against another. Musically: romantic pop against punk’s attack. Lyrically, as early as “What Do I Get,” the things that you want from romance against the things you actually get. And more obviously, “A Different Kind Of Tension,” which is a list of opposites.

“That’s what ‘I Believe’ was about. The fact that things people believe in are both correct and incorrect simultaneously. Like if you believe in God and somebody else doesn’t, who’s right? Both of you are. But in a sense none of this is important, it’s the effect the music has on you that matters.”

We take a break from talking and I ask Pete what he’s been reading lately. “Let’s take a look around.” There’s a copy of NME on the bed which he ignores, but we find some more good stuff. Reader’s Digest! “I haven’t started it yet.” New Scientist? Omni? Are you interested in physics?

“I’m interested in electronics. When I was at Bolton College [where he met Howard Devoto], the only thing I liked was part of our physics course where we did nothing but electronics for four weeks. We had to use all these monostable-vibrators, tweets and horns, and lights flashing. One of the things we had to do is play a tune or make a noise on them. I loved that. Used to come in after school and during lunch break to play on them. I did get me Physics A’Level.”

Do you think part of your interest in the synthesizer goes back to that?

“Yes. The reason for the machines is to play something. It has nothing to do with Physics.”

Is it fun messing around with sounds?

“Ummm, that’s one of the main reasons for doing it, because it is fun. I still play the guitar as well because that’s also fun.”

On the album it’s just you playing all the instruments, does it feel a little strange without the Buzzcocks?

“Yes, things change. It’s different now,” he sighs with the faintest tinge of remorse in his voice.

Do you think that the emotional impact you want to make has changed?

“It has changed in the past, I’ve seen it changing. It’s very organic, it isn’t a plan that you have about it, you’re sort of foraging in virgin territory. It is me changing. You look at things and see the changes.”

Iman Lababedi

Having A Cold One With...Eddie Schwartz

NEW YORK-Pat Benatar’s multi-plutonium success has had some interesting sidelights. One of them is Eddie Schwartz.

“Who the hell is Eddie Schwartz?” is what you’re supposed to say, but Atlantic Records already dreamed that winner up. Worked, too—by the time Schwartz and I met, seemingly moments after the release of No Refuge, the album was a hot AOR property, and “All Our Tomorrows” looked like his. first, but not last, hit single. Ditch that question.

Got a few more, though. After all, if the guy wrote a song called “Hit Me With Your Best Shot,” isn’t that an open invitation to “fire away?” So, let’s see—wfto the hell is Eddie Schwartz?

“Beats me,” says Schwartz incarnate, over the din of chatting singles perched like magpies through the hotel bar.

“Ever think of changing your name?”

5 Years Ago

Be Her Little Baby!

At a recent Southside Johnny concert in Cleveland, Ronnie Spector was everything the males in the audience could have hoped...she was poured into a black leather jumpsuit, unzipped to the navel, which offered excited music fans a panoranic view. After the last encore, she yelled at the audience: “Thank you. I wish I could ball every boy in the audience!”

“You mean the Schwartz part, as opposed to the Eddie part? Yeah, I thought about it. But I couldn’t find an alternative that I thought was the real me. If I’d found a name I thought was a great name for me I would have, but I didn’t. There’s also a daredevil quality about using a name so obviously wrong for rock ’n’ roll, that I had to use it. It’s like laying down the gauntlet.”

“Are you aware of CREEM’s ongoing war with Canada?” I ask the Toronto-based artist.

“I’m about to be made aware of it, I have a feeling.” After having that component of CREEM’s floating foreign policy explained to him, Schwartz still looks puzzled. “It’s pretty hard to get a Canadian’s dander up. How anyone from Detroit can call Canada a cultural wasteland is beyond me...how’s that for a retort?” After a second, he adds, “I shouldn’t say that.

“I was a dual citizen until I was 28. My mother’s from Brooklyn, my father’s Canadian. If I cut either one, I’m insulting myself.”

Like, this guy’s smart and charming, eh? Time to haul out my last shot. “Did you know I once reported falling asleep at a Pat Benatar show in CREEM?”

“I haven’t been to too many Pat’s live concerts, so I’m not an authority. I’ve only met the woman once.”

What did he think of her version of “Hit Me”?

“I think she did a very successful version of the song— both commercially and for the persona she wanted to project.” But after explaining the strengths in her version, he explains, “I think I did the song a little more tongue-in-cheek and a little less strident.”

Okay, one last zinger. We’ll ask him about the comment Village Voice critic Tom Carson slipped into a Benatar review from the mind of his “plus one” and wife, critic Leslie Berman. “Did you know that one reviewer said this of ‘Hit Me,’ and I hope it doesn’t offend you; ‘She’s just telling the guys in the circle jerk where to aim’?”

“Circle jerk? What’s a circle jerk?”

“Remember going to summer camp...about 12 years old?”.

“Ohhh...Say no more. Has to do with masturbation...That song has been maligned by a lot of critics, and very well understood by a lot of people. It’s such an innocent song; the intentions of the song are very honorable. 1 hate to use ’the average Joe,’ because I don’t know if he exists, but people I talk to who like the song, who aren’t rock critics for a living, all understand without any problem that the Song is about Selfconfidence. All the people who dance to it in discos know that. All the women who like it understand. That’s all it’s about. It’s not sexist, it’s not racist...it’s not Canadian chauvinistic. It’s just a song saying, ‘Whatever you throw me, I can handle it.’ ”

Here's Swat You’re Looking For

CLUTE, TX-Now’s your chance to buzz on - down to black gold country for the first annual Great Texas Mosquito Festival.

Scheduled events include a Mosquito Look-Alike Contest, a Miss Squito Beauty Pageant and a competition for designing mosquito-killing-boxes like the kind those suckers in the Off! television commercial stick their forearms into.

Why? Well, why not? Chairwoman Shirley Busbice explains it this way: “We have no greatbeaches or waterfront property to attract boat people, but we do have a lot of mosquitos!”

Too bad, because boat people are much easier to swat.

Rick Johnson

Schwartz became Canada’s first “contract writer” for ATV Publishing when they opened Toronto offices, and scored cuts with acts like Rachel Sweet, Eddie Money, Greg Lake and Mickey Thomas. His second album (the first was released only in Canada) strikes that rare compromise between the solid craftsmanship that reveals a truly talented writer and singer (with a vague resemblence to Eddie Money) and the commercial qualities so beloved pit AOR radio. It’s respectably good and successful.

Why? “I grew up With these kinds of songs, so I don’t have to force myself to write them. I grew up when there was only AM radio, and you’d hear everything from Bobby Vinton to Cream. There was no AOR, Top 40, A/C...you’d hear the Shirelles one song, the Beatles the next. Now that’s all fractured into a million stations and formats and categories, none of which I seem to be able to recognize—I haven’t seemed to be able to catch on. The categories keep changing every one or two months, anyway, so I’m not sure there’s anything to catch on to...other than radio programmers sticking their finger into the wind continually to see which way it’s blowing and jump in that direction, although that’s their job, I suppose. I like it all, I guess, except for that real MOR stuff and extreme cases like Ozzy Osbourne.”

We chat for a while more about Eddie’s dual roots in Toronto and Brooklyn, and his cynical view of L.A. after a few sojourns there. It’s the usual rock star-rock crit gab, but with a most pleasant sense of actual conversation. So after 45 minutes, who the hell did I find Eddie Schwartz to be? Well, I guess he’s a regular guy like you and me, who hit them with his best shot...

Rob Patterson

BABY, YOU CAN DRIVE MY CAR! I

In light of tho recent economic crunch which has hit the record industry especially hard, numerous recording stars have been "moonlighting' for additional cash, working as waitresses, taxi cab drivers and. gas station attendants. Two of New York's most recent additions to the cabbie ranks include Carly "Hot Ups" Simon and Paul "Ram On" McCartney. "I'm making more tips than Nancy Suiter did in that movie,” said Macca. "If you're looking for a hot time, I can show you where to find it—call girls on Times Square, femme fatales on 96th and Riverside—this city's swarming with 'em I" And with that, Paul switched on his meter, sang a verse of "Coming Up," and drove into the Manhattan sunset.