GOING TO A GO-GO WITH THE GO-GO'S: & THE BEAT GOES ON!

GOING TO A GO-GO WITH THE GO-GO'S: & THE BEAT GOES ON!

Sylvie Simmons

The Go-Go’s are Gina Schock, Kathy Valentine, Jane Wiedlin, Charlotte Caffey and Belinda Carlisle. Kathy comes from Texas, Gina comes from Baltimore but as far as we’re concerned they’re an L.A. band. The Dickies called them “Girl Beatles,” they called themselves the Misfits, and in May of ’78, when this whole thing began, they settled on the Go-Go’s. A good name for a group of choreographed happy pills.

The Go-Go’s like B-movies, Bobby DeNiro, margaritas, rockabilly, reggae, beer, the Hollywood cemetery and boys. Among the boys they like are Lennon and McCartney, Jims Page and Morrison, ZZ Top and Otis Redding. They’ll make an exception for Aretha and the Shangri-Las. Their patron saint is St. Dymthna, Guardian of the Mentally Disturbed, who died a lovely virgin after Dad chopped her head off for refusing to have sex with him.

The Go-Go’s are fine by me.

Their earliest ambition was to “spit at Valley girls.” Their next ambition was to “learn to play our instruments.” After that it was “getting a record company interested.” Now their ambition is “to progress, put out records and keep the band together and everybody being friends, which we still are, and try to be successful in what we’re doing.” Fair enough. It’s not nice to spit from a great height. And a great height is what it is. The Go-Go’s are not only the first all-girl group to make it to the top of the charts; they’re the on/y girl group to have gotten into the top 100.

In the two and a bit years that have passed between my interviews with them, the Go-Go’s have had a platinum album, been hailed as “wonderful” by the Damned, been chased down the street by Bruce Springsteen, had a song of theirs covered by the Ventures, been told they “were liked” by the Stones. For all 1 know Robert DeNiro goes to their parties! Their last album Beauty And The Beat was selling over 100,000 copies a week. Their latest single “Vacation”’s going out as a “cassingle” to nab the beachgoing walkman market. Joggers too—“We’ve Got The Beat" is covered on the Runners Work-Out album, a “moderate jog” in between Rod Stewart and Dire Straits. They’ve toured with Madness. They’ve opened for the Stones. They’ve wowed them in the Orient, only need to say the word and they’d be bombarded with Japanese gloupies. In two years I barely manage to wash my car. In two years St. Dymthna didn’t manage to get laid. In two years the Go-Go’s have gone from being third best Los Angeles band in Music Connection’s poll of local band members (X, the Falcons, Motels and Code Blue were among their champions) to Shock of the Month in the New York Rocker for becoming “an alarmingly good real band as opposed to an all-girl band” to the “new filthy rich rock-goddesses" as they called themselves when their record got to number one.

"We knew we weren't any good, but we knew we'd get better. -Belinda Carlisle"

“Well, we just laugh about it." Gina Schock, drummer, the one whose accent I’d give anything to have, indeed laughs. “We can’t believe it. It’s kind of funny don’t you think? Remember talking to you two years ago, right?” Yeah, you were saying how when everybody learned to play their instruments, maybe you’d get to headline the Whisky.

"Right. It’s happened pretty quickly. We’ve been working at it for years, but as far as us getting as popular as we have as quickly as we have, it really only took the band a year to be a number one band, with the album being out and everything. We don’t really think about it that much. Ninety percent of the time we’re too busy, and I don’t think it’s a good thing to dwell on it too much anyway, or maybe it’ll make you act a little weird if you know what I mean. We’re really happy and proud to be as successful in the past year. We’re just real thankful for it. And we don’t believe it!”

One of the few all-girl groups from Los Angeles who managed to escape Kim Fowley’s clutches, they didn’t get together as a grand gesture on behalf of girl rock ’n’ rollers, although their earliest songs were “angry”. They didn’t get together to revive the early girl-group sounds, although they covered “Walking In The Sand.” They didn’t get together because most of their boyfriends back then told them a woman’s place is in the crowd gazing adoringly at a well-lit bulging crotch. “We never thought in those men-and-women type terms— though a lot of the boys were musical snobs and there wasn’t an all-girl band on the West Coast or in the States.”

“At first it was like a real fun thing to do,” says Belinda, lead vocalist with the movieidol curves and impish face. “It still is. It’s just something I wanted to do. I didn’t think it would last as long as it did and improve as much as it did, but I thought we were the greatest thing that happened when we first started. Listening to how we used to be, it was really hideous. But we had lots of friends supporting us and pulling us along. I didn’t know what would happen...”

"I don't feel there's any competition in this band. --Charlotte Caffey"

“That was a long time ago when I decided I wanted to be in a band,” says Charlotte, blonde guitarist, the oldest member of the band. “I love it and it’s the only thing I can feel right doing. It was all 1 ever wanted to do, so why not do it? I had to have a day job then to sustain myself, and having a day job I realized every day how much I’d rather do music. It was so boring and hideous, and the people there so mundane and stupid. I was completely different from them; it was really weird.”

Gina: “Basically I’m a misfit. That’s all I did and it’s all I’ve ever been interested in. I could never do a nine to five, ever. Going back to what I did before is a fate worse than death. I used to go to the civic center and see groups all the time, and I used to watch Bobby Darin on TV and sing and stuff. And then I just got a set of drums and that was it.”

Kathy, formerly one of two women fronting a less successful L.A. band, the Textones, the last to join the Go-Go’s: “I always dreamed of being in the first-ever all-girl rock band.”

Jane, tiny pixieish guitar player: “I think the reason I ended up getting in this band is because everyone we knew and everyone we hung out with were in bands and they weren’t any good—we all knew they weren’t great musicians—and so we figured, if they could do it, why couldn’t we? I was always that sure that we were the greatest thing. I had so much confidence in this band, it amazes me. And it’s funny that the better we got, the less confidence I began to have because 1 realized how far we had to go. In the beginning—you know, the odds are so much against us. And if I’d thought about it then, I think I never would have done it. I just plunged in with the attitude that I’m going to do this and I’m going to do it well.”

THE GO-GO'S

These happy, go-lucky girls seemed to pop out of nowhere with "We Got The Beat" and "Our Lips Are Sealed," remarkably taking their debut LP to the number one spot in America.

CREEM CLOSE-UP

WOMEN IN ROCK

The thing that pulled them all together was the Masque, a tiny, sleazy little pit under the Pussycat Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard. In ’78 it was the only place for bands like this one to play.

One block from the Masque was The Canterbury, “the worst apartment building in Hollywood.” That’s where Jane and Belinda lived, for $150 a month, and where they met Chilean would-be bass player Margot Olavera, who together formed the original Go-Go’s.

“When the L.A. punk scene started, there were maybe about 50 punks altogether and they all lived in this building, and it was full of pimps and prostitutes and cockroaches and all the undesirables.”

“And the punks,” says Jane.

“It was the only place they would let you into,” says Belinda. “When all this was going on—God, it was awful! We were real freaks then! We would get assaulted and harrassed constantly. It was hard to find a place where they would let you in.” Back then Belinda had short spiky hair of various hues and wore fetching day-glo thrift-shop minis and Jane was called Jane Drano. “The whole punk scene was like in this tiny little area.”

The girls couldn’t miss bumping into each other, and small-talk eventually gave way to a band. At that time Belinda was the most experienced, having spent some time as a Blackette in one of L.A.’s least jerk-off bands of the time, Black Randy and the Metrosquad. “I was a back-up singer. It was real camp but a lot of fun. We got to dress in Dolly Parton wigs and stuff and sing ‘I’m Black And I’m Proud.’ ” Jane had been in a church band at 13, but when the group began had never picked up a guitar in her life. Margot wasn’t doing much better. They looked around for someone who could play and happened upon Charlotte Caffey backstage at a Jam gig at the Starwood club. Charlotte had been in a couple of bands, like Manuel & The Gardeners, and the Eyes, the group that was opening that evening. They asked her to join. OK, said Charlotte. They rehearsed four times and did their first gig opening for the Dickies at the Masque in May of ’78. They played three songs, two of them the same. “We only knew one and a half songs really.”

"Basically, I'm a misfit. —Gina Schock"

They learned to play as they went along, in public. Being all girls, “there was less ridicule between band members,” says Jane. Because we were all like beginners.”

Playing with guys in the band would be “much tougher.” The ones who’d done it reckoned it was “disastrous—they were always yelling and had no patience. It was his big male musician ego...”

“1 don’t feel there’s any competition in this band,” says Charlotte.

“We don’t fight over guys or anything,” says Gina. “All we fight over sometimes is the music, and if someone acts like an asshole and we get pissed off with each other. It’s kind of like sisters or family; something might happen but we know it’s going to blow over. It’s always a team effort. We still get silly when we get together, you know, after all these years we’re still like a bunch of kids. We still really get along.”

Gina joined a year later. A Led Zeppelin and ZZ Top fanatic—“I still like ZZ Top, I don’t care what anyone says”—her first band was “all guys and me—boy was it a good band" called Scratch and Sniff. A job as drummer with Edie and the Eggs— fronted by the ravishing Edith Massey, best known as the Egg Lady in Baltimore boy John Waters’ Pink Flamingos, a good film even though DeNiro wasn’t in it—brought her over to the West Coast where she met the Go-Go’s. Elissa, the original drummer and Mercedes driver, was out; Gina was in. The band went on. "We knew we weren’t any good,” says Belinda, “but we knew we’d get better.”

They did. First time I saw them it was their look that got me—great clothes, a kind of happy little scrap-bag tossed together and leaping round the stage—and their songs—nifty little melodies, not the punk hate stuff but not the dippy new wave love stuff either; when they sang about love it was in terms I could understand like “Skidmarks On My Heart,” about a girl whose boy is more interested in his car than romance, and “Johnny Are You Queer,” about a girl whose boy seems more interested in boys than cars, you get the idea. As for musicianship, it would drive Asia screaming into the hills but was adequate enough at the time. Then gradually, seeing them again and again, the look had cemented—it was just as crazy, just as distinctive, but now they looked like little Adam Ant pastries or ’40s Barbie dolls or something; and their sound was getting tighter, fuller. If you wanted to go to a club to dance, you’d check out one where the Go’Go’s were playing. After playing one L.A. club date with another band that knows a bit about dancing and togs, the headliners—Madness—offered to take them on their British tour. While in London they cut their first single, “We Got The Beat,” a one-off for Stiff. It got some airplay in their hometown as an import, and even grazed the disco charts, but the American record companies weren’t exactly sitting around like the proverbial dung beetles waiting for them to break wind. They’d had enough of “local” bands by then. The Go-Go’s were nice enough, they said, but “uncommercial.” Who’s that guy who said the Beatles would never make it? Anyway, IRS, a far more imaginative label than most in this city, took them on.

It wasn’t long after that their manager, a graphics artist attractive enough to be a Go-Go herself, started gently whipping them into shape. She’d already pawned her jewelry so she could offer the girls 50 buclU apiece if they’d lose a bit of weight. She’d already sent imaginative presskits out to anybody who was interested. It wasn’t long after that the band itself had amassed a huge following—not the least among little boys creaming in the front rows of clubs, buying the tickets up days in advance. And it wasn’t long after that Margot Olavera had been fired to make way for Kathy Valentine (who’d lived in England for a while and joined an early line-up Girlschool before coming back to the Textones in L.A.), a good bass player—and probably more important—a good songwriter.

The band was handed Richard Gottehrer—the man who co-wrote “My Boy-

friend’s Back,” a classic, and worked with early Blondie—as producer and told to get on with it.

“We were pretty scared,” says Gina, “because it was our first experience; and we didn’t know Richard well and it took him a while to warm up to us. He’s a pleasure to work with, you know, he’s a really talented man and a good musician and just a pleasant person to work with.”

Anyway to cut the story short, it was a hit. AM liked it, FM liked it, the kids who came to see them tour with the Police liked it. “1 remember when the album went over a million, we were touring with the Police in Atlanta. All the boys in the band came back and congratulated us and bought us champagne and everything. They were truly honestly happy that we had done well. 1 thought that was awfully sweet,” says Gina. All-male bands have generally had that attitude to them all along, they reckon. “Initially it might have been easier for us to get gigs because we were an allgirl band and they were curious. But I don’t think it was because they wanted to get down our pants or anything.” There was never any casting-couch-type bookings, they reckon because “we’re not the normal standard pretty ‘glamour girls.’ We’re all, I I think, unique looking. We’re not out there | trying to be sexy and using that as any basis j for making it. We don’t have to, I think,

' because our sbngs are strong enough by themselves.”

There’s still places here and there, though, where people have looked at them, all togged up and giggling, and pouring out of a hotel elevator, and reckoned they must be groupies. Not everywhere in the continental U.S. is used to the idea of all-girl bands.

“Actually, when you go to places like Beef(?), Montana or something like that, that probably will still happen, and the smaller towns in the Midwest where they don’t keep up with what’s happening comparatively speaking to the East and West Coasts,” says Gina, “I imagine they’re always a bit behind in things like that, so naturally they get shocked when they see a bunch of girls dressed up. They can’t imagine that we’re actually musicians, I guess. But I don’t think we’ll run into that too much more.

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CONTINUED FROM PAGE 37

As for the Go-Go’s, after a show they go back to their hotel rooms and watch TV and phone their boyfriends; male groupies haven’t quite sussed out how to act yet.

“I think,” says Gina, “they’re really intimidated because the roles are totally reversed. They’re always like sweet and nice and shy and they’re just like a fan— the perfect fan. They might ask you for an autograph, but they’re always at a loss for words most of the time. And we just stand around, and I think with us girls packed together, probably as a whole it intimidates them even more. It’s kind of funny. It kills me! It’s really cool. We all get a big kick out of it!” Advance warning to potential male companions out there: the Go-Go’s head on a 40-date U.S. tour shortly to promote the new album, Vacation.

“We felt more comfortable in the studio this time around,” reckons Gina. “I mean, we weren’t pros or anything, but we knew what we had to do, and we were more comfortable with Richard. We used a different engineer—he’s been around; he’s worked with John Lennon, Springsteen — and 1 think between him and Richard we’re going to get the exact sound we’re looking for. You know, the drum sounding really great, and we especially want to work on the guitar sound. We weren’t that pleased with the guitar sound on the first album— we thought it was a bit thin and we wanted to give it a more rounded-out sound. What we also did on this second album, we have a synthesizer on most of the songs. It’s in the background, not that prominent or anything, but it makes the sound fuller. On this tour Belinda and Charlotte will probably be playing keyboards on two or three songs.

“I think the first album had like the polished sound of the Go-Go’s. I think this second album is even more what we sound like—a progression, you know. 1 personally feel the second album far surpasses the first as far as musicianship and songs go.

“I hate to say this, but if this album wasn’t as successful as the first, I swear I don’t think anybody in the band would be too upset, because everybody honestly feels that it’s a great album. Everybody knows this is our best effort, this is the best we can do at this time. I think it’s great. I hope the public likes it, because we’re really stoked about this album.”

The band are putting their feet up for a few weeks before taking off. Gina’s going back home to Baltimore for a while. “It keeps me sane. I’m going to fly back on World Airways just like the old days and drive back cross-country. I need a dose of this. I’ve always got to go back and see how it really is, really rough it for a change.” There’s a bunch of Polish relatives back there who roll out the red carpet, treat her as a bigger local star than John Waters! “I wish I could get a tape recording of them so you could hear everything they say, my Polish aunts and uncles. They’re funny. They think I’m a real stair! ‘Oh hon, we saw you on TV and oh you looked so pretty and your Mom’s so proud of you and your grandmother loves you...”’

So do they like being stars? Isn’t there anything they miss about the old days, the punk clubs and the little boys grabbing for them in the front rows of the clubs?

“Sometimes I miss some things. It’s sort of like getting out of high school in a way. When you were in high school you hated it and you thought, ‘oh man, this is so tough,

I can’t stand another day of it.’ When you got out, you really appreciated it. I feel like that about the band.

“Struggling’s always tough at the time, but when you look back on it it’s always like the coolest days of your life. It’s good to reflect and look back on things like that and how difficult it was.

“If I start to feel that this is all getting to be a bit much, I think about the old days and about how much I always wanted this band to be a success. And now it is.

“I do miss playing at the Whisky—playing small places. They’re always so much more personal, that special kind of feeling that you get. But I don’t mind playing arenas. It was great opening for the Stones— we were scared to death though; it was like a dream come true, playing with the Stones! They were so nice, real friendly, even down to the road crew. They gave us a soundcheck—the Stones don’t even do a soundcheck. And Mick Jagger talked to us for a while and wished us good luck and said he’d come and watch the show from the sides and everything.

“Then oddly enough—here’s something really weird—they had all these posters made up for us at the concert and they said ‘Going to a Go-Go with the Go-Go’s. And then a couple of months later, the Stones are doing ‘Going To A Go-Go.’ I’m not saying they directly did it because of us, but I’ll always wonder about that, because these posters were huge. I saved one.”

Success can’t be so bad if it means having the Stones rip you off.

“Right. We heard that, we all sort of looked at each other and laughed and went'hmm, isn’t that neat.’ It is neat, don’t you think?”