Manowar... Just "Because"

Manowar... Just "Because"

THE BEAT GOES ON

DETROIT—Bad news, Metal fans and cryds: things are turning ugly. Mean, rotten, and —in general—no good. I'm deadly serious about this, so pay attention.

Meet Manowar, pictured somewhere on this page. Now, of course any band that goes around calling themselves Manowar is Metal. The question is: how Metal are they?

•Manowar are so Metal that they have a song called "Metal Daze," which features the lyric "HEV-vy MET-al!" all over the place. This is in case you goof and put on an Echo & The Bunny men LP in a tragedy of mistaken identity.

•Manowar are so Metal that their singer, Eric Adams, has a four-octave range and their drummer, Donnie Hamzik, is reportedly "obsessed with drumming, success, and money." Drumming?

•Manowar are so Metal that they're very bitter and don't mind telling you so.

•Manowar are so Metal that they say they don't mind telling you so.

•Manowar are so Metal that they say they don't take any kind of drugs, including alcohol!

•Manowar are so Metal that the title track of their debut LP, Battle Hymns, center around the charming sentiment herein rendered phoenetically: "KILL! KILL! AHH, AHH, AHH, AHH! KEEL! KEELLLU

Whew. That's pretty Metal, § alright. Now for the good news: s they're not kidding and—here's S the incredible bonus, you lucky consumer, you—they don't think there's anything funny about this whole thing at all! Keep it in mind: that was k-i-double-1, OK?

This is gonna get weirder as we progress, so stick around. We'll meet Orson Welles, a stack of Marshalls (try to keep 'em straight), and perhaps understand why Handsome Dick Manitoba is happily driving a cab in NYC. First, let's have a word from Ross the Boss, Manowar's guitarist. (Readers will recall that R.t.B. became somewhat legendary in the Dictators and later served time in a band called Shakin' Street.)

"We're gonna bring back something that was great and is not around anymore," he told me. Dammit, that sounds intriguing. What could it be? Slavery? Cut-out Standells' albums? Over-the-counter morphine??

"We have a special effect that nobody's used in years," explained bassist Joey DeMaio. "Actually playing the instrument." Ha ha ha. Why has no one thought of this before?

"It's the biggest special effect," added Mr. the Boss. "Through the '70s, these bands couldn't get less and less gear (i.e,, equipment). As soon as the new wave hit, it was—less and less gear, man. Like, minimal." That's less and less gear, in case you missed it. You know..."not as much." Manowar, on the other hand, have "lots and lots" of gear, somewhere around a hundred grand's worth.

Well, something is happening here, that's for sure...unless every four guys in the wrold carry around actual Viking-type short swords (about $400 apiece from your local s.s. store), get Orson Welles to narrate a tune on their LP ("Dark Avenger" in case you're near a request line), remind you every three sentences that they don't care about any other band in the world, and—you got it!—do it with a straight face.

To further muddle the story, DeMaio is pretty much a virtuoso on the bass guitar, probably in a league with Ross-the. Onstage, they use (and I mean use) 500% more Marshalls than I've ever seen, to the point where you can't hear Ross on Joey's side and vice versa. What's more, you don't care. Or, if you do, I'd sure like to know why.

It it noise or is it METAL!?? Take it, Joey.

"We feel that heavy metal's been put in a category all its own. In other words, anybody that considers themselves an intellectual feels that it's not educated music."

"Not at all," I poo-poohed. "As an intellectual, I think heavy metal is extremely interesting music." Jesus, no wonder I drink so much.

"We consider this to be the most innovative heavy metal that's ever happened," Joey continued. Were we playing Top That Lie? Read on!

"This is the most 'musical' heavy metal that's ever happened," DeMaio said, attempting to clarify his very interesting opinion. "It's partly because of (Ross and Joey being excellent players), it's partly because our singer doesn't have to scream. He can follow anything we can play on our instruments and that allows us great musical freedom.

Well, whatja gonna do with all this here freedom? Back to you, Boss.

"The thing is: we're not trying to put over an intellectual message, we're not trying to put over a joke—it's not anything like that. It's just a serious musician's band, playing the kind of music we want to play. If people can dig it, great! If they can't—get fucked!

"I don't care. I'll tell you what we're not gonna do. We're not gonna make a total fucking compromise album like Manifest Destiny. We're not gonna make a kiss-ass Manifest Destiny. "

(Odd choice of words, perhaps. Manowar is handled by Aucoin Management, who brought you Kiss. Manifest Destiny, of course, is a Dictators' album that had nothing to do with any part of Kiss' collective anatomies. You may have noticed that Manowar hates the Dictators, by the way. Joey told me that Rosseroo was the only legit musician in the bunch and that they used him like a whore.)

Nugent Beats MeatRelated Injuries

JACKSON, MI—Rock 'n' roll's favorite infrahuman, cartoon caveman Ted Nugent, was hospitalized here recently after he took a header into a tree when his Ford Bronco snapped an axle. Reportedly terribobble Ted was spending a pleasant summer afternoon running down chipmunks for sport when the accident occured. Things looked touch & go for the beloved throwback briefly, as the hospital didn't have any of Nugent's rare 30.06-negative blood on hand, but a vulture who had flown into nearby Portage for the World Carnivore Freestyle Pro-Am Championship games, heard about Nugent's plight on a local TV broadcast, and rushed to the rugged woodsman's bedside to donate enough pints to bring the red-meat glow back to Terrific Theo's cheeks. In the meantime, there were unconfirmed reports that the Detroit Free Press had received a call from a "Rabbit Liberation Front" spokesrodent, who claimed responsibility for Nugent's crash, and who promised further vengeance in defending small, furry animals' right to self-determination. Nugent is reportedly sleeping with a loaded bow & arrow beside his pillow from now on.

Richard Riegel

"We're gonna give it our all," Ross vowed. "If I see squares like that Halloween Outfit (i.e., Iron Maiden) doing good.. .1 see people with half the talent getting by...we're gonna plug just like they did. And we're gonna get by, too."

"What about the squares that make money, Ross?"

"Good! Let 'em make money! I'm gonna make money, too. I know it. But when it happens to me, it's gonna be bigger...believe me, the pot of gold is gonna be a lot bigger."

"What about the ones that have sold you down the river? That have ripped you off?"

"They're gonna die! (author's note-, artistically.) They're dying now—they're nothing! The people don't know who they are. They don't know! They don't know! The people who buy the records, the people who love the band, who loved me in the past—they know who lam."

And now you do, too. Plus you know all about Manowar and Metal and the reason life around us changes so quickly. Wrap it up for me, will you, Joey?

"We make a stand—this is the final stand. Manowar is it for us, for Ross and myself. It's the final stand.' There is nothing else. We'll be victorious or we'll die.. .that's all that awaits us."

Remember: that's HEV-vy MET-al.

J. Kordosh

Hold The Fries!

RALEIGH, NC—Throw away all your clocks—now you can use potatoes to tell the time.

Auto mechanic Bill Borst has invented a clock that runs by using the popular tuber as a battery. The acid in the spud reacts with his clock's metal terminals, generating an electrical current that makes with the tick-tock.

The Tatertime clock—cute name, doncha think?—should be available by Xmas and carries a price tag of $25.95. Oh yeah—batteries not included.

Rick Johnson

Don't Axe Me...

ANAHEIM, CA-Forget Bette Davis Eyes. Axe have got a song about porn actress Jennifer Welles'...well we won't go into that. It's a touching little ditty for a heavy metal band. "We did a Ted Nugent tour and in our bus we had two movies—The Lone Ranger and Inside Jennifer Welles," drummer Teddy Mueller's eyes mist at the memory, and the jukebox in the background grinds out some plaintive country tune. "Inside Jennifer Welles got much more play. And when we got done with that tour, we said we're going to write a song, a kind of pop song, about Jennifer, because we all wanted to be with her." Bobby Barth, guitarist and lead singer, nods tenderly. "We figured it's the only way we'd ever get to meet her, if she heard the song."

So if you're out there Jennifer, there's two guys propping up a bar in Anaheim with only a bottle or two for company, waiting for you to drop by. You blew your chances at seeing them on the Ozzy tour, but they're about to go out with Cheap Trick and do a whole bunch of headlining dates in little dives like this one. Your name's on the backstage door every night.

Axe deserve a break. Why? They've got great names like Dangler, Raw Meat, Mad Dog and the like. Half of them like ZZ Top a lot. The other half worship ZZ Top. They're personal friends of Blackfoot. They used to be on wimpo-politico Mike Curb's label and lost him money. They wear good stuff like leather. "Well, whenever we go into restaurants, people think we're bikers and leave." Bobby waves his bottle in the air like an imaginary guitar solo.

"It's tough. It's Midwestern. To me some of the greatest rock 'n' roll that ever came out of the United States came out of Detroit and the Midwest." Some people will say anything to get in CREEM. "And that," says Bobby, "is the kind of roots we have." They actually sprung up from places like Milwaukee and Colorado. Junior Axemen Bobby, Teddy and Michael Osbourne (rhythm guitar), Wayne Haner (bass) and Edgar Riley Jr. (keyboards) sat around dreaming of perfectlyfilled C-cups till one day they separately but simultaneously discovered rock 'n' roll. They picked up guitars and other suitable instruments, listened to the Young Rascals and grew their hair. They listened to ZZ Top and grew their beards. They listened to Kiss and wore make-up. They left home and broke their mothers' hearts.

5 Years Ago

Whatchmacallit Bines!

Boys will be boys: Mick Jagger confessing about some prepubescent pandering with his childhood chums: "When I was 13 all I desperately wanted to do was have sex." And how did he quench his raging lust? "With boys at school. I think that's true of almost every boy."

"Remember," Teddy prompts me, "when you were a kid and it's summertime and you're out of school and you had all this energy and you had to do something? And you had to get together with your friends, forget about your parents and have a good time? Well that's kind of where this album originated from." (This album is Offering, their third album and first for Atlantic.)

"I remember the frustration of being 15, 16, wanting to get laid, wanting to get high, wanting to do something," adds Bobby, "but there's nothing to do. You're just going crazy, sitting on the porch going absolutely out of your mind... 'Bum The City Down' is what I felt like doing and 'Silent Soldiers' is what I did—I just sat down and was pissed off. It's got to be the same everywhere in the world."

Axe itself didn't start till 1978, but they were all up to plenty of things before that. Bobby was in cover bands at 13, out on the road at 15, doing the Colorado club scene with Michael Osbourne, gigging in bands like Canary and Wakefield. Ted got involved in a blues-rock band called Tongue, and on his travels shared some—uh—licks with Bobby who was then in a band called, don't giggle, Baby Face, with keyboardist Edgar. Eventually, Bobby and Edgar went to L.A. as everyone else in the band did at various times, "to try and get something together. All of us failed miserably." So they tried that other rock 'n' roll capital of America, Wisconsin, where Bobby got on the phone and reached out and touched the others in their various localities in the Midwest "and three weeks later we were together." Not in Wisconsin; their new base was going to be Florida. The choice was L.A., New York, Florida or Canada. New York and L.A. were too dear and Canada—well, they weren't that daft. "We figured we'd go to Florida because it stays warm most of the time, there's not a lot to do, we could rehearse a lot..."

In fact everything was going fine till a tornado hit the warehouse they rehearsed and stored all their gear in.

"It was a shambles," sighs Teddy. "One hundred mile an hour winds—everything was smashed, everything was gone."

"And for travelling musicians who've been on the circuit a long time, that's all you have," Bobby adds. "We even made the national news with it. We were dazed, it was like we were all loaded on heroin, and we're standing there looking at all this stuff and there's all these people taking pictures of us."

They played the clubs. They played the biker bars. Like good firemen they didn't go 'round lighting any fires, but they did put themselves out. They went to New York on their next set of travels through the States, renting a rehearsal hall and inviting down all the record companies, "We played three sets a day for three days to see it we could get it happening." They were quickly picked up by a subsidiary of MCA owned by would-be California guv Mike Curb. They made two LPs. The LPs made nothing.

CLOSE YOUR EYES AND DON'T SWALLOW

"I'm sucking os hard as I can," Kisser Paul Stanley slobbars to current fumble queen Donna Dixon, "but I still say it tastes like a cushioned insole to me." Slurping Donna's cheekbone has become quite the ram in L.A. ever since the Bosom Buddies episode about the herring. Panda tasters, cod fishermen and ever bewildered Kabukl dancers have been trying to guess her flavor. Cruel rubber, Spam custard and cat urethra are among the more inspired tries so far. "Besides," the suction-lipped guitarist drooled, "t like it a lot better when you used to let me floss your nose."

"We didn't feel it sounded like the band—too pop. Not that I don't like pop but this band's not really a pop band. If you see this band live, they're a heavy band—more raw meat. There's more blood and guts live than on record. The records have a tendency to be more pop, but, these were extremely so. So we were having a hard time. We went back to Florida and actually broke up for eight months.

"And I'm sitting at home one night, and at about four in the morning I get a phone call from Atlantic," says Bobby. "They heard some tapes we had done just before we broke up, and wanted to sign us. So I called everybody up and said hey, let's get this thing together."

Which is what they did. Offering, the new plastic produced by their new manager A1 Nalli of Blackfoot fame is the result, a far superior album to the MCA stuff. Since then they've been touring—arenas with Ozzy Osbourne, and on days off slogging the clubs. "We'll just pound the hell out of it. How else are you going to get in front of people?" The only problems so far have been adapting as arena show—this band thinks big—to a doormatsized stage. "We're always chipping teeth and knocking guitars out of each other's hands because everybody likes to move and on these tiny stages there's no place to move to. But I love it," says Bobby. "We live for it," says Ted.

"Come and see Axe and you'll have a lot of fun. A lot of drinking, hell-raising, sex drugs and rock 'n' roll. And girls," says Teddy, "always get in free to see us."

Uh, what do you guys ultimately want to get out of this band?

"I'll do it until I die—you know I can't imagine selling insurance or anything. We just love to rock," says Bobby.

Do you want to be a musician's musician or have girls in spandex scream at you?

"A little of all of that I guess," reckons Bobby. "Probably a little more girls yelling," adds Teddy. Jennifer, where are you when they need you?

Sylvie Simmons

Meet Bananarama —Three Fnn Girls With A-Peel

NEW YORK-Bad puns by silly reporters should have been the worst problem the tempting British trio called Bananarama faced during their first trip to America. Instead, sprawled in a melange of tropical colored clothing (they'd just done a photo session for Mademoiselle) in a Polygram conference room, the girls recovered from shell shock.

Seems that Bananarama, who readily admit to a love for wacky dancing that kept them going during the years they lived in a no-water flat, promoted their first English single, "Aie A Mwana" by popping up unannounced in British discos and miming to the. song. Audiences loved it, the girls had a good time and maybe they got a free lager out of the deal.

Unfortunately, given the exuberant beauty of the group and America's tendency to excess for a fast buck, the lipsynch sessions suddenly turned into widely advertised "special guest appearances" at three major New York clubs. A thousand people parted with $5 and piled into Danceteria on a Wednesday night, only to boo very loudly as the trio valiantly mimed through three songs, the horror of such an awful reception resonating on their faces.

"We had no idea at all we were billed as appearing," declared forthright Sarah Dallin, as teammates Keren Woodward and Siobhan Fahey angrily concurred. "What makes me mad is the audience obviously thought we were swindling them; and I don't blame them. I'm sure if I'd been in the crowd, I'd have been annoyed as well."

After that initial disaster, Bananarama changed the rules of the game, putting themselves in charge. The other two clubs were told to make clear that the group's appearance was purely promotional, and to offer rainchecks for any disgruntled customers. Although the average age of Bananarama is early 20's, and they have yet to release their first album or form a permanent backing band, the girls have fielded enough instances of ostracism and cattiness to understand the need for self-preservation.

They find it hilarious that their voluminously teased hairdos and casually cut bright styles (which they now design) have quickly run a gamut from "threatening" to "glamorous." Siobhan and Sarah, dreams of fashion journalism in their heads, confronted the establishment at college, while Keren worked around the corner in an unclassy department of the B.B.C. "Honest to God," insisted Siobhan, "us two were the only modern girls in class, so we gravitated to each other.

"At college, we were total outcasts—none of the teachers would talk to us. We looked just like we do now. Although... Sarah's hair was particularly wild." Everyone breaks into hysterical giggles. "Each Saturday, when we went out, we'd sit and wait around while she'd go, 'my hair's not high enough!' and it was sticking straight up and out. We used to see people nudging each other and snickering away."

"And I still thought it was too flat," says Sarah, giving her slightly more controlled tresses a vigorous poke.

Funny how the release of "Aie A Mwana," a snappy cover version sung in Swahili, of a mid-1970's British disco hit, turned the gapers into praisers. "Junior executive material," the straightlaced London Dai/y Mail glowingly categorized the trio. "Because we're performers now, we're allowed to dress like this. Because we're all well-educated, intelligent girls," an attitude that always comes as a surprise when it must be applied to people in the pop world, particularly attractive blondes.

That first single only got to #92 in the British charts—not bad for an independent release, say the girls—but if did bring them an invitation to record with Fun Boy Three, the Specials' offshoot who've continued the phenomenal chart success of their parent band. Bananarama's appearance on "It Ain't What You Do," singlehandedly earned them national prominence, including a shot on Top Of The Pops.

"It would have taken a lot longer had we not met Fun Boy Three," says Siobhan, "because they were famous, so it Ain't What You Do' was guaranteed to get airplay on British radio. And we knew that. But if we'd never met them, I'm sure we'd be successful by now in Britain." Certainly, the strength of their most recent U.K. single, "Shy Boy," a 1980's treatment of the classic Motown beat, would not have let them remain anonymous. Says Sarah, "I think that our producers, Tony Swain and Steve Jolley, wrote that visualizing us as a modern-day Supremes, but it's not a Consious attempt on our part to be like those Tamla girl groups. In fact, we wrote the 'B' side and a lot of people prefer it.

"There are musicians who can't take our success, especially the ones whose records aren't selling anymore — because we don't play instruments. But we have ambitions that have yet to be realized: all three of us would love to have a television show like The Monkees or do a musical like Grease. But for now, we take life as it comes," trying their best not to skid on discarded fruit.

Toby Goldstein