THE BEAT GOES ON

THE BEAT GOES ON

The Killing Joke Goes On (Forever)

NEW YORK—During the summer of ’81, I wrote a review of London band Killing Joke’s second album What’s This For...! for the Village Voice; in it I described the killing joke ideology as exploitative nonsense, and Killing Joke’s music as an ugly, overwhelming, heavy metal-disco fusion that might be the first real advance in HM since the Stooges. Ex-Jem Records publicist Rhonda Shore told me of their reaction: the band tore the article into little pieces, burned it, and suggested I never chance to meet them on the back streets.

Compounded by stories of Killing Joke beating the shit out of journalists they object to, it was with some trepidation that I agreed to put my hungover head in the lion’s den, even for CREEM. With current Jem publicist Ben Liemer convinced I wouldn’t be the slightest upset if he joined the interview, I met head KJ Jaz Coleman and guitarist Geordie (introducing himself with a shout of “fucking rubbish” from the bedroom of their hotel quarters, after one of Jaz’s more blatant twistings of the truth), for yet another seminar on the sound and vision of man against nature and the power of the will.

To be honest, I purely accidentally (yeah, right) forgot to mention the Voice story. And possibly because of that, there was little * friction during our encounter. Jaz is loquacious, speaking with an intense certainty that brooks no disagreement (“if you consider us just a rock band, we can stop right now,” “you either get the killing joke or you don’t”), and with no compassion. He dismisses everything he disagrees with; all “pop” music, homosexuals, the tragedy of armed conflict (“it is necessary for man’s evolution back to nature”), Irish people (especially NME writer Gavin Martin, a “small, obnoxious, patriotic Irish wanker”), most people. In Jaz’s world you either work with the nature of existence or you work against it. And if that sounds familiar, perhaps it’s enough to mention that he studied the Bible for 13 years, and first sang as an altar boy in the Church choir.

Today, Jaz hates the Christ-, ian religion with the passion he usually reserves for patriotism; both are “the last refuge of a scoundrel.” However, there is a religious atmosphere to the killing joke theory: “Killing Joke are primeval music, that’s exactly what we’re aspiring to,” Jaz preaches, “because when the human being has his feet on the ground, when there’s lots of, drums, when there’s rhythm, when it’s even more than human, that’s when the sound is in sync with nature. The sounds—even the three albums we’ve recorded—seem to be going even more off the beaten track.

“Most bands get more commercial as they go on, but success to us isn’t selling albums, it’s complete control over our environment. Take ‘Wardance,’ that’s a great song, an animal song. It’s about the nature of man, the subconscious demand for blood. It’s

about coming to terms with that.” And, hopefully, leaving those urges behind?

“Ultimately, yes. It would be a nice idea if that by literally cracking an egg, the energy and force that you and I demand could be appeased, of course. But not yet. Not for another thousand years. I see 500 years of dark ages, barbarism first.”

Not yer average pop band, eh? Well, they are in NY to, er, push the product (Revelations produced by Conny Plank), but since they started in ’79, Killing Joke have had more ups/downs/displays than most any band I can think of. Their interest in Magus Aleister Crowley is a closer connection to Satanism than Iron Maiden’s worst nightmares (on the table are several Crowley tomes as we talk, and a deck oi Tarot cards, and Jaz speaks about there being “no ‘"Such thing as evil; it’s all energy”). KJ actually disintegrated earlier this year after Jaz went to Iceland (“the killing joke in action”), followed by Geordie, and finally regrouping with original drummer Paul. Which left spiritual figurehead Youth “Pig” Martin—a violent, erratic man, known for three-day LSD trips einding naked at a cop shop (“From Sid Vicious to Syd Barrett in three years,” cracks Geordie) out in the cold. KJ despise England, despise America; the reason for their violent hatred of patriotism is that it is man fighting nature, bringing the world to its current state, of deterioration. Hence the coming nuclear war isn’t bac(, it’s necessary.

Jaz’s description of the band’s music as “nature throwing up” is, well, interesting. I don’t buy the killing joke for an instant; it’s fatalistic, juvenile, negative. But sitting with Jaz and listening, I can see the attraction, the thought process. And for all the negativity, the final solution of man’s evolution is, for Jaz, in the power of the will to get back in step with nature. And that is positive, if only for the individual. Still, my only real interest in the band remains the music, Revelations being more of the same. The sound gets tougher, less interesting. The dance is untwistable here, the idea’s running out of steam. Maybe in a thousand years I’ll get the punchline.

Iman Lababedi

Tom Jamison

THE ULTIMATE MOHAWK!

Pete Townshend's ridiculous new hairdo is just one of the demeaning, attention-getting devices the Who have been forced to undertake to pay off their huge debt to Schlitz. Those big TVs cost large dollars, after all. Selling Kool-Aid and quilts, peddling fruit and saying idiotic things into open microphones—they'll do anything I They're desperate! Pete also wanted to clear up a small misunderstanding concerning the band's recently completed "farewell" tour. "It wasn't our goodbye,” he explained, "but a 'fair'weff...tour. Got that? See ya’U next summer!"

Notes From DownUnderGround

DETROIT—What are we gonna do about Australia? The Qantas Question continues to plague sanguine stateside s cruds, and with reason. The“ Easybeats were OK until they ° sidled into legendhood, and God only knows how they managed that.' The BeeGeesf were actually good until megastardom laughingly appeared and kazillions of morons had the cover of Spirits Having Flown painted on both sides of their van. Then there’s Olivia Newton-John; or, maybe not. And what about AC/DC? Did you know that only Kenny Rogers sold more records than these terminal retreads over the /'last year?? In the whole world! If Morrison were alive, he’d die.

Which brings us to the latest offering from the old sheep farm, Rose Tattoo. If they were art-school kids, they’d call themselves Tattoo Of A Rose; but they don’t which means they must be metal. Yippee yi yo.

Outside of having1 three LPs “out,” looking like they’d just as soon kill you as a few minutes, and running around America opening for the deservedlyforgotten Aerosmith, Rose Tattoo offers deep insight into Australia’s many problems. Everybody say “whew.”

(Keep in mind that we’re talking about a band that called their latest record Scarred For Life, as if we couldn’t see the cover. To further establish that heavy metal is cunningly slanted to appeal to morons and mealworms, the disc features light-hearted titles like “We Can’t Be Beaten,” “Branded,” “Revenge,” and “Dead Set,” which is a narrative description of the time I saw AC/DC.)

Their most charming aspects are wrapped up in their vocaP ist. Their least charming aspects cover everything else. Regarding the frontman: in this case, he’s also a shortman and a baldman. He also has an incredible name, namely, Angry Anderson. Now I’ve always figured that everyone’s saddled with a proper noun—save for those lucky individuals who only have an initial—and here comes a guy who’s got a living and respiring adjective for a first name. It’s damned clever. I have to allow. But what if it caught on?...where would it end?... Melancholy Johnson? Sturdy Wyman? Reassuring Altman?? The mind—getting ready to throw bobbles.

Unfortunately, Angry Anderson isn’t angry, except in an abstract sort of way. He’s darned mad about Australian repression, which is only natural, and his ire’s up about Big Brotherism in general. The dude’s seen a hard time, though, which gave him the \moniker, but which also tends to dilute his passion as RT gets semi-popular. (They’re a distant second to AC/You See down in Aussie-land, as far as the homegrown stuff goes. Fill in the punch line.)

“The human race wasn’t really meant to be run by Democrats and Republicans... or Christiansand non-Christians,” Angry told me.

“Do you have any proof of this?”

“Well, these things came about through Man trying to complicate his own existence,” he heavied on. “As far as government goes, let’s face it: the further we get, the more we understand about governing the people, the less the people get governed. As people. They’re governed by machines now, and economics. It’s got nothing to do with heart and soul, that’s why people starve.”

Although it’s always useful to know why people starve, careful readers will notice that Angry waxes with an eloquence that belies the very foundation of HM. As usual, these guys are—and this is very typical of HM bands—full-time Einsteins who dash off aesthetic Gibralters like “Revenge” for a hobby. In other words, their ample gray matter no translateum into musicsReak.

Well, get sick, get well. Here’s a looloo for you: “The greatest system on earth that could possibly exist (my emphasis, since all the votes are tallied) is the free enterprise system. The means justify the ends.” That’s what Angry said, no kidding. And he’s got about as much an common with Ronnie Reagan as Leslie West has with no-nonsense exercise. I guess there’s only a finite number of notions available.

Rose Tattoo are from the wrong side of the tracks on their side of the globe. Angry told me that their many tattoos weren’t mere affectation but were, rather, the sort of thing that

5

Years Ago

And The Stray Cats Were Still A Gleam...

At a recent Robert Gordon/Link Wray show in NYC, Robert announced from the stage: “Now we’re going to let one of the youngsters come up and play.” With that, he made room onstage for Bruce Springsteen to come up and join in on “Heartbreak Hotel.”

economically disenfranchised Aussie kids do via growing up. Which is a better excuse than the Stray Cats gave me.

Anyway, they worked their way up through the Aussie pubscene, which is pretty scary by Angry’s description; like, a festering sore of more MOR. Their first LP, Rock V Roll Outlaw — hey, all these cats are Gary Gilmore, you know—established them as angry so-andso’s in the tireless tradition of HM. Hasn’t it ever occurred to any of these whango sluggers to put out an album called Rock W Roll Nice Guys? Angry once described Outlaw as “a rock ’n’ roll band making its first initial statement.” When you consider it was their first LP, you’ve got at least three redundancies there, which is just enough to ping an HM fan’s crash helmet.

Their second disc—and here’s a quantum leap in album-naming—was Assault And' Battery. You guessed it, nobody figured Assault And Pepper would sell; but, then again, neither did this second initial statement, since it was evidently produced in the wayback. Sherman must’ve had the wayback machine tied up.

Which brings us up to Scarred For Life, which is a way better title than Scarred For A Couple Days or even Scarred For Shooting A Cat Off The Couch. It’s established the Tatts as a group with staying (arid Staying...) power, at long last. Which isn’t easy way down souf, according to Angry.

“Musicians—until they attain the kind of status that Little River Band, Men At Workother names you wouldn’t even know (what, did he guess?) — are treated like z-grade citi-. zens.”

“How about AC/DC, those tax-paying fools, them?”

“Yeah, well now they would be looked on begrudgingly as worthwhile. But, Australia is very, very stunted...they’re very conservative. The biggestselling commodity in Australia is mediocrity. If you can make something totally accessible in Australia, as far as it doesn’t make any threats to anyone, it doesn’t make any promises or have any color or character... then you can sell it.”

“Well, that explains Olivia Newton-John.”

“Exactly! It explains Little. River Band. It explains Men At Work. It explains Air Supply. The only exception to the rule is AC/DC.”

Yessiree, it may be natural, may be cruel. The way I figure, it practically explains everything, speaking of continents.

J. Kordosh

Translating Pop For The ’80s.

NEW YORK-The last date of Translator’s fall swoop through New York was the stately Beacon Theatre, an auditorium best known for its “ethnic” shows, like the Balleto Condo Riorancho or the Chinese Cermonial Placemat Expo’83. But tonight it was a supporting gig for Translator, who shared the half-filled, acoustically criminal hall with the Psychedelic Furs.

Translator consists of Steve Barton on guitar, Robert Darlington on other guitar, Larry Dekker on bass and David Scheff on drums, all of whom were deprived of a soundcheck, as the mixing board mischief that night would bear out. “When I’m With You” started the set off to a sturdy gallop. A song or so later Translator played their pop beaut, “Everywhere,” hands down the best song Translator does. The verses bounce between Steve’s springy vocals and Robert’s sleepy ones and the thumping, clicking percussion prods tbe serene guitar figure to its twanging bridge. Subdued accompaniment and David’s rim-shots gave “Nothing Is Saving Me” a Doorsian atmosphere but it could do without that pompous-sounding chorus. For this number and several others, Translator invited up guest musicians Doug Wieselman on baritone sax and Gang of Four backup singer Edie Reeder. Wieselman’s bari strains tastefully thickened the accompaniment while Reeder’s vocal contributions were cumulatively annoying. (A screeching Scottish woman might just wear on you too.) Next, Translator tore into “Necessary Spinning,” where a taut, martial surface is pierced by Steven and Robert’s vocal harmonies.

The show wound down with, “Everywhere That I’m Not,” Translator’s if-we-got-a-hit-thisis-it number. Larry Dekker’s steadily prowling bass pumped blood into Steve’s awkward saga of confusion and frustration punctuated by jarring accents. Their most unabashedly political tune “Sleeping Snakes” was the last song of the night. While I feel their sentiment of “Stop this missile building!” may be cripplingly naive, ever* I’m not too cynical to enjoy Robert’s admonishment of “Peace” at the song’s final chord. Y’know, Dave Garroway and all.

The next day I spoke with Robert and David, since Steven and Larry were tied up with CBS obligations. Their highly airplayable debut LP was on my mind. The album, Heartbeats And Triggers, was put together in a mere month but, most suprisingly, as David explained: “We also came in under budget. Blew CBS’s mind.” The record has been getting a great deal of college radio play, but has even worked its way onto the commercials, with a little divine intervention from CBS. This was no doubt the same influence that landed both Translator videos on MTV, the cable channel for people who don’t (or think they won’t) get tired of those silly rock videos. The “Everywhere That I’m Not” tape dances playfully around the lip-synch cliches of the genre—the foolish ness that can turn your favorite song into a technicolor embarrassment. As David remarked of Joan Jett’s recent audio-visual venture: “You know the “I Love Rock ’N’ Roll” video?...It made me think that what rock ’n’ roll was about was sneering. Everybody in the band, her, everybody in the place is going, 7 love rock ’n’ roll/Fuck you, you asshole’...

Translator’s second video is “Sleeping Snakes,” which consists almost entirely of splicedtogether wartime footage. Some parts of the montage were upsetting enough for MTV programmers to show the video during twilight hours only, but the band still despairs over some people’s reactions to this violence-verite. As David recalled: “Somebody said, ‘Yeah, I know what you mean. Ozzy Osbourne’s got one where a guy’s head blows up!’ ”

About Translator’s treatment 6f political themes, David had this to say: “As fully actualized humans on this planet at this time it’d be rather difficult to ignore some of the blatantly horrifying political situations that exist.” “In this country,” added Robert, “it’s always been [sourly] ‘Oh, you write about politics.’ Maybe people just don’t want to be reminded that they made a big mistake a few years ago in who they elected or something so they don’t want to hear about it.”

I wondered what the folks back in San Francisco were saying about Translator, since CBS has showered them with so much promotion and publicity. Robert said: “I think it’s maybe encouraging them more than anything. I’d be encouraged if local acts were being signed.” “San Francisco’s a pretty supportive environment” said David, numbering the Varve, the Contractions, the Hostages and Arkansas Man among their favorite local groups. Regarding the heavymetal syndrome, Robert remarked: “All this glorifying of cars and women in tight pants and they’re only there as objects for men to use and ‘This is the Great American Life, isn’t it?’ It’s a real product. ” “It’s also a real anachronism in terms of the entire planet,” concluded David.

If I were to put Translator in terms of the entire planet, my conclusion would be bipolar. On one hand we have the political Translator: “Sleeping Snakes,” “Nothing Is Saving Me,” and a few less noteworthy cuts on their LP all bear the marks of stodgy Brits like the Cure, whose humorlessly dogmatic rantings cannot conceal their lack of musical ideas. Yet, on the other hand, we have “Everywhere That I’m Not,” “Necessary Spinning,” “Everywhere” and “Everything You See”—each a sterling example of how Translator twists American pop into something affecting and effective without having to consult the Gospel According to Gang of Four. Although this Am-pop/Brit-prop dichotomy is less clearly defined than I make it seem, Translator is certainly moving in a few different directions while most bands these days are hard pressed to find even one.

So is all the legal tender CBS is tunneling into this unknown group going to use? In the case of Translator I’d say yes. They’re a band with a lot of growing yet to do, but they try to make good rock ’n’ roll without a formula and without a gimmick. More power to ’em.

Drew Wheeler

DANGER: JERKS AT WORK I

"Hey, Iliya, do you believe they're paying us to make this stupid new Man From U.N.C.L.E. movie?" "Ha, ha, ha, that’s a good one, Napo* leon!" "Yuk, yuk, yuk—and then well make a sequel!'' "Ho, ho, no, that's rich, Nap, that's really rich!" "Heh, heh.heh, that's what we'll be, rich I, what with the merchandising and all that good stuff I" "Hoo-boy I I love it, Nap, just love it!" "Haw, haw, haw, Ulya, and then we'll..."