Yaz They Is!

Yaz They Is!

THE BEAT GOES ON

NEW YORK—English synthpop bands have proliferated in the last couple of years like the pods in Invasion of the Body Snatchers. But just as the folks taken, over by the extra-terrestrial pods were dehumanized and drained of any emotional capability, most of the groups in this latest British invasion express cold alienation, combining facile synthesizer know-how and bloodless vocals on albums that contain one or two catchy songs and a lot of unmemorable filler material. Last summer, though, Human League transcended the constraints of computer-calculation with ah affecting pop spirit, topping the charts with “Don’t You Want Me”

And then came Yaz, whose dazzling stylistic versatility and emotional insistence negated any suggestion that synth-pop bands lack a broad appeal. The two members of Yaz are Vince Clarke, an alumnus of synthpoppers Depeche Mode (he wrote most of the group’s first LP, including the hit, “Just Can’t Get Enough”), and Alison Moyet, who previously sang in rhythm and blues-oriented bands that did original material and covers of songs by such artists as Muddy Waters and Sonny Boy Williamson. Known as Yazoo in England, this unusual duo came up with number two singles on their national charts their first two times out, and a debut album, Upstairs At Eric’s, that also attained the number two spot.

Clarke and Moyet are both skilled songwriters who know how to fashion irresistible hooks, and with Clarke providing the good-humored, almost surreal, synthesizer frameworks for Moy^t’s impassioned, souldrenched vocals, Upstairs at Eric’s is the most interesting album by a new English band in a long while.

Crossing the Atlantic, Clarke and Moyet had to shorten their group name when it turned out that there already was an American band called Yazoo. To further complicate things, radio and club audiences— having no visual exposure to Clarke and Moyet—generally assumed that Yaz’s vocalist was a man, as Moyet’s rich, bluesy voice favors registers much lower than those of any female pop singer who comes to mind. Nonetheless, despite the confusion, Yaz scored number one dance hits in this country with their first two domestic releases, “Situation” and “Don’t * Go.” (Dance music being the presently preferred mode of breaking a band in America, Sire Records held “Only You,” Yaz’s first English hit, for the third single.) Even more impressive is the fact that these two songs were received with overwhelming approval in both rock fclubs and hard-core discos.

Alison Moyet (“I’m Alf to my friends”) 21, and Vince Clarke, 22, are visually an oddball pairing: the garrulous Moyet presented an imposing image, dressed in black, with peculiarly reddish hair (“It’s a mixture of things”), while the diminutive, soft-spoken Clarke, sporting a cross-shaped earring and a fringe of blonde hair, tended to be quiet unless I addressed a question directly to him.

Clarke and Moyet both come from suburban Basildon (about 30 miles from London). Clarke completed his secondary education, albeit rather unwillingly—“I hated school, and I didn’t spend much time there”—and then he took an interest in religion—“I got the call, yeah”— until he became disillusioned. His first band featured guitar, bass, and a rhythm unit, to which a synthesizer was later added. After that Depeche Mode began, with bass and rhythm guitars, a rhyfKm unit, and one synthesizer, before the group went all-synth. As for Clarke’s own musical prowess, well, “I can just about strum a few chords on the guitar.” He was equally unabashed about the exact nature of his synthesizer skills: “I don’t really understand how they work, but I know how to work them.” Moyet took the long road to her present career: she abandoned her academic education to study at a hairdressing school, a secretarial college, a music college, and a musical instrument technology college (where she learned to build and tune grand pianos), before she decided to make a go of it as a singer. Along the way, she “got really involved in the punk scene, until it became a fashion and lost all its meaning.”

Moyet and Clarke were refreshingly uninterested in any serious analysis of their music. For one thing, when I mentioned that I had mistakenly referred to her in print as a “guy,” Moyet deadpanned, “I didn’t know that I spunded masculine.” And she. was unimpressed when I tried to explain how unusual it is in this country.for a dance record to be embraced by both rock and disco fans: “In England, there is only general dance music. Any audience that wants to buy it couldn’t give a shit. I never thought about it.” Clarke was equSly nonchalant about my negative response to “I Before E Except After C.” With an endearing smile, he said, “I appreciate that a lot of people didn’t get it.” He kept smiling when, discussing Upstairs at Eric’s, Moyet firmly stated, “I personally dislike ‘Bad Connection’ immensely. It’s a good song in its own right, but it’s too poppy —it’s not something that I’d like to represent me.” I kept trying to get them to define their musical point of view, and all I learned was that “Sounds don’t have to be clear-cut; what matters is an underlying atmosphere.” Clarke nodded in agreement with Moyet’s observation, as he did wnen she responded to my curiosity about their lyrics’ less-than-optimistic tone, saying, “No relationship I knoW seems to last that long. Of course, the great thing about songs is that everybody can interpret them in his or her own way. Then again, we’re just basically miserable people.”

“What?” Said The Mouse

DEKALB, IL—Just when we were getting used to the idea that loud music can cause hearing loss comes news that it can also produce “complex consequences within the brain itself.”

Yippee!, you say? Well, researchers here at Northern Illinois University don’t think it’s very funny. They exposed some more laboratory mice to rock concert level sound (“noise,” they call it) and found the mice lost their ability to “interpret” sounds.

In laymen’s terms, it means the mice couldn’t tell Loverboy from April Wine, a common ailment in humans over the age of 16.. Exactly how a tune by ’Loverboy can cause anything complex has not yet been determined.

Rick Johnson

CLASH LINE-UP EXPANDS 11

"We’re new and improved!" beams proud Clash guitarist and vocalist Joe Strummer, at left. "First of all, Mick's promised he won't sing anymore! Plus we've got Topper back! See him? And also," grins the mischievous Strummer, "we've put a gag in Paul’s mouth! He'll never say another word again! Right, Paul?" New Clash members, at Strummer's left, include Billy Idol, Rob Halford, Freddie Mercury, Geddy Lee, Angry Anderson, the legendary Elmo and, of course, too many others to list here! Bored with the U.S.A.? Not these guys!

They’re not, actually. Indeed, they seem quite satisfied with their work so far, as Moyet explained. “In the sense that each of our songs is distinctive,

I think we’ve done quite well.” And onstage at the Ritz and the^ Paradise Garage, their good spirits provided the emotional grounding necessary to a suc, cessful live performance—but that has been so obviously missing in most concerts, by synth-pop bands. Clarke left Depeche Mode in part because “No one seemed really interested in making our live performances look better or sound lively.” Unfortunately for Yaz, by Halloween Moyet had a terribly swollen gland in her neck; but for the most part (with the aid of a spacey slide show synchronized with the music), she and Clarke, who noodled a bit on a keyboard, overcame the distancing effect of pretaped music. Vince Clarke is a masterful pop-programmer, and Alison Moyet is a unique singer on the rise. In time, Yaz’s live show may well prove to be as remarkable as their first record.

Jim Feldman

DIVER DOWN AGAIN!

Looks liko it's ocean floor city time again for intrepid wet boys Eddie and Alex Van Halen. What are they paddling about for today? Illegal seafood? Roy Orbison's second biggest hit? Bachelorette #3? Nopei They're looking for David Lee Roth’s voice! Seems the wacky lad lost it while skinny-dipping and hasn't seen or heard from it since! "At least, we think it's a voice/' explains Diver Eddie. "Somebody told me it was maybe like the African Leafcutter bug, whose monotonous song is supposed to attract female insects. But I dunno." How will you know it when you see it? "Well," says Alex, "it’ll be the one that looks like it belongs inside a hotdog bun!"

Hire The Handicapped

LOS ANGELES—With unemployment* at near-record highs, Americans can take pride in the Job Factory, a “one-of-a-kind agency” here on the coast.

The Factory supplies beleagured clients with people who are actually willing to work at such diverse occupations as windmill greasers, roller skate machanics, and dead fish pluck -ers. Although news accounts haven’t mentioned cesspool sitters, used-food salesman and human sacrifices, we can only preshme that they’re available, too.

The skillful help are “adventurous people looking for a challenge,” according to coowner Ava Minsky. “Most of our people are creative,” she adds, just in case you don’t regard dead fish plucking as an art form.

Progress on locating asuitable candidate to read CREEM’s letters to the editor -will be reported in a future issue.

J. Kordosh

5 Years Ago

He Lights Up Our Lives!

Who asked Him? “The entertainment industry has been invaded by a low element,” proclaimed Pat Boone during a recent tour of South Africa. “Some rock shows are so hellish I would not consider them to be entertainment. (If you’ve ever seen Pat’s show, you know what he means!)

BOC’s Mega-Buck Dharma: Morbid Fantasies And Teenage Dreams

NEW YORK—Blue Oyster Cult’s diminutive lead guitarist, hit songwriter, and proud creator of a new solo album, Flat Out, is laughing so hard he’s on the verge of falling out of his club chair. “There was a small review of the record in Billboard, saying in part, ‘Buck Dharma relies heavily on material by producer Donald Roeser,’ not realizing...” that, of course, these two gentlemen are one and the same. Feeling closer to his Dharma incarnation than his given name since the album’s been released, Buck claims to be comfortable with sych a schizophrenic identity.

In fact, Buck Dharma is a man who leads several simultaneous lives, and is neatly mastering all of them. A selfdescribed “leather boy rocker,” Dharma is best-known for his stinging, quality-controlled guitar work with Blue Oyster Cult. For thbse who like to give credit where it’s due, Buck is the author of the Cult’s two biggest single hits, “Don’t Fear The Reaper” and “Burnin’ for You” (the latter co-written with the legendary Richard Meltzer.) Currently, Dharma’s pop roots are displayed on Flat Out, the result of over a year’s worth of stolen hours when the Cult wasn’t on tour. It already looks as if Buck will have his own hit with “Five Thirty Five,” a snappy little tune from the album. Last, but certainly not least, as Donald Roeser, he’s a contented family man with a couple of kids who enjoys his spacious suburban home north of New York City. As Dharma admits, his various roles are always with him. “I have a medium profile where I live. 1 can’t pass a day without some reference to Buck Dharma and the band.”

Dharma realizes, however, that his being a highly-esteemed founder:member of the decade-durable BOC doesn’t guarantee Cult fans unanimously praising Flat Out. “I can see the people who crave the more rabid stuff from the band not thinking this is as good as a BOC record. I told the band years ago that I wanted to do a solo album, and I wasn’t out to make a Cult record, either. I wanted to move towards my own musical view, which hapr pens to be a little more* pop than the rest of the bancf. I can’t help it,” Dharma shyly smiles. “I’m a pop guy.” Gee, just m because Flat Out contains lots of love songs and closes with a sweet, delicate version of “Come Softly to Me,” duetted by Buck and his wife Sandy, I’d never have guessed he missed those golden years of threeminute AM radio classics.. /

“I grew up listening to Top 40 radio, and that’s a long time ago,” Buck recalls longingly. “I’m not young (try mid-30s). ‘Come Softly to Me’ was the first song I ever made out to... I tell ya, ” He barely suppresses a peal of giggles^ “that’s a very important song for me.

“I used to have a crystal radio when I was about nine years old—it didn’t have batteries, just headphones. I’d fall asleep with the headphones on, listening to this r’n’b station in Freeport (Long Island) called WGBB. I’d just let the stuff soak into my head. I was very undiscriminating as a kid; I would listen to everything and not make any value judgments at all. That came later. I thought the only things that wouldn’t get on the radio were dirty songs— blue comedy records and songs like ‘Peppermint Stick’ (ask any over-30 rock fan about that one). It wouldn’t even be particularly provocative today!”

Dharma also absorbed his share of deathless—make that teenage death, classics. His love of the morbid has followed him through the Cult right up to an almost unbelievable ballad called “Your Loving Heart” on Flat Out. “I’m obsessed with death,” Buck declares jovially, “and I don’t know why. Last year, my wife and I were sitting in front of the fireplace drinking wine and we just hammered out the story.” In brief, the tale concerns a dying man who ends up getting a heart trans. plant, courtesy of his girlfriend, who’s killed in a car crash. “It’s really heart-felt, if you’ll pardon thepun,” ^ays Dharma, so cutely that one has to suppress the urge to gag all over CBS’s furniture. Naturally, it makes perfect sense to learn that Dharma admires such horrormeisters as Stephen King and Peter Straub. Buck’s especially proud that King quoted from “The Reaper” in his epic-length novel, The Stand.

By releasing Flat Out, Buck Dharma believes he’s been given a new lease' on life with Blue Oyster Cult, as well as finally satisfying his own ego. “It’s made me un-frustrated as an artist. I felt I had to do it, I wanted to do it, and I’m glad I had the means to do it. The band, at that point, had made 10 records, and I needed relief from the sameness of it. Everybody needs a hobby or a second job—this is essentially what that album is.”

Don’t you wish, that your Saturday afternoons in the carwash or secretarial pool were worth one-umpteenth as much, or at least were half the fun?

Toby Goldstein

WATCH THOSE HANDS!

"God, am I a goof!" realizes Neil Geraldo, popularly known as Mr, Pat Benatar. Seems the fun-loving guitarist meant to deliver a furtive pinch to the rear of of pal Leo Sayer, "y'know, like a joke," but honked his wife instead. "Now I'm in big trouble," admitted a worried Mr. B. “She's giving me that look again I last time she fixed her peepers on me that way, she ended up writing half the new album I I mean, afterwards, of course. She says—get this—I Inspire her I" laughed Neil, who then added on a more serious note, “Now, if only I could inspire her to get a sensible job, like a meter maid or something."