LETTER FROM BRITAIN

LETTER FROM BRITAIN

DEPARTMENTS

WHO GOT THE MESSAGE?

by

Cynthia Rose

1982 was the year “The Message” topped all those year’s-end polls in the U.K.—but, in the second month of ’83, one begins to wonder just who got that message. Henry Ford himself might enjoy a perambulation along the Kings Road on a Saturday; you can find anything there in any color you want, as long as you want black.

Charcoal lined and shadowed eyes and eyebrows peek out from under artificially blackened plaits (or locks of expensive synthetic hair tied into one’s own with ribbon) and wide-brimmed black hats, sometimes lampshaded with dark shawls. The boys wear baggy black trousers or dark drainpipes tucked into Richard Hell bike boots; the girls pile layers of dark skirts on top of one another, over tights and sharp black pointed boots. And instead of pulling their socks up, as the Prime Minister continually advises, everyone shoves them down ’round the ankles. It’s a fad the press attribute to the huge popularity of Fame (the TV series has been brought over from America), and it’s even kept one Nottingham knittery in business churning out legwarmers.

Anyway, the average concert crowd may have begun to resemble Recess at Romero High but the colors of mourning aren’t entirely misplaced. The police, for instance, certainly failed to get The Message; two weeks ago pedestrians on a ‘ quiet Kensington street were startled to see them open fire without warning on a small car. One bystander told the press that, as a body swung into the street from the vehicle, officers cuffed the bullet-riddled man again on his head with a pistol-butt.

The man was a young film editor named Stephen Waldorf; he was not the man the police were after. That was one David Martin—wanted for 14 offences, including the attempted murder of another police officer. Luckily for the Met, Waldorf survived to tell his tale (“When I woke up it was four days later...I still thought I had been shot by criminals”) and the real Martin was later apprehended. He didn’t turn out to look much like Waldorf, currently he’s on hunger strike—an attempt to convince authorities to let him see his girlfriend.

It’s just the sort of grim and sordid saga of disaster and outlaw love which flogs the British tabloids while the Royal Family skis or Koo Stark’s film receipts flag. But odder still, it’s also, the current climate of pop— wherein most of the syntho-love or synthosex songs might be messages from the guilt riddled (or incarcerated). Pop’s gone Gary Gilmore just in time for the opening of “The Executioner’s Song,” due in a week.

A fortnight after Stephen Waldorf has been taken off his “ventilator,” I am sitting in the suburban parlor of a six-piece band named the Impossible Dreamers. I’ve sought them out partly because they’re an optifnistic outfit and they also prefer playing live (they’ve been together in various configurations since 1979, and hail from Exeter) -to scoring through studio trickery. We shoot the breeze about subjects of their choice: the press rush they’ve gotten since headlining at London’s Institute of Corftemporary Art; John Cale’s easy-listening acoustic concert some of us saw at the Venue the night before; a comment NME’s editor made to them when he dropped.into one of their college gigs.

“He said we were the beginning of an anti-synthesizer backlash,” laughs: drummer Fred. “Us and Amazulu/” Amazulu are an all-woman reggae outfit; overtly, about all they share with the Dreamers besides a l?ick of syntho-sound is the rabid preference for live playing and a Jove of percussion. (Fred wins my heart later at rehearsal when he asks me if I’ve ever gotten really excited about a band without a drummer— and I confess that I can’t say I have.)

The Dreamers’ white Britfunk with extra backbeat and delicious, floating female harmonies, courtesy of members Caroline and Kate, is a soft, Southern phenomenon. But there is harder, weirder antisynth attack brewing and ironically it looks like its launching pad will be a genuinely cold, isolated and depressed site: Scotland.

From Scotland, most press attention has gone to Set the Tone, Hey Elastica and Paul Haig—all who one local described for me respectively as “a hybrid of Haysee Fantaysee and the Tom Tom Club,” “a Virgin tax loss” and “just dull.” The subOrange Juice roster of acts such a Strawberry Switchblade also seem to have exhausted the enthusiasm of their original Scottish supporters. There’s something harder looming and it may be more than the garage funk of Aberdeen’s APB (named after the American police code for radio warrants), who’ve labored away for four years on indie Oily Records and are just now hitting Londpn.

The new Scots scene is still sparse, but it’s hardly uninventive. “Who would think for instance,” laughs fanzine editor Lindsay Hutton, “that the first-ever Cajun dub record would emanate from Scotland?” He means “Gone Train” on the Drum label by Champioh Doug Veitch And The Clydeside Rebels. For five years, Lindsay has run noted PUNK-style mag The Next Big Thing from his place in Stirlingshire, and now there’s enough going on to force him into a more frequent free-sheet format. NBT covers obscure Americana like the Morells (Lindsay also heads up the Cramps’ British HQ), but it’s keen to support all local musics “which don’t mess about.” Through such homemade networks as this (NBT is available to Americans on Subscription for the equivalent of 3 pounds sent to 10 Dochert Path, Grangemouth, Stirlinghsire, Scotland FK3 OHJ) fans of groups like the Revillos keep up their support. Persevering as ever, that popular lot of loonies have just released an album called Attack—comprised of demos the Real label was going to leave in the can. Checking the features in local tapezines or mags like NBT can also put you in contact with the likes of a great Raspberries-style pure-pop group from Thurso: the Blonde Brothers.

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Back down in London, the hipsters will still be reading Collusion and spinning Ralf Dorper’s Rough Trade EP—particularly the cold and sinister opening cut: a rendition of the theme music from John Carpenter’s Assault On Precinct 13. And some of them must be responsible for the fact that Kajagoogoo’s synthetic “Too Shy” is sitting on number seven in this week’s charts. One-third Duran Duran, one-third Soft Cell and one-third ABC would be a pretty kind of these two pregenitors of aural flat Fresca... yet real ears have ac: cepted this pallid ballad on radio and I’ve seen it under numerous arms in the record stores.

A more obvious success story is that of the seven Belle Stars, whose Stiff longplayer seems sure to follow their single “Sign of the Times” to lofty sales heights. (Even New Society dutifully wrestled with Their Meaning As A Girl Group this week, conceding in the end that “the lead guitarist is stunningly beautiful in a short black dress and even a garter”).

More than a few scribes will be disappointed if these Stars, particularly the “ebullient” lead vocalist Jennie, rise above their original gimmick of wearing very few clothes—usually judiciously applied bunches of fruit or large bows. Star Sarah-Jane Owen, after all, is still more ex-fashion student than musician onstage. For now, however, music press pundits are happy to use the Belle Stars’ success as a stick with which to berate the Go-Go’s (the girl group may have started in those American suburbs, but the Brits are weirdly possessive about it).

Actually it’s clear the Belle Stars hope to emulate the Go-Go’s: both groups were regarded as jokes in the beginning, but both persevered in pioneering their own pulse and dressing from their own purses. The Stars lag behind musically—they still can’t sustain a long set—and their emerging sound coasts on more skank than surf motifs, despite a clear penchant for trying to tribalize those Motown girl memories. But the clearest division is attitudinal; each Belle Star sings with a full awareness that the next Belle Star along is exactly the girl she’s warning you about. So much for innocence: “This is the sign of the times/Be some more to come/This is the sign of the times—time to be alone.”

Things like the Belle Stars’ knowingness and cool attempts at sophistication have been observed by another pair of Scots, the Eurythmics, who’ve just released a neat little concept album about the faults of Modern Romance. They are Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart, formerly two-fifths of an eccentric, glittery little pop band called the Tourists. That band became immensely popular in the provinces before hassles over the inflexible format of the group led them to devolve into a duo. Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This) is their second LP as the Eurythmics—and it uses synthosound impressively (as well . as modestly) to desseet those romantic cliches and conventions to which post-disco electronic pop has given rise.

Eurythmics’ work is aimed “at being flexible,” says Dave Stewart. “We want to write about anything and everything, in turn. Annie and I have been to see Throbbing Gristle, we’ve been to the B-52’s; we know that there are groups who want to concentrate on political songs and groups who want to concentrate on love songs. I think that’s dead healthy and I like a lot of very different things. But what we want to do is involve the full range of our capabilities—and the capabilities of anyone who wants to work with us.” On “Sweet Dreams,” Scritti Politti’s Green acts as guest vocalist; on the tour the Eurythmics launch this week there are also all-star accompanists: Clem Burke of Blondie on drums, the Blockheads’ Mickey Gallager on keyboards and Gang of Four’s Eddi Reader as percussionist.

The Eurythmics aren’t the only band managing to strike such a balance—between studio and stage, synth and skins, true romance and false confessionals. They’re just one part of a large and often unheralded sector of the British musical community who’ve got the Message...and remain determined to dance along the edge. .. #