THE BEST GOES ON

THE BEST GOES ON

Lock Up Your Children!

DETROIT—It was a sight that would surely strike cold fear in any mother’s heart.

Mission Of Burma, lately one of America’s most widely acclaimed independent bands, was midway through a powerhouse set at Detroit’s City Club. Bassist Clint Conley and drummer Peter Prescott were giving the audience a good pummelling, alternating Gang Of Four-ish rhythmic interplay with a straight new-hardcore sledgehammer assault, and driving the crowd into a frenzy. Guitarist Roger Miller stood off to one side, grinning like a man demented, unleashing a horrendous wall of feedback into the maelstrom, yet insulated from the barrage of sound by a set of Mickey Mouse earmuffs generally worn by guys who make their living hanging around artillery ranges and jet engine exhausts!

I’m glad my mom wasn’t around to see it, but I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. For as it turns out, the earmuffs were neither an affectation nor a gimmick, but rather a serious attempt to lessen the effects of “tinnitus”—a ringing of the ears brought on by...ulp...rock music. Due to the condition, the band had announced that the show was to be one of their last ever.

/‘It’s a perpetual ringing in the ears, like tones,” Miller explained before the show, “and over the years more specific pitches have developed that sound like chords.”

The all-important question forming in your minds right now, of course, is “which chord,” right?

“A-major seventh, more or less,” is the reply. “It bothers me a lot, and the other ear has sort of a distortion thing, but I can still hear perfectly well. Sometimes it gets real irritating. I mean it’s not painful, but if I kept doing it, it would eventually be more than irritating.”

The “it” Miller is doing has been playing Mission Of Burma’s unique brand of art-thrash, which owes more, to bands like Wire, Pere Ubu and early Can than to their post-punk contem-

poraries. Aggressive, high-speed dissonance, probing lyrics and Miller’s piercing guitar effects— often augmented by Martin “Pay No Attention To That Man Behind The Curtain’! Swope’s tape loop manipulations— coalesce into a very physical sound that isn’t afraid to be cerebral at the same time.

M.O.B. came together in late 1979, released the excellent “Academy Fight Song” 45 for Boston’s Ace of Hearts Records, and followed that up with the sixsong Signals, Calls and Marches

EP, highlighted by the powerful “That’s When I Reach For My Revolver.” The very Wire-ish “Trem Two” single showed that the band could slow down without losing any of their intensity, and is probably one of their more overlooked great moments.

Remarkably, the album vs. is rawer and closer to the band’s stage sound than any of the singles. Essentially recorded live in the studio, the LP has its share of ragged moments as the band teeters on the brink of chaos, on-

ly to slam into place for a chorus or what have you. At its best, as on the anthemic “That’s How I Escaped My Certain Fate” or the unearthly “Dead Pool,” vs. contains some of the most exciting music I’ve heard in quite some time.

Which makes the band’s untimely breakup all the more disappointing. For all its power, much of the strength of us. lies in the possibilities it evokes and the suggestions of what could have been achieved on subsequent recordings. I posed the question of future studio work to the group, but the response was not encouraging.

“We’ve no plans to do so at the moment,” is Miller’s summation. “We’re stopping playing live—we may get together and do some recording, but more or less Mission Of Burma is defunct.” With this in mind, Ace of Hearts label head Richard Harte has been taping the shows on the farewell tour for possible live release.

OK, so what comes next?

“I still plan to play guitar,” is Miller’s response. “I’m interested in many different kinds of music, and I’m not going to throw away my earsTor one type.” Miller and Swope have been, working together in a SteveReich/ambience-oriented project called Bird Songs Of The' Mesozoic, with plans for an upcoming release.

As for the others, Prescott points out that it’s unlikely that there will be any other direct spinoffs from Mission Of Burma.

Prescott: “We did exactly what we wanted and we actually lived on it for two years! That to me is amazing. It’s beyond amazing—how could we actually get away with it?”

Miller: “Probably the thing I learned from Burma was.. .we’re a real strong collective—there was no leader of the band. I learned that if it doesn’t feel right to everybody, it’s just not worth doing.”

Swope: “I’ve learned to live on a meal a day—I imagine I’ll carry that with me for a while.”

Conley: “Yeah, I’ve

developed good habits. I collect coupons now, and I take vitamins—I realize how fragile I am healthwise.”

It may be unfortunate for us, but the moms of the world can sleep a little easier tonight. CINCINNATI—Scandal’s recent splash into the pop marketplace is so absolutely modern in technique that the group might’ve bounced right out of the earliest 1960s. Hit singles were always the prerequisite to making albums in those days, and while Scandal’s first recording does happen to be a 12-incher, it contains only five songs, hardly a longplayer by anybody’s yardstick. A nice compact length that’s a boon both to Columbia’s cost efficient accountants and to us rushed midlife types: win or lose, it’s all over in a hurry..

John Neilson

THE EVIL SIDE OF PETER PAN

Spotted at posh Beverly Hills eatery: Michael “Beat It" Jackson and Liza "Who Said Fat?" Minnelli. Spectators say that Ms. Minnelli was noshing on an onion bagel piled high with cream-cheese and olives, when the young Mr. J came over, lifted her off her seat, and in the guise of a "friendly hug," proceeded to crush Ms. Minnelli to a powder. Mad Mikey was heard saying over the sound of crunching oones, "This chick's the only competition I got left!" After leaving Liza on the floor in a crumpled heap, Michael continued on his path of distruction by stealing Marie Osmond's teeth and Cher's tattoo...stay tuned for more details...

School’s Out For Scandal

In the meantime, Scandal are piling up the hit-single merit badges in their noble quest to earn their very own debut-LP neckerchief. Scandal’s minialbum came out in the fall of 1982 and didn’t attract much attention initially . The band seemed to be yet another clutch of slim-trousered powerpoppers, fronted by yet another strongvoiced pop female, rather attractive despite her Laverne (front cover) and Shirley (back cover) poses on the record jacket. Record sounded okay, but not overly compelling, as the whole urban-bourgeois format of Scandal’s music was so reminiscent of Pat Benatar and a bunch of

LITA MEETS MR. YUK

Overheard at roller derby/winetasting event not long ago...BILLY: We should really get together on a duet...how 'bout "Music Box Dancer”? LITA: ACKKKI BILLY: Well, then, how 'bout “Mr. Roboto”? LITA: Ackk, ACCCKKKI BILLY: "One Tin Soldier"? LITA: (gagging a whole lot) AAAAACCCCKKKK111 BILLY: Uh...’ Pac-Man Fever"? You like that one? LITA: (gagging a little less) aaack...BILLY: I know! How about "I EAT CANNIBALS”! LITA: (losing her mind, falling on the floor in convulsive fits...) a..a.aaaa....aaaaahh...

"My underarm alarm!" cries Patty Scandal. "It slipped I'

other ’60s-meet-the-’70s-just-intime-for-the-’80s hybrid bands.

Come the turn of ’83, and suddenly Scandal pop up on the omnipotent MTV with their “Goodbye To You” video, full of shimmery protopsychedelic pastels; and of Patty Smyth in her shapely mod haircut and clingy dress, thrashing around through her band in a methodsynch more spirited than most. Not long after that, and “Goodbye To You” gets all over your radio, no weighty matter there, just a well-wrought pop single

(and sometimes that’s all it takes).

Okay, so it’s live debut time for Scandal, I catch ’em at Bogart’s when they open for Golden Earring, an old old AOR-era band who’ve become just-as-ovemight successes through the miracle of video rock. The onstage Scandal turn out to be just as animated as they promised in the “Goodbye” video, wasn’t any trick photography involved in that. Patty Smyth jumps all over the stage, shouting, pointing, examining her band’s axes one-byone, acting out every strongvoiced nuance of Scandal’s pocket-drama pop songs.

I’ve been wondering how Scandal are gonna get by on stage with just the five songs to their repertoire, but of course they preview at least five or six new originals, which tend to sound suspiciously like the Scandal we already know and like. And just to show that they’re not rigid original-material fetishists a la Rush and their ilk, Scandal encore with Smokey Robinson’s “I Second That Emotion.”

Patty Smyth has made with plenty of chattery between-softg patter tonight, tough young trouper that she is, but I’ve missed a lot of it thanks to the beerswilling, cowboyhatted human bathtub (undoubtedly a Golden Earring fan, heh heh) placed strategically behind me in the club. “We were bored out of our minds at the Holiday Inn in Kansas City...” begins a chipper Smyth—“Yeh, you didn’t have any druggssss there!” finishes the bathtub-shaped slurbox, and Patty’s punch line is drowned in the gurgly roar. But that’s no sweat, this band has played over

clinking beer bottles before, boy!

And that concludes.. .What?!? You’ve heard Scandal’s singles and seen their videos, and you still gotta know more about ’em? Well, lessee son, this Columbia press kit sez that Patty Smyth grew up in Greenwich ^Village and that Scandal’s coguidinglight Zack Smith came of age in Westport, Connecticut, and that the other guys in fhe group have played with Rick Derringer, Phoebe Snow, Carolyne Mas, etc., among ’em.. .waitaminute!

Nearly 20 years on, I still don’t know anything about the Castaways, other than that they were from Minneapolis, and yet their “Liar,Liar” is definitely one of the top 10 r’n’r singles in recorded history! You can schlep up all of Scandal’s favorite pastel colors when People discovers ’em next year. For now, just stay real close to the waves emanating from your radio and teevee if you wanna know what this band’s all about.

And always remember the words of our late, illustrious Chairman Mao: A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single single.

Richard Riegel

5 Years Ago

And Then Came Dreadlocks

Billy Idol, then of Generation X, sets the media straight on why we have been so blessed with “power pop”: “Record company presidents tried to create power pop because they couldn’t look like punks,” he explained. “They couldn’t change their haircuts because they don’t have any hair.” DETROIT—“I thought it was really lively,” said Christie, backing her opinion by giving the record a 75. Boy, with standards like that, she’d probably only give Iggy Pop an 82 if he publicly endorsed milk.

Rhythm To The Corps

Honore, on the other hand, multiplied his age by five and five-sixteenths and gave it an 85. Not bad. An obvious predestined rock cryd, though, the kid hedged. “I don’t buy albums,” he said, just in case RCA’s door-to-door people were trying to track him down.

“A high score all the way around,” enthused official scorer Dick Clark, conveniently forgetting to mention that he was adding in base two. The scale, by the way, is 35 to 98, for reasons I certainly don’t care to understand. The event, of course, was the rate-a-record segment on American Bandstand, long honored as thrq most persistent harmless charade in pop music.

The tune on trial? “Solidarity,” a cut off Rhythm Corps’ Paquet DZ 'Cinq five-song EP. The Corps are, perhaps, Detroit’s favorite Detroit band—which, as far as the Biz is concerned, is something like being Idaho’s favorite potato. Very nice; possibly useful.

But the Corps, of corps, strive

Jim Stafford Vindicated

WILLIAMSTOWN, VT-Spiders are in the news again here in this sleepy New England hamlet.

Or rather, spiderwebs. Willet Knight, 72, whose hobby is mounting the webs on plaques and selling them at farmers’ markets, has opened the country’s first spider farm.

“I consider these guys my livestock,” said the probably senile old timer, who must rise at 6 a.m. every day to evaluate the latest web fashions and feed flies to his little buddies.

Knight has been so successful, he now purchases spider eggs by the roomful. He’s even installed a dry-ice fogger to make web checking much easier.

Meanwhile, further research indicates the ideal environment for hatching spiders is within the pages of a magazine, much like the one you now hold in your hands.

Rick Johnson

fqr bigger things than the local circuit, even though it affords them the opportunity to warm up crowds for the Go-Go’s, the Jam, Duran Dtxran, A Flock Of Seagulls or any other latest thing. They’d like to be wazoos iri their own right. Unfortunately, bands break out of Detroit about as often as Bob Seger says something worth listening to, which spells bindsville for the high-scoring quartet. The last act to pull it off—the Romantics— did it by relentless road work. Having struck a deal with CBS/Nemporer, they proceeded to break the Chicago Cubs’ record for fading fast.

So the Corps haunt Detroit, with occasional forays to more exotic spots (Toledo, Southern California). They’ve had their fair share of fortune—getting the Motown’s FM stations to slip Cinq into their playlists was just short of the reason for Easter, as far as I’m concerned. And the Bandstand scenario was good exposure as well as a good laugh. Then again, they’ve also seen some hard times: originally they called themselves Rhythjm Method, changing their name when some legendary R.M. from Boston that nobody’s ever heard of threatened to yell “no fair” to the judge. Then there was the time they played a private party for Canada’s millionaire yodeller^, Rush. Good exposure, swank joint, Geddy Lee bopping what’s

believed to be his head, the whole thing—except the drinks were free on/y when the band was playing. That’s like being invited over to Cheryl Ladd’s bungalow to watch her water her plants.

For posterity’s sake, the Corps are a little more rock than rhythm, feature a potentially wowser guitarist in the person of Greg Apro, have established a credible independent sales record, and do a passable imitation of not taking themselves too

seriously onstage. Their record (available from Transcity Records, 25100 Evergreen, Ste. 216, Southfield, MI 48075) has been a hot local item, and the kick-off tune—“Broken Haloes”—should be enough to break a band from Moline, let alone Detroit. But, to go the blunt route, I don’t want to start suspecting major labels sit around and worry about talent. Of course, I don’t buy records either.

J. Kordosh

Next, They’ll Want Their Own Bathrooms

WASHINGTON, D.C.-Those pesky little extraterrestrials are at it again, according to Orville G. Guilford of the watchdog agency Citizens for Sanity in Government (catchy name, no?).

Guilford claims that aliens from outer space are milking U.S. taxpayers for $900 million in welfare benefits each year.

“It is a public outrage,” Guilford declared'', adding that, “basically, the government is paying them to keep quiet.

“We believe it’s ironic that the government tries to pretend on one hand that the space aliens don’t exist and, on the other

hand, it’s paying them millions of dollars,” he said.

E.T. expert Brad Steiger said that while aliens appear to be “normal people,” there are differences between extraterrestials and humans. He said that aliens have lower body temperatures than their human counterparts, as well as an extra vertebrae in their backs, special sensitivity to electricity and the ability to see “mystic crosses”—not unlike members of Ozzy Osbourne’s back-up band.

Guilford suggests mandatory physicals for all welfare recipients as a means of combatting the alien problem. “Those who don’t pass—the ones who prove to be aliens—would be immediately purged from the rolls,” he said, although he did not comment on the rumor that Mork from Ork would be recruited as technical consultant for the project.

Heather Joslyn