The Beat Goes On

The Beat Goes On

DEPARTMRNTS

HEARING THE CALL

LANSING, MI—Like most of you, my first exposure to the Call came through hearing their insidiously hooky single, "The Walls Came Down." When the local Dinosaur-Oriented-Radio station followed MTV's lead and began embracing New Music (sic), all of a sudden unknown bands like the Call were in heavy rotation, as they say in the biz. Loosely translated, this meant that hardly a day would go by without hearing the song's naggingly insistent ya-ya-ya-ya-yaya - ya - ya finale. Oh, no, I thought, this could be the next "Black Betty, bam-a-lam!"

Ya-ya-yas aside, the most prominent part of the tune was the strident yelping of vocalist Michael Been, doing a good impersonation of David Byrne doing an impersonation of a chestpounding, Bible-thumping preacher howling about horns blowing and walls falling down. Political change, Old Testament style, with just enough references to assassins, terrorists, and "nightly military raids" to keep it current. Not exactly "Hot Girls In Love," that's for sure.

"We didn't do it to get a hit," Been explained when our respective callings brought us together for an interview. "In fact we thought for sure it wouldn't be a hit, because there was too much political about it. The record company liked it, so they put it out. It's heavy-handed only by comparison, really, to what other people are doing—trying to keep things on a real juvenile, adolescent level. I don't think it's that heavy."

Soft-spoken and genial, Been hardly comes across as the angst-ridden protagonist of his band's songs. Born in Oklahoma, Been drifted to California in the early '70s and began playing in a succession of bands and writing songs. By 1980 the Call was sending demos around, and eventually they attracted the interest of Mercury Records, producer Hugh Padgham (Police, XTC), and oddly enough, Garth Hudson of the Band, who contributed sax and keyboard colorings to the Call's debut LP. Been speaks with reverence when recalling the Band, and cites them as a force in shaping his musical direction.

"They showed you could do more with rock 'n' roll than just write about simple adolescent frustration—which seems pretty limited in scope—and they opened us up to a more passionate way of looking at things."

With this in mind, The Call comes across as an extended treatise on complex adult frustration instead, and to these ears sounds musically unfocused and lyrically ponderous. "War Weary World," however, sports a great catchy chorus, while its global theme serves as a neat bridge to Modern Romans.

The latter LP is somewhat more successful in getting across its weighty themes, but the Cecil B. DeMille shot on the cover serves to illuminate its weakness. There's a thin line between high drama and high camp in those old silent flicks, and like them, the Call's music and lyrics rely too much on exaggerated gestures of anguish and despair. The net result is that the harder Been tries to project intense passion and externalize the tormented inner spirit of the Human Condition, the more he doth make me grin.

Still, their intentions are the best. Modern Romans contains a couple of strong songs in "Turn A Blind Eye," "Time Of Your Life" and the single, and in concert the band can kick 'em out with the best of them. The crowd here responded enthusiastically and the music got them off their feet, which is no small political feat in itself.

Then again, Jericho didn't crumble in a day, and with time the Call may hit upon some magicej resonance that could really shake things up a bit. Just remember, guys, the real acid test lies not with how good your intentions are now, but rather in what you do when Jericho's doors open up and some fat guy with a wad of bills steps out and asks if you wouldn't rather come in out of the heat and be the house band.

Just ask the Clash.

John Neilson

WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?

Smoocheroo City, lip fans! What's going on here? Well, just your typical young (boring) couple making pigeon mouth on a moonlit eve. There's something...slightly unnerving 'bout these luvbirds, though. Can't quite put a finger on it...let's check the info on the back. Helen Terry and Boy George of Culture Club, it says. OK, so obviously this character in the flag is the so-called Boy George, right? We'd heard he was kinda...well you know. And frankly, if you ask us, he's just— what?! The one in the flag is the woman? Then why is she kissing the girl with the football shirt? WHAT!? That's the guy? Oh, come on— how can we expect people to take this magazine seriously when anyone with half a sex-education lecture can plainly see that—(cont. P119)

UNCLE SAM GETS CLUCKED

WASHINGTON, D.C.Colonel Sanders be damned: Air Force brass are planning a test to determine plane damage that requires chickens to be fired from cannons at high-flying aircraft.

The cannon fires four-pound dead chickens at speeds upwards of 700 miles per hour at planes, sending the hapless fowl crashing irvto jet engines, windshields ancr landing gear.

The tests are supposed to provide data to the Air Force on the damage planes suffer when they collide with birds while airborne..

With high-tech, high risk projects like this helping to keep Communist influence from invading the shores of this great land of ours, can anyone blame our Commander-In-Chief for his commitment to a strong military? God bless America! (cluck!)

Heather Joslyn

THE ALARM WAKE UP

NEW YORK—They look like something interesting when they hit the stage, dressed like Yankee soldiers after a long-dusty march, backcombed hair piled high on their heads and the two guitarists brandishing souped-up acoustic guitars that make a refreshing and surprisingly dense and physical sound.

The Alarm come on brash and strong, and the kids at New York's Pier, who are waiting for U2, give them the benefit of the doubt. But it's soon clear that the Alarm's live set, like their eponymous EP, is more style than substance, a lot of noise without much point.

The Alarm's songs, with titles like "The Stand," "Across The Border" and "Marching On," sound as if they ought to have political import, and you can catch an occasional line about the CIA being the real criminals or some other topical reference.

But when I talk to Mike Peters and Dave Sharp, respectively the Alarm's lead vocalist/guitarist and guitarist, they are quick to disclaim any political stance and seem to think of their musical m'essage only in terms of the vaguest sort of self-help cliches.

"We're not taking a stance like left or right or anything like that," Dave Sharp says. "We're just trying to motivate people, we just want people to lift themselves up and motivate themselves. And if they've got a dream or an aim, do it like we've done, really go for it."

Yes, but what about the very specific political references that do crop up in the songs.

Peters: "Some of them sound like that but they're still songs about people, about the way people feel, trying to bring people together rather than keep them apart by taking sides. When people get to know the band better they'll stop trying to say that we've got a political stand like the Clash, which we haven't. It needs to talk about real situations. We try to make our songs so they don't alienate anyone. We're not trying to be the spokesmen of a generation."

The Alarm come from Rhyl, in northern Wales. About this too they strive for a noncontroversial position, steering clear of the Welsh nationalism that is a sensitive topic in Wales aad a cause that has kept some Welsh groups out of the international spotlight.

Sharp: "There's some Welsh bands but a lot of them got too hung up on trying to further the Welsh language instead of just respecting it for what it is. A lot of them sing in Welsh and the Welsh language is very difficult. It's not a very beautiful language, it's all clllggh and ngghhh and all sorts of sounds like that. It's not a very good vocabulary to sing in."

But while they lack content the Alarm do have some distinctive style. For one thing there's the sound of their amplified acoustic guitars.

Peters: "While we were getting the band together, one weekend Sharpy nicked an acoustic guitar from my house, and he came round to see us later and he'd written a song that was really good. So we tried it out with electric guitars and it didn't feel just right—but we knew there was a good song in there. So we thought 'let's try it out on what it was written on.' And then Sharpy had bastardized the guitar, and taken all these electric components out of an electric guitar he had, and stuffed them in it, and it really did transform the sound of the acoustic—from being an individual big sounding instrument that rattles throughout your bones into a big sound that could rattle around the seats of a venue. And it was /ufky, 'cause we didn't have much money so we had to make do with what we had."

For another thing, there's the Western outfits they wear, which give then a look of toughness and commitment. Much as they'd hate the comparison, it's sort of an interesting variation on the Clash's aura of radical rock guerillahood.

Sharp: "That came about when we first moved to London. There was a big rockabilly thing going on. All the kids were in their Confederate gear and the Southern stuff and I sort of thought, well I'll stand out a bit and wear the opposite side. I'd look like John Wayne at first and then all the birds started hanging around me and the other guys in the band were saying, 'Oh, I'll get a boot lace tie, see what it does for me.'

And finally, the last point of distinction that leads to the question #every Alarm fan will want answered: how do they get their *hair like that?

Sharp: "Electric shocks. No, it's something to do with the 7-Eleven, I believe, but I'm not sure what."

Richard Grabel

5

YEARS AGO

AND THEN LOOK WHAT HAPPENED!

Sid Vicious once again was being a real cut-up, this time at Max's Kansas City. After turning up for Lance Loud's show, silly Siddy took the stage to debut an obscenity screaming match with no one in particular. Vicious was finally unplugged and packed away...