ROCK ON THE RACK

LETTER FROM BRITAIN

ROCK ON THE RACK

by

Cynthia Rose

Charlie Gillett is a regular radio voice to London music-lovers, a regular aide-deartistes via his Oval label (among others, he discovered Lene Lovich) and consultant editor on many a "History Of Rock" project or prospectus. But way back in '71, he published a personal history of the rock roots he loved—and called it The Sound Of The City.

It was unquestionably one of the first tomes to really dignify the writing of rock's history, and—a real Xmas treat—the passionate, fascinating saga has just been reissued. This should gladden the heart of any American, because perhaps Gillett's most useful contribution to British love of Yank rock classicism is his pinpointing of the regional, ethnic and minority experiences which shaped blues, soul, r'n'b, C&W and rock records between the early '50s and early '70s. (His dedication is a re-write of Whitman's "I Hear America Singing" by black politico Julian Bond.)

In the interim, Gillett has revised his book: the result of many meetings with protagonists from its pages and "consequently, broader insights." But he says he's happy to end it again "at the natural watershed around 1972, after which people began to recycle or nostalgize".

It fascinated me to find that Gillett's biggest excitement just now comes from his explorations of African sound: "If there's gonna be a new rock 'n' roll that's guitaroriented," he told me, "that's where it's gonna come from for sure." And if he ever writes a sequel to City, he says, the most important research will be "finding out what happened in the early '70s in Africa."

I mention that this year's exponential interest in African sounds as fashionable seemed to have begun with the hype surrounding Sunny Ade's Island signing. And Gillett replied that he hoped it would be England which helped to promulgate "Africa's corntemporary pop music, just as in effect English people helped bring blues out of the woodwork to a white audience." Charlie Gillett laughs in anticipation: "It almost has to happen because the music is so infectious!"

Gillett has never been as convinced as the average music fan, however, that "rock was a live thing as opposed to a series of records one loved—that's why the book makes an effort to point out how the industry evolved the music as well as vice-versa." Retaining this assumption, he says, also protects him from depression at the amount of sterile sound around today...the sound of the industry singing.

"I like music which has a location to it," admits this pop-crit star. "Music whose sound lets you know where it comes from. We've had that in a nice way with pernow to',?* Ian Durv and the Kinks, and 1 3y ss? Gw;,h Cu!*ure Club-1 char*r4„„ , 'jeor9e has a voice with effprt k ,an^ emotion; he's not singing for awau' fU ou^ himself. And that's a world away from the Spandaus and ABCs."

With such a respected Englishman on the blower, I can't resist the Costello Question. What ABOUT Elvis? 1 confess the fact that 1 walked out of the recent Palais blast. To my surprise, Gillett replies that although he didn t leave, he easily could have.

didn't leave, he "easily could have. "And I've always liked him a lot," he continues. "Though most of the time I haven't had a clue what he was on about, I do admire him a lot. But the show was strange.

I Couldn't really fault it from any particular angle; I just think that Elvis isn't a real, genuine enigma such as Van Morrison. So perhaps he simply owed the music a little less ego and a bit more attentiveness and explanation."

Back to Gillett's reissue, which covers every source Elvis could. I can't recommend it highly enough. It costs about seven pounds in paperback, and can be ordered within America for the equivalent of that amount in dollars through the Goldmine Bookshelf, Box 817, Fraser, Michigan 48026.

How right Gillett is, too, about the archival love of American rock dreams which so many British musos play out on these shores! Take—at the most parochial extreme—a band such as Dublin's Stars Of Heaven.

The Stars are a recently-formed quartet (Stan Erraught and singer Steve Ryan on guitar, Pete O'Sullivan on bass and Bernard Walsh on drums). They've been together a matter of months, but their major inspiration comes from the new U.S renaissance in country: the ways bands from Lone Justice, Rank & File, Whoa!, Trigger, and the Blasters are revisiting America's daily life, through C&W-flavored chords.

Unlike the more highly-hyped Irish bands like Pogue Mahone and their cohorts the rockabilly Shillelagh Sisters, the Stars aren't seeking a fixed format. They want to stretch a style. And they've stacked up 20 songs of their own already ("We've concentrated on writing," says Pete, "to avoid as much as possible the admittedly inviting trap of turning out 'Long Black Veil' et al ad infinitum at gigs").

At least two of the Stars' originals I heard via home-made cassette ("Paradise Of Lies" and "It's Only") seemed to have something going. A folkish and Gaelic grain sweetened some verite updates of country sentiment. (Now all I get is a paradise of lies/From asphodel to wallflowers /To yo ur wall-blank eyes... Or, on "If Only": ...and she pretends to be someone else/That he pretends to like/It's a numbers game, a waiting game/A game without a prize.)

The barest basics of making music couldn't be rougher just now for such an outfit; and if they did pump up much blood chances are a depleted, over-devouring media would suck them dry and spit them out before they had time to develop. Or, whatever fresh qualities they might have to offer could be deemed "insufficient" as sales points at the last moment. That was the fate of a group I mentioned not long ago: Liverpool's Reverb Brothers, who were flirted with, then dropped, by new indie Fascination Records.

In the end, Fascination's debut was a single by one Andde Leek: a former member of Dexy's Midnight Runners who made a break just as "Geno" reached No 1. Predictably, his slick "Soul Darling" for the new label offered absolutely nothing new. It was so homoginized, in fact, it got airplay in the northern U.K.; in outer New York and in Dallas, Texas!

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This latter phenomenon led to something perhaps even more bizarre—a call from the management offices of no less than Diana Ross, who (if things continue as planned) may well be recording two of Leek's better songs herself. One, "All I Want To Be," is apt and standard Ross-style schlock (Idon't know where I'm going /But these feelings are flowing/All I want to be/Is coming home to me); the other, "The Golden Door," is a slightly prettier love song. Andde, of course, is touring on air prior to recording his first LP: currently he's even opening a few U.K. club dates for Tina Turner.

More hype stirs with the New Year, however, in the form of a 1984 Week of futurism-and-rock for the coming horizon. Leading its line-up are Einsturzende Neubauten (who, with their new LP, seem happily settling in as proper Pop Stars) — though they are certain to be taking a Teutonic prod from one Holger Hiller of Germany's clever Ata Tak label. Cherry Red will be bringing out Hiller's solo debut here to coincide with the concerts—and they're billing him already as "the star of Germany's Next Wave."

Other up-and-comers featured are names I've mentioned before: the Kitchenware label's PreFab Sprout, Daintees and Hurrah! The Red Guitars; the Redskins; Pink Industry (led by alternative sex symbol Jayne Casey of former Pink Military fame); and Under Two Flags. But topping them all for PR profile-of-the-moment is one man band Billy Bragg, the 22-year-old pet of NME and left-leaning critics all round London.

A spin of his Life's A Riot With Spy Vs. Spy LP (Utility) doesn't really explain all the fuss. This Romford refugee from a punk band called Riff-Raff writes folky-angry lyrics which range from I am the milkman of humankindness/I will leave an extra pint to I loved you then as I love you still/I put you on a pedestal/They put you on the Pill. Bragg doesn't seem innocent, a la Jonathan Richman; he's not "political" in any but the most disastrously adolescent and didactic way; and —MY biggest complaint—he's got a lot to learn about not condescending to the opposite sex (cf "The Busy Girl Buys Beauty"). Spy Vs. Spy was recorded in three afternoons, with just the man and his six strings, but believe me, 'Nebraska' it ain't, though hustlers are busy touting its "raw sincerity."

Anyway, when Billy Bragg starts a-warbling about how he's not "looking for a new England," he's just "looking for a new girl," /start looking for comic relief. And luckily, the best of that very British tradition is readily available right now—in a new book of unique cartoons entitled The Rainy Day BIFF.

BIFF is actually a cartoon company composed of two life-long friends, Mick Kidd (words and entrepreneurism) and Chris Garrett (a film lecturer who lives in Devon and executes the artwork by mail in London). Veterans of an earlier enterprise during schooldays ("The Kidd-Garrett Joke Agency"), Mick and Chris offer a side-splitting perspective on today's media-savaged youth culture and its rock obsessions. Their single frames—packed with innuendo and reference—also offer some of the most cogent criticism of British foibles visible anywhere today.

BIFF is, in its way, as traditional and rootsloving as Charlie Gillett's book. And both are guaranteed to keep you Walkin' Back To Happiness. Order yourself up a swift biff on the funnybone today, by sending the equivalent of 2.95 pounds (that's minus postage) to Pavement Press, Compendium Bookshop, 234 Camden High Street, London NW1, U.K. It's guaranteed to tickle even your turntable.