UP UP & AWAY IN MY BEAUTIFUL SPANDAU BALLET

UP UP & AWAY IN MY BEAUTIFUL SPANDAU BALLET

FEATURES

Annene Kaye G.

IF WE WEREN’T ”AROUND, " WHAT WOULD BE?

Think about your liver. Can you feel it? Does it ever hurt? What the heck is it doing in there? With a good imagination and a little Baudelaire, you can explain your spleen away— but trying to get comfortable with your liver is enough to give you an ulcer. Do you talk about it with your nearest and dearest? No? Oh well you can't go through life with a "love me, love my liver" attitude...and besides, it's usually best to let sleeping livers lie. Consider the pleasures of alcohol consumption: eliminate the brain cell factor (because I think people drink with intent to kill those suckers) and concentrate on the truly unspeaWble things it does to your you-know-whatter. Gross.

Think that's dumb? That's not dumb. This is dumb: "So I Pekin' walks up to him and Pekin' tells the Pcker to Pck off!" (if asterisks are good enuff for Eleganza, they're good enuff for me).

DELIVER US FROM EVIL

When you're "young," a little ignorance is bliss. You can have lots of heroes, you can be idealistic, and with proper mdintenance you can stay "young" forever. As Dr. Faustus said, "Sweet Analytics, 'tis thou hast ravished me!"—and some joker in a wrestling mag echoes, "What does the mask of Mil Mascaras hide? What can't the fans see or understand? For the first time, the hidden personality of this complex wrestling great is revealed. You may wind up knowing more about Mascaras than you wanted to know."

Let's face it every time you read about a star who occupies a special place in your heart, you're playing Wheel Of Fortune with your "artistic" sensibility...chances are you'll end up with your brain rounded off to the nearest dollar.

"What's the point, bitch?," I think I hear you cry. What indeed.

WHY I DIDN'T ALWAYS LIKE SPANDAU BALLET

"The next to the last big thing...radical middlism...curvature of the mind...playing connect the dots with our brain cells...faking the better mousetrap...stealing their oats...writing their life history in no words or less...Planeria worms."

Once spunnatime, the authorette did not like Spandau Ballet and did not know why. She discovered, to her embarrassment, that the only reason for this venom was her distaste for the way Tony Hadley held his microphone. Luckily, she discovered this before she interviewed Gary Kemp.

Mr. Kemp is a young, charming composer with young, charming ideas. He looks like someone who stepped out of a Steve Canyon cartoon, and he's preaching style, pride, and selfexpression like a bible-belter on 78 RPM. Five years ago, he united with Tony Hadley (sings), John Keeble (drums), Steve Norman (honks and bumps), Martin Kemp (thumps), and manager Steve Dagger (clubs). Spandau Ballet supported London’s floundering club scene by talking it up and accepted the kudos for turning the 12”club-remix into whiteboys’ territory. Three albums are around for your perusal: Journeys To Glory, Diamond and True.

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CONTINUED FROM PAGE 47

The British press gang, the dressing for digression set, have spent years speculating about Spandau’s motivations. Speculation is Britain’s fave sport (after football and creative boredom) of course, and they’ve reached the fatal point where they can’t tolerate anything. And America has realized that it doesn’t want to peek in its girlfriend’s diary. We’ll worry about our livers in a few years.

THE LIVER YOU SAVE MAY BE YOUR OWN

Are things really changing, or are we breeding a new conseruativism?

“What do you mean exactly?”

A lot of things considered to be revolutionary in the recent past are being dumped; hemlines are dropping, bands are replacing synth duos as the mode, and y’all are selling on all the charts including Adult Contemporary.

“Conservative looks often come around when the economy’s really low.. .but you’ve got America accepting a man wearing a dress, although Americans have always been fascinated by English eccentrics. In Britain, music—let’s call it rock music for want of a better word—is less conservative than it ever has been. The club scene is enormous. Kids are going out more, even though they have less money. If they’ve got five pounds a week to spend, they’ll spend if going out one night. And the clubs are cheap.. .the best clubs are run by young kids like themselves.

“Now kids would rather go out to a club than see a band. Rock music used to be a passive audience, that is conservativism. There’s more energy and friction in a club than when you just watch a band, you’re the entertainment in a club. What’s the point in parodying rock music now? At least what’s happening is exciting...kids exploring the different avenues of pop.”

MWE ARE STARDUST, WE WEAR MUKLUKS”

The difference between British youth culture and, say, Dutch youth culture is staggering. The Dutch kids want nothing more than to be supported by the government; they’re worse than useless. In America we totally lost track of everybody under 25 for years...

“Youth Culture in Britain gives identity. Kids are running clubs and getting interested in design, it’s giving people personalities. It’s about change; taking people by surprise. There’s a big vacuum that’s been created in America in the last few years, mainly brought about through age—because of the way the industry over here is set up on such a commercial basis. Radio stations won’t play records unless it’s appealing to a certain age group.

“The bands got older and older. The ’70s is the bourgeoisie of the ’60s. It’s all those exciting people with good ideas in the ’60s becoming the establishment, where their only influences are Beverly Hills swimming pools. It’s been very hard to break down, because they are the industry. Kids haven’t had a band over here they can call their own.

“Music is the next step for any kid, it reflects youth culture. In Britain, the first thing that appeals to a kid about buying a record is not the music, it’s the band. It’s what they look like, what they have to say, and if they have any connection with them...and maybe, with a young girl, if they’re cute. Then the music. Kids in groups are just kids from the streets...we were.

“Over here, before TV and MTV got into music, all they had was the radio. It was hard to differentiate between bands. What was happening in Britain were the ideas, not just the vinyl. That’s only 50 percent of what we do—the other 50 percent is the idea of what Spandau Ballet is meant to be.” Your videos are very warm and friendly. . .for videos. A lot of videos are like those pocket flip-books where you make Mickey Mouse jump over the fence.

“A band has to use all the different mediums, and do them all well. The studio is an instrument in itself now. The desk is an instrument, and it’s as difficult to play as it is to play a guitar. And it’s as difficult to play commercially. When you play live, it’s a different thing entirely. When you get up onstage, you can’t be too subtle. You exaggerate the point...like the Who as Mods in ’66, they wore clothes that Mods on the street would never wear, but Mods connected with that band.”

And the videos have to be balanced between the internalized world of the studio and the external world of performing...

“In a way, it’s educating people. I made that comment the other day, and someone said, ‘Don’t you think the trouble with video is it’s stopping people thinking? It’s telling them this music means this image. People used to have their own images for music.’

I don’t think that’s true. When my dad used to walk down the street whistling Johnny Ray songs, he never thought of surreal psychedelic images...he just whistled the tune. Now they think of those things. The video is not just there to promote the 7”. It’s something I enjoy making, as much as I enjoy making the music.

“I was brought up in a visual age. I was brought up watching the telly. Bands from the ’60s and ’70s—’cause they were basically the same people, just a lot older--were brought up with the radio. The first time I ever heard groups was on TV. Visual inspiration and ideas were the strongest in my mind, and probably for the majority of bands in our generation.”

But the “True” video was based on atmosphere rather than acting. It’s a perfect version of what I imagine most people saw in their heads before video became so popular; a band in a room playing the song.

“ ‘True’ is a very evocative song. By now people are educated in images; they have their own. I didn’t want to dictate what ‘True’ should be like. I’m sure when people hear that record they’ve got their own idea of what it means and what it looks like. So we just performed it, and lit it well—shooting light through water and broken glass—and it worked.”

SOME LOOSE BITS

“This country has been unbelievable— most of the audience onstage trying to grab us. Mostly cute girls, but that’s another story. I’ve still got a bump on my head from Minneapolis. The guitar smashed me in the face as our roadies had to drag us offstage in the middle of a number. My theory why the girls have been screaming at our concerts is they can see the emotional release from our side, and they need that as much as we do. I hate an audience who are passive.

“That has been the biggest surprise for me on this tour; the scream. 1 know you invented it with Frank Sinatra, but I didn’t think the scream existed in America anymore.

“It’s interesting that Britain has always produced groups, and America has always produced solo artists. A kid’s parents will buy him a piano, he ii learn to write songs, and he’ll become a superstar; it’s the American dream. In Britain you’ve got to stick together, you’ve got to find an identity, and you’ve got to find it in numbers. On your own, it’s very difficult.” s

NOT JUST A BAUBLE ON THE EAR OF THE POST-PEPSI GENERATION

What kind of impulses and decisions were involved in the development of the True album?

“My biggest influence in writing a song like ‘True’ is the fact that there was no song like ‘True’ by a band like ourselves...although even that sounds contrived. For the first time, I was trying to write songs that were emotional release for me—me just writing about myself and the way I felt. I wrote ‘True’ and wasn’t ashamed by it. The album was me wanting to write an emotional,

modern, soul album. ‘Gold’ is a soul song, in that it’s inspirational; it makes you feel good.

‘True’ is a soul song; where Marvin Gaye would sing a line like: ‘I want to be on a jet plane with my baby,’ ‘True’ was saying: ‘Listening to Marvin all night long,’ which is something two kids did. They would sit there listening to records and get a real high about it...whenever they hear that record they would really get excited. ‘True’ reminded them of those moments. That’s soul.”

You’ve always been a very well planned unit, and when True came out a lot of cynics rolled their eyes and didn’t believe. It doesn’t matter, of course, because the public understood but...

“Being able to play a song like that, you deserve credit. Whether I thought about it or not, it doesn’t make any difference. It was a good song. If I can, I’ll be writing songs that appeal to that amount of people. Doesn’t mean to say I’m going to stick to an equation now, ’cause we never have. The next album won’t sound like True just because True sold so well.

“I’m glad ‘Gold’ is going to do well over here; it’s shaking off the enigma of (the song) ‘True.’ It’s selling us as a band. The thing that worried us about America is people didn’t know Spandau Ballet, they knew ‘True.’ ‘True’ is a much stronger song if they know where it’s coming from.”'

CUTE WORKING-CLASS BOYS MAKE GOOD. WHO CAN RESIST IT?

“Spandau Ballet’s history is important, so people know what the band are. Certain people in America do; we’ve noticed on tour the back catalog are quite well known by a lot of the audience. People who only know Spandau Ballet for the soft focus image on ‘True’...well, we wanted to come over and show ourselves with all our hard edges, transport our history over to America.

“We’re here to educate Americans, but we’re also here to be educated by Americans. When we say things in Britain, we know whom we’re saying them to. In America, we’re not sure. I think the industry’s different, but I don’t think the kids are different.

I think that basically they’ve got the same demands.”

Not really, things are totally opposite in some ways here.

“Yeah, I’m probably contradicting myself, from what I said earlier.”

In Britain, you have to know what’s happening all the time to keep track of things, after all, they change so fast. Here the pace is slower, and people can be blissfully ignorant.

“That’s something I’ve noticed over here that we don’t have in Britain. Because Britain is so small. The pop group has always been the best way to get to people; in a way, that’s why we used to band, to channel different creative ideas of young people in Britain. They couldn’t be accepted in their own right, they had to go through the band.

“People are much more open-minded now; everything is considered pop art.. .not in the ’60s sense, but in a popular sense. The band is still an easy medium, we’re getting to people. There are thousands and thousands of kids in America who want us, and they don’t care what the cynics say. Video and the 12” record are the two major art forms of the 1980s that changed everything. The records used to be home entertainment, and the band used to be the social event. Now the record is the social eyent, and the band is the home entertainment.

“The purists are up in arms about it—it’s not ‘right.’ So what? Change is right. At least it’s going to make people think. We’ve caused a lot of changes in Britain . Sounds really immodest to say, but I might as well, because I think it’s true. And I want to make changes in pop culture in America. In America, we opened the door and someone else crept in. Now we’re here, and people are putting everything in perspective, rather than THEY ARE BRITISH BANDS.’ ”

YOUNG AMERICANS

“The trouble with the young American bands is the record companies don’t recognize them. It costs so much money to break a record over here. They don’t want to put that kind of money into a band that haven’t proved themselves. Because British bands have proved themselves at home, they put the money up.

“Young American bands have gone really culty, ’cause they never consider the possibility of breaking here on a commerical level. So they’ve gone totally the other way, or done pop with their tongue in their cheek. I hate that—I think you should take it seriously. It’s patronizing to the kids who buy the records. Pop culture is just as valued and has just as much integrity as anything else. It’s more difficult to do as well.”

Well then, what’s the most important thing in the world?

“Oh God. Not God.”

God (Not God)?

“No, personal pride. Some kind of personal pride. Not letting people tell you that you’re a shit. Because you’re not.” |§^