OLD TURN BLUE, WISE PLAY NEW

OLD TURN BLUE, WISE PLAY NEW

LETTER FROM BRITAIN

Cynthia Rose

by

Wow—is it getting weird here! I just turned on the telly to catch new-model Phil Oakey’s U.K. preem of the Human League’s “The Lebanon.” Two colleagues present at the Drury Lane Theatre during yesterday’s video-making of same reported things were being played super-straight (aka dull) “because they seem to think it’s controversial.”

Something should be controversial when a lurvely young blonde obviously trying to shed a skin-tight, slit-to-the navel fake leather sheath dress stamps in her stilettoes and moans, “She dreams of 1969, before the soldiers came,” on MY TV screen. I quickly reconnoiter by phone with a photographer present at the video screen; He tells me Top Of The Pops’ appearance represented only a sartorial improvement over the film you poor schmucks are watching. (“He didn’t have that padded leather jacket for the video—just some appalling white trousers.”)

Other witnesses relay their cringing embarrassment at PO’s effusive thank-you to the patient video “audience” (shooting time for the single song: 4 hours straight). “It was the worst Best Man speech I’ve ever heard,” says one sorrowfully.

But did the crowd fall for it? “Sure. This is fandom.”

So greetings from Fandom Central. The place that supplies the accent and aura of snobbery so American money can grab and market the acts, invest the capital, and rake in the resulting bucks. Sure, we get a bit of the best American music. But the conditions under which it s arrived for over a year (blast „n; i sPrinkling of live shots and radio SX but no records IN THE STORES) are to seem definitely sinister, proceed Ser'ous *ax balancing acts

Meanwhile, ready yerselves for Our Next . 1S’r .*s. r*9ht; after all, Costello’s ans erring his energies to acting with TV’s

• Ciu ^ T n > e meSa'enshrinement of Colin ac nnes s cult novel Absolute Beginners ue o start shooting this June, he will be jomed by the Glimmer Twins and Pete l ownshend. Beginners will be directed by uien Temple, 30, perhaps the mostinterviewed video-maker ever and also previously director of The Great Rock And Roll Swindle.)

Anyway, this El hails from Glasgow, his name is Lloyd Cole and he commands the Commotions, who’ve just inked to Polydor. Eighteen months old (the band), they’ve produced a batch of lush love ballads and a bushel of press valentines. In some, Cole’s croonings are likened to Bowie—in others, to Bourgie Bourgie’s vocalist. Cole doesn’t much care which (“I believe in love,” runs one Commotion lyric, “I believe in anything that’ll get me what I want”), although I’d suggest he sounds like Lou Reed.

But Cole is keen to hear his “unreleased classic” “Down At The Mission”—and its more highly-rated B-side, “Are You Glad To Be Heartbroken?”—out of the can at last.

And if Polydor succeeds with “Perfect Skin,” his wish may well be granted. Give this man a foothold and you’re in for a deluge of love, at any rate. “Love,” says Prez-lookalike Cole, “offers plenty of scenarios and they’re all interesting.” All? “Sure. Don’t you watch any TV?”

Uh—actually I’ll read, thanks. Philip Norman, the man behind Shout: The True Story Of The Beatles, has now written the 29th biog of the World’s Oldest Band and called it, unsuprisingly, The Stones. A thick and heavily-detailed map to What Once Was, this self-consciously worthy tome seems bound to arouse the interest of preteens just buying their first Strolling Bones’ Greatest—in addition to the attention of Those Who Also Were.

I mention the latter since Pete Townshend, (now employed as a publisher by prestigious Faber & Faber) couldn’t resist reviewing it in print. Along with charitably drawing attention to Norman’s faction and short stories (as well as his “interview with the exclusive President Khadafy of Libya”), Townshend grants the Stones his imprimatur of accuracy. He himself can find only a few things to add or correct—and the two most interesting seem to have occured where Norman decided to act charitably.

Townshend’s memories, of the Rock And Roll Circus film extravanganza—banned by Jagger after it was made—center around a “tired, drugged, dispirited Brian Jones” who the Stones had by then abandoned to his self-indulgence, visibly sneering at him and snubbing him in the dressing-rooms...His futility and sadness pervaded all the songs they played that night.”

Of interest also is Townshend’s addition to the presented portrait of Jimi Hendrix— he remembers an artist driven by “ingrained black vengeance.” “I asked for a piece of his smashed guitar after Monterey Pop,” recalls Pete—after all, no slacker in the demolition stakes himself. “ ‘Want me to autograph it for you?’ he sneered.”

Less troubled by his memories (he says) is ex-NME staffer Tony Tyler—a vet of those “good old days” about which readers are constantly bending the ear of us contemporary contributors. In five years on the paper, I’ve seen Mr. T only once, but the florid manner in which he pronounces upon the rockbiz in new tome / Hate Rock And Roll: An Illustrated Diatribe echoes the air of many a “scribe” past. As you pass the bound volumes of back issues in the office, you can still catch the scent of a sentence like this: “By now the innocent, wholly respectful Anglo fascination with the Blues had given way to a grosser epoch in which youth dextrous upon solid-body guitars now determindedly mounted a major cultural coup d’etat against vocalized pop music.”

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Sometimes funny but never disarming, I Hate Rock And Roll might well decode a few period secrets of the U.K. music press (it certainly illustrates the roots of the mystique which made possible stuff like Burchill & Parson’s The Boy Looked At Johnny) for the interested American reader. All in all, though, Tyler demonstrates just the same volatile, love-hate relationship to rococo form which always put me off the “Golden Age” of Britcrit at the time. A lotta laughs and, of course, “style” but hell, where’s the content? For better or worse, there are writers today prepared to try to speak with clarity about rock—and they aren’t necessarily resigned to seeing themselves as either surrogate rock idols or workaday hacks.

I Hate Rock And Roll—already receiving massive publicity, of course—is a sad book for all its funny bits. Tyler seems to hate himself most of all, just marginally less than those still hacking away at his own job, or the fact that none of his thoughts are actually new ones. The cloud of unarticulated angst hovering just above the selfconscious ljteracy of Tyler’s prose can be translated into aural terms, of course; Anglo bands have helped make an industry of opacity. If you’re in doubt, try our latest—The Blue Nile’s debut, Orchestral Manouevres In The Dark’s Junk Culture, Bruce Foxton’s solo shot. Echo & The Bunnymen’s Ocean Rain.

Yes, the London music scene still has something to offer newcomers. It’s just not money. “This is a real intimate community and people are more in touch, more interested,” says American guitarist/sometimes NME reviewer Stephanie Paynes, who left Glenn Branca’s sonic salon in New York for these shores. “But there are no financial resources. Here even bands selling a lot of records will have no money. They may have connections, they may feel a real community—but it’s hard to eat.”

The quintet employing Ms. Paynes—Car Crash International—are a good testament to the physical possibilities an incestuous scene can offer. They’re comprised of Paynes, drummer Matt Best (once with Captain Sensible), singer Dave Roberts (formerly bassist with Sex Gang Children), backup vocalist Louise Dick and funkminded bassist Dave Martin, once of Pink Military. Together a mere six months, last week they headlined the Marquee; the week before saw the release of their snazzy-looking 12", called “All Passion Spent” and produced by Attraction Bruce Thomas.

How did this band with a Kenyan-born singer, Liverpudlian bass-player, Scottish vocalist, London-raised drummer, and American guitarist end up on a Belgian independent (Crammed Discs)? Simple! Dave Roberts lives down the street from Crammed’s man in London, once a big fan of Sex Gang. How did Bruce Thomas end up making his debut as producer with them? Simpler. Matt Best was once “a nanny” for Steve Nieve and his family. (“I got to know all the guys and realized all of ’em wanted to try production.”)

Of course, swift results can produce problems. Car Crash had to design the sleeve of their 12-inch before they knew which song it was going to house. (“All Passion Spent” was written in one day and recorded in three; the title for the “macho mix” of it which constitutes the flip side came off the pay phone in Paynes and Best’s hallway: “Dial First...P.O.A.”)

But then, scrambling for time is an occupational hazard here. Lloyd Cole is too busy perfecting his pout and loving to waste time hating rock ’n’ roll. And what do Paynes and Best have to say about Tyler’s sentiments? Couldn’t catch ’em; they’re back in the studio again.