The Beat Goes On

The Beat Goes On

FROGGIN' MIT HAGEN

NEW YORK—German singer Nina Hagen may just be the strangest human being CREEM has yet accosted in its long and strange history. Certainly she gives the phrase “space cadet” a whole new turn: Hagen really does believe that some of her ancestry is extra-terrestrial, and that she will be scooped up by a shipful of them when she’s in her 40s. The ship will take away all the people on a certain “frequency.” Those not on the frequency will not even be able to get close to the ship without being injured. Then when the cleansing of the evil on the planet earth is over, the ship will return its earthly residents to start “the new race.”

Take that, Ozzy Osbourne.

Even if you think that theory could only live in the head of a padded-room resident, you’d have to be charmed by Hagen in the flesh. She may be from space, but earth is a wonderful vacation. Underneath the Cleopatra make-up, the punk clothes, the turquoise ponytail and yellow mohawk, there’s a German housefrau enjoying life’s little pleasures to the max. From the interview conversations about God and space travel she switches easily to hugging her toddler daughter, squeezing her boyfriend, trying to feed visitors in her big and messy hotel suite, sticking her face out the window to taste the rain, talking the most mundane of promotion business for Fearless with her entirely normal publicist. She giggles about another interviewer’s assessment of her: “They called me Lucille Ball on an acid trip.”

Hagen is the daughter of East German film legend Eva Maria Hagen. The kids in her school gave her guff about her mom, and about her name (“Katareeeeeeena,” mimicks Hagen). Her parents split up, with the father becoming the stranger. Neither parent was a church-goer of any sort. Nina discovered unearthly forces early and all by herself. “I saw my first witch sitting under the table when I was about three years old.” At age 17 she had an “out of body” experience during an acid trip; a representative of God’s named Mickey “borrowed” the body of the non-tripping friend taking care of her. Nina & God had a talk. Since that time, Hagen’s albums and life have been filled with her iconoclastic version of the moon upstairs. “My music is spiritual food,” she says. You try for a minute to im: agine Jerry Falwell catching the glow from the Fearless dance hit, “New York New York.” Hagen is unfazed. “God is not a fanatic.”

Neither is Nina Hagen, which makes her a much more benevolent force than half of earth’s natives. Fearless (produced by Keith Forsey and Giorgio Moroder) makes mad, delicious dance music and Hagen knows it’s good. She talks a Tittle about her hopes for a hit (a BGO requirement!) but you don’t get the feeling that no hits will ruin her fun on this planet or any other. “I’m with God all the time. He’s sending me to the right places at the right time. I’m always in the here and now. So it’s a birthday every day. I’m happy with whatever I’m doing.” If she starts booking seats on the ship, we’ll let you know.

Laura Fissinger

HANOI ROCKS NOT CHINESE

NEW YORK-Hanoi Rocks may look like (and speak in) cliches, but they aren’t revivalists. “People always try to classify us, which I hate,” says lead singer Mike Monroe. “They talk about a glam-rock revival and we weren’t trying to do anything like that. We’ve always been just a rock ’n’ roll band.”

Adds songwriter/lead guitarist Andy McCoy, “It’s not metal either.” Hanoi Rocks play hard, loud rock ’n’ roll wrapped around some poppy melodies and mischeviously decadent lyrics. The band has recorded 42 original tunes in less than three years. “I don’t write them,” says McCoy, “they just come to me.” The infectious songs combined with a clear-cut style and attitude carry them over. Monroe’s movie-star looks ' don’t hurt either.

The band was formed in Finland (yes, Finland) in 1980 by McCoy and Monroe with guitarist Nasty Suicide, bassist Sam Yaffa, and drummer Gyp Casino. They lived on the streets, bumming and crashing at friends’ houses, while rehearsing, they say, 12 hours a day. Their first gig was in the fall of that year. By March of 1981, their debut LP, Bangkok Shocks, Saigon Shakes, Hanoi Rocks, was in the Finnish top five. Within six months they were earning a living from their music. Very light dues, eh?

In February 1982, their second LP, Oriental Beat, reached number one in Finland. Later that year Self-Destruction Blues was released and it also reached number one in Finland and hit the U.K. indie charts. British drummer Razzle replaced Casino—who was fired onstage because of a propensity to violence. In 1983, after the band had moved to England, they recorded their fourth LP, Back To Mystery City, with Dale Griffin and Overend Watts (the rhythm section of Mott The Hoople) producing.

Last June, they were signed to CBS, who lined up heavyweight heavy metal producer Bob Ezrin to produce their next album, Silver Missiles And Nightingales, which will be released later this year. Ezrin, who worked magic with Alice Cooper and Kiss, recorded the band in Toronto and New York.

Perhaps the most endearing aspect of Hanoi Rocks is their total acceptance of the myth of rock ’n’ roll—the fast living, the rebellious posturing, the love of a good noise and a good time. It’s no coincidence that they’re often compared to the Rolling Stones and the New York Dolls, comparisons they naturally dislike. Their look seems tailormade for MTV, and if their new LP continues in the vein of their first four—and if CBS provides the necessary push, which seems likely—Hanoi Rocks could easily go all the way.

Richard Fantina

THE REPLACEMENTS THINK

MINNEAPOLIS -Sloppy, drunken, tasteless sets used to be the rule for the Replacements, so this one just felt like old times. Guitars out of tune, heads out of shape, they were in the middle of a benefit gig for a Minneapolis man in need of a heart transplant when singer/songwriter/guitarist Paul Westerberg stopped to pay tribute to the man of honor. “Let’s hope it fits,” said the sentimental singer, “ ’cause we ain’t cornin’ back.” And then plowed through a thunder-pumping reading of the DeFranco Family’s little-loved “Heartbeat Is A Lovebeat.”

Yessiree, Uncle Art, kids say the darnedest things, but these here Replacements wear unmitigated gall like a badge of honor. The spirit was laid out plain as a kick in the pants on their 1981 Twin/Tone Records debut LP, Sorry Ma, Forgot To Take Out The Trash: “I ain’t got no idols/1 ain’t got much taste/I’m shiftless when I’m idle/And I got time to waste.”

Back in ’80, Westerberg killed time eavesdropping on a band of basement speed merchants; huddled in the bushes outside their window, he’d marvel at how fast they could play punk rock standards like “Roundabout.” He eventually mustered the nerve to go on in and join guitarist Bob Stinson, drummer Chris Mars and Stinson’s bassplaying little brother, Tommy (then 13). Westerberg describes the alliance as one of necessity rather than convenience.

From its delinquent scrawl liner notes to its raw guitar power and kiddish concerns (“More Cigarettes,” “Love You Till Friday,” “Hangin’ Downtown”), Sorry Ma ranks as a classic debut, embodying rock ’n’ roll in its purest form: a fearless, unschooled and impassioned cry from the “twisted soul of youth.” And before we get too heavy about this, it should also be pointed out that it showed them to have a pretty sturdy sense of humor about the whole thing (liner note excerpt: “ ‘Careless’ [:68]—Don’t worry. We’re thinking about taking lessons.”).

Which led to the follow-up EP, Replacements Stink. A good-natured tussle with the harder faster ethic, Stink is the Replacements’ nod to their hardcore contemporaries. And while the slab is notable for the anthemic “Kids Don’t Follow,” the bitter-tongued ballad “Go,” and a pair of ripsnort spirits, “Fuck School” and “God Damn Job” (as in, “I need a...”), it unfortunately fastened a skinheaded label to what’s really just an oldfashioned rock ’n’ roll band. “I never liked being part of a group or a team or anything,” says Westerberg. “1 want no part of it. I get a kick out of hardcore sometimes—it’s fast, aggressive. But I don’t like all the shit that surrounds it, the group, the idea. I like to be alone and have my own idea.”

The Replacements’ idea— honesty, guts & fun—once caused the band a lot of problems onstage. If they weren’t having fun, they had the guts to be honest about it; short sets, wrestling matches and streams of mumbling gibberish were common. The sets are still unpredictable—they might cover Kiss or the Jackson 5, they might refuse to keep playing unless people throw money—but now their energies are more consistently focused. And there are some things an audience can damn near count on: Bob will be wearing a nice dress and playing his leads in tune, Tommy will be spending a lot of time in the air, Paul will sing like he means it and accidentally bust his guitar, Chris will keep it together by pounding out a backbeat regardless of what’s going on in front of him.

The band’s last LP, Hootenanny, captured their spirit better than any of its predecessors, mixing their selfstyled “power trash” with a jigger of folk, a dash of C&W and a stiff shot of blues. It’s an uncommon binge, but it won enough fans in the nation’s press to crack the Village Voice's annual critics’ poll as one of the top LPs of ’83. A new record is due early this summer (working titles: Get A Soft On, Kind Of A Sewer, Let It Be), and it reveals even more of their roots in its whirl of great songs and bad jokes. While major labels have started courting, the band isn’t holding its breath. What do they want out of all this? “Why,” says Westerberg through a big-ass grin, “to fuck a lot of Cadillacs and own a lot of women, what else?”

David Ayers

THE CREEK CHRONICLE: Where were you five years ago?

CAREER OPPORTUNITIES?

Whadda ya mean counterfeiting? They just wanna borrow it! The Clash were turned down by the Bank of England after requesting permission to use a 20-pound note for their upcoming I Fought The Law EP. Back to the printing press...er, drawing board.

IS THIS REAL LIFE?

NEW % YORK —Hold the vegemite, please: Real Life aren’t just another band from Australia. In fact, back home Down Under their hit “Send Me An Angel” was mistaken for foreign musical product. Here in the States, it’s unmistakably a rock radio and MTV hit— whatever its origins—as is ‘•’Catch Me I’m Falling,” the follow-up radio hit.

And Real Life in real life, in the personages of co-leaders David Sterry (guitars) and Richard Zatorski (keyboards and violin), aren’t really typical Australians, though a bit of the outback in them is humorously revealed after their visit to New York’s World Trade Center towers. “We were looking out into the harbor trying to locate Alcatraz,” laughs Zatorski.

They like America, and America seems to like them. “Australia’s about the same as the States.” observes Sterry. “Same size and temperature variations.

“Except you get snow in your middle and we get desert in the middle instead.” groans Zatorski. who is reassured by the fact that “you could take six blocks of Manhattan out there and they’d be the same as downtown Melbourne or - Syndey—just smaller.” These are two eager internationalists indeed.

Why not? Their sound is an agreeable slice of generic electropop. which even their homelanders thought was an international import. “They don’t generally think of us as an Australian band at home.” explains Zatorski. Adds Sterry, “Strangely enough, when people first saw our video clip for ‘Send Me An Angel’ on TV, because we didn’t do it in the center of Australia at Ayer’s Rock or in the desert, people thought we were from England or somewhere else.”

“When we came out with it, 70 to 80 percent of the country thought we were an English act.” says Zatorski. “We could tour capital cities with a No. 3 single and get nobody, because they wouldn’t make the link between this band Real Life that had this single and the Real Life band that were touring. We had to advertise the fact that Real Life is an Australian band...”

“Which hopefully was a real nice surprise for them,” observes Sterry.

Speaking facts-wise, their history is also generic. Zatorski was raised in Melbourne playing symphonic violin (“Tell him about the time you got arrested in Western Australia on an orchestra tour for drunk and disorderly at 15,” prods Sterry). Richard’s ad in a local music paper for a co-writer brought him together with Sterry, and they proceeded to write 100 songs and play some 600 gigs in the next three years, coalescing their line-up to include bassist Alan Johnson and drummer Danny Simic. They signed up with Little River Band’s manager, who started a label to release their singles, and then recorded Heartland, their first LP, with one of their initial choices of producers, Steve Hillage.

“We’re just trying to be contemporary and up there with everything else,” Sterry notes. “There’s all this fanfare about Australian acts at the moment, and Australians are very pleased about that. But I’m just a little sick of the nationalism. We’d just like to be on equal footing with any other international act from England or America.”

Concludes Zatorski, “In a nutshell, we want to be a modern entertaining band.” No Foster’s? No Koalas?! No Kangaroos??!! “No, we just want to be known as a good songwriting team in a good band no matter where we’re from.” Sounds real enough to me, guys.

Rob Patterson

BILL NELSON'S SUNNY VISTA

NEW YORK--Against the rising British techno-tide, you can spot a certain few who march to the beat of a different rhythm generator. Bill Nelson is one such musician. On the scene since the early '70s. his career is one of innovation, turbulence and survival. And with more than 10 years and 10 albums behind him. Bill Nelson is once again touring and making records for an American audience.

Nelson was first exposed to the British public by DJ John Peel, who played Nelson’s homemade album on the air and provoked industry interest in what: would become BeBop Deluxe. Throughout the five albums BeBop Deluxe released on EMI. the sinuous, tortured riffing of Bill Nelson’s guitar created the framework for complex rock tunes with a stylistic nod to Bowie’s work of the period. Their powerful, biting melodies and relentless touring garnered BeBop an American cult following by the mid-’70s.

When at long last BeBop seemed ready to hit a wider audience Nelson broke up the group and formed Red Noise, a band that fans would call prophetic and record labels would call perverse. Red Noise was a marriage of music and machinery that ranged from standard synth fare to wild electroid stompers—tunes like “Don’t Touch Me (I’m Electric)” captured the essence of alien punk without the Teutonic seriousness of Kraftwerk or the cartoonishness of Gary Numan. As intriguing an experience as Red Noise may have been, Nelson is realistic about its consequences: “At the time that was a disastrous thing for me to do. It was that album that lost me my American contract to Capitol. They freaked. They didn’t know what the hell was going on. The comments that came back to me were hilarious. They were so over the top you’d have to laugh—otherwise you’d cry. I thought I d made a really commercial album. It was acceptable, it was accessible...”

In the years that followed, Bill Nelson became a producer of note, working with A Flock Of Seagulls and the Skids, Stuart Adamson’s outfit before he started Big Country. At about this time, Nelson founded Cocteau Records, and began releasing solo singles and LPs.

From his three Cocteau LPs, Epic Records compiled Bill Nelson’s latest album, Vistamix. The set is a collection of jagged electronic landscapes that serve as a background for Nelson’s strictly structured melodies. Nelson’s vocals tend to center on lilting, romantic melodic lines, but with an angular electric accompaniment that puts him well ahead of such cocktail-lounge oozers as Spandau Ballet or Aztec Camera.

While Bill Nelson’s style may not-appeal to everyone, he must be recognized as a precursor as well as a participant in the realm of electronically-oriented rock. With a renewed commitment to touring and an all-new LP in the works, could Bill Nelson be the antidote to the British synthblight? You decide.

Drew Wheeler