The Beat Goes On

The Beat Goes On

SHANNON LETS IT PLAY

NEW YORK—Not only can Shannon wail on tunes like “Give Me Tonight” and “Let The Music Play,” but she knows her way around both the short and long tax forms and can calculate your gross income in mere seconds.

Before putting out a solid album and a couple (so far) of amiable singles, before gigging in Europe and all over the states and at Disneyland and Disney world and on a New York TV show for the Italian government, Shannon knew she had a head for figures. “I’m a very good bookkeeper, I would still be a bookkeeper and studying to be an accountant,” the Brooklynite “in my 20s” beams, had she not gotten so successful overnight. These days, she hires somebody else to do her taxes.

What took Shannon out from behind her desk, of course, was the song “Let The Music Play,” a tricked-out, explosive dance tune that’s been on one chart or another for over four months. It’s got more metallic pings and pops than a trayful of silverware pitched forcefully down the stairway, and the effects are a joy. That’s the sound the LP revels in. On the recent piece of chartivy, “Give Me Tonight,” the chipmunk-funk stutter-happy mix of the vocals makes you giggle even the thousandth time you’ve heard it.

Not that she always shouts, as a glomming of the slower material on the album Let The Music Play evidences. And not, for that matter, that Shannon simply considers herself a vocalist. “I’m a writer,” she explains, and she spent a long time working on both her singing and writing before “Let The Music Play” came her way. A chance meeting last year with a studio drummer led to an exchange of phone numbers, and that to a late-night call to the house of Shannon’s mother. On the phone was producer Mark Liggett, trying to track down a singer he’d heard was terrific, and suited for a project he was working on.

“Well. He said, ‘I have this song, I want you to try it.’ I didn’t want to try it at all.. .reluctantly, I did try ‘Let The Music Play.’ ”

Shannon’s got no shortage of ideas about what’s to happen next. Plans are to release, dripdrip-drip Thriller style, each of the album’s seven songs as singles. And there’s the usual videos and traveling and.. .In the final days of her last bookkeeping gig, Shannon would play the radio at work, listening to “Let The Music Play” bow onto the charts. Eventually she let coworkers—not her boss—in on her moonlighting, and when the tune would come on half the office gathered around Shannon. Nowadays Shannon is a full-time moonlighter, but in one New York office they joke about who it was who used to sing by the coffee urn.

RJ Smith

SHRAPNEL VS. ALL OF LIFE

NEW YORK-The members of Shrapnel, all in their early 20s, might have the distinction of being the youngest, continuouslyplaying, original-lineup, sevenyear-old band around. They emerged in New York during the heady days of punk but according to lead singer Dave Wyndorf, “We were never a punk band. Our influences were more the Dictators, the MC5, and Alice Cooper.” Adds guitarist Daniel Rey, “We always seemed to be outside of that scene. We had the attitude of punk bands but not the image and we did things like play guitar leads.”

Rey and Wyndorf have known bandmates Dave Vogt (guitar), Philip Caivano (bass) and Dan Clayton (drums) since kindergarten. They formed the band as Heart Attack in early high school. “We saw the Ramones in Asbury Park in ’77,” says Wyndorf, “and went absolutely apeshit.” Renaming themselves Shrapnel, they started playing NY’s punk palace, CBGB’s.

Shrapnel were famed at the time for their military image. “We used to play in Army clothes but a lot of people didn’t laugh at it like we did,” says Rey. “Unfortunately we came out at a time when bands like the Clash were acting like, ‘Rah, rah, rah! Guerrilla rock!’ And people would say to us ‘What are you guys, Uncle Sam rock? Yankee militarist rock?’ ”

It was around this time that Shrapnel became Norman Mailer’s favorite band. Says Rey: “He came to CBGB’s to see us. He was really into us—the youth, the macho aspect. He just wanted to have a drink and go to a rock ’n’ roll club and hang around with all the young girls. And he’d tell us all his war stories and we were into it.” Wyndorf continues, “He asked us to play at a party for his daughter. It started filling up with all these stars—Woody Allen, Jose Torres, Kurt Vonnegut. Mailer and Torres were boxing on the dancefloor instead of dancing. Mailer said to us, ‘I gotta teach you little bastards how to drink,’ and ended up giving us bottles of scotch to take home.”

Shrapnel’s major label debut is their self-titled Elektra EP, which contains two knockouts— “Master Of My Destiny” and a cover of Gary Glitter’s “I Didn’t Know I Loved You (Till I Saw You Rock ’N’ Roll)”; two pretty good originals—“Hope For Us All” and “It’s A Crime” and one yawner, “Nations.”

In the future, Wyndorf says “I’d like to see us get a little bit heavier when we want to but still have that drive—a little quicker than most heavy metal and a little bit more melodic and with more fun themes without being stupid.” Rey sees the band as “kind of a cross between Def Leppard and the Ramones, or something like that.” Summing up, Dave Wyndorf says, “I hope rock ’n’ roll can remain a cause. In rock ’n’ roll you could be a really big star and still be a geek.”

Richard Fantina

WHEN DINOSAURS WALK

SAN FRANCISCO-The Dinosaurs aren’t fossils from The Jurassic Period, but performers from the San Francisco of the ’60s: guitarist Barry Melton and John Cipollina (of Country Joe & The Fish and Quicksilver Messinger Service, respectively), bassist Peter Albin (Big Brother & The Holding Company), drummer Spencer Dryden (Jefferson Airplane), and guitarist Robert Hunter (lyricist of the Grateful Dead).

They play as they did in the old days, loose and spontaneously, relying on improvisation and inspiration. And also like when they began, they play for fun. Both their instrumentals and vocals have a distinctly unrehearsed charm. The Dinosaurs want to keep it all as little like work as possible. They’ve seen what that can do.

“If you really screw things up as a musician, it becomes a job,” Melton explains. “And once it becomes a job, you’re not doing anything more than the crassest Top 40 band in the lousiest lounge in Nevada. You kill off the music inside yourself that way, faster than anything. Then you can’t create. You can’t do anything. It can become a job, and you can be paid enormous amounts per night and you won’t even be there, just your body.”

The Dinosaurs perform a wildly electrified rock synthesis of blues, folk, and country & western styles blended into lengthy jams amid pulsating skyrocket bursts of color. They are bathed in swirling lights and silhouetted in quivering shadows on the throbbing screen behind them.

“We didn’t do this to sell anything. I know that’s hard to believe, especially in this age,” Melton says “We’re looking to capture something that was here before all the hype came. In that sense, to be authentic. San Francisco was very vital until the record companies came. In a way, that was the beginning of the end. It was almost all over by

then. Most of what was really creative had already gone down. As it became packaged, everybody lost touch with the values and the scene they had created here.

“When the Dinosaurs came together, we decided we’d sort of be pre-’67 San Francisco, to be true to that spirit and to ourselves.”

The papers here say it’s 1984. The old city is torn down and the cable cars are torn up. Both the Democratic Party and prostitutes’ union will hold conventions in town this summer. Who cares? When the wind is blowing in just right, 1985 seems just around the corner. Frank Fox

ANDY FRASER: FREE AT LAST

NEW YORK-He was 14 when he began playing bass for John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers back in ’66, and 16 when he joined Paul Rodgers, Simon Kirke and the late Paul Kossoff in Free two years later. Tan and fit from living in L.A. for the past eight years, Andy Fraser has emerged from a hiatus with a brandnew album, Branded, and band. This is his first American solo project since an aborted album for Polydor five years ago, which never did come out.

“They let one of their A & R guys re-mix it, which is like getting a chef to work on your car,” he says ruefully. Since the record company legally prevented Fraser from recording the songs on the LP, they became hits in cover versions by the likes of Robert Palmer, Joe Cocker, Chaka Kahn and Frankie Miller.

Still, despite his growing rep as a songwriter, Fraser will probably always be associated with Free.

“That was a band in the real sense,” he admits. “Equal members, strong chemistry. When you’re that young, it doesn’t even seem like work; it’s all fun. When Free was over, I tried to look for another situation like it, but I realized now that kind of thing comes along once in a lifetime. I had to learn to be happy on my own.

“In Free, we all picked one another up. We could look to the others for support. Each one of us lead the rest in a certain area. If it was a physical confrontation, Rodgers was always the most aggressive and obnoxious. If it had to do with finances or academics, that was me. Simon had an incredible knack for being the mediator while Kossoff had a great sense of humor. It was a true group.

“We were a band which opened doors, but never capitalized financially,” laments Andy. “We never got to the position where we could clean up, like the Who or the Rolling Stones, who reached a certain point and then just kept repeating themselves. I didn’t want to feel trapped for the next 50 years playing the same licks. I preferred to grow as a writer and singer and I didn’t believe there was the room to do so in Free. I think the others felt much the same way.”

Fraser went on to play a stint with guitarist Chris Spedding in Sharks, then released a pair of solo records in the U.K. before settling on the west coast to write and think.

“It’s not just up to you as to when to release a record or tour,” says Fraser, explaining his absence from the rock front. “You need musicians, equipment, money, record company, management...it’s a team that must come together at the same time. I’m just a part of that team, maybe the most visual part, but certainly no more important than anyone else.”

With solid management (which he shared with the Police), a record company (Island), a band and an album, this still-young veteran of the biz is set to strut his stuff on stages across the U.S.A. this summer.

“I don’t know who might show up, but I’ll be happy to see them,” says Andy pleasantly. “I’d like to think I haven’t forgotten my roots, which have always been blues, R&B and soul—stuff like Aretha, Otis, Stevie Wonder. But the industry has come a long way. I just try not to lose my perspective. Once you’ve put the sweat and energy into something and it’s all behind you, I sit back and laugh.”

A healthy attitude like that is what’s made Andy Fraser a rock ’n’ roll survivor.

Roy Trakin

THE CREEM CHRONICLE: Where were you five years ago?

HE GIVES GOOD EAR

Too bad Pete Townshend didn’t think of this 10 years ago: We have it on good authority that Blondie’s producer, Mike Chapman, had his ears insured for a cool $10 million a few years back. Quick Igor, Q-tips!

PASSION; POETRY, AND THE GO-BETWEENS

NEW YORK—Sincerity, a sense of humor and a great sense of camaraderie struck me immediately upon first meeting the Go-Betweens. A similar earnestness pervades their music, but as for humorousness and a sense of harmoniousness, the GoBetweens are much more concerned with urgent, impressioned vocals and off-beat rhythms.

A modern art-pop quartet, each and every member a bonafide Brisbane native, the Go-Betweens feature Robert Forster (songwriter, vocals, guitar) and Grant McLennan (ditto), Lindy Morrison (she’s got the beat) and Robert Vickers (bassplayer and former Color). And the saving grace of the dual songwriting setup? The dynamictension effect.

In performance, the Go-Bees appear at times under Forster’s control; just then, McLennan pops in to announce a title or sing lead: interesting friction ensues. Meanwhile, the Morrison/Vickers rhythm section remains in back, in the classic rock mold—unassuming, but constant. (Robert Vickers, during one Danceteria show, faced Lindy for almost half the set, standing with his back to the audience. Now that’s dedication to art, with just a touch of shyness thrown in!)

Excepting ex-“punk” drummer Lindy, the male Go-Bees, Grant and Roberts F. & V., are old friends. In 1978, the same time that Robert Vickers left Brisbane to seek his fortune in London and New York (finally settling here for almost five years, illegally, playing and writing with the magna-pop Colors) , Robert Forster and partnerin-song Grant McLennan formed the Go-Betweens. Finding Australia repressive (R.F. said “Brisbane, where we come from, is exceptionally right wing—it’s run by Fundamental Christians and rivals the southern states in the U.S.A. for racism.”), Robert F. and Grant, having put out two singles on their own Able label, moved to England. Postcard Records subsequently picked them up, followed by Rough Trade.

They remained in touch with Robert Vickers, whose New York life consisted mainly of messengering days and rehearsing nights with the Colors or gigging or hanging out at his local bar, CBGB’s. On a visit to New York, Grant and Robert G-Bee became enamoured of the new music movement—art-rock met new-wave for a brief fling—and caught shows by the Talking Heads, Television and the Student Teachers at every opportunity.

Armed with fresh inspiration, Go-Betweens #’s 1 and 2 returned again to Australia. Lindy Morrison joined up, and the three Go-Bees moved again to London to cut their second and strongest LP for Rough Trade, Before Hollywood. The English press lavished praises, which is only fair: it is an honest, sincere, stark and poetic record.

Disenfranchisement makes divinest sense to the GoBetweens, whose Australian nationality wins friends but earns them instant fringedom, leaving listeners with a sense of profound, wide-open-space alienation (“Cattle And Cane”), and yearning, ever yearning...

It may take a few listens, but the Go-Betweens are a rare, soulful blend of the quirky and the lyrical. Stay away, MTV!!

L.E. Agnelli

LOVE TRACTORS FROM HELL

ATHENS, GA—A few years back, when this town lacked a viable club circuit, local rockers would flock to one house or another to enact their favorite nighttime game plan: get drunk, dance, and occasionally cave in a porch with their footwork. That “party scene” spawned a fraternity of good-time bands, originally assembled just to provide entertainment, that has made this college ‘burb of 42, 549 a minor mecca of newline southern rock. Groups like the B-52’s, R.E.M. and the Method Actors were the life of these parties before they decided to take their fun on the road.

So was Love Tractor. Guitarists Mark Cline and Mike Richmond were Georgia boys who met bassist Armistead Wellford and drummer Kit Schwartz while attending the U. of G. When Schwartz left for Sweden to study film, he was replaced by Wellford’s prep school “cousin.” “We were Virginians,” quipped Carter. “The true Confederates.”

Pressed for time with their first gig approaching, the band chose their name for its rural imagery. Love Tractor were instant members of the closely-knit Athens rock family, playing instruments they borrowed from their “relatives.” “If it weren’t for R.E.M., we might not even be around,” Cline remembered. “We’d always practice at their studio and use their equipment. [R.E.M.’s] Pete and Mike lived in an old church, and we’d have huge parties there, using the altar as a stage. It was a great place, but they had to move out because the fleas got too bad.”

Through no conscious efforts of their own, Love Tractor became known as a strictly instrumental four-piece. “We didn’t want to drag around a whole P.A. system just to sing, and we figured the songs sounded OK without vocals.” Cool, calm and collected in true downhome fashion, their music is so smooth, so easy-going, so effortless and painless, you’d think a good snooze might be in order after a few twangs. But their churning gamut of chords and harmonics can usually keep an audience on its toes, with or without crooning.

When the pleasant guitar drawl of Love Tractor was released in 1982, it drew unexpected comparisons to the Raybeats and Ventures. Hot to shed their no-vocals albatross, they added some singing to last fall’s impeccably recorded second LP, Around The Bend. Their third effort on Danny Beard’s DB Records (which distributed the original B-52’s 45) is the new five-songer dubbed ’Till The Cows Come Home, “a collection of potential singles” that includes a cover of Kraftwerk’s “Neon Lights.”

Following a map we hope they bought cheap, the band will be criss-crossing North America for the next few months, travelling to the West Coast via Canada. Meanwhile, back in Athens, the party atmosphere has faded from the rock circuit. The newer bands, eyeing the success of their predecessors, carry on in a much more serious tone. “They’re missing the fun of it all.” But when Love Tractor get back home, they’re sure the town’s daytime activity will still be the same. “We can’t wait to sit by the pool, wear sunglasses, and drink Budweiser ’til we fry.”

Tristram Lozaw