WENDYO.: METAL NIGHTS

WENDYO.: METAL NIGHTS

Edouard Dauphin

Clad in black leather, Wendy O. Williams slips behind the steering wheel of her 1972 white Cadillac convertible, guns the engine and we cruise off onto the highways of the night. In skull cap and opere cape, The Dauph sits huddled in the car's back seat, sipping anxiously from a gold flask of overproof rum. Soon we will be crossing a state line—always a source of apprehension for Edouard Le Poltron—but we won’t even make it to the Connecticut border if Wendy doesn’t stay in the automobile.

Reminded that the side door next to her is slightly ajar even though we’re now speeding along at nearly 70, Wendy merely laughs. “I know, but what if I want to get out?” No problem—we all have our own ways of getting to Connecticut.

A solo artist, now that the Plasmatics are no more, Wendy is on the last leg of an East Coast tour following several weeks of barnstorming in the Southwest, where she treated the tacostuffed rednecks to her own version of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. These days, Wendy is wielding her blade on a mannequin of Boy George in a finale to her Heavy Metal set that’s every bit as frenzied and anarchic as anything she’s done before in a career lived on the razor’s edge of rock theatrics.

‘‘Hello Hartford, are you ready to kick some ass?” bellows Wendy. It is an hour later and we are in the Agora, a shopping mall Heavy Metal venue that resembles an oversized family rec room. The place is packed with a crowd of W.O.W. fans, plus a faction of the suburban yuppied curious and a smattering of beer-and-downer casualties who are slumped around the room. Someone indicates a girl of about 16 with heliotrope streaked hair, passed out on a table, spittle trailing from her mouth. ‘‘Hey, Dauph, is that your date for the night?” Sometimes it doesn’t pay to have a reputation.

Kicking ass is a pretty apt description of what Wendy is doing on the Agora stage. There’s a new lineup to her band and it’s undeniably the best bunch of musicians she’s ever worked with. Stalwart Wes Beech, a mainstay of the original Plasmatics, is a powerhouse drummer who provides a solid foundation. Then there are the new kids: Greg Smith, a fleet-fingered bassist with rock star looks, and lead guitarist Michael Ray, a real find who very nearly wound up in Kiss but was nabbed by Wendy instead.

As Wendy stalks the boards, dishing out Heavy Metal anthems like “The Damned,” “It’s My Life” and “Ain’t None Of Your Business,” the audience surges forward, fists waved excitedly in the air. Though dressed in the same next-to-nothing garb she wore on the cover of her last album, W.O. W., Wendy ventures right out onto the stage apron, working the crowd with impunity. From a sea of hands, someone holds aloft a pair of crutches. Does Wendy have power to heal the lame? Or is some fan with a sprained ankle being trampled underfoot? The Dauph orders a Rusty Nail at the bar. Hartford is weird, all right.

Meanwhile, Wendy bobs and weaves around the stage, giving the audience a helping of gut-twisting rock. When Michael Ray, barely out of his teens, steps forward for his guitar solo, The Dauphin considers the fact that a whole new generation of rockers is on the way up and the main difference between Michael and Eddie Van Halen may turn out to be that Michael grew up listening to Eddie Van Halen. Think about it.

At Lamours in Brooklyn, a few weeks later, Wendy has a more suitable forum for her blistering brand of Heavy Metal. Dubbed the HM capital of America, this is a smoky, sprawling room that can hold upwards of a thousand and, with Wendy as the attraction, The Dauph is lucky to find a narrow space at the bar from which to watch the show. Seeing Wendy in this venue, with a good sound system and a crowd of rabid—some of them, literally—fans, one is convinced that she has made good on her boast of being the heaviest female in Heavy Metal. In fact, there isn’t anyone else even close.

In case you want further proof, three of the tracks from this head-bashing Lamours set have just been released on an English EP, entitled Fuck 'N' Roll, available here as an import. They include the title cut, the encore finale on which Wendy leads an audience chorus in what +ias to be one of the most boisterous sing-alongs in recent Heavy Metal memory. You’ll also hear an eight minute version of her classic, “Bump And Grind,” and an inimitable “Ain’t None Of Your Business,” in which she offers a hilarious monologue on why straight people walk so stiffly. (Hint: it has to do with a banana.) The EP will be released on an American label shortly and another Wendy album is also in the works.

On Wendy’s W.O.W. LP, she did a song called “Legends Never Die”—and that title could apply to Wendy herself. She’s a Heavy Metal legend now, and just as in the car on the way to that state line, she’s firmly in the driver’s seat, taking anyone with balls enough to listen on a high velocity drive they won’t soon forget. The car door may be open but she’s not jumping out yet. In this career she’s fashioned, Wendy’s got the gas pedal floored, with no breaks.