CRANKIN’ THAT GO GO GADGET

This is crazy. l’m in Cheriy’s Roller Rink, in Northeast Washington, D.C. The place is filled with black teenagers, and even their younger brothers and sisters, dancing like there’s no tomorrow. An enormoushulk of man-mountain named Big Al is followingme around, staying two steps behind me at every moment.

Big Al has been assigned by Island Records to Guard me with his life. Not that l’m in the least bit of danger. But Island The Everyone on the go go scene, it and knows him and loves him. When rive outside of Cheriy’s everyone An “Yo, Big Al, what’s up like that” there’s lots of slap-me-fiving and like two But Big Al takes his job so seriously

he won’t even let me go to the by myself. I mean, even in third that they weren’t this strict. And besides, nobody here is

And besides, nobody here is looking for trouble. These kids are here todance.

or sisters to buy them a hot dog or a soda, and then they hit the floor work out. Experience Unlimited (EU for short) are arplaying, and the floor is a mass of swirlgoes ing soaring motion unlike anything I’ve and ever seen. The dancing doesn’t match that. break dancing in acrobatic accomplishthat ment, and it’s not competitive. But it much more communal. The kids form

grade lines, hands on each other’s shoulders, and start a wild snake dance around the for floor. A controlled pandemonium builds as the music—with its relentless rhythmic surge—gains intensity and the horns kickin. Bodies are flying around in expertly executed dervish patterns. These dances have names, too. That snake dance is called the Inspector Gadget. Kids are also doing the Rock, the Side To Side, and the EU Freeze. Lines of dancers intersect and collide, groups ci:cle each other and bodies bounce off each other and stop mid-flight for dramatic poses. Even Big Al is doing a little jig as he stands keeping his eye on me. Like I said, this is crazy, but boy is it fun. The go go got me.

EU is just one of a crop of bands who play the go go’s of D.C. every weekend in an insular, self-contained scene that has attracted a huge, intensely loyal audience in Washington, a less large but quite enthusiastic following among London soul club night lifters, and is looking to break into the American funk mainstream.

What are its chances? Certainly the close identification between bands and audience, the sense of community that makes going to a go go in Washington a bit like stepping into the middle of a very large family gathering, is going to be missed when this stuff gets shipped around the country.

Any dance music fan who had the chance to do what I did, spend a couple of nights hanging out in D.C. go gos, would probably be a fan for life—the spirit of this thing is that infectious. Since that’s not possible for most people, Island is hoping to bring the experience of the go gos out to the world, with a go go film called Good To Go. If the film is any good at all (and advance reports say it is very good), go go music, after bubbling under for seven years in D.C., could finally win a national following. There is a lot of power simmering and smoldering in this muscular, extremely physical sound.

What is this thing called go go?

One might turn to Robert Palmer of the New York Times, who defined it as “a polyrhythmic dialog of loping percussion patterns...pushed to the front of the mix, along with heavy bass and the bass drum’s insistent syncopation.” .

Or one might turn to Maxx Kidd, the entrepreneur who engineered the current go go explosion by getting his local, Washington based label, T.T.E.D. Records inked for world-wide distribution by Island Records. Practically all the hot go go groups record for T.T.E.D. ‘‘They say it’s hard music,” Kidd says. “Not hard rock, but just hard. Like heavy metal, it’s live, and hard and gritty. That’s what go go is.”

All of the go go bands share certain basics. There is always lots of percussion—a big bass drum sound, plus congas, cow bells, shakers and all sorts of incidental banging that adds up to a tribal jam. Drums and bass pump out a steady, smoothly rolling rhythm, rather than the jerky, stop start of rap. The rhythm is punctuated by dropping bombs and washing waves of synthesizer noises and color. Then there are always horns to add a soulful sweetner to the mix, and chanted vocal lines that help get the crowd going.

What distinguishes a top-rank go go band is the ability to make of all this something more than undifferentiated percussive noise, to put the real spark of rhythmic cross-talk into the dialog, to make that chorus of drums really sing. The question is: how well do you deploy your charging horns, your scatter-shot synth explosions, your vocal attack? How deep do you dig your groove?

For seven years, go go has been one of American sub-culture’s best kept secrets. The first step in bringing go go to the world outside Washington came with the deal between Maxx Kidd’s T.T.E.D. and Chris Blackwell’s Island Records.

Blackwell had read about go go in the English music press, and go go singles on import had begun to be hot items in the London dance clubs. Blackwell decided that he could perhaps do for go go what he had done for reggae a decade before.

The hookup between T.T.E.D. and Island has already resulted in the release of some great records. One is a compilation album called Go Go Crankin’. It collects some of the classic go go tracks such as Trouble Funk’s new single, “Still Smokin’,” possibly the hottest-sounding go go record yet. The fire, force and pure muscle of this record leap out of the grooves, ready to knock the dance floor out.

The wider exposure go go is now getting will also spread its influence to other performers. The new Grace Jones single, “Slave To The Rhythm,” shows some go go influence, and a lot of others are likely to follow.

But the next important step in Island’s plan is to find a way to promote not just

the individual bands, but also the context in which they have come up: the fact that go go isn’t just a style, it’s a movement. Which is what the movie is all about.

Good To Go stars Art Garfunkel as a newspaper reporter doing a story on go go—a plot that probably just serves as an excuse for the film to dramatize the go go culture, which is rich in its own language, rituals and social mores. The plot also leads into the main action, lots of go go, with D.C.’s-hot bands—Redds & The Boys, Trouble Funk, Chuck Brown & The Soul Searchers, Experience Unlimitedworking out on their home turf.

The performance scenes of Good To Go were filmed in DC’s go go’s, and my experience there leads me to believe that one of the most fun things about the film will likely be the shots of the audiences. Go go bands and their audience have an interaction, an interdependence and common love that is quite unique. If Good To Go captures even a part of it, it’s going to be hot.

“We knew that everyone would say, ‘Is this going to be a hype?”’ Maxx Kidd asserts. “That’s why, instead of plastering the billboards and plastering the TV with ads, we decided to do a movie. It’s just the most natural way. Everyone goes to the movies.

“The thing about this wave is, it takes live people to play it. It ain’t like those electric drums and electric synthesizers, it’s a whole different game.

“Therefore it’s a bigger threat to the industry than rap. They were able to deal with rap to a certain extent. But with this, since Maxx Kidd has the vintage acts, and Maxx Kidd and Chris Blackwell are working together, it means it’s a closed case unless you are willing to come in and build. Which gets the big companies nervous when they’re used to buying things right from the jump.”

People on the go go scene professed mied opinions of Good To Go. Most

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thought that the film had unavoidably distorted certain aspects of the social subculture that surrounds the music.

“It’s fiction, really,” said James Avery of Trouble Funk, perhaps the most accomplished and astute go go band. “It doesn’t really go into much depth about the movement. But it does depict some of the key aspects of what go go is about. In the film, they decide to close down the go go’s, and the people riot against that, and I think that’s true. If they decided to close down the go go’s, I think people would riot.”

Experience Unlimited’s leader, Sugar Bear, told me, “It ain’t about go go. I don’t understand what a car crashing into a wall has to do with go go. But I think it’s gonna give the groups some exposure.”

Maxx Kidd, as usual, has a ready retort to the criticism.

“Let’s put it this way. There’s gonna be fiction. It’s not 100 percent the scene. But what movie have you seen that does show 100 percent of any scene?”

Another go go. This one’s called the Black Hole, but it’s nowhere near as intimidating as its name suggests. In fact, it’s a spacious hall with stages at either end, nice lighting and mammoth PA systems. And it’s jammed full of peaked caps and Fila T-shirts, most of them jumping and swaying.

Onstage, Chuck Brown is reading off names from pieces of paper handed up to him from the audience, while his band, the Soul Searchers, keeps the funk rolling at a steady boil behind him.

Brown is a veteran, widely credited in D.C. as the Godfather of Go Go. An ex-con, he traded a few cartons of cigarettes for his first guitar while in jail. “Next thing you know I’m the number one player in there,” he recalls.

Out of the slammer, Brown began playing with a Top 40 cover band on the local bar circuit. Sometime around 1972 he got the idea to keep the drum and bass going between songs, and the basic formula of go go was born.

“We got into it behind the percussion breaks that we did while we were doing the Top 40. See, there were a lot of cover bands around; the competition was great. So we decided to do that percussion right through, and the dancers loved it.”

The wild guitar chord vamping and wailing horns Brown works into his show makes his music the most overtly jazz-influenced of all the go go bands. I asked him if he intended to take things further in that direction.

“Technically no, but feeling-wise, yes. If it feels in that direction, see. As far as I’m concerned it separates the musicians from the flubby-doves. It makes you play, man.

“People have to realize that jazz has had a hard time. It’s another direction for it. But we try to simplify it a little bit and put it on top of some funk! To get these young people to accept it, you have to present it to them right.”

Maxx Kidd thinks he can build an empire out of this go go thang.

“I think we have a good shot at being the next Motown,” he says, “behind the fact that we’ve got a movement here. It ain’t little black kids with raggedy equipment. That was 15 years ago. Now these guys make as much money as any big, Top 20 band. They play all the time.

“And the thing is,” Kidd adds, “you’re not just dealing with music. This fall, the Paris fashion designs are gonna have the caps and the T-shirts...”

Another night, the Black Hole again, and more craziness. Aire Rayde are playing on one stage. When they finish, there’s a mad stampede to the other stage, at the other side of the hall, where the Class Band are beginning their set.

The Class Band are young, have great choreography, great voices and some catchy songs. They are new and as yet unsigned. A new generation of go go talent is coming up.

Of course there’s no guarantee that a year from now go go won’t be strictly last year’s thing. Rock fans may respond to the music’s hard and heavy atmosphere, or they may not. And modern funk fans, used to the computerized electro-beat of most of today’s dance music, may find go go’s James Brown/Sly Stone roots a bit too revisionist. But the bands, as Trouble Funk’s James Avery and Taylor Reed told me, aren’t worried.

Reed: “It does go back to James Brown. They used to say, ‘James Brown puts four lines together and makes a song.’ But what else is anybody doing?”

What about the current hype, I asked, the film, the marketing of go go as a movement? Will it take away from people’s appreciation of the worth of individual go go bands?

Avery: “Well, the concept will either work, or it won’t.”

Reed: “If it doesn’t work, we will still be around.”

Avery: “We were here before this whole thing started and we’ll be here after they all leave.”