MARTYRS OF ELITISM

MARTYRS OF ELITISM

by Cynthia Rose-

Elitism. Dictionaries call it �the sense of being part of a superior or privileged group.� On the street, it�s more familiar as hipnitude, or novelty. But the fact of it—cult status—is a definite form of past tense.

Rock's quarter-century is littered with the glittering martyrs of elitism. Onetime shooting stars of individual sound, thought, or attitude, each served as pilot on some trajectory which aborted, mutated or just plain petered out. Yet the martyr of elitism is not an unsung hero of rock 'n' roll. No, he has his hearing; it�s just that, willfully or unwittingly on his part, stardom toys with him and then passes by. And the problem isn�t sex, race or �charisma.� Usually, it�s just that the performer�s conviction—or pretense—of artistic individuality happens to founder on a particular moment in time.

And those are the moments when rock�s "history� begins to be rewritten, which is the truly fascinating side to such Martyrs Of Elitism (or MOEs). Any flutter through pop�s

Rolodex of MOEs uncovers a glut of lost facts, obscured origins, misapprehensions and missed boats,

■ Such as: millions of popsters know Sade. How many remember Carmel, first Face of the U.K.�s nouveau Ijhanteuse wave (and still slogging it out on that country�s club circuit)? At one time the British pop press was the very cherry in Carmel's cocktail; no ||ss a cinematic light than Lindsay (If) Anderson condescended to translate her shtick to video. A voluptuous, personable Northern blonde, Carmel could even hold her own in the sightstakes of MTV. Plus, Sade�s throaty torch-ures were less aggressive and no more monotonous than a choice Carmel croon like, "Rockin' On I Suicide� (sic). * 1

What went wrong? Well...at the I time, Carmel was giving quotes like this: �Journalists have to say �sounds like�—then list a lot of people a quarter of a century older than me, which I do find weird. I mean, it takes a long time j to reach any standard you�re gonna like yourself. I really favor singers like f

Gladys Knight, people who slaved 20 years or so before they got a good hit.

I mean, all this stuff about favorite foods and this week�s socks; somehow the climate of pop stardom in Britain suddenly seems quite danger-

Meanwhile, Sade was live-in girlfriend to one of London�s busiest pop columnists. Can it be that for females such minutiae will still a martyr make? j? Perhaps. Yet the cause-and-effect of martyrdom is hardly clearer in the indie camp. Transcontinental career weirdos the Cramps, for instance, continue to enjoy one of cultdom's most fanalical followings. But it�s equally divided into those who mourn the ioss of original warlocked guitarist Bryan Gregory (The Man Who Named The Band), those who assume he�s dead, and those who have no idea he ever

To third-generation punkers, similar dichotomies occur vis-a-vis Glen Matlock; not only the first Sex Pistol bassist but '(despite the subsequent claims of PiLhead Lydon), the Man Who Authored ��Anarchy Ih The U.K." After getting ah early elbow from les Pistols, Matlock bossed a series of other bands: the Rich Kids, the Spectres. the London Cowboys. Today, however, he�s most well-known as a "media consultant" on the punk heyday: advising Alex Cox on Love Kills, donning a tie to "recall" the revolution of 76 for a bemused BBC-TV.

existed.

Matlock is like other early, real punk Faces: John Foxx of Ultravox, Barry Masters of Eddie & The Hotrods. But in other ways, he's equally like the sensitive-and-suffering semi-star martyrs of today. Gentle, blonde, classically-trained Virginia Astley— whose group, the Ravishing Beauties faded before the robust, retail chic— and Fun Boy Three connections—of similar lightweights Bananarama. (And Ginny Pete Townshend's sister-inlaw!). Or Postcard Records� Great White Hope Edwyn Collins of Orange

Juice, the voice who initiated a vogue for boy singer-songwriters which led through Aztec Camera to Paul Young—leaving him behind.1

Such souls are� not martyred by choice but by chance. Yet sometimes a seminal figure holds himself aloof from sheer personal perversity. Cue Iggy Pop, that man who�s spat in the face of the bitch-goddess success more times than you or I have had hot dinners. Pop: the first rock star to call himself a stooge before either God or the critics could. Pop: who rose above the situation when "that crazy little carrot-topped bastard" stuck a Z in front of his nom de rock and banked the result. Pop: one of the few MOEs whose sacrifices really have been made to abstract verities, such as curiosity, loyalty, and severity.

Pop: a casualty of truth in advertising.

Of course. Iggy is the sort of MOE whose name is then ceaselessly cited as an "influence��: the resonance of his work remains incalculable. The same is true of Delaware�s native son

Tom MiHer, aka Tom Verlaine—cofounder of Teiayisiop, initiator of the punk gig at CBGB�s, and the guitar pioneer whose sublime new psycheliea led, down the years, to Echo & The Bunnymen, the Pale Fountains, Teardrop Explodes, much of America�s "paisley underground." even the Smiths. (One of the few new bands Verlaine can abide: "They need another�instrument but they do have a melodic flow, a basically gentle sort of thing. I also think Morrissey�s one of the better writers just now. Hasn't started to use his voice, though; nothing happenin� there.")

Though widely regarded as a recluse, Verlaine keeps up with music, comes up with an LP every two years, does sporadic stints of production (e.g.. Britain's the Room), and remains as opinionated about sound as when he headed the punk pack. But years spent as something of a ghost in Manhattan have entrenched a few telltale obsessions: "...Look at Orson Welles! I mean, here�s this guy who just didn�t give a shit, who just turned around one day weighing 400 pounds. And did wine commercials. And always wore the same clothes, I think® he probably had two suits. You know he�d been working on this one film for like 20 years. Just kept changing his mind about things and going through crew after crew. Eventually everyone just threw up their hands at him.�

MOEs of intent like Pop and Verlaine live out the against-the-grain values they express. But it�s fair to note that the world of checks and bank balances has less use for them than for the outright greed of a Simon LeBon,. theitraciibility of a George Michael, or the power games of a George O�Dowd. Artists such as Pop and Verlaine—like both Roberts Fripp and Wyatt—work to their own standards. Sure, one eye may linger oh the marketplace, but these MOEs will never produce the vocational school, PBS-speciat �art� of a Brian Enp Mi David Byrne. For all its carefully mystical trappings, such work is by and large compromised by premedita-

tions of the merchandising kind. The great MOEs produce work which is good or bad—but rarely is it middlebrow.

.^Part of this has to do with Different World Views. Take Robert Fripp, on the same subject which fueled the Pistols� seminal � Problem ""SfTake problem solution: divergent problem solution versus convergent, the convergent being a mechanistic problem open to mechanistic solution like, uh, the tap falls off your sink. In comes a plumber faced with a quite practical problem which he mechanically solves and then leaves. A divergent problem would be �what to do with the plumbing industry.� One usually has to come up with soiutions to such problems in situations where one lacks sufficient information to make a rational choice—one has to wing it. Generally, people are involved.

�That,� Robert Fripp will firmly say, �is creative problem solution. That is the real world and that—to quote myself—is being resplendent in diver-

gence. �Remain in hell without des pair� is of course another approach to problem solution; remarkable advice!�

Guitar and technics pioneer Fripp exemplifies yet another, category of MOE: those characters t|W biz finds it easier to bypass than deal with This fate seems equally j^ided between sexes: for every Siouxsie, there is a Foiy Styrene, for every Elvis, a Nick Cave. For ©very Annie Lennox, a...Lene Lovioh.

Lene: �Weft, there�s,* always a tendency to remove the ones who are different. And yet th^ bnly way to move forward is to follow your own character. For mostlbf us that�s not a choice; we can�t do othervyise. It goes way beyond any idea of trying something different. ,t know; ji�s a thing that�s hung over me my whole life ..j

�But the world has changed. And it�s pretty impossible ndw to make a living off live performances the way things are organised now. At one time it was different, I began my whole musical adventure in cabaret .on an island off Turkey. Maying a record is one way to support ymat you want to do when you can�t perform live. But, without the freedom to record what you like in the way that you like, it�s Blery difficult to progress. Which is the reason it�s been so long since I�ve had ■anything out. To get your own way you ' h&ve to have financial independence. � � ■Or—that most elusive trick of all— a public. That hunger out there in the dark for your work is a multi-faceted mystery. The byproduct of either a dialogue or an obsession with an artist, it still must be created. These days, that requires endless work. Particularly given our electronic surroundings— "from VCR to PBS to IBM to Levi 501 s, there are many media to penetrate. And even the heftiest hunks of selfJ^romotion are not a guarantee, as careers from Pearl Harbour through Julian Cope can testify. Take it straight from one man who refused to be mar: tyred, Boy George: �The music industry forgets how much, sheer shitwork all its artists do. Press, video, remixing, chat shows, socializing, live work, travel,! hospital radio—rit regulates your life. I work my buttocks off for this band!��

The media George serves is protective as well as aquiescent to its audience. It wants them titillated, but it declines to rock the boat as far as that life its desired audience already enjoys. Nihilism, solipsism, revolutionary politics or brutal truths—-market wares of many a MOE—are acceptable only as a joke. ,i�Sure.� says ZTT honcho and former journalist Paul Morley, �Art normally appears on television as either a joke or a scandal. This crazy artist did this today.� The implication is that they�re alt crazy but we�re all sane, including the network, including the station, including the station�s staff. That way everyone feels comfortable with it. The truth, ironically, is that should you get the real information about it across, they�d be riveted to their seats! It might actually change their lives.�

But Morley�s bands—Art Of Noise, Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Propaganda exemplify the modern bizman s terror of MOEs, today�s run-ofthe-mill rock �artist,� who accepts

money as the broadest, most recognizable credential of sanity. Who is willing to shut the door on experimentation in favor of fashion. Who has forgotten—if he ever knew—that you can feel a total failure when you are in fact a tremendous pioneer, ji|technical, in creative or in thinking terms. The MOE-who-matters grasps this but usually also realizes that to receive it into his life constitutes a truly �'afternative� standard. One which requires maturity—a characterisitc the music business is unlikely to nourish.

Leave it to MOE Iggy Pop to sum things up: �Nobody packs my suitcase! But to control your destiny—is nearly impossible. And, in fact, when you do get in the position to. it'san so much fun either. It�s often very : frightening. I had a nice big Sony recorder, y�know, which I threw right into the sea. Because I realized it was either HIM or ME Sol just said screw ya Sony! Just tossed it in the sea.�