CENTERSTAGE

CENTERSTAGE

SHOCKING PINKOS

BILLY BRAGG London Purcell Room March 31, 1986 TEST DEPARTMENT & ASSOCIATES London Bishopsbridge Maintenance Depot March 30, 1986

by Cynthia Rose

Red Wedge is the self-described “broad Left arts alliance” of pop stars and young people whose specific goal is a Labour Party victory in the U.K.’s next General Election. Formed in late ’85 to implement slogans such as The World of Arts—For a World of Difference, the Wedge boasts a suprising range of supporters, including Sade, Paul Weller, Bragg, Jerry Dammers, Lloyd Cole, Bananarama, Ray Davies, Heaven 17, Junior Giscombe, Jimmy Somerville, Helen Terry and Dave Stewart—plus groups like Everything But The Girl and Working Week.

Yet it is Billy Bragg—since the release of his stirring Between The Wars and Days Like These EPs, a virtual British Springsteen—who provides the movement’s rallying Face. And tonight this vet of gigs to aid the striking miners, the young unemployed and the Labour Party itself, headlines a Farewell Concert for the Greater London Council.

After a firework display at midnight tonight, the GLC—traditional administrator of community services for England’s capital city—will cease to exist. The reason? For five years in Thatcher’s Tory Britain, the GLC has been Labour-controlled. And, under the charismatic leadership of a mustachioed man who keeps newts as pets (Ken Livingstone), it has functioned successfully as a radically left-wing authority. Newtfancier Livingstone paid special attention to the arts. Under him, the GLC transformed derelict public toilets into small recording studios, funded a new city magazine (City Limits) and innumerable arts organizations, and mounted massive music festivals.

The GLC’s success in promoting alternative political views led a frightened Thatcher to take the extraordinary step of simply abolishing the whole body. But among their other initiatives, the stars leading Red Wedge are determined to follow the GLC’s lead in popularizing the arts. “Let’s face it,” says Billy Bragg, “Pop is one of this country’s biggest earning industries—the GLC weren’t stupid to invest in it. But Red Wedge is about all the arts; we mean to involve them all, as did the GLC.”

Red Wedge takes its name from two sources, both particularly potent to British youth today. One is the wedge haircut—a smart look sported by officeworkers, football fans, jazz buffs and soul fans alike. The other is a classic piece of Russian Futurist art (entitled “Beat The Whites With A Red Wedge”) by El Lissitsky.

NIGHT. Outside a subway stop in West London, the crowd peers through the darkness, in search of the spray-painted signs which point them towards Test Department’s GLC Farewell Gig—their first London show this year. Among the many who converge on its site (a gigantic, derelict art deco railway roundhouse overshadowed by a freeway) are many pseudo-Bolsheviks. And “suedeheads.” And “casuals.” There are even a few Romantics, not so New anymore. The buzz in this crowd recalls the excitement of secret punk gigs a decade before.

Inside, more than a thousand punters mingle. Some inspect the speciallydesigned banners—30 feet tall—at the back of the circular hall. Others contemplate the 40-foot slogan (THE UNACCEPTABLE FACE OF FREEDOM) which decorates the outside of one center-stage column. The stage itself is a 10-foot-high affair, a circle within the iron circle of the bizarre venue itself.

Nine synchronized film projectors swing into action, flooding the huge walls behind us with ever-changing images from the nation’s psyche and press. Headlines, miners, Maggie and Lady Di—then Test Department stride onto the stage in black Bolshevik-model trousers and white T-shirts. They begin to pummel and pound their industrial percussion devices, slamming over-amplified drum pedals into rusted-out 500 gallon iron tanks. Against each wall, between the projections and the crowd, dancers in Socialist-Futurist costume (alternately white and black as they switch shifts) perform, sometimes whirling flaming torches. Onstage in the center, a bare-chested black male dancer spins a huge red silk flag; this gives way to a miner declaiming a poem. As the ensemble’s seamless drive builds, with taped music underlying the whole thing, bouncing in off the metal walls of the depot, the force becomes tremendous. For an hour the pace never flags and the choreography is impeccable. It ends with a crescendo of sound, steam and sweat flying in the stage lights—while two aerialists in flaming red spandex spin on ropes above us, holding a series of Futurist poses.

“Look,” says Billy Bragg, “there was an election in ’79 and the punk thing to do then was not to vote. Because voting wouldn’t change anything. I was one of those who didn’t bother. But Thatcher’s election infringed on everything I took for granted. So I’ve changed my views.

“Politics,” says Bragg, “are very personal. And what we say from the stage in Red Wedge is not ‘Vote Labour!’ What we say is ‘None of us up here tonight is going to change anything for you; you’ve got to do it for yourselves.’ Because politics does cut into your life sooner or later. I can understand someone saying ‘I’m not political.’ But politics doesn’t care whether you’re political or not; it comes for you just the same.”

BINKY IS MY LOVER

VAN HALEN Rosemont Horizon, Chicago April 23, 1986

by Renaldo Migaldi

The success of 5150, their first and so far only #1 LP, swept away most of the suspense over whether or not Van Halen would still be able to cut it—musically and commercially—after the departure of ol’ David Lee Whatsisface. Certainly the band must have found the experience of watching the record poke a hole in the top of the charts a heartening one. But for all the show of easy confidence the guys have displayed to the rock press, it’s hard to believe that they hadn’t still bitten at least a few nails over the uncertainty of their position. What would be in store for the Dave-less Van Halen once they dragged their asses out on the road and played their new stuff for rows and rows of real breathing, admission-paying fans? Would they be accepted? Indeed, would anybody show up?

But by now their worries are certainly over. To judge by the reaction to the band’s two performances in Chicago, Van Halen’s fans apparently consider Sammy Hagar a more-than-adequate replacement for, uh, that other guy. Nobody seems to mind that Sammy is by far the less distinctive singer of the two. Sure, Dave may have been funnier, but his “sophisticated irony” probably went right over the heads of some VH fans, who maybe never figured out just what the hell all Dave’s mouthy jive had to do with the important business ofKicking Ass. Just a big distraction, that’s what it was. Sammy, on the other hand, doesn’t mess around playing the witty pretty boy—he’s a screamer. And he can play guitar, too.

So now Van Halen has two guitarists. This allows for a host of incredibly innovative and creative new ideas in the live show, such as having Sammy and Eddie face each other off onstage and wage a guitar dual. Wow! Imagine that!

Of course, you don’t need three chances to guess who’s the winner. Eddie Van Halen really is an amazing guitarist, a brilliant technician who could starve to death playing complicated intellectual avante-garde music if he wanted to, but instead makes enormous amounts of money playing heavy rock ’n’ roll just because he’s such a nice guy. Lucky us! Lucky Eddie too, because now that Whatsisface isn’t around hogging so much of the spotlight anymore, there’s no dispute about who is the star of the show. Sammy may be the new singer, but he knows his place. Eddie can relax now and wiggle his talented fingers up and down the guitar neck to his heart’s content, secure in the knowledge that Van Halen fans are Eddie Van Halen’s fans and they’re happy to still be getting what they were obviously putting their money down for in the first place. A banner seen in the balcony said it best: “DAVID WHO?”

Though their live act features a few tunes from past LPs by both Van Halen and Sammy Hagar, the guys are devoting most of the show to the material on 5750 —and they sound more comfortable with those songs than they do with the old stuff. Of course, on melodic numbers like “Why Can’t This Be Love?” the band sounds a lot less polished and a lot more reckless than on vinyl. And “Good Enough,” the album’s opener (a defiant chip-on-shoulder response to those who would accuse them of sexism, which opens with Sammy literally, blatantly, loudly equating a woman with a piece o’ meat: “U.S. Prime, grade A stamped guaranteed.../She’s good enough good enough to huh!”), doesn’t syncopate quite as nicely as on the record. But for crying out loud—if all the VH fans wanted to hear was impeccable ensemble techniques, they would’ve gone to the goddamn Chicago symphony.

After a few encores, when it came time for the band to perform the inevitable “Jump,” Van Halen made its most pointed comment of the evening: Sammy pulled a guy and gal out of the crowd, and turned the mike over to them. As if to say, “Look here, everybody—any schmoe can sing a song like this.” The obvious implication being that Mr. David Lee Whatsisface was not such hot stuff, in that Van Halen can do just fine without him.

Wonder who’s biting whose nails now?