Our Wacky, Wacky World

Our Wacky, Wacky World

ELEGANZA

John Mendelssohn

In the early ’70s, we Americans called it glitter and the English glam, but by any other name it would still be mass transvestitism. It’s this summer’s Great Big Thing in rock ’n’ roll in Southern California. There, inspired by the success (if not by their record deal, then by the number of spandex-encased teen slutettes who flock to their shows) of a group called Poison, who derive from Ratt via the infinitely dreadful Hanoi Rocks (who, of course, derived from the New York Dolls, who got the idea from the Rolling Stones in general and Mick Jagger’s 1967 film debut, Performance, in particular), every young male heavy metal musician in sight seems to have traded in his chain-, stud-,and spike-laden vinyl clothing, leer, and Morgan Fairchild hairdo for rouge, mascara, lip gloss, fishnet clothing, bracelets, a pout, and a Morgan Fairchild hairdo.

History is littered with cases of institutionalized transvestitism, of course, but none of it (correct me if I’m wrong) compares. In ancienter, less imaginative civilizations than our own, a certain percentage of teenage boys were encouraged to feminize themselves for the pleasure of rich and powerful geezers who regarded a pretty boy’s anus as a more enjoyable place to deposit their penises than women’s vaginas. But what we’re talking about here, of course, is institutionalized heterosexual transvestitism.

I know what someone’s going to say— that the Neo-Glitter boys aren’t dressing like women so much as doing their bit to prevent the human being’s remaining one of only three species of mammal (the other two being the hedgehog and the Canadian striped wombat) whose males aren’t at least as gaudy as its females. To which this column says piffle. Your average Neo-Glitterboy cares not a hoot for how other species regard us humans, and dresses as he does to signal girls in the audience how they should be dressed when they present themselves backstage.

So where, already, did whoever wrote Performance get the idea for a rock ’n’ roll star who enjoyed donning many of the trappings of effeminacy? Think of Jimi Hendrix at Monterey in his ruffled blouse, or of Robert Plant on the back of the first Led Zeppelin album in his, and his Shirley Temple perm. Think of Roger Daltrey fronting the Who, at their first performance on the West Coast of America, in bouffant orange hair, a fringed shawl, and ladies’ slingback shoes. Think of me asking Pete Townshend about a year later, as I interviewed him for the first time, whether Daltrey were really the mincing sissy he appeared, and Townshend gaping incredulously and taking 30 seconds to muster the wherewithal to gasp, “Anything butt”

Think of me coming to understand later that Daltrey, a former sheet metal worker who might well have prospered as a featherweight boxer, dressed as he did at the urging of the Who’s homosexual co-manager. Finally, think of most of your top British groups of the ’60s having managers who regarded a pretty boy’s anus as a more enjoyable place to deposit their peni&es than women’s vaginas and understand how glitter or glam came to be.

While we’re on the subject, think of the celebrated author and wit Quentin Crisp, who, as London’s most dedicatedly overt homosexual in the ’40sr regularly got the Shinola kicked out of him, feeling two things as he viewed the early Daltrey and others like him: (1) amazement and (2) that history was vindicating him. Now think of him visiting Southern California in 1986 and being delighted by the ability of your Southern California Neo-Glitter bands to affect the same outrageous effeminacy he routinely got trashed for with utter insouciance, little imagining that most of these sordid little poseurs would undoubtedly throw positively epic shitfits if anyone dared to infer from their rouge, mascara, lip gloss, fishnet clothing, bracelets, pouts, and Morgan Fairchild hair that they enjoyed having other fellows deposit their penises in their anuses.

Wacky world, ain’t it?

While we remain hopelessly stalled on the subject, this column’d like for the umpteenth time to point out that the prettiest transvestite group ever has never received its due. These three guys from Hollywood were called Queen at least a year before the English group of the same name emerged to haunt us. The best known of them, bassist Nick St. Nicholas, had been in Steppenwolf. They pulled no punches, performing on stage in black stockings and filmy negligees, high heels and lurid make-up. All three of them had amazing legs. (They sounded terrible, but that was probably because they apparently gobbled downs as others might have munched popcorn.) If this column hadn’t known their awful secret, it’d’ve been proud to be seen with any of them in the finest restaurants. Compared to them, Ratt, Poison, and every other such NeoGlitter outfit this column’s seen looks like .38 Special.

A few issues back, this column suggested that Big Production is a far more

insidious threat to rock ’n’ roll as we know it than the senators’ wives who sought to cause albums containing naughty lyrics to bear warning stickers. Well, today’s Elucidation Day.

Musically speaking, most record company A&R persons (that is, talent scouts) don’t know peanut butter from Shinola. Having been hired because they used to write (poorly) for one of the trade magazines (Billboard and so on), they’re typically capable of only the grossest sonic perceptions. Because the overwhelming majority of records in the hit parade at any given moment were recorded at unthinkable expense in state-of-theart studios, record company A&R people naturally tend to perceive acts whose demonstration tapes don't sound as though they were recorded at unthinkable cost in a state-of-the-art recording studios as inferior, and mumble things at them like, "We just don’t hear a hit at this point in time, man.”

The rich, in other words, get richer, while such worthy talent as Seattle’s Variant Cause languishes virtually unheard because it isn’t rich. The status quo is served. You and I ain’t.

Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy a great big bombastic sound as much as anyone. But the point at which I find myself adoring records by the likes of the preposterous Stevie Nicks or Billy Idol for reasons that haven’t Thing One to do with Stevie Nicks or Billy Idol is the point at which I’m moved to protest Big Production’s having become compulsory, to call for a system in which we listeners may react to the talent (or its lack) of the artist rather than to that of a mob of highly paid but essentially anonymous producers, recordists, and session musicians.

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The way it works now, the more successful an act becomes, the more money its record company advances it for each successive recording project. We can start the ball rolling by reversing this process. How about, that is, we smite the status quo smartly in the genitals by giving new acts hundreds of thousands to record their debut albums, and see what Journey and Foreigner and Fleetwood Mac can get in the grooves for $7,237.58?

Do note that I don’t believe that a lot of our favorites would sound only five percent as good if they spent five percent as much money in the studio. My own guess is that many would sound ninety-iwe percent as good, so much money being squandered nowadays on, say, hiring famous session players for triple (musicians’ union) scale rather than obscure ones who are every bit as good for ordinary scale. Which isn’t even to mention the obscene fortunes that people squander composing in the studio.

Before the Beatles, going into the studio unrehearsed, let alone without a song to record, was absolutely unthinkable. It ought to be again, say I, who never listen to Sgt. Pepper, which cost millions (allowing for inflation) to record, but listen often to With the Beatles, which probably cost what Toto’s drummer charges per side (musician slang for “song”). Post burly guards outside recording studio doors, say I, to prevent recording artists who haven’t bothered to write what they intend to record from entering the suckers, and then feed our hungry and homeless and shower hundreds of promising young artists with seed money with the trillions saved!

And while we’re at it, let’s allow singers to punch in (that is, re-record a brief snippet of their performance) only a certain number of times per song. Because many of your favorite pop stars record their searingly soulful lead vocals virtually note by note (owing to their inability to sing two in a row in tune), this would save yet another fortune, and those who can’t sing any better in real life than you do in the shower would be exposed for the contemptible twerps and loathesome poseurs they are.

And, as I suggested above,' let’s get the musician’s union to make it illegal for anyone but a heretofore-unheard artist to pay any accompanist multiple scale. If that means that the members of Toto won’t be able to afford the mink carpeting they’d hoped to get for their Mercedes, tough excrement, OK? 0