Bananarama These Charming Girls

Bananarama These Charming Girls

by Iman Lababedi

“Who steals my purse steals trash, ’tis something, nothing; ’twas mine, ’tis his, and has been slave to thousands. But he who filches from me my good name robs me of that which not enriches him and makes me poor indeed.”

—William Shakespeare

1 TREASON, STRATAGEMS AND SPOILS

I was truly disgusted to read of an Arizona retail company with 800 outlets, which banned all rock magazines, including CREEM, after pressure from the New Christian Right. Some TV minister deemed it fit to use the pulpit for personal politics.

But I wasn’t surprised by this unAmerican (separation of State and Church and all that) act of malice. The Reagan administration has been flexing its muscles for the past six years. Attorney General Edwin Meese warns the 7-11 grocery stores they may be considered purveyors of pornography if they continue to sell Playboy and Penthouse. 7-11 removes the magazines from their shelves. The CIA threatens newspapers with lawsuits if they report on a spy case in too great a detail. The case was held in open court and featured information the USSR were aware of, but the American public wasn’t. The Government spends $500,000 on a study of pornography to reach the stunning conclusion that 99 percent of commercial porn is used for wanking purposes, and the other one percent (the bondage and discipline stuff) might lead to violence against women. Reagan puts personal pressure on papers to drop Garry Trudeau’s Doonesbury cartoon strip; the strip has been censored on several occasions.

To consider CREEM or Spin or Rolling Stone or (shock-horror) Tiger Beat subversive is fatheadedness of amazing proportions. And anyone moronic enough to believe these magazines are subversive should be ridiculed, not adhered to. I have no idea how this conclusion was reached, though I assume it has something to do with sex. The only thing the New Christian Right hates more than a commie is sex-without-procreation. Perhaps these defenders of public morals are scared teenage girls and boys will read the “f” word in print. Or, worse still, masturbate to the images of sexually-oriented rock performers. Perhaps they should mind their own business.

As long as there’s been teenagers, there’s been teenagers masturbating. And as long as there’s been rock, there’s been teenagers masturbating to rock. You can start with Presley sticking his crotch into the faces of 13-year-old teenyboppers, and go straight through to Duran Duran frolicking with buxomy wenches on the high seas. And with the exception of some kids growing hair on the palms of their hands, it’s all been good, clean, Yankee Doodle diddling.

Which is why those proselytizing pulpit prats can stuff it. They may be able to ban your CREEM, but they can’t invade your (day) dreams. It’s also why I hope the photoeditor uses the raciest snappies of Bananarama on file to illustrate this article. And it’s why I’ve never had it in for Bananarama on anything approaching moral grounds.

2 TRAUMATIC SYMPLAGIA

Bananarama, to a certain degree, and depending upon whom you speak with, have used their extreme attractiveness to further their career. I mean that literally, though their public image is closer to Altered Images than Vanity 6. The advent of video and the sexiness of the trio was surely a deciding factor in their success. I also mean that ethereally; Bananarama’s business life has been spotted by hand-me-downs from men higher-up the rock hierarchy.

Sarah Dallin and Siobhan Fahey dropped out of college, Kerin Woodward quit a job clerking for the BBC, and six years ago in London they formed Bananarama. Six months later, aided and abetted by geeks about town—ex-Sex Pistols Steve Jones and Paul Cook—their first single, a cover of “Aie A Bwana,” hit the top of the Brit charts. Next, after seeing their picture in The Face (and that’s according to their press release), former Specials Fun Boy 3 recorded “It Ain’t What You Do” with them. Even

the likes of Paul Weller has shown interest in the girls.

Photos by

All of which might be overlooked, but they don’t play any musical instruments. Bananarama’s songs are either covers or collaborations with their producers Tony Swain and Steve Jolley.

The English rock press, who know a good story when it hits them over the head, went mental slagging off, libelling and generally abusing Bananarama. The NME once dubbed them talentless groupies. Sounds has had at them so often it’s embarrassing.

Which leaves us with the music. Bananarama are erratic, their disco-pop hooks, vaguely ambigious lyrics, and nondescript three part harmonies work intermittently. When it’s good (say, “Rough Justice”) it’s quite satisfactory, but when it’s bad (their current cover of “Venus”) it sucks on ice: chilly and tasteless.

3 GREAT PITH AND MOMENT_

Bananarama sit in a row in a conference room, the model of gloom and despondancy as they explain it one more time in a whispered monotone. Kerin, in particular, is sour and defensive. As if she’s done it before and knows what the result will be. Kerin misunderstands my somewhat convoluted questions so often I give up repeating them, leaving her to her own far nastier interpretations.

Sarah barely speaks at all, though the way she hunches her shoulders suggests solidarity with the put-upon girls. She spends the vast majority of the interview tossing my cigarettes and lighter back and forth across the long table.

Siobhan I might like in a different situation. “I wouldn’t wear a dress on TV until a year ago because I was so scared of the what the press would write if I did.” Siobhan’s jeans are ripped a la Joey Ramone. Or do you have knobby knees? She looks down. “Well, yes I do, but that wasn’t why I wouldn’t wear a dress. Honest.”

The title track on your third and latest LP, True Confessions, seems a little mean-spirited. Sort of anti-hedonistic, and a putdown of your audience.

“I don’t see that at all,” replies Kerin. She puts her feet on her chair and encircles her mini-skirted legs with her arms, showing a great pair of stilts and an almost fetal withdrawal. “You’re reading too much into it. Sometimes we write songs with a deeper meaning, but sometimes they’re just great pop songs.

“The reason for that is when we released ‘Rough Justice’ (about Northern Ireland) in England, the radio wouldn’t play it and the TV wouldn’t play it and it flopped. If we bring out singles with deeper meanings they’re just ignored. So we write certain types of songs for the charts.”

Siobhan: “You wouldn’t ask the Ronnettes or the Marvelettes that question, because their songs are certified classics now. But at the time they were thought of as just disposable pop groups.”

My apologies. Lines like “You’re dreams won’t last forever/And that’s how it should be/l’m only living for your pleasure/Your real life fantasy” gave me the impression you had more on your minds. Do you think your songs will stand the test of time?

“Yes. I think songs like ‘Robert De Niro’s Waiting’ and ‘Cruel Summer’ will be seen as classics. Even our earliest songs, when we hear them on the radio, or a DJ will play them when we enter a club, sound fantastic today.”

“Robert De Niro’s Waiting” is about rape.

Kerin: “That’s very good, not many people realize that.”

It mentions it in the press bio. Is that a primal fear?

“I think it is, it’s about a woman we knew who was raped. It’s also about escaping from reality,”

What scares you most in the world?

Altogether now: “Nuclear War.”

And on a business level?

Sarah: “This album not being appreciated.”

You were involved with Red Wedge, how did that go?

Kerin: “We weren’t involved with Red Wedge. We were supposed to go to have our pictures taken, but we decided not to at the last minute. We didn’t think it was something Bananarama should be associated with, so we sent a telegram of support.

“Paul Weller’s audience are all these boys still rad about the Jam, though to Paul’s credit he’s trying to get away from that with the Style Council. They were the wrong audience for us, we wouldn’t have gone down well.”

On the new LP, “Ready Or Not” appears to be anti-communist.

Kerin: “You don’t understand our songs at all. From the ones you’ve said you like, I don’t think you like pop music—you think

it should always be serious stuff. It had nothing to do with anticommunism.”

Photo by

Siobhan: “We wrote it after a trip to the Berlin Wall.”

I found Sounds editorially assailing you for being hypocrites because you complain about sexism and being taken seriously—then you make a video like your one for “Venus,” horrendous.

Siobhan: “Well, that’s just Sounds for you. And it wasn’t about the video, it was about an S&M layout we did for the Daily Mirror.”

A cold shower and a hot whip? I finally get a laugh out of Siobhan. Did you do it for the, ahem, exposure?

“We did it for the fun.”

A

INTOXICATED WITH HIS OWN VERBOSITY

-EE-

JL

Let me break off from the interview to note something Siobhan said to me: “We’re very charming.” The exact words Susanna Hoffs once whispered in my ear, or rather, my tape recorder. With a difference. The Bangles are charming. Bananarama are anything but. Before the interview, I saw them sweep through PolyGram Records, refusing to wait for the receptionist to announce them, or even acknowledging her existence. The poor woman was left frantically calling the PR department.

Kerin is so pissed at me, she sulks and snarls her way through our conversation. Indeed, I’ve seldom met three women so thoroughly indifferent to my opinion.

This charmlessness (part spoilt-pop-star, part integrity) is Bananarama’s saving grace. It undercuts their vamping and career opportunity, brings them back to a reality belied by the

Yuppie sensibility of their songs. An interesting juxtoposition of their design to entertain and desire to overcome. I’ve seldom conducted a less successful interview.

r

OBJECTION SUSTAINED

U

Fiona, a Scottish student at F.I.T.: “I like Bananarama a lot,

I love the clothes they wear. They always look dead good.”

Ken, rock critic, on “Cruel Summer”: “Heartwarming combination of funky squelch bass, shimmering guitar, and a bit of ‘First Cut Is The Deepest’—nearly perfect modern girl group record.”

TURN TO PAGE 59

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 45

6: THE TIES THAT BIMD

Siobhan: “We started taking our careers seriously after ‘Cheers Then’ bombed. Before then we thought all groups just brought out records and had them go to the top of the charts. It brought us down to reality a bit.”

During the interviews for your second and best LP, Bananarama, you said you wanted to get away from the three-part-harmonies and use a lead vocal. What happened?

Kerin: “We have a good formula which works for us, the record company wanted a certain type of LP and we could provide it.”

There’s a great leap between Deep Sea Skiving and Bananarama. But no discernable growth between Bananarama and True Confessions.

Kerin: “I think the new one is a much better album. We have a much better idea of the sound we wanted and how to get it. It’s all our work, our ideas, it is what we wanted to sound like and sing about. Except ‘Do Not Disturb,’ which Swain and Jolley wrote and which we don’t think is very good. That’s why there’s 11 songs on the LP instead of 10.”

Would you say you’re in a similar position to Ian Dury?

Siobhan: “Do you mean we have wooden legs?”

Dury can’t play a musical instrument either, but can get his musical ideas across to his collaborators. They agree it’s a similar situation, though they are learning how to play.

On “Hooked On Love” you claim “I’m not telling you how to live your life.” Since that’s precisely what you are doing, isn’t the line a little hypocritical?

“We meant about things other than drugs.”

You drink alcohol, that’s a drug.

Kerin’s getting irate now. “Alcohol isn’t a killer.”

Yes it is.

“The song’s about certain kinds of drugs which kill kids very quickly.”

We’ve been talking for 50 minutes, do you think I’ve been sexist? They think I’ve been sexist. Siobhan: “You said something I found very offensive earlier.”

Oh yeah, what?

“I can’t remember, but it was very offensive.”

Kerin: “We don’t have to sit here defending ourselves to you. You know, the last thing in the world you should ask an artist is the meaning behind their work.”

Enough.

7: A DANIEL COME TO JUDGEMENT

True Confessions has two fine songs, the supper club, smoke gets in your eyes, jazz magic of “Dance With A Stranger” and the quintessential adult Bananarama, “Trick Of The Night.” A couple of other tracks have their moments as well. But the formula is spread very thin. I assume “Venus” will hit the charts, and it might take the LP with it.

Oddly enough I feel almost sorry for Bananarama. It must be awful to view people as friends or adversaries, with no gray area in between. But they’d have to be a much better pop group than they are to get away with the pretentious rubbish they sprout in their interviews. I wonder which rock star Kerin will marry? E