ELEGANZA

ELEGANZA

WHAM, BAM, THANK YOU, MAAM

by

John Mendelssohn

We’re reading a recent Southern California edition of BAM, the free West Coast pop periodical to which so many of your fave CREEM contributors contribute so much. Rather than this particular issue’s wry look back at the ’70s, though, we’re looking at local clubs’ advertisements. We hope, by doing so, to get a sense of what’s happening style-wise in what must be acknowledged as the capital of American rock ’n’ roll.

On page 36 we meet Rocknee, soon to appear at the Whisky a-Go-Go, arranged in a human pyramid much like that the J. Geils Band used to delight in forming, and pointing at the viewer as though to demand, “Hey, our show is totally well worth seeing, OK?” They have very long, layered hair and are wearing make-up. The advertisement thoughtfully provides the number of the Rocknee Hotline, which one may call if he or she is interested in becoming “a Rocknee rocker.” Brigitte, will you bring me the phone, please?

We discover on the following page that Tramp, Jybraltor, and Foxx are all scheduled to appear at Gazzari’s on the Sunset Strip, where Van Halen used to play Kinks songs far into the night. Don’t imagine that these three groups are indistinguishable, the interchangeability of their hairdos, dress, and pouts notwithstanding. Jybraltor’s logo is virtually illegible and one of Foxx apparently couldn’t be convinced that, however trendy it might have been back in ’83, striped spandex just isn’t that au courant anymore in early 1987. Fully half of Tramp seems to have dyed its very long hair white, a la Vince Neil, and one of them—the singer, I’ll bet—is wearing gloves much like Vinnie’s. In these guys’ book, Vinnie can apparently do little wrong.

Two pages later, we meet four groups that Leatherwood Productions thinks we’d enjoy seeing at the Roxy, where, in better days, some of Bruce Springsteen’s live album was recorded. This time Foxx show off their pouts. They can pout with the best of them! Prisoner seems very proud of one of its members’ oddly shaped guitar, but no prouder than the members of Carrera (I think that’s what the logo says), no mean pouters themselves, are of their own. Judging from his placement on the page, though, we surmise that it’s Michael Angelo that Leatherwood thinks the metal fans of Los Angeles will be most eager to see. Mike’s claim to fame seems to be that he can play the guitar hoth right and lefthanded, perhaps simultaneously, like some metal Roland Kirk. The two-necked instrument on which Mike displays this unique talent figures prominently both in his logo and in the official photograph of him and his band. As so many modern guitarists do, Mike favors Marshall amplification. The ad tells us so. It tells us, too, that Cherie Adams of Hair Magic is responsible for Mike’s and his four pouting sidekicks’ entirely predictable coiffures. It even tells us where they got their clothes.

All Eleganza wants to know is, who the heck did their bitchin’ make-up?

On the next page, we find depicted no fewer than five bands who’ll soon appear at Doug Weston’s World Famous Troubadour, the singer/songwriter mecca turned metal showcase. We wonder if Allegiance (I think that’s what the logo says) have Cherie Adams do their hair too. It certainly looks it. Eleganza’s own favorite, though, is Creature, whose Krizzi K. Krauz (dig that zany spelling!) demonstrates himself one scary motherfucker in the early Gene Simmons tradition, while Trixxian (dig the Nikki Sixx influence!) Vitolo sneers at us as though to show off his very dark lipstick. Of which Mark Minx and Johnny Lust, not quite the outgoing guys Krizzi and Trixxian are at this presumably early stage in their careers, nevertheless wear their own fair shares.

Ah, youth.

Speaking of Bruce Springsteen, there’ve been so many books commissioned about The Boss in the past couple of years that you might imagine that nothing of great interest remains to be written about him. Such, though, ain’t the case. None of the existing books discusses two facets of his relationship with the E Street Band as I, for one, would love to see ’em discussed.

What I’m thinking of specifically are that Max, Gary, Danny, Roy, The Big Man, Nils or, before him, Steve, have never made an album of their own, as Elvis Costello’s Attractions and many other famous backing bands have done over the years, and that neither Max, Gary, Danny, Roy, The Big Man, Nils or, before him, Steve, has ever gotten to contribute material. Even in the Beatles, most of whose stuff was written by one or the other of what most folks agree were rock’s two best songwriters, there was one guy, George, forever moaning about there never being enough grooves left for his (most very feeble) songs. I can’t believe he has no equivalent in the E Street Band. I won’t believe it.

TURN TO PAGE 53

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 26

“Jesus H. Christ,” one can almost hear Max, Gary, Danny, Roy, The Big Man, Nils or, before him, Steve, grumbling, “we do a Tom Waits song, and a Woody Guthrie. Would it fuckin’ kill us to do one of mine?” One can imagine his rip beginning to curl in disdain. “I mean, if we did, would only five times as many people want to buy tickets on our next tour as there were tickets, instead of the current eight? You’re right, Boss (or Jon). That would be a fuckin’ tragedy.”

Speaking of The Boss, if you waited in a supermarket checkout line in late November, you probably saw People’s “Best And Worst Dressed” issue, featuring reactions to many famous people’s get-ups by Divine, Walter Payton, a couple of French designers, Frank Zappa, and Jerry Falwell (whom People quoted as saying, “She’s very beautiful,” of Cyndi Lauper and scantily dressed women about whom he doubtless really said, “Yea, and the Lord’ll smite this harlot down tool”). If you did, you saw Bruce wearing the worst outfit in the history of Western clothing—a woeful juxtaposition of an ill-fitting tweed sports jacket over a ghastly sports shirt that you’d expect, at worst, to see on a dentist vacationing from Dubuque, half-unbuttoned to expose a dark Tshirt, with camouflage trousers and the sort of woven blue leisure shoes your uncle—the one with the very bad breath—used to wear to mow his lawn.

I said it in 1984 and I’ll say it again in 1987: it’s high time that The Boss began dressing in a manner befitting the world’s greatest living rock ’n’ roller.

In ’84, you recall, I suggested that he’d look like a million dollars in, for instance, a pink leopardskin print zoot suit with matching suede brothel creepers with purple laces. He saw fit not to listen. All right—we’re not inflexible. But we’re entitled to better than an ill-fitting tweed sports jacket over a ghastly sports shirt that you’d expect, at worst, to see on a dentist vacationing from Dubuque, half-unbuttoned to expose a dark T-shirt, with camouflage trousers and the sort of woven blue leisure shoes your uncle—the one with the very bad breath—used to wear to mow his lawn.

It isn’t as though The Boss hasn’t admitted to having once had some interest in duds. Does he not, in the moving “Bobby Jean,” remind that personage of a time when they “liked the same music...the same bands...[and] the same clothes?” We’ve got to assume that the same clothes they liked were those their favorite rock ’n’ rollers wore, and not those they’d seen on vacationing dentists from Dubuque. We’ve just got to, doc!

The time for action is right now. Write to Bruce in care of Columbia Records today (find the addresss in the fine print on any of his albums, cassettes, or CDs), and tell him that it breaks your heart to see him looking so appalling. If you’re artistically inclined, enclose a sketch of an outfit that you think might suit him like gangbusters. Tell him this column sent you, and suggest that front row/center tickets for his next San Francisco appearance might be the perfect way to say, “Hey, thanks for your concern.”