NEW BEATS

NEW BEATS

Clannad Flaming Lips The Woods Will & The Kill The Balancing Act

FAMILY AFFAIR

Clannad, (the name, for reasons that will soon become clear, is Gaelic for family) may finally be a commercial winner. This even though the group, consisting of three siblings (vocalist Maire Brennan and her brothers Pol and Ciaran) and their twin uncles (Padrig and Noel Duggan) aren’t known for listening to popular wisdom—or logic, either.

“We all speak Gaelic to each other,” Maire says, speaking in her rapid-fire, nonstop manner. “And we realized that there were an awful lot of beautiful songs and melodies that people wrote years ago. That was the way they communicated: any event that occurred, there was a song written about it. So we started to research them. We used to go with a tape recorder and a halfpack of Guinness to old people. They would tell us some amazing stories and then they’d give us the words to the songs, and then the melody and then say, ‘Go sing it your own way.’ I have hundreds of them'on tape, and we picked the ones we did carefully. Nobody would understand what we were singing about so we’d arrange them—-without touching the melodies or the words because that’s precious—but we’d arrange them in such a way that we’d make pictures with the arrangements of the songs."

After five records the band had built an underground following of musicians, rock critics and Europeans. In their homeland, however, Clannad weren’t exactly front page news.

“Even in Ireland,” shrugs Maire, "we were a bit of a cult band. Not that many people speak Gaejic. We couldn’t go to England, so we spent a lot of time touring in Europe. There wasn’t as big a problem with the language since they hardly speak English, anyway. We had a terrific time.”

Things might have gone on that way forever if, in late 1982, one of their early records hadn’t fallen into the hands of a television producer who commissioned the group to write the theme music for his special about the Irish-British conflict. Until then, they hadn’t recorded any original material. The result, “Harry’s Game,” is an eerie, haunting tune. And a hit.

Which didn’t mean that they were about to follow the easy, sensible path, and make their major label debut with 10 “Harry’s Game” soundalikes. Though RCA might have been a tad perturbed, Clannad started including self-penned English and Gaelic (and decidedly ’80s sounding) material on their albums. The move didn’t please their new-found supporters in the fickle English music press much either.

“We deliberately didn’t do another ‘Harry’s Game’ and that was one of the reasons the British press is kind of waiting for us,” muses Maire. “We’ll do it in due time. In the meantime we did another TV thing. (It was the theme for the series Robin Of Sherwood, and though Maire modestly neglects to mention it, the tune nabbed the equivalent of a British Academy Award.) Then we were ready to take the next step.”

That occurred when RCA (rather forcefully) suggested that a duet might be nice. With an outside singer. Ever helpful, they gave Maire a list. She gave it back.

“They’d mentioned a couple of names,” she explains. “But it couldn’t be just a duet to do a duet; it had to mean something. I had to connect with the singer. This was the first time that we were going to bring somebody else in with the band. So I said, ‘Look, if I’m going to do a duet, to make it feel all right with me, I want to do it with someone Irish.’ Ireland’s small, and Dublin is a small town. Everybody knows everybody else.”

Which is how, after a lively discussion in a Dublin pub over a few ales, Maire found herself singing “In A Lifetime” with U2’s Bono Hewson on Clannad’s second RCA record, Macalla. The song and the album were more pop-oriented than any of Clannad’s earlier work. That, and the group’s penchant for unpredictable behavior, should have prepared everybody to expect the unexpected; a.k.a., their current record, Sirius (named for the ship in the Greenpeace flotilla). It’s a bonafide pop record. We are talking potential American hit parade here. Sort of Clannad-ized. The lyrics are primarily in English, it was produced by two Americans (Greg Ladanyi and Russ Kunkel) and features guest appearances by Steve Perry, J.D. Souther and Bruce Hornsby. The people who had touted the band started screaming “sell out.”

"I guess if you open the sleeve and just read it, it is an American album, but it does sound like Clannad,” says Maire. “The only person we asked to perform was Bruce Hornsby. The others are all coincidental. When Steve Perry came in, it was to see somebody else; we weren’t even in the studio. Greg played him ‘White Fools’ and he started talking about his Portuguese roots. Greg asked if he could speak Portuguese or Gaelic and asked if he’d like to sing in Gaelic on the song. No way would we have thought to ring up Steve Perry and ask him to sing in Gaelic on the record. It’s so off the wall. But we’re not afraid of trying things—if it’s not right, it won’t feel right and we won’t do it. But we don’t have a formula, and by the time people get used to everything we do, we move on.”

So what’s next? First priority is an American tour, their first in almost nine years. After that, it’s anybody’s guess. Still, they could do synthesized madrigals, and it would sound terrific. I stand my ground: Clannad is something special.

Sharon Liveten

LIPS AHOY!

Flaming Lips leader Wayne Coyne acknowledges that people just take it for granted that the Lips—singer/guitarist Coyne, bassist Mike Ivins and drummer Richard English—are, urn, kinda strange.

“People think we’re a bunch of acid casualties that were dropped out of some UFO in Oklahoma. People come up to us at just about every show and ask us if we’re on LSD. If we are, sometimes we’ll say yeah, and if we’re not, sometimes we’ll say yeah anyway. I think people should be able to do drugs if they want to do them, but you know we couldn’t be total drug casualties. We couldn’t really be that wasted, or we wouldn’t be able to get to our gigs on time.”

The trio (originally a quartet, until Wayne’s vocalist brother Mark bailed out for the straight life) hails from Oklahoma City, a region not generally noted for spawning rock combos. “Nothing really goes on there,” says Wayne. “There’s no inspiration to be in a band, there isn’t any reason to be in a band. There’s no place to play, no one’s gonna like you, there’s no outlet for your music. We were lucky that we knew each other in high school, because there really isn’t any music scene to get involved in. In Oklahoma City, there’s this whole conservative thing of having a job and a car and ah apartment, and that gets drilled into your head, but we just decided that we’d rather be in a band.”

The Flaming Lips’ five-song debut EP, originally released on the band’s own LSD label, was an agreeably twisted melodicpsycho-metal melange. The subsequent LP, Hear It Is (their first for Restless/Enigma) showed a bit more originality between its affectionately borrowed riffs, with occasional lighter acoustic flourishes balancing the grunge. The new Oh My Gawd!!!. . . The Flaming Ups is more distinctive and focused, with more consistent performances, improved production and song titles like “Maximum Dream For Evel Knievel,” “One Million Billionth Of A Millisecond On A Sunday Morning” and “Love Yer Brain.”

Though Oh My Gawd has established the Lips in the college-radio/fanzine underground, Coyne isn’t particularly interested in playing the wacky-cult-band game. “We produced this record ourselves, because we felt the last one sounded sort of bland, like every other independent band. We purposely made a big deal out of producing this one, because we knew we could make it sound as good as the new Cult record or something. Because when the average dumbf—er on the street plays a Led Zeppelin tape back-to-back with a Pussy Galore tape, the Led Zeppelin tape’s gonna sound a lot better.

“We saw this art band the other night— they were just screwin’ around and beatin’ on shit, and people were goin’ This sorta sucks.’ And the band’s yellin’ This is art, you should like this,’ and we were sort of like ‘Yeah, but it still sucks, though.’ That whole college-radio thing is fine, but that’s where you get a lot of goofy frat guys who’ll think you’re cool for a year, and we don’t want to get caught up in that. The underground thing exists in some places, but when you go to Bozeman, Montana, none of that shit means anything, and you have to go in and be yourself and prove yourself to them.

“Now I think we’re starting to get more people who are just into music—they’re tired of the whole trend thing, and they want something that’s still gonna be good next year and the year after. And I’ve noticed that we’ve started getting some hardcore guys at our shows—maybe they’re ready for something that isn’t just stupid thrash.”

Prior to Oh My Gawd’s release, the three Lips decided to take the plunge and commit to the band full-time, giving up their day jobs in order to spend more time touring and generally maximize their potential for career progress. “Look at R.E.M.,” says Coyne. “Who would have thought, sitting there listening to ‘Radio Free Europe’ in 1981, that they’d ever be up there with Whitney Houston? And now they’re there, you realize that you can go for it if you want to.

“I think we leave a lot of room for people to like us. Like, if you didn’t like our last record, the new one is totally different, so it’s a new chance for you to like us. We don’t want to be classified as some weird novelty. We’d rather be classified as just a rock band, like Led Zeppelin or the Butthole Surfers.”

And no, Wayne assures us once again, the Flaming Lips aren’t weird. “We’re not into mysticism or any of that bullshit, we’re just regular dudes. You don’t have to be on some mind-trip to do weird shit. Life’s weird enough, man.”

Harold DeMuir

BIG ROCK now\

It’s like this: the Woods, a trio from Raleigh, NC, released an album last year. It was stunningly good. Among its many .fine tracks was “Battleship Chains,” a song written by their drummer, Terry Anderson, but a song you probably associate with the Georgia Satellites.

Hardly anyone bought the album, which— by the way—is called It’s Like This.

“The Satellites sort of scarfed up ‘Battleship Chains’ before we could get it out,” offers Anderson. “Our understanding from Dan (Baird, presently in the Satellites, formerly in the Woods, when they were the Woodpeckers) is that their record company made them do it.”

Whaddaya mean, made them?

“Well, a ‘You have to do this song or no deal’ sort of thing,” he explains.

Hmmm. Anderson, of course, is at least getting some writer’s royalties, but he says, “I’d rather have a hell of a lot less money and had it done good on our record. I didn’t write it to promote the Georgia Satellites. Dan was in our band for awhile, so he had some tapes of us, and that song ended up on one of the Georgia Satellites’ demo tapes. Don’t ask me why. They have this road manager guy who insisted on putting it on the demo tape that went to the record company, and the record company went crazy over it. It was us playing on it—it was our version Elektra heard.”

“We were curious why Elektra didn’t come after us,” adds bassist Jack Cornell. “They did hear other songs; apparently ‘Battleship Chains’ was the one they liked.”

Y’know, I’m curious, too. “Battleship Chains” is a great song—indeed, an ’80s American classic—but the Woods have plenty of other songs worth signing them over. Some of ’em are punky/Stonesish (“Chain My Heart,” “Sign Of The Times”), some are punchy pop (“Next Rain”) and others are kinda plaintive (“Girlfriends,” “I Don’t Want Her”), but they’re all loaded with harmonies and generally rock sweaty ’n’ steady. “We feel we’re a lot more than that Southern roots thing,” says guitarist Dave Enloe, and he’s right.

Despite being rejected by the major labels—It’s Like This was released on Twin/Tone—the Woods are still in there pitching. They’ve been together, in one form or another, for 10 years—and the very night of our conversation they’ll play a small bar in Chapel Hill, where they’ll make about $500. They all have part-time jobs where they can come and go as they please so that, as Terry so neatly puts it, they can come and go as they please. You can see they have a sense of humor about things.

“Let me describe our music,” says Anderson. “It’s somewhere between country and fusion. We call it confusion.”

I call it a big rock groove, and that’s another story: Big Rock Groove was the initial (and great) name of the album, but it got changed to Sign Of The Times. “Then that fellow from Minneapolis came along...” bemoans Anderson. Time for another title.

“It’s not out of the question for the next album, though,” Anderson adds. “ ’Cause there will definitely be a big rock groove on the next record.”

It’s like that.

J. Kordosh

EENAGE IDOL ’88

When the movie La Bamba came out last year, lots of rock crit types were mourning the passing of an era when a teenager with a guitar could become a rock ’n’ roll star overnight. Buck up, amigos, those days may not be gone just yet. Here we’ve got a brand-new teenaged sensation in Will & The Kill, fronted by 17-year-old Will Sexton, kid bro’ to Charlie of “Beat’s So Lonely” fame and rocker par excellence.

Unlike Charlie, who opted for a Bowieesque pop sound on Pictures For Pleasure, Will’s sound is straight-ahead Austin, Texas rock—10 songs’ worth on his debut Will & The Kill LP. And if you’re wondering what kind of chops even the most talented player of his years might have, keep in mind that Will’s been playing with big leaguers most of his life.

“When Charlie and me first started playing together were were like nine and 11 years old,” he explains. “A year after that we started playing with Stevie (Ray Vaughan) and the Thunderbirds and stuff. We used to freak people out ’cause back then the guitars were bigger than we were.”

So how does some nine-year-old manage to jam with premier blues-rock guitarist and wearer of cool hats Stevie Ray Vaughan?

“Well, back then Stevie Ray Vaughan was playin’ in front of 10 people, y’know? Me and Charlie used to stay with Stevie over at his house and he’d just play us records all the time. He was a big influence on us. As was Jimmy Vaughan: he’s great. It was really good to play down there in Austin ’cause now, even though I’m young, I’ve had a lot of experience playin’ in front of people. It’s not like some young people that might make a record and have never played a live gig before.”

A lot of Will’s Austin friends turned out to play on his album too, as it’s almost a who’s who of Lone Star talent. Joe Ely produced it, David Grissom of Ely’s band plays a lot of guitar on it, Charlie Sexton sings, plays guitar, and revs his Harley-Davidson on it, and Jimmy Vaughan contributes six-string bass on one track. Will, who says his current guitar influences are Billy Gibbons and Steve Stevens, plays some hot guitar and yowls his way through the songs, most of which he wrote or co-wrote.

A pretty impressive start for someone his age. But how does he feel being in a business where a lot of the competition is twice as old? “You really can’t look at it that way, because that ain’t gonna make anyone buy your records instead of someone else’s— either they like it or they don’t. So all I worry about is making good music.” And what does he see for himself 20 years down the line? “I don’t know,” he says. “It’s a scary thought.”

Will & The Kill. Dick Clark, call your office.

Thomas Anderson

ACT NATURALLY

Wouldn’t it be swell if the music fans ’n’ critics would save all the cash ’n’ kudos they’ve been lavishing on overrated bores like the Beastie Boys and U2 for some truly deserving outfit—like, say, the Balancing Act? It sure the heck would.

The L.A.-based foursome turned some heads with their 1986 EP, New Campfire Songs, before hooking up with intrepid Primitive Man Recording Co. (sibling label of IRS) and releasing their first full LP, 3 Squares And A Roof, last fall. 3 Squares was one of those wondrous yet inexplicably overlooked bits o’ wax that pop up every year—well, maybe it’s not so inexplicable. In this age of assembly-line radio hits, a band like the Balancing Act, who sound so unlike anything else around, is not likely to start cash registers ringing.

And if they stick to their guns, they probably never will, bless ’em—like many practitioners of off-the-wall pop, the Balancing Act would be content merely to make a living plying their craft. “There are some people who do have left-field hits,” observes Jeff Davis, one of the B.A.’s singer-songwriter-multi-instrumentalists, "and if we had' one, that’d be fine, but we’re not gonna change our style to achieve that."

As presented on 3 Squares And A Roof, the Balancing Act’s style deftly eludes classification. They use, for the most part, acoustic instruments, and the four guys harmonize real pretty at times, but you can’t really call it folk, ’cause it doesn’t rely on traditional or neo-rad formalism. Melodica, accordion, keyboards and assorted flavors of percussion lend even more scenic variety to their already-intriguing gitfiddle landscape. Davis and bandmates Steve Wagner, Willie Aron, and Robert Blackmon, ever the democrats, trade axes and lead vocals from time to time. “We’re not trying to be eclectic for eclecticism’s sake,” says Davis.

“We never said, ‘Let’s be this really different-sounding group, let’s have an acoustic music revival'.’ We played acoustic guitars ’cause that’s what we had onhand— and we felt that with acoustic guitars you could hear the songs a lot better.”

Good thing they felt that way, too, because 3 Squares is crammed with fascinating fables. Try Wagner’s eerie “Kicking Clouds Across The Sky,” which begins with melodica mysteriously snaking in and out of what could be a scene from some cult horror film and ends who knows where. Or take his equally enigmatic "The Ballad Of Art Snyder,” a wry, deadpan ditty which observes of one of its indecisive heroes, “It’s not easy being human/But it’s hard to be cement/So he’s just another genius/Who can’t pay the rent.” “Steve likes throwing a lot of curves,” says Davis.

Davis himself, who penned over half the LP’s tunes, checks in with gems like “Red Umbrella,” which metaphorically explores love ’80s-style amidst plinkety keyboards and goose-bumpingly gorgeous harmonies; “This Is Where It All Begins,” in which the singer urges a potential sweetheart to “Lay yourself on the table, and I will elevate you”; and the rollicking “We’re Not Lost,” which sounds like a hearty troop of Boy Scouts bivouacked in the Sonoran Desert (“In the morning we check our shoes/In the morning we shake out scorpions/Check for pit snakes/ Under jeep seats”).

Actually, says Davis, that last tune’s about life’s potential hazards—but, as with the rest of the Balancing Act’s repertoire, instead of being literal he uses humorous allegory, wordplay, and subtlety—remember subtlety?—to get the idea across. They’re a rare bunch, alright, this Balancing Act—catch ’em next time they pitch a tent in your town.

Moira McCormick