WAS (NOT WAS) SET THE CONTROLS FOR THE HEART OF THE SUN

WAS (NOT WAS) SETTHE CONTROLS FOR THE HEART OF THE SUN

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I thought my eyes were short-sheeting my brain when I read that Was (Not Was) was appearing at the New York Card And Cassette Exchange—known in some circles as the New Music Seminar. But indeed, on a sweaty July evening, a humble multitude witnessed the assault on New York by the wickedest, the most danceably Dadaistic, the most soulfully satisfying, the most consistently and unflinchingly cool band in the history of rock ’n’ roll. You may think this is overkill, but then you didn’t see the show.

The current deployment of the outfit is an 11 -piece unit that delivers heat and energy—it’s an accelerated particle beam weapon that knows how to groove. Was (Not Was) is fronted by a trio: deep-voiced, impeccably chapeaued Sweet Pea Atkinson, former O’Jay Sir Harry Bowens and young contender Donny Ray Mitchell. Ground support comes from guitar messiah Randy Jacobs and keyboard king Luis Resto—air support from sax machine David McMurray and explosive trumpeter Rayse Biggs. And leading the attack are the Brothers Was, Don on bass and David on flute and oddball vocals. Performing the Selected Works Of Was, not to mention covers of “Papa Was A Rolling Stone” and “I Can’t Turn You Loose,” a Was (Not Was) show rates as a minor spectacle of sorts, yet

the only comment Don Was made was, “I think we’re a nice opening act. We’re sexually unthreatening to any ‘glamour’ artist.”

Okay, there must be some middle ground between crusading commandos of funk-rock rebellion and guys who just aren’t as cute as Richard Marx and this is it: Don and Dave Was, friends since childhood, formed Was (Not Was) in 1980 using Detroit’s best studio musicians and nearly every musical influence they’d known. They released two diverse and delightful LPs: 1981 ’s Was (Not Was) and Born To Laugh At Tornados, released two years later. In the fall of 1984, the Was Bros, presented Geffen with their third album, which the label flatly rejected. Dave remembersthe scene: “They said, You can have no more money and we won’t release this.’ So, it’s a good time for the lawyers to come sniffin’ into that bloody meat of your career, earning huge dough.” Geffen had a message for Was (Not Was), explains David. The message was, ‘“Go hold auditions to find a Paul Young. Get rid of the old black guys.’ And they literally made us hold auditions here in New York. You hold auditions for a singer in New York and

you’ll get everything from Son of Sam to one of the old Ronettes... luckily, by the skin of our teeth, Phonogram came in and paid the big price.”

Phonogram UK had the foresight to leave Was enough alone, and they released a series of dance singles to enthusiastic Europeans. More twelveinch remixes in fact, than even Don Was can believe: “There’s like three different 12"s. In England they came out with a new one every two weeks, until there are six or seven mixes. The idea is to get as far away from what the artist intended as possible. So by the end, it’s six weeks into it and they’re really reaching so they take another record and they fly Sweet Pea’s vocals into another—and there’s maybe one or two lines: 7 am a spy...' And then it’s all like Eric B and Rakim.” “In my day, I don’t know, we had Mr. Benny Goodman,” adds Don, in a borscht-belt Jewish accent. “We didn’t have to use Eric B. and Rakim.”

The first Was (Not Was) album in five years is What Up, Dog?, released in the U.S. on Chrysalis. Included thereupon are Euro dance hits “Spy In The House Of Love” and “Walk the Dinosaur,” as well as a remake of Was signature theme “Out Come The Freaks.” In midtempo gems “Love Can Be Bad Luck” and “Anything Can Happen,” Sir Harry and Sweet Pea dish out generous dollops of heart-fluttering soul. The transformed doo-wop harmonies and seductive pulse of “Anytime Lisa” make it a classic, and “Somewhere In America There’s A Street Named After My Dad” is sardonic, silky-smooth and stirring. Don maps out the relationship of Was (Not Was) to black music: “I’ve always viewed Was (Not Was) as if we were painting. Let’s say we paint the background first and then draw little crazy shit on the top. The background in our case is R&B music, whether it’s George Clinton-styled funk, older Motown, Louis Jordan or any of it. It’s somehow taken soul music and then drawn weird things on top of it that not only belong, but that hopefully nq one had put on it before.”

The Was Bros, ubiquitous sonic freakouts—rococo blends of musical and non-musical noises mixed with Dave Was’s Schtick Of The Absurdare included as “Earth to Doris,” “Dad, I’m in Jail,” and “What Up, Dog?” a lonely funk-cry sung by enchanted groovezombies. Presently, there is serious discussion of an entire album of such Was weirdness.

To a lot of folks, weirdness is the watchword of Was. Or as Don puts it, “The contrast is important. To be able to jump from one thing to another. When we do a very normal, pretty song, it’s supposed to be done as shock value between two ugly things ... To me, stuff like ‘Dad, I’m in Jail,’ is a true Was (Not Was) song. A true representation. David and I could’ve made that record 25 years ago.”

Drew Wheeler

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Asa seasoned Was-watcher, I’d say that What Up, Dog? is indeed a commercially viable album. “I don’t know if it is or not,” Don fires back. “First of all I question the overall mass-marketability of the band just by the nature of what it is. That it’s two older black soul singers with two older white Jewish guys writing the stuff, I don’t know if that’s a proven formula.”

Of course, having top 10 singles and a wide recognition in Europe truly gives Don something to laugh about. “There’s a nice precedent of Americans who’ve had to flee over there, from Hendrix to TerenceTrent D’Arby,” he explains.

“You definitely came back stronger and with a mystique about you. We couldn’t get arrested two years ago.”

Harry Bowens and Sweet Pea Atkinson also enjoy a degree of celebrity that has proven elusive over the years. But as Dave tells it, they’ve more than earned it: “I realized standing behind these guys and playing that when they sing songs that have any emotional context—-and that’s not often in my songs, you know?—when there’s something they can latch on to, all of a sudden I realize, that without trying to, consciously, they’re right on it. I started to listen to ‘Where Did Your Heart Go?’ and realized that even if the song had some loopy, ironic turns in it, Sweet Pea sings it like it’s just pure pain. Lost love. ‘Papa Was A Rolling Stone,’ they’re singing about their papas. Their papas were just as bad as the fictional ones. I’d never felt that song before

these guys sang it. Sweet Pea sings it really like he means it, and Harry’s father was a storefront preacher who was a real Reverend Ike. He was womanizing and drinking and gambling. He took Harry on the road with him to sing gospel. Supposed to give him 60 bucks a week, stole 50 of it, gave him ten ...”

The Was Bros, plan a fall ’88 tour under the auspices of Chyrsalis, and Phonogram UK is asking for another album by next spring. Don mentioned that the Wases may get “a productioncompany label deal, probably with Phonogram.” Upcoming projects include a solo effort from guitarist Randy Jacobs, and a “guy group” album of Sweet Pea, Sir Harry and Donnie Ray as what Don calls “the O’Jays on acid." Don also maintains a heavy freelanceproducer schedule, working with artists that range from the B-52s to Bonnie Raitt.

“In the meantime I write songs whenever I can find the lightning. But I’m always trying,” Dave remarks, “If I could sell ’em by the pound I could make more money than off royalties... Actually, I’m all computerized now. I MIDI my eggs in the morning . . .” Equipped with a Macintosh, drive keyboards and a Roland sampler, Dave commented, “Basically, my feeling is you could put a gorilla in that room and in about two hours he could come up with a groove that would be perfectly acceptable.”

Don and Dave Was, childhood friends of the Detroit suburbs, have been through the wringer and then some for Was (Not Was), and they’re still friends. (The two even ventured to Las Vegas recently for an old-fashioned blowout.) Yet their relationship to pop music is still changing. I was using this term, ‘folk funk,’ and thinking if we could scale this crap down, leave the heavy beats to the 12"s, the remixes,” sez Dave Was, “They remix you without your knowledge anyway—they farm your tracks out to guys you will never meet in your life... So on the next album, it’ll be Don and I and a 16-track Fostex doing what we’ve always done, which is spontaneously combust in each other’s presence. And screw the triple-scale guys and use our homebrew guys who you can mold into whatever you need for the moment because you have that rapport of ten years and they know what you like. Don’t try to make hits from the get-go. Music in the First Degree has got to go. The A&R guy even agrees with us.”

Laughing the laugh of a seasoned vet, he adds, “So far, sure. Wait ’til album time.”