The Michigan Daily - Monday, March 4, 1991 - Page 7
CLASSIFIEDSI
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8.BUSINS EVCS
perately to relive their lost youth
over and over again or trying to live
up to the lost youth of their parent,
sibling, other relative, friend, or me-
dia image who was there in the
'60s, man, and won't let anyone for-
get it. Locally, new Major Label
rock bands lucky enough to headline
usually do so at clubs like the Ritz
and Harpo's, nearly an hour away on
Detroit's East Side.
However, this being a less than
scientific analysis, there is an
exception (finally) to this steady nar-
rative of promising bands signing
with a Major Label and watching all
their income go to pay for tour sup-
port, slick recording techniques and
associated costs, making videos that
get shown three times on MTV, and
equally hopeless radio promotion
expenses that often results in burn-
out and increasingly dull albums.
One critical school of thought holds
that only the initial efforts of any
band (with exceptions, natch) will be
worth praising in the long run; tak-
ing the best local bands out of usu-
ally supportive if not financially re-
warding underground scenes and
transporting them around the country
on a diet of imported beer and deli
food may well contribute to this un-
fortunate trend.
But to get back to that exception,
this level of success.
Having a home in the strong
Georgia club scene certainly didn't
hurt the Crowes chances for a taste
of success, but it didn't insure a taste
either (just ask Guadalcanal Diary).
The usuai first video and club tour
had gotten them nowhere by last
July, but then the omnipotent spin
doctors of popular music, MTV's
programming staff, interceded.
"Jealous Again" went into visible
daily rotation and a miracle occurred:
a bard without any hairspray
charmsI it's way onto the charts.
Opening for Aerosmith and ZZ Top
have not resulted in the usually
aggressive dislike accorded opening
acts by the average listener of
commercial FM rock, which, just as
it was with Guns 'n Roses, was
forced to play "Hard to Handle" by
popular demand, illustrating again
how MTV has completely stolen ra-
dio's influence in the fame business;
if you could watch it while driving
and working would there be any lis-
teners left?
In the 1980s, a decade which
went down on history as further
proof that image is all that is needed
to sell records to teens with
disposable income (just as Milli
Vanilli's tape broke Vanilla Ice came
The Georgia Satellites, like the more successful Black Crowes, are a major label rock band that refuse to wear
any make-up. But maybe they should have.
I STANLEY H. KAPLAN
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CROWES
Continued from page 5
to see that their 15 minutes ended
the minute they released their second
single. In the meantime, young
bands like drivin' n' cryin', the Buck
Pets, Tommy Conwell & the Young
Rumblers, the Rock City Angels,
Dream Syndicate, the Long Ryders,
the Del Fuegos, the Rave-Ups, and
Treat Her Right have all released
wonderful records with mass distri-
bution, on CD even, and sometimes
their tapes made it out to all the
backwoods K-marts in the land, but
they are all almost completely un-
known.
It's tempting to just slag off their
lack of success as fitting for bands as
unoriginal as these, but then the
only rock bands that can still be
called "original" are busy making
obscure collections of weird, noise-
for-the-sake-of-noise records that are
totally worthless when that
inevitable time comes to sit down
with a bottle of Jack and a kind
bowl, knowing it will be impossible
to forget HER or HIM for the rest of
the night.
They are part of "the long strange
search for a U.S. equivalent to the
Rolling Stones," as Dave Marsh
once loftily said of Tom Petty.
Of course, each of the above-
mentioned bands can't and shouldn't
be pigeonholed so easily, nor are
they all the same. These bands grew
up with rock music all around them
and they have chosen to play that
music. "We play music for folks,"
went one of the Del Fuego's
lamentable Miller commercials.
These simple songs, built on the
ever-popular guitar-bass-drums com-
bination, possibly with harmonica
and piano or organ thrown in, de-
pending on the band, are the result of
nearly 60 years of distilling a truly
American art form, Rhythm & Blues
music.
The lyrics these bands write focus
on what most every post-adolescent
focuses their thoughts on: relation-
ships. Now there are plenty of
dreaded "sensitive singer/ songwrit-
ers" that critics justifiably spend
plenty of time raving about (John
Hiatt, John Mellencamp, Jackson
Browne, Bruce Springsteen), but
these guys are older and wiser than I.
As a consequence their writing is all
too aware of the way the world really
works, and they aren't shy about
sharing their regrets, misfortunes,
and bone-headed maneuvers. Not so
with these younger bands, who think
they will still conquer the world
tomorrow and still have the balls to
do it. Do you think Mick Jagger or
Paul McCartney could sing a line
like "when I get to pouring it on
you I know you'll come back for
more" on television today the way
Chris Robinson, lead singer of the
Black Crowes, does without eliciting
laughter?
But to get back to their dis-
appointing showings compared to
the Warrants, M6tleys, et-cetera,
perhaps a key reason is the some-
times almost-comical way the La-
bels attempt to market contemporary
straight-up rock. These bands' tour-
ing careers often start on the receiv-
ing end of the nearly universal rude
treatment heaped on opening acts by
ignorant fans and occasionally ego-
tistical headlining acts.
For example, LA's Rock City
Angels tried to wake-up crowds
waiting to see Jimmy Page, Guitar
God, in hockey arenas, yet a week
later I doubt a quarter of the audience
could have named the opening act
without looking at their ticket stub,
assuming the Angels' name was
even printed on it. The Angels re-
ceived zero airplay and were men-
tioned only as an obscure footnote
during ads on the stagnant Big Three
local rock stations, who all know
that balding baby boomers are what
advertisers pay for and will hopefully
soon have to start running spots for
the Shady Heights Rest Home, hear-
ing aids, and the "I've fallen and be-
come a trite phrase" lady.
But at least being paired with
Jimmy Page matched the Rock City
Angels with a theoretically appropri-
ate audience. The only time the
Rave-Ups, another LA band, have
appeared in Michigan (to the best of
my knowledge) was as the special
guest before the Mighty Lame-
Drops, a dumb UK band ripping off,
Echo & the Bunnymen poorly imi-
tating the Doors. The one negative
thing about the development of
Punk, New Wave, and other new
styles of guitar tunage is the way far
too many people who hear the
phrase "they're a new band" automat-
ically think of dippy poppy silly
Englisch-type bands who like
sinthesizers way too much and are
fronted by sensitive, depressed, yet
morosely cute lead singers who
would probably faint if actually ex-
posed to the charisma of a Little
Richard or a young Elvis in the
flesh.
A few of these bands, such as the
Rave-Ups and the Long Ryders,
received airplay on 90-minute Sun-
day night new-music slots, but the
rest were too "mainstream," and had
to fend for themselves amongst ei-
ther the same-shit, every-lay di-
nosaurs on Classic Rock Radio or
the never-ending hordes of those
yUK bands on often equally dull Al-
ternative Radio. There is a reason
why the only music scenes (outside
of the. media centers on the coast)
that develop a national reputation are
in places like Athens, Georgia, and
Minneapolis, both large college
towns. Young people are the demo-
graphic group who support live
rock, yet many young bands never
play college towns and instead must
try to gain the ear of an audience
more interested in either trying des-
'Jealous Again' went into visible daily
rotation and a miracle occurred: a band
without any hairspray charmed it's way onto
the charts
the album I'm referring to is
ironically titled Shake Your Money
Maker. The debut recording of the
Black Crowes was released a healthy
three singles and one year ago.
Rather than going back to the
same blues, country, R&B, or
rockabilly roots as the classic artists
and the other ghetto-ized bands listed
above, the Black Crowes, like recent
American immigrants the Cult, start
at the wrinkled '60s/'70s white
blooz-rock monument and stumble
from there. They've heard the origi-
nal Delta, Nashville, and Memphis
material, but this has been unavoid-
ably filtered by things like the
Stone's worshipful cover of "Love
in Vain" and an infinite amount of
similarly professional recycling ef-
forts. Its just another way to tell
tales of people meeting and people
drifting apart, but with a refreshing
honesty and simplicity for a band at
to the rescue of grocery-store glossy
star-pics collection editors every-
where), bands desperate to tell the
story of a generation outnumbered
by its parents all too often couldn't
even reach the ears of its peers. Un-
like radio, MTV has a unique na-
tional monopoly and must, out of
necessity, do its best to be all things
to all people, which leaves room for
but one Black Crowes in the na-
tional spotlight. As long as radio
consultants timidly follow behind,
popular fresh guitar tunage will be
more image than substance; the
camera and the society pointing it
doesn't care if you are Dylan, Morri-
son (both), Hendrix, Hooker,
Asheton, Bonham, Tucker, Ulrich,
Lesh, Sid, and Bootsy organically
hand-rolled into one, if you don't in-
vest heavily in hair-care. Fortu-
nately, there will always be excep-
tions.
The Way Moves
Favor and Disgrace
Chameleon
Have you noticed (which is just
about certain if you've watched at
least 20 minutes of MTV in the last
month) that when "hard-rock" mega-
sellers of negligible songwriting tal-
ent such as Warrant and Slaughter
shift down a couple of gears to slow-
burn the romance in their latest Bic-
flicking "power ballads," they seem
forced to cop hooks from '70s (or
earlier) hits that pre-date the memory
of their teen-age audience? Warrant's
current "I Saw Red" is basically a
rewrite of the 1977 Paul Davis hit "I
Go Crazy" - you'd think they'd
have learned their lesson after being
sued by the Bay City Rollers over
their previous suspicious chart-top-
per "Heaven" - and Slaughter's
"Fly to the Angels," in a less
heinous manner, gypped the guitar
part from the Beatles' "Something in
the Way She Moves."
The Way Moves (the band, not a
song) play a similar brand of chorus-
packed, over-sexed rock with a
crunching guitar edge, but it main-
tains an important distinction: every
riff on Favor and Disgrace, the
Chicago sextet's incredibly solid de-
but, is an original. If you're a
woman in his vicinity, singer Skid
Marks still can't get you off his
mind; his song titles ("One More
Kiss," "Don't Make Me Wait,"
"Revel (In Your Time)," "Need Your
Love," "Rain Down Your Love")
pretty much tell the story.
But Marks' lyrics are so obses-
sive, they virtually transcend all
cliches - as does the group's mu-
sic, a breed of smart power pop found yourself leaving a Winger
whose lively rhythms and occasional song on the car radio in spite of
tastes of zippy new-wave keyboards yourself The Way Moves' perfect
emphasize catchiness over fist- yousbetween the Rollers and Led
thrusting antics, not unlike Joan Jett meimetwee the ea led
and the Blackhearts. If you've ever Zeppeln may prove to be the guilty
pleasure you've been subliminally
lusting after. Now if only they can
get a 1eo on the air...
.
-Michael Paul Fischer
r