Raiding Hannah's Stash: An Appreciation of late '90s Bubblegum Music
by Peter Bagge

Back in Early 1997 I was in negotiating a "development deal" with MTV, the goal of which was to turn convert my comic book. HATE. into an animated TV show. Seeing how I hadn't watched MTV in ages (I was pushing 40 by then, so what do you expect?) I decided it might be a good idea to do some marathon viewing, in order to re-familiarize myself with who I was dealing with. What torture. Never mind their non-music vid programming (all of which was unbearable, with the exception of Beavis and Butthead), but the videos had me squirming in pain as well. I recall three distinct varieties of "musical entertainment" that were dominating the airwaves at the time:

"Rap": Which had become almost exclusively of the "gangsta" variety, in which both the male and female rappers would wave a threatening finger at me and talk about what bad ass muthafuckuhs they are and totally trash the opposite sex in a way that most people outgrow when they’re 12 while sporting hideous, ill-fitting jogging outfits;

"Alternative": Always white, usually male, always wearing throwaway t-shirts and pants, always WHINING WHINING WHINING about who knows what and WHO CARES? And always sung with that same harsh, nasal "I don't take anything seriously so fuck everyone anyway" attitude as the band pogos up and down and bangs out their Ramones riffs (or else they'd be doing that Nirvana/Who routine of quiet, achy-voiced verse followed by loud, anthemic chorus. Yawn);

Followed by the worst "genre" of all:

"Chick Singers": self-obsessed, overly-dramatic Divas, regardless of whether they can skyrocket up and down the scales like Mariah and Whitney, whisper and mince like an affected child (i.e.: Jewel), or dish out yet more punk "attitude," only combined with lots of hammy, theatrical gestures and body hugging (Alanis Morrisette, Hole). I'm sure that 1997 -- along with every year of the past decade -- was being proclaimed "The Year of the Woman" by some music industry trade mag, only based on what I was witnessing this was not good news.

Then I saw The Spice Girls.

That's when I realized it wasn't just "me" that was the problem. It wasn't that I was "too old" to appreciate or "get into" pop music anymore. No, the problem was that all these other, more critically acclaimed "serious" acts all SUCKED. They were BORING, on top of being unoriginal. Plus they reeked of self-importance. They all needed to go away. They and their admirers needed to be punished.

And OH! how the Spice Girls tortured and vexed these people! By the time I was actually working at MTV that summer, people were routinely shocked and repulsed by my Love For The Spice Girls. "There are some things you ought to keep to yourself," one co-worker and close friend whispered to me once, with only my own best interests in mind. An allegedly "hip" and intelligent young "development gal" almost hit the ceiling when I told her I'd much rather listen to "Wannabe" than the godawful Radiohead video she was forcing me to watch. "Peter," she said, patiently filling me in on the Sad Facts, " I SAW the Spice Girls perform LIVE at the MTV Awards Show, and they were TERRIBLE: They can't sing, they can't dance -- and they're all FAT!"

Six months later all of these people each owned the complete line of Spice Girl dolls. I guess "fat" was "in" all of the sudden.

I like that the Spice Girls are "fat" (actually, not only are they all built very differently from each other, they're also built like women are NATURALLY built -- as opposed to gym-rats like Madonna, who spends hours of each day of her life trying to make her body resemble a MAN'S). I also like that their personalities have been simplified and boiled down to five easily recognizable cartoon characters (although I HATE the way Geri "Ginger" Haliwell now publicly resents this totally practical marketing ploy in the same way that that hypocritical crybaby John Lennon spent the rest of his ex-Beatle life complaining about). I like that they're wacky and funny and run up and down the street punching at the air and each other like The Beatles and The Monkees used to do. I like that the only thing they care about when they're on stage is to ENTERTAIN THE LIVING SHIT OUT OF THE AUDIENCE for 90 solid minutes. And I especially like their music. I LOVE their Music!

The first time I heard the song "Wannabe" I immediately wanted to hear it again. And again and again and again. This is a reaction I experienced quite often when I myself was a "teeny-bopper" in the late '60s, my ears constantly glued to a tiny transistor radio listening to "Cousin Brucie" introduce the latest release by Steppenwolf or The Cowsills (I loved 'em both!) on WABC. I still would occasionally react that way to new recordings I'd hear all throughout the '70s and '80s, though with less and less frequency. By the '90s I had forgotten what this sensation even felt like, and simply chalked it up to an AGE thing -- that "shock of the New" that we all become immune to as time goes by. The Spice Girls made me realize that this isn't entirely the case: that there IS a certain type of music that, when performed with the right kind of moxie and spirit, still thrills me to my bones and probably always will.

What's always been somewhat embarrassing for me is that the TYPE of music that routinely gets to me in this fashion is of stuff that's usually made for and marketed TO pre-teens. Specifically Girls. EIGHT YEAR OLD girls, like my daughter Hannah. This has created a what might seem like a weird "bond" or shared interest between me and my daughter (although I know of many other dads who enjoy a similar "bond" with their daughters!). Everyone always makes the same joke when they see little girls with their dads watching Spice Girls videos together: That the kids are into it for the music, while the dads are enjoying a little "T and A." The truth is that both the girls and the dads are enjoying BOTH -- the girls are totally fascinated by the S Girls (or Britney Spears’ or Monica's) sex appeal in the same way that boys their age are fascinated by Superman's strength; while if all we "dirty old men" cared about were bouncing boobies we would just lock the channel onto the USA Network and then pretend the remote was busted.

This Unity in Taste also served a pragmatic purpose: that I could march right into Tower Records and tell the clerk that the Cleopatra cassette I was buying "isn't for ME -- it's for my daughter!" Just in case they asked, that is. Which they never do. Still, it was comforting to have that info at the ready, just as I was always prepared to tell the liquor store clerk that that bottle of Bacardi 151 I was buying was "for the Old Man" back when I was still underage. As if they cared (although one time I DID share this false information with the clerk, who nearly died laughing as he rung up my illegal purchase). And as soon as Hannah expressed interest in The Spice Girls herself (all I had of the SGs up until then was a tape that a friend had made and mailed to me) I zoomed off to buy the latest release by latest '90s bubblegum teen sensation that I -- er, I mean my DAUGHTER -- was interested in.

Not that all of these new recordings hold up too well, by the way. In fact, that's the main purpose of this article: to single out the Good Stuff from the mediocre for the "uninitiated" (i.e.: the childless) amongst you who are dying to know "Who's better: The Backstreet Boys or 'NSync?" (Answer: They're both pretty lame). Allow me to work my way through my daughter's CD collection and pull out the ones that are at least worth your time and consideration.

Aqua, "Aquarium" (MCA, 1997)

This Danish foursome (two keyboardist/programmers and two singers) are responsible for that big hit "Barbie Girl" from two summers ago. Yeah, those people. And this entire CD bubbles and percolates exactly like that one does -- it's just a boom-boom-boom Eurodisco beat with Barbie Girl (Lene Grawford Nystrom) playing call and response with Rene "Ken" Dif from the first cut to the last.

I love this record. It drives most people crazy, though -- it even drives ME crazy when I'm not in the mood for it! But when I AM in an Aqua Mood I get locked into its beat and ride it on home in the same way that you could be listening to The Ramones' "Rocket to Russia" and thinking this is the best record ever made ever ever ever, while at other times it sounds like just another stupid Ramones record. I'm not even into techno or disco as a rule. I just like this record. It's got lots of great hooks and can be very funny at times as well.

Buy this at your own risk. I refuse to be held responsible.

B*witched, "B*witched" (Epic/Sony, 1998)

B*witched are "Ireland's answer to the Spice Girls": Four perky, VERY young (18-20 years old) fame-school graduates who can dance their scrawny little Gaelic hineys off, and who sing well to boot (one of the Lynch twins, Edele, sings the lead on every song, and while she has a very nice voice I find it odd that not even her sister Keavy gets to sing lead on occasion. I mean, wouldn't an identical twin have an identical singing voice?). Their dance routines, as well as their music, are a cross between the Jackson Five and Riverdance -- an unlikely and seemingly distasteful combination that actually works quite well (as anyone who's watched them perform their adorable act on that oft-repeated Disney Channel special a dozen times like I have can attest to).

Like the Spice Girls, they share songwriting credits with their producers (presumably both groups are mainly responsible for the bulk of their own super happy, cliché-ridden lyrics -- though the SGs songs are far more obsessed with sex and EGO than their more innocent Irish progeny are). Also like the SGs, their management landed one hell of a producer in Ray "Madman" Hughes, who along with arranger Martin Brannigan put together one hell of a CD. This giddy masterpiece is simply BURSTING with energy and zing from beginning to end (save for the prerequisite ballads, some of which are also wonderful -- like the ELO/Wings-ish "Oh Mr. Postman" -- and some of which just take up space). The producers of most all these '90s bubblegum records are keyboardists who "play" or "program" almost all the rhythm instruments themselves on their digital midi/DAT/AVID sampling gizmo contraptions, which are little more than $50,000 Casio players. You would think that the end result would be soulless dreck -- and it usually is, although it sure is amazing what some of the more imaginative producers can pull off working this way. "Never Giving Up," "Rollercoaster" and their big hit "C'est La Vie" all crackle and pop like nobody's business, and the way Hughes seemlessly works traditional folk instruments like fiddles and tin whistles into the mix without making them sound gimmicky is nothing short of a marvel. "Madman" Hughes is a genius!

B*witched have been monster huge in the UK and Europe for about a year now, though as of this writing they've barely cracked the top 10 over here, despite the Disney Channel's best efforts. The only logical explanation I can come up for this is their regrettable WARDROBE: they all dress in elaborately designed costumes that are always made of DENIM! It reminds me of the same dilemma the Bay City Rollers experienced 25 years ago, when they were the biggest thing going over seas but never more than an after thought in the States: maybe those silly honky Europeans have no problem with plaid tartans and Kilts, but over here that "look" implies that you might as well be performing on the Lawrence Welk show. Not that I'm repulsed by B*witched's look myself, but I'm sure "the kids" are all thinkin' that it's totally L7.

Anyhow, and in case I haven't made this plain enough already, I love this CD. Two thumbs up. Buy it.

Billie, "Honey to the B" (Virgin, 1998)

16-year-old Billie Piper is the Limey version of Britney Spears, except that she's not as cute and doesn't sing as well, which suggests a VERY aggressive management team is at work here (She does have a nice, straight-forward though nondistinctive singing voice, however). She's had four straight top ten hits in the UK since last summer, though this CD wasn't released in the US until May of this year (1999).

I was pretty disappointed in this CD when I first heard it, after much excited word of mouth by my fellow dirty old men from across the pond -- it's much more Mainstream/MOR/R&B sounding than, say, the youthful, poppy exuberance of B*witched. Kinda reminds me of Brandy's music, though thankfully without any of that I-Wanna-Be-Whitney show-off-y crap that Brandy indulges in. But after a few listens this thing has grown on me quite a bit. As far as MOR R&B goes, it's pretty dang good! Billie's producing/arranging/songwriting team of Jim Marr and Wendy Page don't have an original bone in their body, but they sure know a good groove when they steal one. This thing kind of reminds me of The Spice Girls first CD, with it's nonstop dance floor feel, though without any of the SG's in-your-face insanity. She actually sounds a lot more mellow and MATURE than the Spices, which might make her a lot more palatable to all you Spice Haters out there.

The closest thing to immaturity you'll hear on this CD is her biggest hit/ adolescent anthem "Because We Want To," which is all about doing whatever you want to exert your independence and all that claptrap. I wonder if that would include shooting up all your classmates? Don't expect this song to get much airplay in the States any time soon.

This is a good record. Nothing remarkable, but if you find it on sale you shan't feel ripped off.

Cleopatra, "Comin' Atcha" (Maverick/WB, 1998)

Cleopatra are three black teenage sisters from the UK: Cleopatra, Zainaim and Yonah Higgins. The oldest, Cleo, does almost all of the lead singing and sounds a lot like a young Michael Jackson (they even do a cover of "I Want You Back" on this CD, and it's hard to believe it's NOT Michael Jackson singing it). They also write all their own lyrics and share the songwriting credits with their various producers. In other words, these gals are bona fide talents with a long-term career in the music biz ahead of them (as far as anyone is able to predict such things, that is).

Watching these girls perform on stage is quite an other-worldly visual experience: they're all very short and wear baggy, candy-colored clothes and big floppy hats. They also have super long braided hair that twirls like helicopter blades as they spin, turn and waddle about in unison. Last year they did their outer space dancing on some Nickelodeon special, after which me and my daughter made a bee-line to the nearest record store to buy their product. Guess what? It turned out their CD "wasn't ready" for US release yet. It took MONTHS to get over here! Somebody really missed the boat on that one -- LITERALLY!

As for the music itself, it's pretty generic '90s R&B, only on the light, sweet side so the kids can swallow it. Nice enough stuff, but nothing too memorable -- save for one cut, "Thinking About You," which is quite a thing of beauty that never stops growing on me. I say buy this CD for that song alone. You at least won't be offended by the rest of the material.

BTW: Why do black R&B acts ALWAYS thank "God" on their liner notes? They always start off by thanking Him for "making it all happen" for them before they eventually get around to thanking their Jewish lawyers and Sicilian managers who really DID make it all happen. Cleopatra thank The Great God Almighty at least a half dozen times for "blessing" them with the miraculous ability to mimic Michael Jackson and twirl like Martian dervishes. It's so obnoxious -- like when some pro athlete thanks God for a big win, as if The Lord was rooting against the other team. Does God HATE all the acts that DIDN'T land a major label record deal? Apparently so! Acts that put out records on penniless Indie labels should start CURSING God on their record sleeves for "NOT blessing them" and for "NOT making it all happen." Or they could just thank Satan, though I suppose hundreds of heavy metal bands have probably done that already.

Hanson, "Middle of Nowhere" (Mercury, 1997)

This is the debut CD by the band that everyone was making fun of when they weren't busy making fun of the Spice Girls. This CD is an awfully polished and professional product for three teenage brothers fresh out of Tulsa, Oklahoma, due to the fact that they had plenty of time, money and help devoted to them in the form of top-rate producers and musicians backing them up. One thing that those well-paid "pros" cannot provide, however, is the hyper, unbridled teen-boy mania that comes through on here in spite of the slick production. In fact, sometimes it seems like the producers were indulging them in this regard, like with the wahwah-laden guitar solo in "Where's the Love" or the totally goofball synthesizer solo in "Madeline." I'm sure they were like kids being set loose in a candy store when they entered the recording studio ("Whoa, dude, check it out -- a BIG MUFF!"), but then, only a 15-year-old should be allowed to use those gizmos to begin with, before they attempt to do something "tasteful" with them!

Hanson Rocks. I saw them perform live, and let me tell you something, folks: They rocked like a motherfucker. Laugh all you want, but it's true. They also sing great, and in a way that only a sibling group can pull off. Theirs was the best live harmonizing I've heard since the time I saw the Beach Boys in 1973. Most of this CD is just shout-out-loud, drivin,' rockin' pop music at it's best. It also is the only CD that really IS "rock" (The rest are all various mixtures of Disco, techno and hip hop), with real guitars and drums on it -- most of which is played by the band itself. Go Hanson!

On the down side, however, is that it also has a real midwestern, John Cougar Mellancamp flavor to it -- especially when the oldest, Isaac, sings, since he's the only one whose voice had changed at the time this record was recorded. Not that there's inherently anything wrong with this, but it is cause for concern re: where they're heading musically in the future, since they do have very Middle-American cornfed sensibilities (again, not unlike Mellancamp). The ballads on this CD, while perfectly harmless, suggest that there won't be much to recommend of them once they outgrow their hyper adolescence. In fact, they could wind up looking and sounding indistinguishable from the likes of Michael Bolton!

It's been quite a while since they released anything new as well, so I'm filled with apprehension once something new by them DOES come out! Oh well, we shall see. But no matter what happens to them down the road this CD will remain a rock and roll classic forever. Buy it and give it a listen if you don't believe me.

Their only other releases besides this one are a Christmas CD entitled "Snowed In" and a collection of early demo tapes called "Three Car Garage." "Snowed" is one of the most enjoyable Xmas albums ever made, and I heartily recommend it for some sure-fire rockin' holiday good cheer. "Three Car" is a must to avoid, however. Sure, it's a pretty impressive demo from a group that features a 10-year-old drummer, but it's still a DEMO. Demos should be BURNED before some dipshit "fan" decides to make a bootleg out of them, or a greedy label decides to use it to rip off their gullible public (i.e.: me).

"NOW" Compilation (EMI, 1998)

This is a "This Year's Biggest Hits All On One CD!"-type compilation that you can only order by phone via it's relentless TV commercials. My daughter wrote down the 1-800 number and handed it to her mom, instructing her to dial it a.s.a.p. She wanted Today's Biggest Hits and she wanted them NOW, Goddammit! Who were we to argue?

Anyone who's listened to a day's worth of top 10 radio in the last couple of years knows half of these songs already: Hanson's "Mmm Bop," The Spice Girls' "Say You'll Be there," etc. Some of these hits I like just fine, such as Janet's retro-'70s disco tune "Together Again," and the Backstreet Boys' "As Long As You Love Me" (which is pretty much the ONLY BSB song I like). Unfortunately, there's an awful lot of "alternative" gunk on here as well, which grates even more than usual when pressed up against songs like the ones mentioned above. The only tolerable ones are "alterna-beatle"-type bands like Fastball and Harvey Danger (think John Lennon at his most nasally and cynical). The latter band features a guy who used to work in the production department for my publisher here in Seattle. One day he's attaching page numbers to my comic book for minimum wage, and the next day my kid is ordering his record off of Nickelodeon. What a wacky world.

This comp also has one gem I've never heard before: "Never Ever," by a British all-girl singing group called All Saints. This slow, gospel-ly tune has a real early-'60s-Shadow Morton girl group feel to it. I didn't think much of it at first, but MAN has it grown on me since then. It just sucks you right in like a vacuum cleaner. I don't even know if you can still buy this CD anymore, but if you ever come across it used and cheap then pick it up for this song alone.

"Sabrina The Teenage Witch -- The Album!" (Geffen, 1998)

This compilation has contributions by all the latest hot teen sensations (inc. an otherwise unavailable track by the Spice Girls, which made it a must-have item in the Bagge household). The only connection that it has to the TV show are the photos of Melissa Joan Hart's smirky face all over the sleeve, as well as her own uninspired rendition of Blondie's "One Way Or Another."

Aside from that and a few other note-for-note covers of '70s classics (Matthew Sweet does a why-bother remake of "Magnet and Steel," while current hit-miesters Sugar Ray give Steve Miller's "Abracadabra" the kereoke treatment), this CD has a few real doozies on it: good cuts by Aqua, Britney Spears, the Murmurs, the Cardigans, and The Spice Girls (of course!). Plus the otherwise annoying Ben Folds Five turn in their best song by far with the rousing "Kate" --though Mr. Folds still comes close to ruining even this song with that smarmy "look at me, I'm being clever ovah heah!" singing style of his, to go along with that bangy Billy Joel (another long-time sufferer of cleveritis)-style piano playing that I hate. This is a classic example of ruining a perfectly pretty song in order to hang on to your "indy cred" -- something I thing a lot of indy rockers are bound to regret someday, if they don't already.

Black-sounding blondie girl Robyn is also featured with "Show Me Love," her slinky smash from a few summers ago. This song was co-written and produced by the Swedish hit-making team of Max Martin and the recently departed Denniz Pop. These two Scandihoovians are also responsible for just about every major hit by all the "O-Town" acts (Britney, Backstreet Boys, 'NSync). These guys are probably the most successful songwriters of the '90s by far, in spite of the fact that no one's ever heard of them. While I enjoy a lot of their tunes (like this one), it's hard for me to think of myself as a "fan" of theirs, since they hit the mark with a little TOO much ease. In other words, their sensibilities are just too middle-of-the-road and mainstream for me. I like at least a LITTLE bit of personality and quirkiness to go with my pop schmaltz!

The low points on this CD for me are all the New Kids-clone boy groups, who's contributions here show them all doing what they do worst: macho-posturing rap and hip-hop. I simply can't buy into these obvious nancy-boys trying to make like they're street toughs. "Ruff Tuff Cream Puffs," I calls 'em! They should stick to the ballads, in my opinion, though my wife thinks these songs are adorable, especially the UK outfit Five's laughable theme song "Slam Dunk Da Funk" (also written by those high-fivin' homeboys from Stockholm, Martin and Pop. Can you imagine those two Squareheads sitting at home "composing" this thing in their Swedish country kitchen, while they're gettin' jiggy wit' their lutafisk?).

Adults seem to do a flip flop from the sexual identifying of our youth -- My daughter has little interest in male singers and acts, just as I rarely bought anything that was sung by a female when I was a kid. Now it's the opposite, with my wife cranking up any tune that's sung by some hunky 18-year-old (one of the members of Five even goes by the name of "Abs"), while I sit there jealously calling the singer a "sissy" and a "faggot," even when I'm secretly enjoying the record myself.

Anyhow, "Sabrina" is a surprisingly good sampler, and Tower sells it at some super low price. Check it out if it's still in stock.

Savage Garden, "Savage Garden" (Sony, 1997)

These two Aussies wear mascara, and the singer, Darren Hayes, sings in this real affected '80s-style voice. Plus they're called "Savage Garden." Talk about your sissy faggots! I would love to run them over in my Subaru if I ever got the chance, only some of their songs are brilliant; real nice beat ballads like the hit "Madly Truly Deeply" (they're love songs, yet they have a steady, toe-tapping beat to 'em, so I call them "beat ballads." What am I supposed to call 'em?). "Universe" is an especially pretty tune, very Smokey Robinson, with great harmonizing on the chorus by Mr. FruityPants Hayes. Their attempts at noisy, upbeat disco numbers are annoying, however, so this gets only half a rousing thumbs up.

Buy it used.

Britney Spears, "Britney Spears" (Jive/Zomba, 1999)

Britney Spears is literally the new Annette Funichello, since not only is she a sexy sweetheart whom all of America is in love with, but she also was a Mousekateer on the "NEW Mickey Mouse Club" show! Unlike the monotoned Annette, however, she has an incredible singing voice. She goes from peeping like a tweetie bird to growling like a grizzly bear all in the same verse! This could a bad sign, however, since once she outgrows her teenybobber status I'll bet you dollars to donuts she's gonna be tempted to give Celine, Mariah and Whitney a run for their money in the show-off-y diva drama queen sweepstakes.

Another problem for Miss Spears is that she has no stage presence whatsoever. She's not a natural dancer either, which makes me wonder why she's obliged to perform dance steps at all. Just let her stand there and sing! Actually she always looks like she just wants to go home or run into the bathroom to throw up whenever she performs on TV -- all the more perverse that she recently got these insane looking breast implants to complete her "look." Just imagine Dolly Parton's boobies on a twelve year old girl and you'll get the picture. What was her management THINKING?!?

And that brings us to yet another bad sign: she's managed by the Orlando-based hit-making machine called "O-Town," who also assembled and controls the Backstreet Boys and their interchangeable clones 'NSync (along with many other "future stars" who are currently being groomed at their "finishing school"). All of these acts are super huge at the moment, which led one of O-Town's odd-couple founders (fatso billionaire and Chippendales Dancers mogul Lou "Call Me Big Poppa" Pearlman) to start promoting himself as the Berry Gordy/Don Kirshner/Neil Bogart of the '90s -- much to the chagrin of his partner, the black "jesus freak" and former Maurice Starr gopher Johnny Wright. Ever since then these two egomaniacs have been suing the daylights out of each other, much to the delight of the rest of the music industry.

The thing is, at least Gordy and even Kirshner had a certain style and sensibility that permeated everything they touched. They could lay claim to a certain style or innovation that was all their own, while the O-Towners have savvy and street hustle going for them and nothing more. While originality has never ruled supreme in teeneybopperland, literally EVERYTHING their charges do is completely by-the-book. Their boy groups in particular are TOTALLY generic from head to toe: looking and moving EXACTLY like The New Kids On The Block (whom Wright used to chauffeur), while harmonizing EXACTLY like Boyz 2 Men (or trying to). And while this song or that may be tolerable, the music is WAY too bland and generic. It just sits there, like your Aunt Edna's meatloaf. Sure it's edible, but it's nothing to drive miles out of your way for.

The same goes for most of the material on Britney's debut CD, sadly. Pretty bland stuff. There are a few exceptions, like the megahit "Baby One More Time" and it's carbon copy follow up "(You Drive Me) Crazy;" as well as the super bouncy "Soda Pop," with a great Jamaican-style back-up vocal by some guy named Mikey Bassie. Some of the other tracks she's able to save with her amazing double and triple track vocalizing, but not always. I say buy this if you find it on sale in the cut out bin (which it will be filling up in a year or two, believe me), but don't pay full price for it.

BTW: There are a few incredibly crass things about this CD that I have to make mention of: one is that it ends with an infomercial for the new Backstreet Boys CD, narrated by Britney herself! It also has an order form for all sorts of Britney merchandise, even though this is her debut album (although I can't blame her handlers for their optimism, greedy slobs though they may be). Finally, the back cover has all this small print, technical-type info explaining what "plug-ins" you'll need to play it on either a PC or an Apple CD Rom disk drive! I suppose this is to be expected on a CD that features a ballad called "E-Mail My Heart," but it even has all these tiny logos and copyright marks for said plug-ins next to the text (at first I thought "Quick Time" was the name of the subsidiary label this record was on!). In fact, this CD cover and booklet is LOUSY with logos and trademarks. Everyone wants a piece of Britney, apparently. Perverts!

Spice Girls, "Spice" (Virgin, 1996)

This debut CD sold half a billion copies worldwide, so chances are you're already familiar with half of it without even knowing it (then again, maybe not, since most of you SCRAM readers can do a damn good job of cloistering yourself away from "mainstream society" when you want to, myself included).

The anthemic megahit "Wannabe" kicks things off with a bang, and this cut pretty much sums up the Girls' whole shtick in a nutshell: high energy; sexually liberated; be true to your galpals; etc. My kid and her galpals all played this song five hundred thousand times in a row when they first brought it home, so it obviously had the same impact on them that "Hound Dog," "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" and "God Save The Queen" had on previous generations of impressionable youth.

None of the rest of the songs on this CD have the same impact or immediacy as "Wannabe," but it's all enjoyable, goes-down-easy fare nonetheless. In fact, most of it has a very '70s R&B feel to it: "Something Kinda Funny" sounds a lot like Chic, "Love Thing" is Emotion doing Earth, Wind and Fire (Melanie "Sporty" Chisolm even opens it with a very Maurice White-type "OWW!"), and "Say You'll Be There" is pure Stevie Wonder, complete with harmonica solo. All five Spices must have been weaned on a steady diet of American R&B, since even lily-white Emma "Baby Spice" Bunton can dish up some surprisingly soulful ad lib warblings.

Throw in a couple of slutty ballads, along with the embarrassingly sentimental-yet-highly hummable piece of Euro-drivel "Mama," and there you have it: A multi-platinum MONSTER. I'd recommend this CD to anyone who's inclined towards liking the SG's shtick in general. If not, then skip it. I don't want to here about it later.

Spice Girls: "SpiceWorld" (Virgin, 1997)

This is one of the most amazing album/CDs I've ever heard. Every song has a completely different groove or "feel" to it, yet they all have that high-fructose effervescence that you'd expect from a "teenybopper" outfit like the SGs. The same goes for its uber-positive, egocentric lyrics and themes, which could be summed up by their titles alone ("Spice Up Your Life," "Do It", "Never Give Up on The Good Times").

The production on this CD is awe-inspiring, with the dueling producing/songwriting teams of Stannard and Rowe vs. Watkins and Wilson (AKA "Absolute") trying to outdo each other on each successive cut. At the risk of sounding like the teenaged pothead that I once was, this record is also the most mind-blowing HEADPHONE LISTENING experience I've heard since the Beach Boys' "Surf's Up" or 10cc's "Sheet Music," due to the layered intricacies of the music and the treatment given to the vocals. This CD is a MUST HAVE ITEM for anyone who appreciates lush harmonies as much as I do. I think the Girls' own self-effacing humor is primarily responsible for this permanently accepted notion that "the Spice Girls can't sing," (though God bless 'em for never wasting their time bickering with their own critics). Ginger even claims that she can barely sing on key, though she herself has a very endearing raspy, lisping singing voice. While the state-of-the-art production facilities employed here (and which every major label singing act ALSO uses) certainly didn't hurt, nothing can take away from the fact that this record has GREAT singing on it! Vicki "Posh" Adam's and Mel "Scary" Brown both have very deep voices (Mel B's low growl even gets down into BARITONE range at times), so while Emma's voice is riding on top with her flowery flutterings along with the amazing Mel C's ear-piercing punctuation marks, the rest of them fill out their harmonies with a rich, earthy fullness that sounds more like Spice WOMEN than Spice "girls."

Bunton and Chisolm also have two of the most distinctive, radio-friendly voices I've ever heard: as soon as either of them utters a line over the air you know you're hearing a new SGs song. (Though it surprises me how reluctant US radio stations STILL are about playing the Spice Girls. Their success over here is due almost entirely to TV and word-of-mouth -- Radio has rendered itself irrelevant strictly out of spite). Believe me, it takes a lot more than clever marketing to sell a zillion records -- just think of all the countless "pretty faces" in the history of the music business who've tried and FAILED. Most of my all-time favorite singing groups have had two lead singers with voices that contrast yet compliment each other: John and Paul, Brian and Mike, Roger and Pete, Maurice and Philip of Earth Wind and Fire, Allan Clark and Graham Nash of the Hollies, etc. The Spice Girls have Emma and Mel C.

I recommend this CD to everyone. If you buy it and still don't like it then I'd suggest you crawl into your sad little cubbyhole and listen to your wretched Bob Dylan (or Lou Reed or Nick Cave) records one last time before putting a bullet through your miserable fucking head.

Other SG items: Their CD singles are hit or miss. The "Stop" single includes a bunch of extended dance mixes of the same song that all suck.... The "Goodbye" single (their only release as of this writing sans Geri) has a great cover of the Waitresses' "Christmas Wrapping," but it also includes live versions of "We are Family" and "Sisters Are Doing It For Themselves." Good versions, mind you, but GOD do those songs suck. "Goodbye" itself (an insincere sounding "farewell" to Geri) is pretty insipid, though it does feature nice harmonies.

"Spiceworld" is a super entertaining movie that holds up to repeated viewing. Unfortunately, a lot of people who enter that film preparing to hate it exit hating it as well. Go fucking figure...

The "Live in Istanbul" Video is a MUST. This the greatest concert film EVER! And what makes it better by leaps and bounds over the more recent "Live at Wembley" concert video is that the latter doesn't have Ginger Spice. The Spice Universe has been thrown irrevocably out of whack since her departure, sadly. Ginger may have been the worst singer and dancer of the bunch, but she also was the best "Spice Girl" by far. I defy anyone to watch this Istanbul tape and then tell me to my face that she isn't completely BONKERS. She truly was (is?) a mad, inspired, and dangerous woman. 10 times more "punk" than Johnny Rotten. A zillion times sexier than stupid ol' Madonna. Geri Haliwell may be a big bore now, but "Ginger Spice" was the most unlikeliest -- and therefore the GREATEST-- "rock star" that ever lived.

Arthur Lee’s Love was one of finest bands of the sixties, but for a variety of reasons they’ve been neglected by the oldies/ nostalgia industry. The rock section of your local book emporium holds a half-dozen tomes celebrating the dubious poetics of Jim Morrison, but so far there’s no book on the far-superior Love. That seemed about to change some months back, when news reports began circulating about a young journalist named Kevin Delaney who’d moved to L.A. to track down Love and their associates. I was curious to learn what he’d found, so I wrote to ask for an interview. Kevin replied that he’d be happy to sit down and talk, but that a Love book was no longer in the works. The institutional racism that hobbled Love in their lifetime seems still to be at work: no major publisher is willing to give Kevin an advance to complete his research. Margaret Griffis and I met Kevin for bagels and juice in Hollywood’s Fairfax District one Sunday in April. This is a story of obsession and thirty-year-old mysteries. Free Arthur Lee.

Scram: So, how did you get into Love?
Kevin Delaney: (Opening a folder and showing us a color xerox) I got into it through this illustration, the cover of Forever Changes. I saw it in a book when I was around seventeen, when I was just getting into rock and roll. This was around 1990, so my experience prior to that was the eighties; eighties Top 40 radio. I had no interest in pop music at all! But once I started to find this sort of stuff, it was like a whole new world was opened to me. They had polled a bunch of rock critics on the best albums. There was Sgt. Pepper and Revolver, and even I knew those. And then there was this. I think it was #17.

Scram: A lot of critics pick it.
Kevin Delaney: But I’d never heard of it before. Love. And just to see the logo, it just looked so weird and trippy, and this illustration I just thought was out of this world. It was reproduced real small and black and white, and I wanted to get the record so I could have the illustration. I found it on CD, which I couldn’t believe. It was actually really neat, because they still had the cardboard longboxes at the time, and this image was right on the longbox. It was kind of a bonus that the music was pretty good, too. So I got really interested in this mysterious band that nobody knew about, and yet they put out such great music.

Scram: So after Forever Changes you picked up the other records.
Kevin Delaney: Yeah, I just fell in love with this album, and obviously then I wanted to get the others. I didn’t know that anybody else even knew of this group. It was totally my own little thing. At that time I don’t think many people cared about them. In the years since then there’s been a resurgence of interest, with the box set, and Bryan’s solo CD that came out. So I was just a little fan, basically.
Scram: And at some point you decided you wanted to be more than that, you wanted to document the group.
Kevin Delaney: I said (overly dramatic voice) “I want to be more than a fan! I wanna have a real relationship!” (laughter)

Scram: So what did you do?
Kevin Delaney: I was sitting on my futon in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where I’m from, and — well, two things really made me wanna do more with the group. I wanted to do something. I’m the kind of person, I’m not content to just observe things, I always wanna be a part of it. That’s gotten me into a lot of trouble, I might add. Actually, it was Bryan’s CD — have you heard If You Believe In?

Scram: Yeah.
Kevin Delaney: That really intrigued me, because again it was this person who I only knew through a few songs on the records, and then to hear all of this other stuff that he had done that had been hidden away for so many years! That really fascinated me. I love that these tapes were found in his mother’s garage. Then what actually started me working on this book project was, Arthur did an album in 1974 called Reel to Real, which is a very funky, kinda soul-influenced record. There were some songs on there that had an amazing bass player. I thought, “Who is this guy? He’s incredible!” I looked at the credits, and the songs that I really liked — he used two different bass players, but the songs I really liked used this guy Robert Rozelle on bass. So I started checking on the internet. I’m a researcher; I love to find obscure things. I’d never heard of this guy before, and as far as I could tell he never played on anything of any real note. It’s not like he went on to something great, or I should say he didn’t go on to be really famous. But lo and behold, I found someone with that name on the internet. I emailed him and asked “Are you the guy who played bass on this album?” And he wrote me back and said “Yeah, that’s me. How’d you find me?!” Because I had found him, I thought I’d like to do something with him, I didn’t know what. Maybe I can write an article and interview him. And he was very agreeable to it. There’s a Love fanzine called The Castle, and I said I’d like to do an interview for it with him. So we did that, and again I was in Pittsburgh at the time. I had no intention of moving out here, but Robert and I had several phone conversations—

Scram: He lives out here?
Kevin Delaney: Yeah. And we were talking about a lot of stuff. He was surprised at how knowledgeable I was about this record. He’d played with Arthur Lee for a long time, but as far as that record was concerned it was just one thing that he did, and he was really surprised that I knew so much about it. Robert really started telling me a lot of stories. There was some amazing stuff — and remember this is all from the seventies, this wasn’t even the sixties!

Scram: I don’t think Arthur ever slowed down, though. The stories go all the way up until he went to jail.
Kevin Delaney: Oh god, the seventies got really crazy! Libel lawsuit material crazy. (laughter)

Scram: But you’re gonna tell us all those stories later, right?
Kevin Delaney: Maybe...

Scram: As long as you say “allegedly,” it’s all right.
Kevin Delaney: Right, “he allegedly—”

Scram: “I’ve heard rumors...”
Kevin Delaney: “Supposedly, I don’t know this is true—” (laughter) Robert knew some people, and he was saying, “You gotta call this woman, because she was a part of the whole thing too, you gotta call this guy, you gotta call Melvin, who played guitar on the album. And so as with a lot of things — and I’ve since learned how to keep this in check — I’ll think “Oh, I wanna do an article for a little fanzine—” and next thing I know I’m working on the screenplay, I’m doin’ the novel—

Scram: You were sucked in! It’s like you opened the tap, with these people who haven’t talked about this in years.
Kevin Delaney: That was what was so exciting about it! So I decided to move to L.A. for a couple different reasons. Some people have made it seem like I only came here to do the book, which was a big part of it, but mostly I just wanted a change. I wanted to get out of Pittsburgh and live somewhere else. I really like L.A. I’d been here before.
Scram: Listening to all that Love couldn’t have hurt. It’s a very seductive image.
Kevin Delaney: Yeah, it was somewhat. So I came out here, and I didn’t know anybody.

Scram: When did you come?
Kevin Delaney: I came in December of ‘97, a few days before Christmas. I mean, I didn’t have any friends here, but I knew Robert. And I just started working like a maniac on finding these people. I guess the big one was Bryan MacLean. I got to know him. I spent a lot of time working on it, and it was really neat, as a fan, to get to know him.

Scram: Were you basically doing this full-time, or were you doing other things?
Kevin Delaney: Well, I was an actor in Pittsburgh, and I worked it out that I did some TV commercials that would be running after I moved, so I had residuals! (laughter) I was like the alcoholic on welfare, with just no responsibilities at all! And the only problem with residuals is that they eventually run out, and then you’re kind of left, like, “Oh my god, what am I gonna do? I have no job, I have nothing!”

Scram: But you have a lot of tapes, of the people you’d talked to, right?
Kevin Delaney: Right, I have a lot of tapes and a whole bunch of friends, but not too much money in the pocket. It was an interesting learning experience. It was one of the most rewarding ways to get yourself totally financially devastated! Some other people blow it all on the lottery, or drinking or drugs — I got to meet all my heroes! That was good enough for me.

Scram: How did you meet Bryan MacLean?
Kevin Delaney: I got in touch with a writer who had interviewed him, Matthew Greenwald, because he was doing what little bit of press Sundazed was arranging for the If You Believe In CD. Matthew gave me Bryan’s phone number. So I called Bryan on the phone. This was not long after I had arrived. I was living in this little dump of an apartment up on Laurel Canyon Blvd. in North Hollywood, and I didn’t even have a sheet on my bed, and I thought “I don’t believe this; I’m talking to Bryan MacLean on the phone!” How much better could my trip to L.A. be? This guy I totally admire and and love and never thought I’d ever be talking with. The thing with all of these people is that they’ve been so out of the spotlight for years, there’s something almost unreal about it, like these are characters from a novel or something. You don’t think these people exist today. And here I was talking to Bryan on the phone, and he was totally, completely against any kind of book!

Scram: Why is that?
Kevin Delaney: Well, I don’t know, really. And I don’t even know if he really was totally against it. He was acting that way, but I can say now, now that I know he’ll never read this, that he was totally obnoxious. (laughter) And I just kept on. He was trying to convince me that nobody cared about Love. Why would he talk about this? He had no interest in opening up this old part of his life.

Scram: But he had just allowed his old tapes to be released.
Kevin Delaney: Right, but I think that was different, because that was his music, his songs. He was against the idea of going into the whole story.

Scram: Do you think that was his religious convictions, just being offended by the decadence of Love?
Kevin Delaney: No, I think he was testing me, basically. Because about eight months later, after a lot of hounding and begging and crying— (laughter)

Scram: You just wouldn’t give up!
Kevin Delaney: He finally just said, “Man, I gotta get this kid off my case!” (laughter) “This kid’s gonna kill me!” He wanted to make sure it was gonna be really good. And we also became friends, and I think he wanted me to get to know him. Maybe it had to do with him doing the press for If You Believe In, when everyone was asking him all about the sixties. It’s like, “Hello — I’m a human being — I’m alive now.” And yet all anybody cared about was the Bryan MacLean from Love in the sixties. So we became friends, and that gave me the opportunity to get to know him as a person, which is what I think he really wanted. He made it clear that he didn’t want to delve into this right away. He always kind of left the door open, that was it. When I say he was against it, he was seemingly against it but he let me know that there was maybe a possibility of it happening. (laughs)

Scram: If you really wanted it. Do you think if he had been totally opposed, without suggesting that there was an opening, that you would have backed off and left him alone?
Kevin Delaney: Oh yeah. I wouldn’t pressure anyone into doing something they didn’t want to do. He was more trying to convince me that this was ridiculous and I was wasting my time, and most of the other guys were probably dead anyway. One time, after we’d started doing the interviews, he called me up. I’d been talking about Johnny Echols, the guitar player, who has not been heard from in years. I mean the guy has vanished! All kinds of writers have been trying to find him. And Bryan calls me up for some reason, and he says, “I think Echols is dead.” I said, “Why?” “I dunno, I just think he is.” I said, “Well, that’s not that much to go by, y’know?!”

Scram: You can check the social security index—
Kevin Delaney: Well, actually we did! That’s a whole ‘nother story. I hired a private investigator. It was the only time I’ve ever done that. For everybody else, I just busted my behind to find them. Echols was a guy I just could not find. I didn’t know if he was dead; I didn’t know anything about him. I did get his social security number, though, off a session sheet. (Laughing) And I hired this private investigator.

Scram: How’d you find a P.I.? The phone book?
Kevin Delaney: Oh yeah, you know, it’s a fairly routine thing. They find people, deadbeat dads who don’t pay their child support and whatnot. And this guy is saying to me — it was comical! — he was saying, “I’ve been in business for thirty years, I have never failed once. I will guarantee—” I said, “But what if you don’t find him? Do I get my money back?” “Don’t worry about that. I will find him. I have never failed once in thirty years!” I said, “All right, fine, whatever.” He said, “What information do you have?” I have a social security number—” “That’s all I need! If we have a social security number, we’re in!” So I gave him the social security number, and he calls me back about a half hour later, and he says, “Uh... do you have any more information on this guy.” “Why?” He says, “Well, uh, I checked a couple databases here—” “What, wasn’t the social security number good?” “The social security number is good, but he’s not using it! The last time it’s been used is 1978.” So I gave him some more information, and he called me back and forth, and he ended up trying to convince me that Arthur Lee and Johnny Echols were the same person! (Laughter) I said, “You gotta be out of your mind. Are you kidding me?’’ He asked me “Well what can you tell me about this guy?” I said, “All I really know is he was a guitar player in a band called Love, and he was in Los Angeles in the sixties. I don’t know where he is today.” “Who else was in this band?” “Well, the leader was a guy named Arthur Lee.” He asks “Is Johnny Echols white?” I said, “No, he’s bi-racial, he’s part black and part white.” “Uh huh. And is Arthur Lee white?” “Arthur Lee is also mulatto.” And he goes, “Ah ha!” (Laughter) I said, “No no no no no!” He goes, “What instrument did Arthur Lee play?’’ “He played guitar.” “And what instrument did Johnny Echols play?” I was like, I don’t believe this, he’s trying to convince me that they’re the same person. He’s like, “But how do you know?!” I said, “Oh my god!” Needless to say, he was not able to find Johnny Echols!

Scram: Did you get your money back?
Kevin Delaney: I didn’t pay him anything. When he delivers the information you send him a check. But the story has a happy ending. About three weeks ago, real early one Sunday morning, I’m lying in bed, the phone rings, and I think, “Oh, I’ll just let it go.” And I got up a little bit later, checked my phone messages — and Johnny Echols called me up! He had read in Rolling Stone about Bryan MacLean’s death, wanted to find out about it, saw my name in there and just looked me up in the phone book.

Scram: Where is he?
Kevin Delaney: [gives an off-the-record response; sorry fans. But at least we now know that Johnny Echols has not yet joined the choir invisible.] He seemed to really trust me, I think maybe because of the relationship I had with Bryan, and he was interested, too, in doing an interview, which I’m really excited about. We haven’t done that yet. Even though I’m not doing the book anymore, I thought—

Scram: Oh, you might as well.
Kevin Delaney: Oh, yeah! Why not? Just as a fan. After we’d talked about Bryan, I said “Johnny, I got to tell you, there’s a million questions I’ve got to ask you!” He’s really been kind of like the mystery man. It was neat to have heard from him. So actually, I’ve talked to all the guys — except for Ken Forssi, who died — from the original band now.

Scram: How did you talk to Arthur?
Kevin Delaney: He called me up, too.

Scram: Collect?
Kevin Delaney: Yeah, of course. From prison. And it’s a total hassle, because there’s a beep going throughout, and he’s in a room where there’s fifteen other guys waiting to use the phone. And we can only talk fifteen minutes at a time, and every two minutes this voice breaks in (mock officious): “This is a collect call from the California State Correctional Facility.” It’s not exactly prime interviewing atmosphere...

Scram: Can you go up to talk to him?
Kevin Delaney: He doesn’t want visitors. He was another one that had no interest in it at all until maybe about two months ago, and all of a sudden he was totally gung ho, and wanted to be part of it. What he wanted to do was to write out his parts. The book was an oral history, so it’s stories from people, arranged in chronological order, and he wanted to write out all his stuff himself. I thought that was great. I was thrilled to have him be a part of it. Of course I had no way of calling him, so it was mostly whenever he decided to call me that we’d talk.

Scram: Does he still want to write that out for you, now that the book’s on hold?
Kevin Delaney: I don’t know. I’d been in touch with a former girlfriend of his, and I’d made the decision that I wasn’t gonna do the book anymore. I mean, I can’t, I physically can’t do this book anymore, and I told her and she told him about it. It was impossible to talk, so he says “Just write me a letter and tell me what’s going on.” So I wrote that I’m not doing the book anymore, and I haven’t heard from him since.

Scram: When’s he due out? Was it an eight year sentence?
Kevin Delaney: Who knows? He was sentenced to twelve years; he’s already done two or three. They said he has to serve at least 80% of that, but who knows? Killers get out after a ride on a merry-go-round. I don’t know.

Scram: Do you anticipate holding on to your material and doing the book at some future date?
Kevin Delaney: Oh yeah. Oh, it’ll get done, don’t worry.

Scram: Great!
Kevin Delaney: The main thing was, I wanted to get the word out about the book being on hold. A lot of people were really excited about it, waiting for it. Although this is probably gonna piss a lot of fans off, I’m really intrigued by the idea of holding onto this stuff for twenty or thirty years, and locking it away. It’s the untouched stuff. I mean, I’ve got all kinds of information nobody else has!

Scram: So you have to interview everybody who wants to be interviewed for the book now, because they might die.
Kevin Delaney: Well, I’ve pretty much already done that! I’ve interviewed over fifty people, everyone from band members to fans to groupies. My rule for interviewing was you either had to have seen the original band live or you had to know one of the members. If you fit either of those criteria I wanted to interview you. And I really got hooked up big time with the internet — still, I’ve got eyes and ears all over the world. I got some amazing interviews with peripheral people who had great stories to tell.

Scram: What are some of the more interesting interviews that you did?
Kevin Delaney: Well, I’d have to respond on a totally personal level. Definitely all the guys in the band. Finally, after eight months of getting to know Bryan MacLean, when he finally said that he wanted to be part of it. And then to come to the realization — wow! this is Bryan MacLean from Love, I totally forgot! (laughter) This guy has a million amazing stories to tell! He told me things he’d never told anybody before, new insights, new perspectives on things. And one thing I was really shocked at was how many times he would mention Arthur and his current situation. He would wonder what he did to contribute to it. In other words, Arthur being the kind of person who would do things to get himself in trouble, things that are so anti-social, things that are just not right. And Bryan, I think, was really kind of tormented by how he had very abruptly left the band, and maybe he thought that Arthur felt abandoned. And so that was incredible. Actually, they were all — I was just amazed at how even people who said they had nothing to tell me had amazing things to contribute. There was one woman — this was really weird — I was looking through a book of photography from the sixties, by a guy named Baron Wolman. Great photos. There was a section in there of groupies, and there was a picture of a woman named Catherine James, a picture of her and her little baby. And I don’t know why, but I looked at this picture and I just thought, “That woman has a story to tell me!” I had no idea who she was, even if she was alive, but I said, “That woman has a story to tell me.” And I thought, well, I’ll put her on my list of people to find. So, Pamela Des Barres called me up one night — I’d interviewed Pamela for the book — and she says, “I want you to come over for dinner at my house. Just a little thing, me, someone else, and my friend Catherine.” And I said, “What’s Catherine’s last name?” She said, “James.” I said, “I’ll be right over!” (laughs) Catherine came late, we were in the middle of eating dinner, but sure enough, it’s her. And when she walked in I almost fell out of my chair! After dinner everyone was clearing plates, and I just scooched up next to her, and said, “So, Catherine, y’know I’m doing this book about Love and the guys in the band; did you have any involvement with them?” She says, “No. I lived in L.A. for a while, but I moved to New York in ‘66, so I wasn’t even in town by the time the band was together.” And I thought, “Oh, well, that’s pretty weird. Those cosmic forces, what the hell?” “You didn’t have any involvement with the band at all?” She says, “No... I mean, other than Bryan, before he was in the band. He was just a little kid then, playing at this coffee house.” I said, “Tell me more!” Turns out, she knew Bryan when he was just starting out. So, needless to say, the tape recorder was whipped out, the interview was had on the spot, and I got about fifteen minutes of stuff I’d never heard of before, and it was pretty amazing! So that was a neat one. And Bob Pepper was incredible — and again, this is all personal for me, because I love his work so much. I was collecting his artwork. And he was one of those people, too, everyone was saying he was dead! I accepted that, I never questioned it, until one day I was walking along and thought “What if he’s alive?” And I found him in New York. I was so thrilled when I got him on the phone, it was like logic went out the window! I literally hung up the phone and started packing my bag. [holds up the Forever Changes art] I just was fascinated, because he told me how he did this, how they sent him photos of the band members and he blew them up on a Lucite machine and was arranging them, and he was torn between making it a white or a black background — and I love that kind of stuff, because I think, “Wow, what if it was a black background?” The album would have such a different look to it. And also David Angel, who did all the horn arrangements, was another really rewarding interview. He had never been interviewed, and yet his name is on the albums. He orchestrated this album, which is one of the first records with strings and horns on it, and I’m thinking why hasn’t anyone talked to this guy before?! It’s a totally revolutionary thing that he did.

Scram: Did you find that anyone had ever been to see most of these people before?
Kevin Delaney: No! I was shocked at talking to writers who couldn’t believe how many people I had found. They’d say, “You talked to that guy? I’ve been looking for him for years!” Well, I did put a lot of effort into finding these people, but—

Scram: The internet makes a huge difference, if people tried to find them in the early nineties and gave up—
Kevin Delaney: It wasn’t even so much through the internet. A lot of people did not want to be found, which was an interesting situation I’d be in, because after I’d found them I’d have to convince them to be part of this. It was mostly through personal contacts, finding a lot of these peripheral people, and then those people helped me get in touch with the people who were in the band.

Scram: You must find it hard to let go, after this being the center of your life for years.
Kevin Delaney: (laughs) No, I’m thrilled to get rid of it, really! It was like this 8000 pound spider that was weaving a web around me! I got totally sucked into it. This started out with some guy — I liked his bass playing — I’ll do a little article, right? Next thing I know I’m—

Scram: It’s because you’re an enthusiast! You have to watch out what you like.
Kevin Delaney: Well, I’m not as enthusiastic as I used to be! (laughter) I’m finally at the point where I can listen to the music again, it’s not a traumatic experience. (laughter) I’d listen to the records and I’d just see these credit card bills!

Scram: And that’s the story of the Love biography up to the present. So, Kevin, what’s next for you?
Kevin Delaney: Hyping myself as an actor, voice-over artist — basically whoring myself in any way I possibly can.

Scram: You’re in the right town.
Kevin Delaney: Oh, yeah. It’s Whoresville USA. I did a lot of really wacky shit back east, and so I’m giving it a go here. I do a lot of writing — I write for Rolling Stone Online, Launch Online — actually I’m trying to get out of the music aspect of things, because I’ve been totally branded as this sixties nut, and I’m not at all.

Scram: Is Love the only sixties band you like?
Kevin Delaney: No. I like good music, and I do like a lot of bands from the sixties, but I’m not a collector. Some people are really ridiculous about it. I just like the music. I don’t know what’s next. I don’t talk about the future anymore.

true love, rock'n'roll & penny keno: dead moon talk:
kim cooper and doug miller listen
(from Scram #10)

I'm ashamed to admit that until recently I was not hep to the glory that is Dead Moon. Oh, sure, I knew 'You Must Be A Witch,' the blistering punk 45 by Fred Cole's sixties band The Lollipop Shoppe ' but who would equate a drippy-psych name like that with the icy-tuff symbolism of Dead Moon? As it turns out, L.S. was a name dreamed up by their management ' the band was really called The Weeds!
Fred & Toody Cole are one of the great rock and roll couples, both for the uncompromising music they've made together, as The Rats and (since 1988) Dead Moon, and for the strength of their personal and creative bond. Having the chance to hear some of their stories before a show at Spaceland in late May was a hoot and an inspiration. They have a new album, Destination X, and it's great, but for an introduction I'd suggest you pick up Hard Wired in Ljubljana. They are almost uncannily good live, as well as being the nicest folks you could hope to meet. ' The Editrix

DOUG: ...And this is my 58th roommate, Mike. Mr. Cole and Mrs. Cole.
TOODY: Hi.
MIKE: Hello Mr. Cole and Mrs. Cole, pleased to meet you.
TOODY: [chortling] What respect! I'm impressed.
KIM: Oh, we're very well-mannered, if nothing else. Fred, I gotta ask you about Deep Soul Cole ' is that true?!
FRED: Oh, god!
TOODY: [Cackling] Of course it's true! We don't create these rumors for nothing.
KIM: How old were you?
FRED: I was fifteen. It was Larry Williams, who played guitar on that, which was amazing. I played bass on record, and in the band it was me, a white singer doing a James Brown trip, jumping all over the place, with four kids my age who were all black.
KIM: Where did you live?
FRED: Las Vegas. Our manager was running all the R & B acts coming through Vegas, so we played with nothing except black acts.
DOUG: Did you play the Strip?
FRED: Nah, the Convention Center, basically. We were the opening slot for a lot of these different soul bands that came through.
KIM: Had you gotten together with these kids on your own, or were you put with them?
FRED: Mike Tell, who was the manager, just threw this band together.
KIM: How long did you play with those guys?
FRED: About four to six months.
DOUG: Were you going to high school, or were you a 'drop out'?
FRED: At that point I was in the Sophomore year.
DOUG: Anyone else have a band at your high school?
FRED: Oh yeah!
TOODY: Everyone played in a band ' or tried to play, anyway.
FRED: I was going to Western High School, but the following year I wouldn't go back. My hair was way over my ears, and I had to cut my hair or get a G.E.D., so I got my extra credit.
KIM: Was this around 1965?
TOODY: Earlier than that, 'cause I graduated in '66.
KIM: How did your folks happen to be in Las Vegas?
FRED: My mom got a job (chuckles) at Mercury Test Site, in atomic energy, for the bomb testing. She was a Fecal Tester! (everyone cracks up) Yeah, really, she picked up all the animal shit out there and tested it in the lab!
KIM: From the animals that were running around on the desert?
FRED: Yeah, she'd go out there in this radioactive suit and pick up shit all day long!
TOODY: And then work in the lab. They got paid big-time money!
KIM: Did she have to go to school for that?
TOODY: Nah, I think it was on-the-job training.
KIM: Fred, your band appeared in one of those motorcycle movies.
FRED: The Lollipop Shoppe, yeah. That was a crazy thing. Our bit was filmed over two weeks. We got put up in the Bakersfield Hotel'
KIM: They filmed it in Bakersfield?!
FRED: Yeah. They put us in the hotel and said we had room service.
TOODY: Which was a bad thing to say to five 17, 18-year-old guys! (laughter)
FRED: When it finally got done the film company wanted to sue us, actually. We had a $1300 bar tab, alone!
TOODY: That was hard to do in the sixties!
FRED: In the sixties drinks were a buck! They figured we had thirteen hundred margaritas.
KIM: Lessee, there were five of you... were you tipping or something?
FRED: Not really. We were just sloshed all the time.
TOODY: They were ordering shrimp cocktails!
DOUG: What time did you have to show up on the set?
FRED: Well, they'd just bring us out there on the truck every day, and then we'd hang out for about four hours. Then if they decided to film us that day, they would. And then finally the budget was so bad that they refused to sign a deal over to the Actor's Guild, because I was being filmed singing. So they cut me'
TOODY: It would have been a 'speaking role.'
FRED: So you see the band, and my tambourine'
TOODY: You can hear him, but if they showed his face on screen they would have had to pay him as an actor. Two weeks, and they have thirty seconds in the film, and you never see Fred. It's just ridiculous. There were two songs on the soundtrack album.
KIM: What was the name of the movie?
FRED/TOODY: (in bombastic unison) Angels from Hell! (hysterics)
DOUG: Tombstone should re-release the soundtrack.
FRED: Hans at Music Maniac wants to do a Lollipop Shoppe album, and I didn't want to just reissue The Lollipop Shoppe, so I'm doing a bunch of stuff with different tracks and things, and I'm re-issuing it as The Weeds/ Lollipop Shoppe. I don't know what I'm gonna do yet, but I've got old photos of The Weeds'
TOODY: The way the band really looked before Hollywood got hold of 'em!
KIM: You were The Weeds before you were The Lollipop Shoppe?
FRED: Same band.
TOODY: They went to this management company and he said, 'Okay, we're gonna go for the teeny market, so clean your act up! He took 'em all in, got 'em haircuts, little multicolored turtlenecks.
KIM: And is it 'shop' or 'shop-E'?
TOODY: It's 'shop.' The English spelling!
FRED: The manager [Lord Tim Hudson] was a disk jockey here in L.A. at the time, and he was the guy who was appropriately the vulture in The Jungle Book. Remember the two vultures, the one with the English accent? That's him! I didn't see dime one from that goddamn thing! (laughter) We were in England about four years ago, and someone goes 'Is Lord Tim around here?' 'Oh yeah, he's managing wrestlers now!' Well, that's gonna give him some protection, because there's about twenty people out there who just wanna kill him!
TOODY: If you can't get 'em young and stupid, get 'em big and stupid.
KIM: You guys had your own record label in the early seventies, right?
TOODY: We had two different record labels, and we named them after our music stores both times. The early punk stuff we did on Whizeagle Records ' we had a store called Captain Whizeagle's at the time.
KIM: Where's that name come from?
TOODY: It's something Fred made up. He wrote a story for the kids about Captain Whizeagle'
FRED: And the Snake Troopers! (laughter)
TOODY: He likes making up names. And later, after we started Dead Moon, we had Tombstone Records. '88 was the first release.
KIM: Have you always distributed them yourself?
TOODY: Early on we did. We sold some through Cargo, Get Hip and Dionysus and a lot of the smaller mail order distribution networks. Get Hip became the biggest, and I dealt with those guys the most. Now everything's going through Mordam, cause we're doing stuff on eMpTy, which has much better distribution than we ever had.
KIM: Meghan from eMpTy tells me that you're building a ghost town.
TOODY: Well hopefully it won't be a ghost town! We're building it to lease it out as retail space.
FRED: It's called Tombstone Territory.
KIM: Cool!
TOODY: We did an addition to the store at first, in a western style with the false-front and the big wide cedar siding. Same with the new building, it's like some country-western bordello. It's got porches around it, staircases, the whole nine yards. And it's turning out absolutely immense, I had no idea it was really gonna be this big till we started it. Cause you're looking at prints on paper, it's hard to get an idea of dimension. (laughs)
DOUG: Will there be a saloon?
FRED: Eventually, that's the next plan.
TOODY: The Boot Hill Saloon. We've got about two acres to work with, so we still got some space left if we can get up the energy and the capital.
FRED: We're doing all the building ourselves. We're almost done with the framing, and that's taken us a year. Toody does the 8D nails, I do the 16D.
KIM: That's so cool. You got wooden sidewalks?
TOODY: Yeah, it's got a wooden porch all the way around.
DOUG: I wanna see you in a toolbelt, Toody.
TOODY: (laughing) Well, my nail pouch broke.
DOUG: Do you guys sell used musical equipment?
TOODY: New and used both.
DOUG: When people bring in guitars to sell, isn't it tempting to keep them for your personal collection?
TOODY: Every once in a while, but not much comes through. Years ago, when we used to have Whizeagle's downtown, that stuff was all over the place. Unfortunately, because of the economy in Oregon, everything sold for quite a bit less and we had shitloads of dealers come up from California to buy twelve pieces at a pop ' and no sales tax on top of that! So a lot of the stuff from the Portland area ended up down here in California, or in Japan. It's rare now that we see any 'vintage gear.' We've got a few things stashed. We love all the stuff that's kinda worthless, real funky old Japanese stuff'
FRED: Vegamatic control switches, lots of chrome, action like a dog. (laughter) You gotta play with a pair of pliers to keep the strings down.
KIM: You guys were just down in New Zealand and Australia?
TOODY: Yep. About a week ago now.
KIM: Have any really wacky things happened on this tour so far?
FRED: Nothing except missing all the planes. We got into San Francisco and they had all of our gear but our kick drum. We had to come back the next day and get it.
TOODY: Luckily we had a day before we had to play. But everything went pretty smooth.
FRED: (laughing) Except customs wouldn't let us back into New Zealand from Australia! We had to get a special visa for them to process us again.
KIM: You were going back to play some more?
FRED: We played one more show.
TOODY: You have to send your passports to the embassy, down here in L.A., and they do a work permit. They asked me if a single entry would be fine, and I go 'Oh yeah, we're just doing one entry from the states. I thought New Zealand and Australia are both Commonwealth countries, that can't be a problem, right?
KIM: It's just one country!
TOODY: Well, to us it is, but to them, it's no-no-no-no-no! So we just got stuck waiting for about half an hour, they extended it, no big deal.
FRED: The first tour was a nightmare, because we didn't know it was winter over there! It was the middle of summer here. They called us and said, 'You guys have got to bring all your clothes, because it's literally snowing here.'
TOODY: We were thinking 'New Zealand, it's gotta be tropical!'
FRED: 'Bring everything you got that's warm, 'cause you're gonna freeze your asses off!' They're clear down by the South Pole. We had the vision when we first went over there that it was up by the Fiji Islands, that it was nice. Man! So we packed everything ' we wore everything! We put all of our clothes in the drums, just to try and get all our weight in on the plane.
DOUG: You brought drums overseas?
TOODY: We take everything; that's our luggage.
FRED: We flew from Seattle down to L.A. We had long coats on, sweaters.
TOODY: (in hysterics) It was almost a hundred degrees!
FRED: We're sweating bullets, and we can't take the shit off 'cause we got nowhere to put it! We're carrying guitars. And we get to L.A. Airport, everyone's in shorts. We come walking in in these coats, I got my cowboy hat, sweaters on ' we are all just wet with sweat.
TOODY: And we're getting looks'
FRED: 'What planet did these assholes just come from?!' Then we had the flight from hell: Seattle to L.A., L.A. to Hawaii, Hawaii to Fiji, Fiji to Auckland.
TOODY: It's like being on a milk run.
FRED: Twenty-six, twenty-seven hours'
KIM: And you never took your clothes off?
FRED: We couldn't!
TOODY: How're you gonna take your clothes off?
KIM: How could you not?
TOODY: Oh, you can take your clothes off and stuff 'em in the overheads, but then you're stuck carrying all this crap around!
FRED: By the time we got there we'd been sweating so bad, we smelled like we had been on the road for weeks! We were mildewed! And we came off the plane and it was snowing in Auckland, and we thanked god we had those clothes! Cold as hell.
TOODY: Freezing the whole time. This one place we played on the south island, in Christchurch, the bar owned a backpackers' hotel. They put us in the section they had been remodeling ' it wasn't finished! All the other rooms were full.

FRED: So Andrew gets stuck in a room that doesn't have a window in it, and his bed's right under the window. He woke up in the morning ' he had about four inches of snow all over the top of his head! (laughter) We walk in there, and he was totally asleep. He woke up with the headache from hell, for six hours. 'My brain is numb, man... fuck!'
TOODY: That whole tour we were freezing, no central heating. We'd go in someplace and they'd have this little electric thing about this big (holds hands six inches apart). Total fresh air freaks, the front door's always open. You'd go out to have coffee and just be hovering over this steaming cup, trying to keep warm, and everyone else is walking around in short sleeves. That's our biggest memory of that tour. It was wild. We played every dinky little town that country had ' we did like nineteen shows. You try to imagine how small some of those towns were. (Fred hits Toody up for drink tickets and wanders off to get some beer.)
KIM: When are you leaving for Europe?
TOODY: We leave August 12, and we'll be there till October 5.
KIM: Who runs the store while you're away?
TOODY: Three guys work with us, and they all play in bands too, so we just trade off time.
DOUG: They don't play in The Dandy Warhols, do they?
TOODY: No! We know those guys, but they're in real bands. (a moment of quiet, followed by hysterical cackling all around) One guy's got a rockabilly band, the youngest guy's got a white-boy-funk sorta band, and Kelly does a band called Junior Samples, warped country-western hillbilly truckstop stuff. They get the most gigs! (laughs)
KIM: So how 'bout that time you shot the bear? (laughter)
TOODY: Yeah, we had to, unfortunately. Didn't want to!
FRED: That was a drag.
DOUG: Did you kill it, or just scare it away?
FRED: We had to kill it. And then we tried to skin the thing, and we had it strung up on a tree. Toody and I were out there with lanterns, sharpening a knife all night long, trying to cut through the skin. It was ridiculous. We got it cut all the way down to the crotch, stomach pulled open, tried to start gutting it, just couldn't do it. We had been at it for five hours, cutting.
KIM: You just couldn't cut it?
TOODY: They have such an incredible fat layer'
FRED: It's unbelievable, you gotta constantly sharpen your knife. So anyway, we woke up in the morning with about twenty-five feet of intestines this big around just exploded out of the stomach, laying all over the ground. Smelled so bad you can't believe'
KIM: Why, was it the gasses?
TOODY: Yeah.
FRED: We dug a huge hole for this thing, as deep as we could get it, and just buried the carcass ' cut it down and buried it.
TOODY: It was really sad cause we were homesteading in the Yukon and we had two kids'
FRED: We wanted to at least use the skin'
TOODY: They were three and one and a half, so they were really little. A lot of the bears would come into town because the food supply was really bad. We were really worried about this thing going after the kids. It actually went after meat that we had. You know, you dig a freezer hole'
FRED: Two feet and you're in the arctic tundra. It's like a refrigerator. Anyway, it just kept circling the camp, and then started coming in at me, looking at it through a 30.06 with a scope ' not a night-scope, a regular scope. It's getting dark out to where it's really hard to see.
KIM: Were you guys in a cabin?
FRED: We were in a tent. We were still building the cabin.
TOODY: Out in the wilderness, middle of nowhere.
DOUG: How many bullets does it take to bring down a bear?
FRED: Four. Four 30.06 bullets'
TOODY: I felt so bad about it.
FRED: Hit it in the shoulder, in the leg, the head or something, and somewhere else ' anyways, four shots to bring it down. Scared the shit out of me. The thing was coming right at me at full gallop and it was about twelve feet away by the time it finally went down.
KIM: Oh my god!
FRED: Scarier'n fuck, man. It was gonna take me out. Big animal.
KIM: How big was it?!
TOODY: It was a black bear, a full-grown one. This is when we were both... twenty?
FRED: About twenty, yeah.
DOUG: That'll teach him to fuck with Fred Cole! (laughter)
TOODY: Just about, but I hate killing animals.
FRED: I do too, man I really hate it.
KIM: You wouldn't have done it if you didn't have to.
TOODY: It was that kinda situation, unfortunately.
KIM: Did you ever dig it up and get the bones?
FRED: No.
TOODY: It spoiled really, really fast ' it's almost like pig.
FRED: And there's so much fat'
TOODY: You have to freeze or do something with it real fast.
KIM: How long did you guys live up there?
TOODY: About a year. We're driving into town one day and he goes, 'Man, let's drive back to Portland, visit your folks for Christmas.' 'Yeah! okay, cool!' Seventy-two hours straight ' surprised the hell outta my mom! Had a great time, and went to go back home. And when we'd first gone through the border we'd told them that we were heading for Alaska ' which we were, his grandmother happened to live there at the time. But our car had broken down, and we met friends in White Horse, in the Yukon Territory, and found out that they would homestead to American citizens, and ended up staying there. So when we went to go back across the border they said, 'No, you lied to us, you're trying to dodge the draft, blah blah blah.' They would not let us back across the border. We just had to leave everything, write all of our friends and say, 'Yep! take whatever's there!'
FRED: (chuckling) We had nothing except what we were actually wearing.
KIM: Then you went back to Portland.
FRED: Yeah, started work in a Manpower job, trying to get enough money to get some other stuff going on.
DOUG: You must have been in the thick of the draft. How'd you manage to avoid it?
FRED: 'Cause she got pregnant the first time and I thought okay, that'll get me out. And later they said you had to have two, so then she was pregnant again.
TOODY: They finally pushed it back, 'cause they'd gone through so many lotteries. So you had to have at least one child, and your wife had to be pregnant, four months, I think it was, with the second child.
DOUG: So he took care of that.
TOODY: He made it out by the hair of his skinny-skin-skin.
FRED: (drolly) I got busy. I was workin' overtime. (laughter)
DOUG: Ask another question, Kim.
KIM: Oh, uh... hey, what's your least favorite question to be asked?
FRED: I think mine is, 'How does it feel to be a living legend?'
TOODY: Fred hates that.
KIM: There's no answer to that one.
TOODY: We're not... dead... yet.
DOUG: What about the question, 'What does it feel like to get a tattoo on your face?' [referring to the Dead Moon logo that Fred sports alongside one sideburn]
FRED: It hurts like hell. The first part is fine, but when they blacken it in it's like they're drilling through the jawbone. If you can imagine your worst nightmare with teeth, it's about ten times that.
DOUG: Does it still hurt?
FRED: Only when I laugh. (chuckles)
KIM: When did you have that done?
FRED: Probably ten years, it was '88.
TOODY: That was shortly after the band started.
FRED: We did it 'cause the guy's tattoo parlor got fire-bombed, so we did a benefit.
TOODY: He lost all of his designs, and he was right by the club we played at all the time.
FRED: Yeah, they think the police may have done it.
DOUG: Why would somebody have a beef with a tattoo parlor?
TOODY: Who knows?
FRED: Anyway, he goes 'Man, I can't pay you anything.' 'We played a benefit, that's fine.' And he says, 'I wanna give you all tattoos!'
KIM: Toody, did you get one too?
TOODY: Of course.
FRED: And I said, 'Man, I refuse to have a tattoo!' I always told myself I wouldn't have one on my body. (Toody cracks up) 'Cause it was the big thing right then, everybody was getting tattoos, I don't wanna do that.
KIM: But it's a gift, you gotta take a gift.
TOODY: Exactly!
FRED: So I'd always promised I would never do it to my body, but... 'I didn't say anything about my face!' (laughter) He goes, 'That's nuts!' And I said, 'Put it right here.' 'You're kidding me.' 'No, no, it's cool.' Everyone thought I was insane.
KIM: But with your long hair it's pretty subtle.
TOODY: I like it! And he found out afterwards it's actually illegal to have tattoos on your face.
KIM: Yeah, you get those jailhouse tattoos, with the tears.
FRED: I have been marked ' for life!
DOUG: Now you can't break up the band! (laughter)
FRED: Yeah, and I always go through customs, 'Yeah, man, this is me.' There's nooooo doubt about it!
KIM: Fred, who are some of the bands that you remember playing with in the sixties?
FRED: Big Brother and the Holding Company and Moby Grape were the two favorite bands I ever played with. I played a lot of gigs with Moby Grape. They just knocked me out. Big Brother was killer, and I just really liked Janis; she was a good person. I couldn't stand Jefferson Airplane'
KIM: I think a lot of people feel that way.
FRED: I played gigs with them.
KIM: You didn't like the music or you didn't like them as people?
FRED: I just could not stand Grace Slick, y'know? The music was okay, but she ' I just couldn't stand her! And when Signe Anderson was in the band ' in my opinion, she basically stole Signe's style. The Seeds were a killer band.
KIM: Really? They were good live?
FRED: One of the best bands live I've seen. The Doors were okay, but I just had a real problem with Morrison. We played a bunch of gigs with those guys. Love was killer.
KIM: They mostly played down here [in L.A.], right?
FRED: Yeah, and Vegas a couple of times too.
KIM: Tell us what Love was like.
FRED: I thought they were the most advanced band of that time.
TOODY: The Weeds introduced all of Portland to Love; we had never heard of them, and they were doing four or five cover tunes.
KIM: Like 'Signed D.C.'?
FRED: Yeah, 'Signed D.C.'
TOODY: 'Mushrooms Falling.'
FRED: We never played a gig with The Byrds, but we used to go see 'em at the Troubadour. Man, they were just so fuckin' out of tune all the time! (Kim cracks up) McGuinn just could not keep that twelve-string tuned.
DOUG: Well, who can?
FRED: And I loved that stuff, we had all their albums, but live? Gene Clark was great, though. The guy's vocals were just killer, but live ' sorry guys ' to me they really stunk. The best bands at that time were Moby Grape, Sparrow was really good'
KIM: Sparrow?
FRED: They became Steppenwolf. We played a bunch of gigs with them at the Matrix, Western Front and stuff. Nicky [St. Nicholas, bass] really carried that band at that point.
KIM: Did you ever see the Music Machine?
FRED: Yeah, I played some gigs with them. I was never into them. I used to play on a revolving stage with those guys and the Royal Guardsmen, in Portland. All I remember is one band wore the gloves'
KIM: That was the Music Machine, they wore one black glove.
FRED: (disgusted) Yeah yeah yeah.
TOODY: He kinda hates gimmick bands! (laughs)
FRED: They just didn't do anything for me. Reminded me of the Redcoats of Portland.
TOODY: There were a million Port-land bands who did a Paul Revere and the Raiders thing.
FRED: There's a lot of bands that we played with that became kinda famous afterwards, but were just one-hit wonders, like Count 5. They were really nice guys. That was the only song they did that I was really into, 'Psychotic Reaction.'
KIM: All their songs kinda sound like the Yardbirds.
FRED: Yeah.
KIM: I'm gonna go see the Chocolate Watchband reunion in a couple weeks.
FRED: Chocolate Watchband we played sometimes with up by San Jose. I don't remember that much about 'em except that I saw 'em in a movie at one point, and they did a great 'Milk Cow Blues' that I always thought fucking kicked butt.
KIM: That was in Riot on Sunset Strip.
FRED: Cool! Electric Prunes were another one, we played with those guys a couple of times. They had the one song 'Too Much to Dream,' and I thought, 'Man, you should have had the title 'Too Much to Drink''! (laughter) Again, great song, but they had nothing else but that song, I thought.
DOUG: How about The 13th Floor Elevators, you ever play with them?
FRED: No, that's one band that I always wanted to see, and I have a mutual friend that has lived with Roky for years. He's sent us things from Roky's mother'
TOODY: We've got his mom's records!
FRED: She sings gospel, just Christmas country stuff. (laughter) We've corresponded with him, but we've never met each other. He hates to leave Texas. The times that we've played Texas he's either in jail or nobody knows where he's at. He's pretty much a hermit, but what a great fucking vocalist ' killer fucking stuff.
KIM: He's a great songwriter, too, even when he's out there.
TOODY: Oh yeah. I was really impressed with 'Don't Slander Me,' when that came out after not putting anything out forever. Right on, red hot, amazing.
DOUG: I still can't believe he did that so recently; it's so authentic.
TOODY: He's still got it; whatever it is.
DOUG: He just needs somebody to hold his hand.
KIM: And he's gotta stop stealing peoples' mail.
DOUG: Ask a question, Kim; you're the editrix.
KIM: Okay, do you have any advice for keeping a marriage together?
FRED: Do everything together! Work together, play together. If you can't stand to be with somebody 24 hours a day, you got the wrong person. Seriously.
TOODY: That's our motto, anyway. It's what's worked for us.
FRED: Yeah. I really believe if it's the right person that they should be your best friend, lover, your sister, everything, all wrapped up in one. Your waitress' (Toody chortles)
TOODY: I'm damn good at that!
FRED: Your house cleaner.
TOODY: You're lucky I was brought up old-school, baby.
DOUG: But it wasn't love at first sight, right?
TOODY: No, because he was the lead singer in a band that'
FRED: (quietly) It was for me, though.
TOODY: ' was fast becoming the top band in the city after, shit, a couple months. And I just thought he was the most conceited, arrogant bastard I'd seen.
FRED: I probably was!
TOODY: I thought he looked great, I loved the music, but it's just like ' yeah, right! And he had absolutely a horrible reputation. I was a very nice Catholic girl at the time. It was like, 'Stay away from this guy, he's trouble.'
KIM: What was his reputation?
TOODY: He would nail anything that walked and said yes! (laughter) And not give up until you said okay.
DOUG: Don't tell me he deflowered you?!
TOODY: Oh, fuck yeah he did! (laughs) Took him a long time; longer than anybody else!
DOUG: That is so sweet. I love a good love story.
KIM: So how did he wear you down?
FRED: Persistence.
TOODY: Believe it or not, once I actually got a chance to talk to him and get to know him, what really amazed me was that he was totally down to earth. He started telling me about his mom and his sisters, and playing baseball, and coming to Portland from Klamath Falls when he was fourteen ' just a lot of shit that usually it takes years to drag outta guys, without any prompting. And for whatever reason it just clicked right off the bat. That connection was there, and that's what it really takes for any woman, knowing you're letting yourself go. He virtually did that first. It was a matter of time after that.
KIM: How many years have you two been together?
TOODY: Our 32nd anniversary is June 12th. We're goin' to Reno. It's a tradition at this point; it's our favorite place to go.
KIM: Do you gamble?
TOODY: Hell yeah! Eighteen, twenty-four hours straight.
DOUG: You can get re-married there, too.
TOODY: We've already done that. We had a huge 25th anniversary bash out at the ranch.
FRED: We had a mortician who had never performed a marriage.
TOODY: He just buries people! He's a musician that we know, and a preacher. I asked him, 'Will you marry us,' and he goes, 'I'd like to, but I've never married anybody before!'
FRED: We're the first couple he's ever married in his life, and he's about fifty-five. He and his wife have been together forever too, and they both sing country, so they wrote a song for us. We have a pool out in our back yard, with a diving board, and when we got done we turned around and took the plunge with all of our clothes on! So all the kids are going, 'Is that what you have to do when you get married?!'
TOODY: That's it!
FRED: 'I'm afraid of water!'
KIM: D'you wear a wedding dress, Toody?
TOODY: Black! You gotta wear black the second time around.
KIM: Veil?
TOODY: No veil, just a forties crepe dress ' I was kinda worried about it getting ruined, but it was fine. We had ourselves a time; it was really cool. We had all our family and every musician in town, and half the musicians from Seattle. It was awesome!
FRED: Kick in the ass. We even did a little bit of drinkin' that night. (crazy laughter)
TOODY: Just some wine.
FRED: We got so shitfaced, it was fuckin' ridiculous!
TOODY: So did everyone else.
DOUG: Has anyone in the band ever had a hangover?
FRED/TOODY: (in unison) Oh, no!
FRED: I don't think so.
[the tape runs out as Toody is telling us where the world's best penny Keno machines are located, and we ask her to repeat the directions]
TOODY: It's the Treasury Club in Sparks, Nevada. Right next to Reno. It's in the heart of Sparks, on Victoria Avenue, which used to be B Street.
FRED: Just down the street from The Mint.
DOUG: The readers have to shell out four whole dollars for this issue of Scram, so let's give them a tip.
TOODY: Cheapskates unite.
FRED: And if you're into poker you can play penny poker, penny slots, anything ' it's all penny!!
KIM: Penny arcade! So, do you have any closing words you'd like to share with our readers?
FRED: Your magazine's pretty sixties-oriented?
KIM: Well, I've got a sixties bent, but we do all kinds of stuff.
FRED: Yeah, but everybody's kinda into the sixties? Well, don't believe all you hear about the sixties! (laughter)
KIM: You were there, right?
FRED: There's so much bullshit that people have glorified about it.
TOODY: It's just become a real romanticized version. To us it's almost comical. It was one of the best times to grow up. It was the last age of innocence, and I thank my lucky stars that I was lucky enough to'
FRED: A lot of causalities. It depends on who you talk to as to how they felt about the sixties. Some people loved it, some hated it, some people didn't give a shit. It was just another time.
TOODY: It was still a pretty exciting, chaotic time.
FRED: Yeah, there was a lot of shit that went down. I read articles and just go, 'God! I was there ' that never happened!' (laughs) Kids that feel like they missed out on something there, you're not missing out on a thing. Shit's going on right now ' live this! Because in twenty years there's gonna be kids glorifying the nineties! And goin', 'Wow, man, aren't you that legend from the nineties?!' (laughter)
TOODY: Any time you grow up, I don't care when, all through history, has been a cool time in your life.
FRED: Value that, never worry about what somebody else and another fuckin' generation did, 'cause you ain't never gonna be there anyway! Do your own fucking generation.
TOODY: We all go through the same shit at the same time, it's just social things that change. It's still the same experience, I think.
FRED: We used to glorify Bacall and Humphrey Bogart ' god, if we could have just grown up in the forties!
TOODY: It was so cool then!
FRED: Well, it was cool for them maybe, but you go back and look at what was actually going on then'
TOODY: Fuckin' hard times.
FRED: What we had in the sixties was a lot sweeter than that, what's going on now is probably sweeter than what was going on in our time. You gotta realize that for me to work, to support her and the kids, I had to put my hair up in net hats and hide my hair just to be able to work the minimum wage $1.19 an hour job. And I'd still have guys looking at my like, 'Man, there's something weird about you, I know it! What's under that hat?'
KIM: (laughing) How long was your hair then?
FRED: Well, it was pretty long at that point. And wearing a stocking cap to catch a bus at five in the morning to get to a job that starts at seven for a two hour bus ride all the way through hell and high water, and banding boxes and shit'
TOODY: It was still a very prejudiced time. Nobody wants to remember that, but it was. (laughs)
DOUG: They wouldn't have you think that. They make it sound like there was so much harmony going on there.
TOODY: Well, there was between the kids, but hey, we were in the real world. We weren't in control, man.
FRED: There were a lot of jocks that chased me down the street wanting to beat me up. Three different times guys putting guns to my head, telling me they were going to kill me. A lot of violent shit.
DOUG: Toody told me you were a big track star.
FRED: Yeah, I was running at that time. I wasn't a track star, but I did do a marathon when I was about fifteen.
DOUG: Getting in shape for the Deep Cole Soul?
TOODY: No, at that point he was gonna be a major league baseball star. He was a pitcher.
FRED: It was all I ever wanted to do.
TOODY: Yeah, until the Beatles came out!

Like any card carrying hipster will tell you, velvet is classy stuff.  And accordingly, velvet painting, Mexico’s chief contribution to twentieth century art — fans of Diego Rivera stop reading here — has got other forms of art beat from the get go.  Where a crying clown on canvas just doesn’t stand up to much scrutiny, the same clown on delicious black velvet becomes the centerpiece of any modern living room.  Consider if you will that while other mediums will accept neon paint, velvet thrives on it, and while canvas may be content to sit there and be looked at, velvet cries out “Touch  me you artless bastard, I’m made out of fucking velvet!”

Although Mexicans didn’t come up with the idea of painting on velvet — that dubious distinction rests on Victorian shoulders — they made it the celebrated institution we know today.  Interest-ingly, Victorian textile workers were often driven insane by repeated exposure to mercury in the velvet-making process, foreshadowing the complete lack of common sense that would pave the way for the velvet renaissance decades down the road.  The modern era of velvet opulence began in the 1950s, as a post-war generation of Americans found themselves with too much money in their pockets and not enough sense in their heads. Mexico, conveniently located just to the south, responded by producing tourist items that took advantage of the fact that, if you were an American in Mexico, you were probably too drunk to see.  In retrospect, painted velvet seems like a natural response to what most Americans want most: something in neon colors that’s pleasing to the touch, and that you can show off to the neighbors.  Once again, as so often in history, drunken tourists had unknowingly raised the cultural bar a little higher.

By the early 1960s, what had been a novelty sold in few stores and produced essentially on demand had become a legitimate business with several factory-style sweatshops being operated in the larger border towns, beating Andy-what’s-his-name’s Factory to market by several years.  The velvet underground had arrived in the mainstream.  Where the first velvet paintings had been of nature scenes and animals, celebrities and Keane-esque weeping children and clowns quickly surged into the forefront of velvet style.  By now the work was done almost exclusively on black velvet, all the better to emphasize the heavy lint buildup that separated velvet paintings from lesser forms of artwork.

As the sixties rolled on, velvet crept insidiously into every corner of American domesticity.  Mattel went so far as to manufacture a velvet paint-by-numbers kit for children.  Demonstrating that someone in charge was completely unaware of what he was talking about, the box suggested to parents that this kit would expose children to “culture” and that the 15” x 19” velvet monstrosities could be used to decorate the home.  Stranger still: among other cultural icons given to Nikita Kruschev when he visited the United States in 1961 was a velvet portrait of the Soviet leader standing in front of a giant hammer and sickle.  In spite of this, the cold war went on for another twenty eight years.  It seems the reds didn’t appreciate real art like we did.

By the early seventies, American taste had begun to shift just enough to leave behind the velvet art that had given us something to look at and touch through the sixties.  After man had been to the moon, velvet paintings just didn’t seem so out-of-this-world.  While you could still get them in Mexico, they were surpassed in popularity by ceramic figurines and other watered-down cultural artifacts.  By 1975 your grandparents probably still had one in their basement, but velvet paintings were strictly garage sale fodder for most families.  The majority of the art sweatshops closed, and Mexico found other disreputable ways to lure tourist dollars.

Curiously, the most enduring velvet icon had only just begun production.  While most people associate Elvis with the velvet medium, it wasn’t until the mid-seventies that Graceland began selling the now infamous portraits, well after velvet’s heyday.  The King, always a cultural savant, was given a velvet portrait of himself in his jumpsuit glory and purportedly saw to it that replicas became officially licensed Elvis paraphernalia.  Thus the last regular American manufacture of velvet portraiture took place in Tennessee, continuing until several years after Elvis’ 1977 death.

Unfortunately, the days of velvet wine and velvet roses are for the most part over.  Although you can find a few stores in Tijuana that do custom velvet work — and believe you me that nothing is cooler than having a velvet painting of yourself hanging in the bedroom — the mass produced “art” of yesteryear is nowhere to be found for commercial sale.  Any thrift store worth its grime will have one or two behind the macramé owls, but gone are the days of hundreds of velvet paintings being hawked to tourists who don’t have a clue.  To the surprise of very few, the fickle favor of the art world has given velvet the cold shoulder, to be replaced in America’s living room by other, less touchable, forms of art.  But for how long?  I would argue that simply by being too hideous for the majority of the retro crowd, velvet has proven its long term durability.  One day the velvet empire will be strong once again, and sad clowns will regain their rightful place on top of the art world.

Scram #10: Cover art by Andrice Arp of Hi-Horse comics, and featuring Dead Moon, Peter Laughner, Arthur Lee and Love, Peter Bagge's bubblegum frenzy, Wayne Newton, the cult of Technicolor, Peter Geiberger on black velvet paintings and record store freaks. Very scarce issue. Postpaid price below is for US or Canadian customers only. IIf you live elsewhere, cost is higher, please email to arrange payment.