HERE TODAY, GONE YESTERDAY - Eric Burdon/The Ritz/June 26, 1986

Eric Burdon gave a party and nobody came. His Ritz gig was a testament to the ephemeral nature of the music biz and the rock audience, always on the endless quest for the next big thing. Despite heavy pre-concert publicity, Burdon, the next big thing of 1964, pulled in the sparest crowd in recent memory. And that’s too bad because Burdon is still one hell of a blues singer, too good for the golden oldies circuit he has been exiled to.

Part of the problem lies in his approach. Ex-next big things have been known to make glowing comebacks (Tina Turner, The Moody Blues, Aerosmith and Deep Purple are good examples), but they’ve done it by adopting a contemporary look, writing new songs with hit potential, developing a sound that borrows from their glory days but adds an ‘80s quality – a whole new n’ improved package which is then troted out by their record company with as much hoopla as possible.

Burdon, currently without the support of a label (a giant disadvantage), has not done this. His show, though competently put together, had the unfortunate feeling of a Las Vegas lounge act. He contributed to the effect by wearing a satiny black jacket, open shirt, and chains around his neck, and by his generally porky, middle aged appearance. The contrast between him and his two backup singers, who were pretty, sexy and young, only made matters worse.

Burdon may have sealed his fate early on in his career. Twenty years ago, his great British Invasion band, The Animals, had a string of hits – mostly inspired covers of blues classics, or new material by Goffin/King and other top songwriters of the time. The Animals bore many similarities to the early Rolling Stones in both attitude, inspiration and sound; however, while the Stones went on to become champion songwriters in their own right, the Animals remained primarily a cover band. These days, original material is nearly always a prerequisite to success. and Burdon doesn’t have it.

Burdon’s frequent use of covers used to have a reason – to bring great black blues music to the attention of white record buyers. He has always had great respect for rock’s Rhythm and Blues roots, which is admirable, but, these days, seems to be taking an ironic twist.

For instance, Eric originally did “River Deep, Mountain High” in the ‘60s to help the then overlooked Tina Turner. Now, it doesn’t come off that way; with Turner a superstar and Burdon scraping by, one thinks of Turner’s version as the definite one, and someone else doing the song seems odd, much like covering “Born to Run.”

Many of Burdon’s 1960’s covers have also been done by other artists after him, and the latter versions are the ones that remain in memory – again producing the reaction “why is he doing this song?” This was the case with “Don’t Bring Me Down” (David Johansen), “On Broadway” (George Benson), and “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood” (Elvis Costello, and a ‘70s disco hit). To add insult to injury, another one of Burdon’s covers, “Tobacco Road” (a blues classic covered in the mid 1960s by the Nashville Teens) appears on David Lee Roth’s upcoming solo album.

Burdon’s original message is made further irrelevant by the fact that many of the blues artists to whom the Animals paid homage (like Howlin Wolf and John Lee Hooker) receive more respect, attention, and ticket sales than Burdon does these days. And with the Top 20 dominated by the likes of Prince, Patti Labelle and Run DMC, contemporary black music in America is doing just fine, thank you very much, without anyone’s help.

The peace-love-and-flower-power attitude of Burdon’s late -1960s LSD hippie period doesn’t go with his style of music today either. The trappings of the era, minus the politics, have been picked up by the neo-psychedelic bands. Politically conscious young people tend to go for hardcore punk nowadays; rebels without a cause prefer thrash metal; and blue collar kids who identify with the underdog have all their Bruce Springsteen records. (Burdon did give a nod to Bruce, who is in many ways his logical successor, by covering “Factory” at his Ritz gig.)

Burdon's original audience has mostly yuppified, and those that showed up for this concert seemed to there for a trip down memory lane, which is pretty much what they got.

Burdon did make an attempt to somewhat update his material, with synthesizer riffs and dance rock rhythms winding in and out of his basic blues sound. His backup band produced some slick high energy music, that sounded especially good on uptempo numbers like “C.C. Rider.” (One more example of a cover that is identified with other people – Mitch Ryder, who is another talented white ex-blues singer stuck in the same rut as Eric – and Springsteen, who covered the song on “No Nukes.”)

But overall, this concert was depressing as hell. Nowhere was this as apparent as during Burdon's encores (the hundred or so people in attendance were nice enough to applaud like crazy though).

First, Burdon completely blew the momentum of the set by allowing his drummer to do an interminably long solo during the Animals' classic "I'm Crying." Nobody does solos during the encore, and it has by now been conclusively proven that the drum solo is the most boring, annoying, stupid tradition rock n' roll has ever come up with.

The audience was not going to let Eric leave without playing the Animals' biggest hit, "House of the Rising Sun," and he finally did, summing up his career in a bitter outburst that was genuine and very very sad.

"I hate this fucking song!," he announced and sang it with anger and the feeling of a funeral march, which in a sense, it was. Burdon even changed the lyrics in the final verse to "Oh mother, tell your children, not to do what I have done, spend your life in a rock n' roll band."

In a way, Burdon got the order of his set wrong. He should have ended with "We Gotta Get Out of This Place."

This review originally published by The East Coast Rocker on July 16 1986, written by Abby Weissman. 

SUICIDE: CBGB's, August 16, 1986 - White Man's Civilization - As It Really Is

The jury is still out on the music of the 70s, but the smoke is starting to clear. It's easier to see who was truly influential, and whose avant garde pretensions were just that.

More than a decade after their debut at the now-legendary new wave spawning ground, the Mercer Arts Center, Suicide are still ahead of their time, still waiting for the world to catch up with their intrinsically radical sound.

Suicide, in essence, created the electronic roadmap for the future, stripping pop as far as it could be stripped, far beyond the already extensive demolition work done by the punk scene around them. Alan Vega and Martin Rev threw out the guitars, bass and drums and replaced them with an ear-shattering drone of throbbing organ and drum machine. They kept the attitude, though. Suicide's early performances were classic rock and roll bedlam. Vega strangled audience members with his mic cord and spit out lit cigarettes onto crowded tables at Max's, prowling around the stage like a caged animal, ready to strike at the slightest provocation.

He hasn't changed much, and neither has his music. Suicide's brilliantly minimalist work has influenced a generation of underground artists like Lydia Lunch and DNA. More mainstream performers – from the Eurythmics to Depeche Mode to Sigue Sigue Spiutnik – have picked up their imaginative use of electronics. But a visit to Suicide country is still a shock, even to the most jaded ears.

The band's CBGB's show opened with a rather romantic ceremonial piece of classical music that was gradually attacked and overcome by a relentless drum machine which got louder and louder, an aural war taking place on a darkened stage. The music retreated as if beaten in submission. The drum machine, victorious, continued. And continued. Many bands strive for an unpredictable, dangerous quality in their live shows; Suicide achieved it before even coming on stage. The drums continued, getting louder, causing confusion. How long was this going to go on? Was this going to be the whole set, just to piss people off?

Vega and Rev finally made their entrance and launched into an aggressively cold synthetic beat, with Vega's echo-laden war hoops screeching above the throb. The effect was that of the No. 6 IRT subway train, roaring into the 14th Street station – when you're stuck on the tracks. Many metal bands pride themselves on a drum beat that's loud enough to be felt by the audience. That quality is present in every note of Suicide's sound. They don't play, they attack. The sound crawls up your face, infiltrates your bloodstream. It has a thickness, like the humidity on a hot city day, that settles in your chest cavity, making it hard to breathe.

The "song" droned on like an endurance experiment, as if Vega was conducting a top secret military test for some new weapon which causes insanity through sound wave damage. Suicide create mutant rock and roll for the Road Warrior age – the apocalyptic choir of machine drones, spewing forth killer noise.

Vega has mellowed a bit since his earlier performances; his worn-looking face and fattened body hint that it's rough out there on the edge in Suicide's vision of reality. Unlike the high, cerebral cool of many noise bands, Suicide's music has deep emotional impact – it's frightening and haunting, and it's coming to get you.

Vega's stage presence is similarly disturbing. He radiates anger, pacing back and forth in sharp, ominous movements – one minute suggesting ancient Egyptian religious rites, or kung fu the next, wrapping his wrists in the mic cord, simulating bondage.

Vega does not sing, as he does on his much more accessible solo albums. With Suicide, he is a living sound effect, ranging from animal barks to shrieks from the netherworld – like screams of a psychotic locked overnight in the city morgue. In sound and movement, he is both frantic and controlled, always combative, hitting an audience member's hand, prowling in and out of the stark white light provided by a ceiling spot.

It was a performance that was more to be admired than liked, and the CBGB's crowd had a mixed reaction. Many fled in the middle of show. Someone in the audience called out "turn on the jukebox!" during the one and only silent moment of the set. Suicide played only four songs, including "Ghost Rider" and "Rocket USA" from their brilliant groundbreaking 1977 self-titled debut album, thought by many to be a classic (and due for re-release on CD this month). But, considering the relentless intensity of their performance, 35 minutes was quite enough.

In an odd interview, when asked what his advice would be to the youth of America, Vega answered, "shoot up." Though not a heroin addict himself, Vega still clearly lives in a junkie's mindset – divorced and alienated from mainstream society, vehemently uncommercial, not giving a shit if he's likable or not, immersed in the sadness and decay of modern urban life.

With their morose, discordant grunts and harsh electronic whispers and screams, Suicide convey these feelings of extreme malaise more effectively than most groups who have lyrics and melody lines at their disposal. Perhaps someday, say, 1999, mass audiences will have grown sophisticated enough to appreciate them. Or perhaps not. But in the meantime, seeing Suicide live is still a memorable experience – rather like watching a nuclear reactor melt down before your very eyes.

This review originally published by The East Coast Rocker on September 10, 1986. 

THE CURE / 10,000 MANIACS - July 8, 1986 - The Pier - The Only Thing Predictable Here Is Nonpredictability.

The Cure do what they damn please; it is both their strength and their curse. During their ten years together, the band has changed attitude and musical approach at will, going through record companies the way most people go through socks. They follow no one's rules but their own.

In these days of performers who calculatingly search for a hot sound and then hang on to it for dear life, their attitude is refreshing, but also leads to a rather erratic live show, as was the case at the Pier.

Leader and group conscience, Robert Smith likes to surprise people and did so immediately by showing up with short, Marine-cut hair instead of his trademark wild foot-high doo.  Though he probably just did it because he was hot in the summer weather, this simple act: a) rendered every existing publicity shot obsolete; b) made all the Robert Smith clones in the audience look stupid (no doubt, causing deep consternation to both clones and Elektra, their current label). It was, actually, perfectly symbolic of what the Cure is all about.

The band's artsy, melancholy quality seemed incongruous at the Pier, with its sunny, festive atmosphere, vigorous beer-selling by the concert's sponsor, Miller, and ironic backdrop of the Battleship Interpid, complete with warplanes.

The sold-out performance was attended by both yuppies-in-training (who seemed comfortable) and clubbies (who didn't, though this show was an education in imaginative ways to wear black in the summer heat). Despite great effort on the part of the smoke machine (most of which ended floating up the West Side Highway) and lighting technicians, the Cure's moody music would have sounded better someplace cavernous, dived-out and dark.

Also incongruous was the opening band, 10,000 Maniacs. Their countrified, REM-styled music seemed an odd match for the Cure, and for their own name, which conjures visions of a horde of punks or metalheads.

There's a sense of purity about this band that's rare in this world of the prepackaged and stereotyped. Their brand of folk rock is matter-of-fact and simple, their stage style doesn't call attention to personalities; they just play. 10,000 Maniacs doesn't even seem connected to the strident, callous 1980s. Even lead singer Natalie Merchant's all black dress seemed more evocative of the Amish than the morbid trendiness usually associated with the drag.

Merchant is the band's best asset; she sings with genuine feeling and gutsiness, in a country soprano voice reminiscent of Patsy Cline. Even with an unappreciative crowd ppand not much time to play, 10,000 Maniacs provided an entertaining, if low-key set and have a promising future (though not necessarily in the Top 40).

The between-set music was another odd choice; an artsy, pretentious, modern/classical piano piece whose low energy ambiance had the crowd drifting into a collective coma while nursing their Millers.

The Cure began their set with earlier material, featuring that surreal, mean sound that the Cult has done such good things with lately.

Though the band took a decided turn towards a more cheerful pop sound after their 1982 LP, Pornography, they seem to still like the record, performing a number of cuts from it. Pornography epitomized the Cure's gloomy, suffering artist period, and is in some ways their best album. The LPs brutal, hard-edged, depressed sound is reminiscent both of Joy Division and Siouxie & the Banshees (with whom Smith played guitar for a considerable period) -- possibly music to commit suicide to -- but an excellent example of the genre.

Apparently, producing such a dark album got to the band; the Cure sort of broke up soon after. After re-forming, Smith shocked the band's considerable cult following by releasing the pop single, "Let's Go To Bed." The material that followed on 1985's The Head On The Door was in a much lighter vein.

Which is where the erratic quality of the Pier show comes in.  The Cure switched back and forth between material from Pornography and their later releases. This, the tinkly, Japanese-flavored "Kyoto Song" was followed by the mournful, synthesized "Charlotte Sometimes," then "In Between Days" ("this is our folk song," Smith quipped), with its floating dance rhythms, and the funky, upbeat "The Walk."

Then, just as the audience was all happy and dancing in their seats, they launched into "One Hundred Years" from Pornography, at twice the volume, with screechy, metal-edged guitars--a compelling but definitely non-danceable number that., again. proved the Cure will always pull the rug out from under you just when you think you've got them all figured out. The dirtiest word in the universe for Robert Smith must be "predictable."

In the end the confusion didn't matter. The crowd loved every minute of the Cure's set, even taking their lives in their hands by dancing on the ends of the bleachers above a 15-foot drop. The band was enthusiastically called back for multiple encores, including the anthem-like "Boys Don't Cry" and "Let's Go To Bed." The latter is probably the Cure's most accessible song, but has an air of depressed resignation even amidst all the cheerfulness and synth-pop trappings. The past is not so easy to get rid of after all.

Robert Smith is a very talented singer/songwriter who, judging by the crowd's reaction and the Cure's recent foray into the Top 100, may be heading for the Big Time despite all his efforts to avoid it. Smith might just become the proverbial overnight sensation - only 10 years in the making.  One suspects he won't like it one bit.

Review originally published in The East Coast Rocker on July 23, 1986.