...meanwhile back in Hollywood HELLO SAILOR

Rip It Up, Issue 18, 1 December 1978, Page 10

...meanwhile back in Hollywood HELLO SAILOR

HELLO SAILOR ' Graham “Beef” Brazier, Harry “Hubcap” (Lyon, Dave “Hood” McArtney, Rick “Rock” | Ball, and Lisle “Duke” Kinney. Occupation: Rock band. I*2 , THEIR BEST CONCERT ” jf “Sunday, November 12. 1994, Hello Sailor at the Whisky-A-Go-Go, Sunset Boulevard,. Hollywood.) ■

1 The Whisky is one of America’s most prestigous clubs and, along with the Roxy, the Troubadour and the Starwood, is one of the most important in the Los Angeles area. 1994 is a new band only recently signed to A&M Records. They have a new LP, their first, a female lead singer who was with LA Jets and a new guitarist Steve Hunter, former guitarist for Alice Cooper and Lou Reed, was added to the band after the album was recorded. Neither the lead singer’s cock-teasing performance nor some particularly hot guitar playing save 1994 from being to borrow Frank Zappa’s words “just another band from LA”. Worse ... 1994 play i heavy metal of the most predictable kind, including some riffs you feel sure you’ve heard before and others you know you’ve heard before.

Hello Sailor played two sets after a hurried five minute soundcheck: “Tears of Blood” through to the song that is still the show’s highlight, “Son of Sam”, and including three new songs and “Same Old Reoccurring Dream”. The last set earned them an encore “White Light/White Heat”. Hello Sailor are playing consistently better than I remember them playing in New Zealand. But, after a week of playing to small audiences in small clubs, still earning next to no money, the Whisky was something special and the band played to the occasion. Talent, after all, is an asset... and so is originality. OBSERVATION No. 1. Consider this: “Blue Lady” could be as

I big a hit in the States as it was in Auckiart I THEIR HOUSE (8888 Hollywood Hills Rd., Laurel Cany* [Hollywood.) | Nobody knows for sure how many peofli [ live in this house but the number is generd) 'reckoned to be around 15. At any hour yw can count on somebody still being up N then this is America, where restaurant supermarkets, drug stores and mow houses are open 24 hours. THEIR MOST POPULAR SONGS “Son of Sam”, "I’m A Texan” (the ni necks like this one) and “Boys in Brazil”. MONEY Nobody’s making any yet in fact. I band are considering taking part-time jok | For the record, Hello Sailor was paid S3O ft first time they played at the Rock Corpot tion. When they play there again on b cember 15 their fee is $125. OBSERVATION No. 2 In the right light Dave McArtney looks Ik Willy DeVille. THE KNACK, THE KATS Graham Brazier and Harry Lyon recki the Knack to be the hottest unsigned lot band. The Knack may well have a recat contract by the time you read this. Hello Sailor has often played as suppit act to the Knack and also to the Kats. Bd bands could easily be mistaken for beii) English the Knack play what is now beiq called “power pop” at high velocity in t* style of the Jam and the Who; the Kats plq clever pop that has similarities to Che« Trick, but thefr style is all their own. AMERICANS To Hello Sailor all Americans are “sepo an Australian slang term for septic tank i Americans, on the other hand, general don’t know anything about New Zealand.

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DRAGON Dragon arrived in LA from Australia on November 14 to begin a five-and-a-half week tour as support band to Johnny Winter, starting in Austin, Texas. Dragon’s first American LP, Are You Old Enough? is a compilation of songs from Running Free and O Zambezi; the band consider it “too poppy” and nothing like their live sound.

HELLO SAILOR’S BIGGEST MISTAKE The band made its biggest mistake, says manager David Gapes, when it first played at the Starwood. “It was our first gig here and all the record company people, all the press agents and the publicists ... everyone who is important was there. And we blew it. We blew it!

“We made the mistake of relying on somebody else’s p.a. The club’s p.a., right? And the sound was shitty. They went away thinking ‘Oh yeah ... not bad’ and because of that, because nobody was blown out, it’s taken us this long. “We’re gradually making a name for ourselves now. People here aren’t saying ‘Hello Sailor? What’s that?’ They’re saying ‘Hey, I heard about you guys. You’re meant to be pretty hot’. “But it’s taken us this long. Six months. And I really thought we would have been signed that night.” FORTHCOMING CONCERTS In December at the Golden Bear; Bth, 9th with the Knack at the Troubadour; 15th, 16th at the Rock Corporation; 21st to 23rd with the Knack at j i the Starwood. i THE FUTURE With the growing record company interest in the band it is not hard to imagine that it is only a matter of months before Hello Sailor signs a lucrative record contract and begins recording a new album. I Jeremy Templer. |