The Joe Jackson Story

Rip It Up, Issue 28, 1 November 1979, Page 9

The Joe Jackson Story

John Malloy

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What made 1979 a good year for rock'n'roll. What's so special about this year's music? The live energy of '77 found its way on to vinyl in 1978 and now some of the 'new' acts have released three albums. Costello is recording his fourth and Eat To The Beat is Blondie's fourth album. Though several 'new wave' acts had UK hits in '7B (eg Blondie, lan Dury and Boomtown Rats), it wasn't until this year that the new 'British' sound invaded United States radio. Joe Jackson and Police charted in the USA before the UK. If radio continues to explore the new sounds, 1979 will be the year that the creative rock'n'roll hit single returned to stay. In this supplement Rip It Up writers look at Blondie who record for the British label Chrysalis, Joe Jackson and Police on A&M records, and several other British acts on the Chrysalis and A&M labels. Festival Records distributes both of these labels in New Zealand.

-1 l 1. II II M J.ll M N i-U4-l—l - Picture this; freezing cold weather. -- - - ..London in January 1979 was one | | | | -miserable place to be when the snow --- I was on the ground and you were sleep-II -ing on someone's floor, with only a two_bar electric heater to take the chill off II -the air. | , | | | ~~ J 11111111111111111111111 ill M

It’s in this environment that English! - rock’n’roll makes sense; hundreds of sweaty- “ bodies packed into a tiny club with warm beer; -•by the pint, and a high energy band assaulting! - the person with decibels. It’s a great way to suffer til tube time. ; - I was lucky enough to catch Joe Jackson at! -Dingwalls on one of those nights, at his firstgig in London. From the start it was; —obvious that he had push; record company! —postets, new look in polka-dot ties and pinstripeIsuits, and a kind of wired up confidence that; -spelled rehearsed. Which he was. I don't know--how his band sounded so tight with all that leaping around. Jackson stood dead centre, hands in pockets or wrapped around the mike, and sang. I guess he just can’t dance. You get the picture. This was no kid with a stolen drum kit, a lot of energy, and the desire to please. Joe Jackson is a pro who has paid at least some of his dues, and knows how not to get screwed by the business. Or that’s what he says. He was born in 1954 and he grew up in Portsmouth, where, he says, he was a little out of the ball game. "I was really into classical music, as it happens. I was a slightly odd teenager. I didn’t play football because I’ve been a really bad asthmatic all my life. I didn't try to pick up girls because I used to think that I didn’t stand a chance, and I didn’t go to youth clubs because the other kids who did go seemed to be pretty boring.”

1 "So I started getting into music in my early Jeens. 1 thought 'this Js great, I'll be an intellectual, not like the rest of them.’ So I was an odd one out all the way through my childhood and teens.” Although he started with violin lessons at eleven, it was at fourteen that he became interested in piano, and at the age of sixteen he took formal lessons on the instrument. Worse was soon to follow. He went on to a three year course at the Royal Academy of Music. So much for street credibility. ”1 wasn’t very much into rock music as a Teenager. The first rock music that I liked was the Beatles and the Stones. Even though I really liked that suff, I wasn’t really old enough to think about forming bands or anything. So it was quite a while later that I came full circle, and started liking rock music again and started getting into bands.” The first of these was a straight Top 40 club Jband called Edward Bear, not to be confused jwith the Canadian band of the same name. Arms and Legs followed a pro band with original music, written by Joe and Mark Andrews, the band’s lead singer. As well as also •sang, Joe played keyboards, harmonica, and (yes, friends) electric violin. They even scored a record contract before the band died of the not so unusual 'management hassles.’ "When I left Arms and Legs, I went through an intense period of getting my writing and singing together, because I wanted to do it for me rather than for a band. Just ego, I guess. Just becoming aware of what I had to offer and thinking that I had to be able to do more than this.”

To flog your songs and yourself around the companies, you need demos. To make demos you need money. Joe took a iob as 'musical director’ (read piano player) at the Porstmouth Playboy club. “If you can play and you’re able to read music, then you’re able to work in cabaret. I needed to do it so I could get some money to finance my own music. I wanted to do it properly and not make compromises.” But the rot did not stop there. After nine months he left to play behind a MOR act, ‘New Faces’ winners Coffee’n’Creme. It was at this time that he began checking the bands of the then-happening London punk scene. ”1 was very excited by it at the time, but I was trying to save enough money to launch my own band and album so I was gonna keep doing that for a while. During this time while I was doing cabaret, on my nights off I was going to places like the Vortex and seeing punk bands. It was sort of a double existence. After a while it was the right time for me.”

The right time came via his Arms and Legs contact at UA records, who didn’t offer him a record deal but sent him to Albion Music, a publishing company. Albion signed him, and supplied him with manager John Telfer. They sent the demos to A&M producer David Kerschenbaum, from LA. Kerschenbaum was so keen that he booked studio time and had half the album in the can before a contract was signed.

The rest is no news. “Is She Really Going Out with Him?” has been played (and played) on your radio, and Charles Shaar Murray's huge in America prediction is coming true. And he gets press. He gets the kind of press that people get who haven’t offended anybody yet. And he gets compared to people. "I don’t really mind being compared to Graham Parker that’s flattering. But Elvis Costello ... He’s produced some great music, but as a general sort of character, and as a stage performer especially, I find him totally obnoxious. I'd rather not be identified with him at all.

“No one’s compared me with lan Dury, and I think I’ve got a lot in common with him. I just get the same sort of feeling out of seeing him onstage as what I feel people must get off us. His band are similar to the guys I've got very tough but very versatile.” In fact, Jackson’s songs reflect the change in 80 percent of the British pop music industry since 1977. He writes short, to the point songs about things that bother you’n’me, and he presents them matter of factly. The voice is not pretty, but then, neither are many of the sentiments.

"I wanted to present a realistic outlook, because I felt that before the New Wave came along everyone seemed to be writing fancies and repeating the same old cliches. Then the Clash came along and all of a sudden people started writing about real things. But the thing to do seemed to be to react totally, be really angry, and just sort of shout slogans. I didn’t really want to do that either. I wanted to put across this attitude of being realistic and seeing things as they really are.” Joe Jackson's second album is called I'm The Man and his approach hasn’t changed. The songs cover the bases well, with revenge ("On Your Radio”), consumerism("l’m The Man”), and sex (“Kinda Kute”) all featuring. His patented ironic twist shows up on "Different For Girls" in which he reverses the sex (roles. He touches on the loss of innocence of ■the mid seventies in "Friday”, and he justifies his cabaret days in "The Band Wore Blue Shirts.” In fact, there's a lot of lost innocence about this record. He stated his intentions with "Look Sharp.” You gotta look sharp And you gotta have no illusions ... By now, illusions are right out of the question for him, a sad fact reflected upon in "Amateur Hour”. The world would be a better place If some of us could stay Amateurs Now as the legions of attitude bands and cult figures become increasingly irrelevant, the way is open for people with something interesting to say or some interesting way of saying it. Whether he can continue to cut it or not, Jackson’s first two albums have at least made his point. Here's to the new realism.