quiffs, tats and cats

Rip It Up, Issue 51, 1 October 1981, Page 3

quiffs, tats and cats

Ann Louise Martin

Three New York natives resident in Britain have somehow struck a cool, catchy formula that kids don't see as a rockabilly revival because they weren't around when that stuff was going down. It's a development. The elaborate, high-piled hair, cartoon pussycat, girlie tatts, bike boots, black leather with chains, and assorted emblems, denim, and cut off t-shirts go with it. People are adopting the style. "Everywhere we've been, it's been," Brian Setzer comments. The first gigs the band did in Britain, Lee Rocker explains, drew a punk crowd, because no one had really done the "Cat thing" before, but eventually they started growing their hair out and got quiffs. Young Brian (he's just over 20, Slim Jim, and Lee Rocker are just under) has been playing guitar for 14 years. Heard 'Be-Bop-A-Lula' down at Max's, and fell in love with the 'sos. "I'm very limited. I'll take it in from about 1948, actually, Junior Parker did some good stuff. Elvis was great for the four years before he went into the army. He was the best." But he denies the man is his number one influence. He claims guitarist Scotty Moore who recorded with Elvis in the early 'sos on the Sun label affected him to a greater extent, because "he was the sound." "It's not Elvis' moves, nor his vocals, but the image" he's entranced with. A second Stray Cat album is just about due for release. "It's a doozy!" Brian reckons. Not slow blues, but fast blues. Jump blues. "A little bit like this," and he presses a tape recorder which obediently burbles a bluesy harmonica number. •Eight of the songs on it are band originals, about "being on the road, bitchy women, alcohol, whisky, Manhattan, a girl who cooks good, a black man eating eggs." It was recorded in the West Indies and produced. by the Stray Cats. They're agile movers. Lee Rocker stands on the curve of his double bass. He plays it every which way lying down, like a normal guitar, side on. Sometimes it falls apart, but only when he kicks it. Strings break, and the point at the bottom has been known to go through the stage wiring. A drummer full of tricks, Slim Jim does the splits perfectly natural. They give the Sunday St James audience an eight rating on a one to ten enthusiasm scale. And that's bearing in mind they are fresh from Japan where they've been overcome with star treatment. Followed everywhere, people outside the hotel rooms in sleeping bags. Mostly women. True fans? "True lunatics," Brian counterpointsl^|&|gpHßßHESßßS9ffl§pj The St James works well. The sound is good, and people dance in the orchestra pit. At one point, Brian sings 'Rumble in Auckland, instead of 'Rumble in Brighton'. The highlight is 'Storm the Embassy', and of course 'Stray Cat Strut' draws a singalong reaction. For encore, 'Runaway Boy', and Chuck Berry's'Little Queenie'. They use a backdrop of West 49th Street, a rough part of town. Brian likes the idea of having a big white cat for the stage, "with big eyes, a big suit, and swingin' a gold pocket watch." _ • ../ And if it all ended tomorrow? Lee would go back to working in a liquor store, Slim Jim would go back to sponging off his parents (according to Brian), "and I'll just plav in some street corner bar."