A model of this text initially appeared within the March 1990 challenge of SPIN. In honor of The B-52’s saying their farewell tour, we’re republishing it right here.
December 29, 10:15 pm. The stage lights are all the colours within the B-52’s rainbow: housedress orange, linoleum yellow, jellybean inexperienced, oxygen blue, posey purple. Three microphones stand on the lip of the stage, in entrance of which the dance flooring of San Francisco’s Civic Auditorium throbs with followers screaming and stomping for an encore. The gang is a mix of old style B-52’s followers—women in Fifties attire and beehives, shy-looking guys in polka-dot shirts buttoned as much as the highest, the occasional lobster brooch or pickle purse—plus new followers picked up because the launch of album Cosmic Factor, and some skinheads and thugs.
The heavy, sweaty air stirs and an otherworldly organ whine rises above the viewers roar. The stage lights change to infrared. One after the other the B-52’s slowly file onstage for an encore. Fred Schneider, Cindy Wilson and Kate Pierson take their locations on the mikes; hidden in shadows, guitarist Keith Strickland hits the Peter Gunn-ish riff of “Planet Claire,” from the band’s infamous debut album, and the roar turns to thunder as 9,000 individuals concurrently begin to shriek, shake and shimmy. A large circle clears in entrance of the stage for slamdancing skinheads. Close by, a fist struggle breaks out between two surfer dudes. Because the music builds, one throws his fist, staggers with the drive of the follow-through and contorts his physique wildly in time to the music as his lips, in excellent synch with Fred Schneider’s voice, kind the phrases “Planet Claire.”
Welcome to the Cosmic Tour. Onstage, Fred stands immobile and points strains in a robotic monotone. Kate, sporting a black physique stocking plastered with large primary-colored flowers, her hair teased right into a sunburst auburn poof, dances like a hellion behind her keyboard. Cindy’s blond ponytail hairpiece flaps throughout her chest as she does the horse. Behind them, Keith Strickland, in penguin tails and a black prime hat adorned with neon curlicues, yanks lunar leads and clamoring rhythms from his guitar.
B-52’s live shows haven’t modified a lot within the decade since their first album. The present has reached a larger scale than ever earlier than—the band has gone from small golf equipment like CBGB and Max’s Kansas Metropolis within the late 70s and early 80s, to a few nights at Radio Metropolis which closed the final leg of the Cosmic Tour—however the crowds lose themselves in the identical ecstasy. And in contrast to most bands who attain a brand new, bigger viewers, the B-52’s following is, maybe, extra enthusiastic than ever concerning the early materials. The album Cosmic Factor, the band’s first bona-fide hit (it’s now near double-platinum) accommodates a few songs that ship the viewers right into a frenzy—the hyper-zooming title observe, and particularly the only “Love Shack,” which went gold and hit #3 on the pop charts. However the response to B-52’s classics like “Planet Claire,” “Give Me Again My Man,” “Non-public Idaho” and “Strobe Gentle” is past bacchanalia. And when Fred screams, “Down! Down!” in “Rock Lobster,” which follows “Planet Claire” within the present, 9,000 individuals concurrently squiggle to the ground. These songs, from the band’s first two albums (1979’s The 13-52’s, 1980’s Wild Planet), haven’t solely stored a loyal viewers coming to reveals; they’ve carried over to a completely new era.
And but, so much has modified. For the primary time, the band is touring with a bass participant (Sara Lee, previously of Gang of 4), in addition to an extra guitarist/ keyboardist (Pat Irwin, as soon as of the Raybeats). New York drummer Zach Alford has taken over on drums, now that Keith Strickland is full-time on guitar. Cosmic Factor is a departure from earlier B-52’s albums, although, in additional than the truth that it’s the primary album since Wild Planet to be recorded solely with dwell devices. Delicate, at instances elegant, it’s the primary B-52’s album the place you don’t must get the joke.
For a band lengthy related extra with wild wigs and humorous garments than with severe music, Cosmic Factor comes as a watershed, a piece of depth and “Topaz” and “Dry County” have an ethereal melancholy, a temper that’s without delay unhappy and hopeful, like having the doldrums on a wonderful summer time day. Even the extra upbeat tracks—”Roam,” “Cosmic Factor,” “Love Shack,” “Junebug,” “Bushfire”— have a refined timbre of pensiveness and longing. All through, the lyrics are extra direct and descriptive, much less humor-dependent than up to now. The phrases and music converse louder than wigs and kitsch.
However most significantly, the reveals within the wake of Cosmic Factor are the primary since authentic guitarist Ricky Wilson, brother to Cindy, died of AIDS in late 1985. The B-52’s have at all times been very shut. Nobody is replaceable. Cosmic Factor nearly didn’t occur.
December 30, 2:15 pm. Keith Strickland sits in a European-style cafe on Columbus Road in San Francisco. He wears heavy darkish footwear, denims and a blue jacket with barely torn lining. Onstage, his hair is sprayed into lengthy spikes that poke out from underneath his prime hat, framing his face just like the bars of a cage; however immediately his hair is brushed again underneath a blue cap with rainbow stripes underneath the brim. Keith is soft-spoken, mild, the spine of the band in distinction to its three extra boisterous frontpersons. He has a wonderful face, with no single age line regardless of his 36 years.
Keith, maybe, labored extra carefully with Ricky than anybody within the band. They collaborated on a lot of the music, and he realized his eccentric guitar type (open tunings with strings in unison, typically with out the G-string) from Ricky, who was additionally the band’s principal arranger. They’d current the music to the band, and Fred, Kate and Cindy would begin jamming, spewing stream-of-consciousness lyrics at random from regardless of the music conjured in them; generally they began with a title, and took off from there. It’s a particularly gradual writing course of; generally the band would have hours and hours of jams on tape, which they’d then undergo and edit, pulling collectively the very best lyrics and melodic strains to make a single track.
Nobody might think about the band with out Ricky. “I at all times thought-about Ricky as a instructor,” says Keith. “I realized a lot from him. I’d provide you with issues by myself and he would take heed to them. He was at all times encouraging me to put in writing, so I actually relied on his criticism. After his demise, I didn’t have that confidence there. He at all times felt just like the musical catalyst within the band. I imply, all of us have a giant half in what we do, however Ricky had this very particular originality. He did just a few songs completely himself, like ’52 Women.’ It has a really unpredictable melody line, and that was very distinctive to Ricky’s type.”
Months glided by. Keith stopped listening to rock’n’roll, concentrating as a substitute on all kinds of various music—blues, Aaron Copland, new age. Finally he started writing once more, though not with the band particularly in thoughts. Sometimes Cindy or Kate would drop by his home and he would play them items he was engaged on. “The very first thing I wrote after he handed away was the music that was finally used for ‘The Deadbeat Membership,’” he says. “That’s not the title I had for it then—it was referred to as ‘There Is a River.’”
Within the early days, he says, “all of us used to take a seat round like this, simply hang around, drink espresso and discuss. It was type of Cafe Society in Athens. It regarded like we by no means labored or did something, and mates of ours would say, ‘Oh, you’re such deadbeats.’ So we’d joke about ourselves being the deadbeat membership. Once I performed the music for Fred and Kate and Cindy, all people simply began singing concerning the deadbeat membership. That’s what the music evoked in them, when in plenty of ways in which’s what I used to be pondering once I wrote it. And I didn’t inform them that I used to be pondering so much about Ricky. They only picked up on it. It was very spontaneous. It’s actually some of the autobiographical songs we’ve ever achieved.”
Keith was shocked at how strongly the remainder of the band reacted to the music, since he hadn’t thought-about it “typical” B-52’s music in any respect; it was way more introspective and laid again. Paradoxically, “Love Shack” had comparable origins. “We did so many variations of that,” says Keith. “The primary one was very lilting and melancholic, nearly unhappy, very longing. We thought it was a bit of too heavy in that course, so we did a unique model—simply stored going in all places with it. Once we had been jamming within the studio, I simply placed on the drum machine and performed bass guitar.”
At one level whereas they had been jamming, Keith instantly stopped enjoying. Cindy stored singing. She screamed, “Ti-i-i-n roof!” pondering the music was nonetheless going. Then she regarded round, realized every part had stopped, and simply stated, “Rusted.” The band labored it into “Love Shack” ‘s remaining combine. “Collective unconscious actually comes into play when everybody’s improvising,” says Keith. “‘Trigger not one particular person is conceiving of this entire factor. It’s coming from 5—to start with, 5 completely different factors of view. There’s actually no chief of the group, as a result of we had been a gaggle of mates first, then we began the band. It will have been very odd if unexpectedly somebody had stated, ‘Nicely, I’m the chief,’ or, ‘You be the chief.’ Buddies don’t try this. You all work collectively.”
Although Ricky’s title seems nowhere on the sleeve, the band feels he is a crucial a part of the album, “simply within the sense of getting established the way in which we work, and his musical sensibility being so infused into what we do,” says Keith. “We had been all very a lot a household. And naturally, with out him, we simply wouldn’t be right here immediately. He was positively part of this document, in a humorous type of means.” He pauses. “Not a humorous means. That wouldn’t be the suitable strategy to say it. He’s simply a part of this document. His spirit’s nonetheless with us.”
The B-52’s first performed collectively at a pal’s occasion in Athens, Georgia on Valentine’s Day of 1976, however the origins of the band return a lot additional. Keith met Ricky in highschool in Georgia round 1970. “I went as much as his home, and he had this two-track tape recorder, and all these songs,” Keith says. “The songs he had written had been fairly authentic and fairly good. He had a really authentic sense of melody and association.”
The pair instantly struck up a friendship and commenced writing songs collectively. At the moment, Athens was simply catching as much as the hippie period, 5 years after the remainder of the nation. Whereas there was at all times a robust conservative aspect within the city, there was additionally an openness to oddity that resulted from the city’s artist neighborhood.
Keith and Ricky had been on the fringe of the perimeter. They frolicked collectively, performed in bands collectively, precipitated hassle collectively. Robert Waldrop, a detailed pal of the band since these early days and the creator of the lyrics for “Roam,” “Hero Worship” from the primary album, “Soiled Again Street” from Wild Planet, and others, spied them at a Captain Beefheart live performance in 1971: “They used to actually gown wild,” he says. “You’d see Keith in the course of the day strolling down the road. He had actually lengthy hair and it was all teased out, and a shiny silver jacket, and excessive black boots. And, like, these large spherical mirrors from 18-wheelers—he would put on these as a brooch.”
Round that point, Fred Schneider had left his residence on the Jersey Shore to go to forestry college on the College of Georgia in Athens. “One of many issues I preferred to do in faculty was put on garments that completely clashed,” says Fred. “Orange shirt, lime-green and purple pants, brown footwear—simply terrible stuff. I’d gown like that once I went out, too. I’d be dancing and hootin’ it up, and laughing, not takin’ something severe. Then I met Keith and Ricky. They lived on the town, however they had been type of among the many wilder aspect in Athens. We simply hit it off—I used to be a weirdo, they had been weirdos. Kindred spirits.”
Fred joined within the musical collaborations: Keith and Ricky would play completely different devices and Fred would recite issues off the highest of his head. “They had been in a lot of far-out bands,” says Robert Waldrop. “Extraordinarily experimental. They had been actually gifted, and utterly self-taught.”
Kate Pierson moved to Athens within the mid-70s, and shortly Ricky’s little sister Cindy was sufficiently old to tag round. That they had no intentions of forming a band, however that first present in 76 was, says Waldrop, “magical. I’m certain it shocked them that it sounded so good. They did ‘Rock Lobster,’ ‘Dance This Mess Round,’ plenty of stuff that ended up on that first album. Everybody simply went wild. I threw my leg out. That was an excellent dance occasion.”
By 1979, they had been gigging commonly round New York Metropolis. “We cheated so much,” says Cindy. “We used to convey our mates as much as New York and whoop it up.” However there’s little doubt that New York liked them. Early followers the Speaking Heads provided encouragement, and the band bought a administration deal and a document contract with Warner Bros.
The debut album offered 500,000 copies with no scratch of economic radio play (it has since gone previous the platinum mark). In 1980, flush with success, they determined to maneuver out of Athens. With three days to discover a home and rehearsal area earlier than leaving for Japan on tour, the band purchased a spot within the remoted upstate New York city of Mahopac. Wild Planet, which contained materials largely written across the similar time because the songs on The B-52’s, was launched to astounding acclaim.
However from the time of the transfer to Mahopac, the band started to lose some momentum. “It was a giant home, we had loads of room, however it was like we had been in exile or one thing,” says Keith.
“Extra like a low-security establishment with 5 inmates,” says Fred. “The entire neighborhood realized {that a} rock band had moved into the neighborhood, and so they thought there’d be these wild issues with tons of women over on a regular basis,” says Keith. “Our next-door neighbor was a retired lawyer, and we needed to constantly struggle him in court docket to permit us to construct a studio.”
“We bought sued for years by the next-door neighbors simply because they didn’t like women and men dwelling collectively in the identical home,” says Cindy. “It was actually unusual. They thought we had been the evil plague coming down.” The band stayed there for 3 years, throughout which they recorded the David Byrne-produced “Mesopotamia” EP and Whammy! “I believe plenty of ‘Mesopotamia’ actually displays that isolation,” says Keith. “Like ‘Throw That Beat within the Rubbish Can’: ‘The neighbors are complaining . . . ‘ Everyone tried to do away with us.”
The B-52’s had been additionally making an attempt to experiment with their by-now established formulation. Keith ditched the drums and he and Ricky introduced in a drum machine; and Whammy!‘s “Tune for a Future Technology” was the primary track to incorporate all 5 members singing lead.
In 1983 they offered the home and moved to New York Metropolis, however inside and exterior pressures had been creating divisions inside the band. By the point of Bouncing off the Satellites, issues had gotten to the purpose the place the standard methodology of writing via jamming not labored. “We had been collectively a very long time, and we had been nonetheless mates, however we had been falling aside a bit as a gaggle,” says Fred. “We determined that everyone ought to write their very own songs. I got here up with ‘Juicy Jungle,’ Kate wrote ‘Home tasks.’ It was additionally a unique album in that it had extra severe songs.”
“We by no means did a straight, straight track,” says Cindy, “however we labored actual laborious to turn out to be extra polished. ‘Summer season of Love’ was an actual constructive track. Kate and I jammed with the music and wrote the lyrics and melody, however Ricky put it collectively. It’s ironic that when the album got here out, a lot terrible stuff was occurring within the band.”
Most of Bouncing off the Satellites had been accomplished with Ricky; nobody within the band was conscious of his sickness till shortly earlier than his demise. After his demise, they shortly completed the album, and it was launched early in 1986. The band did their greatest to advertise, however nobody’s coronary heart was in it and there was no tour.
It was a 12 months earlier than the band made the choice to put in writing collectively once more, however little by little, they realized they may work with out Ricky. As soon as they did begin working collectively once more, says Robert Waldrop, “it was this unimaginable therapeutic factor.” Finally they dedicated to creating a document. Keith got here up with music particularly for the band, like “Junebug” and “Cosmic Factor.” In April of 87, the group recorded the track “Cosmic Factor” with producer Nile Rodgers for the soundtrack of the movie “Earth Women Are Straightforward,” then arrange periods with Rodgers in addition to Don Was.
Cosmic Factor was full by early 89, and launched in June. Although not one of the songs are overtly about love, the phrase love recurs repeatedly, as within the refrain of Robert Waldrop’s “Roam”: “Roam if you wish to / With out wings, with out wheels … Roam if you wish to / With out something however the love we really feel.”
Sung in Cindy and Kate’s clear, celestial harmonies, the track takes on a spirituality and sensuality past its floor significance of breaking via boundaries and following one’s personal coronary heart.
“There are positively Zen overtones to these lyrics,” says Kate. “Robert’s actually good at hitting the center on this stuff. ‘Trigger when you come out of that have of complete despair or separation, you notice that demise is simply a part of the opposite facet of it. Life and demise are a part of the identical factor. It’s sort of liberating, in a wierd type of means.”
Nobody—not the band, not their administration, or their label—anticipated Cosmic Factor to be the massive success it has turn out to be. Definitely the band’s intentions had been modest. In keeping with Waldrop, “I believe they simply actually wished to get it proper this time.”
December 30, 7:05 pm. In San Francisco’s 4 Seasons Clift Resort, the spoils of a well-stocked minibar litter an in any other case placid room: chips, macadamia nuts, honey-roasted peanuts, just a few empty bottles of Amstel. Fred Schneider is enthroned in a luxurious armchair consuming sushi. He chews with nice verve, shortly and completely, as if he counts the variety of chews earlier than swallowing.
All of a sudden, a lady screams:
“It’s an earthquake, y’all!”
Cindy Wilson bops out of the lavatory, adopted by the rumble of a particularly loud rest room flush. It’s just a few hours earlier than the band’s second present in San Francisco. Keith Strickland is off enjoyable; Kate Pierson is getting her hair achieved (it takes over an hour and a half to ply her dark-red locks into that voluptuous bouf), after her pre-show dinner of natural tea, water, and fresh-squeezed juice. Kate thinks it’s a fantasy that our our bodies want protein. She’s at present on a juice quick.
“She does that continuously,” says Cindy. “I’ve tried to quick, however I’m simply not the kind of particular person that may do it.”
“I’ve by no means tried a juice quick, ’trigger I do know if I’m in New York I’m gonna desire a large pot pie or one thing,” says Fred between chews.
“I attempted it as soon as and bought violently sick,” says Cindy. “All of the poisons had been popping out.”
“That’s an indication that it is best to do one,” tsks-tsks Fred.
“Let the poisons lie!” Cindy yells.
Apart from Cindy, all of the B-52’s are vegetarians and have been for some years. This goes half and parcel with their assist of Individuals for the Moral Therapy of Animals and Greenpeace, each of whom arrange cubicles at B-52’s live shows.
Fred admits he was a bit of obese in faculty. “I used to be doughy. I didn’t lose the load till I turned a vegetarian. ”
“You already know who else was chubby?” says Cindy, appearing all coy. “Keith Strickland was a bit of porker.”
Shrieks of hysterical laughter.
“And I wore flared pants—” begins Fred.
“You’re courting your self, Fred,” says Cindy.
“It doesn’t matter,” he retorts. “They referred to as me a hippie. Simply because I wore cheesy ten-dollar Sears polyester bellbottoms.”
“You wore cheesy Sears polyester bellbottoms?” cries Cindy, aghast. “Eeewww!”
“I had no style,” says Fred proudly. He settles again and explains the origins of “Rock Lobster.”
“I used to be at this disco in Atlanta referred to as 2001, this actual cheesy disco the place each desk was a lit-up Zodiac signal,” he says fondly. “I assume they didn’t have any cash, ’trigger for a light-weight present they confirmed photos of steaks on a grill, and lobsters and puppies and youngsters enjoying ball—”
“Lobsters and puppies on a grill?” interrupts Cindy.
“No, not puppies,” says Fred, frowning, and resumes his story.
“Footage of little youngsters enjoying with balls, and lobsters and steaks—”
“Lobsters enjoying with balls?” asks Cindy. Shrieks of hysterical laughter.
Fred ignores her. “And rock lobster simply gave the impression of an excellent title for a track. Ricky got here up with the music, and I wrote the lyrics and Kate and Cindy got here up with their vocals—”
“The squiddle-iddle-ops,” says Cindy helpfully.
“And spontaneously individuals made noises and got here up with the shriek—”
“The Yoko Ono steal!”
“That burst of enthusiasm influenced by Yoko,” finishes Fred. “That was us within the essence, doing our first document.”
“It’s extra like an artwork piece than a document,” says Cindy.
Fred sums it up. “We weren’t rock individuals. We simply did our personal factor, which was a mixture of rock’n’roll, and Fellini, and game-show host, and corn, and mysticism. ”
December 31, 9:45 pm. It’s New 12 months’s Eve, and thru the miracle of pre-recorded tv the B-52’s are in two locations without delay: the Palladium in New York Metropolis, the place they’re counting down the “Daybreak of the Decade” for MTV’s New 12 months’s Eve occasion, and onstage in San Diego, the place they’ll depend down the midnight hour in entrance of 14,000 individuals.
Backstage in San Diego, the ambiance is electrical because the band prepares to go onstage. “Awright, let’s fuckin’ do it, man!” The drummer, in biker shorts and no shirt, drops to the cement flooring to do just a few pushups. The guitarist, additionally shirtless, jumps up and down and pumps his biceps. When they’re all prepared, opening band the Pink Scorching Chili Peppers disappear onto the stage.
As for the B-52’s, every part’s kind of so as. Fred nicks himself shaving with an electrical razor, and Kate’s held up again on the lodge for an particularly intense hairdressing session, however aside from that issues are working easily. Irish street supervisor Torn Mullally tries to present orders regardless of his ridiculous inexperienced occasion hat. Co-manager Steve Jensen has on an elaborate felt crown that appears prefer it was peeled off the King of Diamonds from a deck of playing cards. Jensen’s companion Martin Kirkup surveys the huge viewers from behind the stage. “That is the longer term,” he says.
Within the band’s dressing rooms, two huge wardrobe trunks stand open, revealing a Crayola-box spectrum of fringe attire, velvet sizzling pants, sequined robes and speckled jackets. A pair of nylons is lazily draped over a stage coat embroidered with large eyeballs. Off to 1 facet is a wig case large enough to carry a bass drum. Cindy and Kate’s accoutrements might outfit your entire forged of the movie “Hairspray.” Again on the East Coast, the ambiance is way more hectic, and the band much less relaxed. In a dressing room the form of a circus tent, the hand waits for his or her cue from the MTV individuals as to when to hit the stage.
“Tv is admittedly nerve-racking,” groans Keith. At 11:45 pm New York time, the band goes out in entrance of a studio viewers and an unlimited MTV backdrop to sing “Dance This Mess Round” and “Roam.”
At 10:50 pm in San Diego, the band goes onstage and opens the present with “Cosmic Factor.” Fred has taken two occasion favors—a champagne bottle and an hour-glass—and threaded them with a ribbon to put on as a celebration hat. Cindy, in a slinky black minidress, struts the lip of the stage like a runway mannequin, swinging her faux-pearl necklace as if it had been a lasso. Kate darts across the stage like a wild factor each time she doesn’t must sing or plink her keyboard. Keith, the Mad Hatter guitar hero, stands on a pedestal subsequent to a row of some twelve or 13 guitars, all of which have completely different tunings.
Between the band’s personal stage delirium, the rapturous response of the group and the heightened consciousness of time that strikes on the passing of each new 12 months, the San Diego present is near magic. After ten years, the B-52’s actually have purpose to have fun. In an effort to clarify the band’s ever-growing enchantment, Robert Waldrop says, “The entire kitsch and occasion factor, that’s all floor stuff. I take a look at them, and I don’t even see that. They’re doing one thing between all of them that’s simply so sincere, and hypnotic, and ecstatic. Not many individuals can get it to that ecstatic second. They usually do it. They don’t at all times do it, however they do it. As soon as individuals expertise that, it’s the actual factor.”
December 31, midnight. On the East Coast, multi-colored balloons drop from the ceiling to have fun the flip of the last decade. Freb grabs one and chases Kate across the stage, whacking her on the behind. Earlier than the band goes into their globalized, New 12 months-ized model of the Beatles’ “Blissful Birthday,” Fred says to the viewers, “Be inexperienced, not imply, in 1990.”
At midnight on the West Coast, yellow and black balloons cascade onto the packed dance flooring. Fireworks explode, bathing the world in blinding white mild. The band scrambles across the stage, hugging and kissing one another. After they play “Blissful Birthday,” Fred tells the viewers, “Be inexperienced, not imply, in 1990.”
And a brand new decade begins.
