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 The Billy Eye Rock Awards
Musical missives
from Billy Eye and Judy Zee
May
14, 1981
There
has been quite quite a bit of criticism concerning this article of late
from Data-Boy staff members- most notably editor Dave Hodgson. Comments
like incohesive, incomprehensible, nonsensical and totally unrelated to
anything remotely resembling journalism. My only answer to this is that
Eye hope each and everyone of you critics fuck off and die! There. I hope
this clears the air for any future criticism. (Typesetter's note: "Oh
Yeah!?!") Actually the response from the readers has been quite good.
I just thank you all for responding. My advice to the editor- you never
used to read the articles before they went to press, why start now?
And
now for something completely different . . .
The
Billy Eye Rock Awards
The
first annual Billy Eye Rock Awards 1981 were held at
the Beverly Wilshire Hotel Convention Center in downtown Beverly Hills
and what a gala event it was! Stars and luminaries from all over the world
were present to receive what has already become the most prestigious award
in show business today.
To
bring the rock stars from New York, a plane was chartered and crammed
to the baggage section with rock stars and television personalities. The
rock group Queen, Farrah Fawcette Majors (with date Ryan
O'Neal), Christopher Cross, The Village People,
Both the Osmond and Jackson Families, Fleetwood
Mac, The Eagles, disco star Donna Summer and
many others flew on this virtual Love Boat in the sky. Piloting the big
bird were Rod Stewart, Don McLean, with Brooke
Sheilds, June Lockhart, Nanette Fabray and the Doobie
Brothers as flight attendants. There was lots of music, fun and
cocaine and a good time was had by all. Unfortunately the flight ended
on a slightly tragic note- the airplane crashed outside of Ackron Ohio,
killing all those on board in a slow, agonizing fiery death.
The
awards went on as scheduled, however, not at all marred by this event.
The
coveted gold eyeball shaped trophy went to several other performers -
Black Flag won the 'loudest contribution to rock music
award' accepting saying "any publicity is good publicity" and thanking
everyone from Rona Barrett to Liza Minnelli
before the bouncers threw them back into the audience. There
was a tie for the best album award between the Psychedelic Furs
and Adam and the Ants. Apparently unwilling to share
the award, a fight broke out with Adam Ant suffering severe lacerations
to his pretty face, and leaving one of the Furs with numerous teeth marks,
and even a few teeth, embedded in his neck.
Unfortunately
(for them) The Stranglers refused to come up on stage
to accept their 'best makeup' award. This really pisses me off, and I
plan to see to it that the Stranglers NEVER work in Hollywood again!!!!
The suspense was terrific as the last award of the evening was presented.
Hollywood's hottest cocaine couple, John and MacKenzie Phillips
were called on to read the name of the recipient of rock music's most
prestigious honor - 'The Best Rock and Roll Performer of 1980".
Barely
able to read the cue card, the suspense was that great, the winner was
finally announced. The best rock and Roll performer of 1980 - Cher
for her Black Rose band! When the name was announced,
boos and hisses broke out in the audience, tables, chairs and steaknives
were thrown onto the stage and ceremoniously lit into a raging bonfire
that completely gutted the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, killing many of the
wealthy guests and causing one of the biggest spectacles in Beverly Hill's
long history.
But
the owner of the hotel promises to rebuild in time for next year's - Billy
Eye Rock Awards.
Music
Connection Magazine has recently reported on the interest expressed in
San Diego's The Unknowns by several labels at their Cathay
De Grande gig last month. Well, I saw The Unknowns
at the Cathay de Grande a few weeks ago, and I doubt that this report
in MC is much more than hype. Eye surely didn't see anything special in
this group. Nothing new, nothing particularly unique, but technically
not bad.
Saw
Hollywood Joe the same night, a competent rockabilly
performer, with a tight frenetic-energetic back up band. They started
out raging, but when the tunes slowed down, so did interest in the band.
A guy who goes by the name Hollywood Joe needs to be really excellent,
not just perfunctory.
The
manager of the Cathay loved them however, he got up on stage twice after
the set in an attempt to rouse the audience applause for more encores.
"Let's here it for Hollywood Joe! C'mon, let's here it! C'mon!" But I
had seen all I needed to after three or four songs, all pose, no prose.
Flippers,
the ex (or present, I'm not sure) 'roller boogie palace' has started hosting
Veil nights on Wednesdays. Flippers has been booking
local pop rock acts as well, an important but often ignored fact- there
are too few venues for locals bands, so any break for them is a good one.
So
now you have Veil on Mondays and Fridays at Cathay De Grande and Wednesday
at Flippers. The new romantic age continues to grow - if only Sir Francis
Bacon was alive to see this.
The
group Hey Taxi! (see review in Data-Boy 271) has changed
their name to Red Wedding to reflect the new directions they are
moving into and they are looking for a new drummer. The group plays a
punkish psychedelia and as good as Hey Taxi! was, Red Wedding promises
to be even better. If you're interested and you can beat those muthafukin
skins, call Marc O at 469-6541. The Marines are looking for a few good
men. Red Wedding is looking for only one.
As
I sit and write this, the number one single in the U.S. is Sheena Easton's
annoying "My Baby Takes the Morning Train", and in England the number
one tune is Adam Ant's "Stand and Deliver". What does that tell you about
the state of the world?
And
now, Judy Zee with her latest PZ Connection article:
PZ
Connection
Judy
Zee writes with
Will
they ever agree?
May
14, 1981 "Welcome back Manakin for an unannounced performance on April 14th at Club 88" ran a Man from Uncle-like psychedelic coded message in Showtime. With crystal clear, technologically clean melodic instrumentation; and Brent's expressive vocals- this ensemble has been swaying Los Angeles audiences consistently. So
we showed up for this one. Manakin has been missing in
action for four months already, and friends and fans were getting restless.
Manakin sounds fuller than ever, much of it do to the addition of a thoroughly appropriate bouncing keybrd/synthesist. The untabulated eloquence of "Children of Paradise" as well as "Just a Dream" never fails to sway Ms. Zee, tumbling into the imagination of what really could be; strongly grasped romantic ideals, seen through rose colored glasses waltzing to the cadence of human aspiration; stretching towards the near perfection we all feel at times. Manakin nearly composes these utopias merely through sound. "Bridges on the Other Side", joyfully rhythmic, breaks on through the windows of Raggae, reminding one of "Dangerous Rhythm" (one of Ultravox's most overlooked songs, 2nd album).
Punkasso gives a description of the Club 88 dance floor at this point:
false manakin puppeteers prolificate on the floor in a Devoesque bath
of the 60's, it was such a cliche I could hardly move.
I
wish Manakin was on record already, so that you could
hear what I am referring to. No clones these guys. Cream of drums, Guy
Epstein shoots off sparks, snaking round the set. On bass you've got Andre.
The keyboardist is Chas Coleman playing a shoulder strap hand held bone
like instrument which is hooked up to a sequential circuits Prophet 5.
His presence and musicianship are both outstanding. Bob 'Moonstone' Walker's
running liquid quarter notes make up the river world of Manakinland, and
synchronize like clockwork with the synth.
A
couple moments of erotic beats were caught and frozen into a time/space
continuum, encompassing the overall experience of the night. The jam was
real.
Rock
on. -Judy Zee
EDITOR"S NOTE: I remember Judy telling me at the time that this article got her & Billy Eye fired as columnists for Data-Boy because Billy Eye tells the editor of the magazine to fuck off and die in the first paragraph.
Turns out the people who did the actual printing of the magazine were
right wing Christians and threatened to drop them if the magazine continued
to contain profanity. Billy Eye was the only columnist using any profanity,
so when the editor asked him to stop, his response was to sneak in four
letter words wherever he could. It seems that no one on the publication's
staff was reading the articles before they were printed, or even after,
so the profanities were often missed. This one wasn't and when it was
brought to editor David Hogdson's attention, Billy and Judy were told
not to submit any further articles. However they were quickly reinstated
due to the popularity of the column relative to anything else running
in the magazine and never even missed an issue because of the 'firing'.
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The
first award, for 'Burnt out rock star of the year' went to none other
than Mick Jagger, who accepted the award with (I think)
mayonnaise on his chin. Still sucking in the seventies Mick?
