June 25–July 2, 1998
music
52 Girls
Kate Pierson flips her wig over beehives, Blondie and 20 years with the B-52's.
by a.d. amorosi
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rehearsals and press appointments Pierson is doing the most important part of the B-52 Girl's duties: "searching for the ultimate hairpiece," she says slyly. Her hairdresser Dennilio has surely spent the better part of his job hunting through New York's "secret hair places" for beehives and whirlybird flips so that Pierson and just-returned songbird Cindy Wilson can play each city's stage in splendor. Splendor is a game the B-52's invented. Not just in an appearance but in an oeuvre (eight CDs not counting Capsule) of intricate vocal interplay and complex crafted music that's both economic and exotic. They are truly one of America's finest ensembles.
With lengthy breaks between records and tours, and a 20-year-old history, you'd think Pierson and original bandmembers Cindy Wilson (whose guitarist brother Ricky passed away in 1985), Fred Schneider and Keith Strickland would tire of the grind, not to mention the expectation of fabulousness. Pierson sets me straight in her Georgia-borne accent. "I don't have to psyche myself up for the hype. I liiiiivved it." Now scattered throughout the Eastern Seaboard (Pierson and Strickland live in Bearsville, NY, "up near Woodstock"; Schneider lives in Long Island; and Wilson is still in Atlanta), the B-52's maintain their Athens, GA, roots. Whether you listen to the autobiographical "Deadbeat Club," the twin-sirens call of "Roam" or the swift glam-kick of Capsule's new tune "Debbie" (dedicated to pal Harry), you can still hear the Southern sway of their home in the complex harmonies of Wilson and Pierson. Hell, even Fred's chattering bark sounds like a robber baron shouting down the future.
"Our harmonies come from hours and hours of jamming. That's how we wrote everything," says Pierson, reminiscing about the band's beginnings. The band got together during the last days of disco. As a "child of the psychedelic '60s" she watched the dynamic of socially conscious fun give way to the college town's straight starchiness. "The [Athens] music scene in the '70s was Southern boogie," says Pierson. At that time she worked as a graphic artist. (Cindy worked as a waitress at the Whirly Q luncheonette, Strickland at a bus station and Schneider as a waiter at a health food spot.) She found solace in the influence of Captain Beefheart, Nino Rota, Perez Prado, a handful of pygmy records and in the art school environment where she met her B-52 cohorts in '76. "Through the art school Athens became a magnet for weirdos," says Pierson. Like-minded weirdos invaded small clubs like The Circus, segregated dance clubs, house parties and the now-legendary Allen's (where they got 25-cent beers from "Deadbeat Club"). It was in a Chinese restaurant, over a Flaming Volcano shared with five straws, where the band formed. During their informal rehearsals, they fell into a trance, "jamming until the music became like a mantra."
This approximates what the B-52's are about: collage-like melodies progressing to a trance-like state. Add to this an aesthetic of thrift-shop chic, fun furs and gaudiness and you've got the B-52's then (and perhaps now, 'cept for the thrift). "Can you imagine us coming to New York for the first time going up in our parents' Croton [station wagon]?" she says about their first gig at Max's in New York in 1977. "The audience was as scared as we were. But we knew what we were doing. Ricky drilled us. Even though we played with our backs to the audience and talked amongst ourselves, we were REEEhearsed. We had a mission."
The mission turned machine-like after the band's first two albums shot through the new wave charts into the mainstream. Then they moved to New York. "One house, three years, four albums. Not a good idea." The mission was not accomplished with mirrors. From relentless hits like "Strobe Light" and "Party Out Of Bounds," to lesser-known dreamier moments like "Mesopotamia" and "Quiche Lorraine," their music is a strange blend of Pierson's eerie keyboard sonics and the late Ricky Wilson's flexible guitar playing.
"We were like one organism, a five-headed party monster. Ricky's guitar fueled everything. He used a lot of open tunings. He was inspired by Joni Mitchell. And his sense of melody was so rare." She asks me to listen to "52 Girls" again. "It sounds like a backwards melody, right?"
Ricky Wilson's legacy, though best charted through hits like "Planet Claire" and "Rock Lobster," is best served through the last work he did before he passed—Bouncing Off The Satellites, a record full of hallucinatory electronic pop that scurries through jaunty rhythms and sweet lyric-scapes. Through an intuitive sense of melody and scintillating, foreign harmonies, the band's "jamming" songwriting skills are ridiculously original—nearly untouchable.
After the sensational sales of 1989's Cosmic Thing (featuring "Love Shack," "Roam") Cindy Wilson split to have a child and chill, leaving the remaining three to do '92's Good Stuff, their last studio effort before Capsule. Back as a B-52, Cindy Wilson's harmonies with Pierson are a Venusian dream come true.
"We never have to work the harmonies out. Our singing in tandem is organic. In fact, after the tape stops we have to try to figure who did what since our voices blend so harmoniously together. We can't tell."
Soon the buying public will be able to tell. While Wilson sings on discs for kids (as on the recent CD Not Dogs… Too Simple: A Tale Of Two Kittens) and Schneider follows his own solo muse on occasion, a Kate Pierson solo album, produced by Keith Strickland, is imminent. She's already had vocal treks with Iggy Pop ("Candy") and R.E.M. ("Shiny Happy People"). But for now, the shiny happy B-52's must sell Time Capsule and its new tunes. Though originally intended as a box of rare jams and Pet Sounds-like breakdowns of song structure ("It would've been interesting to see how we work"), Capsule's new tunes capture "the girls" singing about another "girl"—"Debbie," a glam-rocking tune dedicated to their contemporary Blondie buddy.
"The song is autobiographical, but metaphoric with our own experience," says Pierson about the time Debbie Harry served them daiquiris when they arrived in New York. "We saw her gold records and we knew her female punk energy. She was glamorous with an attitude of 'dare me.' She was aggressive but vulnerable. I can still remember one night we played CBGBs. Packed the place. Wowed 'em. But by night's end I was carrying my guitar alone on a rainy back street. It was for me a poignant thought, that no matter how much people want you, there's always a sense of isolation. And that image reminded me of Debbie."
Though Pierson sees a similar girl energy in Liz Phair and Erykah Badu, she finds the "female rock thing" lame ("Tired!") and Lilith Fair tame. "Though I like the folkiness of it, there needs to be some wildness. Still, it's better than hearing Heart on the radio represented as the only female rockers. But we need something theatrical."
"Our energy is male/female. Our concerns are wide-ranging. We've written love songs from outer space, sure, but I think our songs changed what subject matter can be challenged and how radical our arrangements, songwriting and our entire collective process is. We're radical, maaaan."
The B-52's appear with the Pretenders and Royal Crown Revue at The Mann Center for the Performing Arts, Friday, June 26, 8 p.m.
