Concrete Blonde’s Lawn Bowls Day

In the last few years lawn bowls has become a fashionable pursuit amongst the inner city cognoscenti – or at there has been a realisation amongst the hipsters that cheap beer is available for the price of a membership of a bowls club.

But back in the mid eighties lawn bowls was still definitely the province of grumpy retirees and stern matrons in white uniforms.

It certainly wasn’t the favoured activity of touring alternative rockers.

Concrete Blonde weren’t your normal alternative rockers.

I had been a fan of the LA band since their debut single True. I’d reviewed it in glowing terms for In Press, played it on my weekly guest spot on the Triple R Breakfasters show and generally saw myself as a champion for the band in this country. When their album of the same name was released I was all over it and when the band was announced to be making a tour of Australia I was aquiver with anticipation.

Now these were the days when I was partial to a Wild Turkey & Coke at any opportunity and thus it wasn’t that surprising to find me holding up the bar at Inflation on a Monday night late one summer. Inflation, for those who came in late, was  a King St nightclub back before ‘King St nightclub’ was an euphemism for ‘titty bar’. Inflation actually had a “rock’ night on a Monday night in those days and I was a regular bar prop. It was important to support ‘rock’ nights, especially on Mondays.

Being a hospitable kind of music scenester/rock journo I had no hesitation introducing myself to Concrete Blonde drummer Harry Rushokoff when he wandered into Inflation unannounced one Monday night. Harry, to his eternal credit, was an ideal bloke to be hospitable to and one thing led to another and a huge night on the piss ensued. There were others involved in our little early week gathering of course but I’ve forgotten exactly who they were and who they might now be married to.

Anyways me and my new best mate Harry decided to call it a night sometime just before the next day but only after agreeing to meet again that afternoon to continue where we had left off.

I picked up Harry at his hotel in StKilda mid afternoon the next day with the intentions of getting back on the turps but instead found that he had his bandmates Johnette Napolitano and Jim Mankey with him.  Now getting on the piss with the drummer was one thing but meeting Johnette and Jim elevated the event to another more esoteric level.

Johnette was, in my mind, a ‘star’ – albeit in the so-called “alternative” universe. She was smart, sexy, dangerous and ridiculously cool. She knew Michael Stipe. He had named their band. Jim Mankey was a minor legend. He had played with Leon Russell, he had been a member of Sparks. Suddenly my coolness credentials had been increased dramatically.

With all due respect to drummers.

Harry had apparently given me a good report because Jim and Johnette were quite willing to devote the afternoon to my abbreviated tour of Melbourne. The tour was going to start in Greville St, Prahran.

Driving from StKilda to Prahran with all three members of Concrete Blonde in my car I had that feeling that many record company promo people have described. “What if I crash the car and kill the whole band?”

I didn’t.

We got to Greville St, wandered through the thrift shops, Greville Records and similar establishments that gave Greville St its flavour before it became too gentrified. Our wandering took us down a side street and towards the Prahran Bowls Club.

I didn’t give it a second thought but all three band members got the giggles. It took me a few seconds to realise that they were laughing at the geriatric bowlers in their whites rolling the bowls up and down the green.

I quickly ascertained that they had never seen lawn bowls before.

Apparently America isn’t big on lawn bowls and the sight of a large number of Prahran pensioners, in white uniforms, little hats and comfortable shoes, earnestly pursuing their sport was a new one for Concrete Blonde.

I don’t think the Prahran bowlers had seen the likes of Concrete Blonde that often. Harry was swarthy, heavily tattooed and vaguely militarist in appearance. Jim was hippie-like all the way down to his mane of straight waist length hair and tie-dye t-shirt, Johnette had that American gothic look going with lots of black lace, heavy eyes and silver jewellery.

It wasn’t  long until the two cultures collided.

Lead by Harry the band was drawn towards the bowlers and after pausing long enough to get my approval that the bowlers weren’t somehow off limits, they marched through the gate of the bowling club.

Actually “marched” wasn’t the right word – it actually seemed like the band were a bit intimidated by the bowlers.

We were approached by an old fella who was clearly the head bouncer. After explaining to him that my friends were “Americans” who had never seen bowls before he responded by explaining that the days competition was almost complete and if we wanted to hang around he would personally give us a demonstration and even let us on the green to send a few down.

And that’s exactly what happened. After following orders and removing our shoes we spent the next hour or so being instructed in the finer points of bias, run of the green and the position of the kitty, by our new mate. He was joined by several other members, including some little old ladies, who were also interested in observing the wild beasts in action.
Everyone got on swimmingly. And why wouldn’t they? The band members clearly recognised the slight absurdity of the situation but I presume the bowlers did too.

They stopped short of exchanging numbers and leaving names on the guest list but it was a great way to spent some time.

Later that night when Concrete Blonde were ripping it up on stage at the Central Club the Prahran pensioners were probably home in bed. But that didn’t stop Johnette from dedicating a song, without any explanation, to the “lawn bowlers in Greville St”.

So if you have been wondering what she meant by that for the last 20 or so years, now you know.

True – Concrete Blonde

I knew nothing about Concrete Blonde the first time I heard the title track from this album. I loved the song True from the first play. It had a swing, and a sass and an edge that set it apart from everything else at the time. The lead singer sounded a bit like Chrissie Hynde and she managed to sound world weary and smart mouthed simultaneously. I loved the lyrics that preached self belief in the face of adversity – but not in a preaching way. They sounded like a rock band with a songwriters heart. And it was subtle and under-stated in an era when a lot of music was becoming self consciously clever and not benefiting from it. In short I had a new favourite band.

That was 1986.

It didn’t take me long to investigate the album that provided the song and I wasn’t disappointed.

Listening to the album now I’ve lost none of my enthusiasm. The difference is now that there’s so much more information to go with the music. In the intervening years I’ve played lawn bowls (long story) and had extraordinary discussions about music with guitarist Jim Mankey, I’ve had big and bad nights out with now departed drummer Harry Rushakoff and I’ve spent many strange and rewarding hours of quality time in several cities and two countries with singer and bass player Johnette Napolitano. I haven’t seen her lately but she remains one of the most interesting people I’ve met in music.

It’s almost impossible now to divorce the music from my personal knowledge of the people who made it, but playing this album again reminds me of how much I liked it even before I became acquainted with its makers.

There’s not a track on this album that doesn’t make it a better album, and there’s some that are just brilliant. Songs like Still In Hollywood,  Over Your Shoulder and Dance Along The Edge are songs that no other band could have made. They are perfect showcases for Rushakoffs’s punk metal drumming, Mankeys angular guitars and Johnette’s urgent yet embracing vocals. She’s the kind of singer that can sneer at you and make you cry in a single song.

In Still In Hollywood , Little Sister and Song For Kim her portrayals of the Queen of LA and the title characters respectively are simultaneously heartbreaking and rejuvenating.

(You’re The Only One) Can Make Me Cry is Joplinesque in its delivery and while Cold Part Of Town grows to be awash with layers it doesn’t lose any of its poignancy as a result.

Finishing the album with an instrumental version of True might seem like an odd thing to do but it works a treat as Mankey speaks eloquently and deserves his moment of expression.

True was an album that completely spoke of the place of its gestation. It was a document of LA, but a very different LA to the one being fed to us by 90210. It was Hollywood that literally danced along the edge between desperation and dignity, between the seedy and the sublime. The key line in Still in Hollywood is “It’s 3am , I’m out walking again” This from the town where supposedly nobody walks and the clubs shut at midnight.

You’ve go to remember that True was released the year before another LA band Guns N’ Roses unleashed Appetite For Destruction. Draw from that what you will.

It’s a different debate whether Concrete Blonde went on to top this album – certainly they had bigger hits and standout songs later in their career, but True remains the album that nailed me to the wall. It still does.