Valley Boy: RACHEL SWEET: FOOL AROUND (1978)

Thanks to Erik for letting me post this from his blog. His blog is Valley Boy

RACHEL SWEET: FOOL AROUND (1978)

by Erik Himmelsbach  

 

My first true love. She really was. It happened during that time in adolescence when you really start “liking” girls, and your objective is to “go with them.” Not that you go anywhere – you just make out all during recess and lunch. And, achieving that, it’s very important to take that next step, to “feel her up.” Baby steps, really, foreshadowing a lifetime of ecstasy and frustration.

That’s how I felt about Rachel Sweet. But only in that I-must-objectify-an-unattainable-female sort of way. I didn’t have Farrah Fawcett posters on my walls (and, at gunpoint, I’d tell you I was a Jaclyn Smith guy). And I’d graduated from my first object of lust -- Tatum O’Neal (primarily on the strength of her smokin’ Dynamite magazine cover to promote The Bad News Bears).

I was introduced to Rachel Sweet via Rodney’s old Sunday night show on KROQ) – he probably played “Who Does Lisa Like?” And that was that. I rushed to the old Moby Disc on Ventura via the RTD (was it the 88 down Van Nuys Boulevard?) and found the Stiff Records import on white vinyl (It would be rejiggered for U.S. release by Columbia a few months later). What’s funny is that her music didn’t seem universally quirky as my perception of the Stiff label (Lene Lovich and Jona Lewie better fit the bill), but maybe that was the whole point. Just toss in a 16-year-old girl with a Brenda Lee voice and watch the lecherous men go mad. But she was hardly a pop tart on a stick. Though Rachel’s upper register could be a bit cloying, she had serious pipes -- a rich, boozy croon that would have served her well had she chosen to stick it out as a singer/songwriter (she became an actress/TV writer-producer).

But I wasn’t one of those guys. I was a younger guy, only 14, to Rachel’s 16. And I was into Rachel's total package -- the voice, the look, the image. I had a real shot, right? Well, to be honest, it was one of those things that bounced through my head to distract from my inability to land a real girl (there was one little tryst that began sweetly on a bus ride back from a field trip – no doubt to the Getty in Malibu, seemed like I went there at least twice a school year – but it lasted only six days). But it was mainly about the music. “Who Does Lisa Like?” in particular, kind of hit home. It was a three-minute summary of my generation. (I hereby nominate Liam Sternberg for the genius songwriting pantheon).

My Rachel Sweet fixation came at a good time. She helped me kick my addiction to AM radio (RIP Ten Q) and helped rev up a lifetime of girlpop love. It didn’t make me any more popular, however. It was the rare classmate who’d even heard of her. This was Sepulveda Junior High, early 1979. It was all about Styx and Supertramp at that point. The girls still liked the Bee Gees.

I’d already waved my geek flag skyhigh as an O.G. Devo-tee (props to Dr. Demento). In fact, I even sent my 60something grandmother (Grandma Ethel was totally rockin’ it) on a wild goose chase to get me Devo tickets a few months earlier. They were playing the Starwood and Grandma lived nearby, on Harper near Fountain. Alas, she didn’t understand the urgency of snagging tickets to in-demand shows (Are We Not Men had just come out) the nanosecond they went on sale. Instead, she sashayed down Santa Monica Boulevard a few days later, and, alas, the gig had sold out.

I did make it a point to get to Rachel Sweet gigs, even if I had to drag relatives to drive me: to the Whiskey in ’79, opening for 999 (known for the now-quaint sounding “Homicide”); to the Roxy a year later as a headliner. I gobbled up import

singles and bootleg cassettes at the Capitol Records swap meet. My fanhood of the great Trouser Press began after I read a review of a Rachel single in Jim Green’s always-spot-on column, “Green Circles.”

Therefore, there was no question I was going to her record signing at Licorice Pizza on the Strip. Hell, I wasn’t “going” with anyone at the time. Maybe she’d pluck me from the crowd. I was almost 16 by that point. Maybe she liked younger guys.

Her appearance came during the spring of 1980, just as I was gaining some traction during my first year of high school. There was something peculiar about those first few months at Monroe High in lovely Sepulveda (now North Hills), CA, when the kids from rival junior highs – Holmes and Sepulveda - kept in separate camps. In retrospect it was just a speck in time when an invisible line was drawn, but it seemed like a big deal when you're in it. You know, who’d break that thick block of ice separating us? I raised my hand, briefly “going” with a girl from my rival junior high. But I wasn’t the suave fuck I’d imagined myself to be. I picked a girl whose parents were exceedingly strict, and by that time, I thought, just maybe, we could see each other outside of school hours and school property.

No such luck. That frustration, coupled with the fact that I was probably a dick (funny how I can’t remember specific details – feel free to draw your own conclusion). I do, however, recall being muscled by a pair of her thick-headed junior high friends. I’m sure they meant well, but their threats were straight out of a bad teen movie. They pinned me against a locker and told me in no certain terms to show a little more respect for their female friend. I guess I was quite the asshole in tenth grade.

Then again, this girl wasn’t Rachel Sweet, for whom I’d take long bus rides across town to meet. She was at the Licorice Pizza, ostensibly to promote her second album, the slicked-up for American audiences Protect the Innocent. The line wasn’t very long, and I was in full-geek mode upon meeting her. I wore what I thought was an acceptable new wave uniform – white Lee overalls with a thrift shop fifties-style shortsleeved button-down shirt, rolled-up, Nick Lowe-style, to better highlight my 15-year-old guns.

Needless to say, I came for the girl, but I came off as just another gangly, lust-filled, tongue-tied record geek. Of course, I brought my import copy of Fool Around and the small talk I made pegged me as someone who spent too much time alone in his room, listening to records: “Wow, my favorite song of yours is ‘I’ll Watch the News,’” was all I could muster. It was a super rare track on a Stiff compilation called Can’t Start Dancing, but Rachel wasn't impressed. I got an autograph, got home after dark, and, hopefully became a better person. And oddly enough, my first real true love was a girl who bore a bit of a resemblance to Rachel Sweet. Only problem was that she lived on the east coast. But when you’re 15, that was a mere formality. At least she wasn’t famous.