On The Town with Pissy Duvet

Life in the Fast Lane:
Managing NYC's wildest party boys, Stalkers...

A dingy linoleum floor resplendent with lakes of spilled beer, hard-ass fluorescent lighting overhead, vinyl records and CDs piled up in disarray... sounds more like your apartment than a typical rock club, no? The Stalkers are playing a late afternoon set at Passout Records in Williamsburg, to the delight of a ravenous crowd of trashed up teens, tipsy hipsters and fine vintage punks. Clouds of toxic smoke and drunken bodies flail from the door of the shop, as if falling out of an overcrowded bus. The scene here is like an oasis to anyone thirsting for authentic rock and roll sleaze after suffering through the past few arid years of faux new wave pretty boys and smug precious indie rock rich kids. Listening to the Stalkers calls to mind some great rock and roll bands... they have the same unwashed glamour as the Rolling Stones did in the 60s, the same dirty bubblegum stomp as the Sweet did in the 70s and the same "punk it up with the top down" frantic melodies as the Devil Dogs did in the 80s. But the Stalkers are great cuz they don't make any of this derivative ...they don't sound like any band but themselves. They're not taking anyone else's money.

And on this afternoon in Brooklyn, the Stalkers are doing everything an upstanding young rock and roll band should be doing. The charismatic, highly inebriated singer is reeling through the crowd, riling up the drunken boys and charming the young ladies even while inadvertently stomping on their feet. All while he croons like a songbird whilst airing out his zaftig midsection. The drummer wears huge sunglasses and a crazy flip hairdo like Dusty Springfield as he carries on with some seriously Glitter-esque Trogg-lodite skin-bashing. The two guitarists and the bassist are equally fetching to the eyes and ears.

The Stalkers aren't the kind of band who spend their time schmoozing A&R scum or aggressively marketing themselves. They spend their time rocking, and maybe doing some deejay gigs on the side. They have a manager to do the rest. Enter Dave Allen. A vintage scenester from LA/Hollywood in the late 70's, he designed punk rock record covers (see myspace.com/artrouble) and, along with his peers X (who played their first show in his living room), the Weirdos, Dickies, Germs and so forth, "fought in the front lines of the 'fight'; with the record biz and boring corporate-sponsored rock as it stood then."

Instead of interviewing the band, who have better things to do after the show (like get even more wasted and hold court for their fans), I asked Dave to fill me in on the Stalkers story, share his diabolical plans for their world domination, and shed some light on their magic.

THE GUYS

LVS: Can you tell me a little bit about the dynamic of the band, and how you'd describe the individual characters (imagine if The Stalkers had their own tv show like the Monkees)... For instance, Josh (the drummer) seems to be kind of the leader -- the savvy one. And Andy (the Animal) is obviously the wild, drunken front man. We've seen him passed out in front of Otto's many a time. I'm assuming he's under 30 -- that would make him too young to be one of Elvis's illegitimate children... but onstage he reminds me of Elvis in a way... if Elvis was messed up when he was young instead of middle aged, and lived in a dumpster after punk rock was invented. I mean that in the nicest way, believe me.

DA: Yes I can think of them in that Monkees way; in fact I have a screenplay for a Stalkers movie in mind that would be part Head (the Monkees movie), part Hard Days Night and part Spinal Tap. Andy is my problem childe (to add the Bolanesque element) but his willfulness is something to be expected and welcomed in a real rock band; he is entirely different than any other lead singer around right now and breaks a mold established by corporate rock that says svelte pretty boys are the only thing little girls will be interested in. Josh indeed is a highly intelligent and very volatile component. For a drummer he is an exception not only in his unique dress style but in the power he displays on stage, so different from the cool DJ persona I first met. The working dynamic between him, Andy and Danny (bassist) as songwriters is something that does not happen very often. Danny is not just a pretty face but a hard working and thoughtfully intense and motivated musician with high standards in his musical tastes. Lefty (guitarist) is a whole other kettle of fish, young, naive and brimming with enthusiasm and talent that could not be expressed properly in his previous band The Rats. Stalkers will allow him room to grow into yet another very strong aspect of their musical oeuvre. Raze (lead guitarist and newest member) has grabbed the imagination of the band and will bring a level of musicianship to the band that will strengthen their hand in the war they are about to embark on. The addition of an highly stylized black American musician into the band was not something I could have foreseen; he has been a friend for some time and I have admired his own band Cousin for a while, and Raze is not just a fine guitarist but a unique vocalist with his own very strong songs and POV. He has been working with Lefty and Andy recently and I expect a whole new aspect of the band to emerge from this collaboration. I have told my ex-wife Kittra that Stalkers are our bastard offspring; never having gotten to the stage of making our own, they really are what I would have hoped from that brief union, and I have a degree of pride in their talents that I imagine is parental, haha.

RECORDING and THE UK

LV: What's the story behind the Stalkers album and what is the next step? Are there labels fighting over the band now that they've had such a great response in the UK?

DA: Originally the album Yesterday Is No Tomorrow came out on a small indie-based label in San Francisco called Dollar Records. Whilst supportive to the degree that the CD was released, the label had no capacity to either promote or penetrate anything other than a very small segment of what is essentially a collectors' market. I do give them credit for believing in Stalkers. However, there was no contract with Dollar and nothing ultimately to bind Stalkers to it.

My initial plan to get the band into a bigger frame was to take them to London in April to do a few small shows, create a buzz that might play even back in the US, but thru a fine piece of serendipity I met the managing editor of the NME at the Beauty Bar. He'd heard about the band but was actually in town to catch the Hold Steady. I had to laugh. I told him about Stalkers and my plan for a guerrilla tour of small London clubs. He asked me to send him some songs. The CD had not yet been released, so in April a small indie showcase label called Heron released a limited edition vinyl 45 of "Let's Get it Together" and "Circus Baby." Again, the reaction of the UK music press was positive. London's Time Out said it was the best song of the year. A double-spread in the papers "Radar" section followed, and the reaction from the London-based music industry mirrored the NME's enthusiasm. My e-mail account was soon filled with enquiries from everyone from EMI to Live Nation. In the meantime my little guerrilla operation had mutated, we now had a very influential agent at Primary Talent, based in London, and whilst elements of my original plan remained, we now had a gig at the old Camden Palace, now called KoKo, that hosted London's Club NME, and a gig in Southend opening for The Horrors. I had also penetrated an element of the London art scene and thru an art collective called Turbobrut Stalkers headlined an amazing rock/art festival held at on old London alehouse called the Horse and Groom in Shoreditch. The crazed pogoing beer swilling audience put a hole in the floor of the jam packed upstairs room where the guys put on the most wildly energetic show of their London debut. The band left for the UK, I stayed on; at Primary I was told Stalkers could play the Reading/Leeds festival, and I met with Derek Birkett, who said he would support the band for the shows. On returning to NY I began negotiations with OLI, and by June had Stalkers a real recording deal with a real record label.

LV: What do you think it is about the Stalkers that the Brits find so appealing--is it some of their influences (punk rock/bay city rollers/glam rock), or is it that the anthemic choruses of some of the songs sound like football (or what us yanks call soccer) chants? Cause I read a British review that said that, but the guys are obviously American, so I wouldn't think that was intentional...

DA: The perception of the band in the UK was of a raw party band, a gang of the same ilk as the Ramones. The single received radio play and a buzz was set up, no actual charting tho, it's still too soon. In my original meeting with the NME editor he had suggested I would be up against the whole resurgent Brit Pop scene that at the time was in a thrall to twerpy electronica and bands like The Arctic Monkeys. Quoting our beloved asshole president, I said "bring it on." I knew that Stalkers could potentially turn that around and create a place for the one thing lacking in the whole music scene, that is, a real New York band that people had not seen since the days of the 77 CBGB's. London wants that as much as we do.

NY BANDS/THEN AND NOW

LV: I'm very interested in your take on this, since you were lucky enough to be around for and participate in the original punk era -- do you think that NY bands in particular have to gain recognition overseas first, because the audience over there is more hip and responsive? It brings to mind the early CB's bands in the late 70s (Blondie and the Ramones in particular) who had huge followings overseas (and first in the UK) before anyone over here knew who they were.

DA: The situation in music is much now as it was in that era, fuck, even the Eagles are #1 on the charts this week; the greasy hand of corporate rock is evident everywhere and the pre-masticated pap they put out rules the airwaves; in the meantime real originality and diversity dies on the vine, but in 77 we fought back. It was not evident then that we had succeeded to any degree except sparking the hardcore scene, but I think today that legacy of DIY has come full circle and there is an international scene that is more receptive to something other than what some jerk at Sony or BMG thinks the "kids" will buy. And they need to either listen to it or get out of the way. It's not a matter of gaining recognition abroad first, but the music press in the UK is diverse and well informed and a useful element in the struggle.

LV: What was your first encounter with the Stalkers, your first impression of the band, and how did you come to be their manager?

DA: I knew Josh Styles through my old 77 comrade Phast Phreddie; he was doing Backdoor Man then and I was art director for Bomp Records and mag. Josh has an enormous collection of 45's, and it seems has most of the vinyl I did covers for and would like to pick my brain for stories of those days.

My first encounter with Stalkers was at Arlene's, a benefit for a friend of theirs, Toni, with Coy Dogs and Electric Shadows also playing, as I recall, both extremely good bands. But Stalkers made me laugh out loud at their brash and shambolic high energy antics; the songs hit the audience in a far more visceral way than the other bands, people were jumping on the stage, the band members careening around and colliding with each other. When they came back for an encore and played a cover of an Eno song I was truly shaken.

Josh was eager to hear my opinion and soon I got to know Andy as well; a couple more gigs confirmed to me that I was seeing something I really had not experienced since those Hollywood punk days. Somehow both Josh and Andy had got it in their heads that I should manage them.

There were plenty of people that told me it would take a year or two (or that I was mad) to put this together, but I knew it had to happen now for them or the moment would be lost. And as our fates would have it, it has worked out pretty much as I had hoped. There is still plenty to do, but I think Stalkers will be emblematic of a new appreciation of the very vibrant NY garage/punk scene and I hope this will ultimately shine a light on all that latent talent.

Brooklyn NY, 2007 by Pissy Duvet