Rocktropolis allstar daily music news: Edited by Carrie Borzillo
B-52's fans have a lot in store for them this summer. Not only are the original members of Athens' wackiest group gearing up for their first full tour in almost a decade, and a retrospective album, Time Capsule: Songs for a Future Generation, but the band also has a home video collection in the works.
First up is the new album (their first since 1992's Good Stuff), which is due May 26 on Reprise and features 18 tracks, including such hits as "Rock Lobster," "Love Shack," and "Roam," and two songs penned in the past two years, "Debbie" -- somewhat of an ode to Blondie's Deborah Harry -- and "Hallucinating Pluto."
When asked what took the surviving original members -- Fred Schnieder (vocals), Keith Strickland (guitar), Kate Pierson (keyboards, vocal), and Cindy Wilson (keyboards, vocals) -- so long to start working on new material, Schneider says, "We took time off, and then Cindy had a baby, andthen we got together last year and the year before a little. We were writing, but nothing was really gelling, so last year we decided we wanted a box set or something, but the record label just gave us one CD, so we said, 'Great, we'll go with it,' and we had two songs we worked out, so... We just take our time.
"We've been performing over the past year and we do get together," he continues. "We're still friends. We've gone our separate ways in a lot of ways, but we're still committed to our friendship and the B-52's. It's just hard to write songs sometimes."The two songs the band did churn out will not disappoint fans. Schneidersays "Debbie" is only "loosely" based on Ms. Harry, who helped them out in their early days. When asked how it came about, he says, "When we were jamming... Well, everyone has a different take on it. I thought Keith said, 'Let's do a song about Debbie and her all-girl band.' But then he thinks it came about in the jamming, so I don't know. Kate lives near Debbie and sees her walking her dog. It's sort of about a woman named Debbie with an all-girl band."
Last week, Reprise sent a cease and desist order to New Orleans radio station KKND for playing the song earlier than its intended release date of April 28.
The other new track, "Hallucinating Pluto," actually began as an exquisite corpse in which one person writes a line or two and the next person finishes it, and so on. "We wound up with this song that was maybe eight to 10 minutes long... That [version] will be on the box set -- if and when." The sessions last year didn't exactly spawn an album's worth of ideas. In fact, Schneider says a new B-52's album won't come immediately after thi tour. "We have to really get together and work on it. Everybody lives in different places, but who knows, maybe this will start the fire under our butts. But I don't want to get fans' hopes up.
"As for the new home video, which is tentatively due July 14, Schneider tells us it will feature all of the band's music videos, as well as live footage culled from some 1990 shows, but it's not yet completed. "That's gonna come out when we're on tour," he says. "It'll have all the videos from Good Stuff, and some live footage." There won't be any backstage shots, however. "Nah," Schneider confirms. "When you do that stuff, you want better lighting than you have backstage."
The group hits the road for their amphitheatre and shed tour -- with co-headliners the Pretenders -- from June 18 at the PNC Bank Amphitheatre in Holmdel, New Jersey through Aug. 14 at the Gorge in George, Washington. The band is also playing some radio station festivals, including May 16, WHFS, Washington, D.C.; May 30, WXKS, Boston; June 13, KROQ's Weenie Roast, Los Angeles, and Sept. 19, WNNX (99X), Atlanta (Schneider says he's especially looking forward to seeing the Foo Fighters at the KROQ show.). They're also slated for a Sept. 7 VH1 Barbeque show, which will be syndicated on the radio via Westwood One. "This time we definitely want to do slightly different shows each night," says Schneider. "We'll pretty much do the album, the best of, and a few other things thrown in for good measure... You never know what will happen. There might be a streaker onstage, and we have a go-go booth, so if someone wants to get up and shake their can, be our guest."For more information and the complete list of tour dates, check out www.theb52s.com.
News from Reprise Records, 17th April 1998