[don't like the impli- * cation that the action that goes on in a Viet Nam is more vital than the action that goes on on a suburban patio. event but what they think happened...fallacious or not. CSQ: Are the values of D'Anse Combeau not suburban? A certain distance, a certain alienation, a certain privilege...life being experienced through the media, rather than directly? Newton: Yes, but I don’t like the Implication that the real action Is going on In the center, on the street. We’re saying that the real action Is going on In the outskirts, on the edges. I don’t like the Implication that the action that goes on In a Viet Nam Is more vital than the action that goes on on a suburban patio. CSQ: Fuck the value judgments. I'm not talking value judgments. I’m just saying that urban experience is different from suburban experience. Newton: And I’m just saying that our band counters the excessive Influence that urban, ‘deprived’ values have had on popular muslc...dlsco, funk, rhythm and blues. Here’s all this Influence which everyone embraces. I’m saying that I want to Inject some Influence from another angle. CSQ: But only through satire? You don't put forth your own agenda. Newton: Not In D’Anse Combeau. But I do In Wallpaper. I just want a little balance. Like a governor. Life Is not bad. Life, bottom line, Is the same for everyone. It’s useless to go around saying that life has fucked you up. CSQ: So D’Anse Combeau is really “Positive Mental Attitude?’’ Newton: Yes! Comedy doesn’t need to be depressing. CSQ: Well, it’s been demonstrated in the past that the 'suburban force,' the white middle class, whatever, has often been a source of tremendous energy. Actually, the 60s was that force...the middle class youth of America asserting its right to have ‘soul.' Newton: You know, the guys In D’Anse Combeau and Tutu Band deny their ‘Wllsonhlghschool- ness’ at length. They were outcasts at Wilson. That’s why they started Tutu Band...out of their frustrations at being told not to be so weird. CSQ: They were unhappy on the patio? Newton: Yes, and In the same way that a person from the ghetto will reject his heritage and sort of advocate It through his music, we end up rejecting and advocating the patio at the same time. CSQ: What is WalIpaper Music’s agenda? Newton: It’s the one band where we’re allowed to be as Intelligent as we really are. One really unpleasant thing about being In music Is that you are seldom rewarded for being Intelligent; you’re rewarded for being visionary or soulful or good looking. You’re not rewarded for being a mental virtuoso. And what happens to you when It’s In that mental area where you derive a good portion of your self value? I don’t find myself any less soulful for being cerebral, but that’s how an audience relates to my cerebral music. You can’t argue with an audience. The point Is that Wallpaper doesn’t have the potential of entertaining a mass crowd. I don’t necessarily mind that. Wallpaper Is the one place we don’t pull the punches, the one place we don’t worry about going over heads. Jim Baldwin Is D’Anse Combeau CSQ: Are you D personally? 'Arise Combeau, Baldwin: No! I play the part, but I certainly don’t get confused. CSQ: I know that the character evolved over time. But it would have become a whole different thing if someone else in the band had become D'Anse Combeau. It might not even work. Baldwin: That’s right. I personally have always liked the Idea of singing with a big band. I like the Idea of big productions and comedy at the same time. When I try to tell people about D’Anse Combeau, about what It’s like, sometimes I compare him to other singers: Liberace, Little Richard, Pat Boone, Robert Goulet, Steve and Edie.... There’s something absurd about them...l’m not sure their style deserves to survive. I think It deserves to be parodied.... CSQ: Commentary? Baldwin: Yeah...bad music...and vacuous, insipid personalities. They’re suave and they’re sleazy. CSQ: You like sleaze a lot? Baldwin: I have a thing about It. Yeah! Because sleaze Is so deeply Ingrained In American life. D’Anse Combeau Is very American, very cut off from the rest of the world. Americans don’t pay any attention to what goes on In the rest of the world. CSQ: Why did you pick the French oersonality to convey the right kind of...idiocy? The debonair abandon? Baldwin: He had to be French. As a foreigner, he can naively and blatantly adore American culture and totally misinterpret nearly everything that happens. This character who blindly adores America for what It claims to be or for what It has claimed to be...peace-lovlng and charitable. CSQ: Don’t you think the peace- loving and charitable aspects of D’Anse become all the more anguished or oblique given the fact that America seems to be building toward war, and without your ever bringing that up, the strangeness is very pointed? Baldwin: Yeah, I think that In any good D’Anse Combeau show the audience should be made to feel uncomfortable and ashamed. They shouldn’t be let off the hook.... CSQ: It depends on whether an audience relates themselves to that mythical mass audience out there that you’re commenting on...if they identify themselves. Baldwin: That’s true. It’s our job to see that they do, to see that they’re led down the road a ways away from whatever comfort they might have brought along. CSQ: Do you think you’re vain? Baldwin: Sure I’m very vain. Sure that’s why I get up In front of people and shake and...the whole thing. CSQ: It's fun to be D’Anse? Baldwin: Oh yeah, it’s great! The first time I saw myself In the mirror!!! The first show I just put on a white tux coat and some red pants and that was about It. Then somebody said, “why don’t you wear some make-up.’’ So we put It on just a little too thick, like when you see somebody on TV with too much make-up. I saw myself In the mirror and I was scared, really frightened. I think D’Anse should be a little frightening. Not vlolently...but people were very unsettled when we first did D’Anse. Not so much, now. CSQ: They didn’t know what to make "The reason Port- ■ land is so fun is that you get to see the future before it comes here. So you can prepare ahead of time for the negative aspects of the future. It’s like vicarious experience.... \Mhen I try to tell W people about D’Anse Combeau sometimes I compare him to other singers: Liberace, Little Richard, Pat Boone.... There’s something absurd about them... I’m not so sure the style deserves to survive. I think it deserves to be parodied.... Clinton St. Quarterly 45
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