July 21, 1980 review: Rachel Sweet at Uncle Sam's



Somewhere between Joan Jett and Cyndi Lauper, there was this little dynamo.

July 21, 1980 review

Young, Stage-Wise Rachel Sweet
Struts Hard Rockin’ Savvy
When the ‘80s start casting around for new stars, one of them is bound to be Rachel Sweet. She can’t miss. At 17 years old, she’s already a knock-out, as the crowd of about 300 attested Sunday night in Uncle Sam’s in Cheektowaga.
Of all the roles Sweet might assume at her tender age, she chooses to be a full-tilt rock ‘n roller. An animated imp in blue jeans and a T-shirt, she bawls out the countdowns to her band and belts out the tunes with no apparent concern for the wear and tear on her vocal cords.
Her music is fun. There are no secret messages, no political or social overtones, just straight-ahead stuff about love and hate, mostly drawn from her second album, “Protect the Innocent.” She closed with a three-song medley of Elvis Presley rockers from the ‘50s.
Innocent is one thing she’s not. The delicacy of her youth is offset by her father (who’s also her manager) offstage and by her unabashed boldness on stage. “Wanta be my date tonight?” she proposes as she introduces a high-powered item entitled “Jealous.”
She prowls the stage like a seasoned performer, thrusting her hands up, down and all around for emphasis, crouching and staring the front-row standees in the eye to dramatize a point.
She plays the crowd well, and she doesn’t yield to it. When fans reach their hands up during the second encore, a new Springsteen-like song called “The Boys on Second Avenue,” she replies with a cautious, teasing touch, then breaks it with a sudden countdown.
Her band, a group called the Toys from her hometown of Akron, Ohio, supports her in a variety of rock modes – hard-pounding guitars, flamboyant R&B keyboards, sizzling saxophone – despite what seems to be a glitch in the sound monitors, a complication perhaps stemming from this first live WGRQ-FM radio broadcast from the club.
Opening were a pair of Buffalo bands, the Third Floor Strangers and Pauline and the Perils, a last-minute substitute for the Fops. The Perils were well-received and the Strangers elicited praise all around for a solid rocking set.
* * * * *
IN THE PHOTO: Rachel Sweet in a 1980 publicity photo.
* * * * *
FOOTNOTE: Singing since she was 3, Rachel Sweet had dropped out of high school to pursue her career when she came through Buffalo just a few days before her 18th birthday. In the year that followed, she went over from Stiff Records to Columbia and had a hit single with heartthrob actor and singer Rex Smith. But then she only released one more album in 1982 and decided to complete her education.
She wrote songs for John Waters movies, appeared in a few films herself and hosted a show that also featured Jon Stewart on the precursor to Comedy Central. She also appeared in an episode of "Seinfeld" as a George Costanza cousin.
The mother of two now, she's married to a TV writer and producer, writes and produces for television herself, and for a while lived in an architecturally significant Spanish Colonial revival house in Los Feliz, Calif., that once was owned by Madonna. She and her husband bought it in 2005 from "Married with Children" actress Katey Sagal for $5.5 million and sold it for $10 million in 2010.
The Uncle Sam’s show is another date that doesn’t show up on setlist.fm, but here’s what she did on the previous night in New York City at the Dr. Pepper Music Festival at Wollman Skating Rink.
Truckstop Queen
Jealous (Robert Palmer cover)
Who Does Lisa Like?
Spellbound
B-A-B-Y (Carla Thomas cover)
Lover's Lane
New Age (Velvet Underground cover)
Tonight
Cuckoo Club
New Rose (The Damned cover)
Tonight Ricky
I've Got a Reason (Moon Martin cover)
(encore)
All Shook Up (Elvis Presley cover)
Jailhouse Rock (Elvis Presley cover)
Baby Let's Play House (Arthur Gunter cover)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Feb. 29, 1980 Gusto music feature: Alyn Syms and ASG

Image
  A guitar wizard conjures up his own path to follow. Feb. 29, 1980 Alyn Syms doesn’t mind being scarce …          For now, all Alyn Syms wants to do is play a date in March, then go into hiding for a while and write some new songs. For his band, ASG (Alyn Syms Group), there’ll be no overexposure.          “Having the record out,” he says, “would be like playing out,” he says. If we played out too much, I’d feel funny. We’d be like a glorified bar band with good material.”          ASG has made a career out of making itself scarce. Since the band first emerged last summer, it has played hardly more than half a dozen gigs. Starting at a corner tavern in its hometown Lackawanna, ASG has gone on to headline in Shea’s Buffalo in front of 2,000 kids.          The band has done it with good guitar, a good beat and that...
Read more

Feb. 1, 1980 Gusto Cover Story: Preservation

Image
  Call it an uncanny coincidence, but right after that awful fire at Mulligan's Brick Bar, this commentary from 45 years ago cropped up in my time machine. Feb. 1, 1980 Preservation You want to have a peek at Buffalo’s future? It’s been hiding in plain sight.          For years, the abandoned Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad terminal at the foot of Main Street stood as the very model of ruin and dilapidation. Every window was smashed. Every fixture was stolen. The vandalism was so complete that there was nothing left to haul away. The building ultimately started taking its own revenge on trespassers, dropping chunks of ceiling on unwary interlopers. One was killed that way.          Nevertheless, there were few cheers last October when the Common Council was obliged to sign the place over to the Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority for $190,000. The NFTA offered the city no cho...
Read more

Feb. 15, 1980 Gusto music feature: Stone Country Band

Image
  Knock, knock, knockin’ on Nashville’s door with the Stone Country Band. Feb. 15, 1980  Capturing the attention of the club crowds          “Right now, we’re just tryin’ to keep busy till something big happens,” says Dwane Hall. As a result, this particular evening finds the Stone Country Band working for the new regime at Johnny’s Old Timer on Delaware Avenue in Kenmore.          The folks who own Plant Six over on Niagara Street have taken over the venerable Gay ‘90s location, sweeping out the singalongs and the peanut shells. To attract a new constituency to fill the tables, they’re experimenting with what they put on that big stage in the far corner of the room. One night a week, it’s a rock band, the Road. Then the place does a turnabout and goes rustic.          Since Stone Country Band is one of the leading country-rock outfits locally, thei...
Read more