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Friday, May 30, 2003

By Ed Masley, Post-Gazette Pop Music Critic

The Fleshtones may drop by the Warhol on their way to rock the 31st Street Pub tonight. But then, they say that every time they play here, says Peter Zaremba.

	The Fleshtones/The Cowslingers WHERE: 31st Street Pub, Strip District. WHEN: 10 p.m. today. TICKETS: $7. 412-391-8334.

It just never happens, despite a number of what the organ-playing, harmonica-wielding frontman refers to as "peripheral" encounters with the man who gave the Fleshtones two or three of their allotted 15 minutes on the final episode of "Andy Warhol's 15 Minutes."

Long before that, at a New York City cabaret, Zaremba met his future drummer, Bill Milhizer, at a Holly Woodlawn show.

Milhizer, at the time, was drumming for the gender-bending star of "Trash" (immortalized for having "shaved her legs and then he was a she") in "Walk on the Wild Side."

Zaremba was partying.

Hard enough that he can claim with some conviction to remember nothing about the performance.

"I was carried out of the club," he says. "Actually, out of the bathroom. Then, out of the club."

He's got a clearer picture of his next encounter with the Warhol scene.

"I spent a very interesting evening with Warhol once at Studio 54," he says. "That was the height of Studio 54-dom, so it must have been, like, 1977. I was in the Fleshtones because I remember talking to him about the Fleshtones a little bit and him saying, 'Oh that sounds fabulous' -- his usual [nonsense]. 'That sounds really fabulous, Peter.' But he made me dance with Bianca, had me chat with Truman and whoever else was sitting there. It wound up being a very interesting evening, but one which I did not pursue."

He laughs, then says, "I was nobody's fool. Or so I thought."

If you're having a hard time picturing Zaremba dancing with Bianca at the legendary disco, you were more than likely unaware that he spent nearly every night there in the glory days of disco -- while fronting the Fleshtones at the rock clubs.

"I had no problem," he says, "with the disco-rock dichotomy. The people who really knew what was going on in rock 'n' roll didn't have any problem with that. They just looked at the disco thing as a very fabulous, incredible, unbelievable social event where you would hang out with Warhol for the evening. Or dance with Caroline Kennedy, which also happened there."

As for those who didn't see it that way at the time, Zaremba says, "It wasn't disco's fault that that was fulfilling a function that rock 'n' roll wasn't fulfilling. Rock 'n' roll had just sort of become this heavy-metal stoner music that you just sort of sat and maybe nodded your head to. It wasn't fulfilling the function that rock 'n' roll should -- as a catalyst for action and dancing and gathering. People like the Ramones, they had no problem with disco. All the pioneers of the punk thing, whenever they had enough money or could hustle their way in, they went there. To us, there was just bad music that was useless and then there was music that made you want to go crazy and dance and socialize and do whatever as a social enabler and a liberator, help you break loose."

A typical night on the town, he says, would "start at CBGB's, move to Max's, then a few other places, then we'd wind up at Studio 54. And from there, some other less reputable places. It was an interesting period."

Although the Fleshtones formed in Queens and hit the punk scene in '76 -- right place, right time -- Zaremba says they never really fit the punk-rock mold with their infectious take on '60s party-rock.

"We didn't blend," he says, "We played at Max's, played at CBGB's and everyone kind of liked us but they couldn't show it too much because they had to be more punky. The bands liked us. It was the writers that thought we were goofballs. They just couldn't figure out why we would want to be a twist band."

It was similar, he says, to the reaction Blondie got at first for its infectious take on '60s party-rock.

It's no surprise, then, that members of Blondie numbered among the more powerful early supporters of the Fleshtones.

"They were always trying to think of something to do with us," Zaremba says. "In fact, there was a very short period of time where the band dissolved -- around 1979. And it was Blondie that was very instrumental in putting us back together. When we started recording again, we were actually two/fifths Blondie. Clem Burke drummed for us and Jimmy [Destri] played the keyboards and produced. It was a real brief thing. But that relaunched the band into our fabulous misadventures for our very strange career that we've had. As I've often said, the band has stared in the face of success and laughed. Many times. Especially in the early '80s."

Signed to I.R.S., the band released two classic albums for the label: "Roman Gods" in 1981 and the even better "Hexbreaker" in 1983.

It wasn't long before Zaremba had his own TV show -- hosting MTV's "The Cutting Edge."

As Zaremba recalls with a laugh, "I could make or break everybody. But I used my power benevolently. Everyone was on that show."

He never broke the Fleshtones, but the cult band never stopped recording, with a brand new record, "Do You Swing?" arriving just in time to cash in on the new garage revival. Only problem is, Zaremba isn't sure they fit in any better with the Hives and White Stripes than they did on the '70s punk scene in New York.

"I wish we did fit in," he says, "because you know, it would be nice for us to finally get some recognition at least for what we've been doing. Over the years, we've always said that we're a garage band -- not meaning guys who only play 'Dirty Water' and 'Little Girl' by the Syndicate of Sound but a band who plays music like that and sort of has the same attitude that those bands had. If you go back to what those bands were doing, OK, they had the few hits but other than that, they were covering R&B and other dance tunes to the best of their white-kid ability. And that was us. We were playing songs like 'Little Girl' and R&B, the same junk the Kinks might have covered or the Rolling Stones, to the best of our white-kid ability. We played a little bit in the garage, but it was mostly in the basement. I would love it if this somehow helped us. But I don't know if it will."

He credits the Kinks, the Yardbirds and the Stones with making him want to start a band as a kid growing up on the British Invasion in Queens.

"As the early '70s came around," he says, "what we all had our hopes on was somehow putting together a band like the Kinks or the Stones -- that kind of R&B. I learned to play harmonica and was just dying to be in a band, but at first I was just trying to do it through other people, trying to vicariously put together a band. And a lot of those bands involved [guitarist] Keith [Streng]. And eventually, I just joined in with him and the Fleshtones were born."

The band is 27 now. And Zaremba, for one, is "shocked" that they're together.

"But it hasn't been difficult," he says. "And I just hope it stays that way. It's not like there's a tremendous amount of pressure in the band to do extensive touring. We tour. We play. We haven't stopped playing. We record. But it's not like OK, now we have to disappear for six or seven weeks and do a lot of miserable shows and suffer and get bored with playing. We never got bored. It's always fun. And on top of that, we always get to have the feeling that somehow we were right. We don't look back and say, 'Oh, no, we shouldn't have done that.' We don't have a New Romantic phase to live down. People from these really good bands will constantly come up to us and say, 'Oh yeah, man, when I was a kid, I was at your shows and they were great. It made me want to be in a band.' "

On top of the that, the band has reached the point where Streng can feel confident issuing the Fleshtones challenge.

As Zaremba explains, "At this point, we finally feel that we've become familiar enough with our instruments -- after 27 years -- that we will go up against any band and as Keith put it, we will even spot the other band five seconds of applause on their applause-o-meter. We feel confident that we will triumph anyway."