The following article was published in the Florida
Flambeau 37 years ago today:
Persian Gulf bids
farewell
By
Steve Dollar
Special
to the Flambeau
June
30, 1983
Persian
Gulf, a weekend mainstay of Tallahassee’s small-but-fervent new music dance
scene, bids adieu to the Capitol City Friday night as they depart for the more cluttered
venues populating the Northeast. “There’s such a limited scene here,” said Gulf
guitarist, songwriter and frontman Hal Shows. “We played our first gig two
years ago in August, and we’ve managed to play most of the clubs in town, and
helped in what eventually should be an opening up (in those clubs) to a lot of
different bands.”
If
you count the now-legendary Slut Boys – once and future kings of T-town pub rock
– and the Farfisa-crazed Implications as the First Wave of this city’s
revitalized rock scene, and such frenetic, garage bred youths as the Generix and
Sector Four as their logical descendants, then Persian Gulf, and art-tech
slicksters the Know-It-Alls helped fill in a major gap in Tallahassee’s
off-again, on-again dance club bills. In a town where clone-rock and country
laments fill most of the clubs, Persian Gulf helped to draw an active crowd of
regulars capable of generating their own sparks, not content to sit and sip
their bourbons.
Fittingly,
Persian Gulf plays their farewell show at Railroad Square, where they first
gigged two summers ago, just before an auspicious post-debut at Tommy’s where they
split a bill with KIA opening up for British combo Psycedelic Furs.
The
band’s move to Philadelphia is spurred, Shows said, primarily by expanded
opportunity.
Though
Tallahassee’s new music scene – which encompasses styles as different as Gulf’s
unpretentious, jaunty dance-rock and Hated Youth’s abrasive take on of
Dead
Kennedy's spiky, speedy hardcore punk – is a fertile, busy one, upward movement
is somewhat restricted. You either become a steady touring band – go pro and
buy a light show a la Eli – or run up an artistic cul-de-sac.
“Right
now the whole independent scene in the Northeast is burgeoning. Studio time is
a lot cheaper,” Shows said. “It’s a looser, more spontaneous thing. There's
more opportunity to meet people who can work with us in a studio, and all of us
want to record. And we can play a lot of different areas – steeltowns, Jersey,
maybe some of the New York clubs for fun.”
‘‘In
Tallahassee there aren't a lot of clubs to start with. That’s for practical
reasons, most crowds just want to hear the radio turned up. So you’re faced
with playing that type
(cover
material) of music, or playing somewhat infrequently," Shows said. “We
managed to keep playing regularly by doing a lot of off-the-wall gigs. Like
beneļ¬ts (such as the one Persian Gulf plays tomorrow to feed the coffers of
rad-lib rag Red Bass) or places like Emanuels.’
“But
it's nice to play in new places,” he said. “We did a lot of gigs at Smitty’s
(the Bannerman Road roadhouse which has been the only local club to embrace new
music), but we also ended up playing the Phyrst recently,” Shows said. “And
that was really interesting.
“The
guy who called me said he heard we were a reggae/calypso band, and somebody
else told me we were rockabilly punk,” he laughed, “but that really says more about
categories than music.”
The
trio relies on a mixed set of golden oldies – recycled rockabilly anthems and
K-Tel classics – and originals colored by regional scenery (“Beer Town”, “Cat
City”), sex (“Clean Love”, “Mechanical Bull”) and pervasive politics (“El
Salvador”, “Race War”). “But our basic orientation is garage. We don’t have
much use for solos or virtuoso parts,” Shows said. “Our songs take as little
time as possible. We leave it when the interest is high, we don’t like to drag
it out.”
“When
we played at the Phyrst (which draws a largely prep-frat-dorm crowd) we saw a
real clash of mindsets. There was the regular crowd – which didn’t really know
what to make of us – and some of the regular fans. But people started
interfacing. I hope we always have that kind of chemistry.”
Persian
Gulf performs at 9 p.m. Friday at Railroad Square. Tickets are $2 advance, $3
at the gate, and are available at Backtrax Records, Vinyl Fever and the Record
Bar.
Postscript:
From
the band’s bio:
Persian
Gulf packed up and headed off to Philadelphia just in time to watch the police
burn down a city block in an attempt to eradicate a radical group called MOVE.
Persian Gulf kept moving and eventually ended up in New York City.
Persian
Gulf always got raves from critics. The Village Voice and Robert Christgau
spilled much ink in its praises of the band's albums ("Persian Gulf: The
Movie" and "Changing the Weather"): "Conscious rather than
correct, without a hint of hard-cores parracidal/mysogynistic hysteria, this
eight-song EP [Changing the Weather] is constricted and expansive, sour and
ebullient all at once. Hal Shows understands his own anarchic/apocalyptic
impulses, and his Lennonesque rhythm guitar provides the extra momentum he
needs to stay on top of things." –Robert Christgau, Village Voice, 1984.
Selected additional press for
Persian Gulf:
"Hal Shows' songs are as
rawboned as the best Creedence Clearwater Revival; they link personal
frustration and political rage without wasting a word or a note."--Jon
Pareles, New York Times, 1986
"[Persian Gulf], led by the
guitarist-singer Hal Shows, has applied the lessons of punk-rock --directness
and economy-- to riffs inherited from soul, rockabilly and the blues . . . Mr.
Shows sings in a raspy monotone recalling the Sex Pistols Johnny Rotten. But
his message isn't punkish cynicism or anger; some songs are about falling in
love --uneasily-- and some are surreal narratives or sidelong political
statements . . . Although the music sounds workmanlike and rough-hewn, there's
not a note out of place; the band tossed off a song in an odd meter, 7/4, as easily
as a funk tune. Without making a fuss, Persian Gulf shows how much life is left
in the rock and roll basics."--Jon Pareles, New York Times, 1984
A flyer for a 1988 show in New York City:
