B'zz Retrospective in San Francisco Magazine "ZERO"
By JIM KAZ Feb. 2006
Article featuring an interview of Mike Tafoya re: The B'zz
For Zero magazine; the Retro Active column by Jim Kaz
Copyright Zeromag.com San Francisco, CA. Feb, 2006
The B'zz/ Get Up/ Epic Records, 1983
by Jim Kaz
I first discovered the band The B'zz while scouring used record bins as a kid. The band's sole album Get Up, and its cover featuring a killer bee with a spiked stinger, was enough to pique my interest. Their whimsical logo fit right in with the 80s new wave scene but was embellished in heavy-rock-style metallic silver, which confused me a bit. Was this a new wave band gone metal, or, a hard rock band gone camp? I wasn't exactly sure, and to this day, almost 20 years later, I?m still not. But generally, this is the stuff I've always found most intriguing: artists that break with the status quo.
The Chicago-based B'zz were born out of the ashes of The Boyzz, a loud and greasy, boogie biker band. The band released one album on Epic Records called Too Wild To Tame in 1978. Yearning to expand his musical horizons, guitarist Michael Tafoya took fellow members keyboardist Anatole Halinkovitch, (later rechristened Tony Hall) and bassist Dave Angel with him and set out to form a more musically well-rounded venture. They soon hooked up with singer Tom Holland and drummer Steve Riley who were both working as replacement members in a reformed version of psychedelic dirt-head legends Steppenwolf. In a recent chat with Tafoya, he enlightened me about the band's auspicious beginnings. "We formed the B'zz with a plan to get signed again, so we just wrote more and more songs. Starting in 1981, the band spent around a half of a year in L.A. to shop around for a label."
A privileged appearance on Dick Clark's American Bandstand clinched it (the band being the only unsigned act to ever appear on the show), and a deal was struck with Epic Records once again. "It was no easy task getting signed, since The Boyzz had a soured relationship with Epic," says Tafoya. Get Up was produced by Tom Werman (Ted Nugent, Motly Crue hit the stores in January 1983, at a time when the music scene was further splintering. [Epic] could not get together on how to market the band. We weren't Haircut 100, or Iron Maiden. And [bands like] REO Speedwagon, Styx and Journey seemed so 'old' to us; we couldn't see being compared only to them. The Epic A&R guys kept trying to pin us down to a particular style or genre and I for one just didn't have an answer for those categorizing suits. Epic seemed confused because we rocked hard, but also made a radio-friendly record," Tafoya says. And he's right, Get Up is chock full of radio-ready pop gems, that are offset by a few tasty arena rockers like the excellent opener "Get up Get Angry." Opening with a sparse, infectious guitar riff courtesy of Tafoya, Holland's somber Morrison-esque croon enters subtly before a wash of textured synths color the mix. After the next verse, everything kicks into gear and the song gets its AC/DC groove on in high style. With a track like this as the band?s centerpiece (a video was also shot for it), it's easy to see why The B'zz defied simple categorization. "We referred to our sound as a "melting pot" of American rock and English attitude, with a little pop, a little hard rock and a lot of flow. We wanted our songs to ring on the radio and have power, which I feel we accomplished," adds Tafoya. "Too Much To Ask For," "Take Your Time" and "Caught In the Middle" are pure power pop, somewhere between Cheap Trick and skinny-tie, pop hipsters The Plimsouls. The majestic ballad "Steal My Love" further confuses things, sounding more at home alongside power ballads by mainstream AOR bands like Foreigner or Journey. With its epic, choir-style chorus and warm guitar and keyboard flourishes, it should've been huge.
The album also features a few good old American pool-hall bruisers in "When You Love," and "I Love the Way," bolstering the band's appeal with the Eddie-and-the-Cruisers, bar-band crowd, yet another aspect of the period's diverse musical landscape. Then there's the obviously Motown-inspired "Not My Girl" towards the end of the album that slinks and shuffles melodiously through a tidal wave of fluid vocal bits.
Being out of synch with the trends and times eventually wore the band down and they all went their separate ways. "We were together for about three years, and with the pressure going on throughout that time, we just imploded," says Tafoya. After the B'zz, Hall embarked on a solo career, and wound up composing the music for TV's America's Most Wanted. Tom Holland would go on to form the band "Holland," and pursue a harder-rocking direction?the band's lone album Little Monsters is another lost classic. He'd also later surface with Tafoya again in Raw Dogs. And if Steve Riley?s name looks familiar, it?s because he'd later join Hollywood shlock-rockers W.A.S.P., then L.A. Guns, where he remains to this day. Dave Angel still doe's occasional production work and Michael Tafoya still records and tours with the much heavier and appropriately titled "Tafoya's Lost Boyzz. Get Up was reissued on CD in 2004 by French label Bad Reputation Records, and it sounds pretty damn good.
Although the B'zz would only make one album and get caught up in a morass of label politics and marketing cluster-fucks, they left an indelible impression with Get Up, which is now considered a cult classic. So if you think about it, The B'zz may have really just been an ?alternative? band all along. For more info on Michael Tafoya, The B'zz and The Boyzz, go to Tafoyaslostboyzz.com. For questions, comments, or something you'd like to see in future columns, hit me up at: retrohead77@yahoo.com. Cheers.
- San Francisco Magazine "ZERO"