Manitowoc's MetroJam: The Romantics, Saturday, June 17, 2006

When the Romantics played “Talking in Your Sleep,” I couldn’t help but feel like I had been transported inside the early days of MTV, mesmerized by the music and falling in love with VJ Molly. Of the hits, “Talking in Your Sleep” is the Romantics video I remember with the New Wave style. Seeing the band live all these years later at Manitowoc’s MetroJam on Saturday, June 17, I realized how much they had to pull back on the guitars to get that space and pop in the song for that New Age sound. Now, however, Coz Canler’s solo could be a bit more raunchy than the original.

That was a common experience throughout the hour-and-a-half set: seeing the band as a throw back to that very specific 80’s era while also discovering that the band’s always been much more about rockabilly, R&B, blues, and hard rocking than the string of hits ever let on. Perhaps that’s why in conversation after the show, founding member/bassist/guitarist Mike Skill said that most bands don’t seem to want to admit that they’ve been influenced by the Romantics. Green Day once mentioned it, but then kind of passing it off as a silly remark. Watch the Romantics now, and you realize there’s nothing embarrassing about their influence—except being embarrassed that you haven’t given the Detroit rockers credit before this.

The Romantics aren’t just dusting off a few mothballed hits; they continue to be great showmen. Wally Palmar still has a soulful whine while Coz Canler lays down guitar solos as he spins. Skill plays his bass at times like a guitar, and when he picks up the guitar, he can also lend a screaming solo.

Meanwhile, the current lineup is rounded out by drummer Brad Elvis who has the antics normally associated with quirky bassmen. He uses Pete Townshend’s windmill strum on the snare, tosses his sticks in the air, balances a stick vertically on his finger while still playing, and carries on, but always lands the rhythm right on time. Yet, he also can also let loose with a Keith Moon ending.

A Romantics show isn’t about New Wave—at least, that stylized, keyboard-heavy sound that came to be associated with New Wave. A Romantics show is much more about the rockabilly, blues rock, and classic rock sounds that informed the punk sound (labeled as New Wave to make it more palatable). As I stood at their feet, I saw the Romantics reference the Who, the Kinks, the Stones, Chuck Berry, Robert Johnson, and all of the great bluesmen. You hear it in the music; you see it in the way they pull the music from their instruments; you feel it in the lyrics.

Actually, I heard it hours earlier from my backyard. I’m about a mile away from Manitowoc’s Washington Park, but I could clearly hearing the Romantics warming up with the Kinks’ “I Need You.” Knowing that the song was in their pocket, it was great to hear it full blast as the first song of their encore, playing tribute to the Masters.

From the 2003 release, 61/49, “Out of My Mind (Into My Head)” let Palmar honk on that harmonica. The song sounds like the Who if they had been more comfortable in that R&B/rockabilly soul. The Who always felt like they were trying to break out of that sound, but the Romantics embrace it and let it find full force.

A dirty blues song, “Devil in Me” (61/49), recalls that forbidden love fantasy which is often highlighted as a reason why rock ‘n’ roll is the bane of morality. Yet, as Palmar wails, “Bless my soul/It’s evil can’t you see/She’s the little angel that put the devil in me,” I see it not as a song that simply jumps ahead with whatever goes. Rather, it is a song of sexual tension and struggling with morality, which comes through in the anguished blues tempo.

I asked Skill if he ever thought about the hit “One in a Million” as being very much like a contemporary Christian praise song. With the right adaptations, this love song could be used as a love song to God. I’m not sure Skill was convinced that this would be the best use, and he simply said that more often people ask about the close resemblance to Nick Lowe’s “ .” The Romantics never heard the similarity until listening back to the recording late one night. Skill offers it up as another case of how rock ‘n’ roll is all about proudly incorporating things that people have already done, using them to make something new.

More than thinking that use in a worship service would be the best appropriation of “One in a Million,” I thought the comparison points at the apparent emptiness of some Christian worship songs. When these worship songs become so focused on our love for Jesus, with all of the same gooey, fickle expressions from our teenage love rock songs, perhaps it’s time to give our worship songs more substance. For more on this, see Terry Mattingly’s collection of essays, Pop Goes Religion.

For more on a connection between the Romantics’ show and the Christian faith, see my article from the Manitowoc Herald-Times Reporter (below).

Thanks to the Romantics for their help. And thanks to the organizers of Metro Jam for another incredible event. If you’re a musician, Manitowoc, Wisconsin, should be on your list of places to play!