A GUEST POST by LÉON MACDUFF
Akron, Ohio, is a city built on rubber. Not literally of course (imagine that…), but during the twentieth century it became a boom town as the centre of the US tyre industry. Or as they say in Akron, the center of the US tire industry. Supposedly it also gave the world the hamburger. Wait, wasn’t that Hamburg? My whole life has been a lie…
Another thing Akron has been noted for is its musical exports, particularly in the late 70s and early 80s when the success of local lads Devo gave a boost to the city’s burgeoning new wave scene, and for me one of the best acts to break through from that was The Waitresses. As you can see, I’ve named this ICA “The Waitresses… not just for Christmas” because while I like the song, I do think it’s a bit of a shame that for a UK audience, Christmas Wrapping is the only thing we ever hear from them. Granted, it’s not as though they had a huge catalogue of hits anywhere else – I Know What Boys Like charted in a few places and really that was it. But they coulda been contenders, you know?
Side one
There are three key elements to The Waitresses’ appeal: firstly, there’s the witty songwriting of guitarist Chris Butler. Then there’s the fierce instrumental attack – particularly the stomping basslines of David Hofstra and Tracy Wormworth, and the demented sax of Mars Williams. And of course there’s Patty Donahue. Never a technically gifted vocalist, but the perfect frontwoman for Butler’s world-weary lyricisms and observations on sexual politics.
It didn’t start out that way: in the beginning, The Waitresses was basically just Chris Butler, then bassist for Akron blues-rock outfit 15-60-75, a.k.a. The Numbers Band. In 1977, seeking an outlet for his own songs, he issued a solo single under the Waitresses name, only to be fired from The Numbers Band for taking time out to promote it. But by this stage Butler was well known within the local music scene, and it wasn’t long before he was recruited – on lead guitar this time – by the more New Wave-ish group Tin Huey, who also happened to be more open to indulging his quirky ideas.
Butler’s big idea was to write songs from a female perspective, and he set about expanding his solo project by finding a female vocalist to front them. In Butler’s telling, he stood up in a coffee bar one lunchtime to announce that he was looking for a female singer to record some funny, sassy songs, and would anyone be interested? From the far corner came a lone voice: “Uh-huh”… and that’s how Patty joined the band. Early live appearances took place as encores to Tin Huey gigs – at the end of a set, Butler would shout “Waitresses unite!” which was Donahue’s cue to join them on stage for a couple of numbers. Members of Tin Huey also helped out when Butler and Donahue recorded their first tracks together, one of which became purchaseable courtesy of the UK’s Stiff Records and its 1978 release The Akron Compilation:-
1 The Waitresses – The Comb
The Akron Compilation proved to be a springboard for many of its featured acts: off the back of it, Rachel Sweet and Jane Aire & The Belevederes got record deals in the UK, and punk groups Bizarros and Rubber City Rebels did so stateside. But the band seen as Akron’s “most likely to succeed” was Tin Huey, who hit the jackpot by signing to Warner Brothers – only to find that even major label money couldn’t turn their debut album Contents Dislodged During Shipment into a hit. By 1980 they’d been dropped, and were back on Akron’s own Clone Records, which at around the same time also issued the compilation Bowling Balls From Hell. This finally give an airing to a Waitresses track taped a couple of years earlier but left in reserve while Tin Huey pursued their misadventures. The world would come to know it as I Know What Boys Like, but at this stage it was saddled with a rather less obvious title.
2 The Waitresses – Wait Here… I’ll Be Right Back (Son of Comb)
With Tin Huey falling apart, Butler decided to make the most of his new industry contacts and try his luck in New York. And what luck! Not only had the New York underground scene taken to Tin Huey, but the tastemakers of the city’s cooler clubs had also loved what little they’d heard of The Waitresses. Michael Zilkha of ZE Records was keen to take the Waitresses on, so Butler wired Donahue fifty dollars for the bus fare from Akron to New York and set about forming a proper group. First on the agenda was a B-side for the remixed and retitled I Know What Boys Like, and a temporary line-up, including Tin Huey reedsman Ralph Carney, was assembled to record this rather fantastic break-up song, which would eventually also open the debut album:-
3 The Waitresses – No Guilt (It Wasn’t The End of the World)
Next on the “to-do” list was forming a permanent line-up, and between Butler’s contacts and Zilkha’s, he was able to assemble quite a formidable one. Drummer Billy Ficca came with a readymade pedigree as former sticksman for Television. Bassist David Hofstra and saxophonist Mars Williams both came from a jazz background and gave the Waitresses a bit of musical “edge”. The line-up was filled out with keyboard player Dan Klayman and second vocalist Ariel Warner (who couldn’t get used to recording in the studio and left partway through recording the debut album – she does appear in the concert film Pocketful of Change, filmed at the Hurrah Club in New York in May ‘81, but that must have been one of her last engagements with the band.)
The new NYC line-up taped a debut album and spent much of 1981 gigging extensively and trying to promote “I Know What Girls Like”. But before anything really came of that, we reach the one bit of the Waitresses story that does get trotted out pretty regularly. In the summer of 1981, Zilkha got in touch to request a contribution for a planned alternative Christmas compilation. Butler didn’t really want to do it but cobbled together a song from discarded riffs anyway, took the band – including new bassist Tracy Wormworth – into the studio, taped it quickly and sent it off. And then basically thought no more about it, until December when someone told him his record was going down a storm in the clubs. Butler was delighted – I Know What Boys Like was a success at last! – and was rather surprised to learn that the record in question was actually Christmas Wrapping. Which, having only recorded it as a throwaway, he and the band had to quickly go back and familiarise themselves with so that they could include it in their live set.
The UK release of A Christmas Record was handled by Polydor, who even saw fit to issue Christmas Wrapping on 45 as The Waitresses’ British debut. And while it may not have been an immediate smash, it did raise The Waitresses’ profile enough that expectations were high for the belated release of their album Wasn’t Tomorrow Wonderful? which was full of gems like this next one, bearing a pretty obvious influence from the 2 Tone scene which Butler got into after seeing Madness play in New York.
4 The Waitresses – It’s My Car
The delay added some potential confusion to proceedings with the album having David Hofstra on bass, but the band photo featuring the current line-up with Tracy Wormworth, who was credited for “Working Girl Bass”, code for “she’s in the band now, but she wasn’t when we did this”. Even more confusing, the venerable old classic I Know What Boys Like was reissued as the album’s lead single, with a video featuring the entire current band miming to the track – of whom only Butler and Donahue are actually on it. I’ve looked at a lot of stuff about the Waitresses online and can confirm that the confusion remains widespread to this day.
Regardless of any befuddlement regarding the line-up, the album was well-received, and we’ll end side one of this ICA with the album’s closing track and its call-and-response chorus.
5 The Waitresses – Jimmy Tomorrow
Side two
Such was the band’s growing reputation after Christmas Wrapping that they were commissioned to write the theme music for Square Pegs, a new sitcom starring the then-unknown Sarah Jessica Parker as one of a group of “unpopular” high schoolers trying to get in with the cool kids. The show was a one-season wonder but seems to be well-remembered – there’s a quite a few YouTube videos paying tribute to it, though there’s also several actual episodes there which leave this Brit thinking “really, you went wild for… that?” In any case, this is the full theme song, which unusually is credited as a group composition. Butler has hinted at its creation being a bit of a nightmare, but he hasn’t shared the gory details yet. Come on, Chris!
6 The Waitresses – Square Pegs
Discogs lists the 1982 release I Could Rule The World If Only I Could Get the Parts under “singles” while Wikipedia, where somebody twenty years ago made some bizarrely pedantic decision that everyone’s been forced to follow ever since, considers it an EP. You know what, I disagree with them both. To me, it’s a mini-album and the rest of you are freaks. Anyway, whatever you call it, it’s a pretty solid stopgap release, collecting the A and B sides of the Square Pegs 45 along with Christmas Wrapping and the title track (a live recording of an old Tin Huey number). Plus this, the one completely new song. It seems to have been considered for a single in its own right, as 12” mixes were promoed, but that never happened.
7 The Waitresses – Bread And Butter
We hit 1983, and you could guess that the writing was on the wall for the Waitresses when second album Bruiseology was issued without a supporting single… except in the UK, where December 1982 had seen a reissue of Christmas Wrapping come tantalisingly close to a top 40 placing, apparently indicating to someone at Polydor UK that the band might be marketable after all. Which as it turns out, they weren’t. But the effort did yield us a unique 7” edit of Make The Weather which I may as well share since it’s otherwise very hard to find online (a video was made for it which is on YouTube but is in mono). I’ll be honest, I think it’s a good new wave tune, but from the Waitresses it feels like they’re coasting a bit.
8 The Waitresses – Make the Weather (7” edit)
A major reason that Bruiseology didn’t get much of a promotional push was quite simply that the band were falling apart. Tensions came to a head during the recording sessions, resulting in Donahue walking out. Holly Beth Vincent from Holly and the Italians was drafted in as a replacement, but was dealing with her own personal problems at the time and only lasted two weeks, which were more productive in terms of photoshoots than actual music. Eventually Donahue was persuaded to return and completed the recording, more or less – the scars of a troubled production are still evident in the fact that the album had to be filled out with an instrumental and one track sung by Tracy Wormworth. It was nearly two songs sung by Wormworth, as she’d also tackled the title track during Donahue’s absence, and Butler reckoned her version was better – but Polydor insisted on the Donahue take so this version lay unreleased for 30 years.
9 The Waitresses – Bruiseology (alternative version, Tracy Wormworth vocal)
And the Waitresses story pretty much ends there. Butler left after Bruiseology and Donahue continued to front a version of the band for another year, but it had petered out by the end of 1984. Following the Waitresses, Donahue went into A&R, Williams played with The Psychedelic Furs for a bit, Butler has released solo material on-and-off, and Wormworth became an in-demand session bassist, known particularly for her work with Sting and The B-52’s (what a range!). Butler has made reference to the fact that he wrote a third, unrecorded album for The Waitresses, and – with Donahue having died in 1996 – has floated the notion of recording it with singers influenced by Patty, but nothing’s come of that yet and quite possibly never will.
But let’s go out on a high. Many reviewers found the second album a bit lacking compared to the first, but this track harks back to classic Waitresses – Butler writing about sexual politics from a female perspective, Williams going wild on the sax, and all wrapped up with a catchy chorus.
10 The Waitresses – A Girl’s Gotta Do
So, hopefully that all makes the case that The Waitresses are indeed not just for Christmas.
But for an encore, let’s hear THAT song anyway. It quickly became a regular part of their live set even outside of the Christmas period, and here’s a version recorded in concert for the King Biscuit Flower Hour radio show in February 1982.
Bonus track: Christmas Wrapping (live 13/02/82)
And that, I think, brings this ICA to a very happy ending…
THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN 