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The Cosmopolitans - Fred Mills Article (2006)

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The Cosmopolitans - The Big Story by Fred Mills

It's 1980, and you've just tuned in to your favorite college radio station. A bouncy tune, part organ-fueled garage rock, part girl-group pop redux, comes over the airwaves. No surprise there - for the era, typical New Wave fare. But the tune's lyrics are anything but typical. "Shape up - firm up - tone up - with Debbie!" goes the female vocalists' cheerleader-like refrain. Then one of the singers starts ticking off a laundry list of things a gal oughta be doing to keep her better half happy and content.

Maintain a "firm and graceful body (excess fat - taboo!)": check. Give him "a bright smile over morning coffee -- this paints a good mental picture of you for the whole day": check. Stay "mentally alert (try reading)": check. Get "a weekly pedicure," have "well-set hair" and be "a good conversationalist": check-check-check! And let's not forget to "be at home when he arrives -- if you must work, try to arrange it so you're home first." But of course!

You've just entered the Twilight Zone. Technically speaking, the Father Knows Best zone. Or maybe not. Turns out that the song, titled "(How to Keep Your) Husband Happy" and the lead cut on a 3-song vinyl 7" by New York band the Cosmopolitans, took many of its kitschy tips from early-sixties TV exercise guru Debbie Drake's How To Keep Your Husband Happy LP. Scrutinized nowadays, the Gospel Of Debbie's household hints seem like something straight outta Proverbs 31, wherein a wife, it is ordained, brings her husband "good, not harm, all the days of her life," taking "wool and flax and [working] with eager hands" and rising in the morning "while it is still dark [to provide] food for her family."

Happily, though, what could've set the feminist movement back to Leave It To Beaver times was received with open arms by an irony-loving post-punk audience. For their brief moment in the sun the Cosmopolitans were hipper than Eddie Haskell, Wally and the Beav all rolled into one.

Recalling the genesis of her band's unexpected hit, Cosmopolitans founder Jamie K. Sims observes, "My mom had the Debbie Drake record and I took it with me when I moved to New York and exercised to it. Debbie had a great voice and it made me laugh to do her exercises. Some of her concepts were so over the top I just had to 'frame' them with a song."

By the time of the "Husband" single Sims was already an old hand at framing concepts. She'd grown up in Asheville, North Carolina, and played in a psychedelic rock band in high school. "We were going to go to California and become the next Jefferson Airplane," Sims says, "and I didn't want to go to college. My parents forced me to at least apply to state schools, and I got in, even after I wrote horrible essays." Sims wound up choosing UNC-Chapel Hill where, as a pianist and music major, she met future dB's founder Chris Stamey in a music composition class. While at UNC Sims also nurtured a love of modern dance, putting together an offbeat ensemble called the N.C. Progressive Dance Troop; among her dancers was another future dB's member, Will Rigby. After graduation, at Stamey's suggestion Sims decided to head to Manhattan in 1977.

"We drove up on January 7 and went directly to the release party of Blondie's first album at Max's Kansas City," remembers Sims, of her first brush with the Big Apple. "New York was a free-for-all! There was Klaus Nomi, a German opera singer who dressed up like a space man. And then you'd see some guy in a raincoat play at CBGB's who would drink paint and spit it out at the audience. And then of course the regular bands: Talking Heads, Ramones, Blondie, Richard Hell, Dead Boys, dB's, Alex Chilton. There weren't many clubs in the beginning and you would always know people who were at the clubs. Max's had these rock-hard chick peas as snacks on the tables, and a restaurant downstairs. Two of the new faves were way downtown, the Ocean Club - a nice seafood place by day with just an open space on the floor. The Talking Heads and many of those others played there. And Tier Three, next to Teddy's, a mafia restaurant. It was small, three floors - band on the bottom, then other rooms for DJs and just hanging out.

"At the time the city was going down the tubes, so it was really cheap to live. You could exist off of a part-time job and then have time to have a band or theater company."

Indeed, Sims soon revived her old dance company as the avant-garde Cosmopolitan Dance Troop, choreographing dances as theatrical stories or comedy skits with music and often doing takeoffs on the stylized choreography of '60s girl groups. One memorable number was called "Rockin' Doctors," which featured Stamey dressed in a physician's white lab coat and guesting on guitar while the Troop sang. (Sims later returned the favor by contributing keyboard parts to In The Red, the 1978 mini-album by Stamey's pre-dB's outfit Sneakers.)

"Chris was always ultimately supportive and helpful with the Troop. We lived two blocks from CBGB's and that was like our extended living room at night. I met the Fleshtones mostly thru Chris and they were my ideal of a live band. Really funny and totally deadpan. Ultimately cool - that's what I wanted to be. There was go-go dancing too. I had the whole Troop onstage with either the dB's or Fleshtones for a couple songs - doing Hullabaloo-type dancing. I remember dancing on top of a grand piano at Irving Plaza!"

It was after a fundraiser held for the Dance Troop at CBGB's in May 1979, however, that Sims got the notion for her next concept. Following sets by the dB's, Fleshtones, Big Help, Information and Bobby "Boris" Pickett, the Troop performed one of its offbeat pieces and the audience went nuts. "What a revelation!" Sims says. "We'd just been playing to the wrong crowd. I'd been going broke trying to keep the Troop in rehearsals and renting theaters for performances; the dance world was less than enthusiastic about a Saturday Night Live-type of company. So I thought I'd turn it into a rock club act, dancing and singing to taped tracks."

Bringing along fellow Troop players Nel Moore (another Carolina ex-pat, although she and Sims didn't know each other prior to NYC) and Leslie Levinson, Sims foreshortened the name to the Cosmopolitans. Stamey and fellow Tarheel Mitch Easter offered to record some backing tapes, and by that fall the Cosmopolitans were performing in downtown Manhattan clubs, opening shows for the dB's and Fleshtones and earning good notices for their quirky, choreographed brand of girl-group new wave. During this time the band occasionally utilized live musicians to augment the backing tapes; one such temp worker was none other than lapsed Troop hoofer Will Rigby.

Eventually Levinson quit, leaving Sims and Moore to soldier on as a two-piece. "Nel was always supportive of even my most ridiculous projects," says Sims. "She was truly 'game' and willing to do whatever bizarre things I came up with - including being in a band. As a dancer this was foreign to her, but once we got her on the harmonica she really worked hard and became a fine player." To increase their booking potential it was decided that a demo tape was in order, so the following summer the duo headed down to Easter's Drive-In Studio in Winston-Salem. With Sims (organ) and Moore (harmonica) on cheerleader-type vocals and producer Easter handling guitar and drum duties, three songs -- "Husband," "Wild Moose Party" and "Dancin' Lesson" -- were recorded.

Sims recalls the August 1980 sessions fondly. "It took us about 3 days, I think. Don Dixon came by and turned some knobs one night, the Nicest Man in Rock and Roll. Chris Stamey was there often and would throw in various technical contributions. Rather than real percussion, I had us play kitchen utensils -- wooden spoons, pans, etcetera. I got Mrs. Easter and Faye Hunter to help with some of the backing vocals - I actually think their dog, Beaufort, was in on that, too! And by the way, I think Mitch's guitar is the aspect that takes those songs into another realm, and I never felt he got enough credit for that. no matter how I tried to talk it up, people just wanted to hear about 'the girls'."

For his part, Easter returns the compliment, saying, "The session was great -- we recorded everything really fast and then went to Tanglewood Park and did the water slide! Now that is a proper session! I had messed up my back by constantly looking over my shoulder while mowing a field at my parents' house just before the session. Hours after finishing the mowing, my back got stiffer and stiffer and eventually I could hardly turn my head! The Cosmopolitans session was just a few days away and I wasn't sure if I would be able to play drums at all, but apparently I sort of could because they sound okay on the record. This was also a pretty early session for me; I'd started Drive-In in July. I can definitely hear the 'sound' of that house on the Cosmopolitans tracks."

After returning to NYC, Sims played the tape for her upstairs neighbor, journalist and music archivist Alan Betrock, who insisted on issuing it as a 3-song EP on his Shake Records label, home to early discs by the dB's and Richard Hell. "Husband," upon its release that fall, stormed radio stations in NYC and college stations across the country. After the media buzz reached the UK "Husband" was picked up for release by Albion, the same British label that had signed the dB's, which paired the tune with a different B-side, "Chevy Baby." (In 1981 both "Husband" and "Wild Moose Party" appeared on a Albion compilation, Shake To Date, which featured tracks by the dB's, Peter Holsapple, Mitch Easter, Richard Hell, Randy Gun and pre-Television combo the Neon Boys.)

The Cosmopolitans were suddenly an in-demand act, but transitioning from singing with backing tapes to fronting a bonafide "group" was no easy task and during this period a number of players earned honorary Cosmo status, including Peter Holsapple, Ted Lyons, Doug Wygal and Robert Crenshaw. A permanent lineup was eventually found in the form of Sims, Moore, Evan "Funk" Davies on drums and David Itch on guitar, plus Jeff Dedrick on keyboards, which freed Sims up for dancing full-time.

The Cosmopolitans concept, Sims says, fell along lines of "Shangri-La's meet the Fleshtones." Reviewers quickly picked up on a distinctive B-52's party vibe, and the band's penchant for dwelling upon some genuinely bizarre lyrical topics proved equally irresistible as a hook. (Sims, an avid fan of the NY Post's "headless body in topless bar" style of news reporting, was inspired to write "Chevy Baby" after reading in the tabloid about a couple who tried to swap their infant for a Corvette. Another song, "Doug," was about an elderly man who died and his heartbroken wife kept his body around until it started to decompose and fall apart.) These factors, plus Sims' and Moore's freeform approach to choreography, could make for some rather, er, lively shows.

Explains Sims, "Many of the songs would be choreographed, and I wanted the effect to be 'natural' and fun, not slick and showy like choreographed music shows today. One of our most asked for numbers was Sam The Sham's 'Wooly Bully.' Nel and I wore chartreuse fur ponchos, kinda like a caveman would wear. At the guitar solo we stood on one leg and put our feet together with the other to make a bridge or arch. Then David would do a limbo under our leg-bridge! And the audience would throw things like socks and stuffed animals at us. There would often be at least one drunk guy yelling, 'You girls are great! Beautiful!' Before singing 'Wild Moose Party' we had a moose call contest and the winner would get to sing on stage with us - and often win a Moosehead beer. We also performed a lot of instrumentals - 'Pipeline,' 'Wipeout,' one I wrote called 'I-95 South,' 'pH Factor' by the dB's - so we could just dance and do things that didn't require being tied to a microphone."

Playing all over Manhattan as well as upstate New York and Philadelphia (there was also a southern tour in 1982, with Judy Streng, wife of the Fleshtones' Keith Streng, subbing for Moore), the Cosmopolitans were an immensely popular act. A full-length album was in the works too, but in late '82 all plans were put on hold when Sims was diagnosed with chronic Epstein-Barr. Too fatigued to perform live, Sims subsequently did some solo recording before retiring from music and dance.

Over the years Sims continued to compose, however, and nowadays she's married and living in Richmond where she performs her own classical music, additionally writing for film, dance, and theater. Moore currently lives in Wilmington and plays harmonica in local blues band Tommy B. & the Stingers.

The past sometimes has a funny way of catching up with people, particularly those who make records. A few years ago Lee Joseph, owner of L.A.'s Dionysus label, contacted Sims, wanting to reissue the "Husband" EP on his Bacchus Archives imprint. Eventually the project expanded to include live tracks from '79 (the Shangri-La's "Sophisticated Boom Boom" and the dB's "pH Factor," with Rigby on drums) and a brace of 1981 studio tracks, notably "Chevy Baby" (a different version from the UK B-side), the B-52's-like "Psychic Joan" and a frat-rock take on Chuck Berry's "Talkin' Bout You"). As a bonus, the enhanced portion of Wild Moose Party: New Wave Pom Pom Girls Gone Go-Go, NYC 1980-1981 has the actual video for "Husband." Originally done in Sims' NYC apartment, it features Mitch Easter - wearing a business suit and a wig -- in the titular role, arriving home after work and being pampered by his "wife." (Asked to comment on his acting debut, Easter replies somewhat diplomatically, "I sort of don't remember even doing it.") Intercut with the apartment scenes are live clips of the Cosmopolitans lip-synching to "Husband" on cult TV variety program The Uncle Floyd Show, and it's worth noting that the video was shot by a young film student, Michael Dugan, who'd go on to become an award-winning independent filmmaker.

The CD booklet also boasts in-depth liner notes by journalist (and Tarheel) Parke Puterbaugh, who astutely proposes in his intro, "If the Kingsmen had been Queens, if the Swingin' Medallions had been sorority sisters instead of frat boys, and if all of them had a schooled background in modern dance, then you might have some idea of the devilishly unique space the Cosmopolitans occupied."

Amen to that. Judging by the Internet buzz that greeted Wild Moose Party's April release, a lot of lapsed new wavers still recall that unique Cosmopolitans space. Easter, noting that the original EP has amassed a remarkable degree of notoriety, says, "Every now and then somebody has asked me about it ever since it was recorded. Things from that time seem to have a magical historical position. It was the times, of course, and the Cosmopolitans were totally in synch with what was going on. They were pretty early, really, and they were total experts in the kind of references that scene was all about. The disc has such a 'bwaaaah!' factor - it does its thing with such aplomb and glee. It's still fun!"

Sims says the response has been "just astounding - it's quite humbling that people remember us and still like us. I think it has the effect that I couldn't grasp at the time, that people 'got it'! Which is the most anyone could ask for." She adds that currently on her radar is a scheme to track down Debbie Drake, who reportedly lives in Texas, and propose that the retired fitness queen participate in some sort of promotional project with her. "The CD is certainly getting her name back in circulation," notes Sims. "Though some folks think I was making fun of those tips it was actually that I was in awe of them. And that people would actually do them!"

Sims, Moore and drummer Davies have also been talking recently about the logistics of mounting a reunion, possibly as part of a multi-band, revolving-cast-of-characters show along the lines of George Clinton's P-Funk All Stars or the old TNT Show from the sixties. "It would be a huge undertaking, but if we got some backing, support and help, I'd consider it," Sims discloses. Given that some of her old friends, the dB's, are recording a new album, and that Mitch Easter is also performing live again on a regular basis, the timing is more than apt.

Here's hoping those chartreuse fur ponchos have been stored away carefully and don't have too many moth holes in 'em. Okay everybody, repeat after me: "Shape up - firm up - tone up - with Jamie!"