On record
Billy Rancher is on his way
Billy Rancher has ambition. Similar to another West
Coast songwriter, )im Morrison, Rancher wants the
world, and he wants it now.
And he just might get it.
Right now, Rancher and his Portland-based band
the Unreal Gods are thought of as a question mark in
the music business.
Even though Rancher has signed with Clive Davis
and Arista Records to record next month in Los Angeles,
the relationship has not been a smooth one.
Davis, the Columbia record mogul responsible in
the sixties for such acts as Santana and janis Joplin,
finally entered the picture after four different Arista vice
presidents had checked Rancher out.
Not only did it take nine months to finally ink the
record contract, Arista has been hesitant about
everything from the band's name, to how to market
them, to whether to have the band back Billy at all.
“They move so slow, it's pathetic sometimes,” Ran
cher says.
When Rancher was finally signed, dealing with
Davis was not always the easiest proposition.
"Clive Davis is very eccentric; he's sort of like the
Wizard of Oz. It's very hard to get in touch with him. He
stays in a Beverly Hills bungalow and when he comes
out, it's almost nocturnal. You have to go through a SS
appointment book. He likes to keep to himself and be
the dominator,” Rancher says.
And when Davis was listening, Rancher says, he was
(onfused by the Gods' different styles of music.
Then there was the question of the name — the
Unreal Gods.
It seems people in Arista's marketing department
are scared of the moniker — Betty Lou in Des Moines
might not like it.
Rancher is willing to alter the band's name which it
has had since its inception June 18, 1981, even though
he says it's close to his heart. He'd like to keep Rancher
"because that's my real name," but he realizes the im
portance of being reasonable in order to get ahead.
"There's a lot of bullshit that stands in your way
when you're dealing with corporate marketing plans.
You've got to bend some ways," he says.
The latest contender for the band's name is
Mustang Rancher, an allusion to the Nevadan brothel.
Rant her believes that name would "bring eroticism
into the open, would say look, this isn't the Hanging
Gardens of Babylon but this is the 20th century."
With all this, it's no wonder Rancher describes the
band as being in a holding pattern, like a jet ready to
take off on a runway.
Billy Rancher and the Unreal Cods are the latest en
try in the rock sweepstakes out of Portland.
In the last few years, Johnny and the Distractions
and Quarterflash have signed contracts and had suc
cess with varying degrees.
Rancher didn't look up to any of these bands when
he and the Unreal Cods were a struggling band trying
to find their niche in the Portland scene.
"When you're trying to get successful so you don't
have to work a kitchen job, you really look for ways to
criticize people, I think. It's a sad human trait because
it's competitive. You want to be the guy that's making it
work,” he says.
But still these bands didn't inspire too much awe in
Rancher.
Quarterflash put Rancher to sleep; he didn't
understand their success. And Johnny and the D's had a
sound much like the already established Bruce
Springsteen.
"Johnny was at the wrong place at the wrong time,”
Rancher believes.
The sound Rancher hopes to achieve with the help
of Men at Work's producer Peter Mclan is one with
broad appeal.
He'd love to do a dub reggae (a spare, primitive
form of reggae) record, but he acknowledges that first
he has to "get a foothold in the market.”
"I would like to go for an international sound en
compassing many styles as far as the jungle and calypso
fields. There'll be traces of that. It'll all be in a pop for
mat, I'm sure," Rancher says.
Rancher sees the Gods as a distinctive band arising
out of their very diverse influences, which range from
rockabilly to classical to reggae.
My whole approach to music is just take the whole
melting pot, stir it around, pull something out of it and
who knows what'll come out of the pot. Just a funky
song," he says.
Self-confidence is the dominating quality that
shines through when one talks to Rancher. It's not an
obnoxious brashness but an optimistic assurance in his
own abilities.
It's an assurance that allows him to say "the nation
doesn't respect Portland too much as being a leader in
any type of sound, but that's what we're trying to
change."
And it's this assurance which prompts him to say
Photo by Bart Danielson
Portland musician Billy Rancher (foreground) and the
Unreal Gods may have to change their name to do it,
but they'll be recording in Los Angeles next month.
things like, "I think we're going to do it. My main goal is
to chase Duran Duran out of America, make them stay
back in England.”
Sometimes this assurance borders on naivete.
When Rancher says he wants to hook up with a
"quality filmmaker” to film some videos, he really
means it — he wants "that Swedish guy.”
When told Ingmar Bergman is retired, Rancher
replies he's going to write him a letter.
"I would like to make a real nice film like 'Fanny and
Alexander.' Because if we can put as much delicacy into
a song, then maybe Bergman can do it real justice.”
Paul Sturtz
Taking note
I vow not to be too tough on the con
sumer. It is America after all, and we as
citizens are almost immune to the
plague of commercialism which runs
rampant. Those money-making
holidays can't come soon enough for
retailers, and neither can new, exciting,
sell-well products. Individual true
happiness-in-life for too many Madison
Avenue executives hinges on just the
right catchy phrase to entice the Jones
family to fill up at one fast-food
restaurant instead of another.
Of course, shoppers aren't always in
nocent: There are those of us who
Finding America's
hottest new game:
no Trivial Pursuit
Kim Carlson
dismember each other trying to get our
hands on original dolls that t ome with
original adoption papers, and other
similar nonsense. Peculiar bunch, we
Americans.
Take the new game, Trivial Pursuit,
It's a commercial sensation bigger than
the Cabbage Patch dolls; bigger than
"Where's the beef?"; tugger maybe
than Michael Jackson. Why? What
makes people go cra/y over a simple
game?
"It's different from other games,"
says Trances Krumdieck, owner of
Parlour Carnes in Eugene. "It's such a
fun, big party game.”
Other game professionals agree.
"It's the kind of game everyone is
drawn to, even people who think they
don't know trivia," says Al Villanueva,
manager of Endgames in Eugene.
"Everybody thinks it's the only game in
town."
Ironically, though, Trivial Pursuit is
the only game not in town.
Since its March, 1983 debut in
America, it has become the most
sought after board game in years. As far
as popularity and sales go, Pente,
another recent game sensation, pales in
c omparison. Local shops are inundated
with requests for the game, hut not
even those who are usually in-the
know, seem to be able to predict when
the next supply will come in. "We
spend a lot of time yelling into our sales
rep's answering service," says
Villanueva, "but it doesn't seem to
help."
On a paltry day Villanueva says En
dgames gets between 10 and 20 calls
from people in pursuit of Trivial Pur
suit. On one recent Saturday the store
received 62 requests. "It's really amaz
ing;" Villanueva says of the public
response — or "mindless mania" as he
calls it. "It's a real nice head trip."
Trivial Pursuit contains 6,000 ques
tions on different subjects taken from
six topics: History, Entertainment, Arts
and Letters, Science, Sports and Leisure
and Geography. It was originally
created by a company in Canada, accor
ding to Villanueva, but the rights to
Trivial Pursuit were rec ently sold to an
American company — the same com
pany that produces the ever-popular
word game Scrabble. However, the
Scrabble people weren't prepared for
the overwhelming popularity of the
game; only recently did they build a
new, exclusive factory with the sole
purpose of making Trivial Pursuit.
So now the games are trickling into
the market, says Villanueva,adding that
his store gets shipments of 18 to 36
games at a »ime, but it's still not nearly
enough to keep up with the demand:
Endgames has a waiting listed about 120
people in Eugene; the two Portland
stores have a 400-person tally.
Krumdieck says her store no longer
keeps a waiting list — it was too much
of an overwhelming task. I called to talk
Irivial Pursuit with her before noon,
but nevertheless I was the day's tenth
inquirer.
Trivial Pursuit, when it is available, is
not inexpensive; the suggested retail
price is $39.95. And there are
substitutes, other games on the market
which are similar to Trivial Pursuit. The
TV Guide game, the People Magazine
game, the Entertainment Tonight game,
and Ripley's Believe It Or Not, are all
trivia games dealing with specific
topics. Parker Brothers' TIME, which
has 8,000 questions and sells for a mere
$29.95, is an equally challenging game
says Villanueva, but not quite as
popular as Trivial Pursuit. "People want
the original,' says Krumdieck.
Trivial Pursuit also has its own edi
tions. There's a Silver Screen Edition
and an All-Star Sports version, both of
whic h require players who are experts
in the respective fields; Villanueva says
they are "both real hard." In some parts
of the country an edition of Trivial Pur
suit called the Baby Boomer has been
released. According to Villanueva it
covers subjects that baby boomers are
familiar with — "everything from
atomic power to flower power."
Trivial Pursuit is, as one game-junkie
described it, truly addicting. It's no
wonder the Oregon Daily Emerald's
advertising manager, Susan Thelan,
almost had to tight for a copy. Last
week Thelan heard a rumor that
Eugene's Payless Drugstore had a few
Trivial Pursuit games for sale, so after
work she raced over to buy one, only to
discover that all the games were gone.
Thelan spied a salesclerk who told her
that Trivial Pursuit had been sold out,
but to follow him; he led her to an
already opened copy at the checkstand.
Although there were other shoppers
lurking around who had seen the extra
copy and wanted the game as well,
Thelan was the person who succeeded
in securing it.
"I felt lucky," Thelan says now. "I left
eight people behind without a game."
I haven't had the opportunity to play
much Trivial Pursuit these days with
William Shakespeare and William
Styron demanding much of my time.
But when I recently borrowed my
friend's copy, my appetite to play was
all-consuming. You might say I've learn
ed to sympathize with the shoppers.