Pop Concert Ends On a High Note: $1,000 for MADD

A neo-electric, socially innovative, semi-harmonic but totally sober pop concert raised $1,000 for Mothers Against Drunk Driving on Saturday night at Bebop Records in Reseda.

“Neo-electric, socially innovative” is how guitarist and vocalist Robyn Rosenkrantz described the sound of the Innocent Tongues, the five-piece, lead band for the benefit.

Rosenkrantz, a 22-year-old undeclared major at California State University, Northridge, and male vocalist Howard Kaminsky sing frenetic harmonies of ‘60s-style social protest songs that are based on the themes of the ‘80s.

It’s the music of young men and women who favor Goodwill-modern clothes, dangling earrings and finger paint on their faces.

One of the themes of the Innocent Tongues is drunk driving.

Sister Killed in Crash

That issue became a part of the young group’s social vocabulary 22 months ago, on the night when a 20-year-old man who had been drinking swerved across a highway in Palm Springs and killed Rosenkrantz’s older sister, Dede, and a friend as the couple were driving to a dance.

Robyn would have been with them but she was too young to go to the dance, she said.

Since then, Innocent Tongues has introduced songs about drunk driving into its performances at such youth-oriented spots as Madame Wong’s West and The Music Machine, and will do so at a date next month at The Country Club on Sherman Way, a block east of Reseda Boulevard.

Robyn also organized Saturday’s benefit at Bebop Records, a hole-in-the wall store a block away from The Country Club. Bebop offers a wide selection of records, and also has a series of poetry readings and new-music concerts.

The audience was larger than usual on Saturday.

Almost 200 people paid $5 each to get in. There were two groups. The older audience members took seats in two rows of folding chairs down the right-hand aisle, which faced the stage at the back of the store.

They were mostly friends of Robyn’s parents, Norman and Simone Rosenkrantz.

“I even pressured some of our relatives who are here from the East to come,” said Simone Rosenkrantz, who was wearing black pants, a red flowered pullover and a black beret with a rhinestone broach pinned to it.

Those of Robyn’s generation stood in two rows down the right aisle and around the sales counter.

There was hardly room to move about when Robyn--wearing a man’s ‘50s-era jacket, which was shot through with gold thread, over a full-skirted blue brocade dress--introduced the opening act, The Just, and put in a quick pitch for MADD and Bebop Records, “the hip place in town.”

The Just played about 40 minutes of ‘60s revival rock, beginning with “I Heard It Through the Grapevine.”

Weighty Theme

In spite of its weighty theme, the evening allowed a lot of silliness and laughter between sets as Robyn read off ticket numbers to raffle off dozens of gifts donated by local merchants and a record company.

“If you have the number, one of our little helpers will deliver you a prize,” Robyn promised.

Then, showing a bit of social innovation in an exercise that routinely kills a party, she read the numbers so fast that her “little helpers” didn’t have a chance.

“Seven-o-two, you get a Duran Duran picture book,” she would say, and then go right on to 679, who got a record by STRAFE.

Hard or sharp items went through the crowd from hand to hand. “I’m MADD” T-shirts were simply tossed.

Robyn and the Innocent Tongues quickly restored a solemn mood with their opening song, which began:

“Babies don’t want to be born no more. They want to stay where it’s safe and warm.”

A few songs later, they sang, “Bullet Boats,” about cars driving down the highways, “right on target.”

“It’s about drunk driving and, I think, it’s about society and just what it’s like going through a crisis,” Robyn said. “It’s dedicated to everyone out there who should be alive today.”

Their last song, “Innocent,” was dedicated to Dede Rosenkrantz.

“Why do the innocent cry; why do the innocent have to fight; why do the innocent have to die?” Robyn and Kaminsky sang in a mournful harmonic warble.

“Why must they spend their whole lives wondering, asking why?”

The song gave no answers.