FUNK, ROCK: A PROBLEM COEXISTING?

Is the local rock scene really devoid of vital black and Latino music?

L.A. Beat’s recent roundup of the top bands in town seemed to support that conclusion, but Tom Guzman-Sanchez, who heads a Woodland Hills-based band called Chain Reaction, insists that’s not the case.

Chain Reaction’s sound--termed PROBLEM (an acronym for Pop Rock Black Latin Music )--updates and toughens the funky groove blend of War (whose longtime producer Jerry Goldstein has been working with Chain Reaction for the last two years) in a bass-heavy way related to the Washington-based go-go phenomenon.

The band, known for its energetic performances, has a sizable dance-happy following and is currently being courted by Capitol Records. (An earlier version of the band had an album out on Elektra in 1983.)

Jason Lord of the Lesser/Lord concert promotion company, which has booked Chain Reaction to capacity crowds at the Roxy many times (they’re due there again Sept. 19), said the group is one of the most successful draws he’s worked with around town. “I’d have to say of all the bands I use, they’re in first place in respectability in the marketplace,” Lord said. “Those are the only shows worth doing even above heavy-metal shows.”

Yet PROBLEM has not taken its place in the local scene alongside such other styles as metal and so-called alternative music. Why?

“There’s no real showcase for this style of music,” Guzman-Sanchez said. “There’s Gazzarri’s for heavy metal and others for the underground stuff. Those clubs won’t do this style of music. They’re very geared to garage rock. But there are no funk houses.”

While he stopped short of saying that the root of the situation is racial (Chain Reaction consists of Puerto Rican, Anglo, Jewish and Creole members and has a racially mixed audience), Guzman-Sanchez said Chain Reaction’s crowd and the rock crowds don’t mix well.

“It’s two different types of people that go to these things,” he observed. “The people who come to see us want to dance, they want to groove. We’ve played shows with rock bands that just beat up our crowds. They have to listen to two hours of that crapola before we go on.”

Even bills with such funk-oriented acts as the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Fishbone haven’t worked because those bands’ styles are too anarchic, he claimed, and the one time Chain Reaction opened for the Untouchables they were booed.

“The only thing that works with our style is funk groups,” Guzman-Sanchez said.

But the Music Machine’s Jan Ballard, who booked Chain Reaction at Madame Wong’s several times when she worked there a few years ago, disagrees.

“I never had any problem with any audience doing a crossover acceptance of them,” she said enthusiastically. “A lot of times Chain Reaction’s crowd wouldn’t love the other bands, but they wouldn’t all march out. And the people who came to see other bands would say, ‘Wow, who are those guys?’ ”

At this point, though, Chain Reaction is no longer interested in trying to play the rock circuit unless those clubs will book all-funk nights. “Why go into someone else’s territory just to be rejected?,” Guzman-Sanchez said.

FRONTIERS IN MARKETING: How do you market an album that uses the “f-word” as its title? If you’re SST records, which will release a new Leaving Trains album called simply by that one word on Sept. 3, you do it with a high-profile promotion campaign.

“We’re going to be pretty aggressive about it, doing a fairly large amount of advertising, both on a local and national level,” said SST publicist Michael Whittaker. “We’re doing a big display contest among record stores.

“We’re just going to go head-on like we always do. The advertising we’re doing says ‘F . . . Ask for it by name.’ We don’t control our artists. This is their idea and we’d be behind it just as strongly if they called the album ‘Love.’ You could censor love as well as ‘F . . . ‘ It’s just four letters arranged in a particular way.”

Explained Leaving Trains’ singer Falling James, “Rock has become too socially acceptable. If we’re wrong for spelling out a word everyone knows, then there should be policemen on every schoolyard.”

According to Whittaker, 36 record chains are currently involved with the label’s planned promotional campaign and thus far only the Jem distributor in Texas has shown any reservations.

Gary Banard, the buyer for Jem Records Texas, explained that the problem comes from a major chain outlet in the South and Midwest.

“We will handle a few copies, but not in the quantity that we would normally,” he said. “Sound Warehouse is our biggest account, and they have a corporate policy about not handling anything with off-color lyrics or album art. The record may have only one off-color word but that’s a big one and they put it on the cover. Right off the bat that really hurts our ability to sell to a lot of our clients.”

Local reaction is mixed. A manager at Music Plus in Hollywood (who declined to be identified) said they wouldn’t be carrying the record either: “We carry SST but we wouldn’t carry that. We’re not carrying the Guns N’ Roses LP because the cover is objectionable.”

At the hip Aron’s Records, independent buyer Paul Rock said they will stock the Trains’ album and might also participate in the promotional displays.

Both Tower and Rhino Records indicated that they also will carry it, but not the Wherehouse. Said Lou Kwiker, president of Wherehouse Entertainment, “We won’t buy the record. We do handle SST product but I’m not going to discuss with you why we’re not going to buy this.”

AT THE MOVIES: Hold on to your hats and everything else, podners and podnerettes! The Screamin’ Sirens are coming to a movie screen near you! The wild wimmin (including Rosie Flores, who left the band last year to launch a country career), recently completed shooting “The Runnin’ Kind.” The film, co-written by director Max Tash and Siren singer Pleasant Gehman, is the tale of a straight-laced small-town boy who gets turned on to Hollywood punk by a band called the She Devils--played, of course, by the Sirens.

Flores, whose debut album is due from Warner Bros. on Sept. 1, said the reason she rejoined the group for the movie is that the script was designed around the original members’ personalities and she couldn’t bear the thought of someone else playing her part. Anyway, she admitted, “It was so great to play rock again.”

Besides contributions from the Sirens, the sound track features T.S.O.L., Tex & the Horseheads and Tupelo Chain Sex. Look for the film sometime next spring.

NEWS ‘N’ NOTES: Outspoken Native American poet/rocker John Trudell and his musical partner Jesse Ed Davis taped four hours worth of interviews with Westwood One radio recently, laying out their uncompromising views on everything from the state of rock to the state of the nation. . . . I.R.S.’s P.M.R.C. label has just signed Phoenix-based Caterwaul, which has been a regular favorite at Scream and other local clubs. . . . Bangle Vicki Peterson, Hoodoo Guru Brad Shepherd and a host of fans and friends were on hand when Redd Kross axeman Robert Hecker donated his guitar to the Hard Rock Cafe last week.