One Month, One Record and They’re One Hot Band

One of the hottest new dance tunes in the country comes not from some veteran English techno-pop outfit like Depeche Mode or the Pet Shop Boys, but from a pair of expatriate Liverpudlians living in San Diego whose professional recording career began exactly one month ago.

That’s when Synthicide Records released “Broken Heart,” the debut single by brothers Chris and Mark Reynolds, a.k.a. Red Flag. With a hyperkinetic beat and background vocals by disco queen Stacey Q, the song was an immediate hit in dance clubs throughout the United States. Last week, it entered Billboard’s national Club Play chart at No. 46 with a bullet.

This week, “Broken Heart” moves up to number 43. At the same time, the song is starting to get heavy air play on progressive rock radio stations like San Diego’s XTRA-FM (91X) and trend-setting KROQ-FM (106.7) in Los Angeles, where it’s already in the Top 10.

“The last month has been a real rush,” said singer Mark Reynolds, who also shares keyboard duties with his brother. “A few days ago, we played an afternoon concert at the Palomino (in Los Angeles) and we had to turn people away.

“And, when we went outside after the show, we got mobbed. The same thing happened earlier this month when we played the Palace and Disneyland’s Videopolis. It’s simply unbelievable.”

It certainly is. Just six months ago, Red Flag--then known as Naive Art--had trouble even finding a gig in San Diego nightclubs.

Their big break came in March, when they played at the Resource Record Pool party, an annual convention for Southern California dance-club deejays, at the Mannikin discotheque in Pacific Beach. Producer Jon St. James, the man behind Stacey Q and her 1987 dance smash “Two of Hearts,” happened to be in the audience. A week later, he took the Reynolds brothers to his Los Angeles recording studio, Formula 1, for an all-day session that yielded both the single “Broken Heart” and its B side, “Control.”

“In the interim, Jon had introduced us to Stacey and told us he wanted her to sing background vocals and co-produce our record,” Reynolds said. “She turned out to be a big help, coaching me on my vocals and making sure I sang on key.”

With St. James’ assistance, Red Flag was subsequently signed to Synthicide Records, an independent Los Angeles label that will also release the duo’s debut album in February. In the meantime, there will be a national tour arranged by Talent Consultants International, the same booking agency that represents “Animal House” frat-rockers Otis Day and the Nights.

“The fact that we’re going to tour is exciting, but what I’m really looking forward to is the album,” Reynolds said. “With our single, we set out to do a very conventional, very commercial record that would please other people.

“And now that we’ve succeeded, we’re free to please ourselves on the album by doing more experimental stuff. Instead of using traditional percussion instruments, we’re going to program all sorts of different sounds--air hammers, slamming metal doors, jet takeoffs--into a computer and then run them through a sampler so that they come out perfectly syncopated.

“The way it works in this business, you don’t have to sell your soul, you just have to rent it out for a while.”

In the early 1970s, when popular music was becoming increasingly polarized into white rock ‘n’ roll and black rhythm and blues encampments, War was one of the few bands to successfully tread the no-man’s land between.

The group’s membership was biracial, as were its fans and its music: Hits like 1972’s “The World Is a Ghetto” and, a year later, “The Cisco Kid,” were driven by an uncompromising rock ‘n’ roll beat but steered by the smoother, more sensual rhythms of pre-disco soul.

Saturday night, the recently reunited War will be appearing at Rio’s nightclub in Loma Portal. And the promoter’s choice of an opening act--San Diego’s own Ethnic Imbalance--smacks of a marriage made in heaven.

Like War, Ethnic Imbalance boasts an interracial makeup. Bassist Edward Smith is black; singer Cruz is half black, half Puerto Rican; and drummer Dale Patterson and guitarist Michael Bryson are white. Their music, too, crosses color lines by melding together the sizzling instrumentals and simple melodies of such white blues-rock bands of the ‘60s as Cream and Vanilla Fudge and the wicked dance rhythms of contemporary black disco dandies Prince, New Edition and Terence Trent D’Arby.

“The whole idea when we formed the band a year ago was to do some sort of funky rock thing along the lines of INXS, but a little harder,” said Cruz, 21. “They’re good, but at times, they’re kind of wimpy.”

FOREVER IN BLUE JEANS: These days, it seems everyone wants to get into the rock ‘n’ roll business, even department stores and clothing manufacturers. Co-presenting Oingo Boingo’s Sept. 4 and 5 concerts at the Open Air Theater: the Broadway and Levi’s. Anyone who buys a pair of Levi’s jeans from the Broadway prior to the shows gets a coupon worth $5 off the ticket price.

I CAN’T HEAR YOU NO MORE: Last Saturday night at San Diego State University’s Open Air Theater, Glass Tiger’s opening set was so obnoxiously loud that several hundred people fled their seats and sought refuge up top in the foyer. There, they waited patiently for headliners the Moody Blues to turn down the sound--and turn up the talent.

BITS & PIECES: A benefit concert for SDSU’s financially troubled radio station, KCR-AM/FM, will be held Saturday at the school’s Montezuma Hall. Performing will be 13 local original music rock bands, including Manual Scan, the Towne Criers and the Groovy Ghoulies. . . . Ex-Police guitarist Andy Summers has been tapped to open for Tangerine Dream on Sept. 21 at the California Theatre downtown.