Here They Go-Go Again

“Some of you out there must be thinking, ‘Why are the Go-Go’s back again?’ ”

Singer Belinda Carlisle wasn’t just making idle chatter to the Viper Room audience last week during a surprise warmup show for the quintet’s brief summer tour.

Instead, it was part of the show, with Carlisle reading a new spoken interlude to “Cool Jerk,” the Capitols’ perky 1966 song that’s been a Go-Go’s staple since the band’s late-’70s beginning. Continuing the song, the band sang new lyrics about supposed implants, liposuction and other procedures that some assume are responsible for the fact that the five women don’t look that different in their 40s from the way they did when they were topping the charts in the early ‘80s.

It was a good laugh for both band and audience, which included Exene Cervenka, a key contemporary from the old days of L.A.’s Masque punk club, and three women who can claim some inspiration from the Go-Go’s bubbly pop for their own vastly different musical paths: Alanis Morissette, Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon and L7’s Donita Sparks.

“The only song we felt, ‘Well, everyone will like it, but we’re not crazy about doing it,’ was ‘Cool Jerk,’ ” says guitarist Charlotte Caffey, sitting with her bandmates at the Viper Room the afternoon of the show. “But we fixed it.”

“It’s all based on a formula that works,” says guitarist Jane Wiedlin. “If we’re having fun, then the audience joins in with our fun.”

And fun is a big part of why the Go-Go’s are back again for a brief tour that includes shows at the Greek Theatre tonight and July 17. All five have other lives. Carlisle, who lives in France and England and is raising a 7-year-old son, has a successful solo career in Europe. Caffey, married to Redd Kross’ Jeff MacDonald, with whom she has a 4-year-old daughter, is an in-demand songwriter and consultant, having worked on Jewel’s debut album and Hole’s “Celebrity Skin,” among others.

Wiedlin had been leading a band called Frosted. Bassist Kathy Valentine not only co-wrote two songs on Blondie’s recent album and co-leads the L.A. trio the Delphines, but is also preparing to pursue studies in classic literature and ancient history at UCLA. And drummer Gina Schock is getting ready to launch her new band, K5.

But here they are, back as the Go-Go’s. It’s the third time this decade that the group, which first called it quits in 1984, has toured, despite having no new album to promote and each member being involved in other projects.

The fact is that the last time they did this, in 1994, they didn’t have a lot of fun. Having first re-formed in 1990 for a tour, the novelty of being back together was gone and the main impetus for the venture was to promote an anthology being released by I.R.S. Records. And the pregnant Caffey stayed home, with the Bangles’ Vicki Peterson filling in. It just wasn’t quite right.

“I just felt for the first time in my life I was doing something for money, musically,” says Valentine. “The first time I was so grateful and appreciative to get to be in the Go-Go’s again. The second time, I had a really bad attitude.”

The others concur that despite some fun moments the 1994 tour was a bad idea.

And this time?

“We’re doing it because we want to,” says Caffey.

But for all the fun, they’re hardly taking this lightly. This isn’t simply a tour, but the first venture of what might be called the Go-Go’s Inc.

“We’ve been taking control of our own business,” says Caffey. “We have no management as a group, and we’ve been very hands-on. It’s almost like back in the beginning: I’d call Belinda at her day job. ‘Hello. Petersen Publishing.’ ‘Belinda, did you book the gig tonight?’ Now we’ve been doing a lot on our own, using all the avenues that are opening.”

Indeed, they’re mapping out plans to follow a lot of roads. Among the plans: a live album to be recorded on this tour and sold directly by the band via the Internet, an oral history book of the band, and a feature film based on the band’s unlikely rise from amateur punk wannabes at the Masque to international chart-toppers with such bouncy hits as “We Got the Beat,” “Our Lips Our Sealed” and “Vacation.”

“It’s really important to not make a big Hollywood piece of crap, and to tell the story in a really honest way and have control,” Carlisle says of the film plans. “We could have actually sold the story nine months ago to any studio, but we would have had to have given up control of the story we want to tell. So if it worked out that we could not have control over it, we’d rather not do it.”

And what about a new album from the group, whose last collection of new songs was 1984’s “Talk Show”?

“The last two times, we said, ‘Oh yeah, we’ll make a record,’ and nothing materialized,” says Wiedlin. “This time, we’re thinking, ‘Let’s just take it one step at a time.’ ”

In a comment echoed enthusiastically by the four others, she adds, “Personally, I’d be thrilled if it was to be a real band again.”

BE THERE

The Go-Go’s, with Berlin and the Lunachicks, tonight at the Greek Theatre, 2700 Vermont Canyon Road, 7:30 p.m. $20 to $50. (213) 480-3232. Also Friday at Santa Barbara Bowl, 1122 N. Milpas St., Santa Barbara, 6:30 p.m. $26 to $44. (805) 962-7411. Sunday at Open Air Theatre, San Diego State University, 8 p.m. $25 and $35. (619) 594-6947.