The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • 338

CALENDAR POP MUSIC TOP JIMMY IS FOR REAL Some friends of mine Just the other night Went to hear this cool cat blow They said he sang so good That the roof fell in And he didn't even stop the show They don't remember the place But they remember the face And now everybody wanna go Top Jimmy cooks Top Jimmy swings Hes got the look Top Jimmy. the King! "Top Jimmy," from Van Halen's "1984" album Yes, Virginia, there is a Top Jimmy. He lives way up in Hollywood, where he and his band, the Rhythm Pigs, have been pounding down equal proportions of blues and brews for the past five years. As a semilegend, Joan Rivers has nothing on Top Jimmy. Especially now that his hog-calling vocal talents have been immortalized by L.A.'s very own hard-rock heroes, Van Halen.

"I think it's real flattering," said Jimmy, reached by telephone recently while "vacationing" in Kansas City. "I met David (Lee Roth) when I was bartending at the old Zero-Zero club-back when it was on Cahuenga maybe three years ago. We got real drunk and sang a bunch of old blues together, and we've been friends ever since." Roth claims the inspiration for "Top Jimmy" came "when I went down to the Cathay de Grande on a Monday night to see Jimmy and I happened to look up and the ceiling was falling in over the dance Blues" to the Robins' "Framed" to Bob Dylan's "Obviously Five Believers" into the sonic equivalent of a bar-fight. Currently in a state of reorganization. Top Jimmy the Rhythm Pigs never committed anything to wax.

They spent the summer of '82 recording an album's worth of material that has yet to see the light of day. Why? "That's hard to answer," says Jimmy. "A lotta people weren't getting along. Everyone had a different idea of what the Rhythm Pigs were all about, and none of them seemed to mesh. I'm happy with it, though.

Sure, I'd like to see it come out, but it would take somebody with a few dollars to do the work that's necessary. "I just wanna get back to town and make a record. Dave and I have been talking about doing a record of country tunes. I figure if Eddie Van Halen can make records with Michael Jackson, then David Lee Roth can make one with me. "You know, I went to see Van Halen in San Diego.

Now, I don't go to those type shows, but I had a really good time just watching the audience. I mean, I didn't whip out my BIC lighter or anything, but the band works real hard. They put on a show, and it's lots of fun. It's all about getting loaded, girls and dancing, anyway." Don't look for Jimmy's new-found notoriety to go to his head. This linear descendant of Sir John Falstaff and Howlin' Wolf isn't about to give up living the life he loves just to bathe in the reflected glory of his famous friends.

"I'm a terrible screw -up," Jimmy confesses, "although I've actually had two or three hundred dollars at one time. All I really wanna do is make a record so my mom can put it on her jukebox at the River View Inn on Dixie Highway in Valley Station, Kentucky." D.W. Top Jimmy, still waiting for a record. floor. Atmosphere, right? I just said (snaps fingers), 'Hey, I'm putting this on plastic' It's a classic 'Johnny B.

Goode' story." Recalls Jimmy, "We played 60-some Monday nights at the Cathay de Grande. Some of the best times I ever had in my life. Tom Waits came in and sang 'Heart Attack and Vine' one night. Dave used to get up and sing blues. Ray Manzarek, Albert Collins, Bonnie Bramlett, Percy Mayfield, the Blasters, and before she was in Lone Justice Maria McKee, all came down and jammed with us." The Rhythm Pigs' appeal was simple.

Jimmy and the band would get half-lit and proceed to burn, turning everything from Merle Haggard's "Workin' Man streets and see what's happening down on the pavement. "There's a popular phrase in New York: 'very Everything in New York is 'very A 'very important This is a 'very important a 'very important opening And this leads into how California is 'so unimportant' and 'culturally We're not culturally vapid it's just spread out. You have to be willing to drive 20 minutes. It's here. "Like I was driving through the Rampart District the other day, listening to the radio, and the lady comes on and says, 'KJLH.

Kindness, Joy, Love and And I'm looking out the window and here are these deep dudes with the pants up to the armpits and the big brims with the little glasses and everything. And I can just see them stopping some babe out front the liquor store goin', 'Hey, baby, my name's Kindness. This here's my partner Joy. That? L.A., man. "It's life with the top down," Roth laughs, "and I think we reflect that in our music.

I drive a '51 Mercury low rider with a necker knob. It's like sitting in this living room. After all, there is more to life than increasing its speed, although you wouldn't know it by asking Edward (Van Halen). He likes all those sports cars with six-syllable Italian surnames chuckles." As for bassist Michael Anthony's and drummer Alex Van Halen's wheels, Roth says, "They're more like Camel cigarette advertisements. It all reeks of suspension bridges and floating rafts in Burma.

Jeeps with wheels as tall as basketball players laughs. They're the rhythm section, whaddya want? The guys carry tire chains all the time and live in Hollywood laughs hard. "With Van Halen, what you see is what you're really getting. We're not selling you a carefully cultivated image. I want all of you out there in Newspaperland to scurry over to the magazine rack, pick up four interviews, read through 'em and within the first six paragraphs of every single damn interview, every star says, "That's not really me up onstage there.

That's not really me that you've been paying $8.98 for all these years. That's just an image. Fake. I'm really a normal guy. I drink Stroh's chuckles).

What? I paid a dollar-and-a-half for this? Laughs. And the trouble is, they are regular guys. "A lot of what you hear other artists speak about has been designed for them, worked up in an office somewhere chuckles. And then they complain about it when it's all over: They ruined me. I didn't know what was happening to It's unfortunate, but it happens more often than not.

You could die from encouragement in this town, and a lotta people have. Big laugh. "At any rate, what you see from Van Halen comes out of the four of us. Everybody in the band has the same sense of humor, the same sort of spastic motor coordination chuckles, and that comes out in the music. We're totally responsible for everything: the album cover, the final sound of the record, the videos we script, edit and shoot 'em ourselves and on and on and on.

You're getting real people here. And the most fascinating thing to any human being is another human being." made it come alive. It's history, sits on my wall. (Roth gestures toward a framed photo of Kelly.) That is genius. You cannot expect Deborah Harry to pull that off.

"Rock videos are like another new TV show that everybody loves. It's a new You've seen the 'Thriller' video? Do you think when Michael Jackson says, 'I'm not like other guys' that America is rolling in the aisles and he doesn't know it? I've said this before and I'll say it again ain't nobody at the beach gonna be watchin' no video chuckles. And if you are, there's some-thing wrong with you laughs." rn Roth is rolling now. "Nobody thinks, 'Oh, I could be a brain surgeon. I'm gonna do But everybody thinks they sure could be on TV.

That's one of the beauties and drawbacks of show biz. Everybody's got The Way, The Formula, The How-To that they're more than glad to dish out to you. "Take videos, for example. Very few bands have any input into what's going into that camera. They're made up, dressed, blocked out, walked around and told what to do, so what you're getting on MTV is probably nine different directorproducer teams who do 'em all, and they are readily identifiable.

It's quality. Nonetheless, it's not the band. It's an outsider painting pictures for you. "So one questions, given the opportunity and the time, what would the band come up with? OK, (video director) Russell Mulcahey kicks ass. What could Duran Duran do on their own? Are you telling me the band's not going to do as well if Russell splits? That's unfortunate.

Why is that? "You're taking musicians who are familiar with programming synthesizers," Roth continues, answering his own question, "or performing on a stage that is at most 60 by 40 feet and you're asking them to dance across rooftops and drive motorcycles through burned-out city scenes chuckles and stuff like that. You can't do that. It's two different mediums. "Lip-syncing is the most difficult art form you can possibly get involved in. Musical comedy? The only thing tougher is musical drama.

You try to pull that off? There's only one Gene Kelly, man laughs. You take something stupid like 'Singin' in the Ugh! But the man POPPOURRI Let's see, is there anyone out there we -q haven't offended? And is it any wonder people find this guy obnoxious? Roth answers his critics: "When I deal from 3 the stage, I tell you direct, which can be interpreted as obnoxious or charming. Two opposites become the same thing, you know? I use my body so that you can see what you are hearing. When the music goes into a spiral, I go into a spiral, It's not something that I choreograph. "Whether you're standing there and gently wiping tears from your cheek or whether you're throwing yourself eight feet off the drum riser chuckles, the most important thing about being a front man is to make the music look like it PlivscTurntol'wM 70 POP EYE Records by mail.

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