A late 80s disco 12” record on a small L.A. dance label provides a fascinating off-the-wall link to Spinal Tap (often billed as the loudest band in the world), and The Tyrants in Therapy (often billed as the weirdest band in the world).
It all started with a chance meeting in East Hollywood between Viv Savage, Spinal Tap’s original keyboard player, and the Tyrant Michael J.
“I was writing a song with a collaborator named Jim Mandell when the doorbell rings and in bounds this extraordinarily cheerful Englishman, who proceeded to light up the room in more ways than one,” remembers The Tyrant Michael. “We really hit it off, exchanged phone numbers, and started writing songs together.”
“Back in those days, the Tyrants were proceeding on 2 completely different musical fronts, disco and rock,” Tyrant Michael continues, “and David Kafinetti (Viv Savage’s offstage name) became a wild, wonderful and willing accomplice to our musical efforts in both those worlds.”
“David is a really open as a collaborator,” says Abbe Kanter, the female Tyrant, “he not only goes with the flow, he creates the flow. Once Michael, me, David, Duncan Faure (of the Bay City Rollers) and Stacy, our favorite ex-Tyrant, were all in our studio writing and we came up with a great (and as yet unreleased) song called ‘Surrounded.’ I was amazed because each of the 5 people came up with something special that added to the final song.”
“One cold and rainy night in the Fall of ‘87, David dropped by late,” recalls Tyrant Michael. “and in the mood to write. So I fired up our trusty Roland CR 8000 drum machine, he played one of our dinky old Casio mini synths, and ‘Call of the Wild’ was born.”
In those days, the High Energy dance scene was booming in L.A., and the Tyrants had many opportunities to release records under their own name and various solo configurations.
“We played a very rough version of ‘Call of the Wild’ to Jim Callon at JDC Records who had released our big hit ‘Too Tuff To Cry,’” says Tyrant Michael, “Jim liked the basic idea of ‘Wild,’ and suggested that we enlist Sabby Rayas, my collaborator on ‘Too Tuff,’ to help with the track.
So Sabby programmed the drums and percussion, David laid down some nasty keyboard riffs, and Duncan played some screaming rock guitar. Adding to the excitement was a sample I made from one of our live gigs in Mexico City. About 3,000 people were yelling “Patrick, Patrick” in honor of DJ Patrick Miller, the gig’s promoter. We made that sample into a chant and dropped it in throughout the record. Then Duncan, Abbe and Tyrant Stina sang the background vocals. Finally I did the lead vocal, and it was released as a Tyrant Michael solo record on JDC.”
Sad to say, the exuberant ‘Call of the Wild’ was not destined to find acceptance in the Dance Music world circa 1988.
“It was a great high energy record, but it came out at precisely the wrong time,” says Tyrant Michael. “Club DJ’s were jumping on the House music bandwagon, and nobody wanted to play an Italo disco high energy record at 132 beats per minute. To try to save the project, Jim Callon had us speed it up at the mastering lab in an effort to make it sound more Techno. Eventually it came out at 148 bpms, which is absurdly fast.”
But strangely enough, ‘Wild’ has always been greeted with great enthusiasm during the Tyrants’ live shows, so they decided to include the track on their new cd ‘Dance with The Tyrants, Classic Dance Hits Vol.1.’
“It rounds out the compilation nicely,” states Abbe Abbe, “and adds a macho element to the sweetness of our high energy love songs on the new cd.”
And what of the Viv Savage/Tyrants in Therapy collaboration?
“It’s stronger than ever,” says Tyrant Michael, “David is well represented on ‘High Class Trash,’ our 2009 cd. In 2004, we wrote one of the strangest songs in history called ‘My Dying Girlfriend,’ an interior monologue set to a seductive chill out track that’s weird, funny and poignant all at the same time.”
“And he also co-wrote ‘Angels Remember,’ one of the most spiritual songs we’ve ever released,” adds AbbeAbbe, “That’s on ‘High Class Trash’ as well.”
As he approaches his 5th decade in music, David “Viv Savage” Kafinetti shows no signs of slowing down.
The energetic blue-eyed Englishman who played keyboards in Spinal Tap, also had a major international hit called ‘Sympathy’ with Rare Bird back in the 70’s
He continues to make music in L.A. and the Bay Area, and is currently writing for and gigging with bands fronted by Linda Imperial and Bluesetta.
When asked about his life these days, he slips into his patented Viv Savage drawl and says “I have a good time…All the time.”
‘Call of the Wild,’ ‘Angels Remember,’ and ‘My Dying Girlfriend’ are all available at iTunes, amazon.com, cdbaby.com, or at tyrantsintherapy.com.
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