SHIVVERS
Til the Word Gets Out CD (H2D/Teenline #101)
The Shivvers story may never make perfect sense to folks from the East or West Coasts --where the Shivvers would have either changed the course of music in the 80s or they'd have gloriously crashed and burned in a world-class blaze of rock-crit hype. No, the Shivvers could only have happened deep in the American Midwest, where the highs, the lows, the passions and the feuds, the triumphs and tragedies (the musical ones, anyway) all happened on a profoundly Midwestern scale. You've gotta figure they really did know how good they were, but they'd never tell you so. They were happy to fill just about every venue they played, but never felt entitled to it. They got chatted up by Eric Carmen (who wanted to produce their major-label LP whenever it happened), Iggy Pop ("call me Jim"), and some guy whose dad invented Tony the Tiger, but when nothing came of it no one felt cheated.
Scott Krueger [bass] and Jim Richardson [drums]
started off together in the 70s with long-time ally Breck Burns,
shuffling jointly and individually in and out of Milwaukee seventies
bands with names like Forearm Smash, In a Hot Coma, the Craze,
and the Drones, doing everything from lumbering prog-rock to Merseybeat
covers. Scott and Jim next had a short run (for obvious reasons)
as the Police. In true punk spirit, the Police broke up and Scott
and Jim briefly parted ways, whereupon Scott and guitarist Breck
Burns formed a three-piece called the Orbits with drummer Bob
Wren, while after a tour with Milwaukee punks the Lubricants Jim
hooked up with guitarist Mike Pyle and teenage singer/songwriter/classical
pianist (and one-time Hot Coma keyboardist) Jill Kossoris to form
the Shivvers.
Actually it's a little more complicated than that. Jill had seen
Scott's band the Drones on local TV (he was the one with the Brian
Jones look). They later met in person at a Runaways gig and again
at a Rolling Stones film and they started dating. Scott had left
In a Hot Coma -as well as the Drones- and he and Breck had settled
into the Orbits in late 1977. Jill had joined In a Hot Coma but
since she was maybe 5, she'd been itching to get her own band.
The Orbits invited Jill to sing "Hunka Hunka Burnin' Love"
with them live, but when Scott introduced Jill to fellow girl-group
aficionado Jim Richardson, they instantly hit it off and the Shivvers
were born. (The remaining members of In a Hot Coma, meanwhile,
became the Haskels....)
Version #1 of the Shivvers mostly practiced
in Jill's parents basement (getting it perfect before playing
out is a long-running Shivvers theme), and they quickly mastered
several dozen pop-rock classics. No tune was too obscure or too
uncool, but Jill had also started writing her own songs "Why
Tell Lies" was her first and "Don't Tell Me" followed
shortly after. They found a couple of willing and talented guitarists
in Mike Pyle and Jim Eanelli, but the bassist thing never really
clicked. Nevertheless, Shivvers #1 hit Star Studio in 1980 and
recorded their 45, "Teenline" [of course Jill was still
a teenager, then]/ "When I Was Younger."
The single debuted to modest sales and rave reviews from as far
away as Bomp and NY Rocker. The Orbits, meanwhile,
had cut their own amazing 45 ("Phenomenal World"/ "Make
the Rules") and played around Milwaukee a bit, but the acerbic
Breck Burns had burnt more than his share of music-biz bridges
along the way. He always did it with a grin, but he always did
it nonetheless. So.when Jim and Jill came calling, Scott was happy
to come over to the Shivvers on bass while Breck was content
to lay low for a while back in rural Elkhorn, Wisconsin (inconveniently
equidistant to Milwaukee and Madison), where he lived all through
the Orbits/Shivvers era despite the gruesome commute. Thus began
the Shivvers' golden age.
The Shivvers covered Shaun Cassidy's "Hey Deannie" (an Eric Carmen tune) and Iggy Pop's "Take Care of Me," the Strangeloves, the Choir, Abba, the Flamin Groovies, Sparks, the Hollies, Dusty, and of course, Slade -plus tons of girl-group classics. They also mixed in more and more of Jill's tracks, and a few of Scott's (he's the Left Banke fan responsible for "Life Without You," an old Drones song). They played everywhere -well, they never played the state fair- but punk clubs to roadhouses to thousands at Milwaukee's Summerfest 1982 and the live radio broadcast on WQFM, whence cometh the live tracks you're listening to They opened for the Shoes, the Stooges, and once for Madison's ruling indie rockers, Spooner, although the Shivvers headlined Mad City ever after. And then there was the nude theater troupe that opened for them in Chicago called "Let My People Come"...
Even with Jill's songwriting in full bloom, the band continued to mine their record-collections for lost gems to cover. Now, up to this point it's fair to say Jim Eanelli liked the Shivvers prospects for fame and stardom more than he disliked pop music (which he truly loathed), but Badfinger's "No One Knows It" was the final straw. And though he successfully vetoed the song, the handwriting was on the wall. Fortunately, this coincided nicely with the re-appearance of the still mischievous but somewhat more mellow Breck Burns, who replaced Eanelli just in time for what turned out to be the Shivvers last three gigs.
Everyone agreed that in terms of their careers the time had come to head for New York or L.A., but the reliable pleasures of playing for the loyal local thousands -and making it home to bed every night- were hard to leave behind. The band decided that Boston might not require quite as difficult an adjustment, but it still came as a shock when Jim Richardson and Mike Pyle up and said, okay, we're moving to Boston next week -we'll be waiting for you.
True to their word, Jim and Mike packed up
and shipped out, but after a few plaintive, when-are-you-coming
phone calls back to Milwaukee, it was all over. Jill had some
health issues and welcomed the rest, Breck had already spent a
little too much time away from his beloved woods, and Scott had
liked the idea of California better than the Northeast anyway,
so he took up an offer to join the Wigs, in L.A.. He's not on
their LP, but he helped with a movie soundtrack (My Chauffeur,
with Penn & Teller) and spent a couple unrewarding months
with them in the clubs.
By late '83 everyone but Mike was back in Wisconsin. Breck and
Scott started getting together once a week to write songs (wonderful
Mike Brown/Chris Bell/Tommy Keene jangly pop, plus a few Orbits/Shoes-style
rockers -coming soon to a CD near you?).
They talked about it for years but the only Shivvers reunion (minus Mike --who's still happily collecting guitars and playing in Boston) was a bittersweet recording session in 1989 that yielded the Shivvers' magnum opus: "Remember Tonight." Since the Shivvers break-up, Eric Carmen had continued to encourage Jill (though his ulterior motive as always was to get her to record a few more of his songs), and he, like everyone else, agreed that "Remember" was a huge popsong. So, rather like Phil Spector with "River Deep Mountain High," Jill and producer Mike Hoffman [Yipes+++] went all out on the arrangement Breck, especially, was a more-than-willing co-conspirator, as it was his only time in the studio with the band. Jill even bought a used Mellotron. (FYI, track #4 is the rough, and #18 is the final "Wall of Sound" mix.)
Shortly after the session Breck Burns ironically, the "health-nut" of the group- was diagnosed with lymphoma. He died of the disease in 1993. Scott released a tribute LP in 1996 with Jim Richardson called "One Voice," which included a new version of "Life Without You," and Scott later helped assemble the definitive punk-era compilation of the Milwaukee scene, History in 3 Chords, a 51-track double CD, that includes songs by just about all the local folks we've mentioned here. (www.splungecomm.com) Jill has continued to write and record, both at home and in Nashville, where she's collaborated with the Mavericks and others and she publishes with Curb Music. Her 2001 CD is called "Invisible," and she's at jillkossoris.com.