The Cold - Cold will cool it in New Orleans

The Cold will cool it in New Orleans
by Bunny Matthews

"We've burned out New Orleans - we know that. We've overexposed ourselves, and so we want to cut back drastically. We want to start playing out of the city and out of the state more. We also want to take more time off to write and rehearse. Bruce Spizer, our manager, never understood that, so finally it got to the point where we just had to cut it completely."

So announced the Cold's Kevin Radecker last week just before dropping the Big Bomb - news that the Cold will perform but once in New Orleans this month, on Halloween (most likely aboard the Riverboat President). The beginning of October will see the band touring Texas for the first time, under the direction of impresario Barry Mendelson.

"It's a rebellion," said guitarist Bert Smith, "a mutiny."

"Mendelson agreed with us totally about the band's overexposure," continued Radecker. "And he wanted to throw the fan club right out of the window. We argued that the fan club should stay because a lot of people had joined up, but we thought the $9 fee was ridiculous. For $9, you get a button, a couple of stickers, a color glossy plus a monthly Cold newsletter - but how much a month can you write about us? How many flat tires a month we will get?"

The fan club will remain in business, but the band has demanded that Spizer refund $5 to all who have joined, and the monthly Cold newsletter will now appear only "occasionally."

"You hate to bring up your image, but there is an image and it's not us," explained Radecker. "What appears in the flyers, what you hear on the radio ads - we had no input into that. Any time that we had no input into advertising, we'd look at it and get very bummed out.

"We're a good band, people come to see us - why hype it?" bassist Vance DeGeneres asked. "Spizer has never managed a band before. He's basically a nice, honest, enthusiastic guy but overzealous." Spizer himself says that he has voluntarily given up managing the band in order to devote more time to practicing law.

Despite the differences between the band and Spizer, he will continue to handle the Cold's business affairs. Mendelson, brought in at Spizer's suggestion, will handle the Cold's bookings - particularly in other markets. At this time, Mendelson has not officially committed himself to managing the Cold, although this is under discussion.

Of prime importance to the Cold at this stage is signing with a major record label. The latest offer comes from WMOT, the Columbia subsidiary responsible for the hit soul single "Double Dutch Bus." According to DeGeneres, "they wanted to make us their rock act. They've just hired Billy Bass from Chrysalis - he's the one who broke Blondie and Pat Benetar. They want us to sign real bad - we didn't say yes and we didn't say no. We're waiting."

While the Cold waits, the members are rehearsing and learning new material for the first time in months. Among the group's latest tunes is "The Theme from Green Slime". "It's the consummate bad horror-movie theme song," Radecker reported. "That's our new direction - more fun!"