Thursday, September 19, 1985
Diwrsioinis
. : - ii V
A l:J
Kurt EberhardtDally Nebraska n
Burton
By Mike Grant
Staff Reporter
Charlie Burton, of Charlie Burton
and the Hiccups, was tired. He laid his
head against the back of the booth in
the Union's Corncrib and closed his
eyes as he answered questions.
Trying to push a local band into the
national spotlight is no piece of cake,
yet even at the end of a long day, Burton
fields questions about his latest album
"I Heard That!" with infectious wit.
"The technical quality is the first
thing we stressed for this album," Bur-
aims
'beyoiiQ
ton said. "We took a lot more time, and
we had a real producer this time."
Burton said the band's producer and
engineer, Lou Whitney, (formerly of the
Morells) added a country influence to
the record.
"We even got the title from the
southern Missouri ambience," Burton
said. "Down in Springfield, Missouri, if
you agree with someone, or if you don't
even know what they're saying, you just
say 'I heard that,' and you're covered."
There has been a lot of confusion
over the name of Charlie Burton's back
up band.
local spotlight
The original name of the band, 'The
Cutouts," was dropped because record
buyers associated the band with cut
rate records. They dropped the next
name, "The Go-Cups," because in Mis
souri slang it means the container for
off-sale liquor.
One night, while playing at the How
ard Street Tavern in Omaha, Burton
said the band noticed that someone
had crossed out "Go" on the posted
schedule and wrote over it "Hie"
"The Hiccups."
The band liked the name and sent it
in to the printers who were making the
album cover. The alteration is one of
the reasons the album took so long to
come out, Burton said.
In the past, Burton's music has been
called "garage-band punk." Burton said
he shies away from such terminology,
"because the garage-band sound was
developed by only a few bands in about
1966 to 1967.
"I think people have called us that
in the past becuase the technical
sound of our last records was so shitty,"
Burton said.
More than any other quality of the
band, Burton's song-writing abiltiy
stands out. Few other musicians can
weave love stories and life messages
around something as mundane as a
garage sale, and still make it rhyme.
Burton said he credits his ability to
an offbeat combination of influences,
ranging from Gilbert and Sullivan to
Chuck Berry.
"I like making double meanings and
multiple rhymes within one line of a
song like they did," Burton said.
"I got a lot of my influences from my
parents. My folks were always listening
Please see BURTON on 8