GENERAL KANE: UP FROM THE RANKS

How’s this for irony?

The man whose anti-drug song, “Crack Killed Applejack,” is a smash single on Billboard magazine’s black music chart changed the name of his band because too many people thought the original spelling was a drug reference.

Mitch McDowell, 30, uses the band name General Kane on his new single, which was released by Motown’s Gordy label, but if you check the two albums McDowell made a few years ago for Tabu Records, you’ll find the name General Caine.

“A lot of people make their own story about the name,” McDowell said as he sat in Motown’s Hollywood offices. “They thought the name was a (reference to) cocaine and a sign that we were heavy into drugs or something, but we aren’t.

“The truth is I knew a guy whose name was Caine when I was in military school when I was 12 or 13. This guy was the most unmilitary guy in the school. He couldn’t do a left face or even shine his shoes right, so they nicknamed him General . . . General Caine, and I always thought the name was happening. But I wanted to get rid of (the drug implication) when we put this record out.”

The song, in the rap style of such earlier anti-drug statements as Grandmaster Flash’s “White Lines,” is a stark tale of someone who once had a world of promise--voted No. 1 at his school--but ends up destroyed by the drug. The Applejack character is reduced at the end to prostitution.

Sample lyric:

It was a sad sight I must confess

He died on the freeway in a mini-dress

His mama told him which way to go

He had to smoke something the Lord didn’t grow

And what I thought was really odd

He died screaming, “Oh my God! “

Explained McDowell, “I wanted to paint the ugliest, most horrible picture I could paint so that maybe someone who hasn’t tried crack will stop and think. I’m glad to have a chance to make a serious statement, but I don’t plan to do any more message music. I’m not Gil Scott-Heron. Most of my music is definitely dance music, party music.”

Aside from the message itself, the most dramatic story behind the success of “Crack Killed Applejack” is McDowell’s personal determination.

After being dropped by the Tabu label in 1983, the San Bernardino resident feared he had lost his only chance at a record career. Yet he kept his band together and scrambled for small club dates in the western states, all the time writing songs and making demos on his home equipment.

“It’s rough when you are on a major label (Tabu is distributed by CBS Records) and then you are (reduced to) playing these tiny clubs,” said McDowell, who sings lead and plays bass with General Kane. “You start to feel like a has-been . . . like you may not make it to the water again.”

Though he knocked on doors at various record labels, McDowell staked his hopes on Steve Buckley, a Motown executive who had expressed interest in General Kane before the group signed with Tabu. Clinging his dream, McDowell went to Buckley’s two or three times a week for a year and a half.

“I must have played 250 things for him, though they were often different versions of the same songs,” said McDowell, who points to Sly Stone and George Clinton as his main musical influences. “There has got to be at least 11 different versions of ‘Crack’ before he decided it was ready to record.”

McDowell said the song that eventually became “Crack” was written three years ago. “I told Steve that the thing that was going to be the biggest problem in this country is rock . He didn’t know what I was talking about, but I meant mean rock houses, where they sell drugs in the ghetto. The song used to be called ‘Death Lives in a Rock House.’ ”

( Rock, the word coined on the West Coast for the type of cocaine that is now the subject of so much national controversy, has been largely supplanted by the East Coast term, crack. )

McDowell came up with the final version of the song following the death last summer of All-American basketball player Len Bias.

“I thought it was the most senseless, depressing thing . . . a guy gets a (multimillion dollar pro) contract like that. I didn’t even know who Len Bias was, but I was watching television when the Celtics drafted him, gave him his number and his hat. It was a good feeling. Everyone was happy. Then, a couple of days later, he’s dead.”

About the song, McDowell added, “I’m not a goody-two-shoes. You’re talking to a guy who has seen about everything, but this crack stuff is terrible, man.”

“I’ve seen what it can do to people . . . people who were like once really happening. Let’s say you’ve got a guy who weighed 250 pounds, now he weighs 160 and he has gone crazy, no sense of values. He has lost his car, his house, his wife. The only thing he has left is a desire to smoke this crack. This stuff is death. . . .”

PHONE-D.M.C.: Run-D.M.C., the New York-based rap group, may be having trouble finding a stage in Los Angeles these days, but the trio has found a way to reach its audience here. Radio station KDAY-AM has invited the group, led by Joseph Simmons, to participate in a two-hour broadcast Thursday dealing with such community youth problems as drugs and gangs.

“We’d like to get a real dialogue going,” said Ed Kerby, station general manager. “We hope to have everyone from ministers to gang members on the phone with Run.”

The trio, which performed at last year’s Los Angeles Street Scene festival, was not allowed to participate in this year’s event because of City Hall uneasiness after gang violence at the group’s Aug. 18 concert at the Long Beach Arena.

Leon Watkins, regional director of the Community Young Gang Services Project, said Friday that he worked with the station in setting up the broadcast and thinks it can have a positive effect in combatting drugs and gang activity in Los Angeles.

“I thought it was a mistake for the Street Scene (committee) to ostracize Run-D.M.C., because the group has such a strong appeal to young people--and their message is so positive. We had hoped to have the broadcast earlier in the day so that it could be heard in classrooms, but we couldn’t work it out in the schools. So, we hope kids will tune in when they get home from school.”

LIVE ACTION: Peter Gabriel, whose “So” is one of my nominations for album of the year, will be in concert Dec. 15 at the Forum. Tickets go on sale Monday. . . . Tickets go on sale Sunday for three Universal Amphitheatre shows: Chaka Khan on Nov. 15, OMD on Dec. 6 and Al Jarreau on Dec. 26-28 and Jan. 2. . . . Bunny Wailer will be at the Greek Theatre on Nov. 2. . . . Iggy Pop will be at the Palace on Nov. 2, while Anita Baker will be the New Year’s Eve attraction at the Beverly Theatre.