RECORDS

JOHN LENNON — PLASTIC ONO BAND — APPLE SW-3372

John: guitar, piano, vocals/Yoko: wind/ Ringo: drums/Klaus Voorman: bass. Produced by John & Yoko and Phil Spector.

you just have to feel it, i suppose, the pain in life, that living may just be a dream. suffering a nightmare, (what does life mean to you?) that the only way to stop the aching is to enter the dream & wake the dreamer.

then maybe you can go ahead & live life with less regret, “remember when you were young/how the hero was never hung.” the lennon album is spawned out of love & pain, out of sadness, doubts & self-accusations, out of the terrible fear of being alone & lonely, out of a mother dying & a father leaving home, out of wanting & losing & going through your changes in an arid world, out of aching & not being able to cry.

“my mother came one day to see us in a black coat with her face all bleeding, she’d been in some sort of accident, i couldn’t face

it. . . i loved her but i didn’t want to get involved.”

a thing that leads to other things, it has spontaneity & timelessness -virtuosity with ease - without being ‘daring’ or ‘unusual’ or ‘virtuosic’ - with passages of pain & beauty unmatched in rock.

it will, i really believe, speak to anyone, any post-hare krishna freak, post-guru, postdylan, post-lennon, post-beatle person, who is still deeply frightened by the things the world is doing to our minds.

it’s a fragile thing - just like passing moments you want to catch & preserve or maybe just do something about but don’t know how to -

“people say we got it made/don’t they know we’re so afraid/i-so-lation.”

it will speak to anyone, i imagine, who has never even heard of dr. arthur janov’s primal scream, but who has ever felt - even deep down — that everybody, everywhere, knows the pain that comes from going awry with the dream, with the nightmare of the world & passing time & feeling & growing-up.

“love is free, free is love/love is living, living love/love is needing to be loved.”

this record is john, the man, destroying the dream, the idol, the idols, revitalizing his dirt-poor emotions, feeling that in the midst of change, he is, love is.

“hold on john, john hold on/it’s gonna be

alright/you gonna win the fight.” “i don’t expect you to understand/after you caused so much pain/but then again you’re not to blame/you’re just a human, a victim of the insane.”

it’s just another record, i know — and i will leave the individual tracks (all really beautiful, some really killer lennon, part-abbey road, part-“helter skelter”) to your own experience - but lennon has made me feel him as a fellow human -

(john ono lennon was born on October 9, 1940 in oxford street maternity hospital, liverpool.) “my mummy’s dead/i can’t get it through my head/though it’s been so many years/my mummy’s dead/i can’t explain/so much pain/i could never show it/my mummy’s dead.” (he has brown hair & brown eyes.) “mama don’t go/daddy come home . . . ”

left me feeling not quite the same -remembering for the first time in two years -do i need any further justification for calling it a peat rock ‘n’ roll record.

“the dream is over/what can i say?/the dream is over/yesterday/i was the dreamweaver/but now i’m reborn/i was the walrus/but now i’m john/and so dear friends/you just have to carry on/the dream is over.”

michael ross

i don’t believe in magic i don’t believe in i-ching i don’t believe in bible i don’t believe in tarot i don’t believe in hitler i don’t believe in jesus i don’t believe in kennedy i don’t believe in buddha i don’t believe in mantra i don’t believe in gita i don’t believe in yoga i don’t believe in kings i don’t believe in elvis i don’t believe in zimmerman i don’t believe in beatles i just believe in me yoko and me and that’s reality

BOB DYLAN - NEW MORNING -COLUMBIA

SETTING THE SWINE STRAIGHT ABOUT THE DYLAN BUMMER

by Gus Soline, Yale ’67

Look. Even Dylan’s worst masterpiece (Desolation Row) passed the Heraclitus test. What didn’t? Nothing. Everything did. But. What. Still was and had to be a greatest masterpiece and was (“Like a Rolling Stone”: objectified traditional greatest etc) and it had to be early in the game. Sheer brute athleticism. And he loved loved loved his own voice. And then Blonde on Blonde: he WAS Heraclitus(’s tooth). Then the narrow retrospective period of “Like a Rolling Stone” as the whole thing for a while. But then Heraclitus died and Dylan forgot and Heraclitus too (forgot both).

While George Harrison worked out his paragraph form Dylan worked out his grocery list. (And since, not since but around, Plato with his Republic scene where he did a perfect move-foilowed-by-later-move-analysis move and really spread it out for the optimum football game): Dylan and his abandonment of politics-folk, his move orientation move and his optimum artist-audience-artist-artist (audience) consistency move: but finally his abandonment of history (isn’t history the land of the optimum optimum for the non-Heraclitean and etc or wasn’t it etc?: yes and) with the NON-MOVE. That’s with John Wesley Harding and everything after it and so happens moves themselves got played out in the meantime (too bad) so obviously nonmoves were out too if you were quite the Heraclitean and if you weren’t that was played out too. But why? Well, for one thing, the world ended (from both ends of the way up and down and etc) with the bit with all voices making it (so the original vocal move and original vocal conditioning move are just the loudest forgotten parts of yesterday’s grocery list and yesterday’s Moby Grape when there wasn’t one tomorrow). That’s a sweaty place to breathe without recording it or having recorded it too long ago. When you set up the eschatology (What’s All Over Now Sweet Marie Sniffing Drainpipes) and you decide not to bother and it seemed before-

hand that you wouldn’t only bother but you’d pinpoint it on a popular T-shirt at least you gotta at least be obvious enough not to be obvious about bein unobvious about being unobviously obvious about and not ever there selling x or buying it or stealing it or giving it or).

And now he’s not even the coach (forget about athlete altogether) but the retired referee making his comeback (not the retired sport making the scene again against Marvin Hart). Too much life time went by so you get too much cosmic matchup too much art-life asswipe too much understated too much. Too much for what? Too much for x. Too much for y. Too much for the piss orgasm. Do the Duchamp-Warhol but if you focus that in on itself and end up being lazy about being lazy you’re merely lazy. Which is peat and you’re just a hick which is all right and if you happen to be Dylan

you get to be

the second Elvis Presley

during his

fadeout years

and then you’re just

a hick again

(doing I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight for the 30th time and doing it best

even after the collapse of bestness (just cause you were away and didn’t do it even faster) or just the best Dean Martin and that’s peat, man but he was gonna be the Elvis Presley who showed his penis

and he didn’t

(except with his wife and kid move

in its bubble gum obscurity)

he did it all

but he had to get to

doing all

one by one

(JWH) (NS) (S-P) (NM) when he already had a one-by-one unannounced but obvious (the rock objectified revealed religion empirical specific) so now his object hop is only repetition of the other object hops only repetition’s on some other old atom and other is too pretty (in Dogs Run Free) for titty you get it?:

it’s a battleship made out of shit from a digested battleship but it’s still shit if/unless you label the nodules of shitness (not to mention the nodules of its

and you

get as diarrhetic as possible and:

Dylan is not diarrhetic Dylan is not

the other thing either ^

whatever that was

(another too-much: too much criteria persistence masochism)

Noticeable is that

Three Angels

did not give David Roter

that much hope in its

torpor

Dylan sniffs Rembrandt’s (piss-colored) paint tubes

and thinks that because they’re pissed colored he can get away with it (man, all this inadvertent get-away-withness!) he’s great and he’s

(TOMMY TIBBS PISSES AND YOU KNOW IT

whether or not it’s more than a mere metaphor or not asymmetric mere conpuence (or conpuence or comprehensibility or something like that) has something to do with it and Dylan would be the last person (maybe) to want pertinence attached to his latest, (intersection of latest and most or more or just pertinenct) and who cares what he thinks so why not agree and why not bummer anyway (you know, like overabundance of quality today etc) it’s useful etc it’s your move if you

still go for moves bummer

(intentional bummer?)

bummer

etc

EAST BAY GREASE - TOWER OF POWER - SAN FRANSISCO SD 204

Tower of Power is the name of a new album by the East Bay Grease. The title is maybe slightly pretentious but essentially correct. This record is powerful, not in the sense that this is the kind of music that is tearing away at the fabric of social injustice or anything (other than that there are very few kinds of power that I can think of in a good context. The only place where they display that kind of power is in “Back on the Streets Again” - killer tune; No this is the kind of power that makes you smile, this is music that moves you to have a good time and nothing more, and that’s not a criticism). “Knock Yourself Out” is that kind of fun cut - I dare anyone I know who is as fanatical about James Brown as I am to listen to this jam and not smile. It’s easy to understand why they named it that. “Social Lubrication” is a song about getting high. The only thing is that they say that people get high watching t.v. or going to church or drinking but I disagree ... I

think that people get strung out on these things. I can only think about “getting high” in a positive sense and I can’t relate to T.V. or drinking or going to church like that.

I should point out that the drumming here, supplied by Dave Garibaldi and the bass work done by Frank Prestia have a consistent strength and energy that make this a hard record not to listen to. Combine that with some excellent guitar solos by Willy Fulton and truly “powerful” vocals by Rufus Miller and you have the potential, at least, for the kind of power I was talking about earlier.

“The Skunk, the Goose and the Fly” is as spaced out as its title — that’s about it. The only slow number is called “Sparkling in the Sand”, where the band displays some fine fluegelhorn work by Mic Gillette who also does trumpet and trombone on the rest of the album. It hasn’t occured to me til now to mention the horn work on the album (2 trumpets, alto and tenor sax and trombone) and that is probably a sign that I am right in my opinion that it is good but not exceptional. It would be difficult to provide anything new and engaging in terms of horn solos in soul music and they certainly have not done anything like that. But what they have done is to prepare some funky, happy music, music you can dance to, of all things. Music that for no other reason than that puts all the “rock operas”, English “classics”, with their extravagent orchestral arrangements and other supposedly mature plastic goop on the set today in its proper perspective.

If you agree, and you probably don’t, that music cannot be separated, in any way, from the social context in which it was made, then we could use Huey P. Newton’s definition of what power is; Huey said that “Power is the ability to define phenomena and make them act in a desired manner.” This is powerful music, then, as is all music to some degree, and I hold that music is only as good as it is strong, which is like an abstract thing. But unless music comes into play with the environment that created it, that is if it is not “functional” outside of the aesthetic sense of that word then it is worth only half of its potential value. Tower of Power comes close to being “complete” by that definition. So, pick up on this album then, and “Power to the People”.

Joe Booker

IDLEWILD SOUTH - THE ALLMAN BROTHERS BAND - ATCO SD 33-342

This album is a distillation of various idioms - r&b, rock and blues - that is successful mainly because of the propulsive, dynamically entwining lead and slide guitarwork of Duane Allman, the back-up second lead of Dickie Betts and the soulful organ/piano-work of Greg Allman. The overall sound is basically an instrumental one, overlaid with wailing vocals at intervals, that perhaps is a codification of all the attendant Southern white rock ‘n’ roll/soul band changes gathered into one rhythmic whole -doing what sounds like a collection of simmering, jamming-into-the-night songs that grow addictive the more you listen.

Basically, the Allman Brothers are just a cooking club band from Macon, Georgia, where they are located now after beginning in Daytona, Florida as the Allman Joys in 1965, moving to the West Coast as the Hourglass in 1967 and quickly drifting into obscurity until Duane started doing sessionwork for Atlantic on the advice of Rick Hall. At Muscle Shoals Duane played on albums by Wilson Pickett, John Hammond, Aretha, Clarence Carter and Arthur Conley until Rick asked him if he’d like to do a solo album. The old band was no longer together, being scattered across the country, but they reunited, woodshedded up in Macon and came up with the first Allman Brothers album.

Idlewilde South, their second album is an amplification of that first, year-ago disc and reveals the fact that Duane, Greg and the boys are now devoting all their energy to the new band, writing their own material (Greg and Dicky Betts) and communicating in the fashion that only musicians who have had ups and downs over five years can communicate. From the opening chords of the expansive “Revival” to the closing, choogling fade-out on “Leave My Blues At Home” the Allman Brothers Band is non-stop, slippin’ ‘n’ slidin’ music - and dig their Southern re-working of Willie Dixon’s “Hoochie Coochie Man” that slyly, lazily conquers. The band’s one instrumental “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed” is perhaps the first cut to play - it is an effective summing-up of all the regions they have borrowed from - including jazz - dig the tempos, the use of drums and the reflective, time-changing guitar-work of Duane and Dicky. The closest comparison to their feel on this cut is the new Abraxas Santana album, but the Allman Brothers were there first.

Also mind-bendingly assertive are the reflective tunes - with titles like “Don’t Keep

Me Wonderin’ ” “Please Call Home” and “Leave My Blues At Home” they all sound like hit singles if given a chance - sort of a Southern CSN&Y feel with lyrics that are just lyric enough - the organ-studded loneliness etched on “Please Call Home” in particular is most seductive - similar to Van Morrison with soul. The Allman Brothers approach to music has probably influenced more musicians than they care to admit - it’s time they received credit for their derivative Datona and Macon stylings.

Gary Von Tersch

LED ZEPPELIN III - LED ZEPPELIN -ATLANTIC SD 7201

I’d like to write a review that does in print what Led Zeppelin does on record. Fd like to wrote a revue that do in print what Lid Zapulon daes in rakard. Eyed lak two wring a rongvue thang done an purnt hot Lug Zipperlin dig em ekred.

For example, you could imitate Robert

Plant being at the zoo and playing with the animals - ughoooeekkkkzzzzughugugh. Flour ecks sample who cowed imiganite Rudder Plunk bing adduh zeeund plodding wifde anizuls. uggauggauggabuggaugga. Flinkeks simple moocid immigrate Rubby Plaster bee a d z*u e n d plown t h an im in im als. OOOOGGGGAAAAMMMMMMMUUUUUGGGGGGAAAAA.

Or Jimmy Page throwing up on his guitar while the crowd cheers and Yardbirds fans in legion descend to grasp his sweaty palm. (Except he only does it twice — reeeeeeeeskrofeeeeer) Oar Jammy Pig trang ape onis git tarwell dacrow chair and Yiddybid fangs inlegos refundu grapsis sweany pall. (Wwwwwwwwhiigggggnnnnnnneeesssssssssstttttt)

There are myriads of wonderful bung-mung on this here record, there is a whole in the center and if they would only change their name to their reel nom de plumeata they could be filled in my record collection as the only bandie after Zappa, Rank. (Zep - rimes with hep.)

What is a Led Zeppily? I have oftimes asked of my own selfhead this questlung upon retiring to my bed patterns. Or sometimes, how is a Red Zipper not a Load Zoppinsky? Many times there is no answer and they refuse to do it for ya.

I really dung this requiem a lot.

Alexander Icenine

DICK GREGORY - DICK GREGORY’S FRANKENSTEIN - POPPY PYS 60,004.

In a lot of ways what I have before me is a somewhat morbidly truthful record, but so is a lot of the political talk in this Time For Revolution. The need for change, for some way out of this mess manifests itself in many ways - from the racism and oppression that Black people in this country and People of Color all over the world to the blatant sexism that western man has seen fit to impose upon his woman; from the empty stomachs of forty million people in ameriea alone, to the rape of the African continent by europeans and their dispossessed cousins. Some of these are the issues that Dick Gregory is concerned with. Some of these are the issues that we are confronted with on this record.

Dick Gregory is commonly thought of as a “comic”, you know, one of those people who appear in front of your television screen at night and tells horribly insignificant, but sometimes funny stories. But DickGregory has transcended that category. He has entered what may prove to be a more dangerous -but definitely more significant - occupation as political humorist.

But the role fits Dick Gregory well, and he

may have become our most important “social critic”, or more appropriately, our most important “social humorist”.

What I’m trying to say is that this is a good record to have in your house. It has, of course, what seems to me to be an uncomfortable, but necessary, morbidity at certain times. But on second thought I’m just talking about the serious parts, the parts which are meant to be “morbid”. When you begin listening to some pretty funny jokes, which is what the first side of the record is all about, and what comes afterwards are some very serious, clear and real observations about Amerika, the impression you get on first hearing is something like “Wow, this record isn’t as funny as I thought it was going to be, what’s Dick Gregory doin’ getting all this serious?”

But this record is supposed to be this way. After all, what’s the title of the album?

Dick Gregory’s Franksenstein is our Frankenstein. We live in the belly of the same beast, and so share the brunt of its behavior.

The whole record isn’t that serious, however. There are some funny jokes along the way, like the one about David Eisenhower, and one I feel especially close to, “Checking out white folks”. He is a very funny man, who molds his ideas out of situations which are really quite serious. This is what any comic or humorist does, but to take material from social issues could turn out to be dangerous (but then, as Dick Gregory points out, so can feeding hungry people in this country). But that’s unimportant. The important thing is that it works. And since it works, that means that Dick Gregory is a unique master whose work is an important addition to the planet.

Geoffrey Jacques

LIVE ALBUM - GRAND FUNK RAILROAD - CAPITOL SWBB 633

The only way to understand any of the schlock-rock purveyors of heavy music who have achieved such mass popularity in the last year and a half is to look at the context, historically and economically, that they grew out of. That’s no revelation; indeed, it should be pretty obvious that that is the way (as Huey Newton put it) you define phenomena and act upon them. There is really no surer way to convince one’s self that youth is an oppressed class and that there are probably certain people who consciously exploit that class.

In 1967-68, rock music ranged through several areas of pretension. After all that metallic orgasm music of the period fromTate ’64 (the emergence of the Beatles) to early ’67 (their descent into putrified prissiness), the flower music, the solo-bash-em-in the ass jams and British pretty-boy-bisexual rock came as the most crunching letdown since Cannonball Adderley and Sonny Stitt gave up free-form for funk.

At that time, at least among kids who had not seen through the consumer ruse and ESPECIALLY among younger, high-school aged kids (the primary segment of the youth class not then politicized to any extent at all, and which makes up the audience for these tunes), there was but little ingestion of the psychedelic sacraments and barely more listening to other than Top Forty jams.

True, even during the beginning of the end, certain bands retained the seeds of rejuvenation (one shudders to think where we would be today without them; you’d have to sell your stereo). The Velvets stood nearly alone in New York City, the Doors and Love

held down southern California (even when Love ventured into pretension they did it with such unexcelled bizarrity that you had to love it), the Rolling Stones, the Who and the last remnants of the Yardbirds held down the British Isles with a few others and the real shit was beginning to emerge in the Midwest under the auspices of the MC5, the Stooges, the Rationals and a dozen others. As Lou Reed says on the new Velvet’s tune “Rock and Roll”, in those days, “Despite all the amputations/You could still dance to the rock and roll stations”. (Barry Kramer once played “My Generation” 17 times [I think] in a row on WABX in ’68, which is probably the world’s record.)

But for the most part, the Time/Newsweek induced hippie scare got to the bands and the jams began to rot from the inside. Where before a group would sit up nights listening to old Joe Simon hits, now they’d read Hermann Hesse and try for their own smashes. Still, the originators of the psychedelic haze, being generally organically crazy, weren’t too abhorent - Hendrix, ’Plane, Dead, Quicksilver, even the Lennon-Harrison-led Beatles.

By the fall ’67, the door had begun to slam. Cream slumped from Stones-Pretty Things blues rip-offs to Claptonesque ego-trips (i.e., self-parody); flower music pretension was gutted by the barely post-pubescent ravings of the nubile Moody Blues, formerly a whiz R&B troupe; Frank Zappa’s explorations of exotica were rendered unlistenable by “classical-rock” and “jazz rock” abortions like the Nice, Brian Auger and the Trinity and Blood Sweat and Tears; Jagger’s chilling slaps at traditional masculine role-playing became mundane in a thousand others who took bisexuality for mere faggotry and Jeff Beck’s pomp and circumstances buried what hadn’t already been yielded from the never-overly fallow field of the Yardbirds in a slumberless casket.

It was Cream and Beck who broke up and thereby created a void that just had to be filled when mass marijuana-madness set in. The nascent high school dopers and the legions of platinum-blondes only recently sent to the ’zone for the first time needed those groups to prove their own groove. Not having their own groove, they wanted to wallow in the tracks someone else had already carved for them. Being basically consumers, and Amerikan consumers, meant that they needed something new that was a watered-down version of the old.

Cream was gone. Morrison was experimenting with horns and strings and

then he started to drink. (Neither situation as condemnable as some thought at the time.) The rest stayed righteous, over the consumerized head perhaps, but righteous -if they started out that way; if they were conceptually fucked up to begin with, they were allowed free play to get worse. Alas, there were people left around to fill any supposed voids.

It was only a consumer void to begin with, but record biz Amerika recognizes no other anyway, the music had already been run into the ground (that vein of it anyway) and it was time for something new (early MC5, Stooges, Beefheart, Tony Williams, New Jazz, etc.) but taste and value don’t stand in the way of what people think they want to buy. Especially when they think it “hip” to buy it. Especially.

Buying is the crux of why they thought so. Imagine making hip profitable - imagine people relying on others to determine their aesthetics for them rather than listening to others and then computing their own from the information - imagine them given only bogus information for the most part - and you imagine Amerikan consumerism. Without politics of any kind, without taste (NQT class; taste is part of the solution, class part of the problem), in short, as valueless themselves as they came to think of the old culture as being, the emergent dopester was only left to dwell in his/her psychedelic wonderworld, a supermarket filled with “in” goodies. Never quite getting beyond processed cheese to the Big Cheese they thought (naively) they were gonna get.

So you get riots when Blind Faith pops up with no Cream material (ignoring completely the far finer musings and ramblings of Winwood with Traffic and Grech with the vastly under-applauded Family). Meanwhile, back in Motown, Terry Knight has his ear to the ground and his nose in the wind. The remnants of Terry’s Pack, as well, are back up in Flint or somewhere with only their Telecasters and his good graces keeping them from the Buick plant.

Look where Grand Funk is most popular - the South . . . that’s where they started out and blew minds, down in the very heartland of honk. How many people did Cream draw in the south in ’67? Were there any people there to come see them? And how many now, now that marijuana is a rampaging beast wreaking havoc in Agnewville?

Thus, Grand Funk and all those people just lusting for the superficial of Cream (for you can never quite regain the spirit of an era once it has passed by) -the solos, the heavy

beat, the crash, the volume - finally get what they lust for. In Consumerland, you CAN always get what you want. For a price. But you sure as hell better be sure what you’re asking for.

The same analogy works for Beck and the Zep. Page was never more than a Clapton/Beck imitation anyway and god knows who Bobby Plant thinks he’s kidding. But if GFRR have ripped off a thousand blues licks, then they are no worse than the Rolling Stones and a thousand other white rock bands over the last twenty years. The Zep don’t even have the consideration to give publishing credit to their peers. They’ve ripped off everything they ever did, note for note, riff for riff, from somebody - Beck, Rod Stewart, the Who, the Small Faces. How can you expect them to have consideration for Howlin’ Wolf? Which makes them commercially perfect, I suppose, but still disgusting.

There is a question of consciousness involved. Jimmy Page was in the original Yardbirds so he knows or at least suspects something - Grand Funk is a wholly different story. Are they as slow and doped-out of their wits as their audiences? Are they THAT naive and unsophisticated? Do they themselves actually subscribe to theories like Clapton is God? Knowing a number of mediocre midwestern musicians makes it easy to believe that they do, and are.

So who’s the villian? We all are because we all put up with it. Enough’s been said about Terry and GFRR to fill three books and most all of it has been negative and you know that? It don’t do any good at all. Because Grand Funk gives people what they want, and the scary part is not that they do that, it’s that people want it.

Well, William Burroughs said in Naked Lunch that you don’t get rid of addiction by offing the pusher, you gotta get rid of the addict. ’Cause as long as there be someone who wants it, there’ll be someone, to give it to ’em. So you get rid of the need. So get rid of whatever causes the need and don’t harp all day about the people who simply supply it. Hell, Capitol records don’t really care, if we could convince them that atonal sax riffs on the order of Albert Ayler are what people want that’s what people would get.

Consumers always get what they want for a price. Make the price too high? That’s a laugh. They’ll do anything. Get rid of the

NEED.

Dave Marsh

P.S. I really tried to listen to the music but, halfway through, I had to shut it off.

OFFICIAL MUSIC - KING BISCUIT BOY WITH CROWBAR - PARAMOUNT PAS 5030

This is one of helluva lively record.' For one, it retains the joy that could be found in city blues of the early Butterfield era and never since, say, East/West. Secondly, it is the first time that a specifically Canadian act has broken through into the vast mid-Amerikah music mart.

Crowbar doesn’t play Canadian music, per se, but there is more of a rural Canuck flavor to them than there is to Guess Who or Steppenwolf, for example, if less than Gordon Lightfoot or Ian and Sylvia possess. About on the same ethnic (if Canada has an ethnic identity, at all, outside of Quebec) level as the Paupers, maybe. But funkier, earthier, raunchier. These boys spent all that time (which really wasn’t all that time except for Biscuit) as Ronnie Hawkin’s band well. It shows. They’re colossally tight, have a totally exciting sense of presentation that comes across on wax and a really excellent idea of what is and is not good material, good material.

Kelly (who is Crowbar’s pianist and right up there with Hodge, West and Hite for size) said that this album and the next would show Crowbar’s roots (“We have more roots than most people”) and this one does a dynamite job. Kelly’s a super-highlight to this set, his playing on “Shout Bama Lama” for instance taking the song back past Otis Redding to it’s true Little Richard roots. He gets it on on the other stompers, “Hoy Hoy Hoy” and “Biscuit’s Boogie” too.

“Greyhound’’ Gibbard, Biscuit Boy himself and “Ray” Lanthier shine on guitar the way Bloomfield and Bishop always did. Biscuit is the neo-Butterfield shiner all the way through; “Corrina, Corrina” is a special gem, one of the finest arrangements of this moldy oldster that’s ever been done.

Official Music has sustaining muscle and that counts for a lot. Unlike most pretentious blues offerings these days, it’s a championship effort, gettin’ back and gettin’ down with the best of ’em. They say that Crowbar is composed of the best Canadian musicians there are and you can well believe it. Even the lameness of pudling Ritchie Yorke on the liner notes is forgiveable ’cause after all he’s Canadian too.

All in all, an auspicious debut. The second Crowbar album should pop in shortly and it’s supposed to have a lot of Huey “Piano” Smith and Professor Longhair licks to it. That oughta firm up their place in the upper echelons of rock and roll fandom. If not, it may be back to TYA and Mayall for the rest of you, but I like mine Official.

Dave Marsh

STARSAILOR - TIM BUCKLFY -STRAIGHT 1881

Yet another album by the elliptically rousing Tim Buckley — who I steadfastly maintain is one of the most under-rated and misunderstood musicians ever to develop out of the dead-end of rock and roll into the free-form freedom fusion of rock and jazz coupled with his already “original” sound. His last album this year, entitled Lorca, was a profound example of this rarefication and Starsailor is vet another lyric-stung, waterfall-rushing-into-thenight’s-combing-of-the-stars manifestation of Buckley’s thresholding work in the rock/jazz medium. A tricky stance to take and one w'ith probably doubtful financial success in these Grand Funked, Cactused times, but for those who care about what genius can do with lyrics, a twelve-string guitar and a windmilling voice, Tim Buckley is to be investigated.

Like all Buckley albums, this one is full of varying moods, tempos and colorations. From the wide-open “Jungle Fire” to the tranquil “Moulin Rouge” to the fragile, web-spun “Song To the Siren,” he sings, wails, chants, basses along vocally with acutely sensitive accompaniment from the Buckley stalwart Lee Underwood, John Balkin on bass, Maury Baker on percussion and the Gardner brothers, Buzz and Buck, on horns. Surrealistic space-ship vocal and the orbiting back-drops accumulate and magnify on “Starsailor” and “Siren” in particular -Buckley’s lyrics on “Siren” also offer a vivid insight into his poetic prowess: “Long aflost on shipless oceans - I did all my best to smile

till your singing eyes and fingers - drew me loving to your isle - and you sang ‘sail to me, sail to me - let me enfold you - here 1 am, here L am - waiting to hold you.’ Did 1 dream you dreamed about me - were you here when I was fighting? - but now my foolish boat is leaning r broken love-long on your rocks now

for you sing ‘touch me not, touch me not -come back tomorrow’ - oh, my heart, oh, my heart shatters from the sorrow. But I’m as puzzled as the new-born child - I’m as riddled as the tide - should I stand amid the breakers - or should I lie with death my bride? - HEAR ME SING - swim to me -swim to me, let me enfold you - here I am, here J am - waiting to hold you.” Other hypnotizing tunes include the off-the-cuff pulsating “Come Here Woman” with its bewildering variety of tune changes and images, the seductive “I Woke Up,” full of “harbor bells” and “mirrors of stone” that slides along electronically and wind chimes its way into the corners of your mind with Buckley’s multifaceted voice conquering and conjuring. Also to be mentioned are the vaulting “Monterey,” that opens with a Spanish-sounding trumpet abrasively raunchy solo and then generates an improvisational

fervor and cucaracha abandon lyrically (“When the little girl pass by - you can smell the way she walks”) as well as jazz-toned musically.

But, writing about the various cuts and songs is one thing — listening to this album from start to finish is another. In fact, I’m sort of afraid of writing too much about my feelings concerning the music on this disc. It’s one of those efforts that, if you dig it, you dig it for your own idiosyncratic reasons — an album of universals, absolutes, incantations and the light of waking dreams. Or as poet Phillip Lamantia put it: “The sun spits on my fingers/Your little finger completes a sentence/Solitude is a flame of sleep/Jungles fold me in passionate bird omens.” Only a couple of technical things come to mind -the waste of white space on the back cover that could have easily been full of the sometimes elusive lyrics and the absolute necessity for the release of “Song to the Siren” as a single. It could be an illuminating illustration to the public how far Tim Buckley has moved from his embryonic 1965 Elektra days. And check out his first two Elektra albums if you want to be totally stoned/stunned.

Gary Von Tersch

ABRAXAS SANTANA - COLUMBIA KC 30130

I’ll never forget the first time I saw Santana live. It was at the celebrated gathering of the tribes at the Altamont Speedway; 1 had driven up with two friends to see the Stones “free,” and Santana was the first band. Well, they trooped out, and: BABALU BAM -BAM - there went them drums, all lickety-splitting at once! Next the bassist, playing those same three holy notes over and over - BOM, BOOM, BOM - and finally Mr. S. himself, gritting his teeth in that inimitable Carlos Santana Look-how-hard-I’m-working grimace whilst sweating hard enough to beat the rest of the band (No mean feat, ’cause I’ll bet this band sweats more than ten sissypants white blues groups. They grin a lot too.) and literally tearing that famous seven-note riff out of his guitar. Meanwhile, friend Roger, who is coming up on acid and hearing Santana for the ver>r first time, keeps clapping his hand to his head and repeating over and over: “Man, w'hat is that shit? Flick! How do they get away with that?,” and I’m saying things like: “I know, let’s start a band like Santana - I took guitar lessons for two weeks in the sixth grade, so I’ll play lead ...” Finally a group of patriotic stoners nearby advised us we’d better cool it if we wanted to enjoy the rest of the show.

Santana’s first album sounded like some demented Xavier Cugat freaked out on speed and reds, schizophrenically intent on reconciling the cocktail hour with the artificial

hysteria of the Fillmore, all of it held together by some omnipotent, producer as steady as a lab technician preserving specimens in glycerine.

Lest anybody think that that miracle of cultural husbandry was merely a fiash-in-thepan, though, Santana have laid a new one on us, and a heavy trip it is. You get a sense of exotic mystery right at the start, soon as you dig that phantasmagorical cover and the righteous title (that’s from a book by Hermann Hesse called Demian, for all you illiterates out there - and let me tell you, he was some heavy dude; just ask John Kay). And the whole album is that way: just dig “Singing Winds, Crying Beasts,” how it starts out with some mysterious hand scraping the inner strings of the piano, then those block chords, the tinkling Caribe bells, genuine wind sound effects, cymbals washing in like the tide, till ol’ Carlos’ fuzztone comes searing through to introduce the theme which will then make way for that lush and lovely Arthur Lyman piano solo. I declare, the whole thing just takes you away!

But don’t worry, not everything on the album is as bizarre as that - there are still plenty of echoes of the Santana we all came to know and love with their first album. I mean, who else would sing: “I got a black magic woman/An’ she’s tryin’ to make a devil outa me,” and especially in that vocal style which is so cool, so casual, man, that it seems all but effortless? Those who thrilled to “Evil Ways” last year will not be disappointed in this album.

All kidding aside, though, I’ve gotta fess up and say that I kind of like it. It’s certainly not much even if it does have more substance than their first effort, but as I keep listening I find that it’s very easy to like it, for the very reasons that give it a distinctly comical aspect. It would be as much a mistake to take this music seriously enough to resist it as it would be to see in its pseudo-exotic gimmickry a haunting Pan-American stylistic synthesis. Even if it’s basically schlock, whether San Francisco heavy-rock schlock or supper-c 1 ub schlock, it’s still one of the nicest records this year to throw on when you don’t want to pay too much attention, and Carlos Santana has even learned a whole slew of new guitar riffs! In fact, I find that it aids my digestion measurably when I’m relaxing with a Busch after an unusually strenuous meal — and what higher praise can man give?

Cargo Lefcourt

BE A BROTHER - BIG BROTHER & THE HOLDING CO. - COLUMBIA C 30222

From 1090 Page Street and the Dirty Bird and the Trips Festivals and the Tribal Stomp and the Mime Troupe Benefits and the Fillmore and Janis in July and Mainstream and the Montereys and Cheap Thrills, Big Brother has done some tranquil, some lively, some spiritual developing. They were perhaps the freak-rock band in the Bay Area in that late-sixties era with their extended, audience-impetus-to-a-feverpitch style of performing - sure Quicksilver and the Dead sometimes did the same, but somehow Big Brother was always more spaced out — merging primitive, jazz and Johnny B. Goode/Memphis rock ‘n’ roll into such extravagances as “Loneliness” that I can still recall listening to at the old Fillmore for more than twenty minutes with Fast Fingers Gurley on lead and Getz chugging the crap out of the drums.

All of which somehow brings us to this new Big Brother album, which also includes

such friends as Nick Gravenites (who also produced), organist Mark Naftalin and the horn section from the Oakland-based Tower of Power (who have just released a fine first disc on San Francisco Records) as well as the wispy-voiced ghost of Janis Joplin on a few cuts. The results are, of course, ten tunes that range from the incisive, slowly fingering “Heartache People’’ to the country music-tinted “I’ll Change Your Flat Tire Merle” (“You’re a honkey I know - but Merle you’ve got soul”) and out again for the positive refractions of “Keep On” and “Be A Brother” that possess all that old free-form couple-of-guitars-wailing-together sound that Big Brother surges with so well.

Other highlights of this joyous disc are their homage tune for the Robert Crumb character “Mr. Natural” (“Makin’ love while dancin’ is an easy thing to do”) that comic-books along evenly with Janis adding a chorus or two for old-times sake along with a Tower of Powered, excellently lyric-ed tune called “Funky Jim” and a free-wheeling instrumental entitled “Home on the Strange.” An up-tempo charged song entitled “Someday” and the elliptical “Joseph’s Coat” also shine — particularly the latter, a Gravenites tune that Quicksilver has recorded as well, which here assumes an allegorically demanding quality that matches Big Brother’s flamboyant yet reined-in tendencies to a tee.

I have never been a fan of Mr. Gravenites for some reason, but here, somehow, I will admit he works almost as well as the addition of Dino Valenti works for the current Quicksilver unit. His vocals, particularly on “Heartaches” (would make a fine single Columbia) and “Flat Tire” are fully fledged and he didn’t “produce” too heavily - this album is an accurate representation of where one of the now-legendary San Francisco-based bands is at now - Albin, Gurley, Getz, Andrews and Shallock conquer heads over heels with this dynamic, totally energetic album.

Gary Von Tersch

BLOODROCK II - CAPITOL

If you like Grand Funk, you ought to love Bloodrock. Instead of three blast furnace rockers, you now have six. Whether the sound is twice as good is academic, and open to more resistant heads than mine. Suffice to say that this is maniac high energy rock from the outset. “Lucky In The Morning” is my favorite cut, but only because this drains me so much I have to run for my Deja Vu to restore my sanity. This album is recommended for when you have the relatives over for a wake. Chances are, you’ll wake up more than just the relatives.

Al Niester

RY COODER - REPRISE 6402

Mistuh Ry, whose credentials and rep are sufficiently circulated that I’m not gonna repeat ’em here, seems like a good soul. After all, it’s not exactly his fault that he got hooked up with all those Superstars in some of their prime sessions so that pretty soon he’ll probably be regarded as a full-fledged member of the Supermusician clan, just another good man to have who always puts in just the right thing at the right time and whose name on the jacket gives an album added solidity out front, making the rounds of the floating Supersessions and true to the established pattern becoming so goddam dependable therein as to ultimately wind up a practical nonentity.

But none of that is being fair to him, of course, because it’s only an amateur rocknroll weatherman’s sour prognostication, based on the bile left by past Sensations of Musicianship. Cooder is just starting out, and after doing all that fine underpinning and decoration on Let It Bleed, why here he is with his first album, which ain’t a bad disc at all, neighbor, provided you gotta appetite for some warmed-over (but expertly) chestnuts like “One Meat Ball”, a little bit o’ Leadbelly & Sleepy John, with Randy Newman thrown in for seasoning - oh yes, I almost forgot: and lots and lots of bottleneck guitar, played young pro style, which means no chances took and nobody shook. Ah, what a sturdy record! You could even use it to prop up one corner of your console if a leg breaks off.

But there I go being unfair again, when I should be delivering a sober verdict, which you’d most likely never concur with in a month of Halloweens if you’ve read this far anyway, of this record, which you should go right out and buy if you have any real respect for the storied traditions of American guitar-folksong (particularly black) which this album simultaneously honors, upholds, continues, and bakes in good glossy wax to ensure their preservation through these dark times when all sorts of idiots with seeming abcesses in their throats are running around screaming sick, negative diatribes and throttling the audience with the microphone and the like. Respect is what this record is all about, which is one of the main reasons you should buy it before that money burns a hole in your jeans and runs off down the road after a bottle of Ripple or something. Don’t buy

records by Leadbelly or Sleepy John or the incredible Blind Willie Johnson, whose original chilling moan “Dark Was the Night (& Cold the Ground)” is one of the most frighteningly lonely and flat-out eerie pieces of music you’ll ever hear, and can be had both on one of Johnson’s two Folkways albums (I think) and Volume One of Folkways’ great Jazz series (for sure), called The South. That record also features such diverting little ditties as “Black Snake Moan” by Blind Lemon Jefferson and some really down and mournful New Orleans jazz-blues from way before any of us were on the set, haunting music with more soul than every album on Warner Brothers and Reprise put together. But why should I ramble on about that old stuff? You can order that record at any record store for $3.98 or thereabout, but on the other hand you’d have to wait a month or two maybe and Ry is here right now, and in two months you may even have lost all interest ’cause there’ll be something new hitting the racks by them as we both know. So fuck it. And don’t buy, say, Leadbelly Memorial on Stinson, which includes “Good Morning Blues”, “T'.B. Blues”, “John Henry”, one of the very most original (as in the book of Genesis) versions of “See See Rider”, and the great blustery “Pigmeat” which Leadbelly’s resonant hoglike voice and his great Rocky Mountainrange of an electric 12-string make into something near overpowering instead of the vitiated runthrough that Ry lays down here. Same goes for “Dark Was the Night”. It’s not so much that Ry has about as much business singing lead as Eric Clapton. It’s just like the difference between the Rolling Stones and the Chocolate Watch Band. Or between John Coltrane and Charles Lloyd, Muddy Waters and Savoy Brown, William Burroughs and Claude Pelieu. Or, for that matter, Ray Charles and Joe Cocker.

I don’t really mean to run Ry down. We should give credit where credit is due. But it’s the constant proliferation of records like this that keep so many kids from ever gritting their teeth, forking over their hard-earned bucks and searching out their true roots.

Lester Bangs

ELVIN BISHOP GROUP - FEEL IT! -FILLMORE Z30239

This record is the absolute antithesis of what I expected from a group headed by a “great guitarist”. Rather than the meathead offerings of every other Robert Johnson afficionado (all of whom would be better off sittin’ back and listenin’ to some rock ‘N’ roll), Elvin has done exactly that. If this dude is a Pigboy, then the revolution may be won after all.

See, Bishop apparently did not feel the need to swoop into the recording studio, grab his guitar and amp and play for an hour and a half and then dub a couple voices in at

random, shout Blues Power in there somewhere and call that the Elvin Bishop Group album. And he didn’t really find it quite to his liking to get a million famous glittermongers to appear on the marquee with ’em, either. Listen this boy has the right idea and it works a lot better than swamp rock ditties and odes to a famous blues dude. It cooks and squeals and squirms and you don’t even have a chance to miss Butterfield.

Jo Baker makes Bonnie sound like she’s just had a tonsilectomy; she can sing, this woman, and she makes no bones about it. Like the rest of this album, the vocals have a lot more substance than flash and for once that’s a superpositive attribute. The rest of the band just generally gets it on; I figured side two, with all original compositions, would be a drag. Instead the band works out and Elvin don’t filligree, he just gets on down.

On the other hand, the first side is where the magic is. “So Fine” was a great single, stopped by god knows what from becoming a single; “Feel It (Don’t Fight It)” sounds like what the Russellettes might accomplish had they not always been overconcerned with stomping you into the ground with their

ingeniousness. I’m really sorry to turn this into a consumer comparison guide but then again, it only speaks superwell for this record.

This is the first real rock and roll of the seventies record, as far as I’m concerned, and if they use all the patented gimmicks and don’t come off pretentiously and pompously, then right on! Elvin Bishop had the sense to stay away from mammoth guitar licks and as a consequence the rest of the group can lay back and play. It’s a relief to find this record; Stephen Miller can just play piano and not get bogged down tryin’ to be heard through the crash.

All in all, an auspicious second album. What more have ya got up yer sleeves fellas?

Steve Rojack

AMERICAN BEAUTY - THE GRATEFUL DEAD - WARNER BROS. WS-1893

What was great about the single is that it was the fastest, easiest way to get to know something to the point of getting sick of it. So you could move on to something else. All you had to do was play it a thousand times and you’d never want to hear it again. Nor was it something long enough to require attention. Nor was it attached to other cuts and requiring of quick moves by the listener to keep the needle from wandering over to the next song. But albums definitely were nothing at first but a hit or two plus 10 or 11 waste tracks.

So why should they have to be anything more today? Like this Dead album might just have more decent cuts in addition to “Friend of the Devil” - and it probably does - but what’s the difference? There aren’t really any Dead singles unless you create them yourself. “Friend of the Devil” happens to be 3 minutes and 20 seconds long. If you play it constantly for 2 hours you’ll be hearing it a total of 36 times. But the only actual limit on that is sleep setting in. Or boredom. Or wearing down the grooves.

Sleep setting in is what the song’s about. “If I get home before daylight, just might get some sleep tonight.” If the price of an entire album is too steep just to hear one item on it, the guy in the song is luckier. The devil gave him 20 bucks and then he took it back but he didn’t ask for anything more. No interest, no loss of soul. Just a little extra excess motion which ain’t that bad since he’s got to stay on the move to avoid the sheriff and a little prodding can’t hurt.

But who paid attention to the prodding which would have made Workingman’s Dead an even more solid album than it was as far as listening goes? The second cut on side one, “High Time,” was the throwaway of that album. All anybody had to do was get up and move it to the third cut (or carve out a deeper groove to bypass it entirely) and let the good cuts proliferate. But still side number two is a bad spot to have a bad cut, it sours the whole show (it gives you a percentage of only .500 after the first two). Well if it did nothing else American Beauty at least has made sure the second slot would be a monster this time around. If. Even if. But since that’s not all: whoopee!

R. Meltzer

MASHMAKHAN - EPIC E 30235

When I first got this album last month, I played it once but nothing much stuck in my mind except the liner notes - in what must surely rank as one of the most ill-advised moves in the history of jacket-blather, Gene Lees, a critic of some deserved standing (he edited Down Beat in one of its better eras), hit the rack-browsing reader immediately with this: “It is a matter of long and public record that I loathe the general class of music that’s known as rock. I loathe it because it’s insensitive, coarse, and arrogant. .. The rock groups who can be considered musically professional can be counted on one hand. Mashmakhan is one of them.”

In the meantime, a particularly insensitive and awkward piece of schlock called “As The Years Go By” has managed to insert its claws in the surveys. Combining as it does the rattly inanity of a classic like Jimmy Darren’s “Goodbye Cruel World” with the mindless monotony of Tommy Roe’s “Sweet Pea” and all the pretension of Tommy James & the Shondells in their most Serious period, it was an inevitable hit in an AM wasteland where bubblegum and schmaltz still rule.

Perhaps as inevitable as that it should be part of the album which Lees launched with the arrogantly shortsighted words quoted above.

Mashmakhan is one of those bands that comes down the chute every so often combining blatant, overstuffed displays of “musicianship” and “versatility” with a rather plain lack of real taste, compositional ability or vision. Like Blood, Sweat & Tears, they make sure every song is jam-packed with Ideas, syncopation and quickchange scoring, but the ultimate impression is of loads of contrivance heaped like Tinkertoys and Silly Putty on material that’s either plain old shit, like “As the Years Go By”, or some kind of slick adaptation of devices which were so succesful for their originators that they’ve passed into pop’s public storehouse.

A goood example of this is a song like “If I Tried”, which combines wah-wah guitar and ensembles somewhat reminsicent of Frank Zappa’s duller instrumental outings with a vocal and arrangement that falls somewhere on that grey Kleenex bridge between Brasil ’66 and pert muzak like the Classics IV “Stormy”. Or “Letter From Zambia”, which is probably the best song on the album, will open with birdcalls, woodblocks, a lonely flute and a group of deep humming voices, then escalate via bongoes ,cymbals and more birdcalls (or are they jive crickets?) into full Oomgawa stampeded complete with funky harpsichord solo and shrill guitar pulling off the best imitation of a bush beastie’s cry since Erik Brann’s fuzztone elephant trumpetings in “In-A-Gadda-da-Vida”. The total effect is irresistibly reminiscent of a 1961 “jazz” album called Shorty Rogers Meets Tarzan, except that Rogers could excuse his melodrama with the fact that it was the soundtrack for the remake of Tarzan the Ape ManMashmakhan are just drawing lame cartoons.

All of this might be excusable if the vocals had any real projection or quality, or if the lyrics were better (sample: “Sunshine is flowing like clouds through the leaves/Shining through the crystal of the morning dew/The wind and the water, the birds in the trees/ Singing nature’s good morning to the world:/ I love you, love you, love you...”), or if any brief moment’s music on this album was laid down with any trace of real passion of heartfelt involvement. But in all of those departments Mashmakhan’s hybrid remains a wilting hothouse miscreant. If “As The Years Go By” is archetypal survey tripe, most of the other stuff here is tailor-made for the unchallenging programming of all those “adult-pop” stations just beginning to turn from Sinatra and Si Zentner to Simon & Garfunkle as vast subdivisions full of young career men and their bored wives plug into weekend drugs and the fashionable trappings of the cautiously Hip.

Punko Bangs

MILES DAVIS AT FILLMORE -COLUMBIA G 30038

I’m puzzled at reactions to Miles’ new sound. Even like that shit in the jacket notes, here, so much of it “I-can-dig-it-(I-guess)but-I-dont-understand-it-all”.

Miles has hardly flipped out, now or ever. The “new” jazz has been around for sometime, now, and, as we knew, back in ’59, it’s definitely where it’s at, for then, now and the foreseeable future. The rhythmic and textural advances alone are just too good to pass up. Not only that, most any player under thirty worth hearing (sidemen for most “leaders” these days) has paid heavy dues in and to it. Consequently, even suave pillars of reaction like Cannonball Adderley sooner or later succumb to its innate appeal.

Rock (electricity) has also intrigued Miles, never one to leave larger trends unchecked out.

The sound? Well, augmented rhythm sections have been pretty much the trend ever since the first of the tw'o-bass quartets & quintets. Then there’s Afro (like Pharoah & his multi-“miscellaneous” percussion), two or more “sets” of drums (some Coltrane, Miles own last previous, Bitches Brew).

Miles utilizes two electric keyboards, as you already heard in Bitches Brew, a move which anyone intimate with Evans (Gil or Bill) can appreciate the modal possibilities of. Chick Corea is demon-genius of the new jazz electric pianists and, surprise, Keith Jarrett has abandoned his overly “beautiful” piano for an organ and is bidding to establish a place beside Larry Young as one capable of convertings its bulk, the carpet-of-sound which they lay down couches Miles’ dramatics & serves as a constant launching pad-energizer, even as it mightily vexes those who can’t relax and loosen up into it.

It’s still Miles’ band all the way. As always, some heady shit gets played in and out of the breach, but you’ll still hear any of the sidemen in a different light elsewhere. Miles himself is steadily loosening up his phrasing (quite a trick when supertightness is one of your fortes), ranges his horn a tad better then formerly (quite a trick when you’re aging) and still knows the value of a note (quite a trick in the face of the overwhelming “new’ jazz — highenergy tendency to play an abundance of notes).

In fact, Miles’ use of space is a unique contribution to “new” jazz, and a key to getting into his present band and approach. Like Cecil, no one in his band has many counterparts in any others, especially when functioning with Miles. Unique players are bound to add up to unique sounds.

Yes, yes, of course one has difficulty describing the kinetic forward motion of this music in discursive terms, time for some of Sontag’s so-called “erotic” criticism, i.e., you simply confront the total dramatic impact of the music as an experience for yourself and spin your raps out of whatever centers Miles (or whoever) has opened up for you. The correspondences sort of all into place. It fits like Miles’ music fits and you couldn’t explain why.

Steve Grossman isn’t up to Miles in his ability to ride what the band lays down & there’s little question of his manipulating them, he’s definitely got his hands full. Even with the more sympathetic (if just as ruthlessly propulsive) Jack DeJohnette drumming. When Tony was still in the band, even Wayne Shorter was prone to intimidation.

Miles’ reasons for hiring Grossman do not make themselves immediately clear. He could’ve had Sam Rivers, for quite sometime, before Sam finally got more or less together with Cecil. Joe Henderson would be a natural. How about somebody like Howard Johnson on baritone? What he should really do is invite Marion Brown into his band, that would be a marvelous gesture to crown his discovery of the “new”.

Maybe Grossman is there to prove the M i ke-B1 o o mfield-with-James-Brown theses which Miles laid down in last years Stone interview, about how all these aspiring white boys need is some dues with black rhythm sections, particularly with black drummers.

Few drummers in the world can carry DeJohnette’s sticks at this point. Not only a motherfucker, but a cool motherfucker, who’s taken the lessons of Tony and Elvin (where most drummers have to settle for one path or the other), and welded them into an infinitely mobile & deadly efficient attack which is quickly making him (as Tony once was) the drummer for heavy studio and session work. Everybody’s favorite.

What we’ve got here is a smooth & ven sophisticated version of the “new”, one which waited until it could gather precisely the effects it wanted, before launching out. In a certain sense, this music isn’t even “experimental”, since Miles and the band really have it pretty well in hand.

One of the better trips of the season from the man who, after all, stands with Coltrane as the alltime jazz giant. Also very, very necessary to hear. Rich Mangelsdorff

CHELSEA GIRL - NICO - VERVE THE MARBLE INDEX - NICO - ELEKTRA DESERTSHORE - NICO - REPRISE

No matter what anyone says, Desertshore was meant to be a televised movie. The spaces for commercials are right between the songs and you could have a few commercials and station i.d. right between sides. But it is a movie, still, and the movie is the most chilling made in ages.

The record is as stark and chilling and absolutely medieval as a Bergman flick. It opens with “Janitor of Lunacy”, a quiet evening in a very Roman Catholic church. The heroine sits in this sanctuary, meditatively assessing past and present, facing the past less bravely than the future perhaps (“Janitor of Lunacy/Paralyze my infancy”), but dealing with everything on a very conscious level nonetheless.

“The Falconer” is a contemporary medieval memory, perhaps merely set in the Middle East, though none of that is made perfectly clear (not even to me, and it is my fantasy). A memory of something, perhaps,

with the kind of stark and maddening beauty of a falcon ravaging a hare; in tragedy, I suppose, there is always beauty, in true tragedy, the tragedy that is life on the planet. And Nico is not other-worldly, she merely exists on this sphere with the rest of us, observing more than acting in some ways, yet unquestionably a participant.

She participates, indeed, with almost light-hearted glee, though to be sure, her glee is decidely joyous only in the face of the gloom that pervades most of the rest of the sequences. The middle section of “The, Falconer” or the choral part of “My Only Child”, for example. Maybe you have to be a Catholic to think like this, but this song seems like something the Madonna might have sung on a TV Christmas pageant. And the flute ends it like a dirge.

What then to make of the child who sings “Le Petit Chevalier” - is he comic relief? The Messiah? Or a mere symbol, a toy for the rest of the cinema to wonder at? I speculated that the voice was that of Nico’s own child but now . .. who knows, who knows? For Nico is very, very alone at the beginning of this album/film and chances are, like most of us, she remains so most of the time. Which doesn’t prevent others from making their presence known (but which does prevent them from making their presence FELT).

But wait, all the rest has been a flashback. An acid-like recollection of what once was, unpleasant to be sure but no less real at some point in time. And now, she speaks only to herself once more, as if in meditation. As though purging herself for some distant, yet uncomfortably close battle about to ensue . . . where? Upon the Desertshore maybe. Who knows?

Now the pace builds, the action begins, the tempo surges up and Nico is left “Afraid”. Our heroine (with no identity, actually) offers us the sum of her wisdom, tearfully, maybe but it is wisdom no less. “Cease to know or to tell or to see or to be/Your own . . . Have someone’s will (or is it swill?) as you own/Have someone’s will as your own... You are beautiful and you are alone/You are beautiful and you are

alone . . . Vanish the faces/Reward your grace/Vanish the faces/Reward your grace.” Total desperation, a theme for Nico and for all of us; we can’t control it, except we can. If we will. And I suppose we try.

“Mutterlein” might indicate that she is possessed, though she seems unreachable by anything, mortal or immortal. Perhaps, then, she is hunted, but how close can that be to being hunted? What kind of demons? From where does the choir come, from whence the feedback storm? Does she die? Is she captured?

No, at the end all is stripped away and she is revealed as nothing more,. nothing less, than a wanderer. And then she’s off, after her epiphany in the church ... a flashback within a flashback? “He that knows/May pass along the road unknown/And leave me on the Desertshore/And leave me on the Desertshore/And leave me on the Desertshore.” A chant, Velvet Underground circa 1968 style.

A great record. A better film. We are still left with the insoluble enigma that Nico has always represented (see the other two records for more evidence if you doubt she is that) but the wanderer has once again passed our way leaving us once more with something of value. I hardly think we’ll ever get more.

Dave Marsh

KILN HOUSE - FLEETWOOD MAC -REPRISE RS 6408

From the first time I saw them, I knew Fleetwood Mac were rockers. It was their first American tour, and they did the expected set of Robert Johnson and Elmore James numbers. After they’d finished, there was a pause, and Jeremy Spencer suddenly said, “Let’s rock awhile!” and the band slammed into a frantic set of Little Richard screamers, playing at double tempo with such enthusiastic energy that the whole audience was on its feet.

Fleetwood Mac has always been a derivative band, and now, after some disappointing excursions into the trendy realm of high-energy music, they’ve returned to their real roots. Kiln House is a conscious re-creation of the rockabilly era, much like Creedence Clearwater’s recent Cosmo’s Factory was. But Creedence’s impressive mimicry is overshadowed by the honest feeling generated by Fleetwood Mac. Rather than the well-known Sun artists, they chose to base their revival on the styles of Buddy Holly, Eddie Cochran and Gene Vincent.

The important difference is that with Fleetwood Mac, you never notice that they are copying or imitating any particular source. The influences are thoroughly absorbed and imbued with the individual talents of each member of the group, resulting in a recording that is as distinctive and memorable as anything left by the great rock & roll artists of the ’50s.

As with Cosmo’s Factory, we have here a sort of compendium of styles and influences. “This Is the Rock” manages to remind one strongly of Gene Vincent, while not sounding much like any particular Vincent song. The use of echo, and the restrained backup chorus, combine perfectly with Jeremy Spencer’s mastery of rockabilly vocal mannerisms, including the difficult “semi-hiccup” effect.

“Blood On the Floor” is straight from the Ferlin Husky “Wings Of a Dove” school. Fleetwood Mac’s deft handling of this sentimental idiom should be applauded; a lot of folks may not like it, but I’m glad it was included.

The only openly-nostalgic offering is “Buddy’s Song”, dedicated to you-know-who. This is not a direct copy of any Buddy Holly song, but rather a valid statement in the same style that stands up to some of Holly’s best. Titles of Buddy’s hits are cleverly worked into the lyrics in a way that avoids the coyness usually found in this sort of thing. For my money, this is the most fitting tribute yet to one of rock’s early greats.

As if they had to prove their own creativity, the group has included a number of original songs that retain the finest qualities of the old rock sound and carry them forward to prove that there’s still a place for the spirit of rock & roll in modern music. “Station Man” and “Tell Me All the Things You Do” are getting the FM airplay, and they’re both probably favorites of yours by now, as they should be. Wah-wah effects and heavy bass lines are used effectively without becoming the traps they’ve been for so many groups of recent years. Like the other songs on this album, they hold the listener’s interest - a rare thing these days.

Sitting at the end of side one, after a rockin’ rendition of “Hi Ho Silver”, we find a real gem of a song, called “Jewel Eyed Judy.” In the same general vein as some of the material on Abbey Road, this song is every bit as good in its own way. It’s not far from there to “Earl Gray’’, a quietly reflective instrumental guaranteed to soothe your mind.

If there was any doubt that Jeremy Spencer and friends would be remembered today in the same way as Vincent, Holly, Berry, et al. if they’d been around in the ’50s, it is dispelled as Jerry and the Jivecats sing “One Together”, a plaintive teenage lament of classic proportions.

I’d like to close by saying there’s not a cut on this album that’s less than great, but unfortunately there’s “Mission Bell.” I’d just as soon have forgotten Donnie Brooks or Jerry Wallace or whoever recorded this piece of trash back in 1959. The English, though, take a different approach to American pop music. To them, it’s all history, and they don’t differentiate much between good and bad. As an illustration, they’ve just reissued a Neil Sedaka album in England; we don’t even have Eddie Cochran here yet.

But this is a fine, fine album anyway. Peter Green’s absence is scarcely noticed, and there’s still enough talent left in Fleetwood Mac to make many more great albums and a couple more splinter groups likely.

Rock on, boys! Greg Shaw

USA-UNION - JOHN MAYALL -POLYDOR 24-4022

This album represents a continuation of the no-drum, restrained amplification concept which Mayall started with Turning Point. Essentially, he replaces Johnny Almond’s sax with a violin, and brings on a guitarist who is knowledgeable in playing electric with the sort of finesse which jazz guitarists do.

He also continues a trend made painfully noticeable in Barewires and carried on unabated, which is that, as songwriter, especially as lyricist, and even sometimes sheerly as a vocalist, he’s in as bad a shape as the proverbial dude with b.o. whose friends won’t tell him what a bad scene he creates.

Yeh, I know it’s Mayall’s band and he’s got no reputation as a modest fellow and he’s a latter-day J.B. Lenoir, but the killer talent in this band (including Mayall himself in certain of his multi-instrumental capacities) should be liberated from its too-often duty of keeping Mayall’s act from falling on its face.

The genre Mayall started could maybe be referred to as “chamber blues”, with as much jazz incorporated as essentially non-“new” oriented players can carry. At its best (whenever the instrumental action takes over in earnest, as it would more often on nonvocal cuts of long duration), it features excellent and very hip playing, with the possibility of intricate, subtle and complex interplay (check sections of “You Must Be Crazy” and “Possessive Emotions”, for example) of a sort rarely possible in a loud or badly tuned band.

The players are first rate. Larry Taylor, ex-Canned Heat “Mole” can coerce his bass strings through a brick wall without even raising dust, very good choice for a drumless band. Harvey Mandel is still very much the fox and his resourcefulness has plenty to do with keeping this action together. Sugarcane Harris is one of the finds of the year instantly the top violin yet to make the rock scene and capable, even, of taking on a guitar’s job of work. This is the first chance to hear him throughout an entire album & since he tends to be the solo star, anyway, it’s probably worth the album just to hear him get his ax into its own possibilities, while introducing some musical innovations of the day.

Without memorable tunes & with the sometime lack of impact and thrust which this band has yet to entirely overcome, it may take a few listenings to get involved. A little more Harvey Mandel up in front & in conjunction with a freer-romping Larry Taylor could go some ways toward remedying this. At any rate, its worth a little of your time, Mayall vocal scuffles & all, and, as a beginning, it’s pretty promising. Mayall’s penchant for employing ace sidemen is another longstanding tendency of his, one which I doubt ever served as crucial a purpose as it does here. There are few examples of something old and something new put together as smoothly & unpretentiously as that which the instrumentalists here achieve.

Rich Mangelsdorff

KEEP ON TRUCKIN’ - FRUT - TRASH 1001

You know what I think rock needs today? To rescue us from the murk of mediocre groups not even bad enough to be outrageous and artists so “creative” their hothouse albums wouldn’t know true soil if it churned up and swallowed them? Well, I’ll tell ya. Clowns! Buffoons! No, worse than that -what we need are more groups with the guts and the genius to make themselves bad enough to be outrageous. The kind of music that when you hear it on the box, you gasp: “Who are those guys? How do they get away with that shit?”

Well, the Frut aren’t that awesomely crude, but they are a step in the right direction. From Detroit, natch, they sound like a crappy high-school band drunk past exuberance into a kind of satori-cal joy, solemnly reciting Fifties classics and proudly introducing their own “originals,” secure in the knowledge that they may not be Crosby, Stills & Nash but this moment is theirs, sweating and grinning under the basketball lights, playing and singing with a kind of cowlicked passion to all their people milling out there on the shiny gym floor and sauntering outside to smoke legal cigarettes in the little pen set aside.

Frut not only does “Be-Bop-a-Lula” and “Buzz Buzz-A-Diddle It,” they have the perfect adenoidal-melancholy tonal shadings for Richie Valens’ “Donna”, and they even do “Bristol Stomp” and “Running Bear”! Thank God somebody had the sense to realize that there are one or two mpre songs in rock’s vintage years than “Long Tall Sally” and the basic Chuck Berry riff.

The originals are enough to make you feel like Mr. Peabody suddenly waybacked to somebody’s garage afterschool circa 1963: “Keep On Truckin’ ” is a great rocker with a slight Link Wray & the Wraymen flavor, or is it Duane Eddy, in the gutteral guitars that surely reminds you that Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin no more created Heavy rock than the Stones conceived riffs like “Little Queenie.” Oh, yeah, and it also sounds somewhat similar to the Doors’ “Roadhouse Blues,” but not nearly so effete. The masterpiece lyrics can’t be beat: “Keep on truckin’/Truckin’ on down the line ... You know you’ll be feelin’ fine” - or something like that.

Other dynamite Piks entirely conceived, composed and pounded out by the collective genius of Frut: “Chiffon Baby” renders one of Chuck Berry’s patented arrangements just slightly less ineptly than the Kinks did with “Too Much Monkey Business” on their first album (and has a spine-chilling moment during the 19-second guitar break when one of the boys decides to throw his vocal two-cents worth in between: “BEEP ... BEEP .. . BEEP.” Nice touch. I’da never thought of it).

Two titles that may deny the boys airplay in some sectors and shoot them straight to Number One in others are “Take Your Clothes Off (and I’ll Love You)” (a heartsponging ballad) and “I Love You Baby, (But You Don’t Dress Cool),” which showcases that ever-popular Bo Diddley beat. And believe me, you can forget your “Mona” and your “Not Fade Away” the instant you hear this tough chant: “I love you baby an’ I’m no fool/I love you baby & that’s my rule/I love you, baby — but you don’t dress cool!” These lads essay that classic rhythmic flourish with more verve than anybody since the 1965 Pretty Things, and they got better words too.

In fact, they take me back to an 11th Grade afternoon of my own, when a few of us assembled for lack of anything better to do in Walter Kitching’s garage to listen to Jerry James’ just-formed band The Intruders (so named because “It sounds rude, dude!” explained rhythm guitarist & sometimes S.A. Dave Hendrix). All they had was three loud guitars and Jerry’s drums, not even a bassist, but Jerry had already written some compositions, among which I principally remember “The Monkey,” which sounded like “Have Love Will Travel” and began: “Here comes Tarzan down from the trees/Doin’ the dog with Jane on her knees...”

Frut are not nearly so esoteric, of course, but they do have a socko lineup and a finely-tuned ambience. On lead guitar we have Crunchy Cristals, while Snidely Whiplash bangs skins, John Kozmo bashes bass, and the lead singer, in the venerable Question Mark & the Mysterians tradition, travels by the sole mysterious handle of Panama. It sez here that various kinds of assistance in the session were also given by such worthies as Fe Fe La Beau (“P.A. and Amps”), Wildman Rapucci (Soprano) and Mosely the “Punk” (Baritone). Legend has it that Frut are righteous drunks, never show up for a gig less than smashed into near-incoherence (but not near enough to destroy the funky impact of that sound they’re laying down - like Stravinsky in “The Rite of Spring.” which was a pretty sharp cut itself, Frut always stay sober enough to tether their eruption just this side of chaos), and even invest in lots of bottles of Ripple which they then toss into the audience. Sort of a love offering, like saying “Peace, brother,” from one set of righteously illuminated citizens to another.

The final garnish is the liner notes by Brother Jesse Crawford of White Panther fame. I always wondered what happened to the kid’s career after his flash-in-the-pan hit with the MC5’s MC number. Well, don’t worry, kids, he’s still hangin’ in there like a brother should, writing stuff like this that does more to promote an indigenous youth folk culture that will carry on the heritage of the late 50’s and early 60’s, and says more about where that culture is going in the 70’s, than all the pseudo-intellectual Tom Wolfe-esque gropings I’ve read this year: “Detroit is pimp city! There are more cats and kitties walkin’, talkin’, hustlin’, stusslin’, and truckin’ and payin’ the toll to the natural facts in the Motor City than in any other place in the belly of the honk .. .,The Frut on and off record have honestly spent more time in the slammer than any ten cats I know ... If you can get next to some killer, o-zone rock and roll, brother, cruise on out! If not, you best jump back, Jim, ’cause you won’t cut it, at least not in the Motor City.”

Rite on. That’s also the man who once said, “The revolution will be won under the influence of Ripple and Red Mountain Wine,” which is my favorite dialectical position for the turn of the decade. That man may be jawing jive, but both he and the Frut radiate the kind of spirit that, if enough people unplugged their cerebral cortexes and hopped on, just might revitalize rock ‘n’ roll. All stardom to the Frut, and if I ever meet them the first thing I’m gonna do is beat it down to the corner for a big jug of wine so we can all get righteously fucked up, get foolish and loud and crude and boisterous and sane. Ending, as always, drunk as a skunk, roaring back the obvious choruses straight into the horse’s mouth of rock ‘n’ roll.

Calabash Bangs

A More Sober View

The rock ‘n’ roll of the fifties is more alive today than it was even back when the Stones had a Chuck Berry number on every album. The re-awakening of interest in the old rock sounds has gone past the travesty of Sha Na Na until now we are at the point where there are distinct schools of 5Os-influenced music. Some groups are exploring directions rock ‘n’ roll could’ve advanced in if it hadn’t been killed off in 1958 (Creedence Clearwater, Fleetwood Mac, The Stooges, The Flamin’ Groovies); others are doing the old songs with a vitality that makes them seem right up to date.

In the latter category, along with Brownsville Station, another Detroit group, are The Frut (formerly “Frut of the Loom”). As their liner notes point out, there’s something unique about Detroit that keeps hard, drivin’ rock ‘n’ roll in demand there no matter how poorly it’s faring elsew'here. Virtually every white group to come out of the city has relied, partially or completely, on old rock ‘n’ roll songs. Or, as Jesse Crawford puts it: “If you can get next to some killer, o-zone rock and roll, brother, cruise on out! If not, you best jump back, Jim, ’cause you just won’t cut it, at least not in the Motor City.”

Frut has carved out new territory with their choice of material. Instead of the usual hard rock standards, they’ve ventured into that field of acne-covered music, despised even among oldie freaks, variously known as “pud rock”, “cherry rock” and even “schlock rock”. While they had the taste to stop short of “wop rock” (Frankie Avalon, Fabian, et al.) the artists they’ve drawn from, including The Dovells and Freddy Cannon, are not exactly the most fondly remembered acts of the fifties.

Happily, though, Frut have enough interest in the music, and enough honest musicianship, to bring it off nicely. “Come Go With Me” and “Buzz Buzz-A-Diddle It” are the most successful oldies on the album, with a solid instrumentation and a believable re-creation of the original mood of the songs. Their hard-edge Berryish version of “Running Bear” is an absolute gas. From there, though, it s pretty much downhill. This Time suffers from weak vocals and lead singer Panama’s inability to remember the lyrics. I really think Troy Shondell did it better.

“Bristol Stomp”, “Be-Bop-A-Lula” and, to some extent, “Donna”, suffer from the same thinness in the singing. But all is forgiven when you hear Frut’s five original songs. Like Ruben and the Jets, Frut adopts the old rock idiom perfectly, but articulates the implicit corniness of the genre so plainly that you have to laugh out loud. “Are We Really Coin’ Steady” and “Take Your Clothes Off, and I’ll Love You!” are good examples of this.

The frantic jive of “I Love You Baby (But you don’t dress cool)” and the rollicking drive of “Chiffon Baby”, which comes on like Delaney & Bonnie’s “Soul Shake”, approach the peak of Frut’s creativity on this first album, and indicate the best direction for their future development. More original songs, greater use of “The Famed Warbles” (Wildman Rapucci, Soprano; Meadowlark Brenner, Tenor; Mosely the “Punk”, Baritone) with, perhaps, more complicated vocal harmonies, and a growing public interest in real rock ‘n’ roll, could easily combine to give The Frut excellent prospects for a national career on a major label.

I really hope they make it. In the meantime, they’ll keep staging their own record hops, and playing their swingin’ music for all the hep kats ‘n’ kittens in rockin’ Motor City. May it rock on thus for ever and ever! Greg Shaw

LOVE REVISITED - ELEKTRA whatever the number is - I ain’t even sure that’s the title — hope you got one lying around the office

FOUR SAIL - LOVE - ELEKTRA EKS-74049

OUT HERE - LOVE - BLUE THUMB BTS-9000

FALSE START - LOVE - BLUE THUMB BTS-8822

Love is strange. They started out with a switchblade reflection of the Byrds and gnashing Stones parody, then moved onto their celebrated Latino-artsong period and began to look like a band with something to say, especially with the articulation so eccentric. All of this is documented in Love Revisited, which is definitely worth buying if you don’t have any of the others. It impresses all over again with Arthur Lee’s flair for oblique composition, and lyrics which ranged from the truly bizarre (“7 & 7 Is”) to the charmingly adolescent and pleasingly pretentious: “And if you see And more again ...”

The original Love was in all its configurations a great band, and each of their first three albums stands up well today. But last year Lee reformed the group, tossed Elektra a last album and moved, with much

fanfare, to Blue Thumb. And what remnants of the original Love spirit survived the personnel shifts seem to have been lost completely in crosstown transit.

When Out Here appeared, somebody at Blue Thumb told me that they had a large batch of new Love material from which they magnanimously let Elektra select whatever they wanted for Four Sail. Which was a mistake, because it must be admitted that Four Sail was definitely the best Love album to appear since Forever Changes, and it fell so short of that album in its unevenness that you could almost graph the decline. Some of the songs, like “Robert Montgomery” and “Nothing,” sounded like Forever Changes rejects, and only about half of the tracks left a lasting impression of any sort.

Still, it contained some music which was right up there with the original group’s masterpieces, notably the jet-propelled “August,” which had one of the most powerful guitar leads of 1969, and “Singing Cowboy,” a mordant Western with biting lyrics: “Singing cowboy/Got a gun around your waist/Gonna shoot a little taste ...”

Out Here, the flabby double set which followed, contained about as many worthwhile songs as Four Sail in twice the amount of material, and the standouts themselves, like “Stand Out” and “I’ll Pray For You,” distinctly lacked the impact of an “August” or a “7 & 7 Is” or even an “Orange Skies.” The rest just sounded tired, from the aria-with-whistled-break “Listen to My Song,” not even a good joke, to bloated 12-minute epics like “Doggone” with its obligatory crashing drum solo. The cream of Four Sail and Out Here would have made one marvelous album, though, especially with Four Sail’s more serious tack counterpoised against Out Here’s best, which contain some of Lee’s most wonderfully fatuous lines. We need more lyrics like: “Oh, I don’t care if you’re from Abalony/That’s baloney/Anyway ...”

False Start, though, finds Lee’s lyrical gift as stale as his melodic imagination. Lines like “So you killed Jesus/You killed Abraham too/You killed Martin/What you here to do?” don’t make it, and few of the compositions are infused with enough life to bolster them. Even songs with potential, like “Flyin’ ” and “Slick Dick” (whose “Wooly Bully” interpolation could have been both hilarious and pointed), are rendered with such basic coldness that they seem to merge with the surrounding mush. Though certainly passable by 1970 standards, this album says something very depressing about the state of a g^nce-fascinating group’s creative energies. Don’t buy it for the Jimi Hendrix work on one song, by the way — Hendrix sounds nearly as exhausted as Lee and Co.

It’s a saddening experience to listen to

these albums chronologically. Like the Byrds and other bands surviving in name at least from the first renaissance era, Love is showing the deceleration of middle age. I guess it will always be hard for rock groups to grow old gracefully, mellow instead of straining and sagging. But Arthur Lee is not just any writer — his very gaucheness roots him solidly in the tradition — and Love in all its forms has brought joy. Perhaps it’s the new sidemen, or a temporary marshalling of Lee resources, and the Seventies will find this transitional phase surging into another Forever Changes. We could certainly use some music like that in these slow times.

Lester Bangs

MATHEWS SOUTHERN COMFORT -SECOND SPRING - DECCA DL 75242

The star of this album is Ian Mathews, formerly of Fairport Convention. The style is much that of Fairport, a little more country flavored. It’s a step better than their first attempt which received little notice, except from the people who had followed Mathews in Fairport.

The liner notes say it is a Byrdsy style of energy, in attempt to describe the music. The latter Byrds, but not the early Byrds. For instance, it doesn’t sound anything like “Mr. Tambourine Man” or “Rock and Roll Star”.

Mathews is the lead vocalist and occasionally adds a guitar part. His voice is gentle, maybe like Tim Buckley, though not the same stylistically. It is not gentle like John Sebastian’s, if you see what I am driving at. Marc Griffiths, formerly of Spooky Tooth, provides a solid bottom for the group on bass. The rest of the band is Carl Bainwell on acoustic guitar and banjo, Gordon Huntley on steel guitar, and Roger Swallow, drums, who was formerly in a little-known group called Marmalade.

The album opens up with “Ballad of Obray Ramsey”; like many of the other songs on the record it has a good tune, one you can remember after the song is over, and a good beat, although I wouldn’t call it a rocker. “Moses In The Sunshine” is the next song, more-or-less sliding by unnoticed. Bainwell just shines on banjo on “Jinkson Johnson” as he works with and against Huntley’s steel guitar, both fighting for leads all the time with a strong country flavoring.

Nothing much worth mentioning after that til the second side which opens with one of the best harmonies I’ve heard all year. Not necessarily because the harmonizing is so fantastic, it is just a very solid song, relying completely on vocals. “Blood Red Roses” would, I firmly believe, make it as a single. It is in the Woody Guthrie-cult/vein, sung with hope, which, god knows, this country needs.

“Even As” comes on as a love song, though it isn’t one - “Darcy Farrow” is next and it’s very nice, Mathews again coming up with some very good vocal work, as the guitar buzzes in the background hitting the higher notes with the rhythm guitar strumming over it, then still another guitar coming over the two of them giving a very unique effect, first working against each other then blending with each other. A very well-produced song on, for that matter, a very well-produced album.

The album ends with “Soutnern Comfort” and it couldn’t have ended any better. Easily the best cut on the album (also the longest), like “Blood Red Roses” also beginning with a solid vocal and simply brilliant guitar work, just building up, very slowly, picking up as the vocal joins in, and then slowing down again, til it starts and stops again. Sounds like a completely different song by the end. If there is a rocker on the l.p. this is it. This is the only tune on which electric work is really recognizable; the steel guitar reminds me of something Jerry Garcia would do if he were on the album. For that matter, the whole song sounds like something the Dead would do if they had the vocal potential and a fiddle.

Buy this album, stick it between the Stooges and Grand Funk and play it, and from now on you’ll give country a second glance.

Danny Sugarman