Judy Garland is dead but the memory of Briann Jones lives in all of us

I Charles Rodney Vera, known to my many intimates and precious few peers simply, charmingly, as Chuck, had reason to wear my customary self-congratulatory leer acros's my heart breakingly gorgeous face after breakfasting at four that afternoon, for was my presence not, more than discernible, positively insinuative for the eighth-bottle-ful of six-dollars-an-ounce bracer I had earlier elegantly ’ splashed around the edges of my meticulously starched collar?

Was my dagger-collared gambler’s shirt of many resplendent colors not as close to an exact duplicate of one recently seen on Rolling Stone Keith Richard as could be bought (for a price far in excess of forty-five dollars) in the metropolitan area of Los Angeles?

Did my lime-green crushed-velvet flair-bottom trousers not fit with the correct voluptuous snugness around my correctly narrow posterior and fall, as the current fashion dictated, to within precisely half an inch of the floor in back?

Had my shoulder-length ermine-cuiured hair not been styled and layered for the third time that month only forty-eight hours previous at Viva’s where, we, Hollywood’s most dedicatedly glamorous trend-setters are coiffed when we so condescend?

Were my very feet not themselves a source of limitless visual delight, they being handsomely enclosed in the most opulent of Italian-made genuine python boots with two-and-a-half-inch stacked Jose Greco heels just like the very superstars favor?

But of course they were.

And was I not, to provide you with some greater perspective, luxuriantly, even irresistibly stylish down even to my rage-crimson nylon scants (which, judging from the number of times I, as an invited guest in their dressing rooms, have observed them at their, most intimate, are precisely what England’s most celebrated pop luminaries wear closest to themselves)?

Indeed yes.

Had I by some grotesque coalition of circumstances found myself confronted by one of those boorish and dedicately unkempt momentarily-Marxist student-types of the type with whom I used to argue about revolution and smoke hashish through foul old pipes while attending art school I would have presented a cogent and pulverizing argument in behalf of my prerogative to leer congratulatorily. Surely, I would perhaps have begun devastatingly, such a facial countenance is fully as essential a component of the fashionably haughty Hollywood trend-setter as his six-inch-thick brass-studded Mick Jagger belt.

In actual fact, though (you will note with some interest that I use the expression “in actual fact” as frequently as possible, having noted some years ago that Paul McCartney inserted it some forty-six times, according to my own computation, in the Beatles’ Playboy interview), the possibility of my detecting the necessity of defending my hauteur was as slim that afternoon as my posterior (which, since it is an endless source of pride to myself and all others concerned, shall perhaps be treated at greater length in a subsequent entry). I, after all, was secure in my Laurel Canyon home, surrounded on all sides by people fully as magnificent as myself.

Hence, as I lowered my hard lean twenty-four-year-old body into the driver’s seat of my English-racing-green Porche (in between two white rally-stripes at the bottom of whose doors I, taking no chances on the un discerning mistaking it for an English-racing-green Karman Ghia or equally less opulent machine, had c o m mi ss si o n e d a somewhat unpleasant-smelling body-painter in Venice, California, to inscribe “Porsche”) my thoughts were directed not toward the problematical justifiability of my style, but toward the yet-unmet lovelies the visual manifestations of that style would that day propel skitteringly to my side.

Quite candidly, my own sexual irresistibility is, in actual fact, my favorite theme of introspection.

Understandably then, it was with a disarmingly lit tie-boy-mischievous glance at myself in the rear-view that I muttered, half to myself and half to an undeserving world at large as I stopped, as required, on the corner of Laurel and Kirkwood, this concise self-composed litany of praise (which I feel to accurately and yet vividly sum up my own graceful existence):

‘‘You’re one handsome motherfucker, Chucker-boy.”

I stopped once again at the corner of Sunset and Selma, where it is my daily custom to remove and examine my very stylish rose-pink goggle sunglasses for any possible vision-blurring fingerprints or smudges left thereon by the soft but occasionally perspired hands of whichever young lady might have snatched them frdm my brow in her frenzy the evening previous. Here I noted a lithe and seemingly enticing young creature posed, thumb ever so slightly erect, on the corner looking sufficiently bored and icily impervious. Seeking to fathom her dedication to the social dictates I myself subscribe to, I tapped once gently on my horn and beckoned with as little animation possible, in much the same way Albert Finney had beckoned to Audrey Hepburn in Two For The Road, only to be rushed at by the p e r enially-somnambulent-looking purveyor of the Los Angeles Free Press and tabloids of more openly erotic intent who seems never to abandon this corner.

As always, this untidy chap seemed dismayed and openly resentful on being informed that my intent had been other than to relieve him of one of his smudgy newspapers, and, before Scurrying back to his sidewalk domicile, launched some paralyzing missile of invective on the order of “Fuck off, pop star,” at me through my half-opened right window. He had responded in similar fashion at least twice weekly for the past four months, during which I had' purchased from him only one Free Press, one whose headline banner promised new insights into the Cay Liberation Front (the limp-wristed militancy of whom amuses me endlessly).

Please note before you further explore this intriguing account that I am not, in spite of what this chap and nearly all strangers infer from my impossibly glamorous appearance, 'a famous musician or actor. Rather, I am a free-lance photographer, and a superb one.

Let us not, though, dwell unnecessarily on trivialities.

Having rounded the corner (leaving, I found it pleasurable to suppose, Mr. FreePress choking on my exhaust fumes), I stopped, without the crudely flamboyant squealing of tire and crunching of gear that the Saturday night Strip-cruising set thinks so essential a prerequisite to impressing a female hitch-hiker, the correct two car-lengths past where my waif-like itinerant creature still stood coolly.

I feel compelled to explain to you why neither less nor more than exactly two car-lengths is an admissible stopping distance.

In the first case; to come to rest anything short of this distance past the subject is to give him the potentially disastrous impression that you are either eager for her company or inclined for some nebulous and thus conceivably threatening reason to spare her a few yards of pedestrian travel. Either of these impressions is alone sufficient ground for the subject to ignore you entirely. On the other hand; one mustn’t, trumpet his professed indifference to the subject’s future choice of acceptance or refusal too blaringly because to do so is, first, to indicate that one is somehow insecure in his hauteur, or second, to force the subject into a situation in which he must choose between either refusing the ride or violating the implicit code of the elegantly haughty by propelling himself too great a distance in pursuit of a driver.

As I intimated, however, my self-placement was a characteristically perfect one, and the slender young creature responded in a fashion that did it complete justice. In actual fact, she executed every step to perfection: first, keeping her back turned to me for even longer than the required fifteen seconds before finally turning around to notice my waiting presence as if quite by chance; second, approaching the car with perfect turgidity, looking everywhere but in my direction as she came closer; third, finally stopping motionless and with an expression of unfathomable boredom by the car, thus forcing me to acknowledge her arrival by swinging the door open for her. Certainly this wench had the whole process down pat.

Intent on demonstrating that my expertise was a match for her own, I correctly remained as silent as stone for the first six blocks we shared, first gazing blankly at the road ahead, then producing the required contemptuous half-grimace when a Blood, Sweat & Tears single came on the radio — jazz-rock is a thoroughly appalling notion to any self-respecting trendy, you understand. Flicking the radio’s stops with perfect nonchalance, I chanced to find the last few bars of the Rolling Stones’ “Mother’s Little Helper,” to the beat of which I proceeded to tap my left ring-finger on the dashboard, as our implicit code defines as both permissible and proper for certain groups, among whom the Stones are included and the Beatles not (this owing to the latter bunch’s lack of aura of decadent evilness possessed by the former).

The song concluded and perhaps a mile now travelled, I extracted a pack of Sherman queen-size cigaratellos from the inside breast pocket of my beige wool Edwardian sports-jacket, flipped open its top, and, still looking straight ahead, extended the pack to her.

She took one and commented, as I knew she would, “Thanks.” Fully aware of the proscriptions forbidding the acknowledgement of this obligatory expression of passive gratitude, I said nothing so gauche or blatant as, “Sure,” “...Welcome,” or even, “Yeah,” but instead with one graceful flick of my wrist pulled my lighter out from my right exterior pocket and held its flame out for her. “Thanks,” she was required to say again.

She was now sufficiently indebted to me1 that I could treat myself to a short look at her without seeming overt.

She was very reasonable indeed.

Her auburn hair, although quite long, had been severely layered in the fashion that made Viva’s as popular with the lady trend-setters of Hollywood as it was with such male paragons of style as myself so that it hung all the way down limp paper-thin hinges. Her bangs in front very nearly obscured her heavily made-up eyes, which, quite correctly, were her only facial features to be cosmetically enhanced.

Her shoulders were impossibly narrow, and the tightness of her bevelled violet pull-over quite sufficiently emphasized her very fashionable lack of mentionable breasts. Around her neck she wore an eight-foot-long white crepe scarf of the sort Vanessa Redgrave had managed to involuntarily strangle herself with in Isadora.

Her pink velveteen trousers were cut very tight. They were held up by a low-riding brass-studded belt that correctly accentuated the modish immensity of her hips. Her shoes, which the flaired bottoms of her trousers nearly covered, were of the fashionable orthopedic stoutness and had massive three-inch heels.

Were I a girl, I would look very much like her: that’s how perfect she was.

At the corner of Clark and Sunset I chanced to dispassionately query, “Whereya headed?”

She replied with the sort of passive sigh I had, during the course of my colorful career as an attendant to the erotic whims of the stylish and marvelous, learned to interpret as encouraging. “Nowhere, I guess.”

There are, of course, those who would have designed to fertilize this fragile egg with something so obvious and overt as, “Then perhaps you’d like to come up to my place for a drink.” As you are almost certainly convinced by now, though, I am myself precisely attuned to every slightest variation in the pulse of social intercourse and therefore above condescending to so coarse a level. Thus, I instead proceeded, my even baritone a study in steadiness, “Perhaps, then, you’d like to come up to my place for some of this fantastic Asian weed I just scored.”

As I have previously intimated, I am, when expending even minimal effort, consummately irresistible to women of similarly impeccable bearing, for which reason it will prove anything but suprising that she consented, “All right,” with a shrug so impossibly passive that it evoked a momentary tingling in my scrotal region.

Making a U-turn on Doheny behind the Gaiety Delicatessan, I reversed my direction on Sunset Blvd.

During the greater part of our drive back to Laurel Canyon we conversed sparingly, as etiquette dictates. She, presumably intent on spotting any out-and-about recently-arisen celebrities that might have seen fit to confront their public on the Strip that afternoon, stared speechlessly out her window, revolving her visage in my direction only when she wished to expel an ash from her Sherman queen-size cigaratello into the dashboard ashtray.

I, feeling neither the desire to nor the necessity of further enhancing her impression of me by immersing her in the gentle swells of my winsome wit, remained content to attend to the radio (banishing from our presence the contemptible sounds of any artistes who had yet to be ajudged worthy listening for us trend-setters by being included in the Whisky’s between-sets dance-tape). Lighting myself a fresh Sherman queen-size cigaratello the instant the first was half-consumed (this because nothing so impresses as the extravagant consumption of these smokes, which cost anywhere from seventy-nine cents in a supermarket to ninety-five cents in the finer liquor store§), I was content to wordlessly guide the sleek eastward progress of my magnificent machine. This I did with the appropriate number of sudden and expert d o u b 1 e-clutchings and contemptuous under-the-breath growls at the intrusive driving of those lesser folk with whom I had little alternative but to share Sunset Blvd.

Not wishing to withhold any details that might, in your estimation, prove of consequence later in this engrossing narrative, I must add that, shortly after regaining Laurel Canyon Blvd., I did make some small concession to the intellectual possibility of verbal exchange between us by inquiring as to whether she had in fact seen Arrogant Casserole (a British quartet comprising at least two quite hopelessly pretty chaps of mod extraction) at the Whisky.

She answered with splendid indifference, “Yeah, they were farout. And I went to a party their manager had for them last night with Peter Plumpton — you know, the lead guitarist.”

I was devastated. What manner of distinction or achievement short of himself being a famous and much-pursued British rock and roll musician can one possibly present as a comparable credential, after all, to a girl who, more than having known one, was actually escorted by one to a documentable social event?

Realizing that I had myself dug very pit into which I had unwarily allowed myself to be pushed, I refrainJP(§) ed from further spoken amenities more extensive than, “How nice,” until we had arrived back at my delightful two-story bungalow on Wonderland, that most fashionable of Laurel Canyon avenues.

Inside she set herself to half-heartedly inspecting the mantleful of antique whimsicalities I had been bequeathed by a bisexual model mistress girlfriend who had six months previous run off with a waitress at the Cafe Figaro and mouthing the obligatory cliches of praise thereof. I, meanwhile, stacked albums by Terry Reid, Led Zeppelin, Ten Years After, and Jeff Beck on my Miracord auto-changing turntable and rolled a luxuriantly plump joint from the^ baggie of fantastic Asian weed I had scored two days before.

“Far-out stuff,” she suggested as she carefully extracted, the two remaining hits from that first joint, while Terry Reid faded from my envy-evoking JBL’s and Led Zeppelin fell revolving on top of him. By the time our second one was verging on roachhood she was dreamily moving her head in some vague correspondence to the beat of “I Can’t Quit You, Baby,” her eyes closed (revealing the extraordinary length of her paste-on eyelashes) and her face bearing an expression of subdued distant ecstacy.

I turned up the volume of my excellent Sansui amplifier/receiver and seated myself next to her on my handsome grey and mauve antique sofa. With delicate but experienced fingers I reached under her severely layered hair and began caressing (with what I know from multiple experience to be perfectly irresistible gentleness) the smooth virgin area behind her left ear. Detecting no indication of imminent resistance, I slowly pulled her toward me and aligned her lips with my own, placing my hand at the same time on her left thigh. After about twenty-four bars of sufficiently amicable lingual exchafige and increasingly bold exploration of her lower pelvic anatomy, neither of which she gave a sign of wishing to terminate, I rose, flicked up the remote-spkr switch of my Sansui, and, taking her hand, led her into the den, over whose windows I had earlier, with characteristic foresight, draped Indian print bedspreads to prevent the intrusion of sunlight and make possible the maintenance of the proper atmosphere for the sort of activity in which I was shortly to participate.

Before reclining on the square mattress therein that, With two AR-2X speakers, in the room’s only furnishing, she relie' ed herself of everything Save her grey-beige panti-hose and rainbow bikini panties. Shje obviously knew, gratifyingly, that these garments should, if circumstances permit, be left to one’s co-participant to peel hef out' of while she is horizontally positioned on the plane to be used and he is displaying an expression as similar as possible as that worn by David Hemmings during his interupted seduction of Vanessa Redgrave *n Blow Up.

I, meanwhile, disrobed with the care and patience I have through the years found imperative to the avoidance of the wrinkling of one’s clothing, placed my crushed-velvet trousers and Keith Richard shirt on hangars left in that room in the event of exigencies like this one, inserted shoe-trees into my Italian-made python boots, leaving on only the crimson nylon pop-star briefs I alluded to in passing in the introductory portion of this fascinating account.

The reasons for remaining so minimally attired until the last possible moment are several.

Perhaps most obviously, one must avoid removing his briefs until such a removal becomes absolutely imperative because of the aesthetically pleasing way they, being prone to diminishing opaqueness as they are stretched, first reveal the erectness of the crucial bodily part.

No less importantly, to be free of one’s briefs with undue alacrity is to reduce the chances of his partner’s noting that he is as stylish within as he is without, an impression that may, given a climate of uncertainty, spell the difference being abetted and repelled at the most awkward of moments.

Happily, my partner did not neglect to scrutinize me in various stages of unclothedness/ and, as I freed her of her properly garish undergarments one by one, her own expression was one of mildly contemptuous indifference, which could have meant only that I had impressed her enormously.

I should here relate that her correctly sallow flesh was free of the rather unsightly freckles and splotches by which so many of the partners one recruits by chance in Hollywood these days seem afflicted. Moreover, her correctly puny breasts were adorned not by the huge cow-like spheres of darker pigmentation that I find so distasteful,but by cogent and neatly-rounded little pubescent tips. Even more, she was graced by a generous amount of tangled black pubic hair. Black, for reasons I have never really paused to consider at the necessary length, is my favorite color pubic hair, possibly due to the dormant savage in me and others who are outwardly gentility epitomized.

Aware that either reaction might reveal to me some deficiency in her knowledge or comprehension of that implicit code by which we of the Hollywood elite classes govern ourselves during sexual contact, she offered neither resistance nor encouragement. Hence, we proceeded according to that schedule which I have, in past experience with some forty-eight different partners, found most efficient.

Following the customary -two-odd minutes of reciprocal lingual interaction and manual stimulation of one another’s genitalia, I launched a barrage of moist kisses from her neck, between her breasts, down finally to the uppermost of her pubic hairs, straying from this 180-degree vertical only to briefly (since no more is required) exhale warm carbon dioxide into her right ear. Subsequent to gently massaging her clitoris with my left index finger so as to hasten the flow of the necessary lubricants (you will surely agree that oral contact with dry labia is at best unpleasant), I positioned my head snugly between her taut upper thighs, reached up to cup what I could find of her breasts with my hands, and finally penetrated her labia with my tongue. To all of this she responded in the usual fashion, by groaning softly and unintelligibly.

These steps performed, I lay down on my back to the right of her, grasped her firmly by her stylishly narrow shoulders, and pushed her down towards my own private premises, after arriving at which she proceeded to bestow upon my member the correspondent amenities. (Perhaps I have neglected to point out that my member is a good seven inches in length, of comparably abundant diameter, and prone to turning what I think a very striking red during moments of procreative employment or animated masturbation. If such is the case, please forgive me.)

Following this expectedly pleasurable step, there remained only for me to introduce my missile to its anatomically correspondent capsule. This I proceeded to do, with the grunt that is permitted of the male partner at this important juncture. Subsequent to the usual amount of displacement and reintroduction I attained orgasm, which I have long held to be the most enjoyable of physical sensations.

I am, of course, uncertain to this day (or, more accurately, would be uncertain to this day if I ever thought about it) as to whether my partner enjoyed similar consummation, women of a gentility comparable to my own considering it both chic and essential to the preservation of their basic intrigue to come without the boorish, blatant, and melodramatically fanfaric series of gurgle-accompanied spasms and gasps seemingly so popular a finale to the sexual activities of the uncouth. When one considers that such ladies think informing their partners of their success no less demeaning than accepting a ride from a driver who has stopped more than two car-lengths past them, he will not be surprised on learning that, instead of offering any comment" relative to her possible enjoyment of the preceding activities, my partner spoke only to request another Sherman queen-size cigaratello when she spoke.

After satisfying this request, remaining prone beside her on the mattress long enough to regain my optimum vitality, and turning the four albums over, I went upstairs to bathe, as is my custom after sexual activity, I having discovered that one’s crotch tends to develop an unpleasant aroma when re-inserted into nylon briefs without first being Washed.

On returning I found her fully-clothed rolling herself another joint while listening to the first sideofLed Zeppelin on my stereo headphones. I sat down at my kitchen table with a can of Michelob and re-read, for perhaps the fifth time, the record-review section of an old Rolling Stone. About three-quarters through the Michelob my hitch-hiking wench came in and, said, “Hey, if you’re going to the Whisky tonight can I get a ride with you?”

At the entrance to the Whiskey, that most glamorous, most storied and most dedicatedly elegant of rock and roll clubs to which the truly magnificent of Los Angeles condescend to retreat when afflicted by that Very special brand of ennui peculiar to the cultured young trend-setter, always stands one of two tall and endlessly suave Negroes. These chaps are selected, I would suppose, on the basis of their appeal to the slightly depraved-looking thirty-year-old faded, fading, or neverwere starlets in silver stockings, platinum-blonde falls, and fur mini-coats of the area who, but for the presence of these implicitly supersexual creatures, would presumably by-pass the club for one of the perspirationand cigarsmoke-clogged female impersonation or burlesque establishments a block or two west on the Strip.

The average occasional Whisky patron (who, in his awful Levi sta-prest bellbottoms, Floirsheim half-boots, and pathetic Harris & Frank scarf, has doubtless driven his Camaro or Mustang in from somewhere dreadful and remote like Reseda or Pasadena to pay four dollars simply to see and hear the featured act, rather than to see and be seen there) will be apprehended by one of these Negroes before he is allowed to enter. If he cannot satisfactorily respond to the embarassing situation of having to document his being old enough to consume alcohol, whichever Negro is on duty will unceremoniously stamp a red ankh on his right hand. Only after he has withstood this humiliation will he be allowed the privilege of purchasing tickets from the lady cashier, who is customarily in too blissful a state of stoned detachment to count out his proper change.

As you have certainly supposed, though, I, and others as glamarous as myself, am required to endure no such distracting and boring processing. Rather, the Negro doorman, who knows me by name (I, as is only fitting, cannot for the life of me recall his), is always only too delighted to personally escort me to the club’s general manager the moment I appear at his threshhold.

This latter gentleman, of course, always makes a great display of pleasure at my presence and personally leads me to the most comfortable available table in whatever area of the club that chances to catch my fancy on any particular night. The impression I have gotten is that this fellow believes (rightly, I am convinced) that he actually stands to make a profit by admitting me and others like me free and providing us with refreshment without charge, for our presence must certainly help to perpetuate the Whisky’s reputation as the favorite evening haunt of the magnificent and resplendent, and thus to attract the glamor-starved wearers of Harris & Frank scarves and drivers of Mustangs, at whose expense a profit is made.

All went as expected the evening in question: the Negro bouncer met me and my hitch-hiking acquisition at the door and immediately whisked us inside to proudly display us to his employer with a snappy, “Hey! What’s happening?” (This question, of course, requires no answer, for it is actually more a declaration of esteem than an inquiry — it couldn’t be more obvious, after all, that it’s who rather than what that’s happening, and that the who is I and my infrequent peers.)

Owing to the fact that we of extreme style think remaining in the company of the person with whom one has arrived one of the most constipated of proletarian dating institutions, my hitch-hiking waif and I soon separated to pursue divergent avenues of activity, this after exchanging names (hers was Teddi, short for Theodora, which I have long held to be a thoroughly unpalatable name for a woman of grace) and agreeing to later reunite in the event of a mutually unproductive evening.

She was apparently fully cognizant of the implicit requirement that every lady of proper bearing first demonstrate herself to be a sensual, if not graceful, being by dancing with whatever slightly coarse but exhibitionistic Negroes “ are available before settling down to the star-making that is ordinarily the evening’s most crucial pursuit. Thus, she collared a likely-looking black gentleman attired in a glittery purple bellbottom jump-suit who stood licking his lips by the bar, and, with much batting of her enormous eyelashes, maneuvered him onto the empty dance-floor.

Once there she immediately ceased her provocations and set herself to wiggling her ample posterior at the sullen-looking Reseda sharpies seated under the dance-floor and flailing her arms with practiced abandon. Meanwhile, her partner, as was expected of him, did all his flashy spade dance-steps with much muscle-rippling, eye-bugging, and sharp hand-clapping.

As custom requires, she didn’t look at him once, and, no matter how frenziedly her glutaeus whirled, her expression remained one of unremitting boredom. The reasons for which are doubtless self-evident: while it is permissible to have a discernible partner under special circumstances (for instance, within an hour of the club’s opening), it is most assuredly not permissible to give the impression that one would not be having at least as good, if not better, a time if her partner were to suddenly evaporate.

The two of them were soon joined on the dance-floor by a pair of comparably stylish-to-extremes ladies with whom, as is the convention, she immediately began to converse with some animation while still faintly moving in time to the music, for, while she must remain at a loss for possible topics of verbal intercourse with her partner, the lady of style is expected to have literally innumerable subjects of pronounced mutual interest to discuss at any given moment with fellow dancers of her own sex.

Soon these four were joined by two more resplendent ladies, which, naturally, multiplied the possibilities for conversational exchange. Soon the four of them were bobbing with and whispering to one another in an informal but readily discernible circle, the periphery of which Teddi’s Negro tried repeatedly to penetrate, but without success. After two numbers (Led Zeppelin’s “Good Times Bad Times” and Marvin Gaye’s “Heard It Through The Grapevine”) of dancing with himself he lowered his head slightly and returned from the dancefloor to his position by the bar, looking equally embarassed and furious.

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Continued from page 29

The girls, as is only right, allowed his departure to in no way inhibit their dancing, chatting, and general enjoyment of one another.

In the meantime I had, with my customary disarming charm, lured one of the club’s almost obscenely-skirted waitresses onto my lap, from which location she bestowed upon me the compulsory affectionate hug that is as a matter of course proferred those male patrons of the Whisky as dazzling and familiar as myself.

This girl’s name was Janet, or Janis, or something. She was very possibly the Whisky waitress I most enjoyed placing on my lap, this because she was fond of loose-fitting and low-cut blouses that afforded one an altogether enjoyable appraisal of her, unfashionably but alluringly gigantic breasts when properly tilted.

I diverted myself briefly by conducting such an appraisal and stroking the inside of her left thigh while chatting in my usual winsome manner about the fascinating people and places I had met and seen since our last chat. So intrigued was she by my account (and, as I was completely aware, so much did she want to obligate me to introduce her to selected pop luminaries of my intimate acquaintance) that, halfway through our conversation, she reached beneath her skirt and began fondling my member to very pleasant effect.

This, although reasonably diverting, soon ceased to sufficiently amuse me. How often, after all, can a man have his missile affectionately manipulated by beautiful women before such an activity becomes slightly boring? (This,

I think, is one of the occupational hazards of being impossibly glamorous.)

Hence, when my waitress excused herself to perform the certainly far less fulfilling duty of. attending to the compulsory thirst of three uncomfortable-looking Harris & Frank-scarved razor-cut thirty-five-year-old sharpies who had seated themselves in her domain, I abandoned my table and made my way, amidst the expected buzz of appreciative whispers and admiring glapcea, to the gentlemen’s toilet.

Here I gave outlet to the whims of my bladder, provided for the ongoing immaculateness of my graceful artist’s hands and twice-monthly-manicured fingernails, and attended, for what must have been the fourteenth time that day, to my altogether beautiful hair.

Ah, my hair, my hair! First I lightly fluffed it with my hands, preparatory to slightly teasing each of the several dozen locks the wench at Viva’s had articulated. Second I combed up and back from that point on the imaginary line bisecting my face and two inches above the hairline so as to smooth and give height to the semiglobular crown on my uppermost foliage. Finally I sprayed it all lightly with the Aqua Net unscented hairspray I carry on my person in a pocket-size can at all times.

I am aware that the reader who, by accident of geography, arrested maturity, or perverted inclination, does not subscribe to the dictates of the life-style I think so glamorous will question or even disdain with such impotent deprecations as “What vanity!” such a devotion as mine to tonsorial perfection. But I should be very loathe, indeed to condescend to. grace such a disparaging remark with a reply, for to do so would be to implicitly accept the utterer of the remark as a peer, which such an utterance clearly shows him not to be. Only when one has attained the giddy plateau of refinement on which I languidly rest is he qualified to question my attentiveness to matters of the comb.

return to my compelling narrative from the above distracting and yet necessarily elucidative detour; after examining my coiffure from as many angles as one mirror allowed for any imperfections that my initial inspection might have somehow missed I stood quietly marvelling at my own beauty in the mirror until one of the aforementioned sharpies intruded and proceeded to make a great show of displeasure at his inability to use the sink owing to my placement in front of the mirror. Naturally I did not allow his English Leather-reeking presence to in afay way deter my appreciative self-appraisal, but rather continued it without indicating that I was so much as aware „ of his inclinations, which I presume were to wash the perspiration from his sharpie’s hands.

Finally, apparently annoyed, he ventured (in what I assume was intended to be a terrifyingly gruff tone), “You just about finished, honey?” which was no doubt supposed to cast serious aspersions on my sexuality.

Having worn my hair stylishly long to varying degrees ever since the fondly-recalled Byrd days of early 1965 (when to appear anywhere but on the Strip in long hair was to invite endless verbal abuse and occasional physical assault from the great mindless public, of whom this cretin was obviously an emissary) I was of course not in the slightest perturbed by this pathetically unimaginative innuendo. So, impossibly casually and without so much as turning around to grace him with my full attention, I announced, as much to the mirror as to him, “I’m nine inches long, man. How long are you?”

Obviously taken aback by the rapidity and incisiveness of my retort and by unruffled composure, the goon resolved to attempt a tact less dependent upon irony and intellect. “Hey, eat it, fella!” he snapped, striving with only ludicrous results to endow his voice with a measure of foreboding.

Thoroughly in control and still a vision of unrelenting aloofness, I smoothed my right eyebrow, adjusted my goggle sunglasses, and finally turned around to face him.

was truly a gruesome being I behold, being no more than five-nine even in his hopeless half-boots, looking to weigh perhaps 180 pounds or more (he was, in other words, hideously unfashionably stocky), and having just the vaguest excuse for long hair resting insecurely on his ears, the ugliness of which were emphasized by the moronic accountant lobe-length sideburns that bordered them.

Without the slightest sign of reticence I began to adjust his awful paisley scarf for him, and plithely retorted, “I do. Every night.”

Blistering sarcasm turned out to have been an injudicious approach to this wretch, who, I realized too late, probably did not subscribe to the vefy reasonable notion that physical conflict is to be avoided whenever it might result in sartorial ruin or facial disfiguration. Contorting his thick power and immediacy that makes it as magnetic and noteworthy as it is. He also spends 4 bit of time on “social commentary,” but even there his strong personal style and the strange edge it gives to such selections remove them far from the level of your usual protest song.

“Thei; Width of a Circle” opens the album strongly i and displays several characteristics of the jyoung Englishman’s style: the thick, dirty, h|omogeneous but unmuddled sound; the simple, captivating melody that works well bec ause it doesn’t have to carry the song by itself; the aforementioned all-out musicianship; the effective mannerisms of his singing; the enigmatic, evocative lyrics; the agile display of imagination in the construction of the song (in this case a “second movement” that bops along to a shouted! “Turn around! Go back!” chorus.) Not all of the selections work as well as the opener (though “Running Gun Blues” is the only cu t that could really be termed poor), and a fepw fare as well or better. Among these are the raunchy “She Shook Me Cold,” with its bizajjrre sexual metaphors and a downright inspiring guitar-drum rave-up on the break; “After All,” a slow, lilting 3A piece whose drawn tout, haunting chorus (“Oh by jingo”) could he the soundtrack of a Twilight Zone merry, go-round, and whose overall performance sounds like Donovan gone bananas;; and “The Supermen,” a surreal journey into the midst of a primeval race who “walked in file” when the world was young, a song whose throbbing drumbeat and unearthly, moaning chorus bring to my soul the same feeling of sacred Promethean mystery as did the Monolith scenes from Space Odyssey.

Of 'less timeless proportions is “All the Madmejn,” which just may be the album’s highlight. Like the Airplane’s “Lather” and the Moye’s “Cherry Blossom Clinic Revisited,” it is a look at the mind of an inmate; of a mental institution, and, like its predecessors, it raises the question of who the crazies f really are. It’s chock full of such marvelous lines, as when, after threatening to fly, scream, break his arm and otherwise harm himselt|:, he quietly but intensely plaints “I’m not quite right at all,” then tags it with a perfectly timed, faint, but ever-so-challenging “Am 'll?” It goes on from there, making frightjeningly immediate the life of tranquilizers and shock treatments and enforced stability to which he has become addicted.

David Bowie isn’t a household word yet, and vis a problems have delayed his chance to perfomri in America. But The Man Who Sold the Wc\rld is going to make a lot of people impat ient for the day he finally does. Meanti pie, there’s depth and power enough in the alb urn to keep us pretty busy and at least partially satisfied until that time comes.

Richard Cromelin

This may well be a review you’ve read before. It goes like this:

This is a San Francisco band that’s been around for quite a while, playing free gigs all over the place and building up a national reputation. They signed with this big record company on their own terms, and had pretty much total control over this, their first record. It’s a good record and it’s gonna sell well because it’s the kind of music that people want to hear, but it’s still no substitute for seeing them live.

Remember the last review you read like that? When was it? 1968? Having reached the ripe old age of 22, I may be becoming inordinately nostalgic, but the Joy of Cooking is one of those bands that recreates the Good Old Days for me, even though the music they play is very much of today.

I don’t know whether the story I heard about their formation is true or not but it makes a good legend: During the People’s Park episode in Berkeley-the early part, before the troops came—it was decided to have a band playing one night when the people who had worked on the park were knocking off for the day. A flatbed truck was obtained, some electricity, and wham! A band spontaneously appeared. Press reports at the time said that the lead singer had been listening to Janis a bit, and that things were rough at the edges, but what do you expect for the first jams? Well, they played maybe once more before the whole thing went down, but the band members decided they liked each other, and they continued to hang out and practice.

What are they like? Well, Commander Cody refers to them as a “rhythm groove band,” and that’s a pretty accurate description. They have an odd instrumentation—rhythm guitar, bass, electric keyboard, congas and drums. They’ll get going on an easy-going blues-type song and then just stretch out for some solos and duos, bringing it back home well before it gets too loose. Each one of them is a well-accomplished musician, and none of their performances ever gets near the leaden monotony that marks so many groups that attempt the same thing, Elvin Bishop and Santana being the ones that spring to mind most readily.

And there are no stars. Terri Garthwaite sings and handles rhythm guitar, looking like some kind of freaked-out Memphis Minnis, and her voice, while it is reminiscent in small part of Janis, might best be described as a good female blues voice. Toni Brown backs her up on harmony and takes the lead on some numbers, all the while squeezing incredibly good, funky, mellow rock and roll piano/organ sounds out of her axe, sometimes as a solo, sometimes as a back up for Ron Wilson’s unbelievably melodic conga work. Hell, even their drum solos are interesting!

And, like I said, the record is no substitute for seeing them live. Their act now includes a lot of material that isn’t on the album and they are a lot of fun to watch, but the album is, nonetheless, simply incredible. If you want to see what Cody means by “rhythm groove,” try “Did You Go Downtown” or “Brownsville/Mockingbird.” With some editing for time, “Red Wine At Noon,” with its arresting harmony, might make a good single and “Children’s House” is already an FM smash in San Francisco.

The Joy of Cooking has started off my 1971 with a bang, and the rest of the year will have to be pretty good if it wants to catch up. Get their record, by all means, and get one for a friend.

Ed Ward

PEARL - JANIS JOPLIN - COLUMBIA

Janis’ music is hurtin’ music. It’s strong woman hurtin’ music, though, and it scores your flesh while it cries on your shoulder, you bastard (you know she’d rather kick in your teeth, but she loves ya, dammit.)

Bein’ a woman in today’s males’ modem death culture context is one of the bum raps of all time, but more’n half the population of these here star spangled states makes do as she (collectively) can, striking a balance somewhere between lobotomized security (the simple joys) and indignant independence (initiative and struggle). Alas, to gain in the one is to suffer the other and needing (need: imperative) both; we seem to have here a crux — which is where modem science comes in, with artificial replacement items — which is where the multifarous dopes come in — but more of that later, let us slip into a little harmless metaphor . ..

... she’s (any woman) raised up in modern times, all her life on these weird silver screen vacuum tubes fantasies which evaporate faster than a speeding picture tube joy ride (poof!). So what if she never really gets anywhere/thing — she can take all this shit, this constant shut down, ’cause one day there’s gonna be love — but not yet.

But she sneaks out, on the sly, and it starts, you know, with the light stuff — crushes, infatuations, the like - bittersweet delights, enough pain to be exciting, enough distance to dull the pain, fantasy to keep ya cornin’ back and always the promise of heavier stuff to come. Now’s the time for cloistered halls and the nun’s habit; now before it’s too late — but she won’t listen -she never would.

Before you or I could’ve stopped her, she’s off bending her chromosomes on some sweet cloying romance — replete with witches, castles, shining armor and gallant steeds — discovering this and that about herself and the world, exploring and expanding off into the ozone — radiant, innocent, delightful and doomed. For alas, what goes up must come down and you wanted to stay there, forever, didn’t you? (No! Soar higher — only just tasted the flight of it; got to . . . gotta fly free and rollicking, slopping frenzied ecstasy all over the clouds — let it drip, let it drip on the mayor, the city, you momma and poppa, the teacher, the birds, who cares? But for chrissakes, let it drop free, cause it sours, left under the tongue too long . . .)

Oh well, have your fun. But be warned: quit now — once you (fuck/shoot) everything is spoiled. The hunger is still there, I know, but not this pain, like fire, like ice. Study math or something - fires are neat, but the cold after they’re gone is colder than you remembered — you never listen.

Without a backward glance, she’s on her self-destructive way, hopping from fire to fire, looking for love, and there’s some long, cold times in between.

And when it gets cold enough she’d do anything... lie if she had to, steal it, wear fancy colors and sing for it, about it, to it and through it. . . just to keep it coming at her; she even risks fame, though it means sure abandonment in alien (hostile) dimensions (not to mention loss of sleep, friends and soft skin privilege). And the more it wants her, the more she wants it, all of the time more fuel so she can bum faster, hotter, brighter. More.

And maybe she thinks she sees what she wants — what she needs - lookin’ pretty good. . .

And maybe she tries it, and it’s nice, you know - close, close, but not the limit and ya gotta make the limit; so she’s out tasting again, and maybe the next time it’s brighter and hotter than it looked (more than you could handle, candle?)

. . . And she’s dangling from a thread — burning and clutching the only thread and she burns right through it (you know?) and falls . . . like o.d.

(Like when you suddenly get some killer heavy dope, and think it’s the same old shit — o.d.)

Now you may wonder what all this has to do with Janis Joplin and her new/last album, Pearl.

For purposes of this review, bittersweet pain is “Cry Baby”, growing into fragile true love (“Bobby McGhee”) and developing into a situation where you just gotta have it (and all the time, and all the trappings) in “Mercedes Benz”. Janis herself played “Get It While You Can”, and she knew.

It’s not the worst allegory you’re gonna hear. In any case, it’s two sides of killer cuts, by the killer blues lady of all time, done in by the killer dope.

Hope they get someone to review the cover, too.

Detroit Annie

TONY JOE WHITE - WARNER-BROTHERS 1900

It’s about time Tony Joe White got some recognition. He has three albums on the Monument label and now, maybe with his shift to Warner Brothers, he will finally get the promotion and widespread air-play he deserves. For the facts of the matter are that Louisiania born and bred Tony Joe White is a song-writer on a par with some of the biggest names, a more than ample musician (on guitar, harmonica and whomper-stomper) and possesses a seductive, nonchalant singing style matched only by the equally under-rated Joe South. For those unfamiliar with the swamp-cured music of Mr. White, be informed that he penned “Polk Salad Annie,” “Rainy Night In Georgia” and “Willie Laura Mae Jones” - all performed definitively^ on his first two Monument albums. And contained on his third Monument disc are such further gems as “Conjure Woman,” “Stockholm Blues” and the evocative “High Sheriff of Calhoun Parish.” Possibly the lack of a Hit Single from that album resulted in his shift of labels but, whatever the reason, this album is a monster on a par with his first three.

However, times were not always so lush for Tony Joe White. From the age of seventeen until his signing with Monument as a solo artist at the age of twenty-four he sang and bayou-cured his music with a combo in small Southern night clubs and on sawdusted dance floors — amply revealed on his Monument albums as he offers his versions of tunes like Otis Reddings’s “Hard To Handle,” John Lee Hooker’s “Boom Boom” and Johnnie Taylor’s “Who’s Making Love.” Paying his dues and germinating a uniquely relaxed yet infectitious sound that |?rambles all throughout this album. From the opening cut, a neorealistic tune entitled “They 'Caught the Devil and Put Him In Jail ijn Eudora, Arkansas” (on a par with This earlier “Roosevelt and Ira Lee (Nigjht of the Mocassin)” and “Willie and ILaura Mae Jones”) through the off-hand sejnsitivity in “The Daddy” and the soul-flavoredL anecdotal “I Just Walked Away,” Tony Joe White releases a Pandora’s Box ojf belonely reminiscences and moody visions of the nitty-gritty essence of life in jlche South (“Black Panther Swamps” and Night In, the Life of A Swamp Fox”) totally and mesmerically delivered in White’s off-the-cuff manner that falls somewhere between folk, country and soul. There is just 1 no getting away from the spectre of the scenes that he creates, the Southern-based, jhobo-frank epiphanies that he deals in. Just gjive a listen to how he even makes such a traditional, Baez-ed, Dylan-ed number likei “Copper Kettle” into what almost sounds like a Tony Joe White original.

Congratulations go to Peter Asljier for not radically trying to change or subvert White’s [ obvious abilities, to the very capable and highlighting Memphis Homs amMgamation and to Wamer-Brothers for giving us yet another entire album of the siftul-stirring artistry of Tony Joe White. Now, if, only he would start touring so he could deliver his funky, corn-mealed and polk-saladeid message in person. For those interested in mis earlier work check out Black and White (Monument SLP 18114), Continued (Monurrient SLP 18133) and Tony Joe (Monument SLP 18142). All super-fine as well.

Gary Von Tersch

IF I COULD ONLY REMEMBER MY NAME - DAVID CROSBY - ATLANTIC SD-7203

Sometime around the end of Iasi year, the news reached my ears that Davidj Crosby’s yacht, the Mayan, had anchored somewhere down the hill from me in Sausalitb harbor. Far out, I thought. He’s probably always surrounded by luscious teeny boppers and great quantities of good things to ingjest, and I do know a couple of people who kSrtow him; i maybe I’ll get an invite to a party i there or something. Then, around Christmas, 1 ran into one of those people, who informed me that he had been to a party on board thes Mayan a couple of days back. “David’s really got the Christmas spirit, all right,” said thilp person. “His boat stands right out — it’s thej one with 1 the peace symbol done in Christmas' lights on it.” I’d seen the boat, no mistake jabout it. The lights were arranged with typical: modesty for Crosby — they must’ve stood fifj'teen feet high from top to bottom. I marked!, the spot mentally.

Then, a few weeks ago, a friend arlid I were killing time down by the yachts, an!cl, seeing that the piers looked open enojugh, we decided to take a tour of them and see how this odd race of aquatic Sausalitans 'lived. We walked out on the first pier. Somje of the boats were nice enough, but none of them seemed to be as nice as the Mayan Mad been described to me, with its imjpeccably varnished decks and, I had been ajssured, a true feeling of a “wooden ship.” h(lo, these might have been expensive craft, but I found their glaring whiteness unappealing. I looked over at the next pier. “Let’s go over there and look at Crosby’s yacht,” I suggested to my friend. The Mayan would probably be just as accessable as these more expensive and luxurious yachts were, I reasoned. You know, all men are brothers, peace and love, and all that. .

Well, friends, let me tell you something. David Crosby ain’t takin’ no chances on having his starship hijacked. There is one pier in the Sausalito yacht harbor that has a ten-foot-high wrought-iron fence in front of it, and behind that gate, several dozen yachts are moored — the Mayan among them. In order to open this gate, one must have two keys and an electronic identification card. While we stood there, in fact, a short, nervous fellow: in a charcoal-grey suit went through the ritual of opening it. Jesus. We went our way. Not even Roger McGuinn has a security system that impenetrable. Presumably the water around the Mayan is mined . ..

So when the assignment from CREEM came to review Crosby’s album, I welcomed it. I began assiduously saving my vitriol so I could write a review that would wipe it off the face of the Earth. The FM stations started playing a few cuts off of it, and from what I could tell, I was going out to shoot some sitting ducks with a rifle loaded for bear.

Imagine my surprise, then, to find that it was a whole lot better than I’d thought. Not much better, mind you, but a good deal better than Stills’ album and only a cut below After The Gold Rush. True, most of it is taken up with the same old CSN&Y pap, but there are a couple of interesting experiments that, if followed up, could drastically alter my thinking towards Crosby as a musician.

I am referring to the last two cuts of side two, “Orleans” and “I’d Swear There Was Somebody Here.” The first, a French folksong, sounds like it was recorded inside an electronic cathedral. It is most notable for its deviation from the same old boring barbershop quartet harmonies that I had thought were the limits of Crosby’s technical expertise. It makes me wonder what would happen if somebody turned him on to the works of some of the Renaissance harmonic masters, like Orlando Gibbons or (especially) Don Carlo Gesualdo, Prince of Venosa, whose madrigals were thought to be un singable for about three hundred years. The second piece is merely Crosby playing around with his voice in a studio, and, with a little work, this line of thought might lead him into creating some really effective musique concrete, electronic music based on “live” source material.

Sadly, though, the rest of the album (those two only account for three minutes and sixteen seconds of it, is a rapid sleighride downhill. From the unbearable insipid “Music Is Love” to what I thought at first was a parody of Neil Young, “Cowboy Movie,” to “Song With No Words (Tree With No Leaves),” which sounds like a practice tape, to the wimpy protest song “What Are Their Names,” it contains some of the most highly expendable music pressed onto vinyl so far this year. I’m sure that all this won’t affect sales one way or another, because there are still plenty of people out there to whom this simplistic noodling around two chords represents the absolute apex of beauty. I just hope it doesn’t go to Crosby’s head and blind him to the manifold possibilities that his approach has.

And, David, if you wanna walk up the hill someday, I’ll be glad to play you some of that stuff I mentioned above. I don’t really hold that big gate against you — sure, there are problems with being a superstar — but I’m not sure I’d sit through another album like this one.

Ed Ward

THE FOURTH WAY - WERWOLF -HARVEST ST 666

After recording their previous album live at Berkeley’s New Orleans House, The Fourth Way brings this one to you from the rapidly-gaining-in-prestige Montreaux Festival, proving not only that they’re for sure one of those “vibes” type of groups which functions optimum when on location, but that they also knpw where the right places are for really getting it on.

I’m pretty sure that if you liked The Sun and the Moon Have Come Together you’ll like this album too. In fact, it seems farfetched that anyone should izslike The Fourth Way at all; they’re tight, interesting, “beautiful” & all that. Yet, since they seem ready to make a bid for high-level prominence, it may be time to check out their act in hopes of learning how it could be improved.

Essentially, The Fourth Way is an electronic chamber-jazz quartet, in fact, they seem to be the group for extending the genre into the post-rock age. Perhaps some non-emulative comparison with The Modern Jazz Quartet, the granduncle of chamber jazz itself, might prove enlightening.

Like the MJQ, Fourth Way has a relatively unorthodox instrument in the featured soloist and focus-of-attention slot. In fact, the violin still has a long way to go in order to match the vibraharp as a suitable jazz vehicle. Milt Jackson, of course, was the Charlie Parker or J. J. Johnson of contemporary vibes and one of the star instrumentalists in all of jazz. Combined with John Lewis’ probing yet knowledgeably elegant compositional talents, The MJQ had a solid base upon which to build.

Things don’t go as easy for The Fourth Way. Though Mike White seems to be the most jazz-committed of the flourishing new crop of violinists coming into jazz and pop music, he strikes me as a diffuse performer (he seems to alternate, more surely than combine, conventional and unconventional ideas, for example), one not capable of striking that balance between artistry and energy which enables such as Bags, Miles, Bill Evans or Art Farmer, to confine the comparison to “cooler” heads, to impose their artistry quite indelibly upon the material at hand.

Perhaps that’s asking too much, eh? True, this seems to be a group without a star, but, if that’s the case, then perhaps it’s the material which must give this group its impact.

I’ve been forced to realize that I can hardly remember any Fourth Way compositions. Mike Nock, who wrote all the tunes on this latest album (save one, which wasn’t written by a Fourth Way member at all) seems to be taking over the “musical director” chair, here, and he’s going to have to comes up with something more than improvisational frames of reference.

Because, even though this group disguises some real creative fury under their lowpressure relaxation and contemplation facade, they need to decide whether or not it’s going to be melodics or electronics or which combination of the two which will be carrying the brunt of their presentation.

They need melody. A group of their temperment can hardly dispense with it. Yet, it’s the electronics (Doug McClure even seems to have gone fulltime electric on the bass, now) which gives them their uniqueness and relevance. Granted, it’s a nut to combine electronics and subtle dynamics in close quarters, the closer the harder, up to a noise-sound vanishing point, but, until they can do it in some decisive ration, I think they’re going to stay pretty much where they are now, which is on the fringe of really breaking through.

The considerable dissonance which White employs in his violin playing seems to combine with Mike Nock’s highly personal pianistics, especially when Nock plays electric, in such a way that they lock (inhibit) each other in place. Eddie Marshall’s cleanly propulsive drumming often seems to come blowing in out of nowhere, not all that relevant to the action itself.

Which is yet another problem for this band to face: how to be propulsive as their electronics demand, without becoming a straightahead blowing group at the expense of their evocative talents. It would be all too easy to substitute a Chico Hamilton or Paul Motian type of drummer, here, but I’d rather see them retain Marshall, a stone pro who is a good example of how good you can get by paying the right kinds of dues in jazz, lighten him up just a bit, and spring or bounce, rather than roll and slide, with his strong hands.

As the Mike Nock trio, many of the band’s problems would be solved, except that Nock just isn’t quite the leader and instrumental star type. An extremely-involved and esoteric pianist in a field where the brilliance of such as Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, Keith Jarrett or Joe Zawinul can hardly be outshone, Nock can achieve more excellence as a contributor in a setting where a few elements can help carry him along, than as another Paul Bley or Herbie Nichols waiting for people to catch up and on.

Where this band is right now ain’t bad at all, make no mistake. I feel that they could be as much of a force as The MJQ was, however, if they got it all going for them. Otherwise, I’d bet some other band pretty much the same as Fourth Way itself, will come along and establish the real precedent. Crucial time for this band; I’m thinking the production on their next release may be most indicative.

I know this group has always come on with an upfront “occult” bias, but does the Werwolf title, coupled with that frontcover photo of what I take to be a canine face imposed over Mike Nock’s, have anything to do with the albums 666 catalog number??

Rich Mangelsdorff

OKAY, TANQUERAY - 100% GRAIN NEUTRAL SPIRITS - CHARLES TANQUERAY & CO., LTD. (ENGLISH)

If you ever hazard out of the Motor City and find your feet pounding a beat down the city street in NEW YORK CITY you just might be standing right in front of the famous Gyro-Gyro Restaurant at 835 3rd Avenue at the comer of 51st Street. If it’s cold outside you might as well open the door and if it’s open you might as well enter. Once you’re at your table and your coat’s on the hook or the back of your chair you can get down to the business of ordering your FUCKIN MEAL. May I recommend item #15, that is Gyro #3, the Persian Gyro (L. of L. & Beef) for $.95 served on Middle-Eastern bread with tomatoes and onions. You can pick it up and eat it like a he-man eats a pizza or if you don’t want eight tons of tasteless shit-ass grease all over your goddam hands (and you gotta wipe it on your pants or your tie cause there’s only one napkin per customer) you can use the knife and fork your hands were built for holding. You can hold one in each hand and cut the fucking thing up into small enough pieces to fuckin eat. Another one-two punch is the both of the sides of your mouth and you can hold the meat down with one side while you’re doin some cuttin with the other. Cooperation helps.

But wouldn’t you know it if cooperation is sometimes one-sided when it comes to the wonderful world of business! After all you got the U.S. of A. helping those goddam Greeks keep their revolutionary dogs in line so in return you’d think a Greek restaurant like Gyro-Gyro would AT LEAST HAVE SOME BOOZE FOR YA IF YOU’RE AN OUT-OF-TOWNER LOOKIN FOR A GOOD TIME but they don’t. Those bastards, they don’t even have their famous home-grown ouzo aboard ship!

So get the hell out of there as soon as you’re finished getting your money’s worth of meat and onions and head on over to the nearest ginmill around. May I recommend Rocky Lee’s, it’s on 2nd Avenue and somewhere in the 50’s and you can look it up exactly in the phone book. And if you buy right you’ll know in short order why they call it a GIN mill. Sometimes they call it a bar but that could mean a court of law or a dairy bar or a bar of gold. Sometimes they call them a beergarden but there’s more to drink than beer. Such as gin. Which is what the place is there for. Gin. Gin. Gin, gin, gin. GIN, gin. GIN. Gin, gin, gingingin, gingin. gin. It’s good stuff.

But there’s bad ways to drink. One’s a Tom Collins. Whoever Tom Collins was he might’ve been related to Dorothey Collins of the Hit Parade for all the fuckin lemonade they put in one of them! G.eez! You ever drink one of them? You’d think poison was made to be camouflaged. You know what would be a good trick to play on a Tom Collins person at a party? Tell him you’ll make him one and then go ahead and use SACCHARINE instead of sugar. Not only will the aftertaste be bad but so will the taste. He won’t know what hit him. It’ll be direct and immediate, just as it should be with a DRINK. Instead of messin over the impact by cutting its explosive HIGH-ENERGY cutting edge named alcohol by means of fruit juice. Don’t ever do that unless you’re a health nut. Not a health food nit of a nut because there’s no such thing as organic lemonade and certainly not according to Osawa. But there’s organic lemons and you can always improve the value of em by means of a little gin. Or a lot. But that depends a lot on you. Whichever way you want it is okay but never without the gin. That’s a sin worse than death.

Another thing you can do to the gin is steal a malaria patient’s medicine and mix it in there with the gin, stir in a lime too while you’re at it and don’t forget the ice and the stirrer. If the stirrer isn’t there you might think it’s cheap or something, cheap meaning cruddy and not the price because anything good is also something you damn well gotta pay for. But it’s less than a dollar unless it’s THE RITZ. And if you go to the Ritz you suck so stay away from it if you know what’s good for you. The importance of the lime is the same as the importance of the lime anywhere. In shave cream or in food. Flavor and taste and tang and color and name and smell and chewiness but not the pits. There oughta be a pitless lime but the .way the world’s goin there’s never gonna be governmental money allocated to the project. Luther Burbank woulda done somethin about it if he was alive after the invention of gin, you can bet your eye teeth on that one!

The ice is for the sake of cold. The medicine’s called quinine and it’s for two sakes. The first one is for the bubbles. Bubbles are good, if you’re underwater and you’re breathing you’ll get a rough idea of just how important bubbles are! The second one is the draw play. What? The draw play? That’s football, ain’t it? Yeah but it’s for the purpose of AN-AL-O-GEE and here it is: draw plays are so even if the outcome is shit yardage at least you made the minimum effort to make it look like you were trying to decieve the other guys, right? So when you add quinine you’re adding (1) something that tastes AWFUL (2) something that covers up the. alcoholic aggressiveness of the gin (3) something that tastes worse than as bad as whatever you can say about the gin if you’re inclined to do so because your upbringing is bent and abnormal and fucked (4) hence it’s an excuse for saying the drink tastes plain bad unless (5) you dig the taste of the quinine in addition to the taste of the gin in which case you’re (6) okay in any man’s book.

Gin and tonic (that’s what the recipe calls it) is okay, it’s good, it’s a combination of ingredients that makes the grade, it’s a drink that never fails to get you DRUNK, sometimes drunker than shit, sometimes it drives you blind, other times it doesn’t, it’s tastey, it’s delicious, it’s yummy, it’s a good drink, it’s drank by the best bands around such as the Stalk-Forrest Group (they’re New York so if you never heard nothin of them don’t let it bother you none and don’t think you gotta run out and buy a copy of that' worthless shit called ROLLIN STONE because you can hear all about them right here in CREEM) (Creem’s a good paper, can you think of a better one aside from Ring Magazine or Leg & Spur the cockfight journal?), the correct grammatic usage according to the book states it as “it is drunk by” or “it is drunken by” but you know what you can do with the goddam motherfuckin piece-of-shitting goddam shit piss fuckin goddam sonofabitchin lousy shit piss cocksucker fuckin-a-shit BOOK CALLED GRAMMAR when you’re drinkin your gin and tonics! Yes you do, you know what to do: throw the fuckin book out the fuckin window or into the garbage can and you don’t have to care a shit or a fuck about RECYCLING wastes because the book deserves to be burned if there ever was one!

Yet there are some people who would say “Gin = Grammar.” How can they say that? Do they have a right? Well everybody has the right but there’s right and there’s righter and there’s rightest and there’s righteous. And there’s most righteous. And (he most righteous fucking thing in the whole fuckin world is DRINKIN GIN STRAIGHT!

But before that is martinis, that’s the closest thing to heaven before straight. Martinis are gin and vermouth. No, don’t walk away, don’t walk away! Yes vermouth tastes like the stale of dogs as mentioned in Julius Caesar but anything by itself is capable of tasting real bad. But put the vermouth in with the gin and! Powee! Yoo hoo! Mother me! It’s like you take Smith’s peppermint flavor snuff (smells like bad weeds) and add it to Dean Swift Snuff whiph includes menthol, eucalyptus and licorice and it’s something else again. If you don’t know snuff it’s like combining an elephant and a rhinoceras, an Indian elephant (the one with the small ears) rather than the large ones like the African elephant has [hey did you ever see a Jungle Jim picture where they mix the elephants up?!]) with an African rhinoceras (that’s the one with the very pointy major horn and also a minor one whereas the Indian rhino has just one blunt small fucker of a horn). What?????

I don’t know, man maybe it’s too many martinis for one nite but I tell you one thing: don t get your martinis from Howard Johnson’s! Don’t get your cheeseburgers there either or your clams or your donuts or your Welsh rabbit but expecially don’t get your martinis there. If you do you’ll be sick forever, even the olives don’t help, it’s a rotten awful putrid bummer of a drink. Bad!

Keep away from it!

But if you get a martini from a reputable firm don’t hesitate to drink several. Or even several hundred, it’s never killed a fly. But flies are for crushing under your little pinky and gin is for guzzling down STRAIGHT. Not like a straight line, no. Not like straight rather than stoned, no. Not like straight rather than gay, no. But straight rather than mixed. Straight as in right from the bottle. Which bottle? Hie gin bottle of course. And which gin bottle is that? A good gin bottle of course. And which good gin bottle is that? Well let me see....

Well to be honest, to be perfectly honest there’s an awful lot of almost unbeatable gins: Gilbey’s, Beefeater’s, Gordon’s, Old Mr. Boston Minted Gin, and so on. But it’s just almost, almost meaning not quite. Cause there’s a beater in the house if you’re in the right house. And if you are the beater is NAMED Tanqueray. Whew!

Toward a description of straight gin out of the bottle: it’s like perfume (some people say that), it’s like juniper berries (some people say that), it’s like kerosene (some people say that), it’s like coke (some people say that), they’re all right. But that’s alright. Cause gin has many flavors for many tastes. You’re taste might be this one, it might be that one, it might be a few. But regardless of your philosophical affiliation IT DOES ITS JOB. Getting you porked. Say you want some nookie or some cock, well you’ll get it. Say you need to make an important telephone call to Wobe, Nevada. You’ll make it and your party will be on the other end. If he isn’t it won’t matter unless you are a paranoid schizophrenic in which case you oughta be sticking to dope.

And many more. But no matter what you want it to do there’s no better tasting, better acting, better looking beverage in the fine family of gin than Tanqueray. It’s the only gin advertised in every periodical you can possibly find on an airplane, including the personal mag of whatever airline it is. That includes United Airlines Newsletter and Ozark Airways’ What’s Up. It’s mentioned in every last one of them and you know why? Because everybody buys it who can afford to. Everybody. Nobody doesn’t. Nobody. It’s even mentioned in Esquire in the article about the most important black ad man in America today who’s working for Benton & Bowles doing ads for Prell Concentrate. He drinks it and he was once honorable mention All-America in basketball from Fordham so it must be good. Good? It’s Great. Great? It’s Superduper. Superduper? It’s . . . it’s . . . uh . . . it’s... it’s THE WHOLE FUCKIN WORLD AND EVERYTHING IN IT is what it is. I’U say.

Northwest Miami

JESUS CHRIST - SUPERSTAR - DECCA

The book was better.

Toby B. Mamis

CHURCH OF ANTHRAX - JOHN CALE AND TERRY RILEY - COLUMBIA C30131

Well, Columbia’s really putting their collective ass on the line with this one. Here they’ve gone and taken two of their worst-selling, but most talented, artists, men who have heard each other’s music and dug it, and put them into a studio and said “Jam.” They set about to do just that and did it, and this is the result.

Truly, this is the strangest jam session to hit wax in many a moon. Let me introduce you to the principals. Over here, we have Terry Riley, modern-day composer, player of the soprano saxophone, organizer of 24-hour-long concerts, genius. He is represented by two of Columbia’s most adventurous classical albums, In C and A Rainbow In Curved Air. What his music is all about is establishing a pattern based on creative interplay of repitition an; improvisation, using such devices as tape loops and live instruments played with an Echoplex. Someone once called Riley’s music “mandalic.” We’ll get back to that in a moment.

Over here, and perhaps a lot more familiar to all you rock and rollers out there, we have John Cale, Mister Darkness himself, former resident genius in the Velvet Underground, violist and multi-instrumentalist, possessor of his own solo album, Vintage Violence, arranger of two of Nico’s (Marble Index and Desertshore), and future composer of film music for Warner Brothers.

Okay, so that’s the principals, but what’s the record like? It certainly is hard to imagine, I must admit. Perhaps it will be of some help to know that there are two drummers involved (even though, for some odd reason, they aren’t credited on the back), Bobby Colomby and Bobby Gregg. These two Bobbies are the album’s saving grace, because, as with any jam session, there are times when the structure being created breaks down, and these guys know just how to scoop it back up again when that happens. Their solid, rocking beat holds your attention to what is happening.

And what is happening is fine. No, it’s not exactly rock and roll. If it resembles anything, it might be a jazz-tinged classical jam session, if that makes any sense to you. Thanks to the magic of overdubbing, there are countless lines going at once, and the eventual effect is that of a mandalic structure being created. The music is working outwards from the

center, opening up new layers of complexity as it goes, although each one of them relates to the core. There are no chord changes, no melodies to speak of, and damn few of the conventional toeholds except those drums.

Listening to Church of Anthrax all at once can be a bit of a strain for those not used to Riley’s way of doing things. I suggest that you play the title cut first — all nine minutes of it — and see how it works. If you’ve got that down, then play the whole first side. Once you master that, you’re ready for the second side, which is where the most masterful playing on the disc goes down. It opens with one of Cale’s best songs to date, melodic and catchy, sung by one Adam Miller, who sounds a lot like Cale, although I am assured that he’s not. Next comes “Ides of March,” an incredible e 1 e v e n - m i nute-long duo-piano/duo-drum wham-bang extravaganza, the album’s standout cut by a long shot. The side closes out with “The Protege,” a rock-like piece (which perhaps explains the title?) which ends the album the only way it could have been ended. (No, I ain’t gonna give it away.)

This is a very strange album, but a very good one. As I said, Columbia hopes that you’ll be so knocked out by Church of Anthrax that you’ll run out and buy the other Riley and Cale albums, which may have just sold 6000 copies put together. I hope so too, not because I hold any Columbia stock or anything like that, but because these two guys are among the very few vital, creative artists in their field(s), and I sure don’t want to see them starve — I want to see them put out a lot more good records!

Ed Ward

JACKNIFE GYPSY - PAUL SIEBEL -ELEKTRA EKS-74108

Siebel’s first record, Woodsmoke and Oranges, drew the sort of critical praise that’s pretty hard to live up to. So this time around Elektra put Jacknife Gypsy in an especially tasteful promotion package complete with a page of favorable reprints; to let us know that we’re holding an important product in our merely human hands. They want to sell him as ‘contemporary country western’; which translates to something like post-hip folky philosphical poetic lyricism or a unique brand of up front down home.

And maybe Siebel is unique. For he really does sound like somebody, but I’m not exactly sure who it is. Certainly nobody else within remembering space has quite the same rolling nasal quality. His voice is potentially absolutely miserable. Still he uses it so well the thought doesn’t often come up. In fact, except for Dylan and Van Morrison, Siebel has probably the most interesting one dimensional pop white voice I’ve ever heard.

Decidedly in his favor is the backup band. The framework they lay around his melodies is excellent. They all play like they mean every note of it. David Grissman’s mandolin, Warford and Whites’ lead guitars, Buddy Emmons’ pedal Steel and Jimmy Buchanan’s violin can all be in my band. Anytime. (Russ Kunkel’s drums are pure slapstick.)

But finally, Jacknife Gypsy stands on Seibel’s songs; the connections he makes from his mind to yours through the images he creates. He’s best on those mildly, wisely humorous songs that gently twist your sense of experience. Not knee slappers, but the kind that bring a short snort, quick twist of the lips and an involuntary nod.

Course, all the songs aren’t that high. So, like even though “Legend of the Captain’s Daughter” has got a nicely snappy country two feet beat, it fails to score as anything more than a pleasantly played irrelevancy. “Uncle Dudly” and “Prayer Song” even tend to the irritatingly mawkish.

Much, much better is “Pinto Pony”, a tale with a plot like a very ordinary TV western — cowboy bank robber gets hanged from Douglas fir. Except the way Siebel lifts it to a personal level by repeating the line “Man, I’d like to have that pinto pony.”, at the end of each verse. Shootin’ down the banker and the posse closin’ in with their special rope. It’s all such second nature to every kid who grew up in cowboy boots that it doesn’t even sink in. But man, I sure would like to have that pinto pony. You dig?

Then “Miss Jones” is a noose of a different color. You think it’d be far out to find yourself an idle rich lady who pays the bills and gives you her car? Well, then you ain’t never been a monkey on a string. It just ain’t no ball to be always on call. A motto to keep in mind even if it does make you cringe.

Jacknife Gypsy is a slow grower. You’ve got to let yourself catch on to Siebel’s personally eclectic blend of idioms. His songs din’t set him out as the acute observer of the times over eager publicists would make him; yet they often push the right buttons. Once you get hooked in, Jacknife Gypsy is a record you can stay into for a long time.

Jack Hafferkamp

KINGDOM COME - SIR LORD BALTIMORE - MERCURY SR 61328

All you true blue Heavy fans, take heart. This album is a crusher. Sure enough, Sir Lord Baltimore is none other than a new heavy band discovered by Dee Anthony, Who Should Know (Joe Cocker, Free, Humble Pie); and while SLB’s degree of success hasn’t been determined yet, they’ve certainly got what it takes to rake in a million.

This album is a far cry from the currently prevalent Grand Funk sludge, because Sir Lord Baltimore seems to have down pat most all the best heavy metal tricks in the book. Precisely, they sound like a mix between the uptempo noiseblasts of Led Zeppelin (instrumentally) and singing that’s like an unending Johnny Winter shriek: they have it all down cold, including medium or uptempo blasts a la LZ, a perfect carbon of early cataclysmic MC5 (“Hard Rain Failin’ ”), and the one-soft-song-an-album concept originated by Jimmy Page and his gang. No slow blooze for these guys: “Excitement is what we’re into *.In addition, “Jack Bruce has been a major influence on my career,” says SLB bassist Garry Justin. Top that, man.

As much as I hate heavy music - cock rock, macho rock, or whatever the current name for it is — I have to admit to having every Blue Cheer album ever made, and then' to having a peculiar liking for Led Zeppelin II because of its undeniable stupid-rock punch. So just as I was once forced to ponder good bubblegum vs. bad bubblegum because of my irrepressible fondness for “Indian Giver,” I’d be the first to admit that there’s good Heavy and bad Heavy.

Finally then, as for esthetics: if you’re going to listen to heavy music — despite unending putdowns, condescension, and scorn from rock and roll writers and mouldy English Invasion purists like me - why listen to leaden, plodding slop like Free and Grand Funk when you can have classic slug-you-in-th e-gut knock-your-brains-out efforts like Led Zeppelin II or this album??? Really. Buy Kingdom Come by Sir Lord Baltimore, and be the first on your block to have your brains blown out.

Mike Saunders

SOLID GOLD OLD TOWN - VOLUME ONE - COTILLION SD9032

Old Town Records was started in 1954 by Hy and Sam Weiss in New York City. Among the first groups signed was the Solitaires, brought to the label by WLIB disc jockey Hal Jackson. They soon proved to be one of the company’s top acts, recording several really great records and they had many regional hits. “The Wedding”, a typical slow commercial sound for 1955, and “Walking Along”, the lively 1957 rocker recorded by the Diamonds some time later, are perhaps their two best sellers but by no means their best tunes. The group did five records in 1954, prior to “The Wedding” and each is a gem. The group is noted for their beautiful harmqny; the two cuts here are only a hint at what they were capable of. Recently the Solitaires appeared atthe Second Original Rock and Roll Show at New York’s Academy of Music.

Another of the great groups of the mid-fifties were the Valentines. Their first record (and the only one for Old Town) was released in 1954; “Tonight Kathleen” is considered by some to be the group’s best record, and the slow tune, featuring Richard Barrett’s superlative rock and roll lead voice is a high point of this album. From here the -^Valentines took their talents to Rama Records for whom their bigger hits were recorded. Ruth McFadden’s “Darling Listen to the Words of This Song”, partially written by Alan Freed, was one of Old Town’s greats of 1955. She is backed by a male group called the Supremes, who also did some nice things for the label on their own. Contrary to what the liner notes say, this record, though Ruth’s best, was not her last, and she is still recording today. At about the same time, the Old Town label released “Crazy Love” by the Brooklyn group, the Royaltones. This fast, crazy sound is another highlight of the album, as it has been unavailable, except at high prices, for quite a time.

During that same year, two records by the incredible Harptones were released on subsidiary label, Paradise. Included here is the beautiful, “life Is. But A Dream”, featuring a man who might be the best lead vocalist of the 1950’s, Willie Winfield. He sang his heart out back then and sounded just as good at his recent appearances at the Academy of Music. An original copy of this disc is indeed a valuable item, if you can use that term to describe an outstanding 1950’s vocal group record.

We skip now to 1957, for the next side included on this set, the Keytones’ “Seven Wonders of the World”. This record saw its best sales in the early sixties as one of the most memorable re-issues of the East Coast’s first rock and roll oldie revival. It’s a slow ballad, unimaginative and repetitious, yet done so well that it’s become a classic and is among the label’s best offerings. A few months later, during the early half of 1958, Robert and Johnny had their two best sellers in the ballads, “We Belong Together” and “You’re Mine”. Both were huge regional successes and “Together” was a national hit as well, the label’s first pop giant.

The Fiestas came to glory during 1959 with their smash hit, “So Fine”, written by Johnny Otis, which again brought the record company national fame. It began a string of great records by the group but none of the subsequent releases were as big. The final two cuts on this album are from 1960 and Billy Bland. “Let the Little Girl Dance” was Old Town’s second best seller during their history (“There’s A Moon Out Tonight” by the Capris was the best) but its ultra-poppish sound is far from anything that was previously associated with this fine label. Still, its inclusion here is a nice bit of nostalgia, and his other offering, “Chicken Hop”, is sort of fun as well. I think the space could have been better used, however.

All in all, twelve sides from Old Town’s vaults, recently acquired from Hy Weiss by Atlantic Records. True to Atlantic’s form, this album is outstandingly recorded and you don’t even notice any doctoring to achieve “simulated stereo”. The liner notes are poor, insufficient and also incorrect, especially regarding the year each record was released. I hope that this review will serve as your introduction to a great catalog of rock and roll music from the ’50x and ’60s. In future releases, Cotillion will hopefully get to some of the material they missed in this volume, most notably the fine recordings of the Capris and the Earls, two of the most acclaimed rock vocal groups of the early ’60s.

It’s hard to believe but at one time, some of the Amerika’s best music came out of New York. Treat yourself to this wealth of re-issues and remember the best is to come.

Lenny Goldberg

MOVING FINGER - THE HOLLIES - EPIC E 30255

Now, I can’t say I’ve ever been a Hollies fan. In fact, except for “He Ain’t Heavy”, I can’t remember listening to a Hollies record. Not that I decided I don’t like their music, I never heard it. It just never came to my attention. And with Graham Nash saying all those things about their being so straight, there was no reason to go to all the effort of buying one. Either that or ripping one off, since none of my friends own any either.

Moving Finger made it all the way to my turn table because it Was in with a bunch of records I picked off the reject table at the radio station I used to work for. Everything I copped was shit; directly rerouted to the used record store that trades shitty new LP’s for good old ones. All except for Moving Finger. Because in spite of its truly dippy jacket and notes which would convince you not to buy it if you looked at them for help, Moving Finger is great.

Really. Cartwheels and fire crackers and outtasights and all the newspeak. To these virgin ears, Moving Finger is delightful. Eleven catchy, 3-minute tracks with that vaguely reminiscent good old pre-Pepper British sound. Young songs, pure even, and very pleasant. That’s why Nash was once a HoUy; the familiar flowing harmony everbody’s old lady loves him for.

And there’s more. They play good too. Allan Clarke’s lead is like ! Tips. He cleans my ears out everytime in the break in “Confessions of a Mind” and in the flamenco solo from “Too Young to be Married” — of all places. A couple of the cuts are actually worth some minutes of quiet consideration -which is saying something given the quality of most new rock. (With apologies to all kids who, in the face of the manifestly nugatoty qualities of their graven images, sliU get off by screaming and rushing the stage while pulling their crotches. To you energetic youngsters, all power.) For example, “Too Young. . .” is the stuff of which welfare mothers are made. Slightly oatmeally maybe, but close enough to some ladies I’ve known.

So if, like me, you’ve never listened to much Hollies before, Moving Finger is a good taste. It’d be a shame to let it slip by.

Jack Hafferkamp

LONG PLAYER - FACES - WARNER BROTHERS WS-1S92

Well, the Faces took their first step, and, like any first step, it was greeted with reserve. After all, the baby might fall flat on its face with the second step. Here, then, is the second step, and I think we’ll have to wait a while before we can categorically state whether the baby’s learned to walk yet.

Long Player is certainly a nice enough record. It has a fine raucous sound to it, it’s what certain of my friends would have described a few years ago as “a good partying record,” and it’s obvious enough that the boys had a fine time making it, but I am still convinced that they can do better. After playing it numerous times, I find l can stiU look at the label and not recognize some of the titles. Nor, I find, can 1 remember what most of the songs sound like.

But why dwell on its shortcomings? After all, here we have an album with a romper-stomper like “Had Me A Real Good Time,” a truly energetic prole-rock song about a chap who is invited to a real high-class party, who accidently says “one word” and is asked to leave. Do people still act like that? No matter. Rod still had him a real good time, even if he did fall off his bike on the way home. Then there’s the beautiful “Sweet Lady Mary,” another in Stewart’s series of classic tributes to his ladies, which sounds like it might have stepped right off his next solo album. There are the live cuts; “Maybe I’m Amazed,” which never sounded quite this good before, and Big Bill Broonzy’s “I Feel So Good,” with its audience more enthusiastic than tuneful and the Faces never once making me doubt that they do, in fact, feel that good.

Long Player (hey, incidentally, I expected a cigarette package on the cover) may not be as deep as Stewart’s solo efforts, and it may not be quite up to the Faces’ work when they were Small and Stewardess, but it’s okay for a second step. If the next album is as much of an improvement as this one was, the Faces will be doing all right.

Ed Ward

YOUR DAILY GIFT - THE SAVAGE ROSE - GREGAR GG 1.03

One of the more interesting things to come out of the whole rock and roll consciousness in recent years has been the emergence of rock groups in continental Europe. To find out how the cultural differences of various nations have their affect on the kind of music that we have been hearing for most of our lives, is a fascinating experience. The results, as they are developing, are very unexpected, in that the nations that have had the most intense reactions to visiting American (and British) groups are not necessarily the nations that have been doing the most to promote their own statements. There were riots in France that had to be quelled by a massive show of police force when the Stones toured there. Creedence Clearwater was almost murdered out of adoration when they were trapped outside the concert hall by a horde of fans during their tour of Germany.

Yet there are almost no groups at all coming out of France or Germany. You must look to the low countries, and to the Scandinavian countries to see any rousings of rock and roll that matters. Sweden, the Netherlands, and Finland have been recently producing some very strong groups, displaying a high level of musical competence, and more important, the spirit that it takes to make rock and roll.

So far, the supreme on the Continent is the Savage Rose, put out a compelling first album here a year ago. I don’t know how many copies of that first album were sold, but it doesn’t matter. They produced a sound that was individual, combining more power than most over-amplified groups could match, with a kind of lyrical tenderness that never lapsed into the maudlin syrupy strains of Simon and Garfunkel. They made use of a collection of instruments that in themselves were not used by any other band. Piano, organ, harpsichord, drums, bass, and rhythm guitar were used without a lead guitar on any song. Considerable imagination, and a sense of style went into combining for subtle, and multitextured backup sounds for their lead singer, who was one of the most incredible voices ever to be found in a drink.

There really is no way to describe the timbre of Anisette’s voice, except, perhaps as a seven year old girl hung up on Janis Joplin, and Edith Piaf. She dominates both records, but with an amazing finesse suggesting that she prefers to combine with the band, rather than use it to thrust herself alone to stardom.

The second record shows that the Savage Rose seems to be moving away from the haunting sounds and organic dynamism of their first record to a much more refined character that on the first hearing is disappointing. Some of the drive seems to be lost. Only “Sunday Morning” and “The Waters Run Deep” seem to rock out at all, and the rest of the songs seem to become too delicate, and too sweet to fill a record by themselves.

That’s when the subtle artistry of the band becomes apparent. A kind of church like quality is present, combining some of the character of the Band, and Van-Morrison in a kind of effortless free flowing music. The Savage Rose makes music that Elton John couldn’t match in a thousand years.

None of the males in the group sing, except as a distant, understated chorus in “Lightly Come Lightly Go.” They just sort of caress Anisette’s voice in a cool melody. “Listen to This Song From Mexico,” “Unfold,” and “Your Daily Gift” come across as the most beautiful songs on the record, while “Sunday Morning” has more of the energy that was in evidence on their first album. “Tapiola” is one of those pieces of chance music that pops up occasionally, where the first sounds are almost inaudible, but then build up to a climax usually leading directly to another song. It’S very nice, but I would have prefered something with more energy.

The promise of European rock that has been provided by the Savage Rose has not been borne out by anyone else on the continent doing anything remotely as good. But it doesn’t matter, really, because they have made an impression that is not likely to be lost either in Europe or in America. Buy this album, and if you can find their first, one, buy that too. The Savage Rose is making a kind of music that is unlike anyone else, and they deserve to be heard.

Robert Houghton

WITH FRIENDS AND NIEGHBORS -ALEX TAYLOR - CAPRICORN/ATCO SD 860

Q: If his name was Alex Bronowitz, do you suppose that anybody would bother to notice?

A: Don’t be foolish. Of course he probably wouldn’t have received the pre-release press and related hype to the extent that he did, but big shit. We know that Alex Taylor is Alex Taylor, and Alex knows Who he is too, and I think that he actually kind of enjoys it. At any rate, he isn’t afraid of his name, and he’s got an album which would stand without his name besides. Or even if it was Bronowitz.

Q: Yea, okay, so his album is good. But I bought Sweet Baby James and the new one on Apple, and my aunt gave me Livingston Taylor for my birthday. What do I want with another Taylor album? I already got three.

A: Well, to begin with, that Apple album happens to be James’ first, a fact you would be well aware of if you were capable of seeing a trend before it duked you in the face. And secondly, James and Livingston are essentially composers, while Alex is a performer. There is a difference.

Q: What difference?

A: Composers, like James and Livingston, write their own material and are quite naturally first disposed to making their compositional point. The music they employ, no matter how ornate, is merely a vehicle for the sentiment of their songs. Performers on the other hand,' do not usually write their own material. They are the true entertainers, for they must develop their personalities within the context of the entire show.

Q: Kinda like Joe Cocker? •

A: Exactly. Alex plays no instrument, and writes none of his songs. He is a singer, and he must search out material and musicians to support the musical image which he wishes to project. James and Livingston are more self-contained artistic units, but Alex is in a different league altogether. Do you follow me?

Q: I think I do. So does this make a difference in the kind of music that Alex plays?

A: It most certainly does. Not being entirely self-contained, he must rely to a greater extent upon the people around him. A greater emphasis is therefore placed on his voice in fire context of the band who backs him; he almost assumes the role of front man. Alex may be the big wheel, but he is not the only wheel in this music machine. Without file other musicians there would be very little to say. With Friends And Neighbors. Do you see it? Alex has got his puss on the cover, but it’s really Alex and friends. A back-porch supersession only with real people instead of the usual bunch of pantywaist superstars.

Q: Okay, okay, don’t beat it to death. Who are these dudes?

A: This takes some explaining. Some of them are from a group called Cowboy who released a kinda nice album of their own, called Reach For The Sky, awhile back. Two of them, Scott Boyer and Tommy Talton, even contributed some of their own songs for Alex to sing. Another two, Paul Hornsby and Johnny Sandlin, were among the fine back-up musicians on Livingston’s album. Sandlin produced this album and, as it happens, produced Cowboy’s record too. Suffice it to say that these people are among the finest studio cats around, and southern boys just like Alex. Some big names like James Taylor and King Curtis pop up, but they don’t interfere.

Q: What kind of music do they play?

A: It is a music based primarily in the blues (it will be remembered that James’ affection for the blues was ignited and fed by big brother Alex), but marked by an easy country outlook. But despite the gentle good nature so in evidence, old Alex can rock out with the best of them. “Night Owl” and “It’s All Over Now” are adequate proof of that. The band has plenty of room to move around in, too. Witness Gregg Allman’s “Southbound”. It runs eight and a half minutes with expanded instrumental passages, a somewhat untypical occurence because it serves to divert attention for the front figure. But it makes little difference here, for the friends and neighbors are allowed personalities nearly as strong as Alex's. And this is perhaps what the album (and Alex) is all about: a simple downhome good time.

Q: I could dig that. Sometimes I get tired of all these creeps burdening me with their lovelife problems and social consciousness and the revolution and all that other crap. Ya know what I’m talking about?

A: For sure.

Q: You sure he doesn’t slip in a little save-the-world message in there somewhere? Maybe if you played it backwards through a Captain Marvel sacred decoder ring...

A: Nah, no way. Weberman will never touch it.

Q: Sounds good.

A: Yes it does.

Ben Edmonds

BASIC ROCK - WOOLIES - SPIRIT 964S-2001

The Woolies have been around the Motor City and the Midwest ever since Pontiac took Fort Michlimackinac, or thereabouts. They had a killer hit on Dunhill back in ’66 called “Who Do You Love” (about the same time as Tom Rush had his smash in Boston with the samp tune); since then they’ve regrouped a tad (losing their ostrich-voiced lead singer, Stormy Rice), organized their own recording facilities in Lansing and played behind Chuck Berry a lot. The experience shows too.

Basic Rock is their first album and it’s perfectly titled; in fact, the whole package is perfect, right down to the pix of the boys with Chuck and the black arid white stylisms of the cover. The only real weakness is in the vocals: (“Who Do You Love” loses a lot of points'by the absence of Stormy’s owl hoot singing) but the rest is real rock’n’roll. I don’t think:anyone has cut a disc this consciously and honestly derivative since the first British wave. It’s about time — and the Woolies know it too because they’ve drawn from identical sou reds.

“Two Way Wishen”, a dynamite Lowell Fulsorn number, for example, opens with the strident organ notes of “Gimme Some Lovin’’ — its? roots are bare, true, but the energy preserit is precisely what makes the tune (and the album) enjoyable and listenable. Again, the vocal is weak but that weakness is also capitalized on later with two great near-falsetto numbers, “Let’s Not Use Each Other?’ and “You’re My Angel”. The lyrics are dynamite, as well - they’re dumb, the way they were meant to be, which is not to say that they don’t mean anything.

“I Get A Charge Out Of You”, with its weujd. electronic opening, is the best of the originals though and one would hope to see it released as a 45 sometime soon. After all, who else is gonna put out a single with lines like “We uitroduced the hazardous charge/ And we re-fijsed the garbage to burn/I’U build a charge in your heart.” And, better yet, that’s only as closp as I can come because the majority of it is virtually unintelligible. Like I said, the way it w‘a$ meant to be.

fbe Berry numbers aren’t so great (and one of them, “Back For More” is merely “Carol” with updated lyrics); both “Carol” and “Bye Bye Johnny” are vastly over-recorded selections of late. I’d hoped for more but it looks like we’ll just have to wait for Mitch Ryder’s “Let It Rock” to get put on wax to get any really vital new issues of Berrychuck, as Andrew Oldham once put it. Or maybe til the new Chuck Berry album on Chess, which has him featuredwith the Woolies.

The Woolies themselves also play a sort of ragtime/jugband assortment of numbers. A rockin’ version of “San Francisco Bay Blues” is included, which is about time. And just for luck , they throw in a version of the killer pud-rock number of all time, “You Can’t Sit Down”, disguised as “Hear That Music”, funk up Buddy Holly-like lines with “Truckin’ ” and end with a six minute jam (nothin’ else is much longer than 2: 30) that cooks and works and probably has ’em crawlin’ back for more at their live shows. “Wish You Would”, the perfect answer to all the implications of the title, Basic Rock.

Somehow, this all has to get out ’cross country. Of all the Midwest crews pushing for self-determination, the Woolies’ effort carries the project furthest to date.

I presume $4.98 to Spirit Records at Box 19, East Lansing Michigan would bring you a copy. And it’d be well worth it — these boys kick it out the way you always wished they would.

Dave Marsh

ONE KISS LEADS TO ANOTHER -HACKAMORE BRICK - KAMA SUTRA KSBS2025

If you take the first two songs and add up the letters the total is 26. You don’t believe me? Well it’s “Reachin’,” that’s 1-2-3-4-5-6-7, 7 letters. “Oh! Those Sweet Bananas” is 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-12-13-14-15-16-17-18-19, yeah it’s a long one, 19 fuckin letters. The next three songs put together only total 33, now why do you think that is? We’ll just need to bring in Mr. A.J. Weberman to find out, but since he only does it for Dylan I guess Hackamore’s never gonna know why they do the things they do, poor band.

Maybe they’re poor there but they’re rich everywhere else. No, not in the pockets either, just in the music. Real good music as a matter of fact, fuckin’ good in fact. So what are they doing on Buddah’s Kama Sutra label? Doing fine. Fine and dandy. But it’s neither Herman “Dandy” nor Ray Davies “Dandy” and “Dandy” ain’t even on the disc. But,there is a definite flavor of England to the sound. So it’s a good thing they’re not actually from over there because nothing from over there is any good anymore. But they used to be and this band sounds that way, the way it used to be. Like England used to have such a big edge over everything American and now they don’t, the last time they were out ahead was Edison Lighthouse, which was a long time ago.' Now what is there, Juicy Lucy? Tyrannosaurus Rex’s ninth album? It all started with Led Zeppelin and Tom Jones, now it’s all in the past. England but not Hackamore Brick.

Because they’re not English, they just sound that way. But not too often, just often enough. Which England? Manchester? London? Wales? Ulster? Dublin? Ontario,? Zombies? Yeah that’s it, Zombies. The same kind of singing and the same kind of playing and the same kind of unforgettable melodies that take three listenings to remember and the same kind of lyrics about little things like despair and what to do about it. There’s nothing you can do about it, it’s here, to stay. Just like rock and roll, speaking, of which most of the stuff sounds like rock circa 195X-196Y. You don’t know when but you know it was some time or other, most likely ... oops, lost it. But whenever it was, it was a very good year. Or years, it might’ve been more than one year. Or more than once. But it couldn’t have been never because it was sometime.

But it’s not rouser type rock, it’s more slower, quiet, jingle-jangly, frantic stuff, the kind of stuff that always passed the rock and roll test but wasn’t “Blue Suede Shoes,” stuff like “Little Star,” “Heartbreak Hotel,” “Could This Be Magic,” “When” by the Kalin Twins, “Shamilor” by Sheriff & the Ravells,

and Link Wray. Try this Hackamore toughie on for size: “I Watched You Rhumba.” And “Zip Gun Woman” and “Radio” will hit you like a brick but not just any brick: a Hackamore Brick. That’s a special kind of brick and it works as well as any other kind of brick the world has ever known, only better. And there’s more uses for it too: dancin’, romancin’, etc., etc,, things like that.

O.J. Van Ives

P.S. If it’s not in your favorite store then make haste to a paper and pencil and write: Soozin, c/o Buddah Records, 1650 Broadway, New York, N.Y. 10019. Tell her O.J. sent you.

PARANOID - BLACK SABBATH -WARNER BROS. WS 1887

One thing is certain about this group, they will never be asked to perform at the White House. They would be hard to explain to Billy Graham, and although Melvin Laird might admire them, he would never let anyone know it. It is difficult to figure out who Black Sabbath is aiming for, unless it could be remnants of old Barry Maguire fans, and followers of Anton Levy.

In a sense Black Sabbath is involved in making mood music. But what a mood! They start off the record with an appeal to pacifism in a song called “War Pigs” that would do Joan Baez proud. Then they treat us to such lively compositions as “Electric Funeral”, “Hand of Doom”, “Rat Salad”, and “Fairies Wear Boots ’. All the songs are heavily laced with sinister bass, oppressive drums, and computer guitar grinding out imitation Cream, and Led Zeppelin riffs with depressing regularity.

Remember when the purpose of show business was to make people feel happy? Remember when listening to rock and roll gave you a thrill? Perhaps Black Sabbath could use a change in personnel to get them to feel a little more light hearted about it all. Maybe if they asked Melanie to join . ..

I liked two of the songs on the album. “Iron Man” reminded me of a wrestler that I saw qn television when ’ I was a little kid. Good old Iron Fist Brutowski, He used to get in the ring and bend an iron bar before the match, and then proceed to get his ass kicked by every wrestler in the business. The other song is “Planet Caravan”, which is the best song on the dlbum. That is, it isn’t so self consciously heavy as everything.else.

It’s really too bad, because they look like such nice kids. They should really try to change their attitude. You can catch more flies with honey than you can with vinegar.

Robert Houghton

ELECTRIC BYRD - DONALD BYRD -BLUE NOTE BST-84349

First off, the inevitable comparison to Bitches Brew. A guitar, an electric piano, and exotic percussion. Echo effects. And. Byrd sounding more like Miles, tone-wise anyway, than ever before. But that’s all. This is a much more conventional album than Bitches Brew and is stamped more with Byrd’s current conceptions than Miles, in terms of rhythm, improvisation and group interaction. And for those of you who are still convinced that Byrd is copping off Bitches Brew, it should be noted that this album was recorded about a month before Brew was released. And what’s more (I know at least a thousand connective phrases and all I can come up with is “and what’s more”) Byrd’s echo effects remind me more of Don Ellis than Miles-and Ellis was into that before Miles, folks. Anyway, the thing to be said is that this is a vast improvement on Byrd’s last album Fancy Free, which was pretty dull — and though it won’t tax your strength to listen to it, it is pleasant (did somebody say shee-it?).

In fact the first side could put you to sleep, but gently, with no tossing or turning (except for a brief moment from Frank Foster on “Essence”).

The second side is worth talking about starting with “Xibaba”, by percussionist Morreira (currently with Miles) opening with waves of high tensity sound from Byrd, maintaining the suspended suspense with a brief piano interlude then entering into the very rhythmic, slightly Latin, melodyi Byrd solos and I have visions of “Sketches of Spain” being recorded in 1970. Sincerest form of flattery. Then what sounds like the whole band in echo. High energy but still.. . pleasant. Then it goes out as it came in, only backwards (not really). This is good. Ron Carter and Morreira are the stars of this cut.

“The Dude” is the only more-or-less up-tempo cut on the record and sounds like rhythm and blues bepop played by a calypso band. Not too uncommon a sound these days. Byrd digs n^w ground but he certainly digs Miles (and no doubt Ellis too). Actually this is a fun cut and attractive too.

I’m not sure - this record’s veay au courant (as opposed to avant garde) and at times very good to hear. I think if Byrd had included a written statement like “I would like to thank Gil Evans, Don Ellis and Miles Davis for making this record possible” then I would feel less reluctant to give it a high recommendation. A really derivative jam.

Richard C. Walls