Juke Box Jury

Well gang, here we are again with another column of unjustly ignored singles and other flotsam and jetsam of the music world. I hope you were as pleased as me to see Alice Cooper�s �Eighteen�, reviewed here last time, break into the national charts. I�d like to claim some credit for that, but though the column was written before the record had received any airplay, it had already taken off by the time CREEM saw print. But it�s good to know there are some courageous program directors around. Now if we could only spread that kind of success around to some other groups, like the Shadows of Knight frinstance.

�My Fire Department Needs a Fireman� by the Shadows of Knight (Super K SK10)

Yes, another Shadows of Knight record this month, fans! And this one�s just as good as all the rest, almost. Pure middle-of-the-road 1966 raunch-rock, from the classic chord changes to the way rhythm guitar dominates the record with a simple two-note figure. It�s hard and loud and raw, just what the doctor ordered for James Tayloritis. God save the Shadows of Knight!

�Big Bad Cadillac� by King Lizard (Original Sound OS-99)

King Lizard is really Kim Fowley, who recorded this record in Sweden with the aid of Rodney Bingenheimer, Mayor of Sunset Strip and well-known side-kick to the great and near-great. Rough, primal grit is the objective here, and the result is more parody than anything else — though of what I don�t know. �My baby drove up in a big black Cadillac� is repeated over and over amid crashing guitar chords, until each word has been stressed every way possible. This is one record curiosity-hunters should not be without.

�Ze-Ze-Ze-Ze� by Siren (Elektra EKS-45714)

Siren has had two good (but ignored) albums and now this single, which adds further to my favorable impression. Over a rocking, rolling background, similar in-feeling to that of Joy of Cooking�s �Brownsville� but less folky, a nasal voice recites a low-key love song, e.ach line prefaced with �ze-ze-ze-ze-ze-ze-ze-ze-ze�. Then somewhere in the middle he stops and does a takeoff on Jerry Lee Lewis: �Whoo, baby! You stone me!� Lotsa fun on this goofy record by a group you should be aware of.

�Roll On� by Doctor Father (Capitol P-2948)

This is a rather strange song by a new English group. It�s a drawn-out Chicago style blues, but the whole sound of it is slightly alien, as though it had been reconstructed from sheet music by some distant future band of musico-archeologists. The technical'effects throughout are subtly unusual, like the way notes come crackling out of the guitar like popcorn. Don�t blow a, dollar on this, but keep an eye peeled for the album when it�s released.

�The Dave Clark Five Play Good Old Rock �n� Roll� (Epic 5-10684)

�The Mini Rock �n� Roll Revival� by the Joey Welz Bluze Revival (Palmer 5032)

It�s hard to believe, but the Forces of Greed are still trying to milk a few more drops of blood from the corpse of the ill-fated �Rock �n� Roll Revival� of 1969. These two efforts are particularly transparent and obnoxious. The Dave Clark Five (weren�t they supposed to have broken up?) have always done oldies of course, their albums were full of �em (as were those of all English Invasion artists), but this is their first attempt to go for the knee-jerk nostalgia audience. On side one they shuffle through the first verses of a number of old classics — �Rock �n� Roll Music�, �Blueberry Hill�, �Good Golly Miss Molly�, �Keep a Knockin� � and more, not bothering to change the mood, the tempo, the intensity, or even Ihe key. The dubbed-in audience hysteria is especially annoying. At least I hope it�s dubbed-in; I�d hate to think there was a crowd anywhere in the world today that would cheer as the DC5 move into a limp piano solo. Side Two, a medly of �One Night� and �Lawdy Miss Clawdy� is on a level with much of their earlier work, but the audience noise ruins it.

Joey Welz is the guy who�s been trying to capitalize on the fact that he once sat in with Bill Haley. He�s taken ads in rock magazines featuring that fact to hype an album he�s selling by mail, from which this single is extraced. Welz uses the guise of �an, honest historical look at the roots of rock� to plug himself as some anonymous band staumbles through �Rumble�, �Rip it Up�, �Great Balls of Fire� and �Rock Around the Clock�. He too would have us believe that some audience went out of its mind hearing this stuff. Somebody ought to tell him things have changed a bit since 1952.

�Somebody�s Gonna Get Their Head Kicked In Tonite� by Earl Vince and the Valiants (Immediate IM 080 — Eng.)

Amidst all the hypocrisy and synthetic nostalgia of the rock �n� roll revival, a lot of really fine records were made. This is one of them. You�ll find it on the flip of Fleetwood Mac�s �Man of the World� (1969), soon to be deleted. Earl Vince and the Valiants are really Fleetwood Mac featuring Jeremy Spencer. The record is a brilliant re-creation of the �rocker� mentality. You have to listen close to make out the lyrics, which are obscured by the Valiants, grunting like some primitive cavemen of even 1956 teenagers, but your efforts are rewarded with such statements as �well the joint is jumpin� everybody�s rockin� tonite... I can tell there�s sure gonna -be a fight... cause somebody�s gonna get their head kicked in tonite,� and �we�re gonna rip up the chairs and tear down the walls, smash up the band and really have a ball.� Spencer�s Elvis-imitation is as its subglottal best, and the instrumentation is 100% heavy greaser. If you have a fondness for rock & roll, and any sense of humor at all, please don�t miss this one. It will never be on an album. �Man of the World� is a pleasant introspective-type Peter Green song, making this a double-barreled relic of one of England�s finest groups.

�Power To The People�/�Touch Me� by John Yoko & The Plastic Onos (Apple 1830)

I happened to be in L.A. the day this record was released to the local radio stations, so I dropped by the Capitol Bldg, to get a copy. No one in the building seemed to know about the record, but a call upstairs from the promo director to the Apple man brought the news mat general release was being delayed while a high-level conference decided what to do about the B-side, �Open Your Box�. It seems that Yoko delivered a muddy copy of her side to E.M.I., but the tape supplied to Capitol contained several �offensive� phrases, spoken with crystal clarity. The conferences went on and on, and then the record came out — with a different Yoko side, a cut from her album. If you feel £he censorship itself is more offensive than any record could be, I suggest you send your complaints to the head of Apple Records in Los Angeles. Meanwhile, no end of controversy is in sight for this record. They say John�s side has been banned in Canada until officials decide whether it�s likely to spark off a violent revolution. Pretty funny, huh? Actually it�s just John poking fun at the radicals again, with a good deal more irony than he displayed in �Revolution�. But the lyrics are hard to make out, and since it has a snappy marching beat we�ll probably be hearing it chanted at all the demonstrations this year. Which may be what John had in mind all along.

Right now there are more good records on the charts than in any recent year. Great new Doors record (and listen to the B-side!), �Bad Water� by the Raelets, Aretha�s fine entry, and, best of all, the Staple Singers� �Heavy Makes You Happy.� The latter is a truly splendid record, which you should demand if it�s not being played in your area yet. Sha na boom boom, yeah.

BLUE MONEY - VAN MORRISON -WARNER BROS.

I don�t know, maybe this is crap and maybe it isn�t... God, but the horns here are lame — this is the same guy who made Moondance (not to mention Astral Weeks)"!I What shit. 65

Mike Saunders

I CAN�T EXPLAIN/BALD HEADED WOMAN - THE WHO - DECCA 31725

The finest single the Who ever made never made the charts in any town but Detroit. And in Detroit it was probably the most significant British Invasion number, in terms of its effect on the sound that the bands here produced. A vast quantity of bad-ass Motor City energy has been spent ini quite obvious quest of making one song as good as this one and no one has, to my mind, come close.

So many parts of this record stand out, it�s almost impossible to pick them apart. Of course, there�s Townsend�s punchy rhythm guitar playing (someone�s sure to write and say that Jimmy Page played this), Entwhistle�s cosmic whoom bass. Best of all, Keith Moon�s frenzied, perfectly pulsating drumming. Even Roger Daltry gets it on like never since (because there wasn�t a never before because they never had a record before).

In fact, Daltry�s vocal is really the weirdest part of the record. In print, it might look like this:

�Gaaah�m feelin� sad/Certain kind (Can�t explain)

Feel awhl cohold/Way down�n mah soul yeah (Can�t explain)

Said (Can�t explain)

Feelin� good ya! but (can�t explain)

Dizzy in my head and Ah feel blue

Things you say maybe they�re true

Try to say it to you when I feel blue

Gettin� funny dreams together again

I know what it means but....

(I can�t explain)�

Moon has the most astounding triplet solo in the history of rock�n�roll right after �but. . . .� Merely astound. Indeed, as a friend noted the other night, Townsend�s guitar plays drums here and Moon is the lead instrument; that drum riff is precisely where the guitar run would be in an ordinary record. But this isn�t an ordinary record — otherwise could I play it thirteen times in a row, and I�ll probably play it another five before I get to sleep and every time it comes on, I can�t help but jump up and down, dance and shake my proverbial thing.

Besides the excellence of the B-side, the other reason I haven�t yet mentioned for choking up a dollar for this side is that the chorus is everything that ever need be said about the magic of rock�n�roll. In case you missed it, it bears quoting again, as a sort of Lest We Forget Anthem of the month:

�I know what it means but...

I can�t explain�

Dave Marsh