JUKE BOX JURY

Singles, singles. I sit here staring at some 300 (one month�s worth) of them and wondering about this column. For the fact is that I�m still not getting more than a fraction of what�s released — an almost impossible goal anyway — and as a result the records I review here may not always be the most deserving. But enough of my dilemma; we have a few really good 45 s this month and a bunch of interesting curiosities. From now on the format will be altered to give a more cursory look at the records of less than earth-shaking significance. That way we can mention more and avoid some of the inequities of the old system. *

�Long Neck Goose�/�It Ain�t Easy" Detroit (Paramount PAA-0094)

This is Mitch Ryder�s new group and from all indications the best yet. I know nothing about them aside from what�s contained in these grooves, but watch CREEM for a feature story on the band real soon now. �Long Neck Goose� is one of those high energy stampers, fast and tight, with less R&B influence than in^the past. Fine �basswork pushes the song along, and the guitar is tasty top. I would�ve preferred a different B-side than �It Ain�t Easy�, a song I�m coming to despise because of overexposure (nobody�s surpassed Ron Davies� original anyway) and unpleasant Leon Russell associations. Mitch does a good arrangement of it at least, far better than the much touted John Baldry yawn-provoker. But whatever the fault of the song, it�s good to have Mitch back .again -even 2,000 miles away. To you folks in Detroit, I guess it goes without saying.

�He�s Gpnna Step On You Again� John Kongos (Elektra EKS-45729)

It must be Norman Greenbaum month or something, from Tommy James� blatant cop from �Spirit in thefSky� to this wild record, which in a way takes up where Greenbaum leaves off. It�s got the same confident, measured strength and killer fuzztope, with the added bonus of a rhythm section that sounds like it�s composed of ex-Apache war drumihers and a singer who�s looser and more versatile than Greenbaum by far. To top it off it�s got lyrics nominally about Indians getting screwed over but broad enough for anybody to identify with, and Kongos even looks a bit like John Lennon. Surefire star material. One' of the perils of reviewing obscure 45 s for a monthly magazine is that by the .time the column appears the record may be a hit (or off the charts already!) but if this one isn�t by now, call up your favorite rock&roll station and demand satisfaction.

�Bad Part of Town� The Seeds (MGM K-14163)

The Seeds on MGM? Oh well, Mike Curb has never been known for his consistency. How can I tell you how great it is to know the Seeds are still around? This is a boss rocker, advanced over the Old Seeds stuff but still drawing on traditional mid-60�s rock structure. The only thing missing from the classic Seeds sound is the keyboard, which changes the texture and makes them a bit tougher sounding here .. * but you know the Seeds will always be the Seeds, no matter what. More power to �em.

TAILGATE RAMBLE: Brownsville Station has a new non-oldie single �That�s Fine� (WB 7501) that�s nothing special. Which reminds me, I�m in the markef for their �Jailhouse Rock� — help, anyone? :: Fine gospel disc �In the Morning� from Clara Ward on Nashboro :: Kent, still reissuing their classic 50s B.B. King material, has another scorcher in � � T g Il: Me B a b y � � / 4 � Th at Evil Child� (KS 4542) :: Those of you who think I�m a sucker for any remade oldie will be glad to know I think Cochise�s rendition of �Love�s Made a Fool of You� stinks. Best version is still Bobby Fuller�s, 10c in any disctJhnf drugstore lately. :: And they�re still trying to make a' soul singer Out of Jimmy Reed, they�ve' got a soiil basS player and wah-wah guitars in there,but old Jimmy doesn�t want to change. Both sides of �Big Legged Woman�/�Funky Funky Soul� (RRG 44003) (RRG? Who ever heard of .RRG Records??) are meandering R&B workouts, and with the exception of the aforementioned instrumental aberrations, pretty typical burned-out Reed. :: One of my favorite discoveries this month, though a cult item, for sure, is �No Parking� by Gold (Golden State: 501), apparently,a local San Francisco group, but one I never heard, of. This is the B-side, but the A is �Summertime� and it�s a bomb. �No Parking� however is a real blockbuster of a 1967-style acid-rock jam-kicker, with Syndicate of Sound overtones. I dunno where you�d find this but if you�re stuck looking for Carburetor Dung you should go digging for Gold instead. :: And we�ve got some good bubblegum entries this time tpo, especially �Crazy Balls� by the Wacky Clackers (Enterpise ENA-9030). You know those plastic balls on string that bounce together and almost � became a hula-hoop Craze till proven dangerous? Well they augment the rhythm section and take a hot solo on this platter, �bubble Gum Music� by the Rock and Roll Dubble Bubble Trading Card Co. of Philadelphia - 19141 (Buddah 78) is not a new release but has recently come to me through devious means. What a record! It�s an updating of Chuch Berry�s �Rock and Roll Music� only instead of �I got no kick against modern jazz ... �� they say �I can dig rhythm and blues, but if I had to choose, I�d take bubblegum music...� and the part where they explain Why the Grateful Dead' leave them cold is great too. Heading even further into the bizarre, we come upon �Do You Know What Time It Is� by the P-Nut Gallery (Buddah 239) which is,about how wonderful it is that Howdy Doody has returned. You may think I�m crazy (�some folks don�t understand it/That�s why they don�t demand it�) but I dig this stuff; :: And last (but certainly not least) is the new Troggs record. Well, it�s not actually a record; it�s a commercial for Miller beer. You niust�ve heard it, it goes �if you�ve got the time, we�ve got the beer� and the vocal is straight Out of �Hi Hi Hazel�. If it ain�t the Troggs then.I�m a monkey�s uncle', and if it is why don�t they put out some real records like they did in the old days? Must be because beer�s better than rock these days. In fact I think I�ll go have onejnyself.

((NOTE: A new issue of WHO PUT THE BOMP is now available from your humble columnist (64 Taylor Dr. Fairfax, GA. 94930), for 50c, including among other things a complete Kinks discography and Greil Marcus on Buddy Holly and Frankie Sardo. Don�t delay!))

WATCHING THE RIVER FLOW BOB DYLAN COLUMBIA

It�s comeback time!

Boogedy boogedy boogedy shoo.

Lately it�s been difficult to tell the commercials from the hits, and it�s not because the commercials are getting any better.s The summer charts are ghastly and almost every slot in the top ten is filled by some hokey Hollywood production number With a trick chorus line. -

But now Dylan, the Who, and Creedenoe all have new singles: �Watching the River Flow,� �We Won�t Be Fooled Again,� and �Sweet Hitch-Hiker.�

Dylan�s seems like the best.

It�s getting the least airplay.

I�m not sure why this is so — it may be simply because it doesn�t have that creepy Hollywood sound — but I have the feeling Dylan outsmarted himself on this one. �Watching the River Flow� seems commercial, nothing fancy, good beat, good humor, good AM noise. But as with most of Dylan�s records, there�s more here than there seems to be — the first impression turns out to be a joke on the listener.

But that only works if the listener is forced to hear it often enough to get beyond the first impression. In this case, the first impression is that Bob is setting up the usual private scene: �I�ll just sit here and watch the river flow.� Well, that�s certainly a boring idea. It�s the implicit message of just about everything James Taylor has ever written, whole bands are being built around the basic sentiment, and people are eating it up when they can get it.cheap - that is, implicitly -but maybe they don�t want it when they have to pay for it, in a confrontation with an explicit statement of withdrawal that can be, so easily reversed into the mirror image of their own, .

Then there�s the probability that one of the reasons people listen to Dylan is that he usually seems to be ahead of the game in some way, and to hear his music and his songs is to get some idea of what�s going on and what�s going to happen, in music and'in musical communication. And there are those hopes for a more obscure and tantalizing sort of intelligence that never seem to go away. But if Dylan is merely riding a trend, even if he started it, a good part of his charisma automatically cancels itself out.

And, then, in a completely general sort of context, there are the curious rumors about Dylan�s private life, which are, yes, his own business, and also, yes, public property — if you know about them you can�t very well lobotomize yourself into forgetting them: support'for the anti-black Jewish Defense League, trips to Israel, putting up office buildings with Dick Cavett. None of this stuff may be true, but it�s all in the air, and like those stories about running away from home every month or so, it doesn�t much matter if they�re true or not. You don�t make a rational separation of True and False when you hem a record, you just hear it, and its sound combines with the grapevine into pop. And in this case that adds up to Dylan as this strange one-man model of how to make up for one�s wild and odious youth. Sort of. missing the point, as Stu Cook put it, that when we all get to be 30 someday, we�re gonna be 30, not the people who were 30 when people first began to worry about such things. Or, as someone put 1 it to a friend of mine when he took over a fancy magazine: �You are them.� Don�t we remember how we were all supposed to grow up and stop liking rock and roll when we turned 18?

We don�t have to believe this stuff anymore; we have to learn to act out its negation. We have to make being 30 in the seventies and eighties as different from being 30 in the sixties as being 20 in the sixties was from being 20 in the fifties. So I wonder about Bob Dylan, who seems to be working in the opposite direction. Does he dig �I�m Eighteen�? Can we trust this guy? t

The first impression one gets from �Watching the River Flow� doesn�t even raise this question, because that first impression is so bland. �I�ll just sit here and watch the river flow,� The music is really quite nice but it sounds just like the cut that was left off the first Leon Russell album because it was too pat. The guitar 'playing is good but you can hear it coming, and when it comes it sounds just like you expected it would. As a musical composition it�s. an extension of �One More Weekend,� Which came out of �Leopard Skin Pill-box Hat.� Everything about the music is well done, all of it is familiar, and none of it is very exciting. It�s as deeply a part of a trend, as anything could be. I can�t recall another Dylan record in years that had music with such a complete absence of his musical personality. Even on Self Portrait, maybe especially there, one was hearing a certain realm of Dylan music, inimitable and unrepeatable, and this is Russell music. The lack of Dylan�s presence in the sound or the style of the band here is another element in the record�s blandness - one of the things that�s exciting about a Dylan record is that it�s a Dylan record! and there�s no Dylan in this music. I think this is another reason why it isn�t getting played much, why people don�t seem to care whether they hear it or not.

Contrasted to the good Leon Russell music, though, is a �new� Bob Dylan voice — humorous, and like he says, paternal, wise as hell, and very hip. Not only is Dylan contrasting his own vocal sound to the sound of Russell�s music, it�s a sound we haven�t quite heard before. You don�t hear it right away, not the djs giving the record those first few tentative plays to see if anyone calls in a response and then dropping it when nobody does, or the �Dylan fans� who wouldn�t dream of calling up a Top 40 station and talking to one of those platter chattering squares they hire.

The song itself is just fine. It has nervous words that are turned into a joke by the way Dylan sings them. People are fighting and breaking down right on the street and the singer is pacing back and forth trying to find some way to deal with it all. �Daylight�s sneakin� through the window and I�m still in this all-nite cafe� (that�s really brilliant songwriting - look at how much he gets into one line). He�s bored out of his mind by this riverbahk that for some reason holds him with its own obscure inertia.

You thought I hadn�t noticed, huh? You thought while I was learning Hebrew I forgot how to speak English?

People disagreein� on just about everything, yep

Makes ya stop and, wonduh wye or this way:

People disagreein� everywhere ya look

Makes ya wanna stop and, uh, read a book!

Wow, says his voice. I rhymed it!

Hmmm. Rock and roll is fun. I�d almost forgotten.

Dylan is still working on his myth of retirement and withdrawal, which from a different perspective is simply the problem of the private artist and art that seeks to make itself completely public. There�s very little slack in the songs these days; they are perfectly,controlled little statements, not so much about where Bob Dylan�s head is at as about where he thinks the possibilities of staking out your own ground lie; how you deal with the world without allowing yourself to be captured by it. The lietmotif of New Morning was that �12th Avenue bus moving West,�, and. again and again the songs addressed the same problem: escape. The whole album moves West, but it never really gets there. That, in the end, is what makes it so American. The only way to keep the West from turning into what you left it for is not to go; then the dream still means something.

Good humor turns sour. If one scene comes down too strong you can split back to the place where you were bom and see what that looks like; but it�s not only that you can�t go home, again - who would want to? Then dreams take over. You can always get away for a weekend — assuming the babysitter�s free — but �Sign on the Window� isn�t about a second honeymoon, it�s about a second life. Does the smelly 12th Avenue bus pull up at a trout stream in Utah? But that cabin, wife and kids, fish and . a big sky — that�s a powerful dream. Its power, rather than its �irrelevance,� was m.ost likely the thing that made so many of us critics deny it so quickly, as if we were overjoyed that the bus never really left New York. Nothing was resolved, but plenty was revealed.

Now Dylan is back in there, looking at it all from the other side, rocking a little harder, singing a little louder, playing the fading image of the country gentleman against the older one of the city boy, the memory of the flaming youth against the puzzled father. His songs, it seems, are about growing up without growing away — from his audience as well as from his own past - the possibilities of change without betrayal. Dylan is smart enough to have always been aware that there are real questions as to whether or not those things are possible. There�s little question that he lacks the answer and even less that he�s interested in looking for one.

But Dylan�s manipulation of his own themes — themes that he has appropriated and made his own — brings up strange problems that even he may have missed — like how to make a hit record. I think the most interesting thing about �Watching the River Flow� is that it isn�t a hit, and why not. In this case, my guess is that the time has passed when people are interested in hearing Bob Dylan say he�ll just sit there and watch the river flow, and even though that�s riot quite what he�s saying, it is what people hear. If they are too impatient to hear him contradict himself, it may be because Dylan is becoming a victim of his own subtlety. I think the time has come when Dylan has to conquer the audience all.over again, if he wants to have one. And I hope he�s interested in trying that.

Greil Marcus