ROCK-A-RAMA

ROCK-A-RAMA

HOLD YOUR FIRE — Patto (Vertigo):: One of the pleasant surprises of the month — after an overpoweringly mundane debut, this medium crew of British eclectic (everything from middle Dylan to Mose Allison to some David Bowie to Faces to John McLaughlin even) rockers come up with a lightweight, fun album and great lyrics: “Well you could see me there at every happening with my album by the Byrds/ I was shown how to question the great ‘I Ching’ but I couldn’t dig some of the words/ I’ve smoked a ton of marijuana sat cross legged til my legs went numb . . . I’ve been beated down and busted and I’ve wound up on my own/ And there’s nothing left that buzzes me so I’m returning home.”

PIECES OF A MAN - Gil Scott-Heron (Flying Dutchman):: A talented novelist (The Vulture) and poet (see his first album, A New Young Black Poet: Small Talk at 125th and Lennox, which compares favorably with The Last Poets’ work) turns singer-songwriter with mostly fine results. Some of it is rather predictably derivative soul jazz stuff, but “Home Is Where the Hatred Is” and “Lady Day and John Coltrane,” which would make a fantastic single, are powerful, driving music, and his backup band is terrific.

FACE TO FACE WITH THE TRUTH $ The Undisputed Truth (Gordy):: Norman Whitfield says he sees in the Undisputed Truth “the perfect cross between Sly and the Fifth Dimension.” As a rock critic, Norman Wffitfield is a good record producer.

MOTHER MOTOR - Bobby Gosh (Polydor):: On ex-session man Boby Gosh’s first album, he came on as a chromedome Stateside version of Elton John. Now he’s added a few Leon Russell riffs.

BRIAN JONES PRESENTS THE PIPES OF PAN AT JOUJOUKA (Rolling Stones):: Yeah, it’s pretty exotic, but even more repetitious than Indian music or the usual Arabic oud-riffings of cats like Ahmed Abdul-Malik and Hamza Al-Din, and juicing it up electronically hasn’t helped. There are points on this album where a single riff will be repeated for so long that the phasing’s steady up-and-down whissshh seems to be taking a solo. A bit of a hype, though some people are getting off on it. Like Woodstock and A tlanta/lsle of Wight, I guess you would have to have been there:

AMERICA (Warner Brothers):: Another clear, clean, boyish, bluejeaned, precise imitation of CSN&Y. How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?

SWAMP GRASS - Doug Kershaw (Warner Brothers):: Doug Kershaw has always been a Tom Cajun, but at least on his first couple of albums there was enough worthwhile music to make you think he might actually drop the wild-eyed shuffle and come on with a full slice of the real thing one of these days. Exactly the opposite has happened - the first two songs on this record are called “Louisiana Woman” and “Louisiana Man,” complete with jive spoken intro.

MESSAGE FROM A DRUM - Redbone (Epic):: An even more amazing phenomenon: Tom Indians pretending to be Tom Cajuns. “The Witch Queen of New Orleans,” my ass -when these guys released their first album Epic engaged in a fullblown hype complete with feathered bones, and many a young rock critic of good liberal intentions ate it up. Luckily the audience doesn’t seem to be so gullible, although “Witch Queen” was a big hit in Britain.

WARM SLASH — Tucky Buzzard (Capitol):: A dull British group whose first album suffered from lack of definition finds themselves: Go Heavy. Thud. Bill Wyman is observed taking a piss on the back cover, which makes this roughly the third album since Who’s Next to feature urination (although Ben Atkins did take a shit on the cover of Patchouli, and Hot Poop were seen on their cover shitting on a plate and then shooting it up). Preliminary waves in the Biz indicate that 1972’s big trend is gonna be puking.

SOLID ROCK - The Temptations (Gordy):: This album is guaranteed to make you long for sharkskin suits, dance steps, strings, and Smokey Robinson songs. Dennis Edwards was better with the Contours in the first place, and even if David Ruffin is on the outs with Motown’s management that’s no excuse for this atrocity. Horrible, through and through.

IN HEARING OF ATOMIC ROOSTER -Atomic Rooster (Elektra):: Like most second class English bands, Atomic Rooster draws on the heavies of the scene and incorporates their traits into their own sound. So this album has touches of ELP, Elton John maybe, Tucky Buzzard, you name it. But any group that does a song called “A Spoonful of Bromide Helps the Pulse Rate Go Down” can’t be all bad, and they ain’t.

ORIGINAL GOLDEN HITS, VOL. Ill -Jerry Lee Lewis (Sun):: This is the tenth album of Jerry Lee Lewis to be reissued by Sun. Each of them contains material already available on previous reissues, and each of them contains at least one previously unreleased gem. This one has only five new songs, but “Lovin’ Up a Storm,” a classic Jerry Lee stomper, is by itself worth the price of the album.

BUDDY KNOX’S GREATEST HITS (Liberty LST 7251):: Mostly re-recordings of the real stuff, which wasn’t that great (except for “Party Doll”) anyway. Avoid.

JAN & DEAN MEET BATMAN, Jan & Dean & The Bel-Air Bandits (Liberty LRP 3444). An astounding masterpiece worthy of the Joker Himself. Similar in structure and intent to Firesign’s How Can You Be In Two Places at Once. On Side 2 Captain Jan & Boy Dean fight teenage hoods while masquerading as rock ‘n’ roll stars, which is. what they were doing the rest of the time anyway. If you take United Artists up on the 2 record Jan & Dean Anthology just released, and come to grips with the most interesting concept-clash in rock history (Jan & Dean in a “Legendary Masters” series!), you’ll find out the joke was on us: This one is cheaper than that one but you might as well get both. No kidding.

GOLDEN HITS - THE BEST OF DEL SHANNON (Dot DLP 2584). A dynamic screamer enters musical history. Basic theme here is teenage angst, resolved by running away from whatever happens to be available. On the weirdest cut, “Stranger in Town,” star-struck lovers flee a private eye hired by “her” folks. Shannon was one of the more individual singers of the early ’60s; he had his own sound, based on high-pitched organ, so keep the treble do\yn and the volume up. A winner, and also the best rock lp ever issued on Dot, if anyone cares.

THE GREAT BUDDY HOLLY (Vocation VL 3811):: Here’s a nice $1.98 list lp that features Holly’s earliest recordings, including the first non-hit version of “That’ll Be the Day.” The highlight is easily “Midnight Shift,” which Commander Cpdy and Billy C. handle so well on their lp, though Holly’s version has them beat by a good margin. In essence the lp is a mostly historical example of the brave shift from country and mainstream pop toward the thing that was still defining itself as rock and roll, and the roots — for Bob Dylan as well as the Beatles — are right here.

THE FLEETWOODS GREATEST HITS (Dolton BST 8018):: Came home with Hank Ballard, the Surfaris, and the FleetwoQds, and this was the most fun. “Mr. Blue” and “Come Softly To Me” ^re the wispy edge of teenage heaven — the sort of thing that was overdone with “Image of a Girl” and recreated with “In My Room.” The melodies and the gentleness of this group are just irresistible. It all blends into one long drip of honey - real sticky, like generational glue. A winner.

BO-DIDDLEY’S BEACH PARTY (Checker 2988):: This is supposed to be recorded at Myrtle Beach, S.C., but since it says so and it’s on Checker you assume it’s studio outtakes with dubbed in applause. But it is the real thing, grimy, drunken, and ludicrous, with a good beat. If you can get it for under a dollar you’re way ahead of the game.

THE YOUNGBLOODS PRESENT CRAB TUNES - NOGGINS (RACCOON/WARNER BROS.):: If Seals & Crofts cure hangovers, Crab Tunes exacerbates them. The first time I listened to this record I swore: “They knew when they recorded this I’d be in this state when I heard it!” Aptly titled, it sounds like some crustaceon jig interspersed with spacey stretchouts. All instrumental, a bit like Captain Beefheart sans energy, with some saxophone slitherings no worse than Albert Ayler in his decline. An interesting curiosity, the best thing from the Youngbloods since Elephant Mountain, but don’t pay money for it.

GOOD AND DUSTY - THE YOUNGBLOODS (RACCOON/WARNERS):: Meanwhile, the Youngbloods have another album out that they’re willing to put their name on, and it doesn’t have “Ride the Wind” or that song about how he lets his woman flow in her own special way, but it does have a lot of transplanted/aborted black music. “Hippie From Olema #5” will make you think about acquiring a hardhat and a shotgun, but you haven’t been really gassed till you’ve heard what they do to “Stagger Lee” and “Willie and the Hand Jive.” A friend/apologist calls them “the Three Stooges of rock,” but nobody but a diehard fan could laugh at this.

I’M THE ONE — Annette Peacock (RCA):: Sominex.