ROCK-A-RAMA

We record reviewers get hundreds of singer-songwriter (hereafter referred to as SS) albums a month and it's real hard to pick favorites, even though you don't have to listen to any of the records since they all enclose lyrics sheets and they're all poets. But I think the best of the new crop of the SS is (Real) Ritchie Francis, who has straight blond hair, a fuzzy brown beard, and looks so sensitive you just know L-O-V-E is coming out of his pores. Dig (from the handwritten lyric sheet): �For all my. emmotions (sic)/ Beyond the scope of words/ I will use my music/ To express them.� I think this is what Bob Seger meant when he wrote �Heavy Music.� The album�s called Songbird and you can pick it up at your local decency rally.

Real Ritchie 'may be on top but coming up fast is Adam Miller, who looks just like Don McLean but makes that strolling violinist look impolite. Adam�s lp title is a stone groove, pardon my language: Who Would Give His Only Song Away. Actually it�s $4.98 but it�s the thought that counts. On Chelsea Records. Matrix number: CAe-1000. Don�t miss a trick. But look, Adam, there�re ten songs here, which one you giving away? And you�ve only got one, right? And they all sound alike and I�ve heard it before. To quote Adams: �But who hears?�

And who listens?

CO. - PLAYBOY RECORDS:: Most of the Playboy releases have been sorta pointless but this one really kicks ass. Group* was created by the same folks Who brings us the �What Kind of Man Reads Playboy� spread each month. If the group doesn�t score, which in this cruel world is a possibility all of us must face up to, they're set modeling shirts. But look, don�t listen to me, I�m just a critic. Don�t take my word for it. Just look at the cover. Walk into your record store and look at it. Look at them, I mean. They look, as was said of Dustin Hoffman in Rio Bravo, �so soft he doesn�t have to prove it.�

Rock on.

TEENAGE HEAVEN - DADDY COOL -WARNER/REPRISE:: Daddy Cool plays music that reaches for high school in the fifties. I was in high school in the fifties and most of the people I met there were creeps. I was a creep. I may still be a creep. But I haven�t tried to make a career out of it.

DO YOU LOVE ME - THE CONTOURS (GORDY):: Great Motown, but sounds like vintage Atlantic. �Shake Sherrie� and �Do You Love Me� are like Lieber-Stoller records, absolutely definitive jive. Really fine, roaring rock and roll.

BILL MARTIN�S CONCERTO FOR HEAD PHONES AND CONTRA-BUFFOON IN ASIA MINOR (WARNER):: Sort of hippy dippy trippy but if you can find it you�ll be surprised . . great dope record, and the only para-Firesign record ever that makes any sense. The bit about stuffed hippies alone makes Cheech and Chong pale (if that isn't racism).

CHESAPEAKE JUKEBOX BAND GREENE BOTTLE RECORDS:: A weird one — two cats drunk on post-Sgt. Pepper euphoria try every trick in the book. In '68 we would have thought it was a Beatles rip-off, but the innocence of the whole pointless mess is kinda charming now. And lots of fun. But I�m afraid the only jukebox they�ll ever be on is the one that makes up the cover. Prod, by Mean Charlie Greene, who did the Springfield and extinguished the Daily Flash, in case anyone was wondering where he was.

GERONIMO BLACK (Uni):: Besides answering a whole flock of �whatever happened to... � questions, this band (made up of ex-Mothers Jimmy Carl Black and Bunk Gardner and ex-Love member Tjay Cantrelli, among others) is very L.A. biker-consciousness and Mothers-weird. Fans of the early Mothers� stuff will go for it, for sure, as will those with a taste for the bizarre.

WHAT THIS COUNTRY NEEDS ... - REDWING (Fantasy):: Redwing is a tight enough unit, capable of making fine music, but this album is sadly underpar. A few of the original numbers are almost note-for-note copies of numbers on the first album, and is there really any need for another �Oh Carol� or �Walkin� the Dog?� �Soul Theft� ain�t bad, though.

HISTORY OF ERIC CLAPTON (Atco):: We can see it now. Thousands-of little long-hairs space-trucking off to school with their textrecords under their arms. �All right, class, let�s turn to ride four, cut three, �Layla!�� Muffled noises and bored looks as our little future savages are inflicted with the art of the sixties. The first standard work?

ARE YOU A BOY OR ARE YOU A GIRL -THE BARBARIANS (Laurie):: Some of these guys went on to Black Pearl, although this ain�t near as high-energy as that greatest of all albums in recorded history; in fact lots of this stuff is down right limp-wristed, like �Maria Elena,� but the title non-hit is great and besides they were on the T.A.M.L Show so they�re cricial to any understanding of rock history. Also, if you EVER happen on their great long lost single �Moulty,� all about how the drummer, who was famous for his hook (the model for �The Hook� in AIPs Wild in the Streets, which makes him even more crucial to rock history), lost his hand and thereby learned to appreciate life and became .•a star, .which two of the CREEM kidz figured out was the missing link between �Hang On Sloopy� and �Like a Rolling Stone� ...! Well, don�t hesitate, pardner!

GLORIA OR BACK DOOR MEN - SHADOWS OF KNIGHT (Dunwich):: The latter is an all-time punkrock classic, one of the best ever anywhere. Includes the only version of �Hey Joe� concievably better than the Leaves�. But watch out for their later album on SUper-K, which is dogshit.