Listen To The Lion

ST.DOMINIC'S PREVIEW

VAN MORRISON

WARNER BROS.

THEM

FEATURING VAN MORRISON

PARROT

After Tupelo Honey Van Morrison must have been faced with a choice. He could continue with his domestic tranquility myth, which was as artistically false as it might have been literally true, or he could head for new turf. He has chosen the latter course (wisely I think). If the result is more curious than classic, perhaps that is the price of adventure.

There are strands of nearly every kind of music Van Morrison has ever made in this record. It is short on the darkness and fire of Them, but the lilting r’n’b of “Domino” and “Blue Money,” the exotic improvisation and searching of Astral Weeks and the mystic yearnings of Moondance are finally fullfledged. For the most part, St. Dominic’s is old concerns seen in new lights, and a smattering of new ones, and the music follows suit.

If this record had followed Astral Weeks directly, it might have been both confusing and frustrating. At a distance of three years, St. Dominic’s Preview somehow seems newly seminal, as though Van were finally capable of a conception that might transcend (though never drawf) the brilliance of Astral Weeks. I think Morrison has made a transitional album, in a different way than Tupelo Honey was.

The latter sounded like a summation: Preview might be just what it claims.

Most of St. Dominic's doesn’t have much to do with extending Van Morrison’s music, though. “Jackie Wilson Says” is a genre item, a single that probably won’t make it; “I Will Be There” is the kind of swinging jazz that seems evasive in a rock artist; “Redwood Trees” is definitively the worst song here,

simply because it almost falls into the domestic peace & happiness pitfall of the last two albums; and “Gypsy,” while it is music for the movie that “Caravan” provides a title for (Van as Tunisian Rolling Stone) is too insubstantial to really matter — it is neither hit single, nor powerful statement and since it is framed by attempts at both, it suffers in comparison.

Yet, for a few numbers Van Morrison defines himself on terms as difficult and brilliant as any. “I shall -search my very soul” comes from him not as the nebbish promise of the limpid balladeer, but as the committment of someone as strong as The Rock itself.

Morrison has a way of making spiritual statements, that would sound either false or trite from almost anyone else, valid and refreshing. He has always, I think, dealt with a certain kind of spiritual regeneration, a type of self-discovery that is continually essential and essentially continuous.

In one way, “Listen to the Lion” is

nothing more than a continuation of an obscur6 single, “The Story of Them.1’ In the new chapter Van the Ancient Irisher (Caledonian is his conceit, albeit a proper one) comes to America, where he undergoes a psychic trauma as brutal as Them’s physical and economic one.

In another way, “Listen to the Lion” is a lament for a kind of life that is continually receding. The lion is the myth of self-discovery and self-sufficiency in its most ancient form. It is no accident that Van finds himself in America, the adopted home of both, by the end of this song.

Compare Van Morrison’s description of the North Irish War to John Lennon’s. Van makes that battle universal not by taking sides or mumbling platitudes — he’s never confirmed his religious background, as far as I know - but by describing his (and our) alienation from the Ulster insurrections. Not with irony, but with true sarcasm.

That’s the way

it all should happen

When you’re in

the state you’re in

Glad you’ve got

your pen and notebook

Think it’s about time

for us to begin ...

Just to be hip,

get wet with the jet set

But they was far too high

to see my point of view

As we gaze out on,

as we gaze out on,

as we gaze out on

St. Dominic’s Preview

Everywhere, the music is incredible. When it must, it drives each point home surely. “St. Dominic’s” slashes, the piano doing the dirty work. “Listen to the Lion” is both subtle and cruel, ice-cold and then warm, like listening for the lion within yourself.

And Morrison knows how to use a synthesizer (a virtue he probably shares only with Peter Townshend). On “Almost Independence Day,” the mood is set almost solely with staccato 12 string and fog-horn moog. And “Independence Day” is more mood than song.

In a way, it is fitting that this song ends the record, for more than anything else here “Independence Day” is the kind of song, both musically and lyrically, Van Morrison might be doing more of in the future. It is an intricate, detailed, painstaking search for an America Van sees with love, at a time when almost everyone else views it with fear and loathing.

This is not without 8s contradictions: “St. Dominies Preview” is occassionally almost an indictment of America, not for any part in the Irish Wars, but merely for its attitudes in general.

Meanwhile back in San Francisco

They’re trying hard

to make this whole thing blend ...

The stumblin' block is you my friend.

And it's a long way 'cross the ocean

It's a long way

to Belfast City too ...

Maybe I am overdrawing things, but it seems important to me that Van chose to make his comment on the struggle in Ireland by contrasting it with life in San Francisco. Perhaps, too, I am overextending myself by thinking that “they’re trying hard to make this whole thing blend” is how an immigrant must look at politics in the U.S.

In addition, London has recently released a non Van Morrison Van Morrison album. Them, featuring Van Morrison is a classic, two-record testament of middle '60’s rock, wavering between the punky earth music of the British Invasion and the artisticly outreaching eclecticism which characterized late ’66 and '67.

All the music Van has ever made has its roots here, from the gutter-snipe hymn “Gloria,” to the breathlessly beautiful “It's All Over Now Baby Blue,” which might cut even Dylan’s masterful performance. Almost all of it is primordial, earthshaking, phenomenal, a landmark in rock history. It is quite possible that Them’s will be the longest lasting music of the middle ’60’s; even now, it sounds contemporary.

Van was the genius and guiding light of Them, so much so that little or nothing has ever been known about the rest of the group. Certainly, much that is here is done by session players, prominently Jimmy Page, but the conceptions are Van’s, and they are both brilliant and set the scene for what has followed.

Them featuring is composed of edited versions of two American releases, Them and Them Again. (Which were bowdlerized versions of the British releases of the same names.) Not much of importance is missing, though there is a chance that there is enough material left over for a second, single LP.

If that seems a good idea it is because Them’s music is so overpowering. They were an Irish band, from Belfast, and those street-fightin’, belligerent Celtic roots showed through. Every cut here, no matter how tender the intent, is tough as nails.

Lester Bangs’ liner notes complement a package which is just trashy enough to be perfect. Bangs’ commentary is so lucid and clear that any expansion on the songs is superfluous. With it, Them’s recordings can be seen in both historical perspective and in the context of the career Van later carved for himself. It is easily the best thing I’ve ever read on Morrison. (If only Hot Rocks had had the same advantage ...)

Them Featuring Van Morrison is probably the most worthy reissue since UA’s Legendary Master’s Series last year; one would hope that London would continue to delve into its archives for some of the other excellent material it has around.

In any event, this reissue is a complete success. There is nothing left to ask, for the Van Morrison fan, at least not at the moment: the re-release of his blindingly brilliant old stuff and a stiffening of the spine on his new material. It’s a delight.

Dave Marsh

CARLOS SANTANA & BUDDY MILESI LIVE!

COLUMBIA

This album is about as welcome as a new, high-powered strain of venereal disease. But at least it’s a good and healthy new strain. Before a proper evaluation can be made of it in the latest advances of criticese, however, it is necessary to say a few brief words about the respective audiences that both Mssrs. Santana and Miles are attempting to cater to.

First off, there are those few, definitely in the minority you may rest assured, who find the group Santana about as scintillating as an oyster race in the middle of the Gobi Desert. This rare genus of fanatic, who generally assumes the label “music fan” as some sort of academic catch-all, insist that Santana do little but bend the same little pieces of conga thump/guitar whine into pointless, redunant and imbecilically repetitive variations. Also, they monotonously insist that Carlos Santana has a tendency to overwork the three notes that he has a working command of. On the other hand of course, we have the Santana fanatics, a hardy bunch of generally rumsaturated primitives who desperately feel the need to have Santana’s erotorhythms pulse directionless through their trembling and drug-misshapen veins. It is, without a doubt, to this second class of citizens that the album in question, slip-shod piece of smegma that it is, will appeal.

Like Santana watchers, Buddy Miles aficionados are also divided into two groups of differing endearment to this fine musician. There are some, of whom we will mention no names except to hint that they make up the majority of the universe proper, who feel that Buddy Miles is a fat, rhythmless mugwump who is attempting to ride “Them Changes” until its emaciated skeleton expires groaning. But to his credit, there is also a more congenial group, consisting basically of Carlos Santana and the President of Mercury Records, who warrant that Mr. Miles is a fine musician with the body of a Greek God and the intellect of a Chess Grand Master turned Secretary General of the United Nations.

Thus, it may readily be observed that both the aforementioned musical congregation and the solo artist have legions of fans the world over. So, when one brings these two Olympian music forces together for one, spectacular, marvelous and incredible live concert, and subsequently records the entire venture for posterity, with what does that leave us, the consumers of the day?

Venereal disease. But venereal disease you can dance to and/or be bored into a catatonic hulk by. And what more could you ask for a mere five dollars? .

Len Seatrain

JOY OF COOKING CASTLES CAPITOL

Remember the San Fransisco flower power psychedelic rock boom? Some of the bands which are now residing in the old age home for retired rock stars made their marks during that particular cultural phenomenon: The Jefferson Airplane, The Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Big Brother & the Holding Co., and Moby Grape, to name the biggies. But one band which was playing around Berkeley in those days remains to tell the story. Yep, Joy of Cooking. Maybe it’s because they didn’t run right out and make a record as if it were the only thing a band could do. They took the time to work and evolve, while remaining close to their Berkeley environs. Meanwhile, some of the other afrementioned bands were out getting rich, famous, and very tired. Too tired, in most cases, to be able to get it on anymore. A pity.

But this group can make you forget all about those who have been put to pasture. This is their third album and their best to date. Each of the three has been filled with consistently good, joyful, cookin’ music, but they have learned more and more with each album, the gap between intention arid execution has become smaller, with the result being a band who are not only capable of rocking and rolling, but are also able to express themselves in the studio.

Grace Slick and Janis Joplin may have been the queens of San Fransisco Rockdom once upon a time, but right now there isn’t a lady anywhere, no less a couple of ladies, who can match up with Toni Brown and Terry Garthwaite (with the possible exception of Tracy Nelson or Linda Ronstadt). Terry does most of the lead vocalizing, while Toni writes most of the songs. My impression from listening to them on record is that they must be very close to one another. Terry sings Toni’s lyrics as if they were her own, and Toni’s keyboards, the nucleus of the Joy of Cooking sound, are with her all the way. Fritz Kasten

(on drums), Jeff Neighbor (on bass), and Ron Wilson (on congas and harp) provide an intimate, home-spun backup for the ladies that has been getting better with each album.

Castles is the new one. Side one is a knockout as far as I’m concerned. “Don’t the Moon Look Fat and Lonesome,’* is the opener and it does just what the opening song of an album should; it sets the scene, both in terms of sound and content:

... you think you treat

your lady friends so fine,

they buy you all your candy

and keep you supplied

with cheap red wine.

How come you fail to notice

that one by one they move

on down the line?

“Lady Called Love” is a 1950 story with a 1970 twist: Ace, a jealous lover, kills his rival, Jack, only to find that his lady, called Love, has taken off to find “some freedom.” In “Three Day Loser,” my favorite cut, Terry outdoes Mavis Staples for sheer throaty soul. The band chugs along, a small choir chimes in, and Terry just gets behind it all and pushes the song forward and up, until it fades away slowly into memory. Ten minutes after listening to the album, I invariably find myself singing this song.

Side two doesn’t quite keep the pace, however. It’s a little bit too much in the Carole King/James Taylor mode for my taste. But despite a marked dissipation of energy, the lyrics and singing remain good enough to make the tunes more than listenable.

I’m hoping that this band just keeps on moving along at its own chosen speed, giving us more of their infectious home-brew, but rumors seem to point against it. It seems that Terry and Toni have left the boys temporarily behind in order to go to Nashville and make a Country & Western-oriented record. Also, Toni has about as much desire to, do another tour as Bob Dylan, which, I assume, is very little indeed. Replacing her would be wellnigh impossible for this band, and I trust they will not try to do so. But it would be a pity if all those who don’t happen to live within a 40 mile radius of San Fransisco Bay were deprived of being able to see Joy of Cooking play. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what unfolds in the months to come. In the meantime, we’ve got Castles to make the days seem a little brighter. _ „

° Gary Kenton

AND THE HITS JUST KEEP ON COMING MICHAEL NESMITH RCA

I think it’s kinda neat. Despite a lack of promotion and exposure, a skeleton that he never really tried to fit in a closet, and what seems to be a conspiracy among critics to ignore him, Mike Nesmith remains calm and unperturbed; so blatantly talented that he just, can’t be suppressed or ignored any longer.

Most everyone sort of refrained from knocking him as they did the other Monkees when Linda Ronstadt hit it big with “Different Drum.” Folks kinda nodded their heads and acknowledged him with the same feeling that most of us had when they gave Joe Frazier the victory over Muhammed Ali, but hell, it was a good song. Most people will agree with that, though it reminds me of a statement I once made to the effect that “Almost Cut My Hair” was a good song despite the fact that David Crosby wrote it. But it ain’t the same. Unh Unh.

In the past two years, Nesmith has come forth and delivered up three “prime” lps and one “choice” one. This one, while not the best, comes up a good head above the “choice” and just a notch below the “prime” ones, of which Nevada Fighter wins the ticket.

This one (lo-o-o-ve that title) is just Nesmith and ace steel guitarist O. J. “Red” Rhodes. It doesn’t rock where it could; if you wanta be technical it doesn’t really rock at all. But it’s an A-l example of real back porch music: the kind that you hear from next door in the early evenin’ and stop and listen to while you’re ironing or something, before some jackass like David Bromberg or Jerry Garcia (or both) comes by and wants to jam. Get it on. Perform for an audience of one (himself).

That could be the key to the drinkability of this whole album. There is a refreshing lack of egotism and, though Nesmith does sound a bit grandfatherly at times, he usually manages to stay one step shy of pretentiousness — occasionally easing a toe or two over the line, but each time you get the feeling that he knows it. He’s not trying to be Texas’ answer to the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, he’s really somewhere between Will Rogers and Hank Williams (check out “Roll With The Flow” or even “Different Drum”, which he does here, and see what I mean).

Besides all that, the kid can sing too and heck, it’s been six years since the Monkees first appeared. It didn’t take ’em much longer’n that to forget the Alamo.

Richard Allen Pinkston IV

SPARKS

BEARSVILLE

This is Sparks’ second attempt, their first being as a band called Halfnelson, and the very strangest thing about this record (and there are a lot of strange things about this album) is that it’s the same damn record as the Halfnelson album so don’t buy both unless you’re nuts like me and buy everything with Todd 'Rundgren’s name on it. But how many of you out there bought Halfnelson? Raise your hands. I see six — me and the five Halfnelson-Sparks. And this despite the fact that they look like real good, classy pseudo-English cats who play classy pseudo-English rock’n’roll, wear snazzy clothes and write snappy 1969 pop songs. Todd did the production, engineering, etc., which is why I bought it originally; then I sold it, then I got it again for one dollar and liked it at last, loved it then, which isn’t about to make these guys rich. No wonder they changed their name and grew their hair longer, hoping that they could get away from me and start fresh. But I saw through it, I’m on to you boys. And it must be admitted that your album’s got some gooood songs on it: like “Wonder Girl,” where the guy wants to get his poodle in her noodle (? — Ed.) but she don’t want it, she’s too good for it, ahh. “Fletcher Honorama” is about talk-shows, “Biology 2” about... artificial insemination! Hot dog, controversy! Or “Fa-Fa-Lee” or “La-Fa-Lee,” or something like that, and quess what! He’s still trying to get his poodle in the noodle, no luck. (! — Ed.) Anyhoo, this record makes my ten best dressed list of ’72 by far. This is England circa ’67-’69 in ’72. A lot of bands tried to do it, but Halfnelson did it, so remember Sparks... you read it here first.

Hank Frank

STRIKING IT RICH WHERE'S THE MONEY? DAN HICKS & HIS HOT LICKS BLUE THUMB

Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks — let us not mince words — are the finest acoustic group in the land. Not only that, but they have been for some years now, and they still haven’t received more than one iota (well, maybe two) of the fame and fortune they deserve. The group’s personnel has gone through all kinds of changes in the years they’ve been together, but the quality of the music they put out hasn’t changed. And now, more than ever, it seems, their time has come.

Where’s The Money came out last year, and was easily one of the best albums of the year. It should’ve at least won a Grammy for cover design. But it didn’t. It didn’t even get reviewed in most magazines. And that’s a shame. Recorded live at the Troubador in L.A., it was a fine tight performance, with the usual spectacular fiddle work by Sid Page, and the finest set of Lickettes — Maryanne Price and Naomi Ruth Eisenberg — he’s ever had. The songs were just great, especially “Is This My Happy Home?” which brings tears to the eyes of the most stout-hearted men, “Shorty Falls In Love,” with its fine jump rhythm, and “News From Up The Street.” Hicks’ laconic between-songs comments add the perfect touch.

I didn’t think it would be possible for the band to top that record, but they’ve done a good job of it on Striking It Rich. A studio album, it gives the band a chance to do some things with their sound they’ve never done before, like add a string section on some cuts. And it contains the very best picking I’ve ever heard out of the Hot Licks.

But before the'review, a digression. We are in the middle of a revival of the Forties — stockings with seams in them, mid-length dresses, old movie musicals and all that — and a lot of performers are draping themselves with the trappings to disguise a sad lack of originality underneath. This revival is most especially notable in the chic circles of Hollywood, where there are enough readymades lying around for everybody to have some.

Dan Hicks’ music is firmly rooted in the tradition of the late ’30s and the 40s. Not only are the vocal harmonies of a distinctly Lambert-Hendricks-Ross/Sons of the Pioneers-bastard mold, but the costumes the performers wear and the lyrics fit the style too. Much of the instrumental work recalls Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli. The band’s whole attitude is of one piece, and the excitement they generate is contagious. Why, then, haven’t they made it? Don’t ask me.

Striking It Rich oughta do it if anything can. For one thing, there is a stunning performance of one of the best tunes they do, “I Scare Myself,” featuring a violin, solo that seems to have gone as far as it could possibly go about four times in its course, and which makes me wonder how long Sid Page can go on playing that hard. It is an electrifying performance and one that has to be heard to be believed. Then, there’s' “Moody Richard (Innocent Bystander)” which is four minutes long and totally unlike anything Hicks has evet done before. Trimmed a bit, it’s a natural hit single, and one that Blue Thumb should kill themselves trying to break. Maryanne Price steps out for a solo spotlight on “I’m An Old Cowhand (From The Rio Grande),” and I guarantee that you’ll be surprised by the lyrics if you’ve never heard them before. Hicks’ poignant “Canned Music” is repeated from his first album on Epic, and in a much more streamlined version. He’s added a lead guitarist. There’s lots more, too, but I’ll let you discover it yourself. Again, there is a fine album cover, marred only by some dorky liner notes by Ben Sidran.

Dan Hicks is making music that a lot of people would give their right arms to be able to make. If Crosby and the bunch could come anywheres near the intricate vocal harmonies this band makes, I’d have a little more respect for them. If any of these hot-shit acoustic groups could begin to approach the instrumental virtuosity of this band, I’d be a little less caustic when talking about them. And if any of these self-styled ’40s revivalists could deliver a third of the funky flavor and atmosphere that Dan Hicks gets in his songs, I’d stop lip-farting when their names come up in conversations.

Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks are one of the very finest bands in the land these days, and I’d walk to Nevada to see them perform — something they do rarely in the San Francisco area where they live — nobody up here likes ’em, I guess, and they have to go to L.A. to find an appreciative audience. I sincerely hope that this record gives them the break they’ve been deserving for so long, and even if it doesn’t I hope like hell that they don’t give up, cuz we need ’em around. “You probably think it’s easy being up here, singing and playing. It’s not. It’s not easy. Thank you.”Dan Hicks said that at the Troubador. He’s right. It’s not easy. Things this good never are.

Ed Ward

FILLMORE: THE LAST DAYS FILLMORE/COLUMBIA

The first time Potogozza the Elder viewed the old Ponto Veccio in the dog days of the Pontiff Concupiscence XII’s reign, it was said that he turned with some amusement to his ineffable companion and biographer, Adolpho D’lzlaterrio de Saxon-Schwartzheinz, and remarked with the same dry irony that marks much of his memoirs (Chronicles de San Francisco) that: “If I had it all to do over again, I would just as soon have painted the walls beige.” Upon listening to Fillmore: The Last Days, I can’t help but feel much the same way. It’s a bit as if someone were attempting to unearth a dubious artifact as convincing as the Piltdown Man, with only the creative resources to produce a Cardiff Giant.

At the time of, his celebrated retirement, what with all his kvetching about rock/dope/ sex/greed, Bill Graham would have had us take him at his harassed and much put-upon word, that he was abdicating in favor of the simple life. Nevertheless, subsequent productions bearing the familiar logo have been observed up and down the West Coast to the extent that it has become quite evident that there are few who are so consistently confident of the public’s cupidity as to come close to matching Mr. Graham at the art of the shuck. For, in the final analysis and the man’s personality aside, this is what one has to begrudge Bill Graham: he is unquestionably an artist, and only a sour-grapirig scumbag would hold his success against him. Somehow he “forged” a cohesive unity out of some of the most desperate and chaotic elements happily burning their brains out for free, and turned them loose (no longer for free) on a ravennous public. Cheers, Bill!

This six sided slice of bogus legend is therefore presented more as artifact than art. If Columbia were smart, they would have presented the box and all the memorablia crammed inside — the ticket, the poster, the little EP with Graham himself expounding on the state of the industry, and of course the book, which is part autobiography and part family album — and not included even a single

record. Because apparently an event as significent as the closing of the Fillmore just didn’t produce the musical response expected. Santana, Mak), Hot Tuna, New Riders of the Purple Sage, the Grateful Dead (ordained by God to be present) — all turn in perfunctory, respectably lackluster performances. For the rest, the album presents a pastiche of performers along for the ride and the grease.

In the last analysis, Fillmore: The Last Days emerges not so much as a salute to the end of an era, but rather as Bill Graham’s attempt to pull off a fait accompli for the whole San Francisco scene.

Terry and Robert Houghton

NEVER A DULL MOMENT ROD STEWART MERCURY

Rod Stewart’s fourth solo album is a warm, easy-going, good-humored piece of music. The packaging is quite spectacular, and it took me a few minutes to find the record itself, but the packaging tells at least two stories this time. The first fold-out presents the complete superstar trip: Yes, folks, he filled that football stadium all by himself! And the second fold-out shows Rod and his musical pals lined up in a row, also on a football field (we call it soccer), this time in England. Because Rod wanted to be a football star once, and he didn’t make it. Just as Rod is really at the top now, he still knows where the bottom is, ,and I think this album is about working out a point of view that makes it possible to live with pleasure and honesty in either place or anywhere in between. If that seems like a somewhat abstract task, we can remember that some of Rod’s precursors in the game of rock and roll stardom failed at it, and lost their lives in the bargain. Stewart has no intention of going that route; after all, he got into rock and roll to have a good time.

For a change, let’s talk about the band. The group Rod summons for these albums may be the best around. They’ve worked out a sound and now they work within it: brilliant strummed cues from Quittenton, steady and inspired drumming from Waller, bass playing of remarkable sympathy from Wood or Lane, fluid, thoughtful leads from Wood, and an absolutely gorgeous organ from McLagan. It resolves itself into a sound that evokes London, Birmingham, the English countryside, pubs, boutiques, dance halls, football fields and Robin Hood, usually all at once. It is a sound that is at its best a flow, and the mesh of acoustic instruments (miked very loud) with Waller’s drums, Wood’s guitar, and whatever Rod happens to be doing with his voice couples the moods of a very English kind of delicacy and an equally English kind of drunken raunch. Stewart and his band have a sound that is unmistakable, that is already classic, and that is unique. This is the heart of any of the solo albums.

As for Stewart himself, nobody writes songs like Rod Stewart. There is probably more affection, more truly authentic love in his songs than in the rest of the rock and roll scene put together. This should have been obvious after “Country Comforts,” “Maggie May,” or “Every Picture Tells a Story,” but if not, listen to “You Wear It Well,” my choice for the best number here (though the first, “True Blue,” is close). That flow is there, Rod singing easily, with an emotional range that seems to have no limits. His girl’s left and he’s writing her a letter, trying out lines and balling up the paper and flipping it away, because all he wants to say is, You’re really great, I’m so dumb. He tries out compliments: “Madame Onassis got nothin’ on you.” No good, ping into the wastebasket. “Think of me and try not to laugh,” he says finally, “And I’ll wear it well.” By the end I was praying they’d get back together. A lot seemed to depend on it, somehow. But I knew they never would. Stewart’s love songs are not only profound, they’re infectious.

This is not the set the last album was. Maybe there are four songs on that last one better than anything here. No “Maggie May,” no “Every Picture Tells a Story,” though “You Wear It Well” will keep on growing, I know that. I don’t hear any hit singles, though I could be wrong. Still, almost no one comes up with anything like side 2 of the third album twice in a row, and absolutely no one produces a single with the grace, the depth, or the staying power of “Maggie May” twice in a row. But “Los Paraguayos” and “Italian Girls” (mainly one who said she was a killer and owned a flood-lit villa) are funny and move well, especially on the former where Rod begins with a cold and ends with pneumonia. The last cut, “Twistin’ the Night Away,” is a marvel, especially when Waller steps out near the end and bangs away like a twelve year old with a baseball bat and a set of garbage cans. The cut fades the whole album into a small and perfect rock ’n’ roll party, where you can have a good time without trying to prove anything.

The truth of this album, though, is clinched with its first line, from “True Blue”: “Never be a millionaire.” The ease of this album is, I think, its subject matter, a mood necessary to great success. Never be a millionaire, Rod sings, even though he may be one already, because he’ll never really feel like one; where it counts, he’s just too small-time, too friendly, too smart. It’s as if nothing will be allowed to subvert the friendship among the musicians that produced this music or the friendliness they would like to feel toward the people who listen to it. Rod’s a great star and he loves it, but then, he’s only fair on the football field so it s not everything. The concious and witty equation of football and rock and roll on this album indicates they mean the same thing to Rod and that he thinks they might mean something similar to his audience: have a good time, learn something, neve} a dull moment. He probably got into both for the same reasons.

Rod is working his way through superstardom, fairly concious that he carries a large part of the rock and roll tradition on his shoulders, not to mention a large part of the rock and roll audience.

The homesick brews

and the radical blues

Haven't left a mark on you

And you wear it well...

That about sums it up. The next few years are going to make great demands on Rod Stewart, and I think he intends to get through without a mark on him, like the kid in “Every Picture Tells a Story”: move out and get the lay of the land, dodge the cops, never let the good slip away, make friends and learn how to keep them, come back older, a little wiser, still free, but with a better idea of what freedom means — and don’t let the bastards get ya. Rod Stewart is the best we’ve got, and I hope he makes it.

Greil Marcus

SON OF SCHMILSSON NILSSON RCA

SAIL AWAY RANDY NEWMAN REPRISE

Both of these guys are gifted: One of them is one of the very finest songwriters we’ve got, while the other is a real oddball, a technocrat of the studio on a par with Todd Rundgren, and I’ve never been quite able to figure him out. I’ve slapped ’em together because both have short hair and both are unparalleled egotists and both have roots outside rock (in Tin Pan Alley—Broadway—Hollywood schlock, even camp), and besides, they’re sanpaku enough that Nilsson once recorded a whole album of Newman songs and most of them better than the originals to boot.

Nilsson is renowned for such instant unforgettables as “I Can’t Live If Living Is Without You” (or whatever that piece of icky shit was called) and “Jump Into the Fire,” which was distinguished by its obsessive throb and jungle jive sifted through psychecho. On the present album, even more than its predecessor of similar title (which contained those two songs as well as the incredible bastardized-Reggae cryptonarco chant “Coconut”) he ermerges as a kind of one-man Bonzo Dog Band. Samples: “Take 54” is 50s sax bleep mated with vocal midway between Marc Bolan and a P. McCartney with 2 nuts instead of IVu This Aryan’s hep outfront: “It was Take 54 when she walked through the door with a red light on her head/ I knew in a minute if I wanted to get in it then I’d have to get on it!/I sang my balls off for you baby...!”

Or: “The other day I met a girl named1 Joy/She said, ‘Come here, I’m gonna make you my Joyboy ... ’ ” Co-authored by Evelyn Waugh, and that’s real class. Besides, he’s better at shitkickin’ than any other pasty-faced Nord on the board. Just dig the ultimo masterpiece, “You’re Breakin’ My Heart,” one of the foremost pissoff odes of ’72, sounding like Smiley Lewis run through a fartnozzle tuba: “You’re breakin’ my heart/You’re tearin’ it apart/So FUCK YOU!”

The most sobersided part of this review follows when I tell you with utter sincerety that Nilsson sings “fuck” better than anybody who’s ever recorded that word before. For some lame-ass reason they always seem to get embarrassed — the Fugs cawed “Faaaaacking nothing, saaaaack'mg nothing,” as if they were 4 & 20 blackbirds, Grace Slick always muffled it and the context fall that revorhetoric) deballed the great verb anyway; but Nilsson really sneers it out: “Fuuuuuck you!” with true classic scumbag diction, just like Iggy would do it. A must for all modern record collections.

Randy, of course, is another horse altogether. I saw him on Dick Cavett and the audience didn’t laugh once during the hilarious “Sail Away,” they were afraid to because it’s a prime slice of overt American Heritage racism, dripping with irony: “In America you’ll have food to eat/Won’t have to run through the jungle/And scuff up your feet/You’ll just sing about Jesus and drink wine all day ... You’ll be as happy as a monkey in a monkey tree ...”

Well, I am hardly one to denigrate good racism, but I don’t know how far I trust this boy, and all that irony is the reason. In “Lonely At the Top,” for instance, he cries in his Dubonnet about how he’s rich and famous but nobody likes him anymore. Maybe it’s because they seldom quite believe him. He writes like an elegant cross between Gershwin, Cole Porter, Fats Domino, Terry Southern, Van Dyke Parks and The National Lampoon. “Political Science” just sez fuck this Cold War Contac prophylaxis, “let’s drop the big one and see what happens.” But that was 10 years ago! Write a song about ecology and get updated, Randy! Okay, here’s “Bum On,” about a river iff Cleveland that’s covered with brown scum. It catches on fire and won’t go out, so R. sez “Burn on.” And he don’t even add “motherfucker,” which may or may not be refreshing. But I just keep wondering. I mean, I’d like to think he really meant it: “Bum on, you sumbitch, and get rid of Cleveland too while you’re at it!” Either that or he should write a song about how the cyclamates in Diet Pepsi will turn you into a Commie Dupe Robot Zombie. But then I’d wonder if he really was a right-winger in his secret heart. I know I am, but I expect more veracity from my hereos than myself, and I’d just like to know where this wry one stands.

And why does he write “God’s Song” (“I burn down your cities — blind you must be/I take from you your children and you say now blessed are we/You all must be crazy to put your faith in me/That’s why I love mankind”) and then turns around with “He Giv6s Us All His Love,” which is as mawkishly reverent as the other is sarcastic and omniscient?

Irony is a low-lead brand of gasoline that my be ecosound and gov’t approved but it sure won’t put a tiger in your tank, nor take you as far as either moxie' or rage or conscience (even that crap!) or even crassness.

But Randy Newman is heap big talent, and besides that he puts pix of tot-size teevees and him and his wife shopping for wine at the Hollywood Ranch Market on his albums, so he’s gotta be one epitome of post-hip cool. Too bad this album ain’t really up to the one which had that stuff on it called 12 Songs which you . should buy immediately if you want real terror and laughter, after which you should buy Son of Schmilsson, followed by this. Buy all three. Enough rock’n’roll chauvinism, anyway.

Lester Bangs

AMERICAN GOTHIC DAVID ACKLES ELEKTRA

What is this sophomoric obsession with didactic irony and moralism anyway? I mean, is this guy serious or what? I’ve heard ofj living in the past and all, but this Ackles fellow really takes the cake!

It’s 1972 and everybody knows antiestablishment and social criticism sjongs are dumb; “Ballad of a Thin Man” isn’t any good any more; the only thing that saves “Well

Respected Man” is the infantilism of “his own sweat smells the best” (post-literate/pre-high school kakaism at its finest); all that Sixties goody-goody stuff is as silly today as the beatniks on Perry Mason reruns. The naivete of a cultural eidos that permitted a dualistic view of the human universe and its resultant finger-pointing school of art has been crushed by the absolute non-dualism of today’s man-on-moon/red-line shift/people-trying-tofix-trotter-races-with-laser-beams culture. The whole concept of moral hypocrisy is as out-dated as berets and bongos. Art doesn’t mean shit anymore.

And where does that leave David Ackles, with his pretentious two-years-since-the-lastalbum piece of atavistic Sunday School dooty? With his melancholy tales of “Mrs. Molly Jenkins,” who “sells her wares in town/ ... /Ah, but is she happy?/no, no, no/ ... /So, as she snuggles with a stranger/In some back-of-the-barroom bed...” And it goes on like that. Shame, shame, Mrs. Jenkins, you fuck strangers, tsk, tsk. Your husband “trades the milk for booze” (oh, po’ little Eva). This guy is anti-fuck, anti-booze and even anti-leg and anti-jerking-off (there’s mention of a poor fellow who procures girlie magazines to jerk off to, oh, lonliness, oh, guilt). Then, of course, there’s one of those fucking “I hear my old friend Jesus speak” songs (“Family Band”). Jesus indeed. Bbbbbffft (fart noise). Send the sap back to his farm.

Nick Tosches

CAPTAIN BEYOND CAPRICORN

God, these guys are like sitting ducks.

The first thing that’ll hit you when you take this record out of its jacket (which is certainly impressive enough, being a 3-D portrait of what looks to be a cosmic cross between a gypsy superhero and a cocaine dealer) and slap it down on the turntable is that you seem to have heard it all before. If you’re in a particularly bitchy mood, there’s ample meat on these bones for your hungry teeth to tear into: under close scrutiny, nearly every riff on the record will reveal its origins to be someplace else in your record collection. All of which should make Captain Beyond one of the most insignificant duds of 1972, right?

Wrong. Oh sure, if you wanted to make it a trivia quiz, you could probably score pretty highly with about three days of research, but what you’ll discover is that this is one of those rare records that provides enough surface excitement and satisfaction so that you’re never really tempted to look too far below the surface. In its own way, it’s perhaps the most perfect third-generation album I’ve heard.

They’ve applied more than a little intelligence to their thievery, seperating the wheat from the chaff and arranging it such that the record moves evenly from start to finish. And the viability of their product is greatly enhanced by the immediately obvious fact that they have the technical means to rival that of any of their victims. Rhino (late of Iron Butterfly and Blues Image) gets off some of the most inspired guitarwork of his career, while Bobby Caldwell (a refugee from Johnny Winter And) shows himself to be not only an exceptional drummer but a fast-developing creative overseer for the band as well. i

For the most part, Captain Beyond favors high-voltage rock and roll with an eye more toward Jimi Hendrix than Chuck Berry, yet they maintain a certain smoothness in the face of their volume, which should make them appealing to all segments of the rock marketplace. My own favorites are “Thousand Days of Yesterdays” (which proves that acoustic guitars do have a place in rock and roll) and “Dancing Madly Backwards,” but perhaps the point to be made is that this is one of the few records in recent memory that can be played straight through without irritation. I put Captain Beyond on when I want something hard and heavy but can’t decide on a specific, and it hasn’t failed me yet.

They don’t break all the way through with this first album, but they establish beyond any doubt that they are in possession of all the equipment necessary to earn their name in full. Captain Beyond may be sitting ducks, but you can count on them becoming the biggest sitting ducks to emerge this year.

Ben Edmonds

DISCOVER AMERICA VAN DYKE PARKS WARNER BROS.

What ever became of Ars Nova, the United States of America, Neon Philharmonic or the Fifty Foot Hose? Less than five years ago “art-rock” projects like these were spun out by the dozens in the wake of Sgt. Pepper. Every label had its own stable of resident geniusinnovators. Warners’ was headed up by Van Dyke Parks, and the much-discussed, salesless Song Cycle was his claim to fame.

So it’s all disposed of and in the past now, or is it? Song Cycle still hasn’t broken even, but it remains potent still, head and shoulders above the rest of its contemporaries, a delightful and provocative bit of eccentricity that compares to nothing else. Now the Burbank wizard and onetime Brian Wilson collaborator is back. Discover America thankfully, is just as eccentric, more whimsical, has little or nothing to do with the corporate body of rock ’n’ roll, and compares to nothing else.

The focus of Discover is Trinidad, calypso, steel band, Caribbean music, possibly as remote a starting point as the mythos of flollywood, California was for Song Cycle. But the music contained here, while so enjoyable surfacewise, deals indirectly with things norteamericano too; there’s FDR in Trinidad, the Four Mills Brothers (from the songs of the same titles) Jack Palance and Der Bingle, notes of Caribbean ethnocentricity that shine brightly, all set against one of those shadowy black & white Forties island epics that has Mitchum — wearing an ice cream suit — trying to secure a room in the Equatorial hotel while the rotating fan slices tropic air overhead and the blue sea winks at margaritasipping damas just outside. Discovering America, all of it, in other words.

Like I say, rock ’n’ roll this ain’t. The closest you’ll come is maybe “Riverboat.” But so what? The rock fragments therein are purposeful, placed with regard to their function in that spot, just like the Forties movie music, the Tiny Tim throw-offs, the Magic Band loon frills, accordians, Tex-Mex rhythms, et. al. They all play parts in Discover America and together, the aural relief they create is indescribably delicious if you’re in the mood for it. It’s all music, ya know.

If you like to think of your artists delivering sage wisdom through enigmatic queries directed at you, the Listener, maybe this is Van Dyke Parks: what’s the difference between Desi Arnaz and the music for a Datsun commercial, between “ethnic” East Indian food, Hollywood soundtracks and Harper’s Bizarre? Clues: start with Discover America. Good luck.

Gene Sculatti

STRAIGHT FROM THE HEART ANN PEEBLES HI RECORDS

There’s a song here in which Ann Peebles refers to herself as “99 pounds of naturalborn goodness/99 pounds of soul”: a boast in the Wilson Pickett tradition (cf. “Man and a Half’), but, judging from her work on this album, far from an idle one. As she assures us, good things come in small packages, and Straight from the Heart is another one of those sharp, nasty, exciting albums women like Denise LaSalle, Laura Lee and Betty Wright have been delighting us with this year. Peebles has a tough blues singer’s voice — not a gravelly, shouting big mama sound, but something that falls between Tina Turner and Carla Thomas without making obvious references to either. There’s an aching quality there, but rather than turn it to the usual passive heartbreak songs, Peebles uses her cutting edge with determination and an aggressive sort of sexiness.

Even the song that begins, “Lying ’round home alone/on a rainy night like this;/Starvin’ for your love/hungry for just one kiss,” is a far cry from the expected lonely woman number. Called “I Feel Like Breaking Up Somebody’s Home Tonight,” the cut seethes with a steamy, decidedly erotic dissatisfaction; if Peebles’ threat isn’t taken entirely seriously, the feeling behind it is.-

Every cut here is hot but these are the special attractions: “How Strong Is a Woman,” or one woman’s reaction to Women’s Lib-er-ation (written by a Bettye Crutcher), is a song I’m tempted to quote in its entirety. It begins like this: i

There seems to be

some conflict

As to who’s

the stronger sex

Some say it’s hard to tell

When they’re both

bringin’ home a check

I heard a woman say

she could do

Anything that any man can

But I’m here to tell ya

That the woman that said it

Didn’t even have herself a man.

It is, perhaps, the ultimate man-identified woman’s song, and answers the title question with the chorus, “A woman is as strong as the need of the man she loves” — the romantic notion of being “weak in love” taken to its extreme. She dismisses the movement in two lines: “Once I had a mind to join Women’s Liberation/That was before I’d been touched by love’s sweet sensation.” Not for Gloria Steinem or most of us, but one of the drivingest, most interesting songs here. “Somebody’s on Your Case” is one of those nasty advice songs in the style of Johnny Taylor or Laura Lee. Here, Ann sings to the woman whose man takes two hours for a run to the corner store and works “overtime” at the office. Her advice: “Don’t get uptight/Don’t put him out tonight/What you better do, girl/Is get your own thing right;” the chorus: “Somebody’s on your case/Better get on your job.” A woman’s work is never done. If that isn’t bad enough, Peebles, like the gossiping lady next door, starts listing the competition: “It might be Mary, and it might be Sue ...” No, no, you’ll have to forget about liberation politics to enjoy this.

On safer ground, there’s “Slipped, Tripped and Fell in Love” which gets pretty funky as it fades out on the line, “then you slipped your love in me” — Oooooow! — and a great nasty tune called “What You Laid On Me” written by Peebles and Denise LaSalle. The two borrowed songs are perfect: “I Pity the Fool” done with a vengeance and Sam & Dave’s' “I Take What I Want,” uncompromisingly aggressive, even a little frightening, as a woman’s song. Ann Peebles has punch to spare, and though she could do with some, how you say, consciousness-raising, she’s got herself a minor masterpiece here. How strong is a woman, indeed.

Vince Aletti

The title comes from the inclusion of two blues tunes (Buell Neidlinger’s “O.P.,” dedicated to Oscar Pettiford, and Ellington’s “Things Ain’t What They" Used To Be”) and a song called “Cindy’s Main Mood,” which Neidlinger describes as having an “I-gotrhythm set up.” Recorded in 1961, it was originally made under Neidlinger’s name, and has not been previously released.

There are two trio tracks, with Taylor, Neidlinger’s bass and the drums of Billy Higgins. A third track adds Archie Shepp’s Hawkins-influenced tenor (damned if he doesn’t work a reconstituted quote from

“Laura” into his solo, too) and replaces Higgins with Dennis Charles, whose sharp, fragmented drum style is a perfect match for Taylor. “Things Ain’t What They Used To Be” is Taylor, Shepp, Neidlinger and Higgins, augmented with Clark Terry, Roswell Rudd, Steve Lacy and the fine rich baritone of Charles Davis. That those four disparate musicians could have joined so well with each other and with the base quartet is, among other things, a tribute to the expansiveness of the Cecil Taylor musical experience.

. The Shandar lp. is the most recently-recorded Cecil Taylor album we have, and one of the most impressive. Recorded in 1969 in concert at the Fondation Maeght in Sant-Paul-de-Vence, France, it is a brilliantly shattering, electrically animated series of extended improvisations in which Taylor seems to show damned near the entire range of his orchestral personality. Can the man really hear, before he starts, every note and chord and cluster he is going to play? That’s the feeling he gives — the feeling that he has the whole thing planned out, that the whole thing is simply flowing forth from him as fast as he is able (or as fast as he cares) to play it.

Jimmy Lyons is present, further away from his bop roots, but with his past still showing, and happily, too, if you ask me. An added strength is Sam Rivers on soprano and tenor, who lends the music a particularly muscular momentum at times. Were Taylor not so brilliant hereon, one might complain that the reedmen are not given nearly enough solo time. The drummer, as precise and aggressive as he always is, is Andrew Cyrille.

The lp is designated as “Vol. 1hopefully that means a “Vol. 2” is on the way.

Colman Andrews

NEW YORK CITY R&B CECIL TAYLOR AND BUELL NEIDLINGER BARNABY/CANDID

NUITS DE LA FONDATION MAEGHT, VOL. 1 CECIL TAYLOR SHANDAR (FRENCH RCA)

Cecil Taylpr is an orchestra, a grand, overpowering human synthesizer of parts and sounds and notions. Within his solos, one hears two, maybe three, piano parts, an unspoken contrapunctual bass, the percussive insistence of his own internal rhythmic sense, sometimes even the shrill reed punctuations his bright handfuls of trebles occasionally suggest. He is a consummate technician, an unbelievable technical creator. On his own grounds, which are no one else’s. (The whole bit about “technique,” about comparing jazz and classical musicians, about saying things like “Yeah, he’s really good: he can even play classical stuff,” has been dealt with very nicely by A. B. Spellman in his Four Lives in the Be-Bop Business. My own, superficial paraphrase of Spellman’s point would be to say “Can Taylor play piano like Richter?” and then answer “No, probably not.” Aha, but can Richter play piano like Taylor? Hell no. To say anything further is to get into not-easily-defensible value judgements.)

New York City R&B is not, it should be superfluous to point out, an R&B record.