Bette Midler: Vaudevillian WooWoos And Omnipresent HooHahs

BETTE MIDLER The Divine Miss M (Atlantic)

Summers used to be for waking up in mid-afternoon and watching old movies. Fred Astaire tap danced all over the ceiling, James Cagney died nobly every single day, and Bette Davis championed the screen. But, just when Judy Garland was pouring out those torch songs for the boys, you’d hear:

We’re goin’ to the chapel And we’re gonna get married ...

The Dixiecups blasted from some box, down the block. Torn between “Chapel of Love” and “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes,” there wasn’t anything to do but choose rock’n’roll, and keep the movies around for what could be siphoned into the new form. Which turned out to be a lot more than we thought.

There’s no way to know if Honolulu summers were the same for Bette Midler. But something similar must’ve been available, or how could she have chosen the confusing array of personas and styles on her first album?

The DJs describe “Do You Wanna Dance” as “an exciting ‘70s approach to some ‘60s material,” but that’s not all there is to it. If it were — if Bette Midler were only Lesley Gore cum Judy Garland — people wouldn’t be talking about her (already, before The Divine Miss M is two months old) as THE new Stat of the ’70s. She gives you a taste of old rock but if that’s all you want, search out Sha Na Na or Flash Cadillac. Bette Midler understands how to keep oldies from getting moldy, and that’s what it’s about.

In a way, she’s the perfect singer for any ’60s rockhead. She incorporates the idea that rock and roll has a life of its own - a history, let’s say — into the other dominant idea of the decade, the one that Randy Newman and Harry Nilsson fiddled around with best, the idea that rock and roll is also only Entertainment. Operating in that framework, she’s capable of knockin’ ’em out on the Carson show and packin’ ’em in at the Fillmore. If there were a Fillmore, anymore. Try Carnegie Hall, because Bette Midler is the ultimate reflection, in one way, of the idea that rock and roll belongs in the concert hall.

There’s something vaudevillian about her performances. All of that doesn’t come off here, unfortunately. You can’t see her walk out on stage in silver lame pedal pushers, rhinestone-studded spike heels, a black lace corset, flaming hair and flailing arms belting out Buzzy (The Jacques Brel of Greenwich Village) Lirrhart’s “You gotta have friends ...” and then slow it down with Ethel Waters’ “Am I Blue.” You can hear it, but you can’t touch it, and one of Bette Midler’s principal strengths — the reason she seems so powerful on stage — is that she seems so approachable.

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You get the “woo-woo” in “Chapel of Love,” but it doesn’t necessarily mean anything unless you’ve been lucky enough to see it done in person. The record doesn’t do her justice, yes, but that’s a problem she’s going to have to learn to overcome.

Will she? Unquestionably.

If the material here is sometimes as confusing as it is diverse, it is still, by and large, strong stuff. If you didn’t know about the Andrews Sisters, you’d have a tough time with “Boogie-Woogie Bugle Boy”, which is — we suppose - a satire. But does Bette know that a large part of her audience doesn’t? There it is....

Take “Daytime Hustler,” which is one of the best songs here, compact, a fine potential single, with plenty of power, but which needs that introduction, to the President and Pat (“there’s a pillar of personality”). You can’t compare the effect, but — one way or another — you have to.

Bette Midler loves old rock and she knows how to divert some of the energy of ’60s material into a torchy style that is unique. She can also do it backwards — impart torch songs with some rock and roll spunk - and that is her biggest plus. No matter how much she moves about stylistically, she defines herself so acutely that each song has its own veracity. Middle-brow hip can love her because she translates everything into one form — which is pure Bette Midler, not really Judy Garland, or the Dixie Cups or Lesley Gore, even though the surface looks like it, sometimes — and the elitists can take over, just because of the material.

But it is with singer-songwriter material that the problem lies. Bette Midler, as a singer, as an IDEA, is so much superior to John Prine and even “Superstar” — a song only Bette Midler can do with anything approaching honesty — that hearing her sing Prine’s silly little Stephen Fosterism, “Hello In There,” is nothing less than a frustration.

But it is much more pleasant to dwell on her successes. And, maybe, much more to the point. Anyone can flub up by getting involved with the omnipresent hoohahs of the singersongwriter set. No one else could do “Do You Wanna Dance” as a song Peggy Lee didn’t hear right. No one else could treat “Leader of the Pack” as the dearest form of joke — a hilarious myth that we’ve been trapped into living out — or “Chapel of Love” as an almost beserk plea.

“Chapel” is where you get the fullest sense of what Bette can be — ALMOST out of control, but never losing that edge that makes the song engrossing, both live and on record. Part of the thrill is the constant threat that Bette is in imminent danger ofterminal breakdown, total hysteria, nervous collapse. In a word, she is a nut. It’s also her word.

Bette Midler is surely a star for the ’70s, just as The Divine Miss M is full of all the joy, life and humor that so much music in the decade has seemed to lack. This is not a perfect record, but like its maker, its strength is that it transcends what flaws there are. And rises above, at its best moments, any of the ideas anyone has about making Bette Midler into a symbol of anything but master of her own talent. True, she operates out of a show biz tradition that is much older than rock — out of the same tradition, maybe, that inspired lame rock parodies like “Bye Bye Birdie” — but she has transmitted to that tradition the joy that it has always managed to resist.

The joy is rock and roll’s joy, and Bette Midler loves that music to her very core. With Rod Stewart and the Rolling Stones, alone, she can make us laugh and cry, she can make us care whether her records and performances are perfect, and it seems to us that that is the kind of star the ’70s needs most.

The Divine Miss M may be moving and wonderful almost despite itself, because of advance notices or because Bette Midler is really as good as she seems (can it be true?) but there is no question about the basic presumption. In those immortal Motor City words, it’s killer.

Encore.

Dave Marsh

and

Robbie Cruger

LOU REED Transformer (RCA)

Their faces drooping in disbelief, the fans shook their baffled, bewildered heads. . “If we hadn’t seen him with our own eyes we never would have believed it.” They were commenting on Lou Reed’s Transformation from a wrestling hero to a savage villain.

“Teenage Wasteland Gazette,” Vol. 2

All last year Lou Reed underwent variously assorted transformations. At one time he was a pirate, and another time he became a transvestite, and even a Lou Reed pamphlet was printed and distributed, claiming that Lou actually had a double who was really responsible for his first album. This year, on the other hand, Lou Reed must carry the role of a social deviant who hides in closets and jerks off at the mere mention of Marilyn Monroe. Essentially, it’s back to those blissful days of Warhol legends when living was clean, and everybody could be zombies with black circles around their eyes. That’s showbiz, and Lou Reed always did wanna appear in a Broadway musical.

This new album is further proof even that Lou Reed has turned into something sicker than a homicidal-rapist-mass murderer-porno editor. Far gone is that prevailing commercial bubblegum flair so evident on the first album (e.g. — “I Love You,” “Lisa Says,” “Love Makes You Feel,” etc.). Instead, it’s more like what the third Velvet Underground album would have sounded like if David Bowie had been in charge of production back then. There’s a couple of cute ditties on here that perhaps belong on We’re Only In It For The Money (dumbshit show tunes in which Bowie gets to fill in all the vacant gaps with chugging trombones and tubas), but other than that this album proclaims itself as most masterpieces proclaim themselves: IT GROWS ON YA!!

Primarily this is because of the lyrics. There are so many good lines thrown at ya at once that, in fact, you could even make a scrapbook. Prime examples are for instance like on “Vicious,” a chunky rocker which wraps its belt around ya with the lines — “When I see you walking down the street, I step on your hands and mangle your feet” or “Hey, why don’t you swallow razor blades?!” which fades into the gritty chorus:

Vicious

You hit me with a flower

You do it every hour

Oh, baby, you’re so vicious.

Then there’s “Wagon Wheel” which is even more frantic than “Vicious” except that it features a prayer by Lou wherein he confesses all of his sins. Yeah, it’s got good lines, too, like — “but iFn you think that you get kicks from flirting with danger/ then kick her in the head and re-arrange her”. This all fizzles into an over-bold attempt at “Wake Me, Shake Me”.

Other noteworthy efforts are: “Satellite of Love,” total Bowie and would make a terrific Xmas AM hit single; “Make Up,” a careful study of all the gunk that attractive “slick little girls” smear on their faces; “I’m So Free,” a punk psychedelic rouser reminiscent of the Electric Prunes and a definite Midwest regional hit; and “Andy’s Chest,” which mostly talks about how your bellybutton is really your mouth and if your feet stink it’s really your nose.

But none of em, absolutely none of em, can top “Walk on the Wild Side” which is most certainly the best thing Lou Reed has come out with since “Rock & Roll.” The song is one of those impromptu “Wild Child” ramble-epics which feature exclusively Lou’s magnificent sense of sneeze-phrasing. Strings are attached onto this one, and it makes you feel like tiny ants are gnawing on your big toe. At the final clip of the saga, Bowie crams a mellow sax up your rectum, and Lou has his colored (that’s what he calls em) backup female chorus do some percolator imitations. But it’s the words that curdle your oily lubricants and none are better than this verse:

Candy came from out on the island

In the backroom she was everybody’s darling

But she never lost her head

Even when she was giving head.

She sez — hey, babe, ' take a walk on the wild side.

Well, of course, there are songs you’re gonna wanna skip, but the cover should make up for that. Lou Reed looks like he just stepped out of the horror flick about zombies or even more like he’s been giving rim jobs to the Fugs during the performance on Golden Filth. Yup, he’s a full-fledged social degenerate now, and I really don i see how he could get any lower. Not even Candid Press would have the guts to touch him these days.

Nevertheless, other than the fact that this album is great, there’s something especially fine about it which sets it apart from all the other crappy platters being released lately. I mean, hell, at least it ain’t anal retentive.

Robot A. Hull

THE RASPBERRIES Fresh (Capitol)

It starts off with that unforgettable drum fill from “Loco-Motion,” now over a decade old, and then right into the opening chords from “One Fine Day.” That’s the intro of “I Wanna Be With You,” the single and opening cut from the Raspberries’ second album. The lyrics aren’t bad either:

If we were older

We wouldn’t have to be worried tonight

Ooh! I wanna be with you

Anyway you look at it, it amounts to the idea of 1965 in 1972. The Raspberries’ first LP was mostly late-period Beatles and Badfinger cops, slick but very well executed. Most lightweight rock fans 1 know by and large loved it. This time, though, the instrumental sound is completely different, and about half J of Fresh is straight out of Rubber Soul. The result is a much more dynamic effort, an improvement in about every respect.

And you know, this album pretty well eclipses everything in the genre since Rubber Soul. The Badfinger styled tunes are flawless (“If You Change Your Mind,” “Let’s Pretend,” “Reach For The Light”), the first three cuts on side two sound uncannily like Help out-takes with jangly 1965 Hollies guitar, and “Every Way I Can” shows that the Raspberries can do hard rock with an impressive exuberance. At most, there may be two cuts on the LP that fall short of being excellent.

To top everything off, the Raspberries end the album with “Drivin’ Around,” an amazing cut that is the best ’65 Beach Boys paean in years:

When school lets out

And summer’s here

We’ll have some time for the sun

Throw my notebooks out

Put my car in gear

We’re gonna be having some fun

Comparisons to Badfinger are out, because the Raspberries are already better than Badfinger ever was. Comparisons to Little Eva are out too, since,she’s earned her niche for life. All the same, just look at the groups the Raspberries have taken from this time out: The Beatles, the Beach Boys, and Little Eva. This is the best album I’ve heard in a long time, and it looks like we have an important group on our hands.

Mike Saunders

JONI MITCHELL For the Roses (Asylum)

It took a while for a lot of people to get to Joni Mitchell. Listening to her albums was a frustrating experience if you weren’t a convert in front. You could tell that Blue, for instance, was an important record and the songs were truly fine, but somehow it seemed almost; too personal, too consistently down. Also, her propensity for seemingly cramming every syllable she possibly could into each line became irritating after awhile, at once melodically overcomplex and a conversation style taken to an extreme.

Her move to Asylum records didn’t augur well, for the obvious reasons: lots of talented people get their corners shaved off in Asylum’s studios. But suddenly, “You Turn Me On I’m a Radio” came over the airwaves, and you were gone. Unqualified pop masterpiece, the only great resurrection of folk-rock in some time, brilliant production, vocal you can swoon to, a hit, a mature song about sex which manages simultaneously to be really just simple tender-horny need-you stuff, the kind of stuff we’ve always needed. All that and more.

The new album js everything you never thought Asylum would let it be. The hit is still the centerpiece, but it’s the best album Joni Mitchell has ever made and, even beyond the songs themselves, it’s a sound record like, say, Astral Weeks was. The arrangements are subtle enough to integrate sparse, chilling strings, brooding sax solos, and even Stephen Stills without ever coming off contrived or disturbing the flow.

As for the songs, Joni takes the riskiest propositions and somehow pulls them off without a trace of banality. Whoever thought they’d wanna hear another song about groupies and musicians on the road? But “Blonde in the Bleachers” gets it down with some kind of wonder intact: “You’re in rock and roll/ It’s the nature of the race/ It’s the unknown child/ So sweet and wild.”

She gets around a lot too: “Barangrill” shows that for picking up almost random, novelistic snapshots out of everyday lives, she’s doing a hell of a lot better than the form’s, old master Lou Reed is these days. “Cold Blue Steel and Sweet Fire” is a downand-out-in-New-York song that manages to be only slightly comball, and reminds me in part of old New York Beatnik poets like Ray Bremser, which is great.

Naturally the album has its share of songs about loves gone bad, and nobody is better at this than Joni Mitchell: “Where are you now ... Are you caught in a crowd/ Or holding some honey/ Who came on to you?/Why do you have to be so jive?”

Great lines! Old shit but time-tested, and somehow caught in a totally new way. And isn’t it the genius of rock’n’roll or any music having anything to do with it to take the most hackneyed forms and situations' and breathe some life into them? We need clarification of the same old muddles, and every once in awhile you find it: in Van Morrison, in the Stones, in Dylan and Lou Reed in their prime. I finally found it in Joni Mitchell with this album. She’s so fine I don’t even miss the backbeat.

Lester Bangs

EDGAR WINTER They Only Come Out At Night (Epic)

My, my, who pushed dear, dear Edgar and the boys into the closet? Now really. Do you expect me to believe it was THEIR idea? What? You say they have donned those delightful disguises because they were embarrassed. Embarrassed? Whatever for? Oh you have got to be kidding! Just because they wanted to try their hand at the AM circuit and they thought we would be upset. Oh, that’s priceless. Well ... I’ll buy that. In fafit I’ll buy it all, everything (hat is except that ghastly putty beauty mark on Edgar’s Max Factor face. Beastly taste.

And how fortunate to have THE Francesco Scavullo consent to do the photos. You know he doesn’t take pictures of just anyone, darling. You know with his Cosmopolitan covers and all.

I agree, the band does look terribly stunning. Oh, Chuck, you say you “blow dry” your hair to get that wonderful fluff. I must try it next time. And Edgar, that lavendar eyeshadow goes so well with red eyes.

Oh and this is Linda. No, I don t think I remember you. Wait a minute, weren’t you at Max’s last Easter. You were the one with the flourescent tits? No? Sorry. Now that you mention it, Ronnie does have fantastically gorgeous green eyes. As big as your fist, you say. How interesting.

Now, this all happened since you fellows moved to Connecticut. It couldn’t be that your wonderfully strange neighbors, the Coopers, had anything to do with this utterly, utterly unusual metamorphosis?

Do play us your new album. Catchy tunes. May I sing along? Thank you. Yes, your last album was a touch too heavy-handed. You say you learned to boogie from Savoy Brown? But, not_ one single solitary “hootchie-koo?” Ho»v disappointing. Oh, well I didn’t realize that was out this year. Wait a minute. I heard that. Play it back: “Thought I was cool when I dropped out of school, it was great . . . Driving along with my radio on, feeling good . . . I’m just hangin’ around.” Oh yes, yes, you still are the high, wide and nasty Texan. Aren’t you Edgar. Edgar? Edgar . . . “The Yellow Rose of Texas is the only girl for me . . .” Don’t you remember?

I don’t remember how I got this way

I don’t recall what happened yesterday

I don’t remember what I did last night

But I know 1 was feelin’ alright

Jaan Uhelszki

THE YOUNGBLOODS High On A Ridge Top (Raccoon/Warner Bros.)

More and more in recent months the phrase ‘laid back’ has appeared in these pages with the most derogatory connotations. And justifiably so. There’s a lot of shitty music being made these days under many equally shitty pretenses, but nothing quite so irritating as that easy going (listless), pretty (innocuous), country-flavored (whiny) pap that seems to be coming out of the general direction of Marin County, California. (I’ve never been to Marin County, but my impression is that it s probably the kind of place you go to for recuperative purposes only. Why the people there must take naps for kicks. And there’s probably story-telling contests on Saturday nights. The last one left awake is the winner. Or the loser.) And now, one of the groups that made this relaxed rock form popular in the first place has become the first victim of the deadly attrition induced by this kind of musical atmosphere. The Youngbloods have officially broken up.

It’s a pity. I’m in a bad frame of mind to write a proper eulogy for them. They have inspired nothing but apathy in the last few years, obscuring their earlier successes. But the right words start to come to me as soon as I think back to the days when the Youngbloods didn’t have Raccoon Records. The days when they actually wrote and produced some songs, instead of doing tired renditions of 50’s standards. (I could really be chauvinistic and also mention the days when the Youngbloods lived on the EAST COAST, but I won’t.) In their prime, which didn’t last very long, they were one of the finest, sweetest underground bands in the land.

I say underground because they really were underground, not in the sense that they suffered supression of their too-hot-to-handle material or anything like that, but in the.sense that they played for people. In small clubs all over the East Coast, the kind of gigs where the financial profit was tolerably low and the level of satisfaction incredibly high. Even when “Grizzly Bear” became a minor hit in early 1967, their following remained on a predominantly local level. “Get Together” broke them into the national market in 1969 (after having been released several times) and, for a while, the Youngbloods, as the saying goes, really had their shit together.

After the peak of Elephant Mountain, however, they seemed to meet the point of diminishing returns. Even though they moved on to get a good record deal at Warner Bros., they never put out an entirely new studio album in the two years they had Raccoon. A sad irony when you think of how difficult it is for a band to get its own label in the first place. But the luxury of haying their studio in their home may have intimidated them or something because none of the records made there were worked on much past the point of competence.

That’s not exactly fair. The Youngbloods came by their living room styled studio techniques honestly, having been an intimate, personable band all along. But most good living room chairs are hard to get out of and the one the Youngbloods sat in was good indeed.

As far as High On A Ridge Top goes, there’s little to say except if your idea of a thrill is hearing the Cadillacs’ single “Speedo” at 33 RPM, then this one’s for you. There’s only one (count it) original composition on the disc, a Jesse Colin Young song entitled “Dreamboat,” and it sounds pretty nice out of the album’s revival context (how about a single, guys?). But it is only the band’s basic affability and Jesse’s lovely vocals (I’ll never give up on Jesse) that keeps the record listenable at all. Even the nifty cover artwork by Charles Laurens Heald, the guy who did the work on the cover of, you guessed it, Elephant Mountain, fails to recapture any of the past glory.

So the Youngbloods are gone and the worst thing about it is that they’re not really gonna be missed (I’m sure there’ll be a glut of posthumous releases to see to that). They’d stopped being a source of musical ideas so far back that all the mourning has long since ended. The fact that they waited until now to actually roll over and die will cost them the decent burial they once deserved. But, before RCA deals the final blow by deleting the three precious Youngbloods albums from its catalogue, be sure to get yourself copies. The Youngbloods were very good.

Gary Kenton

MARY HOPKIN Those Were the Days (Apple)

Those Were the Days is a greatest hit album including Mary Hopkin’s unsuccessful attempts to get another (“Goodbye,” “Temma Harbor,” “Think About Your Children”). I may never be asked to write another review, but I have to admit I like it. Quite a lot.

It’s cute, bouncy, cheerful and pretty. How many records do you have that are cute, bouncy, cheerful and pretty? None! You see, it fills a gap. In fact, I’ll bet you this album is more unlike the records you own than any other platter reviewed in this magazine. Those other records may be better, but they’re not different, so why listen to more of the same? If I had to choose, I’d rather buy Those Were the Days than a new Grateful Dead album, because I’ve already got records which sound like The Dead. But even Petula Clark doesn’t sound like Mary Hopkin. Cute, bouncy and cheerful, but not half so pretty. Not Marianne Faithful either. Pretty, but not the rest.

Mary Hopkin’s voice is pretty as a bird’s. If a bird has a headache or just broke up with his chick or is happy as can be, it still tweets just the same. So does Mary Hopkin. She sings prettily no matter how she feels, no matter what the song is about. If she’s going down by the lemon tree or has been reduced to prostitution, if she’s answering the door or has lost her boyfriend in the war; it’s all the same to her. So if you’re down, if you’re constipated or just lost your mother, this is the album to cheer yourself up with. There’s a lot to be said for a voice which cannot feel or express.

What’s more, the songs, arrangements and production are excellent. The under-rated McGuinness Flint writing team, Graham Lyle and Benny Gallagher, contribute three songs, one of which, “Sparrow” (I told you she sings like a bird), is achingly lovely, appropriately enhanced by a choir of little sopranos. On some tracks Mary Hopkins’s voice is doubletracked and twice as pretty. Mickie Most did that and he was smart. Whoever had her sing an Italian song, “Lontano degli Occi,” wasn’t, But that’s only one cut. On another track, “Que Sera Sera,” she translates for us and it’s much nicer.

You may think this review is smarty-pants and ironic, but you’ve got another think coming. I really and truly like this album. But try telling this to your so-called friends.

Ken Emerson

MOTT THE HOOPLE All the Young Dudes (Columbia)

Remember the? giant pods that took over people’s identities and complete physical appearance in The Invasion of the BodySnatchers? Well, that sort of takeover has always been inherent in rock’n’roll, Cannibal & the Headhunters weren’t the only cannibals by any means! Take Bobby Darin, for instance, the biggest musical cannibal in existence. The man no longer has any vestige of self left, he’s been so many people: Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles, Carmen MacRae, Hoagy Carmichael, John Sebastian, Tim Hardin, and most recently Randy Newman — he’s been all of them! He oozes into their persona while they sleep and in his own slimy way he’s actually been able to convince vast multitudes that he IS whoever that month’s victim turns out to be. And in a weird way he’s pretty good at it, he pulled a real switcheroo when he got Tim Hardin to record “Simple Song of Freedom,” a song ole Bobby wrote himself, and “Jive,” on Bobby’s Commitment album, is as good as anything John Sebastian’s done in the last three or four years (for whatever that’s worth).

But that’s not the point. We were talking about Mott the Hoople and their special brand of cannibalism, or at least that’s what we should have been talking about, because they used to be GOOD. No shit, they had all the Dylan Blonde On Blonde period and early Procol Harum moves down to a tee, and what’s more they had a sense of humor. M.C. Escher indeed!! They stole from the right places, they did the right songs, and they came up with right-on-the-ball album titles like Brain Capers and Mad Shadows. So here they are on Columbia with one of the finest singles of the year and with this year’s heaviest dude himself, David Bowie, producing a whole album’s worth of material for bi-sexuals, and what happens. Nothing.

These poor kids have been beaten at their own game, they’ve been cannibalized and IT DON’T WORK. This record is totally empty, vacant, missing; no matter how loud you turn it up you can’t get any SOUND out of it. I’ve always thought of Bowie as a latter-day, pretty Bobby Darin, even in his approach to singing, and now I know it’s true; his slimy hands are all over this record, AND I FUCKING WISH HE’D KEEP HIS HANDS IN HIS OWN PANTS AND QUIT FUCKING UP GOOD ROCK’N’ROLLERS. Not only is he a dirty old dude, he’s got no fucking taste, no sense of rock. Listen to Mott’s version of Lou Reed’s punk classic, “Sweet Jane,” then try to argue otherwise. YOU CAN’T AND YOU WON’T WANT TO BECAUSE IT’S SO BAD IT’S ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE TO SIT THROUGH IT even though you know that “All The Young Dudes” is only a couple of minutes away and you REALLY WANTA HEAR IT. I DON’T WANTA PUT UP WITH THIS SHIT AND THERE’S NO REASON ON EARTH WHY YOU SHOULD; buy the single and forget the album, and the next time you see David Bowie tell him he’s a dirty dingus.

Brian Hotpants Cullman

AMERICA Homecoming (Warner Bros.)

Come on. You didn’t think “Horse With No Name” and “Ventura Highway” would get these guys voted into the pantheon of CSN&Y Springalopoco second-liners where such as the redoubtable Guess Who (“Those Eyes”) and Stampeders (“Sweet City Woman”) resided for awhile before packing off to greener pastures, did you? That was just initial surface scratch. Where this lukewarm expatriate combo belongs is at the absolute head of seventy'twoish Blandrock, that ignominious contemporary subgenre whose ascent has been torched by stalwarts like Bread, Gallery, Jonathan Edwards, the new Neil Diamond and the ever-glossy T of P, A1 Green and, only by indirect taint, James Taylor, Neil Young and those everlovin’ Carpenters.

Never mind that it’s mediocrity en excelsis, gutless and indulgent, vacuous and acoustic. This bass and drumless trio of simpering Seventies rollos decorating the cover, with their upswept 3-part croon, offbalance leads and mournful ego-sobs, represent the smiling countenance of what is so far the single most pervasive radio trend of the new decade. They: transparent half-melodies and almost maddening thinness and lack of imagination cover both dials and have been known to drive intolerant rock’n’roll motorists just a little insane on numerous occasions. But they do connect to the main body of rock stuff, somewhere around where the forlorn Bee Gees and the winsome Lobo hang out, and hell, their naivete and the insolent stupidity of their lyrics are too good to pass up!

With squeaking frets, chandelier piano, a persistent wimp melody and oblique scraps of California Myth scattered throughout, “Ventura Highway” is the group’s stupidest hit yet and a real contender for this month’s Blahdrock crown; white, glassy, colorless space maneuvers, that’s all, and absolute verbal outrage; phrases like “wind blowing through your hair,” “nights stronger than moonshine,” “purple rain” riding around that idiotic guitar figure. They don’t even try to disguise the fact that the singer’s heavy 2-line conversation with free spirit Joe is an idle means of filling up unused musical space. This is great!

What else? Nothing you’d remember me telling you. “Don’t Cross That River” timidly approaches Thunderclap Newman on a rundown night, “Cornwall Blank” redoes “Wooden Ships,” and “Saturn Nights” breaks into a oi\e-riff-factored-to-infinity scheme like most of After the Goldrush.

But that’s all peripheral, just like America’s music. What we have here is the perfect imperfection of a major Seventies strain seen up close. No opaque tones, depth or gross appendages left hanging out,' just wellpolished surface gloss, shining aural accompaniment to four more years, the Rise of Vapidity and the global enshrinement of Blandrock.

Put on either side of Homecoming, sit back and if you try, visions of the embittered P.F. Sloan of 1965 and the arms-folded Standells will materialize. After all, part of what made those two greats so much fun was their total naivete and lack of ‘integrity’ in the face of the musical identities they parlayed into quickflash immortality. Shameless teen wimps caught by public favor in the midst of performing gross imitations of their very own pop idols under the hot lights, they prospered in a disarming, funny sort of way that once again proved the existence of the undecipherable magic ethos of this parallel rock & roll world. It isn’t that far between “Sins Of The Family,” “Mainline” and “Horse With No Name.” Enjoy it now and later too.

Gene Sculatti

NEIL YOUNG Journey Through The Past (Reprise)

“This should not be looked at as the next Neil Young album; iVs not the follow-up to Harvest. ” So spoke one-man-record-co. David Geffen, from his (I presume) swanky Asylum offices. Admitting to a certain confusion as to what, in fact, Journey Through The Past might be, in that case, I was told that it actually is a soundtrack for a real movie, a “documentary/fantasy” directed by and starring Young, and concerned with “his feelings about drugs, religion, and other things” -Geffen was loath, quite rightly I think, to be more specific than that; the movie, a Warner Bros, release, will be out early in 1973, and that’s the time to deal with it. So what’s on these four sides, once you extricate them from their irritatingly cheesy auto-destruct package?

All of it is more or less live, embracing Young’s efforts from the Buffalo Springfield days to the present. Side one opens with a hopelessly lame rap by Tony Martin on the Hollywood Palace TV show, leading into 2Vi Springfield songs which are so close to the original album cuts that, if they weren’t lip-synched, are prooof positive that Springfield were among the tightest live acts in history. Then there’s some CSNY, as bad as the Four Way Street stuff; some in-the-studio versions, larded with arcane musicians’ chitchat, of Harvest material, with an entire side of aimless riffing around “Words”; a bunch of Jesus freaks who sing Handel’s Messiah without enunciating a single consonant; one Young original; and The Beach Boys’ “Let’s Go Away For Awhile” (!?).

As soundtrack, it might be very good; it certainly seems unobtrusive enough. But as rock, as music, it’s excoriatingly unlistenable. The thing I forgot to ask Geffen is whether he or Wamer’s/Reprise is responsible for defrauding the trusting record-buying public by releasing the soundtrack before the movie.

Gerrit Graham

HOODOO RHYTHM DEVILS The Barbecue of Deville (Blue Thumb)

Why don’t we forget about rock and roll for just a second? (Or at least as long as it takes for you to read this.) Yeah, and while we’re at it, forget about all your pre-conceived notions and stupid “musical preferences” and “taste.” All that stuff is as worthless and inconsequential as soda without whiskey, at least in this citizen’s book.

Noise is what matters: the flippant, don’tgive-a-shit buoyant huzzah of brain-frying noise! And what’s better than noise with a beat? A REAL Rock & Roll beat (oops, I mentioned it — guess I’m a hypocrite, but I But who call honestly say that they were prepared for this: a band providing the most awesomely pointless noise imaginable, but probably having no idea that they’re doing

so? It’s true; this is the perfect record for any bash you might be planning, because no listening’s needed! No meaning, no lyrical “relevancy” (unless you ponder the message of “Eating in Kansas City”; simply, that eating’s more fun and beneficial than most anything else - and is there a bub among us that will demean perhaps the most exalted ritual of our lives?), just that power that

buffets you around like the proverbial human pinball. don’t care) that U suck you into a typhoon of power so great that you’ll emerge as listless as a turnip, but happy as a lark? That’s right, nothing. Not that we’ve exactly suffered from a lack of this life force the past couple of years — at first it was the Detroit crowd providing the soundtrack to aural Armaggeddon; after that scene dissolved (tho I bet we haven’t heard the last from them yet), we were blessed with the multitudes of heavy metal groups who continue to flourish right this very day, and long may they do so.

And like I said, these here Hoodoos most likely don’t even know it! The way I see it, all those Carl Perkins and Hank Williams discs they undoubtedly boned up on before playing together made no difference at all; I’m sure that when the crucial moment came, all those boring roots bit the dust in favor of better ones; most notably, the evil John Barleycorn. Well, at least that’s the way it sounds on here.

Finally, I can think of no better conclusion than to mention a piece of graffiti I saw the other day; besides summing up slews of abstract questions much too boring to go into here, and besides being true, it sums up this record more succinctly than 1 could ever hope to. To wit: “The devil is a smart fella.” And that goes plural, too. Make your move!

Peter Tomlinson

MERLE HAGGARD It's Not Love (But It's Not Bad) (Capitol)

While all your fave rock’n’roll pop stars are struttin’ about pushin’ image an’ style, not one of them is writin’ songs that a simple feller like me can put myself into, learn the words of, and sing to myself while I m waitin for the world to happen.

Country singers are more humble, they look after me by sending out tunes I can remember, words I can understand, situations I can imagine. So it’s got to the point where if anybody has a real story to tell, he has to disguise himself as a country singer before we belieye him. How many times did Seattle’s Danny O’Keefe record “Good Time Charlie’s Got the Blues” before he went down to cut it country-style in Memphis?

So here’s Merle Haggard, who draws people and situations as well as anybody making songs today, with a bunch of quick sketches. He didn’t spend too long on many of them, but what do you expect; he’s got so famous that even I’ve heard of him, and how long did it take Picasso to knock off those squiggles he’s been doing for the past ten years? Merle’s picture is on the cover, his voice is on every track, what more could anyone ask?

Maybe I’m too demanding, but I would ask for more than five songs (out of eleven on the album) that I want to hear more than once. Too many songs on the record drip with sticky sentimentality, “My Woman Keeps Lovin’ Her Man,” with the violin sounding more like Palm Court Trio than country fiddle, and orchestras and choruses filling in space behind.

But then again, there are not so many great records around that wc can spum this one with five good songs on it. Just about every song is about divisions and diversions of love, with the man making up on one song for the cheating he suffered from in the one before. Two of the best songs were written by Tommy Collins, “Goodbye Comes Hard For Me” and “The Conversion of Ronnie Jones”. “Goodbye” is enough to make you sniff with grief, as the singer finds all kinds of lame excuses to hang around the house that his wife is forcing him to leave, while “Ronnie Jones” is pure Tom T. Hall, as Ronnie finally agrees to his wife’s demands that he confess his sins, with the result that every woman in town is implicated in sin while Ronnie’s wife throws him out. So much for the truth.

“New York City Blues” is yet another nasty stab at that cruelly mistreated town, but it can pass on account of its good harmonica; “I Wonder Where I’ll Find You At Tonight” has Merle roaming the streets searching for the secret place his woman has parked the car, a neon nightmare to haunt you after the record’s over.

In all, not a bad record for a man coasting his way to fame, but there’s a bad sign for the future. The four best cuts were all produced by Ken Nelson, who has been Capitol’s pro-1 ducer for Merle up till now. The rest, more indulgent, overarranged, lyrically incomplete, were produced by Fuzzy Owens, presumably a good friend of Merle’s who won’t push him as hard as Ken did. Damn. It looks like it’s happened again. Just about the time I finally latch onto, somebody who’s been around for years, he starts going downhill in the studio. But I betcha Merle will only become more famous.

Charlie Gillett

JETHRO TULL Living In The Past (Chrysalis)

THE STEVE MILLER BAND Anthology (Capitol)

Jethro Tull and the Steve Miller Band have a lot in common. They both started out as distinctive, exciting units, and they both discovered formulas that worked and flogged them half to death. They are both units led by incredible egomaniacs who have been responsible for a great turnover in personnel. They’ve both worn out their welcome pn my turntable long ago, and they’ve both issued two-record retrospectives in ornate, even baroque packaging.

Jethro Tull is the band with, in my estimation, far less to offer, and, surprisingly, they’ve come up with the better of the two packages. Comprised mostly of old singles and album cuts, Living In The Past has more strong stuff on it than any album since Stand Up. Such Tull classics as “Love Story,” “Sweet Dream” and “Witch’s Promise” are made available on Xlegitimate) LP for the first time. Even the live side, which I had held out no great hopes for, contains some socko piano cadenza-ing by John Evan on “By Kind Permission Of.” But that’s the only cut that wasn’t written by Ian Anderson, and, despite what many people think (including Anderson, I’m afraid), Ian Anderson isn’t Jethro Tull. And, because he has been singlehandedly running the group for a couple of years now, since he seems to think that a melody is necessarily nothing but a pentatonic scale sung in triplets followed by a little flute frippery, all of the post—‘69 cuts here (and on other Tull albums) are unremittingly dull and monotonous. But for those of us who are still living in the past with Tull, this is not a half-bad album. Lotsa pix of Ian, too. (Shudder.)

Steve Miller must have had as many bands as John Mayall by now. Although he has always recorded his stuff under the title “Steve Miller Band,” it’s hardly a secret that his best stuff has been at least co-written by others, and he’s always needed expert help to I make his albums sound decent. In fact, after listening to Children Of The Future, I thought that Miller must be the keyboard man, because the piano/organ work (by Jim Peterman, as it turned out) held the whole album together.

Anthology, subtitled “The Best of the Steve Miller Band,” is neither representative, as an anthology should be, nor the best of the Steve Miller Band. For my money, the best of Miller is his first two albums, Children Of The Future and Sailor (both available from Capitol in a 2-for-the-price-of-one pack) and his remarkable collaboration with Nicky Hopkins, Your Saving Grace. The rest of his stuff ranges from Marin County pastoral bullshit to Jimi Hendrix-imitation bullshit. Miller’s inconsistency' is due mainly, I think, to his inability to keep a band together long enough so that there is a group sound. Still, there have been moments when everything jelled, and they have been wonderful moments indeed. Unfortunately, there are very few of them on Anthology.

Ed Ward

JAMES TAYLOR One Man Dog (Warner Brothers)

Today I am a pud.

When in the course of rock drought you cast about desperately for something to listen to, why not let your defenses down and try James Taylor? I know he wears his neuroses on his sleeve, solicits his audience’s sympathy, and holes up in a Martha’s Vineyard bungalow far more than is healthy for any growing boy (most of this album was recorded there, in fact), and he’s probably got lots of fans who empathize with him so much they’d like to curl up into foetal balls and contract till they disappear.

On the other hand, everybody needs a little vicarious pain. Where would the Velvet Underground be without Lou Reed’s pain? Or Black Sabbath buffs without Ozzie Osbourne’s insomnia? Right. So what makes James any different? That he was a spoiled rich kid, makes it with Carly Simon (woo woo) and sings wimp? Well, that’s not enough;

In the first place, wimp’s just as valid as anything else on the radio if you just dig it for the totally meaningless, dunced-out trash that it is, just like you dug things like Eric Burdon and War. In the second place, James Taylor’s a real punk, when ya get right down to it. He never had any shame in the first place; he just sits around and gets fucked up all the time, just like most of us, and I betcha when he’s not being a Sensitive Genius he’s a getdown dude who don’t give a shit about nothin’. Just look at him on the cover of One Man Dog, out in a canoe with his mutt, wearing a necktie even which is a cool move at this point in time. Or those pictures of him at the McGovern benefits, in an oversize sportcoat, another throwback: hell, he ain’t trying to con anybody.

But, you say, I still can’t listen to the record inside. Bullshit! It’s a very nice record. It’s easier to listen to than lots of these hotshit Rock And Roll albums like the new Black Sabbath or side two of Exile on Main Street. It flows smooth as Sioux Bee straight in one ear and ... stops off for a bit of contemplation.

Because this ain’t James bragging about being in the nuthouse, or bellyaching about having to be a star. It’s James at home, a one-man parade indeed, and as such a monolithic archetype for our time. He doesn’t care about anything in particular except himself, the love he’s found, his dog and the lanes and pastures in his neighborhood which he finds great contentment in ambling through.

The songs are short and there’s lots of them, almost twice a^ many as any other album on the racks. Why? Why waste space with repeated choruses, instrumental breaks (except in the fadeouts, and the instrumentals, which are also present and precisely as awful as Black Sabbath's), boring jams, or any of that flapdoodle? Isn’t it. enough for them all to have nice, lulling melodies and inoffensive lyrics? James may not look like an economical man, but he is actually a real cheaper by the dozen conservative when it comes to creation. Lifestylewise, as I said, he’s a punk. It may, in fact, be just this irresolvable dichotomy which has been rending the boy apart lo these years. So come on outa the closet, James: stop trying to be the J.D. Salinger of the count-out culture, slouch on down and drool by the lamppost and the bar with the rest of the wetbacks. You’ll be an even greater American and more of an inspiration than you are now. Shake, Jake.

Lester Bangs

P.S. 1 forgot to mention that John McLaughlin composed and plays On one song on this album. Please, James, don’t blow it now that you’ve gotta shot at the getdown hall of fame by consorting with these cosmo crewcut creeps. Stay fucked up!

WET WILLIE II (Capricorn)

This is the Willies’ second album and after a couple of listenings the only thing that disturbs me about them is that they haven’t gotten more in the way of due recognition. In this fancy, frilly, gotta-have-a-gimmick world, bands which play straightforward, undiluted rock and roll — bands like Wet Willie — somethimes have trouble making themselves heard through all the schlock. More’s the shame. Wet Willie II may never get on the front rack at your favorite record store, but a little extra effort spent searching for it will prove well worth the effort.

The cuts here are almost uniformly strong, from Otis Redding’s “Shout Bamalama,” which opens the album, to Elmore James’ “It Hurts Me Too,” and Titus Turner’s “Grits Ain’t Groceries.” Wet Willie does okay on its own songs too: “Red Hot Chicken” is a nifty instrumental with some fine up-front harp work by Jimmy Hall, and “Love Made Me” by guitarist Ricky Hirsch makes for a nice, slow-tempo change of pace. If there is one song that fails to come off, it’s Little Richard’s “Keep A Knockin’,” never one his better efforts anyway, and not improved on in the least this time around.

But that point of criticism is miniscule; by comparison, Wet Willie II’s accomplishments are humongous. Hall, who sings lead, has one of those gritty Southern white-trash blues voices which sound as if they’re treated with a mixture of Wild Turkey and 20-Mule Team Borax. Hirsch and Wick Larson are solid on guitar, and Jack Hall on bass and Lewis Ross on drums are a glove-tight rhythm section.

The Willies come from Mobile, and except for a tour with the Allman Bros. Band, have done most of their playing in the South. Capricorn, however, usually keeps its artists on wide-ranging, high-velocity schedules, so if you keep looking long enough, Wet Willie will probably be rounding the bend and heading into your area. While you’re waiting, look around for this record, and buy it.

Alex Ward

GRATEFUL DEAD Europe '72 (Warner Bros.)

I’ve been to three Grateful Dead concerts in my life, and at each one I fell asleep. Oh, everybody else was pretending to be shimmying to the good vibes, but I know better. They were really just moving around like centipedes so they, too, wouldn’t fall asleep. Certainly nothing would be more embarrassing than being caught by your counter-culture buddies sleeping at a Dead concert.

It’s a shame, too, that the Dead are such symbols. Already their new triple-decker has outsold itself in record stores all across America. It’s as if nobody had the guts, the death-defying nerve, to pronounce this album the dullest thing since the invention of Herbie Mann. You don’t attack such sacred symbols, you know — you just let them fade away.

But I ain’t about to: THIS ALBUM IS THE BIGGEST BORE ... IT’S WORSE THAN NOVOCAINE!! The Grateful Dead have held monopoly for too long, and for no reason. They’re much too mellow to get it on, and when they’re truckin’ it’s like Wes Montgomery free jazz castrated. They’re total muzak, and hip people just like em because they can float around with the music without having to put any oomph into it. The Grateful Dead are just a bunch of lazy motherfuckers.

I gotta be fair, tho. I mean, Garcia just begs to be assassinated. He stands up there, chugging around like a loose sloth, whipping out a few wrinkly riffs wherever he can fit em in, and then posing for several photos in the same breath. Pigpen is usually rammed up his ass, too, and so sometimes Garcia has to dig around in his crack to find the fat turd in time so he can do his favorite stomping soul tune. Yeah, I’ve seen Pigpen do “Knock on Wood” with shit on his nose.

It’s not that I hate em, tho. I’m just so goddamn tired of them. Hell, I used to own all their fucking albums up until this summer (I got rid of em by trying to hurl em across the mighty Mississippi). I even liked American Beauty for awhile and that first “underground” LP, too, that was such a hit for all those foggy old Downbeat subscribers. But then I heard the Soul Survivors and learned what slamming into the wall was really all about.

So I’m warning you. Stop dead in your tracks. DON’T BUY THIS ALBUM. Chances are everybody and his blue-baby sister already has it anyway, so why join the banana bunch? You don’t need it, besides, cause everything else is on other albums, except maybe “You Win Again” which features squeaky vocalizing. You can’t even drink to it. You can’t even smoke dope to it. You can’t even shit thru it.

But if somehow you do, if somehow you’re so terribly bored you don’t even get itchy britches (like maybe your girlfriend is sick with the flu or something), then I guarantee it, schmuck .. . you won’t be able to get it up for three weeks. Yessiree, it’s that pacifying.

Robot A. Hull

CAROLE KING Rhymes and Reasons (Ode)

I had a dream in which Betty Crocker wanted me to kidnap Carole King so that she could make musical cakes that would play pretty little tunes as they rose in the oven, and I sure hope it happens someday. I always play Carole King records when I’m making hamburgers or cooking spaghetti or fryin’ up some hot dogs in a steaming pot of Colt 45; all those songs are as natural as eating, you start chewing and suddenly you’re singing!

Sure it’s a retrogression, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. I grew up listening to her songs, and it’s great to hear them again, even if they’ve got new titles and conga drums and cellos. I mean all of us would rather be in high school again, and here we go, the circle comes around getting bigger and bigger each time it goes around, and we never learn anything at all. Carole is still flat half the time and she looks like a Jewish Jesse Winchester on the cover, but I love her songs anyway, and here’s a whole album of new songs, some written alone, some written with Toni Stern, and one written with the old master, Gerry Goffin. Carole doesn’t fuck around with concertinas or banjos or mellotrons, she’s still riding that omnipresent, and omnipotent piano for all it’s worth, and it’s worth a pretty penny, I betcha.

Everything sounds familiar, and if it weren’t so there’d be something awful wrong.

See how she flies, breaking all ties

Did anybody really know her?

Did anybody really know her?

She can get away with that and Cat Stevens can’t; I believe every word she sings. Little blonde cheerleaders will get laid for the first time listening to this album; AND I LOVE LITTLE BLONDE CHEERLEADERS!!!!!!!

Been so long, I’m living till then

Cause I’ve been to Canaan

And I wanta go back again

YES! LET ME IN!!! THIS IS THE REAL THING!

God bless the children

God bless us all

JESUS, THAT GIRL CAN SING THOSE SWEET POTATOES CLEAN OFF THE VINE! BORING? IS COLT 45 BORING? SURE, ONCE YOU’VE HAD IT YOU KNOW THE TASTE, BUT THAT TASTE IS FINE AND IT CHANGES YOU EACH TIME IT GETS CLOSE! AND I’D LOVE TO BE CLOSE TO CAROLE KING, CLOSER THAN THOSE LITTLE RECORDS THAT YOU SLIDE ON YOUR STEREO, CLOSER AND FIRMER, WARM AND TOUGH AND HOT AND DRIPPING AND.

GOOD GOD

THIS IS THE REAL THING!!!!

Brian Cullman (401)421-1230

(please print my phone number so Carole can call me when Charles larkey’s out of town.)

CRAZY HORSE At Crooked Lake (Epic)

LOGGINS & MESSINA (Columbia)

What a pain it was to hear the caluculated deliberation of Crazy Horse’s classic first record turn into the ploddingly predictable sludge of Loose. It looked hopeless for this band — until now: yet another internal bouleversement has disposed of George Whitsell and John Blanton, and hence their lame songs and bum singing. They’ve been replaced by Mike and Rick Curtis - a smooth move by whoever’s responsible, because At Crooked Lake is very good. Although irritatingly raucous in spots, it has the tension and guts of the C. Horse/N. Young sessions, and as much imagination and more finesse than their first. But that first record is an exemplar of gritty, punchy rock and roll, and as talented as the Curtis bros. may be, they’re no match for Danny Whitten and Jack Nitzsche. (Editor’s note — Between the time this review was written and the time it was published, we learned that Danny Whitten had died, the victim of an overdose of drugs. He was already dead a month before the news reached us, having passed away on Saturday, November 18th. It was known for years that Whitten was deeply involved with heroin and his use of the drug was the primary reason for his leaving Crazy Horse over 16 months ago. The best of the little recorded work we have of Whitten’s can be found on the first Crazy Horse album, for which he wrote four songs. The death of Whitten is tragic, both because it denotes the loss of a fine musician, songwriter and artist and because of the overtones it holds of what seems to be a growing generational crisis. He will be missed.) Former fans take heart, though, and reconsider your lost faith; Lake is a satisfying piece of work.

“Your Mama Don’t Dance”, a great single if ever there was, isn’t the bellwether for Loggins & Messina’s second effort that I’d hoped it might be. Instead, it’s one of few rockers on an album of quasi-country laments and surprisingly bland ballads. Also alarming is that the boys sound more like Steven Stills here than they sounded like Poco on Siltin’ In. All in all, though, it’s not bad: the music is very tasty, and if the songwriting isn’t all it could be, the high points are much higher than the low points are low (faint praise, indeed).

The real question is whether to bother at all with “second efforts” by good bands -Burrito Deluxe ain’t so hot, Loose is worse, and Powerglide is just plain repellent. But The Burritos paid off big on their next two, Crazy Horse seems to be back on the track, and there’s reason to expect better from The New Riders. At Crooked Lake proves the pudding; but as for Loggins & Messina, the best plan might be to get the single and bide your time ’til we’ve heard from them again.

Gerrit Graham

TEN YEARS AFTER Rock and Roll Music to the World (Columbia)

A group either has to have a gimmick or else cash in on the current fads as they come along. TYA’s gimmick used to be The Biggest Thing in England: “Here they are from ENGLAND, TEN YAS AUFTAH” Yay, cheer, whistle, whoopie, encore (encore?). “Wol no laydies un’ fellouws woid loik ta open wiffa_called_.” During the blues craze they would say “a little blues ditty by Peg Tit Wolinsky called ‘Milkbone Blues’ During the psychedelic era “a monster of a song called “Paisley of the Inner Mind’ ”. During the TV era it was “a Fred Mertz classic called ‘Do the Fred,’ and it goes like this, a one, a two..Ten Years After were never what you’d call the epitome of innovation. In fact, they’ll go along with any fad. The grapevine has it that when Alvin Lee heard about this revival fad he bopped into Columbia Records whistling “Mairzy Doats,” wearing a zoot suit, with plans to turn his combo into the white Mills Brothers. It was then that he heard that it was a rock’n’roll revival, and this album came out of that revelation:

Why is Ten Yeats After shit? I don’t know. I think it’s the same reason why The Paul Lynde Show is shit: it lacks material and three out of the four people in the show are shit. Imagine, Paul Lynde doing a show on how kooky teenagers are. Now if that ain’t the most played out theme; why I can remember when ... BAM, OUCH!! What was that? A, uh, em, a, a brick! I got hit on the head with a brick. ^I’m sorry America, I’m sorry Rockdom, I’m sorry Muse, I’m sorry, I really am. Now I can see the light (I’m sorry Todd). Paul Lynde is playing out a theme HE STARTED in Bye Bye Birdie. Alvin Lee is playing out a theme he started on the Undead album. Let’s face it, what is “I’m Goin’ Home” if not rock and roll, and that was four years ago. So what if Rock and Roll Music to the World is one played out progression? He started it, he’s entitled to do that stuff. So what if TYA isn’t the biggest thing in England? Nobody goes for that hype anymore anyways. So what if the best guitarist in the world lives on your block?

R. Evan Cirkiel