Todd’s Electric Exploitation: Rock and Roll for the Skull

TODD RUNDGREN

A Wizard, A True Star

(Bearsville)

Ya know where Greaser�s Palace ends? That solar burst. The zoot suit Jesus returns to light. Physical atomic end. Well that�s where Todd�s record begins. Side one is pure brain rocket. Rock and roll for the skull. Todd Rundgren�s season in hell.

Put the record on. Internal voyage is not burnt out. Thank the stars for that. Now you got your system of brain travel, Todd got the plane. You�re gonna zoom but beware. What he does is very tricky. Mildly sinister. But I give you the satisfaction that all pain on his ticket is well spent. It beings glowing enough. Like a sacred drug. �International Feel.� Very Baudelaire. Very godhead. And when he moves to �I Know I Know� you know. For one ecstatic moment you�ve gone beyond the point of pain into the realm of pure intellect. I know, here is where I got caught. Not prepared for a transition like �Neverland.� Brutally nostalgic. I got that era under my belt. All about toyland. Once you leave no turning back. Well, why did Todd pull us back? The terror of beauty makes one momentarily bitter. First star to the right and straight on till morning. �Neverland� permanently poisons and sweetens. Gives a subconscious aftertaste. Tinges the whole record with Walt Disney. Also torments and slides you into journey a little weak above the belt. As side one progresses you age. There�s hair on your fingers.

Tic tic. Like the crocodile alarm that pleasantly ticked away Captain Hook�s lifeline, goodie good is wearing off. The move is maniac. Screeching monotone which eliminates mouth, limb and crotch but exalts in brain power. MIT science fiction. The next religion.

Even mbre ear-itating is �Rock�n�Roll Pussy.� Autobiographic as a brainiac. �I�m in the Clique� comes back as �Shove it up your ass, I�m the clique myself.� Sexual power is moving up the spine into the skull. It�s manic it�s magnificent.

Am I getting abstract? It doesn�t matter. Music is pure mathematics. And what is more abstract than trigonometry? Todd is further mystery than Greek. You can�t plot out his journey so easy. Marco Polo was a natural. Electric exploitation is never predictable.

But beauty is just that. The flamingos that wave you into �Zen Archer� leave you breathless. Happy death. And �Zen Archer� is full of wonder. Beautiful. I�m almost embarassed to get so worked up over its brilliance. An elegy. Very German. Who did kill Cock Robin? An expression of his guilt? It makes one dizzy. Uncomfortable. He exhibits certain powers, certain confusions. Naked emotion is very frightening. It�s extended by Dave Sanborn�s saxophone. Elegant and moving as a high and spiraling tombstone.

His language is getting more sophisticated as is his humor and anger. Moving in a very valiant poetry.

The blessing of the turtles/ the eggs lay on the lawn.

Obscure images in �Da Da Dali.� Very painterly. Also very Rodgers and Hart. Oh Jesus where are we on this journey; All adolescence out the window. Fags, fag hags, weaklings, minor visionaries and paranoids caught in the cyclone. For the chosen ones there is one last splash in drug soup and up the yellow brick road to Utopia.

That�s how it hit me. Sound you can�t describe, only experience. Side one is double dose. It takes the bull by the brain. Another point to be examined. He�s always been eclectic. Why didn�t he care? The evidence is here. Something very magical is happening. The man is magi chef. His influences are homogenizings. Like a coat of many colors. May be someone else�s paintbox but the coat is all his. A Gershwin tone some Mr. Kite solid Motown early Rundgren. Several other colors. Telescoping sounds. All manipulated by a higher force. Production itself a form to be reckoned with. The conductor is often more blessed than the orchestra.

There are two sides to every record. Excluding Second Winter. So turn over. This is de soul side. White boys got it you know. Especially ones from Philadelphia. �Sometimes I Don�t Know What to Feel� is eighty per cent spade. It touches. I hope Motown grabs it and pumps it Top 40. �I Don�t Want to Tie You Down� touches too. �?The balance of our minds together/ The perfect give and take.� Girl and boy move to man and woman.

Todd does a soul medley. The way he does �Ooo Baby Baby.� I know he�s no Smokey but I�m addicted to his throat. Cracks and all. I find Todd�s voice very sexy; it makes me feel teen-age. Less than perfect but a bit boozier than last shots. The way he does �Cool Jerk� is genius. Real cartoon. Goofy and Daffy Duck are there. Roller skates, Coney Island laughter, the mad bomber. Jesus, sometimes I think he�s crazy. Certainly not an earthling. The way he transforms mundane to miracle.

The motherfucker is �Is It My Name?� All the animal energy is in. this one. A song that self-destructs. Dirty joke .. .flaming guitar ... {he cunt' .. the man to kick in your brains. It�s all there. I love it. Never has he seemed more like a son of a bitch. In fact that�s another move on this album. Not only is the quality of his intellect heightened but his emotions. This is the least pfedictable. The one closest to sainthood and hatchet murder.

My voice goes so high

You would think I was gay

But I play my guitar in such a mancock way

You only love me for my machine...

"Is It My Name�

Moving into �Just One Victory.� A Rundgren classic. .Very much a single. Though I would die to hear �International Feel� on the radio. To cruise at suicidal speed down the great highway with �I.F.� at full blast:

International feel

And there�s more

Interstellar appeal

Still there�s more

Universal ideal...

Each album he vomits like a diary. Each page closer to the stars. Process is the point. A kaleidoscoping view. Blasphemy even the gods smile on. Rock and roll for the skiill. A very noble concept. Past present and tomorrow in one glance. Understanding through musical sensation. Todd Rundgren is preparing us for a generation of frenzied children who will dream in animation.

Patti Smith

SLADE

Slayed

(Polydor)

People sometimes ask why a serious, welleducated, intellectual fellow such as me wastes his time and enthusiasm on the most insignificant passing trends and the most contrived, trashy music he can find. And I don�t know what to say. I just can�t get into George Harrison, Seals &' Crofts or even Van Morrison and the Band. I like that stuff, but it simply doesn�t excite me the way, say, Bobby Sherman or David Peel do. I must be sick.

But then, intellectual that I am, I have naturally found a rationale for my tastes. Take the Band .-Rock of Ages was a good title for them; they make music for the ages. That�s great, the kids in the next century gotta have something to study, but when it comes to right now, this very moment, the Band don�t seem to have anything to do with what�s happening. Nor, for that matter, do any of the mature, professional musicians in their 30�s. Their stuff is great, but it just don�t relate — to the teenage condition, that is.

And I guess that�s why I get so excited about groups like Slade. Their music is unimaginative, formulaic and monotonous and it teaches us nothing. But does it ever sound good! Heavy beat, pounding rhythm, lyrics about drinking, dancing or nothing at all. And in some way I can�t define, it�s exactly right for now. A year from now they may be forgotten (just like T. Rex, their predecessors on the treadmill) but there�ll be some other group supplying the same thrill, so who cares?

Well, enough justification. The fact that Slade currently makes some of the very best records a rock & roll fan could desire is all that matters. Their sound may be simple but it�s effective. They�ve got those ageless Chuck Berry chords, squeezed to a raw trebly intensity, and Noddy Holder�s widely copied vocal style. Those elements, together with the weird spellings they�ve become known for, can be plugged into just about any song and produce good results.

Slayed is their second album for U.S. Polydor. Some of their best recent singles belong to Cotillion, but they did include �Mama Weer All Crazee Now� and �Gudbuy T� Jane.� The only obvious omission is �Take Me Back �Ome� but you can still (and should) get it on a single.

On the whole it�s a better album than Slade Alive or Play It Loud. �Gudbuy T� Jane� is almost a carbon copy of �Mama Weer All Crazee Now,� which means it�s great, �The Whole World�s Goin� Crazee� is another fine statement of their collective philosophy, �I Won�t Let It �Appen Again� is good enough to be a single, and �Move Over� succeeds in making a fine raver out of Janis Joplin�s strained funk original.

The best part, though, is �Let the Good Times Roll,� actually a Shirley & Lee medley (even if it was lifted from Bunny Sigler) including �Feel So Good.� The demented black R&B groups of the early �50s who played dances every night and tore things apart with their screaming saxes and totally incoherent songs about having a good time, usually couched in heavy sexual innuendo, provide a perfect parallel to what Slade is all about. If they succeed in making you forget everything and just get crazee for awhile, they�re satisfied because that�s all that matters to them. The groups may come and go but the Spirit lives on, and right now it lives in Slade. What else can I say? To quote Rodney Bingenheimer, �They�re what�s happening!�

Greg Shaw

ROLLING STONES

More Hot Rocks

(Big Hits and Fazed Cookies)

(London)

Wonder what mastermind thought up the title of this album? Andrew Oldham, maybe? Well, anyway it�s great because the Stones have been getting pretty flakey lately and everything about this heap�s perfectly appropriate to their present ambience. Like, they were always ones to throw a stew pot pie your way and make you love it. Even their scraps were brilliant, so Flowers was a better album than Sgt. Pepper.

Nothing the Stones ever recorded is too bad to release, we like the rotgut misses as well as the hits, so More Hot Rocks - ideally - ain�t just shekel-grubbing product but a brilliant concept album that will live forever in its porous disorder. The Stones puke it all up indiscriminately, and in tossing away any pretensions about the selectivity of the Artist they become perhaps the only truly profound artists we�ve got. They sling it out with the same almost improvisatory sense Dylan had back when he�d shoot up a buncha speed and dash the songs off, throw �Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands� together in the studio, call the sidemen together and not even hardly rehearse with them, and get a perfect jewellike first take.

So More Hot Rocks has the right idea, and it measures up on the sleazograph - blah title, clutter of pix and not many new ones, cover a psychedelic negative Between the Buttons. Even dogdunce Loog Oldham liner notes for the final touch of shod, just like the good old days.

But this ain�t half the scurve it could be. It makes sense that London gotta put some recognizable reruns on, because there�s plenty recently immigrant Stones fans who don�t have all the original albums and need a copy of �Not Fade Away.� One nice thing is that they put most of the previously unreleased stuff on one side so you don�t have to skip around so much. You can get a clear fix on the Stones� absolute beginnings when they were at least as tattered and loose as they are today; there�s at least two songs here that are definitive masterpieces both in the Stones story and the steeplechase of the Sixties. �What to Do� presents the essential problem of being alive these years:

Maybe when the TV stops

Fading out on the epilog

Watch the screen just fade away

And I really don�t know w,hat to do

There�s nothin� to do

And nowhere to go

You�re talkin� to people

That you don�t know

You�re sick and tired

Of just foolin� around*

The last two lines are what really catch it and make this song as heavy a distillation in its way as �My Generation,� because it�s about the complacent frenzies when you come out the other end. One answer is provided in �We Love You,� the album�s other semi-obscure masterpiece. It came out just when it was needed, in the garland-lulled summer of �67; if the jail doors slamming in the intro are ominously prophetic of the later �Gimme Shelter� realities in a by-now banal counterculture sense, the whole sound and gist of the record was just what the newly pacified children needed exploding in their faces: �We love you. Of course we do!� All of it snarling forward with demonic thrust, heart hammering raw malevolence; only Brian Jones could make a moog synthesizer ooze hate and brimstone fury.

The other stuff is all Fine, too, but you�ve probably heard most of it so many times already that you�ll throw it on to wash dishes by.

Meanwhile, there�s STILL MORE brilliant also-ran sides on the shelf: �Sad Day,� the great funk slush crash �Who�s Drivin� My Plane,� the original primeval murk drek �Stoned,� �I Wanna Be Your Man,� and probably some more that�ve slipped recall just now. Not to mention such treats as the long version of �Everybody Needs Somebody to Love� from the British Rolling Stones, Vol. 2 and the five minute �Out of Time� which was forsaken here in favor of the truncated version from Flowers. There'were a lot of business hassles getting this stuff out at all, and I hear tell that part of the deal that permitted More Hot Rocks specified No More Hot Rocks or any future Stones repackages from London. So it looks like we�re gonna have to scrabble in musty collectors� shops or do without the final remnant of the Stones� subterranean blasts from the past.

Which also makes it worth mentioning in passing that the double live album of the Stones �72 American tour expected from Atlantic/Rolling Stones Records will never see our turntables, because it had three songs on it to which Allen Klein owned the publishing rights, and he wouldn�t let �em loose, the Stones didn�t want to break the show�s flow, so nada. So the fan loses out all the way around. But even if you can�t always get What you need, More Hot Rocks is worthwhile.

Lester Bangs

* Gideon Music (BMI)

FOCUS

Moving Waves

(Sire)

Whaddya think of when somebody like yer geography teacher or Art Fleming or Garrick Utley mentions Holland? Well, if you�re like me you think of the little schmuck who was nosing around at the edge of the country one day and got suckered into sticking his finger in a cement hole by somebody a lot smarter who didn�t have nothing better to do, thereby becoming a national hero (easily amused, those Dutch). Or else you think about those half buck a throw chocolate bars they sell in bakeries, or those windmill affairs, the only use for which I could ascertain was illustrations on the covers of Don Quixote. Or tulips, rows and rows of em which I�d like nothing better than to drive a tank through a couple of times.

Or else you re really current and read the NY Times and know that Holland�s now the in place to score dope, get laid and generally pursue the Great American Dream and that Amsterdam is now one of the neatest places on earth to be. Naturally, where there's all them hippies, there has to be good rock and roll music eventually and it took some time coming but it looks like they finally made it.

Focus are a Dutch four man group led by Thijs Van Leer (pronounced Thijs Van Leer) a multi-talented European with a rapidly increasing forehead. This is actually the band�s third album, and only the first which was released here in the Great Marketplace of the World. But if Moving Waves is any indication, Focus have served their apprenticeship in the studios well, because the album indicates that the band are destined to be ultra-heavyweights among the five-album-a-year set of record buyers (the kind who want albums that are both listenable and useful for impressing chickies or parents).

The opening cut, �Hocus Pocus� is far and away the high point of the entire thing, and casts the rest of the album in a somewhat disappointing light by comparison. It starts off, and is based around, one chunky guitar riff which is repeated no less than ten times during the six and a half minute duration of the song and forms a frame on which little intermittent surprises are slapped down -basic things like drum rolls, Ian Anderson flute impersonations and hard-edged guitar riffs - and slightly more esoteric things like yodels, Woody Woodpecker snarls and the sound of a Dutch birdwatcher jerking off with his lips. With all of this crammed into six and a half minutes, the discerning listener�s reaction is one of ecstatic giggling, terminal knee-slap and a warm, expansive sensation between the cochlea.

The rest of the side, though, is kind of a humdrum affair. Van Leer apparently came from one of those well-known classical backgrounds (i.e., mother played second piccolo in the Eramusville Philharmonic; father composed dirges to Martin Luther) and his influence is wielded to a large and probably hindersome degree throughout. While the two minute �Le Qochard� which follows �Hocus Pocus� is a nice contrast with all its strings and shit, it should have been followed by more of the punchiness that exemplified the first cut. Instead, however, it merely serves as the introduction for a sort of mini opera that takes up the rest of the side. It�s nice and all, but �Janis� would be the perfect soundtrack for a film scene of some stoned, blonde waif wandering lonesomely down a beach while sea-gulls swarmed around her head, and it really doesn�t move you very much.

Side two is all one song, a 22:35 extravaganza called �Eruption,� which the boys had the nerve to subdivide into thirteen different titles, none of which is discernible from its predecessor when commited to wax. Basically, the piece is pretty good — basically tight and inventive — and guitarst Jan Akkerman really shows himself to be master of the electric guitar art-form. All in all, it owes a lot to the Emerson, Lake and Palmer school of near-rock — a bit diddly at times, a trifle boring when stretched over 22 minutes, but basically all right stuff.

Focus have unlimited potential as far as I�m concerned, and I was so impressed with Akkerman that, in a moment of lesser inspiration, I gave him my vote as best guitarist in the famed CREEM Reader�s Poll. It�s heartening that Thijs Van Leer has just released a very classically oriented solo L.P. in Britain, so maybe now there will be less of a desire to fill so much of Focus� next L.P. with music of this sort. Hope so, cuz these clog-shoed dods can really put out when they wanna.

Alan Van Der Niester

DOUG SAHM

Doug Sahm and Band

(Atlantic)

Hi, welcome to 1973! (You�re probably used to it by now, but this was written in January.) It�s gonna be a banner year for rakkanrill (heavy reggae influence on the horizon), starting off with the release of a whole batch of great new1 album covers. Grin�s All Out is just stunning, the new Guess Who goes down in history, and Gaudia Linnear�s Phew - well, she must be the most gorgeous woman who ever cut a record (best picture is on the inside - makes Freda Payne look like Mrs. Miller - a sure winner on the Vogue charts). The best of all may well be Gilbert Shelton�s cartoon on the front of the new Doug Sahm bonanza. Check out that highsteppin� hillbilly in the purple shirt - yes, sir, that�s Bob Dylan, just a-pickin� and a-grinnin�, gettin� his chops down in preparation for session work (they�ll say �he just dropped in,� but don�t you believe it) with Rita Coolidge, Delaney Bramlett, Marjoe and the Rowan Brothers.

DOUG SAHM AND BAUD

Well, as I said, the cover is great (pic of Bob on the back, too). The album ain�t, shore as shootin� — in fact, it may be Sir Doug�s dullest, but let�s not push these guys too hard, OK? Music is its own reward; The people who made this platter had a fine time doing it, and that�s all that really matters, right?

Oh,, we might get picky and say that David �Demon� Bromberg (a beatnik Mickey Dolenz, �cept he don�t sing as good) infects every cut he touches with his emotionless, mindless, pointless dobro-doodle, and that not.only is his music a perfect example of not knowing what to leave out, he ought to be locked out. We could fret that the sound of the album is as homogenized as that city-slick peanut butter The Greening of America came down so hard on, which means that Charles Reich wouldn t like (t - something to consider, these days - but then, Charles is a nice guy, and this is a nice record, all in all. We might be caught �fessin� up to the fact that the only cuts to rise out of the sink are standard Texas blues, and they only because their form, not their execution, is distinctive - nothing here to compare to the barroom funk of The Return of Doug Saldana. I wouldn�t want to be the one to say it, but the disc does feature the worst harp, and the least expressive and least audible singing Bob Dylan has ever recorded. And when the lights are low, we might cop to the likelihood that Bob�s original contribution to the LP, �Wallflower,� shows that he has absorbed his John Prine influences very well, and has succeeded in writing and whining a tune that by no stretch of the imagination could have the slightest affect on anybody.

But there�s no sense to any of this. These guys have given us a lot, more than we can ever repay. It�s up to us to give it back. Because wherever music is, spring can�t be far behind.

Greil Marcus

GRIN

All Out

(Spindizzy/Columbia)

A ridiculously easy winner in 1971�s �most promising� category was Grin, fronted by Nils Lofgren, whose credentials were a matter of public record long before he debuted with his own band. At that time, they�d released two albums — Grin, an erratic opener that had flashes of excitement, and 1+1 With a flawless rockin� side and a soft side that came close to matching it. Grin seemed to be one of the few bands worth taking the time to get excited about. While All Out isn�t the blind leap into uncontested greatness that faithful Lofgrenwatchers might secretly have hoped for, it runs most of the current competition ragged enough to insure that Grin will be a mighty hard band to overlook in 1973.

�Rusty Gun� closes with an acoustic guitar flourish that would leave David Bromberg choking on his own laid-back vomit, leading orte to believe that Nils Lofgren could be explosive were he playing plastic spoons. His guitar can rub your back or bite your head off, but either way he qualifies as one of the most effective guitarists I�ve ever heard. He�s no slouch behind those 88�s, either, using the piano to fill the spaces his guitar can�t reach. His vocal power is a tough edge, like a sneer implied at the corners of a smile. He�s helped in this respect by the more accurate typecasting of drummer Bob Berberich�s grainy voice. Berberich is also an excellent drummer, freed by the solidarity of Bob Gordon�s bass to contribute well-placed asskick fills. Though Lofgren takes most of the headlines, Grin is a band substantially larger than his contributions alone.

The band�s sound on All Out, however, occasionally suffers at the absence of a strong rhythm guitar, a problem that never occurred when Nils was working out interlocking guitar parts with himself. On paper, the addition of brother Tom Lofgren looked like a good move; but, like his stage manner, his rhythm is a bit too retiring, too willing to be overpowered in places by Nils� strong lead. This results in an occasional imbalance (check �Heavy Chevy,� a tune which came on like gangbusters live, but takes its time to explode here). But the basic strength of the material easily bullies any such momentary weaknesses.

The side-openers are both knockout punches. �Sad Letter� is like a ballsier Buffalo Springfield ballad, while the infectious bounce of �Love or Else� indicates a destiny of AM success. �Love Again� is as powerful in its piano majesty as �She Ain�t Right� is in its guitar gymnastics, and all the songs are stamped, in varying degree with enough energetic personality to keep them interesting.

Kathy McDonald is called in to sweeten the harmony on several tracks', but is allowed too many self-indulgences to justify the extent of her presence. (Watch for her own album, to be produced by Nils, for a more accurate reading of her vocal attributes.)

Greil Marcus had it perfectly in focus when, in reviewing the last Grin album for CREEM, he wrote: �He (Lofgren) doesn�t... have to reach for this kind of music — it seems to come naturally to him.� On All Out, however, Nils does seem to be reaching, and loses some of his previous consistency to his ambition. In the end, though, he may emerge stronger for it. He proves (to himself more than anybody else maybe) that he can stand shoulder-to-shoulder with any guitarist, and All Out is best seen as the starting point for a more self-confident attack. Where most anybody can become a competent plagirist, Nils Lofgren is defining a style which, if there is any justice left in the world, might become a tradition which bears his name.

Ben Edmonds

BEE GEES

Life In A Can

(RSO)

NEWS ITEM: February 25, 1967. The Bee Gees arrive in England. After 19 months on Australian Bandstand pushing Clearasil, the Gibb Brothers have decided to take the British pop scene by storm.

NEWS ITEM: March 23, 1967. The Bee Gees� record �The New York Mining Disaster, 1941� is a hit. The New York mining disaster was in 1935.

NEWS ITEM: August 4, 1967. Brother Barry Gibb confesses that he will not listen to Blonde on Blonde because Dylan�s songs are too long. He says Maurice and Robin will only listen to The Sound of Music.

NEWS ITEM: September 9, 1967. Barry Gibb vows never to write a song over 2:38 in * length.

NEWS ITEM: October 19, 1967. Sixteen magazine asks the Bee Gees what they eat for breakfast. Barry answers for the group: �Christmas pudding cream.� Barry does not smile.

NEWS ITEM: November 7, 1967. �Massachusetts� is a smash. The Bee Gees� manager Robert Stigwood admits that the boys have never been to Massachusetts, but wrote the song while on a pleasure cruise in the New York harbor because they liked the name.

NEWS ITEM: December 31, 1967. The Bee Gees have sold 10 million singles and 3 million albums as of this date.

NEWS ITEM: January 1, 1968. That milkdrinking all-Australian pop band has disappeared. It is rumored that they have entered,a cyrogenics clinic in Gary, Indiana to be freeze-dried and, in a cultural breakthrough, returned to civilization at an indeterminate point in the future.

NEWS ITEM: January 1, 1969. A moratorium is held to moum the disappearance of the Gibb brothers. Hare Krishna adepts are called in to chant and light incense for brotherly karma.

NEWS ITEM: April 13, 1970. �Timothy� hits the chart. It is about three miners who are trapped underground as a. result of a mining disaster. When they are rescued only two remain. The survivors have eaten Timothy, the third. The Bee Gees did not write the song.

NEWS ITEM: January 1, 1973. Ostrich farmers in Australia�s outback have unearthed a huge tin receptacle. They wedge open the container and stagger into the bushes retching.

NEWS ITEM: January 2, 1973. Doctor Audrey Anchorbarrel of Sidney Medical Institute stated that the �tin can� contained three male Caucasian humanoids. They were perfectly preserved. One was holding a miniature replica of a Haight-Ashbury signpost, the second clutched a leather-bound copy of Kitchener�s Natal Astrology and the third held a black vinyl disc. Dr. Anchorbarrel reports that the three specimens have been wrapped in a Birdseye cooking pouch and submerged in a vat of boiling salted water for 18 minutes.

NEWS ITEM: January 2, 1973. After 18 minutes at full boil, the frozen figures have been completey defrosted. Could these shriveled remains of psychedelia be our cheeky children of joy, the Bee Gees?

NEWS ITEM: January 3, 1973. At 8:15 GST the trio broke into a round of �Got to Get A Message to You,� then lapsed into stone silence. They could not be coaxed into any further response. Our team of researchers have tried 412 different types of stimuli. Response negative.

NEWS ITEM: January 4, 1973. The black disc has finally been pried from the third humanoid�s mushy fingers. After 14 continuous playings the experts are still undecided whether this is the work of the misplaced minstrels. The monkey wrench is in those oft-quoted words of King Bee Gee Barry: �vow never to write a song longer than 2:38.� Some of the tunes on the disc are as long as 5:39.

NEWS ITEM: January 5, 1973. It is the opinion of this board of cultural review that since the songs contain the same Rod McKuenesque lyrics, the same morbid preoccupations, and the same late-Sixties musical construction, we then may consider the evidence conclusive enough to maintain that this trio is in fact the missing pop band, the Bee Gees.

Shit, I thought we got rid of those simps.

Jaan Uhelszki

GRAM PARSONS

GP

(Warner Bros.)

Let�s not beat around the bush, this is a good album, well worth the wait if you were waiting and even more so if you weren�t. No one could blame you if you weren�t waiting since even the most devoted fans haven�t exactly been holding their breath; talk of a solo album by Parsons has been in the air, on the street and everywhere else for two, maybe three years . . . and hell, the kid�s only 25, 26. He�s not exactly a main-man of rock, but based on the strengths (and even weaknesses) of four albums (International Submarine Band: Safe At Home, Byrds: Sweetheart of the Rodeo, and the two Burrito Brothers records he fronted) he�s been put in the position of being a major hopeful — someone whose best was yet to come and whose best would be pretty fucking good. If only Gram Parsons would make THE album. It was always spoken of in abandon, the way people talked about what would happen if Elvis ever got down to some solid rocknroll, if the Beatles got back together, if McGovern won. It was a longshot, based not so much on what he�d actually done in the past but the force with which he�d done it. His voice had a confidence, a dominance, a fucking teen appeal — he was tough enough, macho enough to get away with pure, unrestrained sentimentality and make it passionate, tender and important to whoever was listening. It�s an AM-radio voice that you heard in the 50�s on the Evevly Brothers and one-shot artists like Jimmy Charles (�A Million to One�), the kind that makes people sit up and listen to Lynn Anderson these days. Shit, he could be singing about kosher hot dogs and you�d still feel like crying.

Some friends at a local radio station called me up a few weeks back and told me they had a preview copy of the new Gram Parsons solo album. Hot damn! I got down to-that station pretty quick, grabbed the record and headed for the listening room. I sat through the first side. .. nothing, boredom. I didn�t even bother with side two, I decided to write off the album as a waste of low-energy and went home to listen to Merle Haggard. But there are some things you just can�t tell about; I thought Exile on Main Street sucked last year, now I marvel at it. That�s� what�s happened with the Gram Parsons album. I got it in the mail, played it a few times and started finding more and more things to like in it, til now I play it constantly and love it.

For once, his backing musicians (who include Elvis�s James Burton and Glen Hardin) neither push Parsons into a rhythm he�s uncomfortable with nor let him slide into an easy, weightless position . .. each song has its own distinct identity, its own pacing. Sharing lead vocals occasionally and harmonizing beautifully is Emmy Lou Harris (who, incidentally, is touring with her own band and singing just fine on her own) providing a strong and charming foil for Parsons to work off. The songs? Yep, they�re good ones, and they grow stronger and stronger the closer you get to them. �Still Feeling Blue� opens the album with a strong beat, close to �Blue Eyes� from Submarine Band days. He sings rockers with more confidence than ever, even doing a creditable job on the J. Geils� Band�s boozey �Cry One More Time,� but it�s on the soft, ballad-like songs that his voice comes through best, full of hurt, wonder and surprise. On these, particularly �A Song For You� and the strange �New Soft Shoe,� the vocals sound like first-takes in the best sense. They�re fresh, unsettled, sometimes unballanced — but they always regain their footing, and, in that regaining, give twice as much power and credibility to those songs than if they had stayed settled all along.

Some are going to be upset since this is a departure from the Burrito Brothers format, others since it�s not quite a return to the simplicity of the Submarine Band, still others because it�s not as ambitious as they�d have liked. Ftick �em. It�s a good record.

Brian Cullman

AEROSMITH

(Columbia)

Sorry, sweeties! No hermaphrodite stew today, but we have got five plug-uglies that�ll getcha ... betcha! Not only do they have archetypal locker-room sneers and kid-nextdoor dimensionality; they ain�t got moustaches* No sir, not one, so already you can breathe a sigh of relief ... no folky tapioca, no Pocoisms, and probably no taste at all, and by me onions, isn�t that just what we�re all looking for? Aerosmith is as good as coming in your pants at a drive-in at age twelve with your little sister�s babysitter calling the action, and that isn�t just good, it�s new; it�s like discovering Nazz or Halfnelson or that a cherry bomb, strategically placed, can fuck up' the toilets at school. They�ve got style up the ass but never lose touch with the 5 o�clockshadow pushiness that is as much a part of rock as dummy spots and bubble skirts were a part of the Fifties� street cosmology, along with baby moons and black slip-ons with the crossed checkered flags on the side.

I like this band because they seem to be true to themselves; there�s no imitation country or superhip posturing or frosted hair and beautymarks, just a few pimples and a full LP of screaming, metallic, creative rock and roll. Their format is of the classic mold: two guitars, bass, drums, a vocalist ... but what they do out of this structure is a fucking pleasure. Sure, you�ll hear influences, some quite obvious at that, but we all had to suck somebody�s tit, and whatta buncha tits these chubby-lipped delinquents have gone after! For starters, they learned a few chords from Rory Gallagher�s Taste days. �Nuff said?

Y�know, it�s too bad they�ve been packaged the way they have, though, because a lot of people are just gonna look at the cover and think �Well, here�s another one of these fuckin� albums with the old blue sky and white clouds on it and the last one I got sounded like the back-up band on this shitty jingle some local dry-cleaner has started using on his TV spots which sound submerged, anyway, so why don�t I just get the new Rod Stewart and save myself some trouble?� Make some trouble for yourself and get this album. They�ve played in my neighborhood and they�re still alive, so what are you waiting for?

Dann DeWitt

MARVIN GAVE

Trouble Man

(Gordy)

DIANA ROSS

(And Others)

Lady Sings the Blues

(Motown)

Sociologists like to talk about black people mimicking whites, and I suppose that it is inherent in the presumptions most of us make about black culture - which is to say, until recently anyway, black music - that we find white cultural parallels for each event and item. That�s not as moralistic as it might sound. We do do that, and often as not the parallels we find are the proper ones, even though there is still the probability that white people (me) don�t see the same things in a black song or movie that blacks do.

Of course, there are exceptions. Super Fly thrilled the shit out of me, because it titillated all my fantasies at once: intellectual hero myths, sexual ones, obviously, and the idea of a totally corrupt police regime. Most of all, because Curtis Mayfield wrote some of the best music of last year for it.

I haven�t seen Trouble Man and it looks like I won�t, but Marvin Gaye�s soundtrack almost has to be one of the best things about it. It�s tough musically, where What�s Going On was almost passive; in fact, I think it sounds more than a little like Herbie Hancock�s soundtrack from Blow Up.. Minus the Yardbirds, of course.

But Marvin Gaye continues to seem better off to me as a singer unlike — to name one — Stevie Wonder, who is fast becoming an all-around genius. Marvin�s music is strong and good, but it is also a soundtrack, which means that it is — for the most part — pretty unobtrusive, and the best parts are invariably Marvin�s vocals. I might come to like this album as much as I admire its predecessor, or for the same reasons, but for now I mostly like it because of Marvin�s voice.

Trouble Man probably wasn�t conceived to be as significant as What�s Going On anyway, \vhich is one of the nice things about it. Lots of it can just be tossed away, and you can get to the meat, if not immediately, eventually.

Lady Sings the Blues is something else altogether. Diana Ross is at the peak of her form and don�t let nobody tell you different. I like Billie Holiday and listen to her records, and think she�s a genius, but to tell you the truth, she sounded dated to me before Diana came on and gave her tunes the Seventies treatment. Maybe this is just another example of my vaunted philistinism, but I listen to Lady�s soundtrack all the time - almost every day, in fact — and I feel less and less guilty about it. I certainly get a lot more out of it than I do out of Holiday�s records, no matter how objectively �great� they may be.

I�m very close to breaking down and admitting that, Aretha Franklin aside, Diana Ross was the greatest female voice of the Sixties. I never thought that before, and I may not think it in a year�s time, but it seems that way now.�Good Morning Heartache,� which is the single, continues on in Diana�s tradition, more than it does in Billie Holiday�s, and while that may bother the purists, it makes me happy.

I also like, because I think it�s effective (and finally, because I think it fucking sounds right) Michel Legrand�s love theme. I don�t know anything at all about Legrand, except that I never liked any of his stuff before (in movies - who listens to soundtrack albums?). Legrand, they say, is in love with Forties jazz, and it shows — there�s a tone of respect in his score which is similar to the tone of awe which Diana Ross and Berry Gordy have allowed to permeate the film itself.

Lady is a two record set though, and it�s mostly the second all-music disc I�ve been listening to. The first one is ok, and the songs are just as fine (should be; lots of �em are the same) but the dialogue gets a little tiresome after a few times.

Maybe the real reason I love Lady Sings the Blues so much, though, is that I loved the movie almost without reservation. Maybe I�m losing ^my rock�n�roller�s credentials by saying so, but there is a maturity in this music, and in the movie too, which white rock and roll just hasn�t got. (Thank god white r�n�r hasn�t got it — in white rock, maturity causes James Taylors and, worst of all, Judee Sills.) Something very strange is going on here, something that has a lot to do with the history and traditions of black entertainment, but I�m not sure what it is. It might just be that Diana Ross is the culmination, after 50 years, of what Bessie Smith and Billie Holiday started out to be. Or it might be that she and Aretha Franklin — whose new material isn�t so very far from this, after all - are precisely the summation of what those great jazz and blues singers were about. But taking it any further puts me back in that first paragraph.

Whatever, Lady Sings the Blues is a treat, albeit an expensive one. I was so excited to see it that I bought a copy, the day before the review ones arrived, as it turned out, and it set me back $10. But I don�t seem to hear myself complaining.

Dave Marsh

WILDERNESS ROAD

Sofd For the Prevention of Disease Only

(Reprise)

These guys are supercompetent musicians. Production is perfection. All the notes fall into self-vindicating clusters: honked, picked, slid, pressed and slapped into submission with appropriate discipline* In spots, the guitar fills are, in particular, oblongata corpuscle churners. -There are six fine songs on this album and the other stuff ain�t put down half bad, either. Odds are I�ll never listen to this album again.

Eclecticism in style on an album, unless it�s pretty crafty, simply makes for record rack filler as far as I�m concerned. Good albums are constructs for moods, whether good or bad moods. It�s like when you look at the mirror and shift poses til that moment of satisfaction with the reflection strikes and you�re able to bongo off into the outside doings temporarily sure that you�re Something that , you know you�re really not. Fiction marches on; sure nuthin� wrong with that. Any album that�s worthwhile mirrors some version of that temporary satisfaction pose. It�s there to set to music whatever you�d like to be this time around the turntable: bright ice cream sunshine licker; cosmic diddler; punk pretension project; dippy folkie; rock stompin� tongue smacker — Hell you�re old enough to read, you know �em all by now.

Well, besides being into rock �n� roll, Wilderness Road is into humor. Side two ends with a nice piece of middle level parody called �The Authentic British Blues,� proceeding from olde artsy-fartsy through early Savoy Brown into a lead perfect Zep splurge. It�s pretty good, too, but it stops with an Ovaltine anguished cry of �wait a minute,� wherein after a recorded clock proceeds to tick out a full minute�s worth of the common currency. Now, I�ve forgiven Moby Grape for the Lou Waxman Orchestra, but I ain�t forgotten.

Side one�s more offensive, farting off 7 and 42/60 of the common currency to project a vision of a Southern fundamentalist radio program (�The Gospel�). It�s okay too, but it�s not funny enough to get very excited about. The musical portions of the program are neatly executed into a final Codyesque Bennie poppin� truckdriver�s conversion testament, �Heavily Into Jesus.� But there are too many interruptions by WORDS. If I want to listen to words I�m gonna talk to somebody

or turn on the TV. Besides that, this dumb honky �autographed picture of Jesus� hasbeen done to death. Nobody can top the Jesus fundies at satire; they�re past masters at doin� the Master Bit. Widening the satirical circle any further is yeeech blaah. Wilderness Road should realize that too. There�s an excellent foot stompin� ass scratcher on this record: �Bored.�

Buck Sanders

BEACH BOVS

Bolfawd

(Reprise)

Mike Love is the real genius behind the Beach Boys. The mistaken assumption that it was Brian Wilson would have died along with Brian in that untimely sandbox accident years ago but for the efforts of former Beach Boy publicist Derek Taylor, who with uncanny foresight saw the value of using the Brian Wilson: Myth or Hoax stories to boost the Boys� then-sagging career. But wasn�t it Mike Love who all along blew those soulful sax blats in the background of some of the Beach Boys greatest hits? And wasn�t it Mike whose twisted leer and werewolf beard set those Japs to cackling on the back cover of Pet Sounds? And who has always had the longest facial hair? Not A1 Jardine! But with true aesthetic humbleness, he�s always kept himself in the background, maintaining his image of the 35-year-old uncle and source-of-embarassment the guys once let pretend he was playing with the band onstage and then somehow blended his way into the group.

Like all good geniuses, Mike has always had a streak of madness which threatened to overcome his creative faculties and render him a helpless babbling Ghandi-face. This is the result of his mom getting that little twinkle in her eye when she was pushing 70, resulting in his slight Mongolism and premature baldness. At any rate, Mike went off the deep end around the time of the Sunflower album and demanded complete control of the group or else he�d expose a number of Wilson family secrets like who it was that really punched Brian in the ear, causing his deafness (it was Van Dyke Parks) or the fact that the legendary Smile was never released because it was never recorded; it was just another of Derek Taylor�s little white lies. The Boys held a meeting at the bottom of Al�s pool and fearfully acquiesced.

Given the guiding paw, Mike began his master plan of replacing the rest of the band with Hollywood studio musicians and exmembers of the Joe Harnell Sextet; the real Beach Boys retired to private life in and around Hawthorne, California, opening gas stations and health food stores. Mike�s final stroke of genius/madness was the substitution of two black South Africans for Bruce Johnston, thus completing the air of Social Consciousness he had gradually been introducing to the group since �Student Demonstration Time.� Of course, the albums still featured mostly material by the original Beach Boys, culled from solo instrumental albums the group members recorded not long after Sunflower, which were never released. Mike and Jack Rieley (Derek Taylor�s replacement) add lyrics and vocals to these tracks as they are used, consequently claiming half the royalties for themselves. Mike has already run out of Bruce Johnston material, Bruce having recorded only a solo single, and has nearly depleted his hoard of Brian Wilson compositions, which is why we�ve been getting only one per album and a lot of talk about Smile leftovers. As for the other members, Mike has gradually altered the frequency of their appearance so as to decrease their familiarity to the fans and increase that of the newer members and Mike himself.

Thus we have Holland. This is probably the last we�ll be hearing of Brian, as the entire second side of his belated solo album is included here as a bonus EP, �Mount Vernon and Fairway,� and the other two compositions credited to him are merely doodles of melody that Mike found on an old tape and added lyrics to A1 Jardine�s lengthy �California Saga� was also the whole second side of his album, which was a rather lukewarm project at best, so it looks like the world will have to do without his chipmunk charm and gopher grace also. The Carl vat is starting to run low, so Mike has recycled the music to �Long Promised Road� from Surf�s Up for Carl�s �Trader� while persuading Jack to write some new lyrics. Luckily, Dennis left behind a profusion of songs composed for Brian�s funeral, which can be freely inserted whenever something is needed to slow down the pace a bit.

As for Mike and the others, it�s easy to see we�ll be exposed to more and more of their taste treats in the future, although it�s been rumored that Mr. Love might abdicate his present position in the group and take on the status of retired producer, composer and all-purpose guru-in-residence. Then Jack Rieley can start replacing the present members of the group with advertising executives, personal managers and maybe even a spare roadie or two. After all it was Jack�s idea (by way of a secret agreement with Capitol Records) to incorporate Pet Sounds with Carl and the Passions, thereby doubling the list price at half the cost, so the guy obviously has what it takes. Plans are to make the next one a four record set, with one �new� album and repackagings of Beach Boys Party, Wow!, Great Concert!, and Beach Boys Holiday Greetings, and after that, a new single included along with the best outtakes from Stack-O-Tracks, a handful of old surfing albums, and live recordings of their last European tour and Carnegie Hall Concerts, and after that... well, who knows where it could end? Mike Love does, and he ain�t tellin� no one.

Dick Johnson

SEEP PURPLE

IHIhg Do We Think We Are!

(Warner @r@(ll8Hi)

Midi ih Japan

(fPSP - Import)

Deep Purple sure does play a goddamn LOUD concert. I thought Cactus and Johnny Winter were bad, but hell, Jon Lord knows how to cave in those eardrums. One time they was playing such a vibrating set that the twerp next to me got his insides all shooken up and barfed all over my cowboy boots. I shoved his face in his own puke.

However, I really dig the shit out of volume and I wanna get ill at a rock concert or I haven�t had a good time. I bet the Japs on the new Made In Japan import either got bored or sick. I can�t figure out yet. I mean, Japs enjoy all that pentatonic oriental twang crap and most rock groups over there are like avant-garde versions of Blood, Sweat and Tears. That�s not Soft Machine-King Crimson-Yes spiral trickteasers; no, the Japs wanna hear electronic music like when all the static shit drains their brains from their transistor radios. You know, everybody over there is a computer jock. So Deep Purple gives it a try. �Lazy� is highheaven with showoff organ and it�s the only cut other than �The Mule� (which is sheer throwaway material cause it�s a drum solo) that was recorded in Tokyo. �Space Truckin�� is dandy and loose with lotsa juice, Bruce, and the rest of the double delight is so good that I rank it up there with Allman Bros. Live at Fillmore and Wishbone Ash Live In Memphis and the Savoy Brown Boogie set on the classic A Step Further. It�s all as solid as the old Blue Cheer�s wall of sound, and you even get to hear all those funny Japs make wierd mumbling sounds throughout the concert. And they even got strange chants which they use to brainwash the lead guitarist into performing his version of Chet Atkins� �Wheels.� All in all, it�s a blast, but the record label is fucked up and I never wanna hear the whole thing again.

So I put on something shorter and more tight and abandoned. That�s the new one on Warners, which ain�t as good as Machine Head (their best and one of the greatest albums ever) cause it�s more like Fireball (only the critics liked that one). But �Smooth Dancer� offa this album could easily go on Machine Head. It features the flashiest organ work I�ve ever heard on record not to mention a rhythm that really jives. Also, �Rat Bat Blue� which could be the catchiest since �Whole Lotta Love.� All the punctuation on the song is slammed back and forth on the offbeats and it�s sorta like bats were fluttering inside your skull cavity and trying to scrape the ooze out. And then there�s �Super Trooper� which is like getting a gyzm enema.

The packaging is the same old story — spatial-time trixx. Floating bubbles drift and croon out in the ionosphere picking up electrical impulses which lightning strands dash into your central nervous system which starts the whole thing shakin�. They�re pretty bubbles, though, and I�d like to live in one.

But the title is dumb, and on the inside are all sorts of clever clippings from mags and newspapers about Deep Purple�s struggle for fame and glory. It�s about as funny as Terry Knight�s liner notes on the back of Mark, Don & Mel.

Yet, I don�t wanna sell anyone short. Let�s just say that Who Do We Think We Are never gets old ... you just don�t feel like listening to it much, even if you�re a heavymetal maniac. As for the live import, it sure was expensive. I suggest you talk a friend into buying it first and then maybe you can tape it or talk him into eventually giving it to you. Cause I sure wouldn�t blow nine bucks on a goddamn stupid rock album, even if it is Deep Purple.

Robot A. Hull

DEREK & THE DOMINOS

In Concert

(RSO)

In last month�s CREEM, a reader named Vic Stanley wrote to say: �Eric Clapton is dead! (Prove otherwise.)� You can brand Vic some kinda crank if you want, but one�s mighty hard pressed these days to refute his contention. Clapton apparently doesn�t make records anymore, and as if this El Hombre Invisible riff wasn�t bad enough, he even looked like a stiff in the picture on the cover of his first and best anthology-reissue-repackage, Atco�s History of Eric Clapton. The liner notes of that one read like some eloquent eulogy for another rock casualty, and the musical lifeline on the records depicted a man in a state of methodical retreat: from guitar whiz kid to Yardbirds flash to Cream superstardom to solo work (which all but swamped him in its saccharinely standardized production) to playing backup for lesser talents off the same axis to one brilliant mainstream rock album with Duane Allman to silence and exile broken very occasionally by random appearances (usually in a subordinate role) at cosmic social events catered by the floating crap game of international pop music celebrities.

If that seems a bit harsh, it�s only because so much brilliance has been muffled here. Not even snuffed out in a mythic blaze like Duane Allman — just smothered like asbestos shoved down your craw or a baby in a refrigerator. Not to suggest any sinister manipulation by malevolent peers as in the great Leon Russell-Joe Cocker and David Bowie-Lou Reed apocrypha, and not to indulge in the usual cheap oraculations about Self Destructive Genius in the wasteland and blown away. But Jesus Christ, can you remember the initial stun of Five Live Yardbirds, the thundering double tracked solo on �Sweet Wine,� the lyricism and dizzying dual rushes of the Layla album? Yeah, it was all a long time ago, but it don�t fade away.

If you do remember all that and want to stay even marginally happy, then forget about this album. Because this piece of dreck represents one of the nullest excesses in a time when we�ve all been so drenched in excess as to become totally acclimated to it. It became a problem with Cream and the Grateful Dead was founded on the principle of open-ended overload as some kinda communion with the infinite, but this set makes Europe �72 look like a Raspberries album.

The recording quality is poor, the-vocals are muddy and barely passable in the first place, but where Derek and the Dominos in Concert really disintegrates is the solos. Even when he stretched his statements to the edge, as on �Spoonful,� the Eric Clapton of past recordings always retained some vestige of economy and the sense not only that he was consciously building something but that he was leaving out as much as he layed in. But this is mostly just muddle^ idiot riffing for no reason at all, like 14:40 of �Got to Get Better in a Little While� Stuffed with countless reiterations of the chorus line while the guitar tiredly doodles around it. It�s worse than the Dead at their nadir, it�s worse than the worst of Jimi Hendrix� recent insulting dustbin exhumations, it�s the dullest, drabbest, flattest, saddest thing I�ve heard in ages.

Now I hear Clapton�s pulled up again for a big English concert with Townshend and Ron Wood and all them other guys doing all the classic expectables, and who knows, maybe we�ll even get a momento album of that event by next Christmas, or �Layla� will be turned into a rock opera, or Eric will show up in a few months playing in the wings on the big Claudia Linnear tour. But the one thing that�s sure is that it don�t got to get better at all. %

Lester Bangs