Mott: Triumph of the Dudes

RECORDS

Mott: Triumph of the Dudes

MOTT THE HOOPLE Mott (Columbia)

Mott the Hoople have been threatening to pull a masterpiece on us ever since their first album, a strong slow tide of outtakes from the headwaters of Blonde on Blonde. Later they proved they had mania to burn too; the wildest of Brain Capers was as fettle a spew of rage as we've known. It was uneven, sure, but the laggard interludes — half-realized cover versions, fuzzy originals, overlong jams -were more than compensated by the rushing plasma thick force of the totally realized Mott sound: "Sweet Angeline", "The Moon Upstairs." And besides, it was good to have all those ganglial rough edges sprawling everywhere. Because this was a real blustery do-ordie band, see, they still knew how to break down doorsand maul the joint right. Their old producer Guy Stevens was a wired up Sardonicus, and they personally liked to destroy and overextend. Which they did until it was almost too late.

Tore down and on the point of breaking up, they were rescued by David Bowie, who gave them his one enduring masterpiece, slap that boyo five, and the first big hit single of their career. The All the Young Dudes album followed, along with a growing sense of estrangement within the uptight environs of the Bowie organization, which handled Mott Until ii became apparent (as with Iggy) that both parties would be happier if management didn't have to divide its time between the golden boy and his erstwhile peers, whom he declared were "stealing too much of his identity."

But this is getting bitchy, and that's all talcum in the trail of the release of this new Mott the Hoople album, which is not only the best thing they've ever done but an unqualified rock "n" roll masterpiece. One of the finest achievements of the year, it proves both that Mott don't need no,David to hone thdir chops (Mott produced themselves this time out, and they wrote and arranged all the songs) and that by dint of being the real thing (i.e. a hardworking band) in a field clotted with preening Lonely Geniuses they can kick ass on even so highly realized a plate of lath figurines as, oh say Aladdin Sane. Because, dizbiz, Mott's got everything. N)ass. Macho. Mellotrons. Metal. Priapism. Pusillanimity. Production. Mainstream Moves. Main Street meat. Most of the things that made the Sixties, like Dylan, Byrds, Stones, Lou Reed & Velvets, as well as a heavier dose than ever before of the purehammered unmistakable Mott sound. Ahh, I'm in love with this record, because it's rich, it's a bitch, it's packed with pure content which is only enlivened by the power punching all this mastery.

Snatch. Take "All the Way From Memphis," with its great funky piano opening, arcing guitar lunges, Andy (Roxy Music) McKay's honking sax all in one big rocking surge. Yank the lyrics out of the roar: "It's a mighty long way down rock "n" roll/ From the Liverpool docks to the Hollywood Bowl/ Gotta climb up a mountain to fall down holes... and there was my guitar/ Electric junk/ Some spade said, Rock "n\ rollers, you're all the same..."

Whirling into "Whizz Kid," a haunting melody with a superbly atmospheric sense of yearning that's somehow Mott mere and pure New York too. And always that solid metal drive underneath the (passion thru) jivehanded love lyrics: "Little Whizz Kid. mystified me/ She was a New York City Beat/ She came on flash/ Monster Mash..."

"Hymn For the Dudes" is a stately ballad in first Mott LP/ Procol Harum vein. But way more than that, reaching out to the psychically dispossessed, spaced youth after the rubbly anthem of "All the Young Dudes": "One by one through fields of rusted wire/ The war's'just begun.. . You are not alone.. . Too many questions/ No replies now... Got an idea/ Go tell the superstar/ All his hair's turning grey..," Zat last part to Bowie I wonder? No m.ought, matters not, he's elba'd outa the circus now, but in case his producer's lobe (which's superb, credit where) is listening, gotta say HEY DAVE, DIG THIS SUPERB USE OF VOCAL CHOIRS! All the promise of the first album fulfilled here, and since I\ just gotta test pressing sans the for-once justified lyric sheet I'm still picking out the words from Ian Hunter's magnificently thorny delivery. What does "sweet instant Christian" mean? No matter, it feels great, just like the amazing Buffalo Springfield-like chorus Mick Ralphs pulls in a pretzel outa "Pm a Cadillac," or how "Drivin" Sister" makes your teeth hurt and you like it, and "Honaloochie Boogie" reminds you of so many things, likeBeatles, Beach Boys, older rock "n" roll, "tell Chuck Berry the news" spiraling into an unmistakably Pacific bright pop sound mid all the noise^

But there's more. "Ballad of Mott the Hoople" is even more moving and personal than "Hymn For the Dudes": ."I changed my name/ In search of fame/ To find the Midas, touch/ Oh I wish I'd never wanted then/ What I want now twice as much. . . You know all the tales we tell/ You kriow the band so well/ Still I feel somehow we've let you down/ We went off somewhere along the way/ And now I feel we have to pay." The song was recorded early in 1972, and was almost certainly written as an epitaph for Mott the Hoople in their days of confusion and despair before Bowie brought the geeze they needed with "Dudes." The beauty of this magnificent suicide note is only enhanced by the brilliant way in which the rest of the album gives the lie to it.

Just like "I Wish I Was Your Mother" belies its precedents by transcending folk-rock thru good old Mott hostility. Dylan, McGuinn, more energy than either of them creeps've displayed in ages, and don't tell me about the McGuinn solo album. This is the real thing, with the drive and bite of early Love, the grandeur of oncet Byrds and "Like a Rolling Stone.*" The lyrics of this song contain the secret of the universe. Either that or the most murkily involuted incestuous trance since Eugene O'Neill. Either way, the mandolin and shrill, poignantly atonal Dylan harp echoing off at the end are true aortic G string tuggers.

The masterpiece of masterpieces, though, is "Violence," which combines musical elements of Faces" "Borstal Boy," Lou's "Vicious," maybe "Jesus Christ Superstar." and pure carnal droll to stage an archetypically exemplary argument between some poor desperate pentup prole bastard and his eternal foil, that smug smegmensch who's got your kicking nerves pat now bloated into a truly late-modern epicepe monster. "I'm a missing link!" hollers our hero, "Poolroom stink! I can't talk!"

"Well," leers the old bald smacking androgyne, "That's too ba-ad!

Yeah, but "What's goin" on? Something's wrong! I can't go to school! Teacher's a fool! Preacher's a jerk!"

"(Teh,slurp] Such a draahg..."

"Got nothin" to do! Street'corner blues! And nowhere to walk..and then here it comes, the slobbering old schtup crooning in his ear: "Violence! Violence! It's the only thing that'll make you see sense!" while a hydrophobic violin froths garlands in the other speaker. The tension is'no-exit, hurtling guitar, drums at a gallop, skittering violin all mounting in a writhing crescendo of flailing nerves, which then explodes into a barroom brawl — "Just you V me mate!" - false ending, hurlyburly back up and out with full ensemble clashing like a berserk thresher.

If you don't buy this album, you deserve to be jaded.

Lester Bangs

CAROLE KING Fantasy (A & M)

Soon after the enormous success of Tapestry Carole King came to be considered something of a cultural reactionary to the "true keepers of the rock "n roll flame" who often use this magazine as a soapbox.

Which is really ridiculous, when you consider that Carole King, if not singlehandedly, did co-write "On Broadway," "Up On the Roof," "Locomotion" and dozens of other songs that formed our rock sensibility in the sixties. And unlike so many of her peer singer-songwriters in the last two decades, from Paul Anka to Bo Diddley to Neil Sedaka to Chuck Berry, Carole has not gotten lamer, she's become more perceptive.

A few things bother me about Fantasy, but for the most part it's a concept album that works as both a concept and an album. With the first cut, she lays it on the table, telling us that "I may step outside myself/ And speak as if I were someone else. .. In fantasy I can be black or white, a woman or a man."

Basically, Carole King covers the turf she knows best. Most of the songs are about human relationships. Some, like "Weekdays," are painfully precise insights into the minds of bored suburban housewives.

Others take us out of the suburbs and into the inner city. "Haywood" is an R & B anti-smack song that takes place somewhere across Carole King's 110th St. Ditto for "Welfare Symphony," though here the lyrics do verge on condescension. "Corazon" is a latin number, which provides a needed change from the standard C. King rhythm structure.

The album moves surprisingly well, considering. that each cut is connected to all the others by musical bridges: there are no pauses between songs. And while her rhythms are often repetitious, the music works on Fantasy because it's so loose - at times, it's downright sloppy. Which is a real variation from the tightly structured, dull gloss of Tapestry's spin-offs. There's plenty of room to get funky, and stalwarts like David T. Walker on guitar and Curtis Amy on sax do just that.

It also makes a more comfortable setting for Carole's voice, which is hardly the best interpretive vehicle in show business. Many of the songs here would sound better in other people's hands - I'd love to hear the Isleys crank up "Heywood," while natural singles like "You've Been Around Too Long" or "That's How Things Go Down" could fit info anyone's repertoire, from Gladys Knight to Melissa Manchester.

So thre is a good deal more in Carole King's Queens College soul than merely the Pynchonian Tupperware party she's come to represent. She's been making specifically suburban alienation/ romance music for over a decade, and it still sounds right. AH those people who feel most comfortable in life sitting in a MacDonald's parking lot on Firday night and don't like Carole King are objecting to form over content, because we're all from the same place - Beachboys, Blue Oyster Cult, Carole King - just three points on the same continuum. And if Carole King makes living in suburbia just a little bit easier, that's fine with me.

Wayne Robins

THE SWEET Blockbuster (Bell)

Lemme start out by saying that after roughly 11,347 unwilling exposures to "Little Willy" on the radio, I really was prepared to despise anything the Sweet released. But I'm drivin" around one day and a siren comes over the airwaves - I flash on "D.O.A.," even "Indiana Wants Me" - and this incredibly Yardbirdsy tremelo blues riff starts poundin" its way through my skull and the singer is screamin" about how some fella named Buster is going to "steal your woman out from under your nose." In the middle there's a great tongue infested rhythm non-solo, then the sirens come back and it's over and the DJ says it's the new single by Sweet. I started thinking that there was more here with this Sweet business than met*the eye, so I got hold of the record, and you know what? This is the best goddamn record I've heard this year, bar none, not even The Oysters or Iggy!

Why? Well, up until now nobody's really bothered to explore the DMZ that lies between the forces of bubblegum and metal. And the two are really a lot closer to each other than you might think. Now wasn't "Happy Jack" bubblegum music? Or "I Can't Control Myself"? And from the other side, how about Tommy James" "I Think We're Alone Now" with its chromium edged bass line; or, even better, "Yo Yo" by Donny and his bros. And where did possibly the ultimate punkoids, the Shadows of Knight, go after "Gloria?" Straight to the bubblegum world of Kasenatz and Katz, that's where!

As technology forces kiddies to grow up faster and faster, it's logical that the two forms would start to merge as teen tastes get caught in the middle. And that's precisely where Sweet's music rests, drawing on the best of both worlds through good old fashioned synthesis and riff swiping. And why not, "cause that's what rock V roll's all about anyway, right?

There are bits and pieces taken from just about all sources imaginable flyin" around in the happy, unselfconscious schizophrenia of the Sweet sound. They have two formula songwriters, Chinn and Chapman, churning out hit songs for them to do. And besides "Willy" (still can't get behind that one though it does sound better twice a day than 500 times a day), "Blockbuster," "Wig Warn Bam," and "Hell Raiser" are all great songs done up savagely by the band. I like "Wig Warn Bam" the best "cause it's a really stupid sounding song about Hiawatha and Minihaha getting down to business by the "silver stream." It's got that Who chord plunge at the beginning, a Duane Eddy fuzzed out slide solo and a whole verse with just vocal and tom toms. And all in three minutes. If it ain't a hit, I'll eat this review, "cause it's got everything you'd want out of a single.

The Sweet's original tunes, all co-authored by Connolly, Priest, Scott and Tucker (don t know their first names and it doesn't matter "cause they're a BAND) are fairly intelligent cops from Alice, Iggy, Deep Purple, the Sabs, and the MC5. "New York Connection" pulls the rhythm solo from "Born To Be Wild" just for effect and ends in an electronic earthquake that makes me flash on all the tunes on Kick Out the James — no foolin". "Need a Lot of Lovin"" borrows a big chunk from "High-, way Star" musically and vocally, and it's a great "goin" to the dance, hope I get some action" snaperoo. Hell, "Man From Mecca" even has a backwards guitar solo, and when's the last time you heard one of those?

There's even a super ballad (acoustic, no less) called "Spotlight." It's an instant classic about a guy workin" at the dance and havin" his girl show up with another fella: "I won't be able to dance with you, but I'll see every little thing you do.,, I'm workin" the spotlight baby." Sheer genius from start to finish.

Of the ten tracks on Blockbuster, nine of "em sound like smash singles. And if you're still sittin" smug after "Blockbuster" and "Wig Warn Bam" have torn up the top ten, just wait till "Hell Raiser" hits you right between the eyes. And don't say I didn't warn you.

Billy Altman

RAHSAAN ROLAND KIRK Prepare Thyself to Deal With A Miracle (Atlantic)

A miracle? Nope. Prepare thyself to deal with the most enigmatic man in the world of Dear CREEM Readers:

JETHRO TULL A Passion Play (Chrysalis/ Warner Brothers)

Having been foolish enough to assign it to myself, I have listened to this goddamned thing ten times, in hopes that I could find at least 23 cogently reversible words to say about it. I found myself totally bamboozled. Other than remarking on some nice hoppingburro rhythms, how I've always wanted to hear Ian Anderson sing "Rice is Nice," and the fact that any album with a cover like this (dead ballerina wit blood runnin outa her mouth) is sure to sell like Miracle Pictures of Jesus on gospel radio (big bucks), I have absolutely nothing to say about it. I almost jazz, but don't be expecting no miracles, please.

Everybody knows about Rahsaan Roland Kirk, the man who sprung on the jazz scene with a non-gimmicky gimmick of playing several instruments simultaneously. He's done time with some of the big names as a sideman, and put out an impressive number of albums of his own. He's also managed to build himself into quite a media figure, shaming TV stations into giving more time to what Rahsaan (and I, to somedegree) calls "Black classical music," or what was formerly known as jazz. Rahsaan feels that the American musical Establishment has systematically ignored Black musical innovators from Scott Joplin to Louis Armstrong to Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington to Charles Parker to Charles Mingus to Miles Davis to Ornette

like it, even though it sort of irritates me. Maybe I like it because it irritates me. But that's my problem. Anyway, I don't have to review it because I'm making bets on the charts instead of writing record reviews this month. I bet a guy that works for WarnerElektra-Atlantic 50 bucks that Passion Play was gonna be the number one album in. the country. I'm gonna win, of course, so I got no problems except one: how to get this dog reviewed. Therefore, in the true tradition of democracy and buck-passing, I leave it to you, the readers, to assess the new Jethro Tull album for CREEM. We don't care whether you like Jethro Tull or not, and this is not a contest. But we're (I'm) sure that you have at least as much to say about J.T. and P.P. as any snootful rock critic. So in as few words as possible, please tell the rest of our readers, (a) Why are Jethro Tull, and (b) What is Passion Play about:

Lester Bangs

P.S. Mail those reviews to me, P.O. Box P-1064, Birmingham, Mich. 48012. (And thanx and a tip of the beanie to Ed Ward, who gave me the bright idea.)

Coleman and right on down the line. He's right, of course: "classical" music is supposed to be what you sit in upright silence listening to with reverence; "jazz" is toe-tappin" music played by hopped-up cullud folks in bars. No matter that a lot of today's "jazz" is anything but toe-tappin" (or played exclusively by Blacks) and that some of us tap our toes to Haydn.

The bottom line, however, is music. Rahsaan is a master showman: I remember one night when he played Mandrake's in Berkeley, and wound up the performance by leading a conga line right out the door, playing the Jackson 5 hit, "Never Can Say Goodbye." He made the place jump as much as Commander Cody ever has. But when Rahsaan makes a record, much of that energy just doesn't make it to the grooves, being visual and all that. That is why his recent waxings have been a drag - there's never enough there to make you ever want to play them again. This latest one is some improvement, but not much.

In the first place, I would hereby like to offer Jeanne Lee a free trip to Africa where, according to the liner notes, there is no electricity and hence, I suppose, no microphones or recording equipment. Her noxious vocalisms have ruined more than a dozen jazz and Black classical recordings in the past year, and she's such a loudmouth that you can't ignore her. Gwan, git, Jeanne: go check out some of your own Black miracles. Grrr.

Okay, now that we've gotten rid of her, what's left? Side Two is a "Saxophone Concerto," that is widely hyped as a 21minute blow without a stop for breath, but as music, it's pretty thin. Still it has its moments, and can serve as an adequate introduction to some of today's stylings. Side One is uneven: "Salvation and reminiscing is way above his recent stuff, as are parts of the suite "Seasons." "Celestial Bliss," on the other hand, suffers from a real lack of ideas. And that's all there is to the record.

I'm hedging. I don't really want to put Rahsaan down for two reasons: his live show is a blockbuster (a double live album is imminent) and he has done immeasurable good in pointing out the virtues - not to mention the existence — of dozens of his colleagues to both the mass television audience and the young white "hip" audience that goes to see him. When the music is in a state of crisis like it is now, this sort of missionary work is invaluable^ but when it all comes down, it comes dqwn to music, and you have to deliver. This record does not deliver.

The solution: go sec him live. Or go see McCoy Tyner or Ornette Coleman or Don Cherry or Mai Waldron or Cecil Taylor or Alice Coltrane or Archie Shepp or Charlie Haden or Noah Howard or somebody. It's just music, you know. Nothing to be afraid of.

Ed Ward

LEON RUSSELL Leon Live (Shelter)

The first thing you gotta figure out is if you want three records of Leon Russell. Cause make no mistake, there's an hour and 48 minutes worth of him here, no cheap Chicago tricks, devoting one side of one of the records to applause pr Don Preston telling party jokes. You get a ton of music, and whether or not you like Leon, a lot of it's pretty impressive - especially when you notice that the whole thing was recorded in one night. One night! He plays piano like a mad dog. And, in a year when only three people in the continental United States (not including Puerto Rico) have had hard-ons, the energy level maintained throughout is staggering. These guys play like they've never even heard of quaaludes.

The band is made up of solid pros, rehearsed as tight as Doc Severinson's outfit, so there's no wanglin-danglin around. They stmt their way through Leon's double-barreled rock "n" gospel hustle, Rev. Henderson and Phyllis Lindsey's spirituals, and Don Preston's blues, and nobody gets lost or messes up or leaves the stage to go to the bathroom. If you don't think that kind of discipline succeeds in rock "n" roll, you're nuts — old man Russell's traveling gospel show makes most every rock band who's ever recorded live look positively cheesy. Only Dylan's Albert Hall bootleg with the Band, the Stones" Ya Yas, or The Standells Live at P.J."s can compare. /

You get live versions of "Delta Lady," "Dixie Lullabye," "Stranger in a Strange Land," and of course a whole, side devoted to Leon's "Jumpin" Jack flash"/ "Young Blood" medley. Which is weird, cause within a year, thanks to this and Bangla Desh, most folks under 16 are just gonna naturally figure "Jack Flash" was Leon's song all along. You get maybe 200 other songs, the great melodies of the world, including "The Mighty Quinn," "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue," and "Night on Bald Mountain," and enough tortured gasps and moans to embarrass Johnny Ace and his mother. It."s all part of the show, good, slick jive, and it lasts longer than your everyday Clint Eastwood movie. And it doesn't come in a box the way George Harrison, Bangla Doodah, and Penderecki triple treats do, so you can't accuse the man of ostentation!

Brian Cullman

The New Nashville?

BILLY JOE SHAVER Old Five and Oimers Like Me (Monument)

TANYA TUCKER What's Your Mama's Name? (Columbia)

JOHNNY RODRIGUEZ Introducing (Mercury)

FREDDY WELLER To Much Monkey Business (Columbia)

Well, you might not be able to tell from all the noise being made about it these days, but country music is in trouble. Not in sales hell, no! It's selling better than ever. But there is the disturbing fact that, in his rhid-40's, Johnny Cash is actually one of country music's younger performers. Add to that the fact that the teenagers who i used to buy country records are much more likely, these days, to be going for James Taylor or (gasp!) Poco than Hank Williams, Jr. or even Loretta Lynn, and you have the makings of a crisis. Some artists rock up their material, but then the conservative country deejays don't play them. Country music has never exactly been a bastion of innovation, but it hasn't helped that its future has, until recently, been in the hands of a small number of aging men. Just ask Waylon Jennings.

So, under the covers, so to speak, there's been a kind of hunt for a new generation of country musicians, ones who would appeal to the teens and their lifestyles without alienating their parents, who buy a considerable share of the records. The first one they came up with was Kris Kristofferson, who came with the imprimatur of Johnny Cash himself during the Man In Black's prime days of preaching tolerance. But one swallow does not a summer make, and the search continues, with some weird results. First off, there are the second-line Kristoffersons, people like Billy Joe Shaver. He really fits the image: scruffy, wasted-looking, mumbles his lyrics a lot. He's had his songs recorded by all kindsa people: Tom T. Hall, Cash, Waylon. Now he's got his first album out, produced by Kris and with notes by Tom T., and I sincerely wonder what the foofaraw was about. He stinks. His songs are filled with elliptical images which pop like bubbles when you try and penetrate them, he has no ear for melody, and he can't sing. His Jesus songs are way less convincing then anybody else's: "Sing me more songs about Jesus/ Cuz I am a big Jesus fan" verges on self-parody. Yeah, if this mush-mouth is the New Nahsville, I'll take Tom T's wordy protest songs any day.

But Tom T. is even worried about the future, it seems, and recently, he's been carting along a protege on the road, a Chicano ex-goat rustler named Johnny Rodriguez. Johnny's really got it: his autograph sessions are invariably mobbed by teenaged nymphets, and he could probably take his pick. "Pass Me By," his big hit, has been recorded by everybody in country music, and his voice is rich, like a young Merle Haggard. And yet... And yet, despite the refreshing sound of singing one verse in Spanish, he isn't quite there yet. For one thing, all the songs on his debut album sound depressingly similar,-with the exception of one Billy Joe Shaver song and "Jealous Heart," and I think that can be attributed to the fact that the rest are written by him and Tom T. Still, he's young, he's popular, and those old men in Nahsville might be right in considering him the Next Big Thing.

Even younger is a breathtakingly beautiful 14-year-old from Nevada, Tanya Tucker. Her meteoric rise to stardom has inspired more than one cynically obscene thought but judging from her second album, she probably did it on talent alone. God knows, she's got a lot of it. Her voice is quite low, and she doesn't have complete control over it, resulting in a weird tendency to break at the end of a phrase in a way that reminds one of Joni Mitchell. To date, she's specialized in singing Gothic stories: "Delta Dawn" and "What's Your Mama's Name" are both tales of wronged, obsessed lovers, and "Blood Red and Goin" Down" is the story of a little girl's witnessing her father's brutal slaying of her mother and her mother's lover, and it's her most chilling piece yet. The one self-penned song on the album, "Rainy Girl," is sad and chilling. But she also does a fine job with lighter material like Dallas Frazier's "California Cotton Fields" and (gulp) "Pass Me By." Since Tanya's career is in the hands of starmaker Billy Sherrill (who also does George Jones and Tammy Wynette just to mention two), it's almost certain she'll be a biggie, but it's comforting to know she's also incredibly good.

Sherrill also guides the career of ex-Paul Revere Raider Freddy Weller, but ol" Fred sure walks the line. His gimmick seems to be songs which are either controversial or else downright gross. Frinstanee, his big hit last year was "Ballad of a Hillbilly Singer," in which said singer makes eyes at some honker's wife and gets his balls shot off for his troubles. Swear toi God! And on this album he's got one or two Lesbians (well, one of "em's bisexual), picking up some woman in a bar, and deflowering a virgin in Georgia. Not being as easily shocked as some of my fellow country fans, I rather like Weller's audacity, but 1 gotta admit that his voice .is so faceless that not even Sherrill's production can really salvage matters. I'd say his continued success is something of a 50-50 chance, but I wish him luck. Maybe he could try a song about male homosexuality on the next album and be C&W's first glitter star. ..

Still, I wonder if these Tour artists really do afford us a glimpse into the future of country music. If they do, I'm afraid it's lean days ahead for the most part, with only Tanya Tucker as a real innovator, but somehow, 1 can't help thinking that these four are only the start of what is to come. In the meanwhile, you Could do worse than to give Tanya, Johnny, and Freddy a listen.

Ed Ward

ALAN PRICE O Lucky Man! (Warner)

The question is, whether to review this album as the soundtrack to the Lindsay Anderson film O Lucky Man, or to review it as a sort of comeback album by ex-Animal Alan Price. As we all know, the majority of movie soundtrack albums aren't worth the nickle's worth of plastic they're pressed on. With this in mind, O Lucky Man the album stands head and shoulders above the rest of its competition. But op the other hand, the likelihood of my running out and buying the album for its musical worth isn't too great. Stacked up against the rest of the month's releases, it comes in somewhere in the middle.

On. the plus side, your average movie soundtrack is always placed in the unbelievable position of having to conform to a storyline. This usually means that the person writing the music has to come up with songs about such unlikely topics as running carefree through the streets of Dresden during the blitz or climbing up an upside-down Christmas tree to get to the bottom of a boat. Alan Price has managed to conform to his assigned story-line well, but only on one song does the forced subject matter grate - on the song "Sell Sell." Price overcomes the burden here with a long, somewhat psychedelic (considering the assigment) instrumental jam. The rest of the subject matter he manages to play down (that is, draw attention back to his music a little) by changing musical styles. Thus, we are faced with a couple of songs in the jaunty style typified by his late work with Georgie Fame (up-tempo "Simon Smith andHis Dancing Bear" type stuff); the standard "music hall tradition" piece; a sort of Salvation Army rip-off number; some interesting piano instrumentals; and a couple of straight rock numbers.

What all this means is a melange of musical styles hurled at the listener in too-quick succession, and thus the album ultimately fails on the musical level in that its sense of transition, or its ability to flow neatly from song to song, is sadly absent. This ^especially evident on side two (Side one flows a little better, but this is mainly due to the fact that the last two songs on the side are piano instrumentals — nice, but padding all the same.)

The best thing the album has going for it is the title cut, a frolicking rocker that sounds like something the original Alan Price/ Eric Burden Animals might be doing today. Price's strong vocals show certain similarities to Eric's here, and his solid-line organ backing is a straight throwback to his early-sixties playing.

As a souvenir of the movie, O Lucky Man works well, better than most examples of this kind of thing. But if you really want it, wait a while. The bargain bins will probably be full of them by the time the movie gets to your town. ' "

Alan Niester

MARTIN MULL And His Fabulous Furniture in Your Living Room!! (Capricorn)

(Dear CR^EM, I realize that when you asked me to review Martin Mull's new album you fully expected me to dash out and compose the contrived, low-humoured review which most Record Review editors have come to expect when dealing with an "avant garde" (or contemporary, if you will) comedy LP. I, however, have never been one to pander to the more obsequious nature of this. sordid record business, so I decided to see just how funny Mr. Mull'REALLY was by playing his record for a hand-picked audience and then writing about the results. With me at the sitting (or listening, if you prefer) were Rod Roxoff — noted rock critic; Hari Ravi Oulli -of the Rama Lama Dong Band and a great fuzz tone gong player in his own rite; Prof. Edward Van Helsing - the world famous rock lecturer and author of Feedback As An Art-form and The Guitar As A Six Stringed Instrument and noted cowboy-poet Bob Wesley Kristenpah.)

10:58 pm: Record is taken out of jacket. Roxoff in hysterics. Claims that only a comedic genius such as Mull could think of putting a RECORD in a JACKET! Van Helsing thinks it erotic that Mull's record is round, flat and made of plastic. "Why is it we can only play it at 33 1/3," he muses sardonically, "and not at 34?"

11:00 pm: Side one opens with Mull being introduced by a midget as "a person I've always looked up to." Roxoff falls to the floor in what appears tobe an epileptic seizure of some sort. Van Helsing thinks it all symbolic. Hari Ravi prays. Bob grins.

11:02 pin: Mull performs "Dueling Tubas," a rather amusing (in an overt way, of course) parody of that simply awful "Dueling Banjos" tune. Roxoff i& now under the couch, gasping for air, yelling Nordic cries of "Heezascreem!" Van Helsing thinks it to be'a clever juxtaposition of musical values designed to bring AM radio-attuned audiences into a position of self-ridicule. Hari Ravi thinks it a miracle that Mull has been allowed to live this long. I am unmoved and Bob is grinning.

11:07 pm: Mull does a monologue before going into a song entitled "Licks Off of Records." In the verbal portion of the presentation, Mull begins to expound on his prowess as a rock star, adding; "I really shouldn't talk this way or Carly will write another one about me." Roxoff appears to be in diabetic coma. Ravi Hari is speed-reading his prayer beads. Van Helsing compares Mull to Randy Newman, W.C. Fields, the Marx Brothers, Lenny Bruce and Woody Allen. I am unmoved. Bob is still grinning.

11:12 pm: Mull has finished "2001 Polka", (the ultimate trip if you're Polish and stoned?) and is now performing a middle-class oriented blues song on a ukfelele, using a baby bottle for a slide. "I felt so low down inside," he sings, "I threw my drink across the lawn." Roxoff has placed his head in the front doorway and is slamming the door repeatedly on his forehead muttering things about "Kafka." Hari Ravi sees God. Van Helsing compares Mull to Akim Tamiroff, Rex Reason, Sacco and Vanzetti and the Lindburgh baby. I am unmoved. Bob has been pronounced legally dead.

11:40 pm: Well into the second side. Mull combines his caustic wit with a Marat/Sade arrangement for "Ah France," a song which boasts such lyrics as "Ah yes/ I am a man/ What time is it?/ Potatoes/ The book is on the table/ and the cheese and vegetables of my mother." Hari Ravi has given birth to a retarded celery stalk. Van Helsing is up on the roof with a gun, shouting obscenities in German. Roxoff is writing a rock dictionary in Swahili using words that rhyme with "orange." Bob has been laid to rest beneath a pile of Grootna records. I am unmoved.

11:44 pm: I am alone. Mull is playing a tune called "The Nothing." I am still rather unmoved, non-plussed if you will, but the more I listen to Mull... teehee. . . the funnier he gets. It's almost as if Viv Stanshall has become a U.S. Citizen. Giggle. \

11:45 pm: "The Nothing" is really... heehee... sort of silly. Naahh, har har. Mull can be pretty funny... imagine... "The Nothing." I tell ya, this guy's a laff riot. Now take my wife, please. My wife is so fat that when she sits around the house, she sits around the house. Oh Lordy, why my house is so small that the mice are all stoop shouldered!

11:47 pm: "In the Eyes of My Dog" is on. "IN THE EYES OF MY DOG I'M A MAN." Isn't that just too much?? Yock Yock. I tellya, I can't standit ennymore. Where's my shriner's hat? My water balloons? Whoopie cushions? This guy is just too clever for words; witty, musical. . . funnier "n hell. Better than Harry Langdon!

11:48 pm: Needle has lifted off the record and I am alone in silence. I have removed the lampshade from my head. This Mull fellow is quite (ahem) droll. Clever, rather witty and very BOURGOISE in approach, I suppose the MASSES will devour it, although the more intellectual element of the rock populace (critics included, of course) will find it lacking in sociological import. Sigh. I must remember to feed the poodle. Mull is pleasant, but how I DO so wish I could run across a genuinely funny album.

11:50 pm: I begin to play the new Carole King record.,

11:50)4 pm: Ha! Ha! Ha! Ho! Ho! Yukyukyukyukyukyukyuk!

Ed Naha (ha, ha - Ed.)

GRAND FUNK RAILROAD We're An American Band (Capitol)

I've been working on the railroad, all the live long day I've been working on the railroad, just to pass the time a-way. Can't you hear the whistle blowing, rise up so early in the morn" Can't you hear the captain shouting, Dinah, blow your horn! Dinah, won't you blow Dinah, won't you blow Dinah, won't you blow your horn, horn, horn...

Awright, awright already. Jesus Christ! You can't be expecting me to come in right on cue, when you've been telling me to get back in the kitchen, and don't blow no more. Said you Said you've been telling me to get back in the kitchen, and don't blow no more. Said you guys were going to do all the music making on this train. Ever since 1969, I ve been shut up in the blazing kitchen with this old toothless brakeman who keeps strumming on his old banjo. Damn, if he hasn't been playing the same song for pret" near five years. So now you change your mind and want me to get my horn out again. Sure I'll blow it, I'll blow you clear back to Widetrack Drive. Gather round, now, because I'm going to tell the tale of Terry and His Toy Train.

First there was Terry, of course. When he wasn't spinning platters on the radio, Terry spent most of his time trying to look like Brian Jones. He even had the gall to call himself the "Sixth Rolling Stone."

Don, he was playing his bass drum in the Swartz Creek Marching Band. Always was a good boy, that Donnie.

Mark was playing football and Tuba at the High. Got hurt in the Big Game, so that took care of football. His Mama bought him a new shiny guitar to shut him up. Seems it never did, and he never picked up his trusty Tuba again.

To keep themselves off the streets, the three of them started a rock and roll band. They played VFW Halls and Teen Clubs. It kept them in cigarette money.

Meanwhile, Mel met up with this migrant bean picker. Chicano. He called himself Question Mark. He asked Mel if he wanted to join the "Mysterians." Mel did and they made a hit record, "96 Tears." Question Mark went back to picking beans but Mel decided he had better things to do with his fingers like keep playing bass. After all his Dad did play guitar for Lawrence Welk, so why not keep it in the family?

Jus" so happens Terry, Mark, and Don were looking for a bass player. The happy fates brought the four together.

Terry decided to stop being the Voice and become the Brains of the outfit. Mark became lead vocalist while Terry tried to cook up some scheme to keep these Midwestern haybailers off the line at the Flint Buick plant. Now Terry, he's hip. He knows what the world needs is a new band to push the last dwindling dregs of psychedelia down the drain. A new craze, Heavy Metal Music is born! The band is Grand Funk Railroad.

Everyone knows you can't make money in Michigan without making cars so GFRR gigs in every Southern whistle-stop just a hoot and a holler from Honk-Land. The rednecks are just beginning to grow out their crew cuts and the jocks are hanging up their jerseys and reaching for their roach clips. Grand Funk ushers in the MASS MARIJUANA MADNESS. They were as commercial a commodity as Marfil Papers.

No one knew who they were. Three unknowns became the Big Cheese of Rock and Roll and Dick Clark didn't even know their names. Terry was a clever conductor. He added fuel to the myth. He turned down TV offers - Carson, Bishop, and Sullivan. Why, they even got an offer to have a GFRR float in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. No deal. Knight was holding out for the big one. Shea Stadium. Grand Funk was rolling high. They jetted to Jamaica, drove fast cars, got too big for their blue jeans and dumped Terry. Terry's toy train was derailed, but what's a train without its conductor?

Like I said, Terry had the brains. He got himself a record company, an office with carpets the color of ripe pumpkins, and a 5 million dollar lawsuit against his old pals.

The boys? They started eating soybeans and carrot juice. Mel got himself a little woman, Mark worried about pollution, and Don smoked dope and smiled a lot. Mellow. .. but was this any way for the purveyors of heavy metal to act?

Finally the track was clear. Funk could move without stepping on somebody's libel suit. First they had to locate a new conductor. They got Todd Rundgren. This guy wasn't any Choo-Choo Charley. He had a lot of steam in him and a lot of miles under his belt: The ^azz, Fanny, The Band, Paul Butterfield, and the NY Dolls.

Rundgren rubbed off most of Grand Funk's rust and added some new fuel to their engines. Sure they've lost some of the old grit and grind but they traded that in on some spit and polish and a jug of Geritol.

So what if "Black Licorice" is really "Brown Sugar" and "Black Coffee," or "American Band" is Creedence's "Travelin" Band." Every good conductor knows you hafta make some stops at the top 40's.

The rest is pure King Kong. "Walk Like a Man" could frighten Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons right into the closet. Grand Funk Railroad can still punctuate a song better than any Mack truck I know.

They're still the same pleasing plodders they always were. Still singing about losing their ladies and losing their cool, and the evils of air pollution. And you know what, they didn't even forget their old Dinah...

Up each morning at five o'clock Seems like the newness of it ain't never gonna stop. The work is hard in a railroad, yeah. Hey, hey, gotta make it today to punch a time clock. Working for the raitroad is a mighty good life C'mon and ride the railroad, one more time, Working for the railroad is a mighty good life. C'mon and ride the railroad one more time.*

Dinah Uhelszki

* 1973 Cram Renraff Co.(BMI)

WEST, BRUCE & LAING Whatever Turns You On (WindFall/Columbia)

Excess, man. That's what it's all about when you get right down to it. I mean, if you can't do it right, then at least overdo it so's nobody can say you didn't try, right? Just look at the cover and pick your fave O.D. Leslie's got his never ending heap of Big Mac deathburgers, Jack Bruce is sliding off his pianp stool after a bit of over bloozed booze and cigars, and Corky Laing, the cutie of the band, is ready to take on two girls and three whips. "Course it is Leslie's band so he gets the back cover all to himself, lying on the carpet buried by mounds of potato salad, raisin bran and spaghetti wrapped around his toes. More class than smearin boogers on your pal's windshield.

And what better excesses than musical excesses? And what better form of musical excess than the "power trio"? "Cause no matter how much rot you pour on, there's only three of ya so who's gonna mind? Did Gary and the Hornets worry about throwing in a kazoo solo on their monster cover of the Troggs" "Hi Hi Hazel"? Only live once, y'know, Gusto and all that.

And roots! Side two has a slow.blues with a great title — "Slow Blues." Why futz around when the rill thing is starin" you in the face. And the shuffle, tune called "Dirty Shoes," it's got what might become the classic blues line of the seventies: "I got me some dirty shoes and it's drivin" me insane." And if that doesn't get you, try a bit of "Rock "n" Roll Machine," in which Leslie proclaims "Rock "n" roll started in the fifties, but it's still goin" in "73." How come no one's written that line before, and will it ever be said in the same spirit again? I ask you.

It might seem odd to spend time on the words to these songs since the focal point should be on that ferocious interplay and counterpoint between Jack and Leslie, but that's the trouble with your average rock listener these days - he don't pay attention to the plot and the thoughts and the insight. Thank God Pete Brown hasn't deserted Jack or we'd never know the intangible ecstasy of hearing poetry like "My nose is getting back in shape... like a plate," or the movement of metaphor in "November Song," where the image shifts from "though the leaves are turning red it's still summer in my head" to "though the trees are turning red it's still summer in my head."

Of course the musical moments are there if you want them, especially on "Token" whose latter part alludes to another great triumvirate of the late sixties, Cashman, Pistilli and West.

Hey! I just heard that this band has broken up. Too many conflicting belches, I guess. If Leslie's smart, he'll team up with Buddy Miles, Bob Hite and Kate Smith. "Cause even if they stink, who'se gonna kick them off a stage?

Billy Altman

THE SUTHERLAND BROTHERS & QUIVER Lifeboat (Island)

In 1958, a dull rockabilly singer named Eddie Cochran went to England and in a matter of days managed to stand the whole Sceptered Isle on its ear, producing Great Britain's first generation of rockers and giving birth to an inexorable trend which lurched ever-onwards until we were faced with the Beatles. Some ten years after Cochran, a dull rock group called the Grateful Dead performed a similar stunt, but this time the results are quite different.

For one thing, Cochran represented a really vital tradition, even if he wasn't particularly its heaviest exponent. The Dead don't represent anything near as raw and filled with potential, and their bastard progeny don't stand to make near the killing the Beatles did. But while British rockers like Johnny Kidd were lame even in comparison to Eddie Cochran, the British Deadoids - possibly because they aren't as fat and lazy ,as their mentors — have refined the laid-back, soft rocking, easy-going ideas of the Grateful Dead into some of the most delightful music being made these days. Bands like Brinsley Schwarz, for instance, can really knock yer average Dead freak for a loop, mainly because they're so much better., even if they sound sojimilar. There is something alive vand energy-laden about this music, even if it is largely acoustic.

Lifeboat is the product of the fusion of two bands I never heard before, the Sutherland Brothers, who have a previous Island album, and Quiver, which died in the overkill of Warners" twenty-albums-a-month release schedule. The result is great. There's not a profound utterance on the entire album, I can scarcely remember one line of lyric, not to mention a song title, but it's loaded with hummable tunes, and nearly every number is danceable. Of course, white kids don't dance any more, except in Berkeley, but I bet if they did, this would set "em doing it.

Playing through the album to refresh my memory, I find "(I Don't Want To Love You But) You Got Me Anyway" (the single), "Space Hymn," "Real Love," "Have You Had A Vision" and "Rock And Roll Show" are the ones I've been humming, which is nothing against the rest of the numbers. This is the finest album of its kind since the. Brinsley's cruelly overlooked Nervous On The Road, -and, every time 1 get tired of the dull, repetitive, pretentious and enervated bullshit that's coming out, onto the turntable goes either Nervous or Lifeboat, and in a minute or two I feel all right.

As, I suspect, will you.

Ed Ward

BOB DYLAN/SOUNDTRACK Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (Columbia)

Bob Dylan has ruined my entire summer with his new album. Soundtrack From Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid. I'd contemplated throwing a party later on this year, to celebrate the third anniversary of no Dylan album, inviting all the people who'd ever played, slept, hitchhiked or spoken with the stubby former king of folk-rock. Given Dylan's recently discovered talents as a sessionman, which has caused him to appear on a dozen records cut by an assortment of otherwise obscure mediocrities, such an enormous party might have made me the Truman Capote - well, at least the Norman Mailer -of rock.

That fantasy is gone now, crushed into the dust that has gathered around Dylan since his previous-comeback, New Morning, released in October 1970. Gone with it are all the other notions of Dylan's continuing dominance of rock's singer-songwriters.

Is Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid as retarded as it seems? Is it the first album with which Dylan has consciously cheated his cutomers? Can this be the Ehd?

I wouldn't bet against it. Since New Morning, Dylan has evidenced increasing degrees df pop senility, the height of which was his masterful performance at the Bangla Desh benefit in 1971 (a concert salvaged only by his presence), the nadir the movie from which this album was culled. During the last two years, he has released two singles and a greatest hits repackage which contained four new versions of old songs and one new one. Only a truly indolent artist could have produced less.

It is customary to blame bad soundtrack albums by good artists on record company greed, but Bob Dylan doesn't have that excuse. It is well-known that he has complete control over what part of his output is released by Columbia, which was the reason why there was such an enormous amount of material waiting to be bootlegged two years ago.

If I were Columbia, I'd be more concerned with the possibility of a consumer's lawsuit over this album than with threats of a payola scandal. Billy the Kid is empty in the worst way, a haphazard collection of instrumentals, uucc IUNCS ui me same Ming, unu une guuu tune - probably good enough to sell the album, but that does not excuse the slovenly nature of the rest of the package.

The first few times I played Billy the Kid, I kept hoping for a moment of redemption. But unlike Dylan's earlier disaster. Self Portrait, a two record set which had enough material for a single good album, Billy doesn't even have enough good songs to be reduced to a two-sided 45.

Only one cut stands out: "Knockin" On Heaven's Door." It is also the song which played over the only good scene in the movie, the.scene in which Slim Pickens, as a semiretired sheriff, is shot and drifts through the river to bleed to death.

While "Knockin" On Heaven's Door" is a good song, it is by no means as moving as that scene; it is a competent tune any journeyman folk-song writer could have written. It would be moving only because it conjured the image of Pickens covered in blood, were it-not that the lyric - "Come take this badge off of me/ 1 can't use it anymore" - sounds like Dylan's epitaph.

If Dylan really wants his badge removed, why does he continue to commit public acts? If he is tired of walking into town like a Western badman, compelled to shoot down ail the fast young guitarists, why doesn't he stop playing, the sessions, releasing the records, making the movies? He is obviously doing them for neither love nor money - the work is devoid of passion, and he doesn't need the cash, his songs having made him wealthy long ago.

Dylan wants it both ways, his privacy and the luxury his status as the greatest individual performer rock has ever known provides, his family and his audience, his comfort and the terror of the stage. Dylan is so charismatic that he is unignorable whenever he appears in public, in any role. Yet, after any period of retreat, he seems to feel a'compulsion to re-enter the media eye, determined to make one last stand, like a sad old fighter Who didn't know when to quit.

Dylan could have it both ways if he were willing to make an honest effort. If he needs to prove, to himself or to us, that he is still the Champ, he should be making music that proves it, not expecting adulation through historical precedent.

Billy the Kid contains three versions of the movie's title song. "Billy One," "Four," and "Seven." The only other albums on which I've ever seen three versions of the same song were released posthumously, which is just what Dylan seems here, f inished.

It would be easy to accept Dylan's awful rhymes - "senorita" and "lead ya," "got one" and "shotgun'1 —' if they were delivered with the wit and precise timings of his early songs. An earlier Dylan might have even made it "senorita" and "parking meter," and gotten away with it, but now the humor has vanished. The old songs were redeemed by their absurdities, but Billy's horrors are only ridiculous.

Maybe I'll throw that party after all. Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid is worse than no Dylan album at all, and if anyone complains, we can always call it a wake.

Dave Marsh

(Originally printed in Newsday. © 1973 Newsday, Inc.)