J. GEILS Ladies Invited Atlantic

What's a french-fried Fidel doing in a place like Boston? Not eating brown bread and beans, I'll grant you. Peter Wolf gave that up with Paul Revere and Plymouth Rock a long time ago. All that culture was smothering the kid. He was a sociological mutant — preferring gutters to tea tables. Peter had to get out and find himself - well, he not only found himself, but five other Faneuil Hall flunkies in a rock and roll band. J, Geils rock and roll band. These guys had a better time talking trash than jutting their pinkies while sipping Salada. They were bad! They were the very same ones that stood for banlon, gaspumps, and Brylcreme, in 1965. You know, goodtime greasers. Now, J. Geils was going to bring transistor radios and line dances a little closer to us all.

It took a while before J. Geils became the King Pin of Kool that they are today. In 1969, the band was only playing fraternity parties and Freshman Orientations. Their greatest notoriety came when they played Nork College in Union, New Jersey. They band was touted not for their magnanimous stage performance, but when a pubescent pud stood outside their stage door and serenaded the band with The Sounds of San Francisco, (a real celebration in Crosby, Stills, and Nash) J. Geils did what any other self-respecting rockers would have done: gobbed on the guy's head for forty full seconds. That salivic story followed them around the Eastern Seaboard for years.

Along with their noxious notoriety, people took notice of their music. Peter Wolf, the alliterating acrobat of the AM assault, pelted audiences with his effervescent evangelism. "You're a great pretender, mind bender, all night lender," or "We're the top of rock and roll, let us motivate your soul, make your knees freeze, do what you please!" Wolf has got the agility of a greased yoyo. He's a cheerleading contortionist — the Pied Piper of Pop. Mr. P. Wolf proved to medical science that "there is indeed life and even motion after quaalude." J. Geils band not only gets them off their backs but into a full bugaloo in a matter of seconds. Now they were in.

J. Geils have played frat bashes, house parties and now to celebrate their success, they've decided to give the best of the fests, a soiree for party-crashers - Ladies Invited.

Milton Bradley and the Parker Brothers wanted to mass produce the band, but the boys decided to make thier own portable party. Just put it on^your record player, roll back the rug, and don your fave lamp shade. See, I told you. Look, there's Peter over there in his radiant Reynolds Wrap tennies and matching tie, right next to Danny in his pink lurex tux. No Magic Dick doesn't have braces, that's just his harmonica stuck in his mouth. Here's Seth, Stephen and J. They're ready to start playing musical chairs. They didn't need Amy Vanderbilt's help to plan this party.

Ladies Invited is more fun than silly putty, more moving than a hoola hoop. You can exercise, move furniture, or Philly Freeze. This is THE record that is guaranteed to make you sweat or double your money back in ban roll on. Ladies Invited picks up where Lloyd Thaxton left off. If you want decibel deliverance this is the place:

Some like it easy, some like it hard

Some like to bury it in their own backyard

Some like it slow, some like it fast

Some like to get it and make sure it lasts.

How about a little shaking with your heartbreaking?

I thought love was true,

Guess it wasn't

Broken hearts are coming

A dime a dozen.

Who ever said black eats had the corner on jive? J. Geils is a right turn off Motown to a Boston back-alley boogie. J. Geils is a maestro of motion. You'd have to be a parapelegic to hate Invited.

Well, Polly Bergen has started singing "The Party's Over," and J. Geils, they just want to thank you "for putting your face in the place." They're the hosts with the mosts.

Jaan Uhelzski

PAUL MCCARTNEY & WINGS

Band On the Run (Apple)

No longer the most insipid newlyweds since David and Julie or John and Yoko, the McCartney family has finally come up with more than home movies on their new album. Band On the Run is the first McCartney solo LP to allow us to believe that the Beatles might not have been the fluke we thought they were.

Virtually every song has something to offer, even the ones that don't make it, like "Mamalumia," which is melodic fluff, or "1985," which may have started out as a post-Orwellian ecology anthem. Paul's clever enough to avoid profundity like an ulcer avoids Times Square souvlaki, so what remains is a very mere love song.

The title cut might emerge as a hit. It's got a really full sound, with good harmonies, effective contrasts, and tight sound compression. Once it gets started, it rocks, and only

begins to falter if you think about what it means. Why is the band on the run? Maybe because much of this was recorded in Nigeria, and maybe some of the local musicians got upset when they found out Paul wasn't giving them credits on the album, so they got the local witch doctor and a few thousand spear bearers to register their dissatisfaction outside The Great White Hut.

"Jet" is tough and spunky, with guitars jamming with strings a la Stories. Oblique references to androgyny abound, and the hook tells me this is a tribute to Bowie: "And Jet I thought that the major was a little lady suffragette!"

There's no complaint about "Helen Wheels" either, though it jumps out because it's the first song on side two with any bottom. But the guitar playing is especially excellent here. Contrast this with "Bluebird," in which Paul sings: "I'm a bluebird, I'm a bluebird..." So he's a bluebird. Big deal. Strictly to keep the MOR flank covered.

"Picasso's Last Words (Drink to Me)" embodies all of Paul's present contradictions. The title allows McCartney to be avant-garde (awareness of art) while remaining as pop as Tony Orlando and Dawn. Sometimes this sounds like a lethargic version of "Tic A Yellow Ribbon," and other times, I'm absorbed by the melody, the flow and the changes: orchestral moves, pseudo-Orlons vocal backup, heavy bass. Then .note "I Vanderbilt," a one joke riff (or is it a one joke?). Anyway, it's a good one — main'Ho-hey-ho," which is silly and attractive a reappears as the time signature through the album.

The killer here though is "Let Me Rohik You," for one good reason: it's a John Lennon song. Paul wrote it, but it's all in Lennon tongue: the beastly guitar surges, the slightly nasal vocal sifted through an echo. Trademark Lennon textures. The lyrics are Paul's answer to "How Do You Sleep:"

I can't tell you how I feel

My heart is like a wheel

Let me roll it

Let me roll it to you*

Whether the song means anything at all is completely irrelevant, though. What matters is that Paul seems to be outgrowing his overwhelming attraction towards the mediocre, and seems to be acknowledging that it might be something important to be a productive ex-Beatle rather than just anothef happily married onionhead.

Wayne Robins

* 1973 McCartney Music/ATV Music, Inc., BMI

TRAFFIC On The Road (Island)

Major piss-off of the month is the fact that I'm sitting here reading the November third issue of Melody Maker while listening to On The Road and I come to an ad that says "this new live, double album captures the energy, brilliance blah blah blah." Double album? No chance. I've searched that cover a dozen times since I read that and there's no other album in sight.

So what the hell is Capitol trying to prove anyway? Is the plastic shortage so crippling that they couldn't come up with the second half of this release? (That'S Capitol Records, folks, the company that brings you 6,000,000 pressings of Sherman Hayes.) It's a gyp, but 1 guess it's like the old Arabic saying, "J cried cuz I had no shoes til I saw a man who had no feet."

On The Road's really an apt title, though, because all the members of Traffic are consummate road musicians. That.is, their whole philosophy is wrapped up in playing, and making the best instrumental sounds they know how. None of this mock-epic shit, no poetry in the lyrics, just good solid middle class Anglo funk. So fifteen some-odd minutes of "Low Spark of High Heeled Boys" ain't a second too much.

The band meshes on this one like a two buck zipper, with even the nreviouslv dubious inclusion of Reebop-Kwaku-Bah finally being justified. It's one long sonorous, slightly turkeyish energy plus, and a great start to the album.

This is followed by a fairly studio-like version of "Shoot Out At The Fantasy Factory," and then (over to side two) a great Winwood spotlight in "Sometimes I Feel So Uninspired," which has an ironically inspired tempestuous climax. Then a ten minute "Light Up Or Leave Me Alone" and it's over and you can start on side one again.

Few, if any, of the veteran Anglo legends of the sixties are making pleasantries to top the admittedly muzaky stew of jazz, rock and Merry Go Round Jape loop that Traffic is grunging out these days. It's not political, not even absurdly boring. In fact, Traffic are one of the few vets whose music doesn't seem like desperate last stand at the studio time. ("If they don't like this one, I've "ad it, mate" -P.M., 8/73.) It doesn't cry out for critical posturing, doesn't depend on a hit single for its success, and doesn't even really need to be media pushed or hyped. It just presents itself, and asks to be taken for what it is.

Live albums often signify a change of pac.e for performers, however, sort of an end to one era and a harbinger of the next. As Traffic have been reposing in the same mold for about two years now (since they started cutting the corners off their albums) then perhaps we can expect something a little different next time. (Not a Traffic rebuttal to Quadropboria, thank God.)

Anyway, On The Road's great and you should buy it. It's real.

Alan Niester

THREE DOG NIGHT Cyan (ABC-Dunhill)

No one seems to give a good goddamn about the tots these days and that's a shame. The Carpenters had a shot for awhile but now everyone loves "em so they don't count. Neil Diamond writes his own songs, Ethel Kennedy is just one of his many fans and with the J.L Seagull soundtrack under his belt Neil is about to finally realize his dream of becoming the Gershwin of the Seventies so he's out too. So thank god for Three Dog Night.

You see, little kids just can't get it on nowhere on the radio and there's not even anything too outrageous for their parents to fret over when the tots tie their little nubile ears to AM (When you're three or four FM is really outta your league). In the fifties, the darkies were makin" most of the hits; in the sixties it was the freaks. So now that Alice and Bowie are all but passe, what's gonna shock parents enough to make their kids hate them and in turn love rock "n" roll? Probably nothing short of hunchbacks, lepers and dwarves. Now Three Dog Night don't sing no leper songs or hunchback songs, but they do record dwarf songs written by Paul Williams, so you gotta be pullin" for them all the way. There is no other band in the land that covers more image space than the Yippie Ki Yi yeah doggies. The organ player's under five feet (another dwarf point of reference), the drummer's black and fat to boot, and guitarist and the bass player look like hippoid twins. And Cory, Danny and Chuck embody Joe College, Hymie Fagellah and Fred Freak in their three marvey voices. They're All American and they're all lovable.

Cyan, as in —ide, is their latest and greatest with the biggie "Shambala" right up there in the numero uno spot on side two. Most of "Shambala's" 3:28 is taken up by the chorus which goes "aa oo oo oo ayayayaya." Now that might not mean much to you or me, but just think of all those tykes out there who can't even walk yet. Last year I was on a |jus when this lady came on with her son and he couldn't have been more than four, but as soon as they sat down he started hollerin" "My name is Michael, I got a nickel" at ten second intervals. And each time the woman would yell at him, he'd sing it louder. So a chorus of ooohs, aaahs, and yayayayas can succeed in bringing toddlers that can't even say "momma" into the wonderful world of rock. "Shambala" is pure infant ecstacy, why it's almost as good as "Conjunction Junction" on Grammar Rock, son of Multiplication Rock!

And for all us oldtimers out there we have the latest Three Dog single, "Let Me Serenade You," with such lines as "I'll take you to my garden, I know you'll make it grow" and "When the walls begin to fall, can't hold back the joy." SOOOEEE! Double entendre at its finest. And so this one'll be a hit and the little cherubs will maybe figure out what the lyrics" intent is and,'well I shudder to think about it.

Three Dog Night is working within the system and that way no one can call them radicals, but their subtle influence will become evident when the next crop of teens grows up and elects Tony Orlando the new Max Frost. And remember, forewarned is forearmed.

Billy Altman

ELLIOTT MURPHY Elliott Murphy's Aqua Show (Polydor)

He can rock, that's first. Without it, none of the rest would matter. Secondly, although the influence is heavily Blonde on Blonde, Loaded is not to be discounted. Not sounds like, however, is like. Loudon Wainwright's Attempted Mustache sounds more like Freewheelin' than Elliot does like B.O.B. In fact, the contemporary performer with whom Murphy has the most in common is probably Wainwright, not even Springsteen. In the ranks of what R. Meltzer calls "the next "next Dylan," " those are the three candidates, I guess, but Bruce lacks what Elliott's got (and what Loudon has almost too much of): bitterness. Attempted Mustache is the most ironic record of the year, but Aqua Show is still third. (New York Dolls are automatic ironies: much more difficult.)

But what makes Elliott more interesting than the competition is his sense of style. How many intellectuals besides me and L. Bangs do you figure came out of the suburbs in the 60s? Less than the actual number of males with shoulder-length-hair who crossed the corner of Haight and Ashbury between 1960 and 1963, certainly. But Elliott, whose references are to the Hempstead Turnpikes of America, comes out of the never-never land of exurban America and has the finesse to write "Poise "n" Pen." The poise I know the suburb taught him; the pen he picked up on his own. The combination gives him the ability to pull off a notion like "White Middle Class Blues." That's what it's like: "Two guys are passing by in white tee shirts. They're in a "66 SuperSport and they don't like my looks. We're in the middle of Brooklyn, fiiere ain't no escape. Some people say the South is bad, but this ain't so great." And, like Lou and Bob, Elliott can grab those hints of Spanish rhythms and fit them in, as a subtle gel around a rock strucure. "Like A Great Gatsby, which is too literary at first, sinks in like "Five Believers" and "Train Round the Bend" after a couple times. The harp playing, which is great all over the record and especially Highway 61 on "Don't Go Away."

But, without descending into "that's how it is (or was)" syrup, it is true that Murphy captures the suburban essence. This album is NOT about cruising for burgers or, even, ultimately, about sexual frustration. It is about not fitting in, and looking for options. I didn't realize until the third week I had it that •"Last of the Rock Stars," which is a pure classic) was a universal. "Who is the last of the rock stars and me and you" just might mean: "Who is the last of me and you?" Or even; who are me and you? But it works that way; the second verse is, according to some, about Hendrix, but l figured about Dylan, and somebody else about Elvis. We're all right, which is the proper advantage.

It is significant too that Murphy, who like Dylan, Robertson, Reed and Fogerty, knows how to develop American characters who live on an American landscape, also knows how to write about women. The characters here are not always full-fleshed - we imagine as much about them as we are given - but the women are as interesting as the men. There are whole families here, living through entire generations in four minutes.

Aqua Show is a massive achievement, without any question. Murphy has some things to learn — "Marilyn" is not a very good song, although it has some, things to say about her that Mailer didn't get around to - but on the basis of his first album, he doesn't need to sound like Blonde on Loaded. "The great rock star obviously plays lead guitar," a friend of mine said the other night. He may not be the last, but he's surely one of the best. Step aside, boys.

Dave Marsh

EMERSON, LAKE & PALMER Brain Salad Surgery (Manticore)

Since both Keith Emerson and rock critics have been known for their respective excesses, mine first. The last time I "picked up a girl" by chance meeting on the street was early last fall at the Manhasset Long Island Railroad Station. A few words were spoken, phone numbers exchanged, and by the next weekend, I was plowing through six hours of driving rain to visit her at Skidmore College in lovely, decrepit Saratoga Springs.

Right off, we hated each other. Maybe it was the gray patent leather shoes I was wearing ("those disgusting shoes," Ria Pallone McKaie calls "em), since I overheard her ask her roommate "do you think he stole them from a drug addict on 42nd Street?" Anyway, she was a freshman, it was the crucial third weekend of school, and if she did not find a boyfriend on campus this weekend, she'd be using her own hand for the rest of the semester.

Too tired to drive away (I'd made contingency plans to visit friends in Boston that weekend), she reluctantly took me around with her and her friends to various mixers, all of which were so boring she didn't even like them. Standing under a canape, wet and sad and waiting for morning, we were figuring out how to spend the rest of our Friday night when a schoolmate of hers said he had the new Emerson, Lake and Palmer album, and did we want to come over and check it out?

It was a scene right out of Despair Comix. We smoked 80 or 90 joints, and there was total silence for an hour, except for the sound of these diablos playing "head music for forlorn coeds" out of speakers that could split atoms. When it was over, the comments ran the gamut from "Wow!" to "Far Out" and you know the rest.

I'm not sure what happened to my Bluejean Tangerine, since I left Skidmore the next morning and never looked back, till now. But Emerson, Lake and Palmer keep on coming. They've got their own label, Manticore, and a new album with a great title: Brain Salad Surgery (pass the egg salad, Jeeves). Most surprising is that the album itself is sorta great too.

For once, Keith Emerson's virtuosity does not stand in the way of the band's potential for excellence. They do not approach their material with all the finesse of the Archies attempting Wagnerian opera. Of course, you're not supposed to dance to it, but once in awhile, they rock anyway.

The setting of the moog/organ sound throughout the production tells me that ELP are ready to admit to the existence of Todd Rundgren. Much of side one is almost pop in sensibility, with a trace of Keith Moon/ Bonzo madness in "Still You Turn Me On," and a British version of Bruce Springsteen greaser's palace on "Benny the Bouncer," who, incidentally, gets offed by tlie end of the song. No munghearted sentiment for these dudes.

The band is tight, of course, but the feeling is loose. I don't sense the overblown sense of vehicular evil that used to be Emerson's shtick, but instead, we have "Karn Evil," which takes up the last eight minutes of side one, and all of side two. The mood-is one of unknown danger, lurking shadows, and imagery from Charles Finney's "The Circus of Dr. Lao," such as: "Soon the Gypsy Queen in a glaze of Vaseline/ Will perform on a guillotine/ What a scene! What a scene!" Pete Sinfield, who has his own Manticore album, wrote much of the lyric here, and in the sleeve dedication, finds himself worth "a garland of martian fire flowers." That's the way my friends from Rockaway talk. The English detached cerebral gets that much closer.

While some of > this seems political in contours, it's not like the rearguard smokestackery of Jethro Tull, or even earlier ELP opuses. Let's say that Keith Emerson discovers taste, and hooray.

Wayne Robins

LOUDON WAINWRIGHT III Attempted Mustache (Columbia)

The singer-songwriter syndrome is a terrible affliction which strikes critics and other informed music listeners, typically after the victim has been exposed to an overdose of self-pity accompanied by acoustic guitar at a local bistro or folk festival. Symptoms often include a snappish, often vicious, disposition towards people who call themselves songwriters, owners of acoustic guitars, and even, in extreme cases, the C.F. Martin company of Nazareth, Pa. itself. One record business junior executive of my acquaintance was assigned to Hoot Night (audition night) at the Los Angeles Troubador to look for fresh talent in the singer-songwriter genre for his label. After three weeks his condition took a turn for the worse, and he would trail off in mid-sentence, eyes glazed. After four months, he was subject to fainting spells, snot caked beneath his nose, and he was eventually arrested at a Who concert during their last tour, trying to stick his head into one of the stage speakers. After lengthy treatment at a well-known Hollywood private hospital (which his tricky lawyer got the record company to pay for) he moved to Detroit, where he is a fry cook at an Onassis Coney Island place, haunting the local bars at night in search of remnants of the Detroit Wheels, SRC, and the MC5.

All this is by way of saying that if this sounds even remotely like you, I may have a real job on my hand selling you Attempted Mustache. Because Loudon Wainwright III is your kind of singer-songwriter. And I say this in spite of the fact that I know that he is at his best when he's working alone with just his guitar, without a band. But the one ingredient missing from nearly all the singer-songwriters, humor, is rampant in Wainwright's stuff. Energy, too — he has a great sense of drama and pacing, and when he's on stage he is a bundle of neurotic twitches and grimaces, which hardly sounds like fun to watch, but is.

And even that doesn't really tell the whole story. Because Wainwright can be serious, too, and about the right things, although he seemingly can't be serious without leavening his message with humor. "Dilated To Meet You," despite its title, is a pretty serious song welcoming a baby into the world, but from the title to the last line there are lines that make you wonder whether or not you should chuckle. You get the definite impression that with this guy, humor stands between stability and total collapse. He's got a very individual world-view, and he knows just how to express it in specific terms, and that alone sets him apart from most of the s-s's.

But after all this prolegomena, I must admit that Attempted Mustache isn't quite up to his previous albums. The selections with a band backing him up sound too much like he's making his voice compete with the instruments, which is probably why his first two albums were recorded without any backing but his guitar-strumming. A couple of the songs are kinda slight - "Bell Bottom Pants" and "A.M. World," in particular - and his old lady Kate's song, "Come A Long Way," doesn't seem to fit with the rest of the album.

But then, there are people who cannot under any circumstances listen to the sound of a boy and his guitar, and this particular boy is kinda hard to listen to until you get used to his voice, so for those people I recommend starting with Attempted Mustache. See him live, if you dare, and buy his other three albums, if you can find them. Loudon Wainwright III can make his 'words rock and roll in your ears, and the only song he's written about Jesus so far is "I Am The Way" ("Every Son of God gets a little hard luck some time..."), so you know he's okay. In fact, I've already mailed off a copy of the album and this review to that guy at Onassis Coney Island. I think he's ready for it.

Ed Ward

10 CC (London)

Dear kids,

I am fine. How are you? I hope you are fine. I am. They treat me good here. They say in a few weeks I might be allowed to use sharp things again. Until then, please excuse my writing this review in crayon. My doctor is really nice. He says that rock made me crazy. It made me deaf. It gave me rashes^ It even used to drive me to perversion, I used* to wait in the dark void of my home until I knew that no one was around. Then, secretly, I would rub my Joni Mitchell records against piles of Black Oak Arkansas albums... just to see if they'd scream. There were other rites too repulsive to mention. Like listening to Carole King while almost fully awake and enjoying her! Thinking about Donovan in my spare time. Memorizing the lyrics to John Denver songs. Thank God the good nuns found me when they did. Around here they say it was one too rpany Tommy James singles that drove Charlie Manson into playing "You Bet Your Life" in earnest.

When the ambulance arrived I was sprawled on the living room floor mumbling lewd remarks about Jerry Garcia and listening to the premier album by an English group called 10 CC. The record is what did it. It's probably the first rock elpee DESIGNED to make you Crazy by people who are ALREADY on their way to the laughing academy. Picture, if you will, me coming home (after picking up a new Bible and a box of Milk Duds) and innocently placing the record on my placid stereo turntable... allowing the needle to drop into place and waiting... WAITING FOR THE SOUNDS OF SWEET, LOVELY, DELIGHTFUL ROCK AND ROLL! Without warning, the tune "Rubber Bullets" came bounding at my ears. It sounded like the Beach Boys. It was mellow. Safe. Soft rock. And the lyrics? Why surely they'd be Beach Boys lyrics.

"I went to a party at the local county jail/ All the cons were dancing and the band began to wail/ But the guys were indiscreet/ They were brawling in the street/ At the local dance at the local county jail."

What? WHAAT?!

"Load up, load up, load up with rubber bullets/ 4 love to hear those convicts squeal/ It's a shame these slugs ain't real."

I began to sweat. My ears. This couldn't be right. I mean, the musicianship was too good, with moog and mellotrons zinging in the background and the vocal harmonies flawless. Those lyrics... it had to be me. I listened to the next cut, a cabaret affair entitled "The Hospital Song." "I've been out for hours/ When I come to I'll wet my bed."

"Jesus God," I moaned as I suddenly realized the direction the song was taking. THE WHOLE TUNE WAS ABOUT PISSING IN BED PANS! I was shaking. This wasn't fair. The music was too good for the lyrics to be so off the wall. It was too incongruous a combination. I wasn't used to subtle satire. I was used to slapstick like Slade and Uriah Heep. Unnerved, I listened to 10 CC take a swipe at the spiritualist groupies ("Ships Don't Disappear In The Night") via a chorus of "Poltergeists can be nice/ Better be nice to Vincent Price." Awww come on. My ears teared in pseudo-intellectual outrage as the British foursome delicately dismembered the' Charles Atlas American dream... "Hands like hams/ Knees like trees... /A girl on each shoulder/ And one in his pants."

I tried to take the record off, but I couldn't. It was too good, blast it! Eric Stewart's vocals were just as strong as when he sang lead with the Mindbenders and Graham Gouldman's melodies were just as infectious in "73 as they were in the mid sixties when sung by The Hollies and Herman's Hermits. The whole 10 CC sound was just so slick and so tight. The guitar work was great rock stuff. The synthesized sound was scary. The band jumped in and out of musical styles like a cacophonic chameleon, a bit of the Beach Boys, a shadow of the Beatles, a little limey show music. Pop.

I tried to take my paralyzed mind off the sounds that filled the room. I tried thinking about Sonny and Cher... Carly and James... Kris and Rita... Sacco and Vanzetti! It was no use. Then... THEN the group launched into a fifties revival offering, "Oh Donna."

"Oh Donna/ You make me stand up/ You make me sit down Donna/ Sit down Donna/ Sit down/ You make me stand up." MY GOD! THIS WAS JUST AN INANE AS THE REAL THING!!!

They say by the time they got me to the home, my nose hairs had turned grey and I showed a marked affinity for any sentence with the word "Marat/Sade" in it. Oh God! When I think about how close I came... Promise me one thing kids. Keep on listening to Frank Zappa. Listen to Purple. Neil Young. Bette Midler, Tull. ANYTHING THAT DOESN'T MAKE YOU USE YOUR MIND!

I tell you, after being conditioned by rock not to use it for suph a long time... it's scary when a record comes along that relies on your intellect to put lyrical pieces together. 10 CC is, dare I say it.. . intelligent parody!!

THERE! THERE! NOW I'VE SAID IT!! Are you satisfied? You've got your review! Nurse. NURSE!! I'm ringing my buzzer, nurse. (They're never around when you need them.) Nurse! Nu... WHEN-I COME TO I'LL WEf MY BED, NURSE!!

Ed Naha

THE BEACH BOYS In Concert (Brother-Reprise)

The Beach Boys recently appeared (at Bill Graham's Winterland) on a bill with a band I was writing about, so after my band was off, I stuck around to see them. A 31-year-old, New-York-born folkie/intellectual of my acquaintance was also in the audience, albeit out with the crowd, not backstage where I was, and after the concert we compared notes. He was ecstatic, I was not. He hadn't realized that the. Beach Boys really do know how to sing all those harmonies live, and I hadn't realized that Fataar Brothers or no, the Beach Boys still had to hire a bunch of studio musicians to fill out their sound. Brother Dennis had looked fine backstage, but onstage he appeared to me, jaded habitue of draggy San Francisco decadence that I am, to be ready to die of an overdose. I later learned that he has equilibrium problems. All in all, the one thing that my friend and I agreed upon was that when the Beach Boys had played the old stuff, we'd both gotten off behind it because it was a) musically superior and b) nostalgically viable. And when they had played the new stuff, we were bored because it was a) musically inferior and b) unavailable for nostalgic treatment — even last week's hit can arouse nostalgia, as you must know — because nobody had ever heard it much before.

Thus, approaching this alburn, I gotta say one thing: it's not very good. The band is nowheres near as good as they were just a month or so ago at Winterland. The sound is atrocious — I coulda done as well on my cassette machine, or almost as well. And the performances are perfunctory at best. Of course, part of the charm of seeing this band on stage was watching these dozen or so musicians (including I believe it was A1 Jardine's 3-year-old kid wandering around and playing drums, percussion, and tympani) performing this complexly-arranged music, making it sound much like the records the audience knew and loved so. "When they started "California Girls" my friend reported, "it was almost a religious experience — a shiver went through the crowd. After all, this is California.

But this record doesn't capture a lot of the excitement it should, and I don't know if that's the fault of the Beach Boys or the fault of whoever decided the stage excitement would carry over onto disc. On top of it, Warner Brothers" fabulous art department (assuming that anyone knew what would be on the album before the last minute) has arrogantly opted against providing song titles on the album cover. As a public service to anyone who may have .bought this album or who may be considering buying it despite what they have read so far, CREEM presents the lineup:

SIDE ONE: Sail On Sailor; Sloop John B; The Trader; You Still Believe In Me; California Girls; Darlin". SIDE TWO: Marcella; Caroline No; Leaving This Town; Heroes And Villains. SIDE THREE: Funky Pretty; Let The Wind Blow; Help Me Rhonda; Surfer Girl; Wouldn't It Be Nice? SIDE FOUR:.We Got Love; Don't Worry Baby; Surfin" USA; Good Vibrations; Fun, Fun, Fun.

If that sounds like the Beach Boys Live album you want, go ahead. I like the Dutch concert, myself, and I think there's an earlier one, recorded in L.A. But you should know what you're getting.

Ed Ward

SYLVESTER & THE HOT BAND Bazaar (Blue Thumb)

This Sylvester character has such long hair, it's hard to. tell whether it's a boy or a girl. Ha ha. If you know what I mean.

Really, I just don't understand what's come over kids today. They're always trying to be something they're not. I mean, in the old days, sometimes black performers would try to pass for white. Then we had white performers trying to pass for black. And, naturally, ever since women's liberation and the New Impotence and all of that, we've had women trying to pass for men and certainly a lot of the old vice versa. Now, what do we have? A black boy trying to pass for a white girl trying to pass for a black girl. Tch tch tch. Where will it all end, I ask you?

Colman Andrews

THE KINKS Preservation Act 1 (RCA)

Old Johnny Thunder looks a little overweight,

And his sideburns are turning grey.

But he still likes to bebop, boogie and jive

To his worn out seventy-eights.

That Ray Davies line from "One Of The Survivors," the closing cut from the first side of Preservation Act 1, is really kind of an important one. Because being one of the survivors is precisely what this latest Kinks album is all about; not merely the reintroduction of prodigal sons like Johnny, but more importantly, a thorough recapitulation of nearly any traceable Ray Davies theme you'd care to note and at the same time a chest-thumping salutation to themselves for not just surviving, but for hanging in near the top for what amounts to a decade now. The Kijiks may be aging, just like their pot-bellied creation mentioned above, but at least they're still around to fell about it. And what's more important is that they're going strong in a world that is constantly leaving them behind both musically and thematically. Coming at a time so soon after the recent break-up furor, this is encouraging.

On a musical level, Preservation Act 1 is the most overtly enjoyable since Village Green Preservation Society. It has that loose, summery, totally inconsequential feel that the aforementioned does, which means that like that predecessor, its appeal will be a lasting one. For instance "Daylight," the opening cut when you discount the schmaltzy introduction called "Morning Song," immediately harkens to the Village Green period, even going as far as to base its lyric around that very phrase. "Midday Sun" is another good example, being practically a straight cop from the band's "Sitting By The Riverside." Only the second and third cuts on side two ("Money Corruption/I Am Your Man" and "Flash") aren't absolute charmers. All the rest rank with the best the Kinks have ever done.

Lyrically, Davies" concerns are much the same as they ever were, with the plight of the common Englishman who is lost in a Media created cultural vaccuum predominating. These lines from "Daylight" are as good as any:

Middle-aged bankers crack their backs

And wish they were young and in their teens,

Lonely spinsters dream of dating Roger Moore or Steve McQueen.

Davies also ranks highly, of course, as a tongue-in-cheek casual observer of everything British, as the splendidly satiric "Cricket," or snickeringly cute "Where Are They Now" prove so well. He really re-establishes himself as England's premier lyricist and the poor man's Jonathon Swift with this album, positions that had been precarious ever since Arthur.

All told, I'm intrigued with the Kinks again and have spent a lot of time with my old -scratchy Kinks albums since it came out. Like I've just discovered, if you loved "em once you can love "em again.

A1 Niester

THE CARPENTERS The Singles (A&M)

For the past four years, the Carpenters have been regarded as some kind of oblique musical joke by the mush melon brained rock jingoists who eat slime food and slug down watery drinks at press parties and revel in private sneering aSides at each new hype. The business of music is beneath them, and the music itself... well, the music is shit, too, so the stock-in-trade talk goes. A -very nihilistic group of souls.

Because the Carpenters" newest offering, The Singles 1969-73, a solid collection of their first twelve million-sellers, is the best collection of hits since Bread put all of theirs together. The Singles, track for track, is the most listenable album in the last six months, and includes all the songs you know by second nature whether you realize it or not.

The most noticeable fact about the album is its sense of timelessness, twelve songs coming from a four year period but sounding like they all came out of one single three day high energy session. A perfect session. The vitality and freshness of their interpretation of their first chart buster, "Ticket to Ride" is not diminished one whit as it segues cleanly out of their latest hit, "On Top of the World," and then into the Leon Russell/ Bonnie Bramlett standard, "Superstar." Richard Carpenter's; feel for-his music is not predicated on a sense of now which stigmatizes it two years hence, but rather is predicated on just good clean music and good clean taste. The gems, whether they be Carpenter originals or interpretations (and let it be known that the Carpenters draw their material not only from the best composers and lyricists around, including Paul Williams" "Rainy Days & Mondays" and "We've Only Just Begun," Bacharach/ David's "Close to You," Carole King's "It's Going to Take Some Time," Lennon&McCartney, Leon Russell, but that they use the material that suits them to a tee, and material that they can turn to their own ends so that you hear it fresh); ring resplendent in their own timelessness.

But that's all technical ("Break it up here! Get to work! This is technical! Shove off!"), and technicalities are not the essence of the music. The essence is.. . it's Karen's voice, a thrilling middle class hum that smacks cocksure of doubleknit Downey (a sprawling LA suburb... the Carpenters home where they still live with their folks. . . their father runs their fan club) taste. The white belt/ red pants/ white shoes middle class soul sound packages as perfectly as it is ever going to be done, the best of a contrived but ultimately real world without a lot of cosmic pretensions or polysyllabic gibberish. Zody's and White Fronts, after all, are far more real and pervasive than the, myriad of struggling cedarfronted health food stores folding all over the nation. Karen's voice encompasses all that (aided and abetted, of course, by Richard's flawless musical direction), and gives scope to the dreams of an idealized America, the majority ideal, and if you live here in this time, you, too, have some of it in you.

Karen & Richard are everybody's straight brother & sister, down to her ever growing hips (she's always on a diet) and his search for just the right hair style. They embody America's search for self esteem and self love, a dream as old as America itself, but a dream suddenly on the rack and being tested. The Carpenters offer relief from that test as they offer the. timelessness of yesterday once more. A yesterday that goes on forever without the pending threat of an unknown future. That's why America loves the Carpenters, and cults love other bands. Cults come and go. The Carpenters will remain. Where other bands offer (threaten) the future, the Carpenters offer yesterday forever after. And remember, it's no mistake that Tomorrowland at Disneyland is today the most neglected and least popular attraction on the lot, but it still covers the most acreage, And it's also the safest place to get stoned, if you're still inclined to do so. People get caught all the time. By the guards, and by themselves.

J.R. Young

BLACK OAK ARKANSAS High On The Hog (Atco)

DR. HOOK AND THE MEDICINE SHOW Belly Up (Columbia)

Ah, the varieties of the Hippie Experience! How many, hippos we got out there these days, anyway? San Francisco: now just another burg with a spiff bridge. New Yuk: the faggot yawns, little realising the complete bore he has become, not even measuring up to a decent pain in the ass (Gawd, let's go back to it bein" a disease). L.A.: the mirror on the other side, playacting the faggot yawn. Whur's a hip guy/gal like yrself to go for the real thang in with-it mystic revelation and/or laid-back nodding. Well... all you laid-back nods can stop reading right now and shuffle directly to Colorado; when you hit the border you'll notice a dramatic increase in your sensitivity ratio as Hippie (you) becomes Folkie (you deserve it). And... two words for you mysticulls before we say goodbye: DIRECTED INSTANT; understand this and be free forever — goooooddbbyyyyeeeeeee...

What it all comes down to is why L.A."s got it all over New Yuk: Playing at make believe is better than nlavin" at realitv. Thus to the subject at hand:

Dr. Hook (Hippie: Humorous/Decadent Division) does their stuff so damned well that you begin to wish that they had really decent stuff to do. Unfortunately, the eclectic collection of songs that is Belly Up (eclectic equals: not an album) is either Shel Silverstein stuff or pseudo — "he's our mentor" -Silverstein stuff. Shel Silverstein equals dumbo (mythic) alliterate humor (ref., "Roland The Roadie & Gertrude The Groupie" and "Penicillin Penny"), crumb jokes (ref., "Acapulco Goldie" and ol" Jack Hoff getting" off in "Monterey Jack"), and the yeech sensitive side of C&W (ref., "The Wonderful Soup Stone"). Shel, who used to bore your ass off with his cartoons in Playboy is not, as it were, Terry Southern, as it were. Cosmetic message to Dr. Hook: In terms of image, Shel Silverstein is to Dr. Hook as Andy Warhol was to Velvet Underground, but, even worse, with Dr., Hook the Silverstein image is the reality.

High On The Hog is Black Oak's (Hippie: Rural/Cosmic Division) best album yet. All the trad B.O. messages are there (Stoned and Happy; Cosmic and Crazy; Back to the Land; and Sex isn't Nasty), fronting the integrated instrumental grab-yore-gong excellence that .the band has developed from constant touring. Jim Dandy's voice is no longer an issue; it grows on you like a cosmic tumor that just won't heal up. Three things you can do with a Black Oak album besides just listen and dance: (1) Play it when someone you don't like comes to visit. Play it until he leaves. (2) Give a copy to your Brother-In—Law. (3) Answer all surveys conducted by oldies mags and fanzines. Tell "em Black Oak's version of "Jim Dandy" is your alltime favorite oldie.

Buck Sanders

MAHAVISHNU ORCHESTRA Between Nothingness & Eternity (Columbia)

Q: Can you find the 8 .most overused words and phrases utilized by critics when reviewing Mahavishnu albums?

Well, God knows (or does He?) that it's just as easy to condemn these guys as it is to prdise them; come to think of it — mote so. You see, Mahavishnu John McLaughlin has this, ah, thing. A nasty-tongued person might call it a religious handicap. A zealot might vehemently disagree and say it was an asset and a great boon to his music; perhaps the very source of it. They would argue on and on. Nobody would agree on anything. See how boring it would be? Besides, this is all history. Enough.

I've seen the Mahavishnu Orchestra do sets when they looked like puppets playing themselves; just doing enough to make the audience gasp, then get the hell off stage; and I've also seen them when they've played sets that Staggered grown men and made young dilettantes weep; generating enough raw, crazy energy to shatter windows and start spontaneous combustion fires in a two-block area. This live album is about ninety percent of the latter.

I was a little wary of this record at first. After their second album it was obvious that they did what they did well, but they'd have to come up with something else quick, lest their next album make a strong run at replacing Sominex. Well, the problem of sameness still exists, and they still have to do something quick; but this album simply knocks you on your ass and powerhouses its way past all those complaints. At times it's downright savage. You don't want to sit on a nice grassy hill and watch the sunset with your friends; you want to gnaw cartilage and suck marrow. Billy Cbbham is an animal. That's all I'll say about him. No human being can do what he does without the aid of three other human beings and two more sets of drums. When he and McLaughlin get traveling at the speed of light all you can do is watch and wait for the sound to catch up. You always see the lightning before you hear the thunder.

Of the three offerings on this album (discounting the opening "Trilogy") two are by McLaughlin* the third "Sister Andrea" by keyboardist Jan Hammer. This track seems to stand out a little, maybe because although it has the same sound everything they do has, the flavor has been altered ever so slightly. It would be a wise idea to check into the composing abilities of all of the Orchestra, judging from the track by Hammer and Cobham's new album, which is a slam in the crotch from the word go.

The second side is taken up by a 21 minute piece called "Dream." It floats'and squirms and dazzles and races and sends little bullets of concentrated music tearing through the huge audio walls that all five of them are constantly constructing, wave upon wave. It more or less showcases them at their best, featuring those little stop-go exchanges between McLaughlin and Cobham, producing sensations reminiscent of repeated withdrawl. It also makes some strong points in favor of the fact that Jerry Goodman is one of the best violinists today, which should make his father doubly proud. And, oh-hey: you can hear Rick Laird's bass, something that was usually lacking on the first two studio albums.

So, they beat it this time but they still have to come up with another album eventually, and I'm afraid it will be another make or break effort. If they were to break up we'd all lose, but best to see a creature die quickly than suffer along pretending to be alive when the soul is gone. Their future lies not in a one-man dictatorship but a five-man entity. All giving, all sharing, all leading and nonleading. God likes that. Mankind is like that. And this band has the personnel to pull it off. All the concerned can do is wait.

A) ONE — God TWO — energy THREE — powerhouse FOUR - Speed of light FIVE — lightning SIX - races SEVEN - bullets EIGHT — constructing.

Clyde Hadlock

ALBERT BROOKS Comedy Minus One (ABC-Dunhill)

When Gregor Samsa awoke one morning, he found himself transformed into a gigantic comedian. He was lying on a seltzer bottle and when he lifted his head a little, he could see the custard pies, whoopie cushions, oversized Big Bambu packages and eight by ten glossies of Neil Young cluttering his bedroom.

_'With the possible exception of the Neil Young photos," he muttered uneasily, "None of this is funny."

Samsa was in a quandry (having left his bed). If he was to be a young comedian, surely he had to be funny. If not funny, at least relevant. If not relevant, he should at least learn to say "shit" and "piss" correctly. Searching his room for every comedy record he could find, he began a crash course in laugh getting.

He put on an old copy of The First Family album and then ran outside of the house reciting some of the material. Nobody laughed (except for a few Republicans and a small fellow named Oswald). Returning to his room, Gregor listened to the latest Cheech and Chong album; playing it over and over for hours, savoring each "far out" and, more importantly, "hey, maaaaan." Venturing outside of the house once more, he practiced his newfound one liners on a group of nearby squirrels congregating under a tree. The newspapers said it was one of the first incidents of mob violence perpetrated by squirrels in the history of the United States.

Once released from the hospital, Samsa again entered his room and subjected himself to the rigors of giggle study. George Carlin made his face twitch and, after two of three listenings, began sounding like Bob Denver stoned on Kaopectate. Richard Pryor gave Gregor the creeps, with a voice resembling a kindergarten student caught in a Mixmaster. Neil Young's new record was funny enough, but Samsa couldn't play the piano that badly. Shriver and Burns" album made a passable frisbee. All seemed hopeless for the embryonic tickler of funny bones, until he put on Comedy Minus One, a debut LP by a young upstart named Albert Brooks.

"HELLO AND CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR PURCHASE."

Gregor smiled for the first time since becoming a comedian. This guy was pretty likable.

"I HAD NEVER DONE ANY "LIVE" PERFORMING BEFORE... ONLY DEAD PERFORMING."

Rather droll, thought the youth slapping his hands against his thighs, causing large welts to form.

"THREE DOG NIGHT JUST PASSED A RULE WHERE THEY DON'T PLAy IN BUILDINGS ANYMORE. .. JUST IN STATES."

Samsa's giggling body fell to the floor, hitting the whoopie cushion with full force.

"Whooopie" whispered the cushion without apparent feeling.

"I GAVE MYSELF A TREMENDOUS BUILDUP... "HE'S JOHNNY CARSON'S PERSONAL FRIEND. HE'S SLEPT WITH ED SULLIVAN." "

Greg's eyes teared. Brooks was great. His humor was topical but not trendy. It was intelligent, imaginative and corny enough to arouse in his heart nostalgic visions of every ^comedian he had ever guffawed to, from Abbott and Costello to Daniel Ellsberg. Why, good old Albert even included a script in his record jacket, designed to allow his listeners to participate in the laugh fest.

"THERE'S A KNOCKING IN MY ENGINE... IT'S PROBABLY A PISTON. LET HIM IN."

Clutching his seltzer bottle with glee, donning his Mister Peanut outfit and tucking his album jacket script under his arm, Samsa ran out into the street reading his script at the top of his lungs: "ALBERT: Thank you... thank you... and good evening ladies and gentlemen. I'm Albert. YOU: And I'm you. ALBERT: Wait a minute, how could you be me? YOU: I didn't say I was you. I said I was me. ALBERT: No you didn't. I said I was Albert and you said you were me. YOU: You got it all wrong. You said "I'm Albert" and I said "I'm you." But I'm not talking about you. I'm talking about me\"

"Who's on first?" came a voice from the heavens as the sun shone brightly on the fast-moving figure of Mr. Peanut.

Ed Naha

* 1973 ABC-Dunhill Music, Inc.

FLEETWOOD MAC Mystery To Me (Reprise)

It seems to me that too many people have been writing nasty things about Fleetwood Mac of late. Like the noted critic-amputee fetishist J.B. of Candid Examiner who inferred that the band's most recent album yielded an aroma not unlike that of a trainload of Cro-Magnon smegma; or the usually more perceptive W.A. of Bachelor's Digest, who hinted that the band might-best be rewarded for its latest efforts by listening to a recorded cassette version while standing two feet from the launching pad of the next moon shot.

So granted, the present-day version of Fleetwood Mac is not the same great blues group who did all those amazing things with their blues mentors in Chicago; and granted also that they aren't the same band that pulverized frontal lobes boundlessly with all those near classics of the late sixties like "Oh Well" and "Green Manalishi."

That doesn't necessarily mean that they don't still have something to offer, and as proof I'submit to you the band's latest release Mystery To Me. While no endowment from on high, Mystery To Me is a pretty good middle of the road rock album made especially for aging fans who still identify with the old band from days gone by. A lot of it is kind of so-so, but done with such off-handed expertise that it stands up well even after repeated listenings. Stuff like "Emerald Lady", which reminds one a lot of "Sentimental Lady" from the Future Games album, or any of the five or so similar sounding Christine McVie vocalized efforts, are all good, solid, undangerous yet classy pieces of super-amplified folk-rock which can't really be too harshly criticized. They're all very well produced, well executed and highly melodic.

And the rest of the album is even better, containing some of the most high-handed rocking the band has done since Green left. "Miles Away" cooks so well you'll probably hear it on your FM radio segueing into Zeppelin or Grand Funk, and "The City" is just as good, even if it does smack a bit of Don Nix" "Goin" Down." And to top it all off, "Somebody" has a lead vocal that almost hints at Peter Green type phraseology.

The weirdest cut on the album has to be their version of the old Yardbird smash "For Your Love." As they do it almost note for note, I can't really understand its being here at all. If they're doing it to introduce a great old song to the Funk-Heep younger generation who've probably never heard it, they're wasting their time because none of these kids would be caught dead listening to a Fleetwood Mac album in the first place. And if they're doing it as a favour to their fans, that's dumb too because the kind of people who would buy this album either own or are very familiar with the song anyway.

But other than that it's a pretty good album. Way better that Penguin or Bare Trees or Future Games and maybe even better than Kiln House just because it's much more consistent. And it's miles, miles better than any of the three (yeah, three, how does that grab ya, anglo-freaks?) Jeremy Spencer solos or even the Peter Green End of the Game jerk-off. Whether it'll be better than Danny Kirwin remains to be seen, and I'll look forward to that. But in the meantime this'll do.

A1 Neister

BOBBY BLUE BLAND His California Album (ABC/bunhill) ^

O.V. WRIGHT Memphis Unlimited (Back Beat)

One of the better things that happened in Record Biz "73 was the acquisition by ABC of a number of great rhythm and blues labels. The Vee-Jay label was mostly old stuff, and they haven't really begun to dig in those files yet, but by far the most important purchase was the Texas-based Duke-Peacock-BackBeat family of labels. The property of a feisty old man named Don Robey, these labels have, over the years, produced some of the best music America has heard, and while Duke has some amazing R&B, Peacock covers the finest gospel music being made.

Duke's biggest seller and overall bestknown artist has always been Bobby "Blue" Bland, the man who gave us such classics as "Turn On Your Lovelight," "That's The Way Love Is," "Call On Me," and dozens of others. A giant of a man physically, Bland has a powerful voice marked by a kind of choking sound he makes — his trademark. There is nothing rough about Bland's approach to the blues, either - both his voice and the arrangements behind him are always as smooth as velvet. Or good Scotch - no coincidence.

When ABC got Duke, one of the very first announcements they made was that Bobby Bland would soon begin cutting his first album in five years for them, and his fans began holding their breath. He'd been on the road almost continually for those five years, playing dingy joints and blues festivals and the occasional prestige gig. Well, the album is out, and, while it isn't as powerful as some of his earlier stuff, it shows (as he did the night before I'm writing this, when I saw him at Ruthie's Inn in Berkeley) that the man still has his chops.

If there is any fault with the California Album it is material. For instance, I don't much like his approach to the old Sonny Boy Williamson number "Going Down Slow." Why? It's too fast. It rocks too much, making the lyrics sound kind of incongruous. Also, the album's sound is almost uncomfortably clean for what I expect from Duke, but that is the fan in me speaking — there's nothing wrong with recording an album well, after all. No, the material is uneven if anything is wrong. Great songs like "Where Baby Went" and "This Time I'm Gone For Good," which sounds like a smash hit to me, alternate with Leon Russell's "Help Me Through the Day" and a couple of other lesser numbers, giving you the feeling that the album is less good than it actually is. But the one thing you cannot take away is the fact that it's really Bobby Bland singing, and he overpowers the rough spots and illuminates the high points so well that in the end all you can say is: welcome back, Bobby.

O.V. Wright is another matter. Duke had been grooming him for some kind of stardom, but I never much liked his records because the material he had and the backing seemed to be conspiring to blank out what talent he might have had. No longer. Somebody had the bright idea to team him up with Willie Mitchell's production techniques, and his latest album, Memphis Unlimited, is unbelievably fine. If you've ever wondered what A1 Green would sound like if he weren't such a simp, pick up this album. Wright's voice is delicate enough for the kind of instrumental sound Mitchell always favors, but when he has to shout, he's right there. The songs are all real strong, both melodically and lyrically ("He's My Son Just Th% Same" is almost too strong, in fact), and O.V. has, simply, never sounded this good before.

In addition to Bland and Wright, ABC has added literally hundreds of artists to their catalogue as a result of these two deals, and for the first time ever, people are going to be able to find records by The Mighty Clouds of Joy, the Dixie Hummingbirds, Junior Parker, Johnny Ace, Willie Mae Thornton, and plenty of other undeservedly obscure Black artists readily available. Bland, at least, is getting a major push nationally in an attempt to present him to a young white audience that has only known him third-hand. As a result, I finally got to see him, and I recommend you do too, if you can. And if anybody out there hears that O.V. Wright is doing the same, get in touch.

Ed Ward

DIANE DUFRESNE A Part Do D'Ca, J'Me Sens Ben Opera Cirque (Barclay)

PELOQUIN SAUVAGEAU Laissez-Nous Vous Embrassor Ou Vo us Avez Mal (Canadian Polydor)

Quebec's dammmmn good, better'n Ontario, Toronto and Prince Edward Island put together. Diane Dufresne'd never get away with exposing her paps in either of those 3 clip joints but look at the cover and know the big Q let her do it and more. Naked as a bather bathing from the waste up except for a wristband and neckerthing and a couple gallons of body paint applied thereto. Makin her resemble a t-shirt with white fleur de lis over each whatsum and the rest is blue. Nippos visible to the unaided eyeball and guess where the foto was taken. Are you ready? On the street! Streets of Quebec with the neighbors lookin on (not one disapprover in the lot including the cross-armed kid with the Expos shirt on).

Had a press party for her at the Montreal planetarium (unsightly BRICKS on the ceiling: don't go there unless you're a masonry fan) and they tell you stuff like "Bonjour blah blah blah" in the Quebecois variation of everlovin Frogonian and hand you a record, namely this one now under this critic's careful scrutiny. Diane was about to jet to Paris France and was dressed like a dobro (no but if I told you what she was really dressed like you'd laugh and MUSIC IS NOT A LAUGHING MATTER). Planet show was on account of the theme of this gal's vinyl expedition: "La fin du monde est aujourd'hui." In othwords the end of the world's for today people so get it on etc.

And on is where she sure does get it. Eg. the very near end of "La marche nuptiale des condamnes a mort" where she screams/ cries/ moans/ sobs/ whimpers/ yodels her pepsi arse off like it ain't been done. Scout's honour. Got Bonnie Bramble and Janis beat by the diameter of Neptune. Yoko too. All of em you could possibly think of and she does it for minutes on end. In fact I'm gonna time you how many minutes right now — whoops almost forgot the hockey game's on so it'll hafta wait till it's over (thumbs twiddled for quite some longtemps)... well it's 12 seconds under 2 minutes but it seems much longer.

Nother time up in New France I'm drinkin Labatt with Claude Peloquin the poet and author of books that even Belgians read. He's as pop-yule-r locally as Rod McKuen in Podunk but he writes more like one of those whatstheirnames like Michael McClure or somebody. Knows Jodorowsky. Digs Buddy Rich and circus clowns. Believes in physical immortality! Lotsa luck chum but he's o.k. and will talk to anglo-honkies in their native tongue. Him and this Sauvageau person put their names and multitalentedness tight together and came up with the above-named kr-r-razy canuckeroo which translates as Let Us Kiss You Where It Hurts if you wanna trans (baby's beautocks pictured with bandaged sore).

THERE IS SOME ENGLISH on this cut called "Sterilization" about feelin groovy bein sterilized (not corny as you might think and Capt. Beefhgart couldn't of spokenmonologued it any better or even Ed Sanders and as a matter of fact the thing it's closest to is "Horse Latitudes" by golly) but the real cake-taker is the en-francais "Mama Vagina." Which bears a strong resemblance to::::::::: "Black Angel's Death Song"!!! Yes so you don't gotta gamble on Lou Reed anymore if you wanna try and hear the vintage stuff done vintagely.

And speaking of vintage there's hardly a drop of white wine in Montreal which sure as hep ain't much skin offa my nose. Plus what else is good about the place and its musical produce is do you feel jaded sometimes and don't got no idea what you even like anymore or ever did? Cause if so you oughta listen to foreign stuff. I mean you could disorient yourself by listening to classical horsedog if you really wanna suffer but DON'T ("ll serve you right if you do). Eardrumming in on this French-Canadian stuff is real real easy and pleasant and ain't wearing on your nerves and don't challenge your decisions on like-itor-not like you get with the latest Yes album or Boz Scaggs. Cause it's as totally irrelevant as it is strange. Is it pop, is is rockroll, is it doo-nooba-do??? Don't matter so you get to latch onto the ALL & THE ONE again for a change (been years, right?). Better'n an oil change, a tire change and a recharged battery all in one plus a full tank of gas. No lie.

R. Meltzer

BUDDY MILES EXPRESS Booger Bear (Columbia)

Buddy's no bear. He's not even a Bob. BUT! There was a Buddy Bear! Brother of Max. Fought Job Louis twice. L disq. 7 on May 23, 1941. KO by 1 January 9, 1942. Wash., D.C. and New York. N.Y., respectively. A loser!

Whereas Buddy M's a winner. Wins every fat contest hands (belly) down. In "Booger Bear" the title cut he sez (and I quote): "I'm your booger and you're my bear, let's take a railroad and sit in a chair." Booger champ as well!.

That's two titles but the one that really counts is music champ. He's a contender in that too. Rated No. 5 by the World Music Assn, otherwise known as the WMA. Their ratings came out today and he's 5. What put him there is his popularity. Aside from the 1,000,000s of fans who idolize his every adipose Judith Frampton (nee Ulrich) of Boston, Mass, likes him too.

Maybe Fll even save this one for her instead of selling it for 35 cents of whatever they're paying this week (not gonna tell you where cause if I do the price goes down even further). Pretty soon they won't be; sending us writers any records at all cause of vinyl which is short. It's all going to cars. They need it for roofs. Such as the famous Landau Roof. Much irony in that! Landau (of R.S.) don't get it in grooves so he gets it in rooves! THE WHOLE GODDAM WORLD IS UPSIDE DOWN.

Not inside out like Buddy's bear suit when it's ins. ou. Ups. dow. Which Buddy can't even do cause he's bottom-heavy.

R. Meltzer

FIRST CHOICE Armed & Extremely Dangerous (Philly Groove)

THE THREE DEGREES (Philadelphia International)

LOVE UNLIMITED Under the Influence Of... (20th Century)

The Golden Age of the Girl Group may be long past - the Crystals, the Chiffons, the Ronettes, the Shangri-las, the Shirelles, the Marvelettes, Martha^ & the Vandellas all vanished or reduced to mere caricatures in the get-serious late Sixties; that group called The S.upremes surviving in name only and an occasional surprise like Honey Cone little comfort in the last five years. But, given the evidence collected here, the genre is back on its high heels - trashy, sassy and unashamedly romantic as ever — and ready for a strong revival. Labelle started it, but First Choice, The Three Degrees and Love Unlimited are more (stereo)typical of the genre and much more down to r&b basics. All are trios whose strengths lie not so much in their vocal abilities as in the abilities of their producers. Girl Groups have always been a producer's prime playthings, supremely moldable, and the girls here have been molded by some of the best men in the business.

The First Choice, whose debut album is the most impressive of the lot, is the product of a relatively new production team, Stan Watson and Norman Harris, previously producer and arranger for The Delphonics. On their home ground at Sigma Sound Studios and using many of the same musicians who turn out tracks for Gamble & Huff, Watson & Harris have whipped up a sweetly funky blend of Motown and Philadelphia, strongly reminiscent of Martha & The-Vandellas and the only thing to come up to their standard of Girl Group throwaway excellence since Martha's Watchout! album in 1966. Even weepy fillers like "A Boy Named Junior" (who "was stricken with polio" but eventually gets up and walks out of our girl's life anyway), "One Step Away" ("from selfdestruction") and "This Little Woman" are so well-handled they're hard to resist. But the featured cuts and production numbers, all with a hard discotheque up-beat, are just plain great.

"Armed and Extremely Dangerous," the group's first hit, begins with a precise conga beat, a snatch of the ominous Dragnet theme and a rush of sirens and strings. A police radio bulletin cuts in, "calling all cars," and then the girls enter with a warning of their owm: "Said he's dangerous, armed and extremely dangerous." No description of the weapon, but this was a crime of passion, leaving our heroine "with another mouth to feed," singing, "He might look like the average guy, but he's wanted by the FBI." The lead's voice is strong and gutsy, her screams full-bodied and riveting, and the back-up voices don't let her down for a second (typically, though all the session men and engineers are listed, the girls are unnamed on the linerb

The Three Degrees have been around for some time but this is their first album under the direction of Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff, master transformers of the small time into the Big Time. Their work here is sweeter than usual, smoother and more sophisticated than the Watson & Harris sound (though Harris is listed as arranger on two cuts), but also more predictable. The group has a tendency to be cutesy and bland and the producers play up this passive "femininity" Tor all it's worth.

From the glitz and tits inside spread to songs like "A Woman Needs a Good Man" and "I Like Being a Woman," this is a package designed to feed the fantasies and egos of men. "I like being a woman," The Three Degrees sing, "I like being a girl/ putting my hair up in curls/ Just a girl!" Their anti-Women's Liberation rap, put in a musical frame almost identical to that in "I'll Always Love My Mama," is delivered in breathy, sexy tones: "I don't want to be your equal, I just want to be a part of you." The chorus chirping "just a girl, just a girl" sums up about half the album.

But the other half is sharper, more substantial and the vocals have an edge of real ache or toughness that makes all the difference. "Dirty OF Man," in an expanded version from the single, is the strongest cut: a nervous, insistent beat underlined by a lush string section in a kind of sweet and sour contrast that carries into the vocals. Toward the end, the song cuts its pace and rebuilds with the group first whispering, then screaming, "Dirty, dirty, dirty, dirty ol" man" - the album's high point. The longest cut, a dramatic "If and When," gets a little over-grandiose in the end but it gives the group their most spectacular showcase, horn flourishes and all. "I Didn't Know" is one of Gamble & Huffs more attractive bounces but "Year of Decision," also under three minutes, is even better - a message-with-a-beat almost as powerful as the O'Jays" "Love Train."

If The Three Degrees seem to be treated as just another instrumental input on Gamble & Huff's elaborate charts, Love Unlimited, who don't even sing on two of their album's cuts, are the ultimate Girl Group puppets. Producer Barry White, the man whose Isaac Hayes imitations turned put to be better than the real thing, uses these three ultra-feminine voices like Reddi-Whip on his multi-layer cake productions. When it comes to grandiose effects, White begins where Gamble & Huff leave off, with the results sometimes lush and lovely, occasionally heavy-handed and overripe. Much of his work suffers from violin OD, but when White comes up with an arrangement sharp enough to pierce that smothering blanket of strings, the effect can be stunning. The opening track, an instrumental titled "Love's Theme," presents White's formula'sound at its most attractive and successful: an incredibly sweet concoction of strings spun like cotton candy around a repetitive and simple guitar pattern, it had just the right combination of sweetness and double-punch to make it the instrumental of the past year.

"Under the Influence of Love," the following and complementary cut, linked by a near-perfect break-and-build transition, brings on the girls in a sweep of vibrant, sexy chorused vocals. The hypnotic, almost overpowering production captures the song's "love jones" them?: "He's got that certain stuff/ that I'm addicted to/ Love's really got a hold on me/ and there's nothing I can do." Even more than The Three Degrees, this album is a man's fantasy about his woman's utter devotion, if not addiction. Like their earlier album, this one was designed "from a girl's point of view" - with all the material written and produced by Barry White. Though the fantasies may be unpalatable, the production is so delicious it overcomes most objections. You can't even complain about the audacity of stripping side one's "Oh Love, We Finally Made It" of its vocals and turning it into "Yes, We Finally Made It" on side two because the device works so well. Should have been titled Under the Influence of Barry White, but it's addicting under any name.

Vince Aletti