TODD RUNDGREIM Todd (Bearsville)

— “Raking Turquoise Ruts Across the Velveeta Sky” —

Todd the Mod? Todd the Bod? Todd the Nod, or Todd the God? A tittle bit of all, as you might expect from young Rundgren’s latest album. Mainly, it’s Todd.

As far as albums go, it vibrates like crazy. The question is, how’s your short wave working? It’s not a matter of him being tuned in to our wavelength — that’s granted, since in the last year Todd has given us, as a producer, both Grand Funk’s milestone We’re An American Band, and America’s milestone, the New York Dolls. Where were those reporters from Time Magazine then? But when Todd changes costume from producer to “artist,” he comes close to ignoring it all to let it sonic, raving, all spill out.

It’s a question of us being ready to relate to his wavelength. Strict constructionists might feel that Todd As excessive as anything Keitjh Emerson or Rick Wakeman might roll our way. I say get the banana out of your ear. The only real common ground, aside from the reliance op electronic instrumentation throughout 'these four meaty sides, is that Todd has undergone the real Brain Salad Surgery. Sometimes it slows his game: movie type themes like “Drunken Blue Rooster,” which is psychedelicized Michel Legrand, or “In And Out of the Chakras We Go (formerlay: “Shaft Goes to Outer Space),” which is full of ravenous energy but lacking in drama, an exercise in instrumental pyromania.

In a way, it’s kind of unavoidable. Todd is drawn into a massive amount of sound. He still seems obsessed by the powers (implied wizardry) available in today’s sophisticated studio equipment: moogs, mellotrons, equalizers, 256 tracks. He is not nostalgic for the hand-held tape recorder and four-part harmonies in the boys’ room.

And Todd comes at a peculiar time in his career. His last album, A Wizard, A True Star was his most experimental, electronic record to date: his latest single, “Hello It’s Me,” broke Todd as a recording artist to a wide range of listeners. Trouble was, the song was drawn from Something/Any thing, an album two years old. So he’s perched on the verge of attaining a real mass audience by virtually the only means available to a non-performer; that is, a string of hit singles. And he’s willing, perhaps even glad, to let it all slide.

There are some possible singles on Todd, though they not be immediately evident. “A Dream Goes On Forever” and “Useless Begging” both show the sentimental loveworn side of Rundgren, with lovely melodies offset by whiz doodling, and lyrics so cloying they become bizarre: “A million old soldiers will fade away/ But a dream goes on forever.” Come on.

But it’s an important relation. Let’s call it the Philadelphia Connection; that allows Todd to remain in touch with his white kid soul music roots, sonic space gear and all. It’s essential stuff for grounding, and it’s this sense of tradition that keeps Rundgren from flying off the handle. Fortunately, though, the best stuff on this 2-LP set seems to be on the very songs that Todd allows himself to get the most indulgent, lyrically and musically.

Try “Everybody’s Going to Heaven/ King Kong Reggae.” It’s one of the many explorations of teen culture frustration that has made Todd such a smash among the kids: he understands. “So every night we party, and every night we get too high/ And I put myself so close to death, til I think I ain’t gonna die...” But not until we blow it all out by doin’ the King Kong Reggae, which has to be the song title of the month. Anybody out there got some dance steps to go along?

In the same vein is “Heavy Metal Kids,” another successful, if dangerous exercise in persona leaping. Musically; and lyrically, it plays upon the chaotic, unrequited emotional energies of our favorite teenagers. He uses the song to universalize the concept: “Inside everyone is a heavy metal kid,” while exaggerating the madness to its ridiculous but logical extremes: “I know I could make this place so peaceful and calm/ If I could only get my hands on a hydrogen bomb.”

Rundgren’s uniquely self-centered sense of humor sustains a good part of the album. “No. 1 Lowest Common Denominator” explores a contortionist’s view of physical lust, with a TV commercial thrown in: “I kissed you once, will I kiss you again? Be certain with sex and you’ll always have friends.” Which personally is toenail-picking for philosophy, but I sense it’s done on purpose. The song descends into a moogified narration, with further Rod McKuen on methadone images like “All the birds leave raking turquoise ruts across the Velveeta sky...”

Charming, charming. So is “An Ellpee’s Worth of Tunes,” another rock star tribulation, nicely executed with changing voices and accents. It’s more traditionally theatrical than most Todd stuff, farcical in the style of Gilbert & Sullivan (not Gilbert O’Sullivan, kids. Gilbert and Sullivan were the guys who invented rock operas before anybody bothered to invent rock.) S

It makes even more sense when we discover that the only non-Rundgren composition follows soon after. It’s “Lord Chancellor’s Nightmare Song,” which was written by Gilbert and Sullivan.

Rundgren really goes conceptually mad dog on “Sons of 1984,” which utilizes the visionary gimmick of a large audience in New York singing the choruses and having another audience in San Francisco overdub that. (Musta been a mother to mix, but it sounds good.) I only question what happened to the Daughters of 1985, though I find the likely explanation — that it would’ve made the line too

unwieldy to sing — as acceptable for the moment.

So what’s the verdict? I think through all the noise and the occasional overplayfulness in place of composition, Todd has basically found his tongue. What emerges as the dominant theme through the album is an extraordinary bastardization of “Hello It’s Me” type riffs, combining calliope music, zen gun rhythms, technical finesse and Bazooka Joe madness behind the boards. Much of the credit is due to Todd’s latest group of sidekicks: Ralph Shucketf and Moogy Klingman on keyboards, John Siegler on bass, and Kevin Ellman on drums. Note especially the reckless brilliance of Ellman’s drums on “King Kong Reggae” for a taste of some of the most creative, powerful and adaptable percussion work around.

Last question: is this what Todd wants? He’s created a Grand Boirffe for the ears, which is as creatively rewarding to some as it is repulsive to others. Maybe if he wants to get serious about being a recording artist with hit appeal, he could use some control. Maybe he needs a producer. Meanwhile, I can’t wait for him to do “H.M.S. Pinafore” in its entirety' next time out.

Wayne Robins

LOU REED Rock '.n' Roll Animal (RCA)

It was great. Everything was on the beat. The songs were good. Liked the jazz in the beginning of “Sweet Jane.” He used to do these songs with the Velvet Underground, but I like these new versions a little bit better. The Velvet Underground had more mistakes in it. The record was really good. My whole family loved it, my mother and father and brother.

I think his personality is great. It suits him. I liked this better than Transformer because the lyrics were longer. “New York Telephone Conversation” was too short. “Lady Day” is my favorite because my family really liked it. I liked the version of “Heroin” on this album. In the Beatles John Lennon took heroin and put it in a song, but Lou Reed did it better. I like live albums better than regular ones, and I like this better than any of the ones I have except the Rolling Stones live. It’s even better than the Jackson Five. Lou Reed is really getting it together, and someday he might be the biggest star in show business.

I also like Lou Reed personally, because I think he’s a good singer and he might be a

Certified: Alive On Arrival,

groovy guy. If I ever meet him.

Josh Zuppke

Josh (Mr. Zuppke is ten years old. — Ed.)

I concur with Josh. Not only was this the only good rock album to come out in the first two months of 1974, it’s also the best live rock album of the year. Which isn’t mitigated at all by the fact that it’s so clean — Steve Hunter and Dick Wagner are two of the finest guitarists ever to emerge from the great Detroit Bands Boom of the late Sixties, and they’re clearly inspired by this opportunity to reframe five vintage slices out of the spleen of the first and biggest hero of the Seventies. Lou always wanted a band like this — straight-ahead cooking mainstream rock ’n’ roll that anybody can rail with — and his best vocals on Animal, like “White Light/White Heat” and “Lady Day,” display an energy and raunchy dynamism he hasn’t shown since Loaded's “Head Held High.” The 13-minute reconstituted “Heroin” here may initially throw anybody who grew up on ihe Velvets’ truly subversive original, but after a few playings it comes into focus, and even if it doesn’t build with the consistent power of the origianl its breathtaking dynamics showcase typcially gorgeous guitar work. This is the ' Lou Reed album that even all you Allmans and Live Dead fans are gonna love in spite-of yourselves. ‘ Speaking as cultist-aficionado from way back, I can say that while R&R Animal lacks the funereally morbid appeal of • depresso-classics like Berlin it’s a refreshing curve ball that (for a change) hits exactly as intended. Get on it.

Lester Bangs

VAN MORRISON It's Too Late To Stop Now! (Warner Bros.)

When Van Morrison is going good, you can usually count on him to go right over the cliff. It’s Too Late To Stop Now!, a tworecord live album that features the best picture of Van you’ve ever seen on the cover, seems to build, through seventeen greatest hits and unrecorded favorites, to one moment in “Cyprus Avenue,” the very last song. For well over an hour of music Van has held his balance, in some ways held his breath, ringing changes on his songs and getting them across; each tune has, been right, many have been a lot better than right. About equal parts warmth and weirdness, it has been an exciting, satisfying performance; but something is missing. All very rehearsed, then, contrived if you like — you’ve heard Van pull this trick before — Morrison begins to stutter the verse of “Cyprus Avenue” that is about stuttering. All right you say, I get it. No no you don’t, Van says/-and he keeps stuttering. Keeps stuttering and the live audience squirms a bit, applauds, says, OK, that was just greet, Van, you can stop now, and he -goes right on stuttering. It’s ludicrous and it’s chilling and by now the tension is fierce and you are ready to give up*your immortal soul if the motherfucker will just get the word out. You remember the time you sat nervously with a stuttering friend and how you ached with everything you had for him to get the word out not because you bleed with compassion for the afflicted but because he was driving you nuts and making you wish you’d never met him. All the while the singer stutters on, the whole album cracks wide open, and Van Morrison — strange, twisted, a little crazed and finally magnificent — probably grinned.

The band here is Morrison’s usual outfit — playing pretty much in the Moondance style — plus a small string section, which blends in perfectly. On first listening the music may sound a little restrained, as if the musicians had said what they had to say after four or five numbers, but after hearing the discs a few more times it is clear they are alive on every cut. Guitarist John Platania is a Robbie Robertson disciple here, leaving most of the leads to saxophonist Jack Schorer and trickling sharp little notes and comments through the songs instead. What Morrison seems to want is a mood and a context — on stage, his voice is a more inventive instrument than any in the band. He is a truly original blues singer, and when he throws a new verse into Sam Cooke’s “Bring It On Home To Me” it sounds as if it’s always been there. The toughest job on a live album is to escape the studio versions of your songs without making the listener automatically reach to compare the two versions — without making it seem as if the changes have been forced. Solid as it is, Lou Reed’s new live greatest hits album drags the originals into my head; Van’s doesn’t destroy his originals, but his presence is so

natural and self-contained he temporarily dissolves them.

I have seen Van blow it on stage, but here he seems to know exactly what he wants and how to get it. When he moves into “Here Comes the Night” the song begins to grow from the first step — it sounds timeless, the strings dancing along ’like a second rhythm section, as on a hit by the Drifters or the O’Jays — and while Platania rings out that fabulous riff over and over, Van aims for his note and hits it. He finds the word “lonely,” pulls it out of the familiarity of the song, and suddenly he’s fascinated by it; he jams the whole song into the word, picking up energy, and he sails: “Give it to me! Give it to me lonely! Lonely, lonely, lonely! GIVE IT TO ME LONELY!”

While this is the kind of record that changes your favorites every time you put it on, “Caravan” will always be a stand-out: for

its drama, its epic feel, for those quiet, tyluesy moments at the end, after Van has introduced the band without ever losing the flow of the song, where he begins to muse, stalking the stage, probably,, as he does, and simply lays out what he’s after and what he’s given you: “Nothing but the best. Later for the garbage.”

That’s John Lee Hooker’s line, and I’ll bet he plays these sides all the time. One of Van’s best performances in the last couple of years was his duet with Hooker on “I’ll Never Get out of These Blues Alive” (on Hooker’s ABC album of the same name); with It’s Too Late To Stop Now!, Van goes as far into the blues as anyone around, and he gets out anyway. And that, far more than on Warner Brothers Records, would seem to be precisely where he belongs.

Greil Marcus

SUZI QUATRO (Bell)

Suzi Quatro is a real cutie, rootie tootie, not sweet hog honey like Linda Ronstadt but a tight roller derby queen with juice and enuf krassiness to rank her right up there with the Sweet and Slade. She sweats, she moves, she twitches hard!! And that, ya homey gorilla, is what makes this disc such an instant party record.

No gyp, this is the album they shoulda called Expressway to Your Skull cause this mean piece of meat splits it right open with “48 Crash” and that’s only the first cut. And the pounding don’t stop but reaches a peak in

lotsa places like on “Can the Can” where she kinda rips yr clothes off, licks yr spine with her hot tongue, and then slices into yr back with razor blades. And then on “Primitive Love” she makes ya feel like she’s whipping ya with electric eels. And even her version of “Shakin' All Over” (altho kinda sad like a one-legged stripper) gets ya all hairy and itchy and. ..

I guarantee by the time you’re thru listening to this porno phonographic sleaze you gonna be scratching like a hound.

Whew,-man, the thump-a-long whomp of this woman has gotta be heard to be believed!! At first glance don’t let her throw ya off. Just cause there’s three guys on the cover who look like they been drugged outa the local pub and stomped on in the streets of Albany, pay no attention. That’s her style. She’s got the image like she’s a contestant on Candlepins for Cash and an avid reader of The National Star, but if ya take a closer look, I bet ya get hooked for a lifetime. Whatta doll!!

Ahhhhh, go ahead and compare em. Pick any beauty ya want —*-Tina Turner, April Lawton, Grace, Janis, Bette, Cher, Kim Fowley — it don’t matter. The simple fact is that Suzi is a beauty, a sex monster, a humping wild-eyed witch from Detroit without using gimmicks like„tits, jugs, boobs, knockers, etc. It’s her raw power (get hip, quick, dip) alone that gets ya charmed and ogle-eyed. Whatta feast!

And don’t think that nothing of what I been saying is about the music either. I mean, she practically has to look the way she do to squeal and tease so much force into her songs. Yeah, she sounds like she’d be pretty hard to handle.

Even the liner notes know what’s going on. Read ’em; they go: “Imagine yourself strapped into one of those vibrating exercise machines that makes you shake uncontrollably like a bowl of Jello, flesh aquiver.” The man has no polish, but he’s right. She’s Grade-Z!! No doubt about it, it shouda been Suzi Q. doing the soundtrack for Beyond the Valley of the Dolls instead of them impoteent Strawberry Vanilla Alarm Fudge Clocks.

So, sport, if yr well-hung and hungry for some good things and need something to shake ya really hard, then pleeze, don’t be no fool, run out and pounce on Suzi’s debut album. It beats those life-size rubber dolls anyday cause, hell, they’re always baggy ’n’ ugly and they can’t ever rock yr skin tight to the bone like Suzi do. Whatta Queen!!!

Robot A. Hull

YES Tales From Topographic Oceans (Atlantic)

Tales From Topographic Oceans is a staggering example of what can happen when mortal man is afflicted with the Opus Syndrome, an all too common modern day disease in which the afflicted (usually restricted to musicians, movie makers, political speech writers and the occasional sportscaster) loses all comprehension of the suitable use of time and space. Symptoms of the disease include the following:

1.The overwhelming urge to stretch simplistic, trivial and often downright embarrassing vignettes over as gross a time span as possible,

2.The homogenizing and multi-duplication of each into assembly line type redundancy, with the tangible ultimate being one long line of white noise,

3.A growing and unrealistic sense of selfimportance leading to even greater self-indulgence, and

4.A total breakdown of all powers , of selfcriticism.

Tales Of Topographic Oceans exhibits traces of all these symptoms, and as a result, its creation, assembly and execution have become one great mistake from start to finish. The lyrics are overblown horseshit, and each of the ponderous 81 minutes of music sounds exactly like its predecessor and therefore offers no foundation whatsoever on which the music might build. All told, Tales from Topographic is as useless a piece of entertainment as was Passion Play, but twice as bad because it’s twice as long.

The album contains four full-sided compositions, each based on some dumb commieinspired philosophical tract collectively known as the Shastric Scriptures. Song titles

include such zingers as “The Revealing Science of God” (subtitled “Dance of the Dawn”) and “The Ancients (Giants under the Sun).” And incidentally, should you attempt to accuse me of being one of those threeminute elitists who won’t listen to anything that can’t be squeezed in between the end of Cannon and the beginning of Koiak, let me inform you that I liked “Close To The Edge” almost as much as “Your Move” and “Roundabout.”

The difference between “Close To The Edge” arid any of these four turds is simple: dynamism. “Close To The Edge” had bite, drive, exuberance, nifty time changes and sex appeal. “Ritual Nous Sommes Du Soleil” or any of the others from T.T.O. merely has stomach tlu. It’s repetitive, lifeless, and as close to plasticized codeine as you’re ever likely to hear.

Exactly why this excessive doggerel was loosed on the public is hard to fathom, but methinks a clue might be found in this excerpt from the liner notes, written by'Jon Anderson. “It [the recording of the album] was a magical experience which left both of us [meaning Anderson and Steve Howe] exhilarated for days. Chris, Rick and Alan also made very important contributions of their own...” What that probably translates to is that T.T.O. is in fact a great Anderson/ Howe powerplay, with Squire, Wakeman and White merely along for the royalties. And as soon as that kind of shit hits the fan, it’s usually the fan that gets hit with the shit.

It’s having to listen to offscourings like this that makes reviewing records occasionally work, not fun. The only reason you should have this album is to frame the cover.

Alan Niester

GRAM PARSONS Grievous Angel (Warner Bros.)

Burnt Burrito, anyone?

Death deserves only one phrase, and that’s “tough (predetermined) shit, buddy.” Eddie Cochran (another less than tremendously fa-

mous dumbass), one hard moment prior to his final rendezvous with innard-smashing metal, was observed listening to his Buddy Holly records, weeping for his own undoubted fate. For local evidence of the same phenom, check out “Return of the Grievous Angel,” “$1,000 Wedding,” and “In My Hour of Darkness.” Touching, this “live fast, die young, and leave a beautiful corpse” warp. Gram Parsons’ death (even with the bit -jpf postmortem hooplah) was upstaged by Jim Croce’s, for chrissakes. Dumb. Gram Parsons didn’t even leave a beautiful corpse. Real dumb.

So, what’s there to say about this dead guy’s latest and last platter? Well, first thing is that Gram Parsons, with the International Submarine Band album, was the seminal honk in this sort of thing. Second, of the many country rock (and just plain ol’ country) albums released during the past year or so, this is the best. In its attachment to what passes for reality around here it even challenges the Dillards’ and Everlys’ ’68 grass albums. Lyrically, unlike the Eagles and Poco, Parsons always possessed a highly personal direct emphathy with C&W pain (otherwise variously known as, “where are you Mom, now that I need you?”); personal, in this case equals weird, wired and excellent. The first cut on side one (“Return of the Grievous Angel”) is, for example, “City of New Orleans” on speed. Wired beyond his own writing is his selection of sleepers like the Louvin Brothers’ “Cash on the Barrelhead,” Tom T.’s “I Can’t Dance,” and the harmonic splendor of “Hearts on Fire” and “Love Hurts”; in fact, in listening to “Love Hurts,” the thought struck that Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris were maybe the new Everly Brothers (“Love Hurts” turned out to have been written by Boudleaux Bryant, too).

The only particularly disconcerting element of Grievous Angel is the spoilsport fake “live from Northern Quebec” crowd noises pasted to “Cash on the Barrelhead” and “Hickory Wind.” But even there, James Burton slices out a brand of guitar cheese that smells like angel pussy. And no grievous angel, either. I’m not going to try to explain this record. You’d need a psychiatrist for that. I’m not even so sure that this record is explainable. I only know that it isn’t excusable, and murky questions of motivation aside, can only wonder how he could expect us to put up with it.

Buck Sanders

DONOVAN Essence To Essence (Epic)

Donovan is the picture of a man in some sort of stasis. He must be the last person on Earth still caught up in the ’67 mythos, Transcendental Meditation division. You remember the story. The word went out that the

STEALERS WHEEL Ferguslie Park (A&M)

Sorry to backtrack to ’73, but Ferguslie Park deserves a rave, even if belated. Actually, the belatedness is fitting, for this album is about bad breaks and bad timing, about disappointment and disillusionment. As in Mott, “Rock ’n’ Roll’s a loser’s game.” But whereas Ian Hunter inflates this observation to grandiose and metaphysical proportions, Gerry Rafferty and Joe Egan shun pomp, keeping things strictly personal and local. All twelve songs are about Stealer’s Wheel, a weary, confused, unexceptional group that has had trouble staying together, but which magically, inexplicably, persists and makes excellent music.

There is something magical and inexplicable about this album. I can’t call it the greatest album of last year (although it makes my top ten), but it’s certainly the most remarkable. It’s morose yet exuberant, dejected yet delightful.-1 defy you not to smile and dance to “Blind Faith” and “Everything Will Turn Out Fine.” These songs swing so

Beatles were being cleansed by this holy man in India, and for a brief season all sorts of media people were sitting at his feet, including Mia Farrow and Donovan. The Beatles left after realizing that they were being used in the Yogi’s bid for stardom. Donovan stayed, hooked as totally as the most pitiable junkie. I can only hope that he gained peace of mind in his commitment, because it wreaked havoc on his songwriting talent.

Donovan used to be good at soft, dreamy ballads framed in a muted rock backing. He was too sincere to be slick, and too eccentric to be casually written off. But somehow, he

irresistibly that it may be weeks before you realize how depressed and embittered they are. The reason for this paradox must partly be the melodic flair both Egan and Rafferty enjoy. Both seem incapable of writing a tune that isn’t catchy or lovely. You can hum the second side of Ferguslie Park forever. On top

got stuck in his pose, and literally faded before our eyes. He went into a long seclusion, and emerged, some time later with a sort of comeback effbrt. Judging from Essence To Essence, he hasn’t made it.

This album is so ephemeral, bland and featureless that it hardly exists at all. His fey voice warbles out limp songs of girls dancing in the moonlight, and antipollution messages until you want to gag. Only one song, “The Divine Daze of Deathless Delight,” is anv. good at all,, and then only because it calls to mind “Planet Caravan,” from the second Balck Sabbath album. The rest is an epitaph.

Robbo Houghton

of this there are the vocals, simultaneously wan and hearty, melancholy and cheering. Their harmonies are tight and happy; they may be rock’s first satisfactory alternative to The Everly Brothers.

The sound itself seems almost impossible, a meld of the various virtues of folk, pop, and rock, with the emphasis on the last. The production is fulsome (a typical track will include three or four guitars, synthesizer, electric piano, horns, and a lot more besides), yet because of the muted production (credit' Leiber and Stoller), the music has the intimacy of a solo performance on acoustic guitar. The album is at once rich and demure.

While most rock in recent memory, from the Dolls to ELP to Elton John, is characterized by excess (or else it’s laid-back and dozy), Egan and Rafferty are masters of a kind of understatement which does not overwhelm, but which lingers longer. Other groups have mined this vein (McGuinness Flint, for example), but in the way it weds pensive intelligence to charged, chipper concision,' Stealers Wheel is unique. After three months of listening, Ferguslie Park is still growing on me. Well, geev This isn’t very good at all. Really - what a shock after that blazing comeback, too. This album and that one, Still Alive And Well, are like night and day.

Ken Emerson

JOHNNY WINTER Saints & Sinners (Columbia)

What’s wrong? Bad production, indifferent and overfamiliar material, and an overall energyless, listless feeling. It sounds forced. Like he doesn’t care about this stuff.

And I don’t see how he could, some of it: Chuck Berry’s “Thirty Days,” the Stones’ “Stray Cat Blues,” “Riot in Cell Block No. 9,” and “Boney Moroney” are pretty familiar tunes, and if you’re gonna, record stuff like that you kind of have to bring something new to it or else why bother? Then there’s that awful new Van Morrison cut, which may even be a good new Van Morrison cut, but if there’s anybody I’d think totally unsuited to interpret his stuff, it would be Johnny Winter. The record bears me out.

A couple of good cuts, though: “Stone County” is a good single which I hope makes it (Johnny does deserve a hit, at least), and a great Texas blues with horns, “Hurtin’ So Bad,” which makes me think that Johnny should stop wasting his time with the rest of this shit and do a whole album like that. /‘Johnny Winter Sings The Texas Blues.” Sounds good. Hey, Johnny! Forget this shit— let’s hear more of the real stuff. Get back!

Ed Ward

AUGIE MEYER

You Ain't Rollin' Your Roll Right (Paramount)

Picture this: a bunch of Texas hippies get together and play music some, so they decide

that, seeing as how one of ’em’s got a bona-fide record contract, they might make an album. So one afternoon they all pile into a tiny radio station studio with a (gasp) 3-track recorder and whip together a bunch of songs. Then they go and deliver the tape to the Paramount moguls.

That’s this album, and I gotta say it’s a gas. Old Augie and his Wheezin’ Farfisa may be the stars of the album, but the rest of the band does just fine. The mix is awful, some of the instruments are totally inaudible, and the entire undertaking just reeks of funk; The way I usually approach this album is as something to put on after I’m getting tired of the overproduced, over-thought-out, deadly dull stuff that passes for music these days, and it’s a guaranteed perker-upper. Shit, it ought to be - this is the way they made records in the old days.

What’s on it? A Jimmie Rodgers tune, a Dylan tune (done just right), a Tex-Mex tune called “Lover Boy,” which is hilarious, “Heartaches by the Number,” and a bunch of Augie’s tunes, including the title song, all of which rock and roll-with the kind of Texican abandon we’ve come to know and love from Augie over the years he was with Sir Doug. All in all, a really fine album,, a fabulous antidote to the flatulent emanations of the laid-back school, because Augie really does live in the country, see, and he knows that it’s rock and roll which helps to keep ya alert out there, right?

Ed Ward

FOGHAT Energized (Warner Bros.)

THUFFERING THUCCATASH!! A NEW FROGHAT (or is it Hookfoot?) ALBUM! Man, that’s about as exciting as a re-run. of Car 54, Where Are You ?'Gag, really, whatta dull band. They fall right in line with bumbling troopers like Chilliwack, Pig Iron, Blodwyn Pig, Jukin Bone, Beans, A Thousand Nipples, Cholly Wolly’s Peppermint Trolley, Stephen’s Farm Band, Genie and the Sea Creatures, Zip and Zager and Evans and Mich and Tich and Peter and Chad and Gordon and Chip. . .

I’m sure even that there’s some twerpy kid (gotta be from N.J.) who’ll claim that Trugdug has got the most ORIGINAL sound around and they put on the BEST CONCERT he’s ever seen and he’s nutty about how they go rogwog and scrape the skin off their knuckles they palsy around so hard and TEEN SLOBS LUV EM and they represent the CRY OF THE WILD. Course da lamebrain of a meathead probably ain’t encountered the REAL FAX cuz he’s probably never even heard the new METAL MONSTER by Heavy Pickle on Ooooweee Records (division of Bell) or the REAL BOSS SOUND of the Alaskan Duck on aforemnted label or the FUTURISTIC KOOL BEAT of the new single called “U Stink” by an anonymous group rumored to be lost apes from the Music Machine and the Swinging Bluejeans on Big Thumb. And if he had, chances are that he’d like ’em just as much as he likes Frighard RIGHT NOW. He’ll proudly file this disc right next to Mailer McKenzie Band, Frummox, and Taos and listen to it once and then forget about it (no way you could ever remember it since half the songs sound like “Devil With the Blue Dress on In My Heart Dancing with

Ms. D” plus the sweet melodic hum of the music to Ripcord). WHAT THIS KID NEEDS FOR CHIRSSAKES IS RECORD SERVICE?!!

Also, what that' kinda kid needs is a whammo chop in the testicles. He don’t know what FUN is. Cuz there ain’t one decent fun spot on this new Hogfrog album. Jest phlump.

So this is definitely THE ALBUM OF THE MONTH NOT TO GET. But don’t get too disappointed cuz there are other things to do this month rather than buy this crap. For example:

1. Go see these FANTASTIC MOVIES -Walking Tall, The Crazies, Computer Killers, The Amazing Colossal Cannibal Girls Who Eat Raw Meat, and especially the recent John Waters extravaganza (forget the name) which begins with a hippo being pushed from a tall building by Devine and you get to see its gutz splatter all over greater Baltimore.

2. Reread The Tragic Death of Stringbean.

3. Dress up like a faggot and expose yrself to passing cars.

4. Make yr mommy cry.

5. Play it tuff, get some tequila (lots of it), drink it all down fast and then take a roller coaster ride and play some pool after that and top it all off by eating in a cheap Japanese restaurant and then

6. Go straight home and go to bed!! Try to sleep forever. You need it. It’s been an EXHAUSTING month.

Robot A. Hull

RAHSAAN ROLAND KIRK Bright Moments (Atlantic)

On theoccasion of the release of his last album, I took Rahsaan to task for a number of things, not the least of which was the subjugation of his music to various extraneous stuff. I usually don’t get on an artist’s case unless I feel he’s conning the public or else capable of much better stuff. I’d never accuse Rahsaan of the former, and this album proves I was right about the latter.

Recorded at Todd Barkan’s remarkable San Francisco nitery, the Keystone Korner (so named becuase the police station is just across the alley), Bright Moments shows just how brilliant a live performance Rahsaan can put on when he wants to: the raps are brief, to the point, the poetry is okay, and the playing bums. Some of the moments on this album are so bright that you shouldn’t go too near them without sunglasses. The audience at the Keystone loves Rahsaan, and this album makes it clear that the feeling is mutual.

The full range of Rahsaian’s music is presented here, from the kind of cosmicmusic of “Bright Moments Song” to the black “heritage music” of Duke Ellington and Fats Waller (whose “Jitterbug Waltz” is one of the album’s highlights) to his stunning work on pop standards like “You’ll Never Get To Heaven.” As always (or at least always when I’ve seen him), his playing is fine, full of breath-defying feats like playing flute with his nose, and for this engagement he seemed to have come up with a really great band: Ron Burton’s piano is especially noteworthy, but the unit cooks like ‘a unit should when it has to.

Rahsaan’s rap about “bright moments” is really funny, but I just can’t resist the temptation to add one to his list: Bright moments is having a club like the Keystone Korner just a short bus ride from your house. Currently, the Keystone is the only action going in San Francisco. Great jazz clubs exist all across the country (hell, if there’s one in Dayton there might be one in your town, too!), and if you want to treat, yourself to something different, drop by the one nearest to you. They’re seldom in it for the money (Todd isn’t anyway); they want you to hear the music. So does Rahsaan Roland Kirk, and so do I. Bright Moments to you!

Ed Ward

NAZARETH Loud 'h' Proud (A&M)

STATUS QUO Hello (A&M)

As any of that art form’s most stalwart champions will testify, The Boogie is no longer the potent social force or national unifying symbol that it once was. The detached non-productivity that first became chic among the majority of trend-setters at the 1973 Rock Writers Convention in Memphis has apparently now seeped down to the lemming masses. Whereas Boogie once made up the dominant percentage of a typical socialite’s day, that day is now being utilized

for such lesser pursuits as intoxication and fornication.

Fortunately, there are some pockets of resistance left.-Jt is still possible to find a few wild-eyed zealots trucking forth in sweaty beer-parlours in Northern Ontario, all but oblivious to the fact that time is once more passing them by. And, in quaint Victorian recording studios in the British Isles, stubborn dogmatists of the Boogie tradition drone wearily but stalwartly onwards. All hail Nazareth and Status Quo, both of whom continue to beride that tiring boogie nag, little knowing or caring that the poor creature expired from exhaustion some six laps back.

Of the two, Status Quo remains the most tied and true to the tradition, churning, out nearly forty minutes of the type of riffs that even Humble Pie would be too embarrassed to use. Eight songs that vary only in the amount of time given each to pursue its course, Hello is the stuff of which legends are made. Also broken leases, eardrums, delicate crystal an id marriages. I recommend it highly.

Nazareth are less brave.' Despite their obvious fixation on riff boogie, they have actually had the bad taste to try and disguise their basic intent by tossing in one or two mirth-provoking attempts at melody. Only the fact that they sound like they were written by a Skinner-box pigeon justifies the band’s continued inclusion in the Boogie Hall

of Fame, alongside such pargmours as Bo Diddley, Kelly Jay, Eddie Shack, Paul “The Bear” Rupert and Hawkwind.

While neither effort is worth the prices currently being demanded by the recording industry and vinyl cartels, both are definitely worth having. Don’t Let Boogie Die.

Alan Niester

BOBBY WOMACK Lookin' For a Love Again (United Artists)

There’s something to be said for the modest talent: it simplifies matters. Someone with greater abilities faces a bewildering array of alternatives. Take Bobby Womack: a superb singer, he’s got every base covered, from Sam Cooke to Wilson Pickett to Lou Rawls. Writer, arranger, producer, and guitarist as well, he’s at home in almost every genre, from funky-butt to supper-club, and he can even slip in a bit of C&W. He’s profusely gifted, and that’s his problem. He seems incapable of putting it all together and forging a distinctive, personal style. If A1 Green is sometimes so singleminded as to be monotonous, he’s always himself. Womack is so diverse it’s distracting, and as often as not Lookin’ Fora Love Again reminds you of someone else: Barry White and Norman Whitfield (the husky murmurs and echoed jive of “You’re Welcome, Stop On By”), Stevie Wonder and Harold Melvin (part of the melody and the vocal on “I Don’t Wanna Be Hurt”), even Sammy Davis Jr. (the schmaltz and the lyrics of “Doing It My Way”). A lot of this is attributable to the material. Womack writes fluently, but anonymously. Lookin’ For A Love is frequently impressive but finally too diffuse to have a real impact.

Another problem is the production, which is just too lush. To show off what he can do, Womack does it all at once. Sometimes it works, but too often as he mixes in Memphis horns; Philadelphia strings, three or four guitars, and a synthesizer, the sound becomes soupy; The musicians are the troupers from Muscle Shoals Sound Studios, but they sound a little flaccid. Maybe that’s what touring with Traffic does to you, and I can’t help wishing that Womack had gone around the corner to Fame Studios and let Rick Hall take things in hand.

If he had, not only would the music have gained definition and punch, but Womack’s vocals would have rung out more clearly — instead of occasionally being swamped in the surrounding grandiosity. Still, his singing almost makes Lookin’ For A Love worth it. He’s got a great rasp in his voice. When he exaggerates it he becomes lowdown and gutteral, delightfully nasty. And when he sings sweetly, it gives him a straining edge that’s dramatic and moving. Moreover, Womack’s the only singer I know who can just talk and be convincing and interesting. His lengthy and casual rap salvages “Doing It My Way” and turns it into one of the album’s better tracks. Every cut, in fact, is enlivened by vocal touches that show what Womack could be: one of the very best around.

He may verywell become just that. If he works out a more individual sound, restrains his production, and lucks into some hit material. Reviving “Lookin’ For A Love” was fiin, but retrograde.

Ken Emerson

RETURN TO FOREVER FEATURING CHICK COREA Hymn of The Seventh Galaxy (Polydor)

CHICK COREA Piano Improvisations Vol. 1 (ECM-Polydor)

I was so prepared from hearing parts of Hymn on the radio, from reading about Corea and his bassist Stanley Clarke’s involvement with scientology (“their approach to music.. . is tied in to their joint beliefs in the Scientology movement” Down Beat — Nov. 22, ’73, sigh) and by the lingering numb-tongue taste of Mahavishnu’s last two records, Birds of Fire and (snigger) Between Nothingness & Eternity... I was so prepared to dislike this record that I am almost reluctant to say it isn’t bad. But it isn’t. In fact, parts of it are good.

Getting the inevitable out of the way, there’s the comparison between RTF and Mahavishnu’s group. RTF has the sante instru-

mentation, minus the expendable violin, and at first casual hearing it’s a ringer. But guitarist Bill Conners lacks the unrelenting identity of M.J. McLaughlin (tho he occasionally borrows from him heavily), giving RTF more of a chance to be heard as a unit with parts. The mix has all the four members up front, again similar to MO, but revealing that Corea is a superior pianist to MO’s Jan Hammer (in fairness, any pianist would find it difficult to make inventive contributions in the presence of McLaughlin’s well-amped spiritual being). Unfortunately TRF drummer Lenny White often adopts the arthritic lumbering approach common to this form of music, an approach somewhere between the blatant effective dum-dum approach of a hard rock drummer and the acrobatics of an aggressive jazz drummer. Way between.

Still and all, cosmos fans, the occasional stretches of fine music contributed by Corea and Conners, and the fact that Mahavishnu John does not appear here, makes this record worth investigating.

Another record featuring Corea, acoustic and alone, that has been around a few years on the German ECM label has now been picked up for distribution by Polydor (along with a whole slew of fine ECM discs). It removes the pianist from the electronic morass with a series of improvisations that, ironically, display more variegated moods than Return To Forgver. Listening to solo piano for any length of time can be soporific or (even worse) irritating. Keith Jarrett is the current primo contemporary solo piano improvisor in the hearts of many. He maintains interest with trademark blues and percussive interpolation, not to mention the everpopular “unending stream of ideas.” He’s good. Corea’s good too. He also plays from the unending stream but with his own individual vision. He’s best at embellishing his original understated (or sometimes stately ballad) melodies,'never maudlin and only sometimes lush with a touch so soft and sure that some of the notes are barely heard. .. they slide under or attach themselves to the notes he has chosen to propel his melodic improvisations. Side one goes this way through five compositions, introspective, forceful, and with a virtuosity so perfect as to be elusive. Side two consists of a suite “Of Eight Pictures” ranging ih length from five minutes to a half minute and displaying a variety of styles from the impressionism predominant on side one to some Cecil Taylorish high-strung string jabs, and even a

Vince Guaraldi — Cast Your Fate To The Winds merry-go-round lully tune. Great stuff, all, and more you listen the more you wonder why Return To Forever?

Richard C. Walls

THE SONICS Explosives (BuckShot)

A friend of mine back home checks the jacket of each record album he’s buying to make sure that the lettering on the spine is properly aligned and centered, so that the title will be legible and will make a nice appearance on his shelves. I’m afraid that he’s going to out of luck with Explosives, as it doesn’t even have anything printed on the end of the jacket - stacked up with a bunch of other LPs, the blank-ended Explosives could be easily mistaken from some nondescript “modern jazz” sampler on Design, and I’m sure my friend wouldn’t want anybody entertaining such misapprehensions about his record collection.

To invoke an old hotrodding dualism, though, Explosives should excite you plenty if you’re more interested in “go” than “show,” and you won’t have to worry about losing it amoung your other albums, anonymous end or not, as you’ll be playing it so much you’ll keep it right on top of the stack anyway.

Explosives is the latest brainchild of SoCal punkentrepreneur Mark Shipper, editor of that pleasurably sardonic (and regrettably infrequent) rock fanzine, Flash, of apocalyptic & out-of-print punkers his readers might never be able to find in their own locales, Mark decided to put some punch into his proselytizing by actually reissuing some of his best discoveries. -

For openers, Mark has chosen the Sonics, a five-man killer of a kombo, from Tacoma, Washington, a group which hit its peak of recorded significance during those momenfous years 1964-66. The Sonics were archtypal exponents of the “Northwest Sound” of rock and roll, which reached national audiences only in the persons of the Kingsmen and Paul Revere' and the Raiders, and then in a relatively restrained expression compared to the way it had been played back home. The Sonics never left home, though, but kept frying away in the deep fat of continual Tacoma and Seattle teen dances, until their sound had become a roaring, scorching meteor just dripping with bile.

Mark Shipper has selected all the best (i.e., hardest) cut» from the Sonics’ original LPs on the local Etiquette label for his collection, resulting in an album of almost unbearable intensity, one unrelieved scream from the beginning of the first cut to the end of the twelfth. Guitarist Larry Parypa, organistpianist Gerry Roslie, gritty-saxist Rob Lind, and bassist Andy Parypa carry the heart of the Sonics’ whoosh in their cbnstant, virtually undifferentiated high-decibel drone of sound, punctuated only by Roslie’s definitively insane vocals and Bob Bennett’s superenergetic drums, the whole roar actually enhanced by the primitive production and recording, which allows the different instruments to fuse into the monophonic, brain-rattling feeling of genuinely alive rock and roll. You can feel the floor of the American Legion Hall shaking beneath your body.

With their rock-bottom rhythms and skullnumbing delivery, the Sonics inevitably anticipated the Stooges, and maybe even surpassed them in some respects, as the Sonics did it all " without the benefit of an ounce of artistic calculation — they just blasted it out from beneath those Northwest tall timbers, real ignoble savages of rock and roll. Eat yo’ jeweled heart out, Ig, these guys did it without even having long hair!

I’m not gonna go into detail in describing the individual songs, which Mark Shipper has already done twice as well in the virtuoso liner notes he encloses free with each album, but I will say that “Boss Hoss” out-BeachBoys the Beach Boys on their own dragstrip, the celebrated “He’s Waitin’ ” out-heaven & hells Lou Christie himself, and “Louie, Louie” out-cosmicpunks even the Kingsmen, taking this already qunitessential rocker to whole new levels you never even wetdreamed of before. (The Sonics’ secret? They played “Louie, Louie” with a different, “incorrect” chord progression, a move typical of their blundering brilliance.)

Remember, though that this album is not . available in any store. Send $5.00 to BuckShot Records, P.O. Box DH, Panorama City, CA. . 91402. Remember, that’s BuckShot Records, P.O. Box DH, Panorama City, CA. 91402. And now, back to this month’s feature... .

Richard Riegel

ORIGINAL TOP 40 HITS (Paramount)

This unashamedly unfunky artifact is just the latest entry in a hardly new craze that’s sweeping America. Known to some as the Honky Pride movement, this reawakening of interest in white American culture is probably a result of the success of the minority ethnic power movements of the 1960s.

Consider: now that whites don’t have to open car doors for Negroes anymore, and now that women need not ride in the back of the bus because of the color of their lipstick (U.S. Supreme Court’s famous Carmen Miranda vs. Nevada decision), it’s become time for white folks to stop shufflin’ under the weight of their TV dinners and get down.

Much progress has been made by whites in sports, music, entertainment and politics. There are now Polish-American TV shows like Banacek and Kojak. Then Joe Garagiola, an Italian-American, broke the lower barriers of the intelligence line to become a TV personality. David Steinberg, the son of a white Rabbi, has been allowed to guest host the

Tonight Show without having to tell one naughty pee-pqe joke. And Bill Bradley, a white man, now plays professional basketball for the New York Knickerbockers.

Encouraged by the Attica prison uprising of a few years ago, white people became convinced they could even have criminals to be proud of. The Crooks Power movement has thus far landed a convicted felon into the Vice Presidency (temporarily), and-a suspected felon in every major office from President to Attorney General on down.

The question remained: what about: rock ’n’roll? We’ve seen in recent years, a reversal of the major cultural trend of the last three centuries, with darkies now swaying “Underneath the Roslyn Moon” listening to Wilson Pickett singing /‘Sugar Sugar” and A1 Green crooning “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” and “How Can You Mend A Broken Heart”? WHat could be more discouraging to those who believed in the purity of white music than to listen to these, and to Kool and the Gang 'committing fratricide with their, dare we say, groovin’ version of Bobby - Goldsboro’s “Honev”?

So it’s with much relief that Paramount has chosen to release this carefully compiled 2-LP set from the days of wine and Carter’s little liver pills, when white folks still had some semblance of autonomous control over their culture. There’s some implied nigra

music, like “Tutti Frutti,” “Ain’t That A Shame” and “I Almost Lost My Mind.” Fortunately, they’re all sung by Pat Boone. Otis Williams and the Charms’ once offensive “Ivory Tower” is here rendered palatable by our little Margie, Gale Storm.

There are some classic examples of first generation Tupperware Rock, like Billv Vaughn’s “Melody of Lojve,” Tab Hunter’s “Young Love,”-, and Pat Boone’s “April Love.” There’s novelty stuff like Wink Martin-' dale’s talkie “Deck of Cards,” Dodie Stevens’ “Pink Shoelaces,” the Surfaris’ original “Wipeout” and Nervous Norvus’ pre-Lou Reed psycholia, “Transfusion.”

Though a little top heavy with Pat Boone songs (there are seven; not included here is his legendary version of “Purple Haze,” still available only on bootlegs), this set is more fun than a, pickle flavored Alka-Seltzer Italian ices with mustard*sandwieh on white bread. It’s even more fun when you consider that the set was not put together by a Creedmore escapee, but was conceived and researched by Seymour Stein, the record company executive responsible for bringing us Focus, the Climax ’ Blues Band, and other acts synonomous with prog FM rock. This is a once-in-a-lifetime aberration, a taste of what might happen if “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” came true and took over the record business. 1 urge you to act now. OCK-O-RAMA amt ROCK-O-RAMA VOLME 11 (ABKCO):: Despite the titles, these Metis' .aretiY on the\ CREEM label, but facts being as they are, there isn’t any other place that you’re likely to pick up on ? and the Mysterians’ "96 Tears" and the Chubby Checker twist hots, and the only Bobby Rydell staff,-and even Charlie Grata? (Rock-abilly) and Jo Ann Campbell’s fantab "Girl 1'iom Wolverton Mountain. That’s even'

Wavne Robins

P without mentioning the Orion\ “South Street” in which occurs the first ever mention oFTSppie.’v

ci^AiufeNEY CARTER -Sixty (Fame);: Tire Evilest Chuckle b tire World Rides Againil A superb studio band, some r top-drawer material, and that good dd Muscle | Shoals production conspire to makefile One of the more finger-poppm’ of the Itt&nfrelease^ And hey. where can I get one of them watches on the cover? ,

GEORGE HAM1I TON TV - Greatest Hits (RCA):: I told a country musician friend of | mine that I’d gotten this record, and he thought I was putting him on until he actually laid e>es on the cover. After listening to it, I knojy why he thought that.,. *

EDDIE BOND - Sings The Legend Of Buford Pusrer (Enterprise):: Eddie Bond is the police j chief of Finger. Tennessee. Buford Purser was .the sheriff of McNatiy County, 'Jennessee, and, as’ the movie based on hie hfe. Walking $ one-man anti-crime wave. Well-intentioned as it is; -this Alburn h merely a misdemeanor. Listen once and recycle.

, MAXINE WELDON - Some Singin' (Mom/ ment):: (f you’ve always„ hated Roberta Flack, but felt that a soft-singing black female interpreter of singer/songwriter songs is up your alley, you couldn't do better than this here lady. Strictly MOR. though - soul fans go elsewhere-

TOMPALCGLASBR -"Charife” (MGM);; A real find. Tompall is the New Nashville its ornry self, the man who produced Kinky Friedman, and a legend and a half. This album is a finger on the pulse of what's changing in country music, and all you have to do is listen to the title cut. a sort of country ’ "Ballad Of A Thin Man" to see what I mean. Mis version of “Sold’ American” beats Kinky’s, and ‘ Gideon Bible.” "Bad, Bad, Bad Cowboy.” and Kinky’s superb “Loneliest ' Man" arc masterpieces. Highly recommended.

THE• SAXOPHONE (Impulse)::. Hell, our I record review editor can even remember when Ins showertime fantasies always featured him lugging a big Coltrane honker to glory instead some fuzzwarp electric guitar. Churls cast canards effect unto that the venerable sa\ hath plowed its day m the sun and now must recede, we say their lobes are puss, you can still do more things with this horn than am other instrument in existence. A case in point: every worthy style of Selmertude be known st to modern: Coltrane. Albert Ayler. Coleman Haw-kins, Sonm Rollins. Johnny Hodges, Archie Shepp, Lester Young, Charlie Parker. Eric Dolphy, Ornette Coleman, Pharoah Sanders, on down the line, all in this handsome definitive supra timely violently iistcnable and Deuteronomy-annotated anthology no home can do without.