DAVID BOWIE Young Americans (RCA)

Since that fateful night Bowie hit Radio City with a funkadelic thud last November, I’ve been dreading this album’s release. Could it be Dave’s decided to bite the hand that feeds, post-Diamond Dogs? He can warble “Nothing’s gonna change my world” on Young Americans to his ego’s titillation, but I fear the irrevocable worst is upon us: Bowie’s thrown in the towel on rock and concept music, preferring to boogie down to prosperity instead. Okay, Dave... shortchange us perfervid dupes who put stock in ya, even though we knew your financial intentions all along and considered it fine because only fools don’t worry ’bout making a buck.

I personally feel gypped. By stifling his contemptuous tone, skirting scorn for things pathetic and mundane that haunted his prior work, Bowie is neglecting statement. By devoting himself to disco-soul, playing a purely commercial idiom in lieu of making new strides, Bowie is shunning art. With an image attached to about seven elpees with costume changes to match, it’s impossible to tell who the real Bowie is anymore. Once the Spiders disbanded, Bowie's truncated Ziggy schtick was de-sapped. Tinsel to the wayside, his act deliquesced into prophecy, warning of holocaust and a host of other chimerical feasibilitiesduring his Diamond Dogs - Burroughs influenced phase. Supposedly theatrical, I viewed last summer’s Diamond Dogs tour as ineffectual spectacle. Sure, Dave assembled and performed a fine show, but the scenery and backup band were so disappointing that the concert became an ultimate let down. As for the last Bowie tour, it literally didn’t pay to blow twelve and a half bucks in order to witness blase renderings of Bowie oldies juxtaposed with his new stuporific soul bro pastiche, regardless of the bodacious Mike Garson Group. I recall having the fierce urge to upstage Bowie during “Changes” or besiege his manager to order a month’s total rest immediately after the show, because it seemed Bowie could barely manage onstage.

Never mind that Bowie wants to be in the mind, heart, and record racks of Young America; he also wants to be the Young American - a vicarious spade, a victorious name. Never mind the title song concerns our emetic socio-political situation (“Do you remember President Nixon... the bills you have to pay, or even yesterday?...”), adding discodanceable components like snappy sax runs and gospelfied chorals, wrapping up with the obvious “I want the Young American.” It’s disturbing enough to think how easily Bowie could finagle the latter with his chameleonlike savoir-faire, knowing how a little condescension can work wonders. Bowie seems to hope he’ll inveigle American youth through solidarity, relating on a common level, predicated on sheer capitalistic desire.

I’m unconvinced Young Americans is anything but commercial, unless it’s another Bowie transition. The words trite, unenthralling, and masturbatory come to mind. Young Americans ain’t got the visceral verve connected with most Bowie material; it’s the epitome of every shoddy, selfindulgent delusion Dave could muster, have pressed into vinyl, and try to sell. I wonder why John Lennon even bothered to give his vocal and co-writing support (“Fame”), much less subject “Across the Universe” to Bowie’s washed-out histrionics whilst accompanying the ensuing atrocity on guitar. “Fame” is structurally identical to “Time” on Aladdin Sane, repeating the title, then enumerating its consequential drawbacks. Composed by the Bowie-Lennon-Alomar team, “Fame” is a study in wretched rockstar commiseration, John and Dave apparently taking turns writing lines as if an impromptu word game. “Fame - Makes a man think things over... Puts him there, where things are hollow.” Probable Bowie-Lennon interplay, viz.: (“Fame-”) “What you get is no tomorrow (Dave)” “What you need you have to borrow (John)” “Is it any wonder -You’re too cool to fool (John)” “Bully for you, chilly for me (Dave)” “Got to get a raincheck on pain (John).”

Whereas open interpretation was necessary on Diamond Dogs, lyrics are included with Young Americans - although improved rpix quality make them a requisite convenience which would’ve been appreciated more with the former cryptic David Bowie album. Doesn’t matter on Young Americans anyhow: “Can You Hear Me,” “Win,” “Fascination” rely on love themes, funky sound and beat more than lyrical content. “Young Americans” and “Somebody Up There Likes Me” temper racial motifs with overtones of pathos and dat oletime religion: “He’s got his eye on your soul - his hand on-your heart, He says ‘Don’t, don’t hurry baby,’ Somebody up there likes me.” An eerie two stanza Bowie tune, “Right,” figuratively encapsulates his career through gauzed wide angle lenses (“Taking it all the right way... Never no turning back”), the second verse sounding like the combined euphoria of success and cocaine has pulverized Bowie, verily gone to his head: “Flying in just a sweet place, Coming inside and sail... Never been no, Never been known to fail.”

Not yet, perhaps. But even though I stuck with Bowie during his last stylistic change - wouldn’t listen when Diamond Dogs was vilified left and right - Young Americans is a retrograde effort earning my heartsick disdain. I’d still be raving over Bowie if only he’d stop reaffirming his superstar status with tacky contrivances... if only he’d produce music of a consistent calibre (rock, R&B, jazz, whatever - though I’d say Bowie excels in rock and wish he’d return to the fold after his fling). Hope this Young Americans in-strut-withthe-times sidetrack is just a passing caprice, as was the Diamond Dogs round-the-comer cataclysm. Lord knows we need a lot more auspicious artists and a lot less jive.

KRAFTWERK

Autobahn

(Vertigo)

The other day I got a letter in the mail, no return address, which inspired me so much that I promptly taped it to the wall by my desk where I keep my pinups, ceremonial “in-recognition-ofgrateful-servitude” plaques from various record companies, etc. This note, on a piece of paper tom around the edges, read simply: “DEAR LESTER - YOU BIG PHONY. WHY DON’T YOU DROP YOUR PRETENSE. YOU’ DON’T LIKE ROCK ANY MORE, DO YOU? YOURS TRULY, HAPPY JACK.” Postmarked Brooklyn, N.Y.

Well, Happy, you’re right. I don’t like rock any more. I like Kraftwerk. Heavy metal hasn’t been any good in two years, the only good group in America is the Dictators (and maybe Television), and everybody from Lou Reed to Alice Cooper has compromised principles they might not even have had in the first place to keep their top hats in the ring. They sold out. That’s why I’m gratified to note that Kraftwerk are not heavy metal, and they can never sell out. Because they are in fact not a group. They are a precision tooled, airtight machine. And this is the cleanest piece of program music in years.

Those Germans are meisterful when it comes to coming up with perfect numb nodules of antinoise, and where 1 used to complain about what Jon Lord termed the “antiemotionalism” of the synthesizers in groups like Yes and ELP, I now realize that antiemotionalism is the whole point. What have both we and those poor krauts been seeking desperately ever since the Second World War if not the penultimate nonrush provoked by the absence of feeling? And now this worthy ambition is attained most efficiently in the chromium chords of Kraftwerk.

This set's title opus is a 22 minute depiction of rock's eternal Road Motif (call up Greil Marcus in Berkeley if you don’t know what I’m talking about) brought to its apogee in the form of the Autobahn, the giant aortic superhighway that shoots thrpugh East and West Germany, and which is perfect in every respect: spotlessly clean as a Pristined ovary, offramps with rest stations where you can buy anything in God’s universe your heart desirfes every few hundred kilometers, and no speed limits. Those krauts and American GI’s barrel down this miracle highway like bats whose hell would be running out of gas and they never do. Meanwhile they’re all Sun Kings of the wheel in their Lamborghinis, and as they speed along in this airlocked, dustless, permanently velocitized environment which is energized to the point of seeming motionlessness, they listen to cassettes of “Autobahn,” which is nothing less than 22 minutes of hypnotic monotone bass, synthesizers whizzing by at various speeds, and Kraftwerk singing about driving on the Autobahn hearing themselves on the radio singing about driving on the Autobahn, mirrors within mirrors as all cold speed-globules should be. Best of all; they sing it in German, and “We are driving, driving, driving on the Autobahn” translates into “fahn, fahn.fahn aufze Autobahn,” and the melody line even sounds like the Beach Boys’ “Barbara Ann,” so it’s even cleaner and more perfect, completing one very important circle. Not only that but it’s relaxing, it’s better than valium, I put it on when I come home from the office at night and it unsnarls the knots at the back of my neck. It’s so good it’s even got me turning outthe lights except for the one big blue bulb I invested in, lying on the couch and listening to Tangerine Dream. If I’m gonna be a hepcat for music made by machines on ice, then / wanna be a soft, semicomatose (purring, idling) machine too. So don’t go bringing any of your emotionalism around here, because no one’s home.

Lester Bangs

LOU REED Lou Reed Live (RCA)

Lou Reed reminds me of Jack Kerouac near the end, dozing in an arm-chair with a beer, a flask of bourbon and a script for Obetrols, mumbling the same old stories at anyone within range. “Hey, ya wanna hear me make uj? a complete Shakespearean sonnet right outta my head?”

Like Kerouac, Reed was mostly responsible for a movement that he didn’t want much to do with. Kerouac in his Catholic guilt didn’t want to be aligned with a whole generation of screwed-up young Americans. He claimed he wanted to write like Thomas Wolfe. Likewise Reed shied away from, and virtually spit on, the whole gay-flashrock ’n’ roll-decadence scene; “Hey, why don’t they listen to the ballads?” You can tell the guy would have really liked to be a poet, but the Sixties beat him to it.

All of this and more has been kicked around at length In the pages of many a rock publication. It's a subject I call The Lou Reed Dilemma, or What Do We Do With A Wasted Artist Early In The Seventies. Finally you just want to throw your hands up in the air, quit looking at pictures of new hairstyles and listening to tired old con like “I was better 'n Hendrix,” and listen to the music. Which I guess is what Lou Reed Live is all about. You might not want to put it up against the third MGM Velvets LP, but...

On Rock TV’ Roll Animal, which Live is simply an addendum to, Reed and his band Johnny Winterized four Velvet Underground classics.

They sublimated the vocals to a sort of flashoid Saturday Night Les Paul Rave Rock, substituting manic “straight” lead playing and rhythm feel for the feedback-drone-power-chord menace of the original versions. A lot of people like Rock ‘n’ Roll Animal... a lot of kids who couldn’t’ve cared less about the Velvet Underground, a lot of kids who picked up on Lou Reed because he was new and hip, and basically the same sort of people who make up the vast majority of the rock audience. People who could give a flying fuck whether something is approved by the Academy or whatever, as long as it does something to relieve the boredom, etc. that they’re sunk in. As long as it sounds good at a party or on the eight-track.

Lou Reed Live avoids the material that has become fixed in the Classic Tradition of Velvet Underground maniacs. There’s more harmonically complex material from Transformer and Berlin which fares better on stage than in the studio. At least you’ve never heard it done with John Cale, so you don’t miss him that much.

“Vicious,” the only hard rocker of the set, comes off as a cross between “Louie Louie” and the Allman Brothers. Prakash John sets up a bitchin’ undertow on the bass, while Steve Hunter and Dick Wagner wail away with the kind of screaming standard licks they’re best at. It’s ironic that this entire band, except the keyboard player, now belongs to Alice Cooper, who Reed once called “the worst, most disgusting aspect of rock n’ roll.”

The rest of it’s ok. In “Satellite Of Love” we’re reminded again that Reed is “just like everybody else” and likes to watch things on TV. “Oh Jim” starts to sound promising in the middle (at least there’s no horn section), but finally just gets irritating when you realize that Hunter and Wagner must know every lick ever concieved on the Les Paul.