ROCK • A • RAMA
ALVIN LEE - Pump Iron (Columbia) :: Once upon a time World’s Fastest Guitarist, Alvin Lee today displays all the agility of a barrel of snails. In place of the once blazing guitar, inaudible mumblings — shabby imitations of soulful vocals — are offered.
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ROCK.A.RAMA
BUB Taylor
ALVIN LEE - Pump Iron (Columbia) :: Once upon a time World’s Fastest Guitarist, Alvin Lee today displays all the agility of a barrel of snails. In place of the once blazing guitar, inaudible mumblings — shabby imitations of soulful vocals — are offered. But finally, Pump Iron is essentially the same album that Alvin Lee, with or without Ten Years After, has been putting out for the past seven years. E.G.
STRAWBS - Ghosts (A&M) :: If you ever wondered what Cat Stevens would sound like singing Ian Anderson, try some of this: the title cut. “Starshine/Angel Wine,” and “The Life Auction.” If you forgot what Cat sounds like, try “Where Do You Go.” If you forgot What the Strawbs sound like, get Hero and Heroine. T.M. JEFFERSON STARSHIP - Red Octopus (Grunt) :: And they said “Come the summer of ’75/All the world is gonna come alive.” Well? We’ve got “Miracles,” “There Will Be Love,” and “Fast Buc Freddy.” Precious little else. I want my “MauMau”! T.M.
SHAWN PHILLIPS - Do You Wonder (A&M):: The cosmic answer man (“We can roar into the future like a bull with battered brains”) goes funky on us. Amazing what a rhythm change can do when all your tunes sound the same. M.D.
MIRABAI (Atlantic) :: The latest New York cult figure? You gotta be kidding. The lyrics are a collab between George Harrison and Norman Vincent Peale at Steve Sondheim’s wake and she can’t even carry a fuckin’ tune. Gimme Melanie, anything, pldase. M.D.
JOE COCKER * Jamaica Say You Will (A&M) :: Joe Cocker does Joe Cocker impersonations and doesn’t need any marbles in his mouth. For Michael Bolotin only. J.M. JEFF BECK - Jeff Beck and the Yardbirds
(Springboard) :: Keith Relf claims that there aren’t any more unreleased Yardbirds tapes to be found anywhere, but don’t believe him. Some of the material here you’ve heard before (“Shapes of Things”; “I Ain’t Got You”) but the real gems are the studio outtakes. What makes it even more exciting is that the people at Springboard obviously wouldn’t know a Yardbirds song if they were hit over the head with Beck’s axe ‘cause they’ve put new titles on most of the selections here. I won’t tell you just exactly what’s here (guess for yourself; it separates the real Yardbirds fans from the hangers on) but suffice to say that there’s an instrumental version of “What Do You Want” as well as two different versions of “Lost Woman” (one with a different vocal track called “Someone To Love”; the other an instrumental). It’s almost as good as having your own private print of Blow Up. J.M.
(This month’s rockaramce were written by Eric Genheimser, Tom Marcinko, Michael Davis and Jeffrey Morgan.)
