Is There Life On Roxy Music?

Is There Life On Roxy Music?

RECORDS

Billy Altman

ROXY MUSIC

Viva! Roxy Music (Atco)

Duality and paradox are the two terms that come to mind whenever I think about Bryan Ferry and his vision of himself, rock music and the universe through the vehicle that is Roxy Music. Sometimes he is a lead singer who will saunter up to the stage dressed in a white dinner jacket, snapping his fingers in front of the jungle strains of a hot band that can scorch the eardrums; staring out at the crowd as though the most important thing on his mind is where to find a good cigarette holder in this day and age. At other times, as on the cover of Viva!, he will be wailing into his mike, hard-working and sweaty while bevies of beauties dressed in Fifties chic coolly sway to to the music, lending vocal backup that, like their looks, functions more as a prop than as musical accompaniment. Or he will sit for a publicity photo with a newly grown mustache, a regular mild-mannered representative of the Weimar Republic, giving that hint of decadence glance at the camera, as if the Gestapo is breaking down the door but hes too immersed in the casual splendor of the rain falling softly on his window sill to care much.

Op the surface, it could all fit neatly into the history lesson entitled The Flash of the Seventies; Ferry isnt the first entertainer to change his onstage image continually. Lou Reed has done it; David Bowie has done it. But while Reed has exploited the notion of body as torture chamber and Bowie seeks to change the times by physically changing the signs ("1 am folk, I am rock, I am soul... I am whatever 1 am into at the moment, which will soon be your moment

too") , Ferry is motivated by a time/ space dilemma such as rock “n roll has never seen. His mingling of past, present and future, and the recurring question of dream vs. reality, , forces him to alter his public visage just to keep his mental faculties above water. If he stayed in one mask for too long, he might just suffocate.

The world for Bryan Ferry is one of decided and extreme loneliness with only the flurry of activity between the sexes, in notions of both emotional and physical friction, acting to elevate life out of its humdrums. It is here that the duality of Ferrys songwriting stance comes into play. Hes forever caught between the transient and the everlasting, excepting the former but longing for the latter, expounding a live for today philosophy while yearning to retrace a thousand yesterdays. In lighter moments he accepts his own paradoxical search, as in "Editions of You," where he begins "Looking through an old picture frame', just waiting for the perfect you. " or "Just Another High," where die realizes that hes "just another crazy guy" and finding out that love is just another high. Indeed, almost half of Siren sees love as escape: "Love Is The Drug," "Just Another High" and "She Sells (. . .1 Need)" all ring with the same theme. An equal number of tracks on that album, however, took at relationships quite seriously—"Ertd of the Line," and "Whirlwind" detail a striving for and failihg to get something lasting, and its always the author whos left holding his feelings naked and exposed while the person thats hurt him

wariders away, unconcerned and aloof.

In particular "Both Ends Burning," which is featured on Viva!, smacked of the Stones "Gimme Shelter" musically in its original form and the addition of the ofLkey frantic backup vocals of the Sirens for the live recording strengthens the ties between the two songs. There is one major difference, though. Jaggers protagonist fears the outside world and seeks only one square foot of solace. Ferrys persona is trapped by his own mind and heart with nowhere to go, both ends burning and though he talks to hislost love in his head, trying to think her away, he cant: "OK, I will dance the night away/ living only for today. While youre counting sheep/well, who can sleep in this heat?"

Perhaps the most taut description of this dilemma comes in "In Every Drearti Home A Heartache," a sleeper on For Your Pleasure buttle centerpiece of side two of Viva! The answer to all problems would appear to be the inflatable, mail order vinyl female companion that floats in the suburban swimming pool, "deluxe and delightful.*It is the perfect love, totally of the searchers own creation ("Immortal and life size, my breath is inside you"). But even the doll winds up the winner in this perverted game: "Disposable darling, cant throw you away now . I blew up your body, but you blew my mind." In the end, it all falls back 'to that classic, line from Strandeds "Mother of Pearl"— "Looking for love in a looking glass world is really hard to do."

Lastly, of course, theres the music of Roxy Music, a melange of sound that truly deserve to be called • by its own name. Ferry, Andrew Mackay, Edwin Jobson, Phil Manzanera and Paul Thompson do everything they can to make Ferrys lyrics work and the paradox works there also. Although they must be classified as a rock band, more often than not they use the genre, rather than live by it or for it. Ferrys understanding of rock hit me back before the brilliant These Foolish Things on For Your Pleasure during "Editions of You. " Following some outlandish solos by Mackay on sax, Eno on synthesizer and Manzanera on guitar, Ferry announces "The crazy music drives you insane . . . this way" and proceeds to top all previous solos with a one-handed, inane, organ break Straight out of the Question Mark and the Mysterians playbook. The rest of the band know their roots, too, as exemplified by the use of a Beatles ending for "Love Is The Drug," a Stooges intro on "Mother of Pearl" and the Bo Diddleystylings of "Pyjamarama." Similarly. they can play classical pieces with uncanny sensitivity and are perhaps the only group since Procol Harum to do so without sacrificing excitement for egocentric displays of virtuosity, using their technology (synthesizers, oboes through wahwah and electric violins) rather than just displaying it. Both the ethereal "Chance Meeting" and "If There Is Something," two-tracks on Viva! taken from the very first Roxy album demonstrate this quite effectively.

Ive mentioned a lot more songs than are actually on Viva! (there are eight: the two mentioned from the first album; "The Bogus Man/ "Dream House," "Strand," from For Your Pleasure; "Gut of the Blue" from Country Life; "Both Ends" from Siren and the previously unreleased English single ("Pyjamarama") and frankly, when I looked at the songs selected for this recdrd, taken from concerts in England in the Falls of73, 74 and 75,1 almost winced because theyve chosen some very offbeat things for this record. But any good live album should steer you towards the rest of a groups catalog. As you can tell from these ramblings, Viva! does just that.

ASLEEP AT THE WHEEL Wheelinand Dealin (Capitol)'

When United Press sent out their Bob Wills obit a few years back, the lead paragraph was about Asleep At the Wheel. And when The Texas Playboys did their legendary gig on the Austin City Limits TV show, Leon McAuliffe made a point of passing the torch into the hands of The Wheel. So lets,, assume the Wills/Wheel connection and take it from there.

Its been said that western swing might, more accurately, be called western jazz—and in Wills case, theres no doubt at all. Wills started out playing fiddle-based country music, butfor the last half of his long career he fronted a jazz band—with horns and reeds (when he could afford them), and big-band arrangements that riffed right up there with Count Basie. In many ways, the most appropriate category for Bob Wills Texas Playboys is simply as the last of the "territorial" jazz bands.

Like Wills, The Wheel started out playing country music—and to some extent they still do. But recently (and still squarely in the Wills tradition) theyve been shifting their attack. Pianist Floyd Domino has always been a strong jazz influence, arid now, with the crucial addition of Link Davis Jr. on sax, theyve made the crossover complete. Wheelin and Dealin is at least 50% jazz, with the remaining 50 % divided between jump blues, western swing, cajun music "and straight country. Its a great mix.

"They Raided the Joint" starts out with a driving horn figure that sounds like the Horace Silver band in full cry, and cooks right through a series of fine solos by Ray (guitar) and Link (sax) —topped by Chris OConnells gutsy vocal and powered by Floyds hard-rocking piano. "Lost Mind," the old Percy Mayfield number, gives Ray an opportunity to prove he can sing jazz as well as country. "Route 66" is another jazz rocker, with Leroy Preston doing the vocal honors, Floyd on driving-wheel piano, and really tough section work from the fiddles and horns.

Then theres "Cajun Stripper," a variation on the traditional "Bosco Stomp" that features Link switchhitting on fiddle' and cajun yell; "Blues For Dixie" and "Miles and

Miles of Texas," Wills-styled western swing numbersthat showcase Lucky "O" on pedal steel; several country tunes that sound just like hit singles; and, finally, two typically ouL rageous Leroy Preston originals, "If I Cant Love You" (a new New Orleans bruiser) and "Shout Wa Hey" (an exuberant jump tune that would have hadJLouis Jordan jumping).

Perhaps the most impressive thing about The Wheel is that with every year (and every record) theyve gotten better—and they started out hot.. Wheelin and Dealin is easily the best LP theyve ever made. Its a shame Bob Wills cant hear it. Hed give if an "ah-hah" for sure.

Michael Goodwin

NEIL DIAMOND Beautiful Noise (Columbia)

If theres anything that anybody who reads this stuff knows, its that anybody reviewing rock would much rather be reviewing movies. And for French magazines, at that. There are all these auteur critics around, but the only open gig is reviewing pop LPs. Jon Landau, the Peter Bogdanovich of rock, had his finger on the problem in the farewell column he wrote in Rolling Stone some months back, bemoaning the fact that critics talk about words, not music. (He didnt wonder why critics

always get the words wrong: cf. Dylan, any period.) Any rock critic worth his free copy would rather talk about Hitchcock than Phil Spector; Paul Nelson almost gave the game away in Rolling Stone, when he reviewed the Ramones with a selfprofessed paraphrase of Andrew Sards bn Sam Fuller.

Aftyway, while everyone is hipposed on movies, here is Neil Diamond tossing one dead over the the plate and probably past his auditors, who are no doubt looking elsewhere, by giving them a Fifties Broadway Show, instead of the ear movie-they are programmed, (and lust) to look for. Any critic knows Broadway is dead. Diamond doesnt.

Both in conception and delivery, Diamond tends toward melodrama. The spiritual progenitor of some of his most effective numbers, like "I Am ... I Said," is the "Soliloquy" from Carousel. On a bad day, he can slip over into the sentimentality of a Rod McKuen or the bathos of a Vegas lounge act singing liMy Way" after dedicating it to The Chairman of the Board, but he usually manages to keep his head above water. And this time, hes come up with a remarkable record.

Hes had the considerable assistance of Robbie Robertson, who produced Beautiful Noise and deservedly gets nearly equal billing on the front cover. Robertson surrounds Diamond with a variety of hard Fifties rock, from a Dixieland band to shouting gospel, even one number 'featuring Garth Hudsons unique organ. Each song seems absolutely hand-crafted, and in this, plus the attention to the proper musical setting for each number, regardless of genre, the record is similar to/Paul Simons solo albums.

There is a concept, which Diamond states as ". . . a series of recollections .,.. seen through the eyes of a young songwriter making his way through the streets of New York Citys Tin Pan Alley in the early 1960s." I think that idea was probably'more important for Diamond—it probably helped him get the work done— than it is for us to know about. Most of the songs stand on their own, out of context, and, unlike the best Broadway show numbers, dont gain all that much by being juxtaposed with the others.

This is by no means a perfect record. Despite the variety of subject and musical approach, the. songs have a certain sameness when heard all at once. Some of them are reminiscent of other music, some of Diamonds own work.

I can ^ee that most of what Ive written here extends praise with one hand and snatches it away with the other. Thats not quite what I mean: Diamond is an ^rtist somewhat like Leonard Bernstein: prodigiously gifted, trying to surpass himself and the form hes working in, and so commercial and so much a street boy that theres a slight taint to the best things he does. Sometimes, you dont like yourself for liking him.

But lies accomplished one very important thing with this album. Unlike Broadway shows, albums are to be experienced many times. And unlike Robbie. Robertsons last LP with the Band, which Initially gives the listener the same slightly offkilter feel this record does, Beautiful Noise doesnt diminish with repeated playings. It grows. The riiore you listen, the more you hear.

Joe Goldberg

DAVID CROSBY& GRAHAM NASH

Whistling Down the Wire

,(ABC)

Look, if youd been in a group that got so much money, adulation, etc. out of so little (two studio albums) as CSNY, youd tend to get lazy too. But after atrocities as various as Crosbys If I Could Only Remember My Name . . ., the double live set, and every solo album Steve, Stills ever made, the publics faith in these guys has finally begun to wane, and you would expect them to be a little hungry.

Thus, in spite of their pallid 1972 duet set on Atlantic, the release of last years Wind on the Water showed that Crosby and Nash had escaped the CSNY curse sufficiently to realize (unlike Stills) the necessity of trying again. At least half of it was fine, buoyant, full music with somebody's wind in its sails. Also, word had it that the live sets were excellent. They were working and on their way, it seemed, to cooking, and because of that I looked forward to this album. I was wrong. 1 have listened . to Whistling Down the Wire half a dozen times, and still ' cant remember anything off of it any more than I can distinguish between the last three Steve Stills albums.

I can understand their strategy, if theyve got one, because the blandout seems to be the way to grab the masses by the throat these days—c/. Bob Marley, Paul Simon, McCartney, even Stones—but there is nothing on here as catchy as recent -work by the above-named. This record is treacle, and the,guys that made it are counting on you ijot knowing the difference. Boycott em, and if youre a junkie for the California consciousness they are purveying, buy any old album by Buffalo Springfield or the Byrds. Your original copies should be worn out by now.

Lester Bangs

DERRINGER (Blue Sky)

All-American Boy, well, maybe (bangin around too much with albinos can make you myopic, too), but All-Ohio Boy, yeah, certainly. Ive been pulling for my landsman Rick Zehringer/Derringer ever since 1965, when WING mainstays Rick & the Raiders seachanged into the McCoys and dumped that Ohiopunk state-of-the-art napalmer "Hang On Sloopy," onto an appreciative nation.

The McCoys were an organic (read promising) unit, even if their best music was wiped out by the progres^ive-rock-inspired Watergate housecleaning of the late Sixties, and Rick Derringer has floundered around ever since, trying to recapture. the interrupted growth saga qf the McCoys. Second guitar to Johnny or Edgar Winter was no place for a former punk king, and Ricks subsequent solo manifestations became increasingly bizarre deviations from the McCoys ideal. (Is dressing up like already ambi-sexual Suzi Quatro any place fora boy from Ft. Recovery, Ohio?)

Rick knows all that better than you ■ or me, of course, and his latest band, Derringer (no "Rick"), parlays his native talents into some of his most straightforward rock “n roll since the ol golden decade. Derringer is a semi-supergroup, as it boasts exDust and Stories bassblitzer Kenny Aaronson, Carmen Appices kid brother Vinny on drums, and a Southern (but decidedly non-Capri-r cornish) Danny Johnson on twin lead and rhythm guitars, all meshing potently .together behind Ricks enduring rnr hootchiecoo leads.

Plus (and this may be Rick Derringers first working gindmick), a non-performing lyricist in the person of'(none other than) Cynthia Weil, legendary Brill Bldg.. sweetheart songwriter, whose tiniest label credit turns contemporary rec,ord collectors to veritable jelly. Cynthias lyrics are the professionally slick kind that Rick has always needed and add much to diis accomplished flash guitar, even though the recurring subject—50 ways of not making up your mind whether or not you should leave your lover—can be rather depressing in album-sized quantities.

Still, the combination of malevocalized lyrics stressing emotional vulnerability ("under /my wheels" | not spoken here), with traditionally aggressive hardrock music, just ' might be that something new weve been searching for with Rick. Derringers various songs are somewhat uneven in quality, as you might expect in this tentative venture, but if this new band (not excluding Cynthia Weil) can match the teenage-emergency rushes of "Let Me In" and "You Can Have Me" again, and again, theyre, on their way.

Richard Riegel

THE GRATEFUL DEAD Steal Your Face (United Artists)

Steal Your Face? Steal your money is more like it.

The Grateful Dead used to be, at heart, a band of talented amateurs; dedr to our souls becaus£ they were human; capable of playing truly ihspired music one night and then coming back the next evening to make an incompetent,'tuneless lot of fools of themselves. When they succeeded, it was nirvana; when they failed, it was the pits.

Well, as the many Dead Heads still around ought to know by now, their boys (and girl) arent amateurs anymore. Theyre seasoned pros, grizzled old veterans who know what theyre doing every step of the way. They rarely take a chance to make something special out of their music, and nothing theyve done in a long time has been interesting, let alone special.

Steal Your Face is a collection of live performances, cynically and lazily performed by a bunch of musical nod-outs, the release of which is an act of arrogant Let-them-eatcakism by a band whose recent waxings have left it owing its legion followers a rather huge debt. After all, why this particular set of performances? A band that has supposedly recorded for posterity every burp and fart ever committed by its members should be able to dig out of the vaults something better than these shoddy October 74 Winterland noodlings.

So while youre looking at the inside cover art which compares photos of the group now with pics from the good old Haight days, you can hear them butcher two songs from their very first (and which may very well wind up, in retrospect, their most exciting) album, "Beat It On Down The Line" and "Cold Rain and Snow," the latter turned into a downright dirge by Jerry Garcia (a practice hes wreaked on quite a lot of good material over the past few years).

There are two obligatory Chuck Berry songs here, "Promised Land" and "Around and Around," and the Dead still havent figured out how to pick Berrys tunes as well as 99 percent of the lousy garage bands on the planet. And they rush through Marty Robbins "El Paso," which

theyve often done quite well in concert, as /if theyre embarrassed by it and cant wait to get it over with.

The rest of this double disc 14 song opus suffers a bit less, if only because that crapped-out, tired method of playing is also applied to the weaker material, making the discrepancy between possibility and reality almost negligible. The bands instrumental sound, spearheaded by Garcias scrawny, tiny Stratocaster, reaches for and gets that perfect Zen hollowness.

If all of this is truly representative of what the Dead have to offer us from here on in, wed all be better off if they retired to their Marin County rest homes a little earlier, than planned. Relics are nice but bodies decomposing before our very eyes, well thats something else again.

Kevin Doyle

TOOTS AND THE MAYTALS Reggae Got Soul (Island)

Be careful, now!

The last time I checked, reggae wasnt reggae any more—it was "rockers." But that just means its still alive; before it was reggae it was rock steady, and before1 that it was ska. And from the beginning, Toots and the Maytals have been the live root and flowering branch from which it grew.

( Some serious reggae writers (like Black Musics Carl Gayle) have criticized the Maytals recently for losing touch with the latest JA style— "dub" or "rockers" or whatever— but 1 think that misses the point. The Maytals have always been out of time and style.

Some of the rich men get their riches from the ghetto

As far as I can see

All the poorer ones that left in the ghetto

They put their trust in vanity

And thats why the rich ones shall 'be richer

And the poor ones shall be poorer ... *

Toots and the Maytals, three voices, equal, together for 14 years; standing on a bedrock foundation of African chant and working that holiest of metaphoric miracles—harmony. Three men giving praise to God. Toots Hibbert puts it this way: "When I sing, I am the church."

The Maytals hit their peak in 1968, as rock steady was just turning into reggae, and though fallen off a bit (but not much) since then, their style is basically unchanged. The word "roots" gets tossed around a lot in reggae circles— at the moment, I think it means Rasta dreadlocks—but what it ought to mean is Toots and the Maytals.

You must first see the kingdom of Zion

Then all things will be added unto you

You will never want, hunger or thirsty

You will fill up this cup of life ...

And then you will weep no more

Know that its God, and God, and God alone

Can set us free from our misery... *

Reggae Got Soul is relatively restrained compared to piledrivers like "Pressure Drop" or "Monkey Man," but it gets there just the same. Several songs here are re-recordings of old Maytal favorites: "Six and Seven Books," "Never You Change," and "Rasta Man," and these are the weakest songs on the LP. The new material is typically Tootsian—religious, - infectious, and thoroughly surreal. The title track could have been cuf in 1968: a burst of primal, primitive reggae music, aprimal, primitive reggae music, about reggae, as the best reggae always is. "Premature" reminds us not to take 14-year-old girls to adult movies ("shes not fit for the picture"), and supports the warning with citations from Scripture—all to an irresistably danceable backing track. "Everybody Needs Lovin" is a sweet love song that finds Toots chanting ecstatic over the Maytals gorgeous, wailing harmonies. "True. Love Is Hard To Find" is a call-andresponse rocker, built on backup rhythms that would be at home iq any Holiness Church. As for "Living In the Ghetto," its the albums centerpiece-providing its subtext '(i.e., were all living in the ghetto) as well as its most exciting music.

And then1 you will know yourself

Know that its love and purityi that set us free

That set Us free from all the misery ... *

Ive got two complaints about Reggae Got Soul. First, the Maytals have been sliding into the back-, ground lately, leaving Toots front and center—and thats not a good sign at all. The Maytals are a group —their sound is their sermon—and if the polyphony goes, the Church goes with it. Ask Martha Reeves. Second, although Island has provided sleeve-lyrics for the last two Weiilers albums and tne new Heptones LP, they have inexplicably failed to provide them for the Maytals. Its too bad, too, because not only are Toots lyrics crucially important, but theyre often quite hard to figure out. (Ive included the words to "Living In the Ghetto" as , an extra CREEM Reader Bonus; no, dont thank me, its nothing.)

Hey, up from the ghetto People livin in the ghetto Hear what I say Im tellin it to you Im tellin it to you ... *

Michael Goodwin * Published by Island Music, Inc., BMI.

SLEEPER OF THE MONTH

FEUXTHECAT Original TV Soundtracks '(Playhour)

This ones for all you minor wits that think Firesign or Chevy Chase are hot laffs. Pat Sullivans Felix and his Bag Of Tricks was so far ahead of its time that the liner notes had to explain that "Felix is modern ... he goes into space with his mage Jet Plane and has all the latest inventions tfyat arent out yet." Real dude, huh? One listen to "The Great Rubber Racket" or "The Money Tree" will tell you all you need to know about anything. Like the cat himself sez: "All righty-o! Ha ha ha ha ha!"

Rick Johnson

LOUIS ARMSTRONG AND EARL HINES Louis Armstrong and Earl Hines -192 8 (Smithsonian Collection)

As I write, Paul McCartney is in the middle of a tour, a large part of the audience for which is only vaguely aware that he was once a, master of something called the Beatles. So how can anyone be expected to know that Louis Armstrong was ever anything but a handkerchief-head who sang "Mack the Knife" and "Hello Dolly" and, like that other popular-entertainer, Mark Twain, is the, subject of an Exxon Bicentennial Commercial?

Martin Williams, of the Smithsonian Institution, is nearly as fond of ^historical precision as he is of jazz, so, he has been releasing recordings (available from the Smithsonian, Washington, D.C. 20560) to set matters straight, and make some! splendid music available.

Its almost impossible to imagine that these recordings are nearly fifty years old. They sound so fresh and ndw, and so brave, in the face of the impending Depression. Several of them are classics. As Armstrong justifiably said of "West End Blues," "Nobody ever played anything like it before—and nobody ever played anything like it after." Armstrong

STARZ (Capitol)

Rock Steady Productions has all the bases covered: now that Kiss have seemingly abandoned the slambam molten ore that made bigtime boppers for jthe ethereal Alice Cooper thrills of stylized H/M, they hit us with Starz to scoop up the latest generation of pube polliwogs swarming feverishly through the hockey arenas.

Like Kiss when they first appeared, Starz are presented as a band without a history, instant rockstars who somehow learned the rudiments of heavy-metal gujtaring without having been in any previous name bands. Personally I dont believe that bio malarkey about Ranno, Sweval, et. al. being down-on-their-luck rockers who heard Michael Lee Smiths sirenlike warbling in the elevator shaft of their flophouse, and knew that their destiny was plotted; Ill bet producer Jack Douglas recruited all these jokers Monkees-style for just the commercial calculation theyre always gonna be.

Guitarist Richie Ranno looks just like a neer-do-well from my home town who used to go to sprjnt car races with us. Michael Lee is such a moist-lipped Michael DesBarres vocahlahzer stereotype that its not even a crime any longer, and drum-

was the first virtuoso soloist to change jazz from an ensemble music to a form of instant autobiographical composition. His tone .and execution at^e superb, his ideas as simple and classic as Mozart. He is joined here on several tracks by Earl Hines, who forged a whole new style by' translating Armstrongs innovations to the piano. Probably everyone who has played since Armstrong owes something to him—Miles, Parker, Gillespie, Coltrane, Bechet —and few were as good. If you think you know where almost any jazzman got his ideas, and you havent heard these recordings, youre probably wrong.

Joe Goldberg

mer Joe X Dube (Joe X. whathefuh?!?) will undoubtedly be The Face of 1976 for his frog-fop waxed moustachio tips. For all I know (and for all that "Live Wire"s note-fornote distillation of "Got to Choose" and other Kiss standards tells me), Starz might even be Kiss without their makeup;hustling some spare change between concept-package tours. No, wait, theres five guys in Starz, not four. Just goes to show that Kiss really have become the tastemaking band of the mid-Seventies. (Only us teens know for sure.)

Basic base-metallic to the last, Starz arje as predictable as you always hoped for, you can hear "Detroit Girls" grinding, platitude-laden chorus before you even put the record on. "Boys In Action" is the old Sweet limpwrist-cum-brassknuckles menace hustle and "Night Crawler" has all the best moves of every Anglo-German foundry screemer down cold. Yet "Pull th?'Plug" is the first metal song ever to employ a euthanasia metaphor, and Michael L. Smith (or whoever) wins the Jim Morrison Memorial Pocket Poets Award for rhyming "get hung" with "iron lung."

* Starz ringing riffs are invading the brain cells of the teen next door thjs very night, and aint that rock “n rolling you, baby?

Richard Riegel

DION Streetheart (Warner Bros.)

Dion, yknow: Dion! Hersls an album by DION! The 1. original 2. better 3. natural 4. forever Bruce Springsteen and you just might as well say best too now that Nils Lofgrens permanently abdicated the role of pretender to the throne with that Cry Tough travesty of a few months back. Which is not like sayin back in 56 that Sinatra was better than Gene Vincent cause 1. he wasnt and 2. THE WHOLE SCENES GONE ASS-BACKWARDS ANYWAY. None of these dodo kids know anything anymore, like I was at this Aerosmith-Montrose-Mott show the othjzwnonth (first freebie in LA and followed by a press party so why not go?) and this Hawaiian kid next to me in the seats (kids too young to buy beer so in exchange for one goddam buck and a quarter cup of the swill that he even paid for any-

way hes willing to take out his coke in what he takes to be a fair exchange!) sez yeah he does like the old groups, yknow the Beatles and Elvis and all of that, as if the whole things so prehistoric to him that the 10 years between dont make an iota of a diff so' whats the big fuggin deal, that stupid out-of-it pathetic teenos „ dig Springsteen just cause he reminds em of the Fonz? I mean its reason enough for weepy middle agers like Lester and Landau and Christgau to eat it right up BUT IT AINT REASON ENOUGH FOR ME CAUSE IM PURE OF HEART AND DONT MIND BEING 31 ONE GODDAM BIT. Yeah!

Okay, so this albums what you might call mediocre. Okay, so name me one Springsteen album with more than two decent cuts. This ones got at least three: 1. "The Way You Do the Things You Do" (does it kinda like "Ruby"); 2. "Lover Boy Supreme" (in a "Wanderer" vein); 3. "If I Can Just Get Through To-

night" (beats shit on "Help Me Make It Through the Night" with all that "Take the ribbons from your hair" sissyness); and maybe even four. "Queen of 59" (about how shpd rather go to plays than drive-insaltho if yaxe me playsre bowels territory all the way but I guess musicians gotta remain less jaded than us writefolks cause its the nature of the biz). Thing is Dions never needed to. put out really decent albums and except for some old anthologies hes never really done one. Youd see all these packages back at the turn of the 60s with him wearin an ascot and a broad nuzzled up to Kim ready for love and covers like that were as good a reason as any to buy em (always the best reason in my book and Ive written two: Aesthetics of Rock, Something Else Press; Gulcher, Straight Arrpw—pref-ty fair credentials ymight'say!) (hey remember me?—I invented rock writing a good ten years ago!).

Anyway, I gotta admit I never

actually bought'a Dion LP either with or without the Belmonts but I still got all the singles (flip side of "No One Knows": "I Cant Go On, Rosalie"). Saw him live at Alan Freed/ Murray the K shows too, so eat yer heart out. The guys at least as greats as Buddy Holly and if he ever gets fat and wears jumpsuits to Vegas its cause the $$$s right and not cause goddam entropys turned his head away from WHAT ITS ALL ABOUT (i.e. nervously nuancingit up to the one big internal beat that all these "human potential" whatsits that you gotta pay a billion dollars for have sorely neglected to tune into cause rock and roll—yeah!—is its own system of salvation and deliverance and all of that and if Springsteen doesnt do TM or est his mother probably does by now).

Not Dions greatest cover tho.

But anyway, who ever said albums hadda be good? Sure was a bad precedent whenever whoever set it set it . . . R. Meltzer