ON BEING A MAN

RECORDS

ON BEING A MAN

by Robert Duncan

TED NUGENT Free-For-All (Epic)

You take your Kiss and shove it, little buddy. We've had enough of that jackass Ronald McDonald routine. And while you're at it, tell your pals, Aerosmith, to fly away back where they came from. Clear out all the clowns and sissies, Ted Nugent is back and we wouldn't want any of them to get hurt. Hurt feelings, that is—because they can't even play what Ted flushes down the toilet—and I'm not talking about tampons, dickfor, I'm talking about crap, c-r-a-p as in Kiss and Aerojones (what're they, shackin' up at the motel with the neighbor's old lady? Ha, ha, ha!).

"When in doubt/whip it out." That is rock 'n' roll. And we're only up to the first verse of the first song on side one. "Dog, dog/dog eat dog." That's the chorus for the second song on side one, in which Ted also speaks out on suicide: "Kamikaze from the hundredth floor/Swan dive to the street." In other words, who cares if some asshole thinks he's depressed and jumps out the window. Splat! Now let's just p/ay this mutha!

You think you can take this? Is it past your bedtime maybe . . .?

See if the guitar solo on the third song doesn't give you nightmares. I want to see Joe Perry play half as fast as Ted, or that lazy sucker Ace Frehley play with a third the intensity and consummate knowledge of this so-called instrument (what I really want to see is Ace Frehley's stupid silver face under the front wheels of a truck, maybe with dogs peeing on it for good luck). The last song on side one is called "Turn It Up," which is exactly what I do with my Ted Nugent albums— all the way, baby.

OK. The point is, there's four songs on side one. And how many fast ones? Four! Go listen to "Beth" if this is wearing you out.

Side two. "StreetRats." Notice that Aerofairy's rodents are "Rats In The Cellar" whereas Ted, who does not have a cellar because he doesn't live in plastic suburbia, has his rats in the street (where it all started). Yes, "Together," the next song, is a ballad. Careful—Ted didn't write it. His lead singer/guitarist, Derek St. Holmes, did. Now it's a very nice song. And when you've got a band, it's a nice thing to let them have some songs on your album. If you can't stand it, go out and shoot a monkey or something when it's on. But if you're really a man, grab your girlfriend (What's that? You say you don't have one? Gee, that's funny . . .) and slow dance her little heinie off. If you're a Ted Nugent man, I guarantee you she'll be dying for a taste. And what the hell, it's not like sitting on a dirty toilet seat or nothin'.

Hold it. Look both ways. Now you can cross the street . . .

But don't get run over by "Light My Way," which tailgates that slow baby with the absolute white hottest riff on the platter, a sort of modified —make that defoliated—boogie woogie line. Plus Derek sings to save his ass and—the kitchen sink. Danger. Explosives. Keep all Kiss and Aerosmith albums back 200 feet.

Charge on into "Hammer Down" which is, incidentally, a patented (and highly accurate) Ted Nugent expression describing his perpetual state of mind. And you are up to your knuckle joint in a hot little thing called—oops!—another Derek St. Holmes song (see above). But wait a second. This is a fast one. Besides, any song called "I Love You So I Told You A Lie" . . . now that's a sentiment that I can get behind!

OK, the point is, five songs on side two. How many fast ones? Four—count 'em. Four fast ones.

That's it. Another mind blower of a Ted Nugent album. Head and shoulders above everything else (except the last Ted Nugent album) released this year (last year I'd have to say the Dictators were up there too). If you still want to listen to Kiss and Aerosmith, it's a free country, fella—and there ain't no law against mama's boys . . . yet.

(What's a dickfor, you ask? See? What did I tell you.)

STANLEY CLARKE School Days (Nemperor)

If you've heard either of Clarke's two previous Nemperor albums then you're already familiar with the music here. The basic conception remains the same—some up-tempo fusion numbers, some slower pieces, an acoustic bit, some ambitious arrangements (strings, brass, moogs) that pan out into seductive MOR tonalities, i.e., a well balanced set. The musicianship is impeccable, the sound clean, the presentation pleasantly unpretentious. Why, then, is the record so damn dull?

Part of it has to do with the "impeccable" musicianship and part of it has to do with a formula approach to the music. All these bastard offsprings of Bitches Brew are beginning to sound more and more like the same record. The strictures, presumably self-imposed, prevent the music from generating any meaty excitement— no risks are taken— (unlike Brew, which remains a monster album) and passion, when it appears, is always ethereal. There's an optimism that permeates this record which manages to preclude any expression of the darker feelings and at the same time serves as a substitute for the immediacy of the more exultant ones. It's the difference between being happy and being joyous. Whereas "Miles can make you laugh or cry, this music is merely amiable, non-committed.

Not that I would want Clarke to become Miles or sprinkle his compositions, with atonal free form forays. But it would be rewarding if he spent less energy in perfecting an already proven popular formula presentation of his music and more energy on extending its emotional range . . . show a little individuality. Dig the range of what has become known as fusion music (arguably a misnomer). In the pit, you got Donald Byrd's abysmal music and though he knows exactly what he's doing and he s after some well deserved bucks (paid his dues and all that), the music remains moronic—he's the Ray Coniff of jazz. At the pinnacle you have Chick Corea by virtue of his recent solo album, The Leprechaun, which was superior mood music, not terribly exciting but pleasant enough. And in between you have all this . . . junk. Boring music. Crap.

But if you're strung out on this particular mode of music, and apparently quite a few people are, I wholeheartedly recommend this record. It's a quality fix and you certainly deserve that much anyway.

Richard C. Walls

BOB DYLAN Hard Rain (Columbia)

Sure, Hard Rain, the TV special, was a breakthrough. No, not the show, although there was plenty of stuff I liked such as: (a) Bob's lousy set of choppers a la Keith Richard and Alvin Lee, thereby strengthening the crooked incisor theory of rock 'n' roll; (b) Loved the headgear-—jew boy as Sheik of Araby, which reminds me that Desire sounds a lot like Saturday morning services with Scarlett Rivera playing the fiddle pn Bob/Tevye's roof—"If I were a rich man, I'd build an ugly house in Malibu, Ya Ba Di Ba . . (c) Seeing Roger McGuinn's name in TV Guide, even though his appearance was not so discreetly held until the final minutes of the show, where he'd go pretty much unnoticed; (d) Dylan's interview in TV Guide, in which he expresses his deep love for astrology, the American Bicentennial Spirit, beer in cans and mom; (3) I saw it at a CBS screening attended by most of the Rolling Thunder Revue band and they were all in hysterics during "Maggie's Farm," as if to say, Jesus Christ, how the hell did we ever make it through this one? (f) During Joan and Bob's little acoustic set, four people asked me if two of the sj6ngs they did were "new"—one was at least a hundred years old and the other was a Woody Guthrie tune (Wasn't he the guy who played cornet on John Mayall's Bare Wires?).

But the stereo equipment commercials! Now there was history being made. First time to my mind that we've had a continuing plot line in differing commercials in the same show (boy meets girl, boy gets girl, boy loses girl, boy finds girl) and not only that, the last one had them sharing a bed and they WEREN'T EVEN MARRIED! Tearyeyed memories of the erotic Sunkist commercial of a few years ago (blonde opening orange with fingers, juice squirting into her mouth) and dear old Yucca Dew shampoo with the crazy farm girls taking showers in barrels and the old nerd at the general store peekin' down their dresses. The only time I watch public television is during their spring and fall subscription drives—closest thing to commercials they've got. I fell asleep the other Sunday night and when I woke up, Ronnie Reagan was giving this half-hour paid political talk about the respective platforms and I fully expected Rosemary DeCamp to pass through the room, armed with boxes of Borateem. Who knows? The old ranger may still be alive under a cactus tree somewhere, just waitin' for those mules to take him home.

Speaking of falling asleep, that's precisely what I did during side two of the Hard Rain album. It is Not, repeat Not, the soundtrack to the TV show (only about half the songs come from the program). The new lyrics and arrangement to "Lay Lady Lay" are rather mundane, "I Threw It All Away" certainly is a throwaway, and I never liked "Idiot Wind" in the first place. As is usually the case with live albums, what you have seen is not necessarily what you will hear. The one redeeming factor is Dylan's slide guitar on "Shelter From The Storm" and I will send you my copy of this record if you can tell me just what the hell kind of guitar it was that he was playing on that cut (you can see a bit of it on the back cover). Runner-up award is the Dylan album, the one with out takes from Self Portrait, which Hard Rain rivals as Dylan's most instantly forgettable work.

Billy Altman

HALL AND OATES Bigger Than Both Of Us (RCA)

Would Robin Trower deny the fact that he owes a lot to Jimi Hendrix? Then why should Daryl Hall shrink at the mention of Todd Rundgren? As diverse as the talents of Hall and Trower are, they do share a common point: both are maintaining the traditions of beings from another time and space. Hall is a white boy from Philadelphia who, like Todd, was nursed on R&B and tunafish hoagies, but that's not where the similarities end. He sings like Todd (used to) only better and stronger, not to mention his habit of writing songs in the same vein. Someday he'll realize these things, learn to like them and be thankful that he's benefitting from them. Hell, if I sang like Todd Rundgren I'd admit it. I was born near Philly, too.

Bigger Than Both Of Us is this duo's fifth album and it's not really much different from their last one or, for that matter, anything they've already done. It's still got enough R&B to keep them in the charts. John Oates has written his token commentary on the music biz, "Back Together Again," all about rock 'n' roll comebackers like Neil Sedaka (maybe next year he can write one about Rundgren). Hall contributes a profound ballad about the dive from innocence to experience called "Falling," and although this one's got lots of spacey synthesizer and lush vocals that don't sound like lOcc, it really isn't anything progressive when you consider that it could be edited and made into the follow-up to "Sara Smile" or "She's Gone," if you count rereleases. "Room To Breath" is an out and out rocker, a first for these guys (note the prominent R&B initials in the title). The rest of the album is filled with MOR Philly funk with Oates' husky crooning on his "Crazy Eyes" and "You'll Learn" being the most memorable.

Hall and Oates are playing it safe on Bigger Than Both Of Us. That doesn't mean that this record isn't good. It doesn't mean it is, either. What it does mean is that they're coasting on a success formula and skipping, for now, the ambition to experiment. I just wish they weren't so self-conscious about their stance, 'cause it makes for uptight records. We know these guys aren't Dialing for Disco Dollars, so why should they be so defensive about having a hotline to R&B heaven? After all, Abandoned Luncheonette is still their best album because they weren't running from their roots then. Hey kids, face the music. Look what it did.for Wild Cherry. Go on. Play that funky music white boys!

Kristeen Nicholson

JESSE WINCHESTER Let the Rough Side Drag (Bearsville)

I think Jesse Winchester's background is pertinent here. Probably you know it. He was born in Louisiana, went to Canada in 1967 rather than join the army, and is now a Canadian citizen. He is a thoroughly American singer and writer, as much so as the Canadian who first brought him to the attention of Bearsville's Albert Grossman—the Band's Robbie Robertson. He is probably best known for "The Brand New Tennessee Waltz," which he records again here, in his fourth album. I am not concerned with his politics, but I am concerned with the fact that he does not enter the United States to perform live, because I think that isolation has done something to his work.

Winchester is the kind of singer/songwriter often described as "deceptively simple," when what is really meant is "deeply simple"—like Kurt Vonnegut, or Thelonious Monk, or a line like "Thou shalt not kill"—there's nothing at alt deceptive about that; it means what it says. For me, his finest song is the brief "Do It," a perfect example of the "deeply simple" notion. He-remains in a limbo beyond craft and beneath stardom, like John Prine.

Winchester's songs are based on the same simple, folkish harmonies, so that most of the new music reminds you of the old. And he's losing whatever rhythmic variety he had; two of the pieces here are just one half-note after the other, paced slower than they need to be to get the idea out, and certainly much slower than they need to be to keep up the interest. Only one song requires reflection: "As Soon As I Get On My Feet" is as good as anything he's ever done. The rest are just plain simple; not deep, not complex, not deceptive.

I don't know why, but I can guess. Waiting's hard. Isolation's hard. Recording a song by one of your backup musicians in order to have it go unnoticed until the backup man's own recording takes off like a skyrocket a few years later— "Third Rate Romance"—is hard. Keepin' on keepin' on is hard. I hope it isn't so hard that we lose Jesse Winchester. He's a valuable national resource.

Joe Goldberg

DAN HARTMAN Images (Blue Sky)

You probably know Dan Hartman whether you know it or not. The stalwart second man in the Edgar Winter Group these past four years, Dan's bass playing, singing and songwriting has been overshadowed by Rick Derringer's comings and goings and by the albino frontman's flash. About the only time Hartman garnered any headlines for himself was when he donned that space suit with the bass built into it awhile back.

But a quick listen to any of the EWG's LP's makes it obvious that Hartman's no mere sideman. The boyish sincerity of his singing coupled with his mastery of numerous song styles played a big part in adding to the group's versatility if also contributing to its often disconcerting lack of focus.

His talented journeyman status won't be hurt by this side venture either. From the crisp intro to "Hear My Song" right on to "The Party's In The Back Room," Images displays clean cut professionalism in everything it attempts. No matter what style he uses—ballads, rockers, bleached reggae (which makes me sick but maybe that's just my hang-up), white soul—or what subject matter he sings about—pick-up attempts, git-itons, love paeans, he does so in a disarmingly charmingly straight-forward manner. Of such talents are successful careers made." But not legends.

Which is to say that over the long haul, this is just a mite too concise and too clear. Like if you heard "On The Telephone," a cute little ditty about staying in touch with one's lady while on the road, on the radio, it would probably jump out at you but here, too much precision/perfection in the album as a whole tends to downgrade the effect of each tasty bit. Nobody is allowed to stretch out and when you have people like Clarence Clemons and Ronnie Montrose dropping by, it's a shame. Ronnie does take a shot at it on "Back Room" but is met with such apathy by the bassist and drummer that they may as well have been recorded on separate days (maybe they were; it doesn't say).

But that's nitpicking, I guess. The album is definitely OK. It's OK. I'm OK. You're OK. You can live OK with or without me and I can live OK with or without you and we can both live OK with or without Dan Hartman's album. OK?

Michael Davis

DOLLY PARTON All I Can Do (RCA)

A very few months from now, you're going to be seeing ads in your local rock magazines for an incredible lady named Dolly Parton. You'll have no trouble recognizing her—but we'll leave that for the pictures. Anyhow, the story is this. Miss Dolly came to Nashville, Tennessee, when she was 18 years old and proceeded to make it very big indeed in C&W circles, all the time being aided and abetted by Porter Wagoner, a tall skinny country singer who dyes his hair blonde and wears lots of rhinestones and glitter. Porter and Dolly cranked out country hits at an amazing clip —so many that a few of them fell into the hands of rock critics, who immediately discerned that Dolly Parton was not your ordinary Minnie Pearl. In fact, she can really sing; even better, she can write.

The rock critics began to write about Dolly. Big names like Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris became her friends. Patti Smith sang her songs. All these people let Dolly know that she didn't have to stay back in Nashville grinding out albums with Porter. And so this summer, Dolly finally put Porter out to pasture and let it be known that she's readying a full-tilt assault on rock 'n' roll. She's producing her own album and she wants to front for acts like The Band. Big time.

Which brings us around to this album, All I Can Do. As the last album Dolly plans to let Porter produce for her, it's aptly named. While the songs aren't exactly standard Nashville product, the album itself is a put-together affair made mostly to satisfy the RCA country division's insatiable appetite for new albums—country artists routinely put out two or even three albums a year. Hence, we have here one or two strong songs and seven or eight fillers. Dolly's fillers are ten times better than anyone else's, but they're still fillers.

This is not the album to buy unless you're a country fan. One song—Emmylou Harris's "Boulder To Birmingham"—is an example of what Dolly can do at her best and what you can expect to hear when she moves into the pop market. The rest of the album is just routine—not unbearable, merely routine.

The best thing to do is either to buy RCA's Best Of album, or wait until Dolly's self-produced try comes out. Parton is an extraordinary singer. Don't judge her by this one.

Martha Hume

ARTFUL DODGER Honor Among Thieves (Columbia)

Not moptops, nope, but not just five pretty faces either. This is a combo with a pose (images of Brian Jones dance on their cutie grins), dramatic vocal stylistics (like those of Eric Carmen), goosebump enthusiasm, and an innocence that puts teenpoots like the Bay City Buggers to shame.

HEY, SING US SOME LUV SONGS, BOYS! That's what A.D. does best. Their first record mixed Raspberries' ecstasy with the usual pop anonymity, and every cut was a Rock 'n' Roll Miracle. (And miracle implies INNER VISION, ya know.) In this new world of Seventies scrabBlehobble, every sound produced and manufactured (U know WHO they R) blends into an ectoplasmic smokescreen, concealing the vibrant heartfelt energies of grinding hips. Somehow Artful Dodger on Honor Among Thieves, their second visionary vinyl undertaking, have gotten back to the intensity of shake, rattle, and ball.

The cliches are all intact; that's the important thing. They certainly don't need articulating. What matters is the furnace pumping heat up through these kids. Probably the fuel is Billy Paliselli's infatuating lead vocals. His voice combines the hoarsecough of Nils Lofgren with Peter Frampton's castrated braggadocio. On "Scream," Billy P. don't scream 'cause he can't (mouth full of lemondrops). Rather, his knack is maintaining a tender larynx, producing a voice so pure that Buffy of Family Affair would' ve adored it (if she'd lived to her prime, sob sob, and hadn't been stalked down like a savage beast by dangerous drugs).

Side one is Sis' (and Buffy's) side, featuring songs about being happy and drippy and wearing sneakers. "Remember" tells the story of teenage trauma. "Hey Boys" softens the Slade approach, "Dandelion" as a flowerchild choral anthem resembles the Stones' song of same title, and "Good Fun" oozes sugar as Kim Fowley spelt it (and ate the Monkees meant it!). Side two is Brother'sside because it clobbers hell out of side one! And vice versa, naturally.

Unlike many pretenders to the throne of pop homogenization, Artful Dodger's Honor Among Thieves is no delinquent turkey. You've seen them come and go, I know, every NEXT BIG THANG from Blue Ash to Thunderdawg. But it's that natural, no preservatives added, CONSCIOUS attempt to play tribal music (got a beat, dingdong), that nurtures Artful Dodger's pods.

AND THE MESSAGE FROM THE UNCONSCIOUS: Artful D. dreamed of a giant treble clef sign in the sky. They interpreted it to mean that they should continue their music lessons. (Good advice from the Cosmos!)

Robot A. Hull

BE BOP DELUXE Modern Music (Harvest)

Perfect. Bill Nelson has taken on the persona of a space-age junior exec and though his henchmen look a little uneasy in suits and ties, Bill looks right at home. And is that a guitar up his sleeve or just the image of one? "Nothing here is certain/ And nothing is the truth," he writes, if that's any help.

I dunno gang; whaddya think? Turned off by the stance of rock 'n' roller as businessman? Prefer the myth of all power coming from the barrel of a loaded guitar? Well, so do 1, but try looking behind the scenes and you'll find that without the big bucks to launch media campaigns, rock 'n' roll (as we know it) wouldn't exist. Or don't look. As Nelson himself warns, "A peep behind the curtain will rob you of your youth."

And peeps he continues to give us, although they play less a part of the proceedings here than they did on the previous Sunburst Finish LP. Mainly, the material deals with that age-old favorite, the redemptive power of love, albeit set in stark, sci-fi landscapes. And the best songs are marvelous, like "Bring Back The Spark," which lightly thumbs its nose at the apocalypse and "Orphans of Babylon," a delightfully Diamond Doggy ditty ("Kiss me and load my gun/Go put your nylons on").

On the negative side of the ledger, much of side two is composed of fragments clumsily strung together into a suite of sorts, but that's secondary compared to the album's repetitiveness as a whole. Instead of carrying through Nelson's avowed intentions to keep moving and to project more warmth, Modern Music attempts to replicate Sunburst's near-perfect fusion of heavy metal, romantic and progressive elements via restated themes, recycled riffs and a barrage of effects. In short, a remake/remodel instead of a step in any new directions.

Timing may be the key factor here. Modern Music is, after all, Be-Bop's third release in just over a year and it feels a little rushed, as if the band didn't realty have time to get into the material. Considering that their momentum has been snowballing up to this point, putting out anything less than their best right now is realty dumb. I'm still bullish on Be Bop Deluxe but if they're gonna play at being businessmen, they gotta bear in mind the law of supply and demand.

Michael Davis

TWIGGY (Mercury)

UH-OH: Bad enough to prop up dollbabies like Andrea True (X-Porn Sweetie) before a mike and prod with sizzling cattle-iron and say "sing between your thighs, babe," expecting sultry moans and sexy whines, but allowing this Barbie cadaver to twinkletoe her MOR/country brand of sponge sap onto a whole goddamn record ALBUM is no entertainment value.

BORN ANONYMOUS: Lesley Hornsby is her real name (genuine limey origins). Changed to Twiggy cause conceptually it sounded "skinny" (like cartoon stick figures). Not the best pseudonym, tho. Honors in this area go to Andrew Beswick alias Mr. Sensitive. And Best Real Name Award goes to Cary Grant (his mom calls him Archie Leach).

TITS ANYONE?: Admittedly, as a model a full ten years ago, Twiggy did set the fashion boobs on their bums. But so would've any sixteen-year-old with marshmallow breasts! Fodder for public molestation and all that.

VIDEO HI-JINX: Dear Twig, also, has TV credentials to add to her other grade-Z talents; yes, for two years this girl hosted her own variety show on BBC, and, strange as it seems, kinky T. got no complaints. Andy Capp was co-host.

HOLLYWOOD CHEESE: Twig's next big deal was the leading role in Ken Russell's The Boy Friend, which was a far cry from photoplay (mostly campy slop). Rona Barrett's rumor machine hinted that Russ Meyer even refused to give her a screen test (obviously Twiggy lacked the "B's" required for B-movies).

SHOVELING SHIT: Career-minded with a one-track brain, this ex-model, ex-tube personality and ex-actress remained determined to try the only door left open to her (besides selling Revlon products in subways): singing (or "lipsyncing," as they say in the biz). A few eyecatching photos, some suggestive promotional poses, and Twiggy was on her way to her first platinum platter.

DON'T LET THOSE RECORD REVIEWERS KICK YA AROUND, HONEY: words spoken in a fit of passion by Twig's manager, Justin de Villeneuve, as he was swallowed by her pussycat peepers.

THIS GIRL IS A SITTING DUCK: Twiggy will never become Marianne Faithful, Jackie DeShannon, or even Lynsey DePaul, and her lame excuse will always be "my pretty face hid my true inner talents," but she'll get a second chance, anyway, sometime on Jerry Lewis' All-Star Celeb Telethon, and she'll walk offstage crying because the poor little spazzoids won't ever be gorgeous and famous like fashion models and pop singers.

BUT THAT'S THE FUTURE: Today, Twiggy, like a mannequin in a Montgomery Ward catalogue, is elegantly on display on the cover of this debut album, which can be perused in fine record stores everywhere (no charge for just looking, sez Mercury records). As the liner notes so aptly put it (speaking the truth), "her face has reflected the face of the time" (1966), "her fashion has been the fashion of the time" (make mine Mod), "and now her voice is reflecting the sound of the time" (blase farts).

Robot A. Hull