TELEVISION Marquee Moon

Like, what's worth keeping in music is the kinda thing like anybody, even from another time or say, another dimension, could get even pieces out of. Some of Dylan's stuff maybe, a lot of that horn player, Albert Ayler. That's got that, ya know?—Tom Verlaine

I'm writing this from my hometown—Cleveland, Ohio. The biggest "progressive" FM station, a station renowned as a big breaking point for new events in rock music, once played Television's Marquee Moon. They don't know what to do with it; something from their preconceptions keep whispering "New York... punk rock." But what's actually going on here cuts far above and through such labels. Sure, Television lives and plays in New York. Simple geography. Expand that to "urban" and you can include Portland, Memphis, Houston, Washington, L.A., New Orleans, Minneapolis...as for "punk rock", it's a term that we coined stillborn. To me it means nothing. If it's supposed to mean rock music played with deliberate lack of finesse and intelligence, then it means less than nothing when applied to Television.

Musically speaking, Billy Ficca is a match for any percussionist working in any field today (including his idol, Tony Williams); Fred Smith, on bass, knows just what not to play and where— he never misses a tone; Richard Lloyd and Tom Verlaine make veritable celebrations of the Fender guitar: technique, emotion, thought and pure sound ringing out of Stratocasters and Telecasters, jazz masters. Even the obscure .22 Magnum Derringer of the pre-CBS line, the Duo-Sonic. Without modication between guitar and amp, chords haven't chimed so wild since the Byrds, or maybe Love's first album, or ripped and bitten since the Velvets were on Verve. And the lead lines—sometimes angular and unpredictable, yet always conceptually logical. What was Verlaine-saying about Albert Ayler?

The album kicks off with "See No Evil", what 1 would have to describe as a neo-Velvets riff. Verlaine gets in some droll, yet purposeful word play—"What 1 want/1 Want NOW/And it's a whole lot more/than 'anyhow'..." Fred Smith and Billy Ficca pound out a bottom that rolls and flows more than simply rocks. Lloyd rips out leads that sound almost like good old conventional. ..but it's a wholelotmorethan "anyhow." It's pretty damn frenetic, especially at the end, where what sounds like about 25 over-dubbed Verlaines start screaming "Pull down the future with the one you love" and awholelotmore that I don't think made it to the lyric sheet.

Then into the arms of the "Venus di Milo". Now 1 have ideas, glimpses if you will, of what these songs are "about", but like a good mystery, a giveaway only serves to deaden the scope of the work. 1 will say that ''Venus" has a lot to do with space, but not the kind of space thought of in terms of star or satellites; more like McGuinn's"5 D" and the immediate impact of the song musically, does seem to be Byrds like, yet by the chorus then the guitar .solo underscored by gorgeously profound-but-dizzy drum rolling, "Venus" becomes totally Television and the album remains totally Television from there on out. You might hear traces of the Stones' "Moonlight Mile" and "Guiding Light", but Verlaine's head is full of much more than snow. Someone has remarked to me that the fade of "Torn Curtain" might owe something to the Beatles' "She's So Heavy"; I doubt it, although I wonder if Verlaine's title was inspired by Hitchcock's film or, for that matter, "Prove It" by psycho-dramatic light fantastic readings of Raymond Chandler, or "Elevation" by the theories and practices of a certain now deceased band from Austin, Texas. Use these as handles, if you wish.

It's been said that to fully grasp what Television's all about, you must see them live. This is probably more or less true for any band (or at least should be), but in Television's case it does seem to bear more strongly. Physically, they never present so much an image (read fixed, understood stance) as a presence; a sort of mirror of the possibilities that the listener/watcher feels up to facing. Like Lou Reed said, "Oh, I do believe/You are what you perceive." I myself recall hearing Television for the first time (April '75 at CBGB's). I had come to hear Patti Smith who, at the time, had neither a drummer nor a record contract. A year before, Smith had written what I believe remains the definitive piece on Television for Rock Scene and I felt it important to stick around for Television's second set after Patti's first, which was magnificent.

Sure enough, I was transported. Where Smith's music had been too tight to the point, Television was loose, loud, daring. It was like hearing rock 'n' roll for the first time. I couldn't understand a single word or Verlaine's strangled vocals but the feelings came on like razors and methedrine. His singing voice has this marvelous quality of slurring all dictions into what becomes distortions of actual lines, so that without a lyric sheet you can come away with a whole other song.. .which means you're doing one third of the work. I went around for a whole year singing what I thought was the opening line of "Venus"— "twisted sick with night of sweet surprise," when the actual lyric is "tight toy night/streets were so bright."

Marquee Moon is an album like a memory of a thing that has never been before. It's like everything that makes Television the most unique band playing in America today. Television suggests auras, edges, images of things when they play. There is a direct visceral hit (no mistake that Verlaine used Andy Johns as co-producer), but every time I hear this group there is a shadow cast further from the moment that seems to imply an infinity of moments, of further shadows.

Television takes experience and abstracts it, not to the point of obscurity, but to the point of suggestion, that it not be Verlaine's experience per se, but exists on its own, of itself without prior awareness of form. Like rock ln' roll, like its art, ife simply a frame that we put around a magical process. Whether that be the movement of a switch on a Fender or slurring of a word that does things like dig holes in silence, it's the kind of thing anybody, even from another time or dimension, could get pieces out of.

Verlaine has created a poetry which is indeed his alone, a poetry of inspiration at once childlike and subtle, entirely of nuances, evocative of the most delicate vibrations of the nerves, the most fugitive echoes of the heart...and I stole that whole last bit from a funeral oration delivered back in 1896 over the grave of the guy Tom V. stole his name from. One of the truly gifted poets of the 20th century, Delmore Schwartz, said, "In dreams begin responsibilities." Well, he could have been speaking about this group and about this record. .You take it from here.

DERRINGER Sweet Evil

(Blue Sky)

Know absolutely zero zilch about this Rick Derringer cat 'cept the basic facts, mac—like he was once in the McCoys (Rick's been told much too often that he was the Real McCoy), moved on to sharing the spotlight with the Albino Twins and finally got the gumption to get his own ego in fancy neon (even teamed up with Brillo Queen Cynthia Weil, so what), and that's the History of -Li'l Rick D. (Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About This Boy), So don't wanna be pushy here, y'understand, cause this ain't no pitch to hype ya to the Auto John, but, franko, this mama mia is one spicy meatball. A plus plus, four dazzling stars, give it a bullet and you can dance to it too.

Listen, man, I been riding the bus to oblivion, watching androids eat their thumbs, can't stand this dismal pace, vegetating in a lethargic trance, until suddenly a screeching comes across the sky...ZZZZZZRRRRRRRRR...come on do the jerk, get outa that slump, fluffhead, get right with Derringer! Keep away from those rock mastodons muzzled by mercenary appetites; they only turn their listeners into lampshades. Derringer weakens your will to resist by sucking you into the Pleasures of the Riff.

Skeptical? Rock idols not tjving you a fair shake lately? Don't trust record reviewers any farther than you can throw Ivan the Terrible? Well, do I have a surprise for you, bub (the shock will only be temporary), because Sweet Evil, a sincere attempt to get the name Derringer into the rock showbiz vernacular, is whatcha might call a humdinger stinger which means YOU'RE... GONNA...LUV.. THIS.. .RECORD (consider yourself brainwashed).

First cut: "This might be a record, but I'm really here." Those are the brilliant existential words that slide you right into the fluidity of Sweet Evil; Rick lets you know pronto that he's his own boss (ain't no wax pancake gonna flatten his identity). "Sittin' By The Pool" follows as a strong contender for Zep graffiti, blending quickly into "Keep On Makin' Love," which matches those Aerosmith chops on Rocks with equivalent ferocity. Eight ambitious songs in all, exhibiting rampant streaks of detonation that'll make you mourn for those metal heavy oldies of '71. If for nothing else, Derringer will deserve a niche in the Heavy Hall of Fame for "Sweet Evil, " a title cut so memorable you'll immediately be linking it with the reveries of such classics as "Dream On" and "Stairway to Heaven." Nope, no droopy duds on this baby. •

After the inevitable successof Sweet Evil, it's a cinch that Derringer will escape the label of innocuous partypooper. An extensive series of hardknocks has culminated in a synoptic functional arrangement of coagulated expertise. The mucilage may not be Derringer's personality or charming star appeal, but what the Helldiff does it make who Rick Derringer is, yTtnow: THIS RECORD IS WOOLY BULLY SO GET THAT THRU YR THICK NOGGIN (how many times ya want me to spell it out?!)..."uh...uhh...uhhh...I think he said it was a good album, Arnie."

Robot A. Hull

UTOPIA RA (Bearsville)

The second side of RA consists of two compositions: "Hiroshima," a stale, overproduced pancake of psychedelic anti-war sentiments, and "Singing and the Glass Guitar," an 18-minute fairy tale that is pretentious, humorless, stupid, and so filled with detail as to ultimately be plotless and incomprehensible. We won't mention the second side again.

The first side of RA contains one atypical spng, a rip-snorter of rancid romance called "Jealousy" that is the most moving and effective piece of rock this bunch has ever cut. It sounds like an outtake from Utopia mentor Todd Rundgrert's last solo record Faithful, and stands out like a sore digit amidst RA's fatuous melange of synthesizernoodling. Actually, the Utopia boys don't noodle their synthesizer, they worship it—glom this balderdash from Todd's "Communion with the Sun": "Ra, ruler of all nature...Ra, holy synthesizer." We won't mention the first side again.

RA's lyrics are printed on an inner sleeze of simulated yellowed parchment that is offen sive in its phoniness, rather like the taste of Twinkies these days. The words themselves are written in pseudo-Oriental characters, an inky nod to Utopia's large Far Eastern following. Simultaneous condescension and pandering is no small achievement. We won't mention the inner sleeve again:

On the back cover of RA the four Utopia members are dressed in baggy togs that evoke both ancient Greece and present-day Saturn. The Utopians are making obscure gestures (though Todd is clearly pledging allegiance to the flag) similar to the ones Maurice White and his gang are making on the cover of the latest Earth Wind & Fire concoction, Spirit. But Earth Wind & Fire's cover is more convincing because everyone hfts his eyes closed and it looks more, you know, far out and meditative. This is al§o yet another bit of proof that all white popular music is stolen from black popular music. Or at least the album covers are. We won't mention the cover of RA again.

Utopia is the David Bromberg of progressive rock. Let's not mention Utopia again, OK? Like ever.

Ken Tucker

RAMONES . Leave Home (Sire)

Rock critic or not, your reviewer resides in the Midwest, and doesn't make it up to Noo Yawk any too often (last such trek occurring back in '72, when my wife's cousin got hitched in a Goodbye, Columbus shindig way out on L.I.; highlight of that trip being us hopping into a cab in the wilds of Manhattan and finding a Blue Oyster Cult hooked-cross symbol affixed to the cabbie's partition) and like all you other true believers out there, all I know about the new wave of N.Y. bands is what I read in CREEM and ogle at in Rock Scene.

Imagine my culture shock, then, when after accepting the solemn printed word of CREEM's own Pam Brown that the Ramones would have a new song entitled "Carbona Hot Glue"—a concept worthy of Dali—I get the new LP and find that it's actually "Carbona Not Glue". But that's the minor quibble of a bush-league surrealist; the Ramones' new set, Leave Home, thumps with the most commerically-viable Dada yet heard.

Leave Home recalls the programmed psychic structure of the group's first album: you get your same 14, optimum-length-for-r'n'r-energization (longest 2:42) cuts; same gradual rhythmic unloading as you work into Side Two; similarlyplaced and-sounding token oldie ("California Sun" this time around); and most of the well-loved riffs that have been roaring through the graffiti-scrawled neural subways of your being since the first LP was released.

But there are some changes, besides, most of them less noticeable than the cover's sudden brightening from nostalgic b&w to the living color of blank generation-gapping. A few of the songs harbor embryonic mebdies creeping in among the grinding chords, and "I Remember You" and "What's Your Game" are sweet enough (in early-Kinks vein) that they could pass as moderate AM hits as long as the DJs don't overemphasize the this-is-yer-real-New-Yorkavant blahblah—let the masses think that Cleveland's own Outsiders have regrouped. With the Ramones' furious riffing so sustained from cut to cut, the lyrics carry a greater weight than those of many other hardrockers, and Leave Home's songs are generally more lyrically original, less ennuicliched, than those on the first LP. The predilection of nice Jewish boys to try to shock their Commentary-toting mothers with camped-up Nazi sympathies worked well only in the context of the Blue Oyster Cult (Sandy Pearlman succumbed to glue [not carbona] while assembling a i/72-scale model of the ME. 262 at age 14), and the Ramones' "Blitzkrieg Bop" and "Today Your Love, Tomorrow the World" lyrics were depressingly dated by the time they finally appeared.

Only "Commando" resurrects that decomposing genre on this set; in the new "Oh Oh 1 Love Her So", where Burger King's fast-food pandering to the lower middle classes (as opposed to Burger Chef's and McDonald's cultivation of the bourgeoisie) is suitably immortalized, and in the magnificently apropos "Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment" and "Pinhead" (the latter opening with that timeless chant "Gabba Gabba", and ending amid the cleansing tumult of a mentaldefectives' consciousness-raising workshop), the Ramones are coming on with an anarchic lyricism truly worthy of their riff-machinations.

"It's TV's fault why l am this way", agonizes the tube-abused adolescent of "Carbona Not Glue", but the shut-in Ramones must have scored straight A's on their TV-fed culture-cramming if they can lump it back to us now in such an organically commercial form. All this under a glaring media, exposure which would tend to induce terminal selfconsciousness in lesser bands. Strong stuff indeed.

The Ramones are the tradition-smashing, door-opening Beatles of New York Rock, and their abilities should make it all a lot easier for everyone from Talking Heads to Tuff Darts from now on (thereby making us rube consumers out in the chainsaw-infested wilderness the ultimate beneficiaries). And that's plenty okay, ain't it?

Richard Riegel

FLEETWOOD MAC Rumours _(Warner Bros.) __

Sure, this album deserves platinum status as much as the next Kiss LP, but frankly there's only one cut that really sends me—"Dreams," written by Stevie Nicks. Look, 1 know she has an air that she's hot stuff, and it broke my heart too when she frosted her hair like someone's pet Yorkie last year, but when I get around to assembling my bionic playmate, that's the voice I want—lazily sensual, with a glassy baby shiver that can melt your heart faster than Bain de Soleil sliding down a greased thigh at the Beverly Hills Hotel pool. "Dreams" is a pulsing, soothing blanket of sound similar to Ace's great "How Long"—only better, because little tulip lips is rippling the silvertones. Lyrically, 1 could do without the meteorology lecture in the chorus, but any girl who's as crazy for 'crystal' imagery as Nickers is deep enough for American pop romance.

The rest of the album rates about even with their last sweepstakes winner. Lindsey Buckingham will never be one of my favorite singers or songwriters, but "Go Your Own Way"—the punchy single with the distinctive staggered rhythm and slicing guitar lines—tops the last LP's pretty fair "I'm So Afraid". Another delectable morsel is Stevie's "Gold Dust Woman," with much of the haunting atmosphere of "Rhiannon". One does sense a dip though, in Christine McVie's compositions. While her writing is consistently attractive, only "You Make Loving Fun" really lives up to the four remarkable songs that established Fleetwood Mac's cruising level— "Over My Head," "Warm Ways," "Say You Love Me" and "Sugar Daddy".

In case you haven't been keeping up on your Golden State social notes, the conjugal harmonies of Fleetwood Mac were smithereened last year, and the songs on Rumours are mostly about grownups bidding various forms of adieu. The lyrics aren't particularly memorable, but they're effectively bittersweet and reflectively "mature". (I.e. no vicious revenge or suicide histrionics like heartbroken nihilists enjoy threatening) .

Hopefully, this band will continue to display the rustic authenticity of their pre-Buckingham/ Nicks folk-blues roots (check out Penguin, among others). It lends their spirited pop an edge that the bathetic Beagle boys sorely lack. For all their gritty, smoky flavoring, though, they're kidding themselves if they don't recognize the little witch with the spells in her voice as their front-woman.

Stephen Demorest

THE KINKS Sleepwalker (Arista)

A new year, a new record company, a new alburin, and a new direction for the Kinks—a Return to simplicity and self-reliance. No grand concepts, no lyric sheet, no strings and horns, no back-up singers. A return to the notion that a group should be a self-contained unit, able to write, arrange, perform, and produce itself. And just maybe a return to the top of the pops.

Should that happen, it'll be due primarily to the sound of this album; the band hasn't played this sharply and been recorded this well since "All Day And All Of The Night." Doubling up Dave Davies' guitar parts makes many of these tunes just a bit more aggressive and a judicious use of a string synthesizer fills in the holes.

Yet despite the attractiveness of the music, I don't know how much it's going to widen the' Kinks' cult following. For a man who coined the phrase "Everybody's in show-biz," Ray Davies sure doesn't go out of his way to play up to any superstar image. He knows that most people relate to show-biz on a sexual fantasy level but he can't bring himself to play any he-man, macho roles. So when living room lights get turned off and the fantasy factories begin to spin, you can be sure that Ray Davies ain't the dream beam most women conjure up.

For instance, take "Life On The Road," probably the strongest trafck on this album. It's got great "Lola''-like dynamics and perfect playing but can you imagine Steve Tyler singing lines like, "Mama always told me/City ladies were bawdy and bold/So I searched night and day to catch a kiss of a lady/But all that I caught was a cold." Never, right? But Davies insists on playing the underdog because that's how he feels; Kinks fans love and respect him for it and nobody else even notices.

At least this time around, he doesn't have to adhere to a particular story line, leaving him room to explore things from all angles. There's the accusatory "Mr. Big Man," "Sleepwalker" (which inexplicably reminds me of Steve Miller's jaunty "The Joker"), and "Juke Box Music," wherein Ray ponders the plight of a damaged damsel who actually listens to music instead o£ dancing to it.

The most memorable tune, though, is the one Ray lets brother Dave sing. "Sleepless Night" really turns the girl next door number around as Dave bemoans his ex's nocturnal habits: "Every night at 12 o'clock/They start to rock with all they got/They keep it up all night/It just ain't right."

Who else would write a song like that? Certainly none of Davies' contemporaries; Jagger would undoubtedly be the dude in the other bedroom and Townshend might write one but you'd never hear Roger Daltrey singing it.

Nope, the Kinks remain their shameless, self-destructive selves. Ray Davies can't help but be himself and those that value stubborn individualism in rock have long held him in high esteem. However big this album gets, and I'll wager it'll do okay because of the improved playing of the band and some potential hit singles, Ray probably isn't going to change much. "No matter how I try/it seems I'm too young to die," he sings. "Life goes on and on and on..."

Michael Davis

PINK FLOYD Animals (Columbia)

(A word of caution: If you are the owner of a p-e-t or p-e-t-s, and are keen on preserving the status quo of that owner-ownee relationship— indeed, if you are at all keen on preserving the integral relationship betwen your torso and your limbs, get said b-e-a-s-t out of the room right now. No sudden moves—rather, a gentle ejection. Remember, if it finds out you're on to something, 1 wouldn't trade two dessicated c-a-t turds for your lousy life.)

Coast clear? WELL THEN GET WISE, you complacent, snivelling homo sapiens, can't you see what's going on? The so-called d-o-m-e-s-t-ic-a-t-e-d a-n-i-m-a-l-s of this man's earth are on the rise, and if they have their way, come the Revolution (and come it must), it'll be you eating the Mighty D-o-g and Tender Vittles, and learning to like being on the receiving end of a rolted-up copy of this very publication when the urges of your bladder force a "mistake" out of you.

There is no doubt. A real b-i-t-c-h is brewing, and believe it or not, it is being fueled by the misguided but potent resources of higher-ups in the same "communications" business that up until now has kept you totally In the dark about the impending day of the biting of the hands that feed.

Think about it: the chow-chow-chow dancing c-a-t-s on TV (Morse steps); Ben, Donald D-u-c-k, F-o-r-k-y P-i-g...you name it in the cartoon biz; need we discuss "Planet of the A-p-e-s," or the imminent publication, by a major New York house, of Upton Sinclair's The Jungle in a hoof-braille edition...

And now, this.

Pink (the color of p-i-g, and no coincidence) Floyd here becomes responsible for a collection of anthems for the coming uprising. Having realized they weren't getting anywhere fast with machines, they cleverly and traitoriously decided to try to become part of the solution of the

bow wows oppression and quick (this album sounds like it took about 20 minutes to make, and only takes around 40 to listen to), before the barking turns to biting.

Examine the evidence. Read song titles, you fools. "P-i-g-s on the Wing," parts one & two (and you thought "B-l-a-c-k-b-i-r-d" was really about people? That makes you at least as stupid as C. Manson.); "D-o-g-s;'V "P-i-g-s (Three Different Ones);" "S-h-e-e-p" (from which you might, if you enjoy breathing, note this excerpt: "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. ..He maketh me to hang on hooks in high places./He converteth me to 1-a-m-b cutlets...Lo, we shall rise up,/And then we'll make the b-u-ggers' eyes water." They're talking about you, buddy!!!

And you thought the Floyd was merely obscure, often boring? To you, maybe, but even as I scribble, myf-e-l-i-n-e sits atop the dust cover of my turntable, watching this disc spin, listening to messages contained in frequencies you and I can't hear,

Oh, insidious, oh evil! I could tell you the story about how the media folks naively got sucked into this depraved and unnatural foment. I could tell you how they figured, "Heck, we've sold product to all segments of the human sucker market—why not explore the marketing possibilities in a few other species..." I could tell you about the test marketing in Kansas City and the wilds of New Mexico...but it probably wouldn't matter.

No time for explanations now—my c-a-t-s R-o-x-y and F-r-e-d are busy talking Che Guevera. Just remember: Vigilance. You've been warned. For your own sake, keep this record out of your homes.

Kevin Doyle

'You will note I have spelled out certain words throughout this message—words which, for obvious reasons, would not fall lightly on certain ears if they happened to hear you reading them aloud, say, over the phone to your dear ones in the hopes that they might get smart before it's too late.

JETHRO TULL Songs From The Wood (Chrysalis)

If all record reviews had headlines, then the headline for this one would be: Ian Anderson Drops His Codpiece And No One Notices!

Why bring up a rather lame locker room joke? Because this is yet another one of those Fascinating Jethro Tull albums where absolutely anything and everything goes.. .all those delightful musical notes rather flatulently emitted scrape the stale urine and scum-encrusted peepshow floor and still manage to pierce the beauty of the clouds above the skyscrapers and everything just like you never pictured it. This album be one confused donut personified crystal clear baby, ooh! WOW!

As Ian Anderson leads the listener through a computerized celebration of medieval droolings, the large black dog on the album cover demands a Milkbone. Anderson has hinted at a Renaissance of Old English eel pies on his previous pressings just as critics have clamoured "Over and over and over again until streams of pissstrafed flamingos, their nausea blooming mountains of turd-bed death camps, escape to trailer park lawns."

A truly glistening highlight is "Hunting Girl" which depicts the rape of a noble dish by a lowly nebbish: Boot leather flashing and spur-necks the size of your thumb/This high-born hunter had tastes as strange as they come/Unbridled passion: I took the bit in my teeth/Her standing over: Me on my knees underneath.

Can it be that Ian copped this musical query of 'who is really raping who' from a previous critical adulation? "She dropped her pants. Beside her a Chinese watched intensely. Something was in his hand. Fleshy yet hard. A curly mound revealed itself beneath the opaqueness of what passed for her underwear. Elmer's Glue in spastic random explosions splotched onto the ceiling of the bungalow. White women were new to Chiang." Your sister hopes so.

Continuing to venture through themes of lost virginity and the ancient wisdom of Earnest and Julio Gallo, Anderson wisely points out the intelligence of the virtue of patience: Frogs and newts slip in the dark/Too much hurry ruins a'body/I'll sit easy; fan the spark. Leave it to Ian to distill what critics have obliquely mumbled about for years: "A drivel-driven loon crouched moaning low in the foliage by the side of the Arapaho footpath...Squatting behind tumbleweed, he peered trembling at yonder clearing, where tomcats ten feet high with oysters for eyeballs danced whooping in a circle, stopping their ritualistic cakewalk at arbitrary intervals to inhale deeply from the ends of charred, furiously smoking bones. Eyeless in gaza..."

In sum, a genuinely brilliant album! Virtually every two lines rhyme with each other and there's even a Christmas song. However, Ian Anderson is not the only one who has learned the economy of recycling without partaking in necrophilia.

Air-Wreck Genheimer (With Robert Duncan and •Lester Bangs: post-humously).

LEONREDBONE Doable Time (Warner Bros.)

Think I'm gonna do this in one draft. Way I used to do it back when I was an under-30 hotshot pacesetter who everybody from Lester to Robot was learnin' how to rip off stylistically for better or worse (no hard feelings, guys!). Stuff flows better or somethin' when you ain't thinkin' about editors or rewrites, y'know? Used to write a lot better then altho people tell me my current longwinded heavily edited shit for the Voice is the best I ever writ. I dunno, I think my old .crap like that Dead piece I did for CREEM in 15 minutes back in '71 or '72 was a whole lot better'n that Hayakawa thing I took 2 weeks to put together for Goldstein at the Voice but what the hell do I know, didn*t even finish in the top ten in this yr's CREEM Readers Poll, sent in 7 ballots myself but what the hey (once came in 3rd tho). AM I JUST TRYING TO BORE EVERYBODY T DEATH? AM I JUST A TIRED BORING HACK W/ NOTHIN LEFT T SAY???

Anyway, it's a Leon review I gotta do this time (need the 30 bucks or whatever it is these days to help pay for my brand new '76 Honda Civic) and I sure am glad that's what review editor Billy Altman has assigned me (called me on the CREEM tab while I was watchin' the Flyers vs. Atlanta and I don't mean the Rhythm Section) 'cause it's the first one I've actually listened to since December. Listened to it once ('s enuff) and I remember it well. "Shine On Harvest Moon" w/ an intro and the intro is all fuggin reet, far superior to the intro on "Hello Young Lovers" which to my critical mind was the high point of The King & 1 (a klinker if there ever was one but the intro was ace). I THINK I USE TOO MANY ITALICS so that's all for this revue, pain in the ass to hafta backspace & underline anyway.

"Melancholy Baby" is okay too (talkin 'bout Leon's version), I mean you're always hearin' "Play 'Melancholy Baby' " but you don't really get t' hear "M.B." itself as often as ya'd like, right? Intro on this one too and the thing about this Leon person is his intros go right the hell into the so-called "body" of the tune in such manner that y'can't really tell where intro leaves off & body begins. Or—for inst—where cut #3 calls a halt & cut #4 gets things goin' again (don't remember what the titles on 'em are but you can look it up). Very reminiscent of Handsome Dick Manitoba (true): both singers can tackle any sort of material with the utmost ease & make it all sound "the same" (cause it is). Same old song—an irrefutable fact some crooners're still reluctant to admit—and Leon sings 'em old (i.e. "blase"), Manitoba young ("intense").

Leon is fond of seegars—"bad" for the pipes say the classicists but J. Morrison was also a stogey fancier and He was never at a loss for grunts...THIS IS THE CHEESIEST REVIEW I EVER WROTE BUT I AM NOT SORRY.

R. Meltzer

KEITH JARRETT Shades __(Impulse)_'

This is a new/old release by a group that disbanded about a year ago, with specific recording dates conspicuously absent from the liners. Impulse has released about a half dozen records by this group (the best and probably most popular being Fort Yawuh and Treasure Island) and a reliable source reports that there are two more albums in the can—-good news because these jazz albums (and that's what they are, pal) are a refreshing counterbalance to Jarrett's solo piano tour-de-forces (being sometimes facile, tour-deforced) and his often monotonous string and brass compositions (they're cold).

Tho all the previous Impulse albums have made an attempt to mix varigated moods, none has succeeded as well as this one has with its four cuts representing four different approaches to jazz.

The opener, "Shades of Jazz", is an up-tempo neo-bop number, a catchy tune once you catch it, with an uncharacteristically straight ahead solo by Jarrett—no riffing, no blurry pyrotechniques —and a characteristically in-and-out-of-thetunes-structure type solo by saxer Dewey Redman with bassist Haden going pop pop pop pop..."pop" all down the line. A pretty typical piece from these guys. The cut "Southern Smiles" follows without, for no discernable reason, pause. This is the funk piece and Jarrett compensates for his crackling solo on the first number by listlessly dragging out every chordal funk lick he's played since his days with Charles Lloyd. Not a decent hook in the whole pastiche which is a shame since this is obviously supposed to be the commercial cut.

The second side opens with the traditional ballad piece. This time out it's a dewey-eyed dirge called "Rose Petals" highlighted by a sweetly lyrical solo by Jarrett and the customary imaginative support of Haden. The fourth and final cut on the album is a genuine surprise—a wailing free form piece with the refreshingly self-mocking title of "Diatribe". High energyfcit used to be called. Coming right after the ballad it sounds positively original as tho this thing hadn't been done a few hundred times before, a few hundred different ways. So context counts for a lot. This isn t the best album available by this group (nor is it the worse) but it's good and good, like context, counts for a lot, too.

Richard C. Walls

MARTIN MULL Tm Everyone I've Ever Loved _ (ABC)_jjgj

You know Martin Mull. He's your a-bit-too-old but always trying-to-be-with-it Uncle Marty; your Mom's little brother who works as a computer programmer and was always quick to pick up on the latest-bell bottoms, wire-rims, grass—as well as the not so latest (remember his many Nehru shirts, medallions and Beatle boots, which he still wears?). Every visit you have to suffer while he sits at the dinner table trying hard to relate, knowing full well that to him the Carpenters are as hip as Led Zep.

Unfortunately Mull's persona, a nice guy version of the blindly self assured and patronizing Garth Gimble character he so successfully portrayed on Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, is so visually based that his records have rarely done his humor justice. Bringing Martin Mull and His Fabulous Furniture right into your living room is a task for video discs, not records, and it's a testament to his insanity that he comes across on vinyl so well anyway.

I'm Everyone...works the best of all his albums, due for the most part to the intermixture of comic vignettes that recall the wonderful early records of Stan Freburg and Bob New hart (and featuring the talents of "Meathead" Rob Reiner, Alice Playton, producer Mike Cuscuna and Tom Waits, whose bartender bit is understandably accurate) with uncannily realistic song jokes. Hence when he goes goes gospel ("Damn it, Jesus Christ, I missed church again...But I was hung over so bad, I hope St. Peter don't get mad when it's time for him to read that honor roll"), gets forced into doing disco ("We could go stand on the corner, and kiss these ten dollar seats goodbye. Instead let's get up, get down!") or "buys" the "Philly sound" ("Long, long ago in a dream there was something always chasing me... boogie man"), the real joke is that the arrangements are right on target, mocking each style through accurate recreation.

Given the fact that comedy records rarely last after the four or five listenings it takes to learn all the jokes, this one has at least enough chuckles per groove to commend it. Since nobody but Mull dares to cover all bases, in his own words, "kinky, straight and gay," with tongue setsquarely in cheek, anyone with an interest in pop music will find Martin Mull's irreverence refreshingly funny.

Rob Patterson