Rock · a · Rama

Rock · a · Rama

TAMMY WYNETTE-Let's Get Together (Epic) ::There are few voices that've illicited raw emotion from me (Dusty Springfield makes me crazy, especially in the summer), but Tammy makes my normally frigiferous sentimentalities turn to Elmer Gantry jelly. If she ain't the finest country vocalist alive, I'll put my dog into a Vegomatic. The best song here is "Cheatin' Is." Reminds me of Punk Is, which is one of my favorite sayings and this thing is too long. J .F.

THE UNTOUCHABLES-Original Music From The TV Show (Capitol)::This ain't no cow music, no, this is Nelson Riddle at his urban finest. What's more,, the cover has a picture of Robert Stack SMILING; actually it's only a grin, but that's tough enough to handle. The last time I saw Stack smile was in a movie called Asylum For A Spy where he has a mental breakdown and trips out on acid. It could've been one of the most frightening experiences of my life. See it, you'll understand. All the songs here end in ness—eg. "Tender-Ness," "Reckless-Ness," etc. One of the true documents of punk music. Figure that connection out, piss brains. J.F.

WIDOWMAKER-Too Late To Cry (Jet):: Amplified dog puss. Aerial Bender should go bend his aerial, terminally. Gives rock 'n' roll an even worse name than it already has. Neurasthenia personified. Other than that, it's not bad. JF.

MX-80 SOUND-BigHHa From Bloomington, Ind. (BRBQ): discovered this gem by default, went over to Bloomington for an evening of sleazy Gulcher-vulturing with the Gizmos, and found myself blown away from any pretense of media-posturing by the opening act's intense music. Scored MX-80's little known '76 EP in the process, and it contains some of the toughest sounds ("hard pop from the Hoosiers," they call it) of anybody's decade—this stuff is beyond punk, kiddos! MX-80 Sound is the perfect combination of sardonic rocker wordplay and avant-avant instrumental chops, each element constantly undercutting (& therefore intensifying) the effect of the other—"You turn me on and it's earthquakes, earthquakes, headaches, headaches, chocolate cakes, chocolate cakes," tosses off Capt. Beefheart scion Rich Stim, sneaking his consciously-idiotic rhymes in and out among Bruce Anderson's autoflash guitar strumming (not to mention Stim's own haunted sex pulsations, and thechunky double-drumming of David Mahoney and Jeff Armour). (Tip of the Hatlo headband to bassist Dale Sopheia, too.) Discord with a feeling, Zappa if he put his mouth where his money is! MX-80's LP will be out soon,

but in the meantime, this amazing 7-song EP (complete with pic sleeve and illustrated lyric book) is available for $4.00 from Gulcher Records, P.O. Box 635, Bloomington, IN 47401. R.R.

38 SPECIAL (A&M)::You can take the coitntry out of the country, but you can't take the boy out of the boy. Just keep lapping up those Eaglesbucks, Eaglesbucks, Eaglesbucks! R.R.

HOLLYWOOD STARS (Arista):Jeez, ft's only. May, and here I am up to my armpits in "self-titled" debut LPs already— Piper, Nite City, now the Hollywood Stars, none of them earthshakers, but all blessed with enough attractive competence to make for some fun listening. These Hollywood Stars were recruited from the milling troops on the Strip as another suicide squad for the propagation of Kim Fowley's faith in the eternal Ell Aay nirvana, should inspire just as much backbiting as their stablemate Runalways. No loss in the sweetie-pie quotient, neither. R.R.

URIAH HEEP-Firefly (Warner Bros.):: Gave this one more of a spin than the drabness of the last few Heep LPs would have suggested, as I wanted to check out new vocalist John Lawton, one of my prirrio heroes when he was screaming 'em out for the Krauts in Lucifer's Friend. L.F. were (briefly) the greatest heavy metal band of all time, until to their horror just how much of the buried Naziism of their racial unconscious had come blasting through. Since then Lucifer's Friend have steadily retreated into politically safe but musically slight Genesisized fruit-looping, and Lawton has moved back to England, Where The Action Is. Lawton bawls it out as well as ever here, too bad Ken Hensley's hippie-imbecile lyrics cancel out the net effect. R.R.

RICK DEES—The Original Disco Duck (RSO)::Q: What kind of suicidal jokers resort to novelty records for chart success? A: Those with shiteater grins as broad and bright as Rick Dees'. Only accomplished schizoids like Ray Stevens can survive in this novelty-hit racket. C.W. McCall is already a vague memory for most of us, and Dees had to scrape the bottom of his duck's cage for enough droppings just to fill out this 12incher and prolong the Disco Duck phenomenon a few bucks more. Besides the hit, you get an instrumental reprise of it, the "Disc-Gorilla" soundalike, and various halfbaked parodies (the one of Elvis ain't bad, tho). Best explodinggarish K-Tel jacket from a major label in many a year, while I'm at it. R.R.

THE KEANE BROTHERS (20th Century):: As ephemeral and unnecessary (and probably ultimately as lucrative) a recording debut as those of John Travolta or David Soul—boys and girls, mommies and daddies, I'give you the ain't-adolescence-a-gas Keane Brothers! For these arrogant subteenos, Fonzie's historical revisionism takes a back seat to plain old historical idiocy, to wit: "Well I remember in sixty three.. .All the girls wearin' mini skirts." Easy to see that you spent '63 vegetating in your incubators—if you'd read your Suzy' Shaw Mod Bod Boutique Fashion Notes in Bomp, you'd know mini skirts was 1966. Wise up, okay? R.R.

This month's Rock a-ramas were written by Joe Fernbacher and Richard Rieqel.