TOWNSHEND/LANE Sing The Almost Middle-Aged Blues

PETE TOWNSHEND/RONNIE LANE Rough Mix

_ (MCA) _

Billy Altman

That Peter Townshend should pick the quiet setting of an unassuming, one-shot collaborative album with Ronnie Lane in which to work out some highly personal and private thoughts about his own life is probably the most interesting thing about Rough Mix. This record has the feel of Mahoney's Last Stand, the soundtrack LP which Lane and Ron Wood worked up on some back porch a while back—plenty of acoustic guitars, banjos and dobro. It's so meek and humble that it almost belies the character of Townshend, at least the one most of us know from his work with the Who. Yet Townshend is undeniably one of the most complex individuals in the rock world and, other than a small collection of songs from over the years ("Sunrise," "The Song is Over" and his one solo LP), we really haven't seen that much of Peter Townshend in relation to Peter Townshend but rather Townshend as mastermind/mentor of the Who.

And so Rough Mix is a rather startling album because, as a writer who most of the time hides himself behind narratives, allegories and personaes, one is totally unprepared for the nakedness which Townshend shows here. I hesitate to call the rock album a rock album, because, though there are certainly rock elements abounding (if only for the backgrounds of both Townshend and former Face Lane), they are mostly atmospheric. The only clear cut rockers here are Lane's Faces-styled "Catmelody" and the title track, an instrumental featuring Eric Clapton on lead guitar ..Most of Lane's songs are ballads, a bit country flavored ("Annie," with its rustic violin) and folky ("Nowhere To Run" sounds like a Dylan song—a good Dylan song, too). As for Pete (the dropping of the "r" seems significant here, for Townshend has not died before he got a bit old), his contributions here amount to some of the best songs he's written since—well, in retrospect I'd have to go back to The Who Sell Out as far as songs that hit the heart rather than the gut.

Townshend is looking back here, not at. the Who, as in the Quadrophenia disaster, but at himself, and the clbseness one feels between the singer and the song on his compositions here is truly affecting. "Heart To Hang Onto" is a haunting track about loneliness, with Lane singing the verses and Townshend the choruses. Each verse tells of someone who's defending himselfagainst the world through different means. There's a drunkard, a fat woman and finally, in the last verse, a guitarist who finds that "his whole life is just another try." Townshend's voice almost cracks on the last chorus, as he sings "Give me a heart to hang onto/Give me a suit that's tailored true/Give me a heart to hang onto."

There are key lines everywhere that remain: "They saw the Messiah, but I missed him again/ That brings my score up to a hundred and ten," from "Keep Me Turning"; "I wanna be either old or younc/Don't like where I've ended up or where I've come from," from the half smiling, half sad "Misunderstood." On "My Baby Gives It Away," Townshend comes into Ray Davies territory, and more noticeably so on "Street In the City," more a show tune than a regular pop song. Performed with only Townshend's acoustic guitar and a string section, Townshend sings of watching the world through the window (Waterloo Sunset revisited), but the view is one in which the protagonist wishes that a man on a ledge was an attempted suicide rather than a window washer ("I'm gonna...pray for him to fall").

It's interesting that Townshend's alienation, as expressed on Rough Mix, is no longer the alienation of the young but the alienation of the near middle-aged. Being older and wiser, it Seems, is just as confusing as being younger and more reckless.'Whether Townshend will ever work out his jigsaw puzzle is as unknown as exactly why these songs wound up on this record. Nevertheless, Rough Mix is a rather softly intense album, and certainly one of this year's best.

DARYL HALL & JOHN OATES Beauty On A Back Street _(RCA)__

This is the album on which Daryl Hall and John Oates regain their whiteness. While it is a goal they may have sought after years of being rebuffed by critics and others as mere soul imitators, its realization becomes a dubious achievement.

With Beauty On A Back Street Hall and Oates have cut their slickest, most even-tempered album to date. They have truncated their characteristic long end-of-phrase vocal flights and turned to more rigid solo and ensemble singing; at the same time, they have moderated the dynamics of their instrumental arrangements to produce an even more fluid sound. While all of this might be an attempt to concentrate the pair's talents into a more limited and thereby more .highly charged space, the net result only serves to betray a lack of density at the core of their music. The fact of the matter is that their voices are their strength, and when Hall and Oates are not soaring off virtuoso-style into some cadenza or crescendo, those voices are not much beyond middling.

Admittedly, their lyric writing has improved with this record, but their musical compositions, particularly those of Daryl Hall, still seem to be traumatized by the deservedly big, but unfortunately, ear|y success of "She's Gone." Several of Hall's stronger songs here, including "Bigger Than Both Of Us," "You Must Be Good For Something," and "Bad Habits and Infections," strongly recall that hit, while some of the weaker ones, particularly "Winged Bull," go so far in the opposite direction, towards an anti-pop stance (sometimes reminiscent of onetime associated Todd Rundgren's worst neo-Oriental excesses), that it's hard not to see them as equally strong reactions to "She's Gone." Congratulations, however, are due producer Christopher Bond for uniting the diametric poles here into an album that sounds of one piece and which, even at its coldest, manages to feel warm.

If Hall and Oates were seeking to wrench themselves from their past and find their true identities as trendy white rock 'n' rollers on this record, then they've succeeded. But, while Beauty On A Back Street is never less than pleasant, if it's the best they can do, I'll take imitation.

Robert Duncan

UTOPIA

Oops! Wrong Planet (Bearsville)

Nobody asked me, so I'll be glad to tell you all about Todd Rundgren anyhow. After all, I went to college with hundreds of them Philly dogs at a certain Quaker joint in the Midwest, so I just may have some insights that the Faithful followers of the Wizard & True Star haven't caught onto as yet.

See, I've noticed that Todd is a lot like my old Quaker pals: he's open to absolutely any new idea in a way that pushes broadmindedness to the frontiers of self-parody, and at the same time unable to wholly transcend his centuriesinculcated prohibitions against the feared She's always whispering to herself in Babel tongue. The tiny flies roam freely around her moist eye membranes; tattooed and fluttering in a dervish flirtation waltz, mysterious grids, they telegraph a ruinous promise for all those who dare look into them. The scent of hyacinth drifts from underneath a faraway stall. She recalls breaking up with her last lover—a smile. Reaching behind, she pushes down the handle of the toilet-flush, wipes herself, gets up, straightens her sheer black t-shirt, rearranges her goldplated barbed-wire choke collar and goes back into the bar. The place is busy this night, all the insects are grinning. She has a few more drinks and things get street hazy and alien; she looks around and begins her search for a diplomat of danger, someone to make her mean. Over the sound system, loud and shapeless guitar moans, raspy vocal susurrations, and the pounding bass cling of a stamping plant worm their way into her head and groin! Stunned, she looks at the speakers and slurs, "What the hell is this?" Over in the corner someone faceless laughs and says, "It's the VoidOids, Honey. Ain't they nasty?" She smiles...

HELL & HEADS: Talking VoidOid Blues

RICHARD HELL & THE VOIDOIDS

Blank Generation

(Sire)

Blank Generation by Richard Hell and the VoidOids is a primer for the intellectuality of the new punk. No longer can destruction and ignorance be the bywords of the blank generation. No longer can the English vision of the ennuiwars be tolerated. Punk as an attitude, as a force, is American, so essentially American that its definition has been sublimated to such a point that we had to look to the land of fish n' chips for a definition to begin with, and the definition given us by the British is false and profit oriented.

Punk (American Style) is born out of affluence, not poverty, because affluence breeds the attitudes of fear and cowardice that couple with the spirit of affordable boredom, which in turn creates the mulch outta which true "punk" philosophy and living is given sentience.

That is why Blank Generation is important, because this record is smart, a lot smarter than everyone wants it to be, a lot smarter than perhaps it was intended to be, but nevertheless smart as hell. Hell is a poet executioner of street cling and lamplight n' gutter jive. His images abound with the dandruff of the new white nigger and the insolence of early rock 'n' roll. Yet he doesn't fall into the beatnik trap like Patti Smith does, simply because he's younger than Patti and more attuned to the realities of youth. Like Max Frost in "Wild in the Streets," if you're over 25, who cares, you simply don't matter anymore.

Augmenting this crazed lyrical vision of Hell's are the VoidOids, whose white-hot, sweetsounding musical cavatinas blend the early ferocity and other ness of Beefheart's Magic Band with rhythms of the Seventies. The VoidOids come on especially effective ort the lengthy "Another World," a number dedicated to a different dimension and a parallel world.

This album is just off the wall enough to let it cross-over into the realms of true punkoid pur sang. The hit should be "Blank Generation" and the favorite will probably be "Love Comes In Spurts." Richard Hell and the VoidOids are the only real punk band to hit the scene since the demise of the Electric Prunes. Buy the album for your children today. It will prepare them for tomorrow.

Joe Fernbacher

TALKING HEADS Talking Heads: 77 (Sire)

After writing reviews for eight years one learns to ignore the press releases that accompany promo copies or at least to read them with a large grain of salt handy, but since my initial reaction to Talking Heads was confusiongiven their background tN.Y., CBGB's) and all it implies, they sounded surprisingly tame—1 checked out the PR sheet for clues. There were the usual bios, the usual quotes from rave reviews—but! in the last paragraph of the third page (it was a long release) was a quote from Head's lead guitarist/singer/composer David Byrne which went "...our intention is to make hits. 1 think as we go on we will develop a more commercial product. I think we can be popular like the Carpenters." A large grain of salt, right? Yet 1 believe him, mainly because my initial confusion resulted from the contrast between the group's pop/rock music approach and Byrne's decidedly eccentric, lyrics sung in Byrne's decidedly eccentric manner.

Talking Heads is a quartet—guitar, bass, keyboards, drums. Very slick, very clean, instrumentally speaking. Too much so. No solos, just an occasional breaching space, which ain't necessarily bad, but it gives the band's melodic approach a certain anonymity—like amiable pop. It's apparently what they want. "Uh-Oh Love Comes To Town," the single off the album, is instantly recognizable as classic AM rock pop stuff (puff?). Tho the other ten songs on the album don't quite capture that same flavor (candy), each one is distinctly individual within the familiar limits Byrne has set for the band. Sounds like a hit.

But Byrne's voice sounds like he's trying to swallow his nose from the inside. It's a good sound and it jumps, hops, skips and slips in and out of erratic staccato phrasing and is often at odds with the'clockwork rhythm background. Byrne writes, basically, ironic complaint songs —not with obscure imagery (tho there's a little of that, inevitably), but with irony and intelligence. No doubt he's aware that his lyrics are much more weighty than his music and he strikes the balance thusly..."New Feeling" is hung on an old riff...A sad song is called "Happy Day"...A very compassionate song is called "No Compassion." In each case musical cliches give the lyrics ironic embellishment. "Psycho Killer" is a song about communication and disgust at having to listen to people constantly repeat themselves and about retaliating by being terse and then splitting. Mildly and anti social, considering the title. Lotta low-keyed humor here. Lotta commercial potential and subtle kicks, too. But not a bit like the Carpenters.

Richard C. Walls

worldliness. The Anglo-Saxon soul's odyssey to struggle outside its own essential blandness, to escape the scary underside of the Protestant Ethic. Todd has referred to this conflict obliquely by saying in interviews that his musical overachievement derives in part from "the way 1 look." (Homely chic stepping out of its shell.)

And so Todd has alternated between aqua hair and rural verities, between slumming in America (and quite successfully so) as Grand Funk's producer and churning out his own amazing (but ultimately unpopular) solo albums. If it's Tuesday, this must be sacred— or was it profane?

Whereas Faithful compartmentalized Rundgren's consuming schizophrenia with its rigid secular/reverent side dichotomy, Oops! Wrong Planet reintegrates the old musical psycheworks within the most organic unit Todd's fronted since the Nazz. And the unity wasn't synthesized on a million studio-bound keyboards, either; I caught these guys redhanded at a concert recently playing ensemble rock 'n' roll as. though their artistic lives depended on it. As Todd's analyst, I was gratified by his earthy gesture of plucking smoke bombs from the nostrils of the Sphynx. (Do "Boogies" still make a "Hamburger Hell"?)

Enough with the recriminations already, Dr. Siegel, get on with the cuts. Okay: "Trapped" and "Back on the Street" are the best rockers, with echoes of Alice Cooper (B.C.) and John Lennon, respectively. "Love in Action": pulsate my synth, baby! "Marriage of Heaven and Hell": rock it out among the homefront strifel "Abandon City": predictable Rundgrenian urban paranoia (but who ain't?). "Love Is the Answer" (and an easy one at that, eh?).

Ah so, the old Nazznik couldn't resist that last touch, one more draft from the Beatle fountainhead, but in the meantime, Rundgren has created (with considerable involvement of the rest of Utopia) an album that may be the first step in his getting sufficiently lowdown & commercial & American to finally conquer ol' rock 'n' roll at its own game.

Richard Riegel

HEART

Magazine

(Mushroom)

The first copies of Magazine were pressed with the following disclaimer on the back cover: "Mushroom records regrets that a contractual dispute has made if necessary to complete this record without the cooperation or endorsement of the group Heart, who have expressly disclaimed artistic involvement in completing this record. We did not feel that a contractual dispute should prevent the public from hearing and enjoying these incredibly tunes and recordings. "

I'd havy to agree with them—Incredible is the right word. Magazine is one incredible turkey of an album. Mushroom may feel they're doing the *public a service making available the Wilson sisters' rendition of "I've Got The Music In Me," but it sounds like amateur night filler and makes it easy to understand why the barid has misgivings about its release.

The suspicion is that this record is a patchwork of outtakes left in the Mushroom can after Heart split foMhe greener pastures qf Portrait Records. And .this can has more botulism in it than one of the Bon Viuant vichyssoise that offed the whole family at grandma's Sunday dinner. The kill isn't anywhere near as spectacular, but it does get the job done. The band even seems to struggle for identity on the way down. The two rockers, "Heartless" and "Devil Delight," are fairly standard metal dirgoramas with long, uninteresting instrumental passages, and the two folky numbers, "Just the Wine" and "Here Song," are innocuous little tunes typified by Ann Wilson's assertion "all is the same."

The only surprise here is a serviceable cover version of Badfinger's "Without You." The aforementioned version of "I've Got The Music In Me" is preceded by a blues medley wherein Ann lets her oft-referenced Robert Plant/Janis Joplin leanings hang out far enough to cause strangulation. The band's virtual reproduction of the Zeppelin arrangement of "You Shook Me" is sheer copy band parody. Then Ann stirs the crowd for the Kiki Dee routine, urging them to clap with the suggestion "Just think, your hands are all gonna go down in history." It certainly did, as the cheesiest...

CREEM regrets that a severe coma has made it necessary to complete this record review without the cooperation or endorsement of the writer,

John Swenson

IGGY POP Lust For Life (RCA)

Rock 'n' roll's handsomest man, the Dictators' Handsome Dick Manitoba, keeps two felines (cats) w/him at his stately Bronx retreat; one's called Tolos, the other Sausage. Tolos, as in "GoldenCreek" John Tolos, the greatest of the great when you're talkin' cham-peen heavyweight wrestling; and Sausage, 'cause that happens to be one of Richard's all-time fave food staples. Point is, the fact that neither animal was dubbed "Iggy" no longer seems to indicate misplaced Manitobian priorities or callous oversight.

Mainly on account of the fact that the new Pop platter. Lust For Life, eats it! The tunes are uncaptivating, sometimes self-indulgent ("Turn Blue"), and generally rancid. The Ig's vocals are far fronYmanic & arresting, and the execution is stale and lagging. This, the second RCA release of inferior Iggy product (counting that abomination of six months ago, The Idiot), only obscur-es the legend of Pop's Detroit-based kinetjc beatcombo, the Stooges, and complicates the memory of R 'n' R's ultimate record, Raw Power (NO song offa this record stands up to three bars of "Shake Appeal," "Death Trip," or "Search and Destroy").

I mean, gimme a break, Jake! For all of 5,283 reasons why the Stooges were the heppest, there are 10,566 why this new LP sucks pumice:

,#1: Ron Asheton and James Williamson (former Stooge guitarists, state-of-the-art prototypes of the heavy-metal/punk-rock genre) are missing. This, in itself, castrates, 75% of whatever energy and sonic overdrive might have been attained.

#2: Guitarists Carlos Alomar and Ricky Gardner aren't missing. Tunes such as "Tonight," "Success," "Sweet Sixteen" and the title track fail miserably to score the demonstrative heart punch and requisite knockout blows. 'N fact, the latter two, "Sweet Sixteen" and "Lust For Life," are halfway decent rockers and, were it not for the drippily plodding guitars and transparent rhythm section (drummer Hunt Sales, and bro' Tony on bass are almost invisible, with hollow pacing and meandering boogie patterns), either track could have been all reet. Maybe this is avant-garde (New Wave even) music, but it sounds like a compromise of disco and Latin Soul to me.

MEIM

OF STEEL?

DOOBIE BROTHERS Livin' On The Fault Line (Warners)

This sure ain't the Doobies 1 remember. Not the small town dealer whippers that glared out from that first-cover like you'd just swallowed the key to their cage. Not the slickos surrounded by naked yums, slyly covering thighrisers with cowboy hats while penning the FM anthem of the eon. And definitely not the Takin ' It To The Streets beaters that my old roomies used to put on full blast whenever they felt like throwing ladders at each other.

But that's okay! There's some really pice stuff on this album. Only lots of it is boring. While boredom has always been an occupational hazard with Doobie nuts, this time the boys have gone about it in an all-new fashionThey've become atmospheric. Incense and lava-lites. They've become tasteful. Break out the mouthphones. Their new songs are understated. Or not Stated at all. Actually, what they've become most of all is Steely Dan. While this is an obvious accusation, what with all the dildo alumni in the band, one listen to the title cut will convince. The entire Dan plan is there—cool piano, softjazz changes, vibes (!?), Ouija board melody, cute synth noodles, jackknifing rhythms and Skunk Baxter's radar bat fart solo and fills. Everything but the cryptic dormitory lyrics, and those can't be far behind. It means to be a pretty good song, actually, with an all-Doob

chorus stuck proudly in the middle, but then drifts off into an instrumental that sounds like a yawn does before it reaches the mouth.

Some of the other keyboard-bred smoothies fare better. "You're Made That Way" is the best of the lot, a misogyny-edged love song with an understated melody that builds up secretly and then boxes your ears with light bulbs. "You Belong To Me," an atmospheric smoker coauthored by Carly Simon (?!), treads the dozelind lightly, and "There's A Light," a tasteful ballad with a surprise harmonica solo by Norton Buffalo is, yes, very tasteful.

But mostly it's just repeats; filler and throwaways. "Chinatown" is a ludicrous attempt at "Witchy Woman" aura-wrench, with the bizarre addition of a heavenly choir midway. The token Holland-Dozier-Holland cover, "Little Darlin',"'1 has none of the spirit of "Take Me In Your Arms,"fenced in as it is by perfectionoid caution, and Tiran Porter's "Need A Lady" is one of those half-jazz, half-rock, all-nothing non\fnelodies better left to dupes like David Sanborn.

There are no fast songs to speak of, a major disappointment, considering the Brothers' hammerhead rep. If they really plan to dump their booger image for the teddy bear waters of Dinah Shore, they're going to have to make this new stuff work, not just stare at itself. It looks promising, but until they get decided, it's strictly reruns on the Doob tube.

Rick Johnson

#'s 3-10,566: Bowie, as in David Bowie, as in "that fucking carrot-top sabotaged my album!!" This last remark, Ig's comment on Bowie's shabby mix of Raw Power, strikes closer to home. OK, maybe "sabotage" ain't the right word (or necessarily applicable) for this disc, but. y'know, virtually all the musical compositions here are the Bo's ('cept for "Sweet Sixteen," the record's best track—lyrics and music by Iggy), and it's this slab's music that bites; so who's fooling who??

Lust For Life reads two shades more viable than The Idiot, but both records suffer from the treacherous Bowie-oid microbe infestation of Low-disease! Not until the infection clears up, might a healthy Iggy appear!

Gregg Turner

THIN LIZZY Bad Reputation (Mercury)

At this juncture, Thin Lizzy may very well be ripe for the kind of masc acclaim that's caught up with just about every other decadeseasoned group, from Fleetwood Mac to Bob Seger, over the past few years. You pay your dues, you take your choice: gold or platinum.

Thin Lizzy have responded to this promising moment with Bad Reputation, perhaps their strongest set yet, even if guitarist Brian Robertson jumped out oLand back into the group during recording sessions faster than you could say "Dave Mason." Robertson's role in the group remains unsettled, but either way you'll get to keep on enjoying the newly-assertive Scott Gorham and the ever-charismatic Phil Lynott, who would appear to be a prime candidate for the kind of adulation Jimi Hendrix used to arouse among us pale folk, organically wrapping up that combination of Black smarts and U.K. sophistication. The split origins show up in his compositions, which fuse Celtic romanticism with a tough delivery befitting this authentic person of color.

• "Opium Trail" is the most fortunate fusion of these elements, doing up the Fabled East with a traditional chill that provides a telling counterpoint to CS&N's bubblegummy "Marrakesh Express." "Soldier of Fortune" was apparently inspired by the continuing strife in Lynott's Ireland, and as such briefly resurrects the almost forgotten genre of anti-war songs (remember "Sky Pilot"?). Lynott's aggressive bass is as adept as any lead guitar at carrying melodies, and his sinewy bass lines are especially well showcased on the title track, and on "Killer Without a Cause."

Bad Reputation is a subtly rewarding album that holds up well; it might be the real ticket to Thin Lizzy's entrance into an American market fixated on lyrical rock. 1 wish them and their flavorful lyricism well.

Richard Riegel

READY-MADE HYPOTHETICAL PUNK BAND, 1977 MODEL Name: the Frogs.

Age: 14 (combined).

Identifying Marks: sunken cheeks, pouting lips, forked brains, plastic sunglasses melted to skull, clothes shredded by Anna's Boutique. Occupation: survivors of Hiroshima. Inspiration: the Robonic Stooges, Fred Mac-

THE SAINTS I'm Stranded (Sire) Murray and Mike Hammer.

—reprinted from Sniffin' Shit

Lately, every nitwit scumbag band that can crawl outa the garbage heap long enuf (usually 2'/2 mins.) to brush off the flies & whip through three sloppy chords thinks it's destined for Garageland and a date with Patti Smith. Well, even bad breath breeds notoriety y'know, so after the usual heads are bashed, stomachs stomped, and scars all counted, any puking band parading as "punk" gets dn instant rep w/gobs of gloriously gushing hype but no records to its credit (either.forthcoming or otherwise). Just a faint image that bleeds. A name in the shadows.

But not the Saints, ya punkity-punks! Cuz they put out the records. FIRST!! Livin' with kangaroos down under and being overshadowed in the Talent Dept, by fellow Aussies like the B.G.zzz & E-Z Beatles, the Saints were growing fungus as an obscure local band. However, after privately pressing their 1st 45 "I'm Stranded" (Fatal label) and sending copies to British rock writers (freebies always work! GOOD THUNK1N'!), Anglos in unison espoused the electric mind sound of the Saints. Suddenly this faceless, nameless, unknown band has record contracts galore (stuffed in every available sock), an international fan club (no homos allowed), & yeahyeah that essential Newt Wave Status (changes overnite, tho).

John Rot didn't endorse em, and they don't even look stark raving mad. Decidedly more withdrawn than the Limey New Breed, the Saints reserve their defiance for their music. With their greasy Ted approach, the Saints (minus the anarchistic jeers) easily match the savage revolt of bands like the Clash and the Jam. Without any posing or knuckle sandwiches to prove the point, the Saints' music speaks for itself, engulfing any dominant image.

In contrast to Jonathan Richman's hollowsounding bathroom antics, the Saints probably plugged in their Silvertone guitars, turned the treble high enough to fry any loose nerves and recorded this album in some frozen aluminum cave. Result: THE TINNIEST RECORD EVER MADE. Hours after listening, yr face still' vibrates and twitches while icy reptilicus pain continues to shoot up yr spine, Most of the songs beat the clock, too. The Saints don't mind coastin' thru an occasional long one, like "Messin with the Kid" (Stones' "Sway" soundalike) & "Nights in Venice" (a Funhouse rip that works), but overall the tempo is short and sassy. Heck, these bambinos ain't even scared to tackle GAWD HIMSELF. They tear into King Elvis' "Kissin' Cousins" with proper tribute intact while the average disrespectful morons would've spat on his grave by chuckling thru a shoddy version of "Do the Clam." And from "Erotic Neurotic" to "Demolition Girl," it's no crime that every song sounds the same—a blur of abandoned senses churning in the raw outbursts, consummating in a pistol shot of an album worth getting stewed over.

NEW WAVE STARS WAVING ON THE HORIZON: the Richard Speck Band, Sharon Tate's Titties, Son of Sam (the Sham), the Rip Cunts, Hitler's Hermits...a plethora of punkitude that ain't never gonna stop. Saints alive, please save us from this desecration1!

Robot A. Hull

RINGO THE FOURTH _(Atlantic)_

He screamed as the doctor injected three feet of carpeting up his inflamed proboscis. "Someday you'll thank me, "said Dr. Robert, as strains of "This Boy" filtered in from the nurse's radio.

Besides the usual El Lay studio in-jokes on the jacket sleeve of Ringo, the Fourth, there is an obscure reference to a "Vini Poncia" (ha ha, get it?), who sings backup on "Tango All Night" along with Melissa Manchester and Bette Midler. Vini Poncia is the leader of a group called "Wings."

A fading lunar body looks down at a Mexican gardener squatting behind a pineapple bush. "I'm more than just a pretty face," he whined, as the Japanese woman bounced a grapefruit off of his head.

Tips on listening to the new Ringo: Tie yourself down to a comfy chair, get a BIG glass of Wild Turkey, and stick a drumstick in each ear. In case you snooze off (and if the Wild Turkey doesn't do it, Ringo will), there is a handy recording at the end of the first side that will get you out .of your chair and over to the stereo to... do...whatever you have to do.

As she stepped on his front paws, he lunged upward in an arcing motion, sinking his aging fangs into her tender Bermuda Triangle. "I'm coming," she cried, "but I can't come! I have to go write the Ringo review!"

We know you're in there, Paul, and we can't blame you. As for you, George; we don't blame you for not showing up. Wait a minute! We've discovered the code! RINGO IS KLAATU!!!

"Darling," he sighed, smacking her tenderly on the thigh, sending her into convulsions from the weight of the ring on his third and most prominent digit. "Now I get it, " she said. "The Walrus is Paul!"

The high pointof this album is "Sneaking Sally Through The Alley." But then, David Berkowitz singing "Sneaking Sally Through The Alley" would be killer (and he should know about alleys). ,

To paraphrase Iggy, we think we'll stone Ringo and run around.

Lady Coca-Cola

SMALL FACES Playmates (Atlantic)

One solo career going nowhere, two sidemen left in the lurch, and a convenient reconciliation. The Faces have gotten Small again, with their original lead voice, but their new album is no happy event. Playmates brings back together Steve Marriott, Ian McLagen and Kenney Jones—Rick Wills subs for the muchmissed Ronnie Lane—and Marriott mannerisms dominate. Those pintsized ravers and giddy hucksters are now, on this set, a bunch of plodders, playipg by rote. Absent is the spitfire modism of their early days, the loopy-deloop swagger of their hits, the flakey charm gone with Ogden's nut. In their place is a sniggery approach to the pop-blues with Marriott's spunk turned to sheer over-exertionv

If the playing is dispirited, the writing is less than ordinary, whether it's Marriott's rebaked Humbley Pied "High and Happy" (rowdy hedonism) and "Saylarvee," a pale run-through of "Lookin' For A Love," or the closing number, "Playing In Tune," which blithely celebrates the fortuitousness of their economically instigated reunion. In the category of "Song Titles That Should Be Permanently Retired," Playmates nominates "Tonight," "This Song's Just For You" and "Drive-In Romance," all as distinctive as their handles.

Disappointing as this LP is, the Small Faces do have promise; Jones and McLagen still play drums and organ like they were born to pub-rock, and with the recent addition of Wing Jimmy McCulloch on second guitar, there's another face to take some weight off Marriott. Maybe they'll get themselves in balance. Maybe Marriott will show some restraint. Maybe we'll even get to see them live, finally. Playmates is altogether too fussy, with horns, r'n'b back-up vocals and bluster, but the core of a fun band is still there.

And, for all his excesses, it's hard not to feel a bit sorry for Marriott who, after all, can be a lungy little shouter. Consider that both his replacement as Faces' lead singer and his partner in Humble Pie are at rock's pinnacle while Steve is trying to rejuvenate his career by reassembling a group whose U.S. success was minimal and ephemeral (their best work is available on Autumn Stone, various MGM packages and a Sire compilation). How he must wonder whether fortunes could have been reversed. Then this would have been an album by The Herd.

Mitch Cohen