WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

RECORDS

WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

SEX PISTOLS Never Mind The Bollocks Here's The Sex Pistols (Warner Brothers)

By

Billy Altman

Let's face it gang—with the Sex Pistols album now officially out and in the stores, we have reached the critical point in the 70's punk movement, probably for both the American as well as the British scene. The two don't really share that much beyond an unrelenting dissatisfaction with things as they are, with the U.S. side a bit more just plain musically sick of what's goin' down and the U.K.'ers more socio-politically concerned. Yet it's hard to deny that the Pistols are the symbolic head of it all, at the moment. They've taken on the image, the stance and the attitude, and whether they mean it or not is ironically irrelevant. The entire sequence of events—their formation, their cursing on British television, the banning of "Anarchy in the U.K.," EMI's pull out, A&M's signed, then ripped up contract, "God. Save the Queen," "Pretty Vacant," playing under aliases, the Rolling Stone cover, Warner Bros, finally taking the big plunge—it's all been steamrolling towards this final confrontation. Namely, are you people here in the U.S. gonna buy this album?

As a galvanizing force in the music industry, England just does not matter, hasn't ever since the turn of the decade. The record buying masses are here, the money is here. And record company executives, radio programmers, promoters and retailers are all poised and waiting. If punk hits, then the corporate thumb that has been plugging the hole in the dyke, letting just enough new wave water through to placate the minority, will be blown away. In fact, they'll probably break down the barrier themselves, tripping over each other in a stampede to rake the potential bucks in. If it bombs, though, they will not only seal the hole shut, but pound in a few extra nails for reinforcement, proclaiming all the while that Muzak Central is where we all really wanted to be anyway.

What disturbs me most is that it is the music that is at stake here, more than anything else, and if the Sex Pistols don't appreciably dent the market, then much upcoming new and great music may not get out. I'm not into comparisons all that much, but I am into history, and history notes that though the Pretty Things may have been there first in the early 60's, it was the Stones who became the most controversial, the most notorious and upon whose shoulders the future of a lot of music rested. Because they were a threat. The Beatles, the DC5, the Searchers, the Hollies, Gerry, Freddie, Herman, Billy J., et al. were clean looking kids, playing clean sounding, bright music. The Stones, the Animals and the Yardbirds were not; they were bad boys, playing evil music. And had they not made it, there would have been no mid-60's explosion in the U.S. (the first punk wave),i no psychedelia, no heavy metal, etc.

The key, of course, is that monster known as radio. Without airplay, it is doubtful, that this battle to inject some life (some of it ugly, but life all the way—and some of it art, too, Jack) into rock 'n' roll will be won. L haven't met too many record buyers who cared a hoot whether a rock critic endorsed or panned a record. If he heard it and he liked it, he'd buy it. Word of mouth only goes so far—in England it may mean something, but not here. If you hear it on the radio and like it, you'll buy it. More realistically, if you hear it often enough, you'll want to like it and buy it. Which brings us to Catch-22: Radio stations will have almost nothing to do with this music. They fear it like stations in the 50's feared rhythm 'n' blues and AM stations in the 60's feared West Coast music, and all stations feared glitter rock in the early 70's. In the 50's and the 60's, the people won out, but in retrospect, we should have seen the writing on the wall with the failure of the New York Dolls, to whom most of these groups now (especially the Sex Pistols, who not only have in Malcolm McLaren a former Dolls' manager, but whose sound echoes much of the Dolls' music) owe a great deal spiritually. The Dolls were virtually alone though, and that's possibly the biggest reason why they failed (like Iggy, the MC5 and the Velvets before them). There is not only safety in numbers; there is power.

Radio programmers will tell you that if people bought these records, they'd play them, but you gotta hear 'em to decide whether you're gonna buy 'em. Which makes it imperative that the Sex Pistols album break through, that people buy it and talk about it and call up their .local stations and demand that this stuff be played. Make no mistake, this is not mere pararioid ravings from a member of a small minority. Can anybody tell me what the Sex Pistols, the Ramones, Talking Heads, Television, the Clash and Richard Hell have in common? That's right, not a helluva lot. Except that their music is clearly different than just about everything belching forth from both AM and FM radios. Point clear?

Reading this back, I see that it looks like a goddamn speech, but I can't help but feel a call to arms, and we'd better be ready if we care about our music. It's entirely possible that in sleepy U.S.A. there's just no place for street fighting kids. I pray that that is not so.

Oh yeah—Never Mind the Bollocks Here's the Sex Pistols is a fucking great album.

ELVIS COSTELLO My Aim Is True (Columbia)

This bandit summer, this snatcher of heroes, loved ones and possibilities, Will be remembered also for leaving behind intoxicating rock and roll, with this album near the top of ihe pile. Since August, competing for attention as a Stiff import with posthumous program-' ming of Costello's namesake's output, My Aim Is True has been an antidote to the power failure all around us. In hi§ preoccupation with frustration and mental revenge, his cynicism stemming from a realization that life's guarantees are worthless, and his imperturbably buoyancy in the face of it all, Elvis Costello is a contender. It doesn't even hurt that he styles himself a '50s schlemiel; his voice is captivatingly abrasive, his songs are, without exception, expertly crafted miniatures: there are 13 here (Columbia added his new U.K. single), and not one your stylus bpgs to skip, not one that doesn't reveal something special about Costello's sensibility or talent. Every song has ideas to burn and a memorable chorus. The title (from the hauntingly tough-tender "Alison") speaks chapters: his aim— his purpose and prowess—is true.

Yes, you can call it "new wave": a tactical combination of the anarchic and the absorption of "classical" influences. My Aim Is True is so dramatic an entrance, such a total picture of its maker's worldview and personal use of rock grammar, that it's like Breathless. A B-movie with a difference. Even Costello's moral stance fits. He's a sensitive punkabilly, continually getting dumped on by girls. In his (our) world, the men are romantics, looking for touchstone love; the women more practical and selfpreserving. Belmondo and Seberg. "We could sit like lovers staring in each other's eyes/But the magic of the moment might become too much for you," hg sings. On "(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes" a strange Faustian bargain doesn't prevent a girl from telling him to drop dead as she leaves with someone else; on "I'm Not Angry," another tale of rejection, the key word is "anymore": one suspects that anger stopped only when turned into art. Girls are hard to please, he discovers on "Miracle Man"'; they make comparisons, and fools of men who leave their wounds open. Costello is so tormented by this treatment that he makes the inability to do the "Mystery Dance" seem a sexual dysfunction.

And all the time this tension is going on—he does have other subjects, like ad hoc guilt transferral ("Blame It On Cain"), the horrors of employment ("Welcome To The Working Week") and surrealistic depictions of societal breakdown ("Waiting For The End Of The World," "Watching The Detectives," "Less Than Zero")—the music, the Nick Lowe-produced environment for all this rancor, is being sensational. If he's his own lead guitarist (the wholly admirable musicians are anonymous), he's got the touch: economical, versatile, adept. Snappy rockers alternate with modern blues, lovely ballads, mood pieces. "Sneaky Feelings" crackles and pops. "No Dancing" reminds us that a wall of sound is next to nothing without a gliding melody beneath. Throughout, there's witty background singing and spare, aggressive playing, close in spirit to The Rumour (as vocally Costello is temperamentally akin to Graham Parker).

The only questionable aspect of Elvis Costello is how far he'll take his misogyny, how long he'll keep blaming women because he was raised on romance and has had it pulled out from under him. He snarls, "Everybody loves you so much baby/I don't see how you can stand the strain" with the passion of mid-'60s Jagger, and it's great, it's even honest, and lesser men have made such sentiments springboards for whole careers. But such petulant pUtdowns indicate that he has some way to go before his emotional maturity matches his prodigious artistic skill.

Mitch Cohen

DAVID BOWIE Heroes __(RCA)

Since before I can remember almost, there was never a "genuine" David Bowie character. Ingeniously (?) glittered-out onstage, attired in make up and hair dye with acoustic 12-string guitar strapped across his narrow chest as he gazed into space (the stage lights, really), this Bowie was sometimes known by his Christian name, "David".

Something changed. Again and Again. That's not unusual—he's the epitome of Change for Change's sake (self-discontent, perhaps?). Anyhow, Bowie's always been interesting—partly for that reason.

Bowie (no longer David, ever, you'll notice) has always also, effortlessly it seems, devised mystique and controversy around himself more cleverly than eight Brian Epsteins combined.

I've had more fun arguing about, and hearing other people's reactions to, Bowie: another reason he's interesting. Any move made by him provoked the most inspired inanities. One of my former friends (asshole) still persists in thinking Bowie's God (a 70's Krishna—I'd say some sort of Zeitgeist, to be technical).

Low came out and John Rockwell in his N.Y. Times column quoted from "Be My Wife." Disco and all, he quessed he liked it. Made me crack up. I hope Heroes perpetuates this trend of absurd reading-in-profundity controversy over Bowie; at leastas a character he will keep on entertaining me.

Artistically, as a musician-singersongwriter, me-thinks Bowie's begun to be a bore. Okay, I admire his integrity and courage in pursuing the new, trying to blaze unforaged (pop?) musical turf (experimental music, call it), and living vicariously through Iggy (bless 'em both). Most of side two on Heroes, though, bores me—like the Fripp/ Eno albums of "atmospheric music". I don't care about time and effort spent in studios overdubbing tapes/loops/synthesizerized subwhite noise that make no recognizable musical sounds per se. Let's hear some hooks, guys!

Side one of Heroes fits the bill, more or less...at least there are songs with lyrics, guitars, keyboards, percussion, and OK vocals. First hearing "Heroes" on radio, I thought an earnest Bryan Ferry imitator was singing. (Shows that Bowie still cares about being a vocalist—all right!) Seeing the album cover, I thought an imitation Gene Pitney, thinned down and blow-dried, was posing. But let's not get carried away with analogies; or spiteful in tone (me? never!). Bowie's an original sum-total of his influences. Even if he wasn't aware that (Andalusian Dog—aka Un Chien Andalu) was a pretentious, unhip film to show before his performance. during the Station To Station tour, credit the man for trying.

Bowies not bland yet—but I feel he will be, if he veers into more cryptic lyricizing and discoid blahshit (guitarist Carlos Alomar, bassist George Murray and drummer Dennis Davis his consorts, along with special guests Eno and Fripp assisting).

In the final assessment, Heroes doesn't rock. It kinda leans against the wall, acting real cool, absorbing the world in a test tube. Dig?

Trixie A. Balm

ERIC CLAPTON Slowhand __(RSO)_

Reviewing Eric Clapton's recent records is a no-win situation. If you compare 'em to his groundbreaking playing of the '60s and early 70s, you get people complaining that you're not coming to terms with what the man is doing now. The thing is, I doubt if Eric has come to terms with it either.

He didn't help matters much by calling this album his old nickname. The word slowhand conjures up images of the Yardbirds and Bluesbreakers, when Clapton was amping up riffs he'd copped from the Kings of blues and turning the world of rock 'n' roll around with them. But the only blues on this album, "Mean Old Frisco," is ground out like so much hamburger, nothing alive 'bout it.

Okay, so the old flash is gone. Maybe I'm missing some subtleties. But I've looked for 'em, gang, and haven't found many. Softness, sure, but you don't lay out five bucks for a roll of Charmin and put it on your turntable, do ya?

I'll admit that not everything sucks as bad as the pathetic attempt at machismo mongering, "Next Time You See Her," or the domestic diddling of "Wonderful Tonight" but straightforward mellowness is just about as boring. Like Clapton's cover of J.J. Cale's "Cocaine", which doesn't even attempt the bumper car rhythm guitar effect that made the original listenable. And stranger still is that Eric does use Cale's style on one of his own tunes, "Lay Down Sally," the only thing I can listen to on side one.

Side two is a slight improvement. "The Core" cooks a little, albeit over a low flame, and Marcy Levy's voice even imparts some urgency to it. Then there's "Peaches and Diesel," an effectively melancholy lullaby that'll render you unconscious, if "May You Never" or "Mean Old Frisco" haven't already done the trick.

Look, I'm gonna cut it off here; this is depressing. The best way I've found to deaf with aging heroes falling by the wayside is to play their old stuff and ignore the new. There was a time when Clapton was at the head of the class but now, even in his laid-back bag, there are lotsa people ahead of him. So if you want to get into some slippery subtle guitar stuff in a rock context, check out J.J. Cale, Ry Cooder, even Racing Cars' latest. The only people I can see getting into Slowhand are hopeless nostalgiacs and hero worshippers. Sorry.

Michael Davis

ALLMAN AND WOMAN Two The Hard Way _(Warner Brothers)_

The main thing missing from this Tijuana Pony Show is an erection. This platter certainly has everything else, like a suggestive picture on the jacket (one blonde yard-ape, poised to cop a chomp of a peculiarly fleshy mammary mouthful of one Afro-wigged legs-up temptress), a swell bunch of professional musicians (including five different guitarists—count 'em), covering a classic collection of tunes by some of the best songwriters of past, present and future (Smokey Robinson, Jackson Browne, Sanford/Townsend, to name a few), and even slick production (whatever the hell that is).

Still, when all is pressed and spun, it remains ludicrously difficult to get excited about this album— even for a sicky like me who usually hops on assignments like this. Even with the refreshingly outrageous, yet stupid, throwback to a 50's concept of a woman's place in space, Two The Hard Way fails to get the blood pumping to the right places. Granted, both of these singers have several heavyweight accomplishments under their belts (yeah, go ahead and call me a sissy, but I actually enjoy Cher's voice), but they both have about as much to do with rock 'n' roll today as a 1978 Dodge Monaco. Recommended for voyeurs only.

Air-Wreck Genheimer

RICK DANKO (Arista) LEVON HELM Levon Helm and the RCO All-Stars _(ABQ__

The Band has disbanded, and while their Last Waltz album has yet to make its appearance, solo records are starting to come out. That's the hard news.

These albums could almost be a two-record set, somewhat like the Beatles' White Album, when they had started to fragment and play backup for each other. All of The Band appears on the Danko album, and Robbie Robertson and Garth Hudson appear on Helm's, along with Booker T., Mac Rebennack, Paul Butterfield, Steve Cropper and other heavies. The RCO AllStars take their name from a Woodstock recording studio pictured under a blanket of snow (Big White?). Danko's record sounds like middle-period Band, mostly because he did a good deal of the writing, much of it with Emmett Grogan, whom I didn't think had time for such pursuits. Helm's record sounds like the oldies album, Moondog Matinee, because he uses "Milk Cow Boogie," "That's My Home," a Chuck Berry tune, and so on. The musicianship is uniformly excellent on both records, as one might expect, but Helm gets a bit slick at times, a fate Danko avoids.

That's what there is to say about these. They sound like not quite top-of-the-line records by The Band. What they lack is writing as good as on the best Band albums, although Danko's record is full of echoes and even quotes, and they also lack a density that the music had at its best. Of the two, Danko wins with .his material, and if you like The Band, you'll like these. But I doubt you'll treasure them.

Joe Goldberg

ALICE COOPER The Alice Cooper Show _(Warner Bros.)__

I'm not sure that the inclusion of Alice's fab MOR hit, "You and Me," on this live album was a wise move. I mean, maybe a lot of the housewives who heard that song on the radio and hummed along while waiting for the roast to finish never found but just who was singing the song. Imagine Mom's surprise when little Bobby and Betty start blasting the record downstairs in the finished basement. Will she recoil in horror? Toss the record down the garbage disposal? Tell pop?

Probably not. She'll look at the cover and ask her kids what all the pictures mean; "What's he doing with that giant toothbrush?" "Fighting a giant tooth, mom." "Oh, that's nice." And she'll smile, and pat them on the head and remark to dad later, "Oh, those kids!" And she'll be totally unconcerned about songs like "Eighteen" and "Is It My Body" and "Under My Wheels" because, as this collection of greatest hits done live in a show that sounds like it was hard to keep an ear open during it demonstrates, Alice Cooper is past history. No excitement anymore, no urgency, no bizarreness, not even any more cartoons. Just good old entertainment, Vegas style. He's become a trouper alright—yet another member of the lost batallion of faded rock stars.

Billy Altman

EDDIE AND THE HOT RODS Life On The Line _(Island)

Along with Dr. Feelgood, Eddie and the Hot Rods were one of the first English bands to become suddenly fingered as P.U.N.K. Teenage Depression, with , its cover versions of '60s hits, got 'em labeled as the 70s equivalent of Hubb Kapp and the Wheels. What's been overlooked amidst the jumble of the Rods' prolific flood of vinyl, however, is their ability to develop original material. Their two best tunes, "I Might Be Lying" & "Writing On The Wall," rarely are acknowledged, and most folks otherwise dismiss 'em as imposters on the same level as the Stranglers.

Life On The Line negates any bickering over such a moot point. Eddie and the Hot Rods got nothin' to do with the Wave, Dave! Those razor blade licks and guttural gasps have been relegated to more authoritative stylists like the Sex Pistols aind the Clash. The Rods have chosen songwriting, production, and even neatness as an alternative. In the tradition of Spector soundalikes, "Do Anything You Wanna Do" is already an established staple. Ranks right up there with "Born To Vamoose." "Quit This Town" lets ya know WHO, and "Ignore Them (Still Life)" stands out as a heavy-metallized version of "Quick Joey Small" (shades of Ram Jam). The title cut lays rubber at a speedy 3/5 of a mile in 10 seconds, "Don't Believe Your Eyes" even burns the pavement, and the 8-min. opus, "Beginning Of The End" (owing its basS runs, as do most cuts on this record, to "On the Run" off the 1st LP), would be quite acceptable to any stodgy FM programmer worth his weight in Aerosmith.

Yet Eddie and the Hot Rods should not be confused with bands like Piper, AC/DC, Foghat, and other tribal mucous that simply strain their diesels to the maximum with jotsa exhaust fumes. That's,' uh, music for the dummies (the same chumps, duh, who would've gone apeshit over Bloodrock and Iron Butterfly). For Eddie's Rods are the answer to the common question: "Where's a band that a poor slob who can't tell the differehce between Nosebleeds and the Varicose Veins & who lives like a podunk somewhere in Macomb, IL & still gets his records at K-Mart & who luvs sardines and the San Pedro Beach Bums & ain't seen Bad yet & don't even know who Nerval is, like, where's a terrific band with plenty k.o. that the average jerk can identify with?!" Let the rabble rejoice: Life On The Line is a beaut!

Robot A. Hull

THE MOTORS V ^ (Virgin) __

The Motors, a loud English rock band out of Ducks Deluxe by way of guitarist Nick Garvey and bassist Andy McMaster (the others are Bram Tchiakovsky on guitar and drummer Ricky Slaughter),' are certainly limited. There isn't a firstrate song on the whole damned album, not if what you mean by a song is a unit separable from performance; the composers can more accurately be called recyclers of rock truisms. And vocally—all four sing, or bellow—the guys in unison resemble nothing so much as Moodies with some sense knocked into them and synthesizers repossessed.

So then what has The Motors got, one might well query, and the answer would be this: they know that the taxi to the terminal zone makes no detours. The Motors is one of those boggling debut rock LPs that are popping up with remarkable regularity: an already mature expression of a style, in this case a style based on relentless , loco(m)motion. The forward thrust, guitar dynamics (notes battling chords to a split decision), and use of standard genre themes (automobiles, frigid women, the fatal distractions of love) all ,help to make this the first Rock LP of its type to do its job in so thorough a way in not a few moons: not as a bold assertion of an auteur or of a sociomusical attitude, but as a monochromaticl anti-cerebral exegesis of the music's bluntest instincts.

When good, on 'Dancing The Night Away," "Emergency," "Bring In The Morning Light," The Motors combine the essentials of runtrock —a world-view that sees the verb "to rock and roll" in the declarative, noncontemplative present tense*| riffrock—the ability to sustain, through sheer plowpower, interest in a minimal musical idea over a four-to-seven minute span—and pubrock—well-tempered humor and faith in the tried and true. It definitely connects as a te§t case of what non-punk "heavy" music might have to aspire to to survive the next year or two. The Motors' impact may prove transitory (songs like "Cold Love" and "Whisky and Wine" show how banal their ideas can really be), but look, this month, if I were still in school, I'd be writing "The Motors" in bold print on my spiral notebooks, scrawling "Who is Bram Tchiakovsky?" on the walls in the hall, singing "danger! danger! emergency! emergency!" to myself as I ran to gym class.

Mitch Cohen

MARTHA VELEZ American Heartbeat (Sire)

Martha Velez made one of the most enjoyable records of 1976; Escape From Babylon, which was produced by the Rastaman hisself and featured the Wailers and the I-Three, and is a sexy, stunning record. Velez, a Bronx-bred Pperto Rican, seemed to fit right into the \ tropical fold. However, the enthusiasm of the critics was in direct disproportion to the highly praised album's sales.

Considering that Babylon, like Velez's three previous albums, were on the Sire label which, in the words of one record executive, "is to the record business as surfing is to Kansas," the lack of sales was less than surprising. Hopefully, now that Sire is distributed by the Brothers Warner, American Heartbeat will not suffer this same fate. While not as immediately captivating as the reggae album, Velez's latest is a very pleasing record full of catchy pop tunes. If an album like the Spinners' first for Atlantic is a valued part of your collection, you'll want to grab this one.

This dark beauty can be credited with most of the hookery here. The first song on the disc is her own "Up To You," which is followed by the Goffin-King classic, "Oh No, Not My Baby." The sequencing is obviously intentional, because the Velez song is a new pop classic, and the bouncy/exhilarating energy of the tune, has more staying power than anything currently in the top ten. However, Velez's thick, throaty and thoroughly exceptional voice could strike the AM programmers as too unusual for car' radio consumption. The song would certainly be hit material for a singer with a blander voice and better radio visibility. Ditto for her "Leaving A Love That's Good," and "Why Do You Say It,''(both cocompositions with David Seance and Bob Leinbach, respectively). "Why Do You Say It" is a haunting Philly-Soul torcher, and the song she wrote for her young son, "No. 1 (Tajie,'s Tune)," is as infectious as the flu in January.

Stephen Galfas' production, which is slick as snakeshit, may keep away the FM'ers who play Peter Frampton until one gets insulin shock, but who /regard a straight-ahead pop tune as some kind of offense to their collective cokespobn consciousness. Velez is a talented singer and songwriter' who deserves a wider audience. I hope that the next time she tours [she is able to play larger halls, but if she comes to town on a club tour, don't miss her. The experience of sitting ten feet away from this sexy, smoldering and spaced-out presence in a second-skin jumpsuit is not something I am likely to forget.

Eric Rudolph

KISS Alive II (Casablanca)

Stars and Stripes Vol. V, No. 19

Arnie Feldman of Wichita Falls, Kansas, after carefully studying his Evoluton Of Kiss bonus booklet, has sent in his favorite composite Kiss costumes line up: Gene, 1975; Paul, 1976; Ace, 1974; Peter, 1971.

At the party last year after Kiss' show at Madison Square Garden in New York, we asked Gene Simmons' mom what she thought of his bass solo. "Well, to be honest," she confided, "when I saw him up on that stage spitting all that blood and everything...if 1 didn't know that that was my Gene under all that, well, 1 don't know." We don't know if she will like Gene's dripping puss (sorry about that, Peter) on the cover of Alive II. "Everyone else looks so nice, Gene, so thoughtful and pensive, why not you?"

Edie Roman of Troy, New York, says that it's not much fun removing her Paul Stanley autograph tattoo; the adhesive tape hurts and the rubbing alcohol not only makes her nauseous, but seems to be attracting a lot of local winos. Her advise to fellow Kiss WACS is to never wash.

Speaking of tattoos, the instructions on the back include the following phrases: Wet backing generously; gently slide; and do not apply on sensitive skin. Didn't Army headquarters check this copy out before it was allowed to be printed up? This could give our boys a bad name!

Dave Clark of London, England, wishes to thank the members of Kiss for recording his song "Any Way You Want Me." Now he can pay the rent—it's been due for 20 years.

PEN PAL NEWS: Dr. Arthur Frebus of Tuskegee Psychological Institute says: "I have jpst been listening to Gene Simmons' composition, 'Larger Than Life,' which includes the following lyrics: 'My love is too much to hold/You can't believe your eyes/What you heard weren't lies/I'm much more than an average man/My love is larger than life.' We are currently treating a Ms. L. Lovelace who would like very much to get in touch with Mr. Simmons."

We have also heard from Dr. Drake Doom of Dayton, Ohio, who claims to have found 57 separate instances of the word "knees" and "please" rhyming in Kiss songs. He thinks our boys have problems. Do you? We'd like to know.

Just for the record, the inner sleeve picture of Alive II with Kiss fans all reaching up—many of you have written us to ask what exactly are they reaching for. The answer is pieces of Gomper Snord of Covina, California, who doused his entire body in lighter fluid, jumped off the mezzanine of the L. A. Forum and had his girlfriend throw a match at him. "Gone, but never forgotten," says his girlfriend. We'll miss ya, Gomp!

Billy Altman

BOZ SCAGGS Down Two, Then Left _(Columbia) _

Seeing as how I hate Bloomingdale's with an untowards eccentric passion (due to the fact that they sell shitty shoes and dictate an intensely shallow mode of living to a broad group of people) and seeing how I generally wouldn't touch disco with your dickso, it's extremely strange that I'm here. First of all, the cover photos were snapped by none other than the same guy who made a stink snapping for last year's boffo Bloomie's lingerie supplement; second, this is indeed disco. So what gives?

What gives is that I've always liked Boz Scaggs from his Steve Miller days to the first solo LP with Duane Allmah through the recent Silk Degrees. Not so much for his songwriting, which runs from adequate to good (not bad at all, really), than for his. chocolatepudding-in-the-throat voice. While with this album he is still working in the general area of three-chord R&B (lately mutated into this odd subset knows as disco) that suits his elaborate vocalizing so well, Down Two, Then Left is the place where we almost part company.

On Silk Degrees, "Lowdown" just sort of happened to be disco and the other two great songs, "Lido Shuffle" and "Georgia", were not even close. Almost everything here, on the other hand, panders to -that odiously slick formula, with the exception of "1933", which is merely a reworked "Georgia," "Tomorrow Never Came," which is ci space-folk dirge and "Gimme The Goods," which is different disco. "Gimme The Goods" features a disco beat but not to the exclusion of reggae influences, weird chord changes, great lyrics, hot guitar solos and hot horn section responses. "Gimme The Goods" is rock 'n' roll music, not merely a soundtrack for the cocaine bump.

There i)s nothing wrong with the disco beat. There's nothing wrong with dressing up and going in style, particularly when you know where you're going as well as Boz Scaggs knows. But where everything is subsumed to the disco formula, pieces are lost—most notably, the heart and soul. Consequently, this music-minus makes me only feel pity. In other words, disco always produces in me the same mournful affect as a wdman with a lot of makeup and a smile. Believe me, she's not for you, Boz.

Robert Duncan

ELECTRIC LIGHT ORCHESTRA Out Of The Blue _(Jet/UA) ■_

"Two Record Set" is one of those phrases you don't want to hear, like "payment overdue," "appeal denied" and "roving gangs of black youths." Double albums mean guaranteed boredom in the form of filler. Three minute songs suddenly stretched to 6:24. Overtures, undertures, innertures, reprises and part II's take on a life of their own. Instrumentals appear from nowhere and take over entire sides.

It was inevitable that ELO would get into double trouble sooner or later. Few musicians have as keen an appreciation of the gratuitous as ELO's head squeeze, Jeff Lynne. His uncanny ability to take A simple McCartney-type melody and pump it up with bloated production until it floats away like an air-logged jellyfish has been well-documented through several LPs, the combined weight of which couldn't crush a sarcoptic mange mite. So it's not surprising that, given two big records to fill up, Lynne is happier than a horny sex-mute with a crate full of cheerleaders' underpants.

Out Of The Blue does have its moments, but then so did the Age Of Reptiles. A typical side is the third, Lynne's "Concerto For A Rainy Day." And me without my umbrella. It fades in with a gusty Alcoa thunderstorm (neat idea!) rolling into a harmless enough arrangement in search of a song called "Standing In The Rain." With lines like "cats and dogs, I wanna be free," it's unlikely to appear in the, annals of Great Rain Songs like "Walkin' In The Rain," "Crying In The Rain" and "Caught With The Meat In Your Mouth." Next up is "Big Wheels," with a stunning Ray Davies-styled melody that's so light it sounds like they're not actually singing, but dreaming of singing. Two more fluff wads wrap it up, an updated "Guantanamera" called "Summer And Lightning," and "Mr. Blue Sky," a keyboard hopper that will give countless listeners a chance to use the word "peppy." A nice side overall, but nothing to forsake your inheritance over.

You want dreck, there's plenty of that too, the waste champeen being "The Whale," a longish instrumental that TV Guide would undoubtedly describe as "brooding." Over a bass line that lolls out like a St. Bernard's tongue, Lynne sketches a seaweedy melody that's more disgustingly queero than Ray Conniff at his sappiest or even Bert Kaempfert. Yes, it's Kyu Sakamotoqueero, complete with drifting "Autumn Leaves" strings and some odd submarine noises (BLIT? DOOT?) thrown in for good measure. If that's what whales are all about, I say crank up the harpoon factories.

But there's not much sense dwelling on individual bed smells when the main culprit here is Lynne and his O-Cedar strings. The cello fellows have never really sounded like anything more than an adjunct to the band. Ill-conceived, out-ofplace string parts are glued on •doggy-style wherever 'there's an open spacSe, double-parked in the grand instrumental landscapes Lynne frames each song with. Of course, cello players look pretty stupid just standing there. Like inflated gumball machines.

Shopping list for your favorite ELO fan this Xmas: Out Of The Blue, a copy of Pavlov's Violin and a nerf dildo. They'll figure it out eventually.

Rick Johnson