THE BAND The Last Waltz (Warner Bros.)

by Joe Goldberg

Four of the five members of The Band (Levon Helm excepted) are Canadian, but they have come to represent, to many, a unique repository of what is best and most enduring in American music.

They are almost as well known for their anti-showbiz stance as for their music, yet they turned their farewell concert at San Francisco's Winterland, on Thanksgiving night, 1976, into one of the most highpowered all-star reviews ever seen, ; gave it a lovely nostalgic title, and have gotten a three-record set out of it, with a feature film to come, directed by no less, than Martin Scorsese.

Things are not always what they seem.

The Band has always seemed to have an immigrant's love for America. Or at least the tourist's eye view. They notice things others, do not, on the same principle that one of the best movies ever made about New York, Sweet Smell Of Success, was made by an Englishman, Alexander MacKendrick.

The Band might also have shared the Modern Jazz Quartet's sense of when to get off. Their best music, and the core of their stage show, is still from their first two albums, Music From Big Pjnk and The Band, Not so surprising. As one of the Eagles once remarked in an interview, you have 20 years to write your first album, and six months for the second.

The guest stars here include Paul Butterfield, Eric Clapton, Neil Diamond, Bob Dylan, Ronnie Hawkins, Dr. John, Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, Ringo Starr, Muddy Waters, Ron Wood and Neil Young. These people didn't just come out and do their numbers with their groups; they came out and were accompanied by The Band. It's nO small accomplishment to be able to supply appropriate backing for that diverse an assortment of musicians.

Before the all-stars started trouping onstage, The Band had run down a set of their own tunes but here, they are spread olit, so that you get a star turn followed by a Band number. (There are three records, by the way, and the last: side is a ringer. Apparently, the piece that was to be written specially for the show, called "The Last Waltz," didn't get done until the night before, and as you can hear from the opening track, the band (The Band) didn't know it too well. So something called "The Last Waltz Suite" was recorded later, on the MGM sound stages (there are two other recording locations given besided Winterland), with Emmylou Harris, The Staples, and a string orchestra. "The Last Waltz" is an utterly charming number, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if Robbie Robertson got the idea for it from "The Third Man Theme," included on Moondog Matinee;. .

There are, for me, two revelatory moments . here. The Band plays their own numbers well, and Rob-. ertson, who usually limits himself, has any number of startling guitar solos. Some entries—Eric Clapton, for one*—are pure filler. Dylan has the most space, singing numbers that these'men played with him when they were still hi§ backup band, The Hawks, as well as "Forever Young," from their Planet Waves joint venture. But it's not like it was. He's not quite as harsh as on the Before The Flood album, but he's still into that sangsprecht thing he does too often in person, as if, like Gerald Ford, he didn't trust microphones, and thought he had to shout loud enough to be heard by all the thousands present.

But his aren't the revelatory moments. Those are provided by Neil Diamond and Van Morrison. Diamond, singing "Dry Your Eyes" (which he wrote with Robertson for the album Robertson produced for him), takes only enough time to sing the three words of the title before you know that his deep well of emotion is all pumped-up Cinemascope melodramas, and could be summoned up just as easily (perhaps even more easily) for a Bank of America commercial. Van Morrison is something else again. He sings "Tura Lura Lura," which was a huge hit for Big Crosby (if I'm not mistaken, Crosby sang it to an ailing Barry Fitzgerald in Going My Way), and Morrison sings it exactly like Ray Charles would, turning The Band and an excellent horn section into the Raylettes, showing ^n understanding of Charles' music that Joe Cocker can't get within ten miles of, and provides the most moving, stunning moment of the set.

It's not the best rock album ever made. It has its off moments, some wasted space. But it certainly would have been more fun to be there, and I doubt if any other rock group could have pulled it off. In its way, it's as fitting a memorial as the MJQ's Last Concert.

TELEVISION Adventure (Elektra)

I have to admit that I was among those who felt somewhat dissatisfied with Television's aggressively aimless approach on their debut LP. It , seemed that they weren't doing all they were capable of, and the lack of organization and balance did indeed make comparisons to Grateful Dead dead weight somewhat defensible. But only to a point. First albums often have more to do with delineating potential than actually realizing it, and on the whole, I liked Marquee Moon even as I wished that the group would tighten things up to a real rock 'n' roll level. For those of you who. agree with me—surprise, surprise; Adventure is what you've been waiting for.

What's most striking about this album is its sense of direction. Who would have thought that a band that was previously so flexible to the point of almost unravelling could find such a clear focus? Being set for another collection of wandering opuses, 1 was totally , unprepared for an album full of songs. Sure, the'music still floats some, but it sounds like a. moored boat gently swaying with the current rather than something cast adrift to sink or swim on its own. The record has a sturdy structure of relentless rhythms—even the one instrumental excursion ("The Dream's Diream") is kept from chaos by its nailed-down bass lines. Television has apparently changed horses midstream; they're suddenly rather straightforward. An adventure indeed.

Which doesn't mean that leader Tom Verlaine has given up on spacey lyrics. Not ev6n a total reversion of musical format could change the shape of his singular vision. When girls aren't lovers, they're fighters; "She put on her boxing gloves' and went to sleep" ("Glory"); death may be .the best thjng you can encounter in a war: "No more danger/Hello guardian angel" ("Foxhole"); and if war is life, you might as well stay in bed ("Careful"). There's a lot of fear on this LF and Tom Verlaine, despite all challenges, remains the favorite Hemingway character type—an honest and unshrinking coward. "All this confusion hit me like a'dare but I don't care," he sings in "Careful," and if it's shelling time, as in "Foxhole," you're apt to find him in the trenches.

Verlaine seems to have sunk more of his guitar timO here into constructing strbng hooks and firm, purposeful lines and as a result, there's a decidedly reduced number of Insane Psychedelic Sixties guitar riffs; more interwearing than tearing—the lead on "Gloryl' is so song-suited that it sounds almost formulaic. Yet there remains the intensity that exploded in spots on Marquee Moon, brought home here through the total effects of the words and music communicated together in each song ("Carried Away" in its murky, ethereal splendor is probably the best example of Television's successful turnaround).

One final forewarning: This is a red album. Bright red, from the jacket design to the liner background color. It's an angry color, the color of fury, fire and blood. When-you hear side one you can tell why-—this seemingly Television's anger album: all war, wicked women and woe. As I say, intense. Look out.

Vicki Taylor

WINGS London Town (Capitol)

Interestingly, Wings' latest was finished under conditions similar to the '73 Nigeria sessions for Band On The Run, ijtill Wings' best album—drummer Joe English and guitarist Jimmy McCulloch jumped ship (half the songs were cut aboard ai yacht floating in the Virgin Islands), leaving plenty of overdubs for McCartney, Denny Laine and, er, Linda. But as a grab-bag of genres, London Town dimly recalls McCartney's contributions to the decade-old White Album: "Back In The USSR," "Martha, My Dear," "Helter Skelter," "Blackbird^" "Rocky Racoon," "Why Don't We Do It In The Road," et cetera. Again, Paul touches all stylistic bases here, but Tike an old slugger—self-satisfied and slpw.

Critically, the long and eclectic London Town—14 songs in 51 minutes, 6 seconds—can only be approached (attacked?) track by track. MeCc^tney's sterling pro-, duction is the single, coherent quality; if the songs fail, at least the record sounds brilliant. But so much craft and precision is, finally, stultifying—Paul is a gifted arranger, skilled multi-instrumentalist, great singer, .clever songwriter...and lazy artist.

Take the title track, co-written with Laine: it's a montage of urban moments, puffed up with pretty, cinematic segues. There is something panoramic in this scheme which echoes Pete Townshend's terrific "Street In The City" from Rough Mix. Absurdly symphonic, "Street" dares lo bare some painful realities of the urban condition. But "Lo'ndon Town" is alternately scenic ("Silver rain was falling down"), anecdotal, or bemused. Similarly, a more economical and convincing "Cafe On The Left Bank" is good on detail ("English speaking people drinking German beer"), but such detail adds up to Ektachrome irony—it's still a slideshow from abroad.

"I'm Carrying" would seem to confirm, at first listen, the rumor that Paul Is Pregnant. But Paulie's just cooing to wifey, and you'll never lisferv tu/ice. Take my word. Please.

The provocatively-titled "Backwards Traveller" is most irritating for what the first line promises: "Hey, did you know that I'm always going back in time?"—McCartney's remembrance of things past could be a pisser; but before you can (primally) scream, "I don't believe in Beatles," Paul's casually strung eight lines of rhyming bupkis into a pointless break called "Cuff Link." Admittedly, this sequence is the album's only overt filler. Still.

Written with Laine, and featuring his slender singing, the leprechaunprecious '"Children Children" makes Tea For The Tiller man sound like Double Liue Gonzo. "Girlfriend" is a Smokey Robinson cop which—incredibly^works on its quirky (why bother?), ethereal (neat falsetto harmonies) terms. Though hardly remarkable, "I've Had Enough" reminds us that the Beatles who growled "I'm Down" can really belt with the best. Listen to Paul's phrasing of the throwaway line, "But, come on." Fantastic.

Side Two starts with the single. Just another silly love song, "With A Little Luck," coulds.sure stand some editing on the LP. "Famous Groupies" is funny (especially considering the former status of Wing Number Three) but, unhappily, it's not^ quite |as funny as Paul's broad reading of the lyric would have it. Actually, the lyric is laudably more pointed than anything Paul's written lately, but he fairly sings his own laugh track, and spoils the joke. "Deliver Your Children" (also with Laine) is an ambitious folk ballad in the mode of acoustic Grateful Dead, particularly "Friend Of The Devil." It's marred only by an awkward melodic resolution in the chorus;

London Town should have ended right there. Instead Paul sputters through a suave Presley parody (little chutzpah never hurt) called "Name And Address." Linda ain't no Jordanaire. "Don't Let It Bring You Down" is a modal bore, but there's no excuse for "Morse Moose And The Grey Goose." Though not terrible in the way the title suggests, "Morse Moose" is a six-and-a-half minute disaster movie—something like Ice Station Zebra, without Ernest Borgnine. NQ "Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald," this "Moose" ends McCartney's album not with goose bumps, but a big yawn.

As with the White Album, these tracks can easily be totaled in the debit and credit columns. There, the similarity ends. Though hardlyN the worst Wings project, London Town still loses, hands down.

Wesley Strick

ELVIS COSTELLO This Year's Model (Columbia)

Isn't that always the greatest affront to the sleuth, when the focal clue has to practically chew up his 99 support stockings for him to notice it? Sp comes my chagrin upon finally solving this album's enigma: Elvis Costello sings through a camera. Cut and dry, the evidence right there on the record jacket. Guy just isolates himself in some snot-colored cubicle and sings into a camera; "grrr." The effect is like Graham Parker and Blondie albums lain one atop the other on the summer sidewalks of NYC, trod upon and melted into a hybrid. Or maybe ultimately like what the world would have to deal with were Graham to seduce Blondie, or more likely vice-versa, upon a bed of insulated electrical wires which, post-consummation of the act, were fused inextricably to the abdomen of the lust-childinfested mother, and with first breath, the bastard whispers, "radio, radio..."

It is obvious that Costello's only fear is that his fearless music will go unheard. That he should be at all equated with punk is merely a twofold misfortune; part temporal, and the main part due to his aggressogant stance—a first-sensed difference from at least the initial British new wave manifesto is that Elvis' motif is less politicultural than interpersonal, and especially contemptuous of the fairer sex (or unfairer sex, as he would have it). Now while he doesn't, piece in with that contingent, he does nonetheless prove quite stylisticly mindful; distinct enough from any other extant act to be' noted, yet cautious of excess experimentation in this establishmental sophomore phase.

I must confess that a lyric outlay would have helped me in several places, what with Elvis either pinching his .voice, as if priming a retrievable poison dart, or rushing speedword exhalings through those doubtlessly gritted choppers of his. And chop they do; with My Aim Is True, almost all the songs here are centrally and virulently concerned with women—piqued by them, pricked by them, loathing and longing them, or belittling the musclemass studs that possess them, while he's left out in the cold. Now, while I don't happen to identify with his particular view of things, this alone doesn't prove reason enough for me to dislike the record -r-the arrangements are so justright methodically odd (quirkrock?) that I've found myself singing lyrics which, under saner circumstances, I wouldn't subscribe to.

1 don't know...Sometimes this revelation comes to me—1 foresee some klan-destine thing involved in this new world recordiry; a sort of anti-snatch rape-rooter's beat-thatbutch-Doberman-bitch-'til-sherSuffers kinda thing...so tell me, are your best girl's eyes looking suddenly blackenable?

Alan Madeleine

ATLANTA RHYTHM

SECTION Champagne Jam (Polydor)

Despite occasional nagging from the rockwriters, the Atlanta Rhythm Section have refused to reshuffle their lineup or to amplify their image in order to expedite their climb to fame. Nobody had believed that a pic-k-up band of studio musicians could hold together and keep on pushing for as long as they have.

Yet the ARS are continuing to play it close to the chest, perservering in the patented Bob Seger, keep-being-yourse//-until-they-catch -up formula for popular success. Along the way, the ARS have evolved into an impressively ac-. complished r'n'r band, into what is now the premier Southern Rock band, with the demise of Lynyrd Skynyrd and the scattering of the Allman and Wet Willie alumni. In place of spotlighting stars or virtuosos withjn the band, the ARS have developed a real rock 'n' roll alternative, an engaging corporate personality.

Champagne Jam's "Imaginary Lover" is Already riding the charts higher than last season's smash, "So In To You," and the ARS-trademark guitar/electric-piano vamp is being household-imprinted on the receptive public once again.

"Imaginary Lover" is a great song, too,, beyond the sinuousness of that vamp; who else, at least among the touring Southern bands, could make such a romantic,vulnerable hymn to onanism, to lovingthe-one-you're-not-with, work so beautifully? Certainly not Dickey Betts, the f eternal Rhett Butler S'uth'n gentleman, nor the conjugally blissed-out Marshall Tuckers, let alone macho-obsessives like the late Lynyrd Skynyrd. No, nobody but these progressive uptown Atlantans. I met her in the WinnDixie on a Monday...

NO CYCLAMATES & SAFE FOR THE OZONE

NICK LOWE Pure Pop For Now People (Columbia)

by Billy Altman If you're stumbling into the whole punk/new wave/power pop/new, improved power pop (why doesn't everybody wise up and forget about labels and just listen to music for a change?) scene late (and with nine zillion homemade and/or imported records popping up every day, I'd better be at the record store bright and early tomorrow morning or, my heavens, I'll be out of touch) and you've never heard of Nick Lowe before, then I suggest you keep away from Pure Pop For Now People. Once you hear it, you'll be hooked and you'll want to hear more; and though this album is Lowe's first as a bona fide solo artist, he's been around since '69, so even after you manage to track down all the Brinsley Schwartz albums (where he can be found singing and playing bass), and possibly even dig up his Stiff singles under his own name, there's plently of stuff under assumed names or as part of little rock and roll kamikazee outfits like the Takeaways or the Disco Brothers and as you keep finding all of these little known outside the U.K. gems you might go

completely batty and set out for Sapporo in search of the Tartan Horde's classic "Bay City Rollers We Love You" (that one was Lowe, Dave Edmunds and Rat Scabies) and then you'll lose your job at the factory—maybe, just maybe, Nick'll score some hits over here (I

can' dream, cant 1?), prompting, CBS, that corporate bastion of infinite wisdom, to gather all the stuff up and release it in say, 1988, when all of this is real past history (by that time, maybe the Clash's first album will finally be available), so let's just sit tight and enjoy this record and leave the fact finding to the Anglophilial infomaniacs of the world. (Hold on for a few seconds; I still can't believe 1 worked my way out of that last sentence.

...let alone paragraph.) Anyway, that Bay City Rollers tongue in cheek homage isn't on this album, but the followup is and that's as good a place as any to start explaining why listening to Nick Lowe does wonderful things to my heart and soul. "Rollers Show" is such an infectious, born for AM ears tune that 1 was singing along before I even knew what the song was about and along about the sixth time around on the chorus, it finally dawned on me that what I was singing was "Gonna see the Rollers /Got a ticket for the Bay City Rollers," which is exactly the point. Lowe knows so much about pop music that he can turn his parodies into the real thing, his wit and perceptiveness intertwined with a love of musical form as form. So that "Rollers Show," with all its hilarious

lines ("As long as he's a Roller then we'll love him" particularly tickles me, capturing, both the ludicrousness and ecstasy of blind fandom that is such a huge part of it all anyway), is the best Bay City Rollers song ever written.\

The album is filled to the brim with transcendant moments like that. "Heart Of The City'' is a noholds barred rocker about the fantasy of a rock and roll lifestyle; "Tonight" is all wonderfully icky and gooey in its images of on-therun teen romance; and ("I Love The Sound Of) Breaking Glass" brings you to the disco doorstep all loose limbed while Lowe chortles away about the relaxing effects of the threat of goro-ramic violence. And even when Lowe seems to be pressing things a bit, he still manages to emerge victorious. Taking the story of Marie Provost, a faded movie star who winds up being eaten by her dachshund and attempting to make it bright and snappy is, to say the least, a bit risky. And how he pulls off that chorus, complete with use of the work "doggie," I'll never know, but those background vocals and that sturdy rhythm guitar just take me right off the floor.

I have to admit that side two of this album is considerably weaker than side one, but its opener, "They Called It Rock," a chronicle of rising and washed out rock dreams, just may be the best single track here. Besides, Lowe is into singles anyway, and until he reaches into his bag of tricks for his next send-up/ tribute, this'll do just fine. And remember our motto: 180 seconds or bust!

"Large Time" carries Champagne Jam's first side as "Imaginary Lover" does the second; as a celebration of the Southern Rock sound, "Large Time" is more aggressive than the ARS have sometimes permitted themselves to be, but it's a tribute to Lynyrd Skynyrd, after all. The title cut of the LP is well-named, as it's bubbling with that'subtle intensity that defines the ARS.

From those highs, Champagne Jam declines a bit in lyrical conception. "Normal Love" is a David Gates-like ditty, - with the author sweetly yearning for life off the road rather than exploring the delicious ironies of the title (but that may be my decadent-Northerner \ bias). And the "Ballad Of Lois Malone," a sentimental defense of a "smalltown whore," seems rather lateblooming in compassion, if you've long since digested your Faulkner. Still, a song like "Evileen," about a lady who's become a "necessary evil" for the anguished, somewhat sexist narrator, complements the fine "Imaginary Lover" in the larger economy of relationships. And that guitar-piano vamp is still snaking through my subconscious.

So the Atlanta Rhythm Section have arrived at their biggest opportunity yet to conquer the bigleague rock scene. It could be Champagne Jam, or it could be the next, a double-live set everybody's predicting, that will establish the new marks of metallurgy for the ARS, but either way,-a large time's gonna be had by all. ,

Richard Riegel

NRBQ

NRBQ At Yankee Stadium

(Mercury)

NRBQ has parlayed the dubious distinction of being America's greatest band that never made it into a ten year career—so far. The fools just don't know when to quit, thank god. They've had countless opportunities—one from almost every record company now or formerly in business—to pack it in after each superb new collection hit the stands only to quickly curl up

and die. In fact their last album, All Hopped Up, never even hit the stands at all, unless your stand happened to be within frisbee range of Red Rooster Records, whose offices consisted of a post office box in upstate New York.

Such a history may make some musicians slightly bitter but if NRBQ are, I certainly can't hear it. Who knows, maybe they've engineered their non-career, having realized early on that pursuing the interests of musical integrity was absolute suicide in the evolving market, and deciding to pursue that course anyway. On those terms, the fact that they're still playing makes them a major commercial success.

NRBQ's approach is sadly anachronistic, with its insistence on manipulating the sounds of real voices in harmony, and instruments whose signals are modified only by fingers that have the touch. They record these sounds as if they've been locked up in solidarity since the heyday of the LoogOldham schoot of production: Cut it live, and crank up the volume on the good parts. Result: They sound like a band, which they are and for whom no place exists except in the company of a few fiercely loyal eccentrics like themselves.

Yankee Stadium is of a piece with what has been a remarkably consistent body of work over the years; these boys have staked out a confined piece of musical turf which has never been successfully invaded, and it leaves them plenty of room. While this album may not be quite up to Scraps (a desert island disc without question, and which includes the only NRBQ song you've probably ever heard unless you're a fan or happen to live in Connecticut, namely "Howard Johnson's Got His HoJo Working"), it is a solid representation of the NRBQ style, and never less than a good time. It opens with the obligatory shoulda-been-a-hit number, Terry Adams' "Green Lights," and closes with a bonus— the non-hit from All Hopped Up, A1 Anderson's "Ridin' In My Car." In between, there's their usual variety of flavors: Carl Perkins* Beatles, Byrds, upstate bar bands, swing, Sun Ra. jf,you knew their other work, this would all be instantly familiar—and you'd want this new one anyway.

The problem is, you don't know any of their stuff. Me, I don't know what I'd do without it.

Kevin Doyle

JETHRO TULL Heavy Horses (Chrysalis)

Cripes, not another Jethro Toenail record! WHY? Seems like only yesteryear that Lezter Brainz wuz comparing their bo-de-o-dos to 'Nam folk chants and Air-Wreck wuz goin' apeshit over Ian's (the

stupid clod fink w/the flute) jockstrap. Entire pgs. of vacant jive (in this very mag, no less) have been devoted to Tull's style of watereddown Herbie Mann (a tautological predicament), usually extravagant gushing to overcompensate for a band that wouldn't know how to

crash an auto if it sped into Dead Guy's Curyp.

So all you unweaned suburban proglodytes start flashin' yr cash and head out to the neighborhood Burger & Vinyl Hot Shoppe 'cause without any, elongated hooey, here's a review of this dull Tull wax: lotsa lukewarm lullabys for laidback loafers w/ all loud locomotion liquidatedi Just what the doc ordered, y'know, more assembly line swill for pigeons.

"...And The Mouse Police Never Sleeps"?? (Ugh, kim-o-sabe, me thinks it's a ploy to pocket your wampum.) Such feather-weight monkeyshining has been the sustenance of Ian and crooks throughout their calculated career. This Was (Tull's firstrelease, which prompted a '69 Hit Parader to ooze: "...one of the few bands that combines jazz and rock things and do it well") indeed was ah..well..an experimental debut (not many rock bands then had even heard of Roland Kirk). After that, however, trivial concept LPs were hacked out rat-tat-tat to sustain the illusion that they contained complex musical structures for sophisticated ears only—Ironlung, Thick As A Vienna Sausage, and Passion Puss (an album so innocuous that CREEM's review ed. couldn't even find a writer to pan it so he devised a contest to solicit reader opinion: no Tull fans responded), all FM DJs' staples in the crash-course school of seque monotony.

The latest in this sequence of conceptual fakery, Heavy Horseshit, is primarily a,bout Anderson's noted obsession for smelling hoss dung. Frankly, I'm getting sick and tired of Big Rock Superbores using elpee space as a vehicle for relating their recent heartbreaks and hobbies. Mzzz. Lisa Robinson can get away with reporting Rod's soccer scores and Jagger's X-ed Fuck Update, but rock stars themselves should spare us the prattle regarding their various capitalistic misadventures. Yet like McCartney and other hotshots, Ian Anderson (reclining on his chaise lounge sipping cognac) prefers to remain apathetic and oblivious to the rise and fall of current rock 'n' roll trends, and his music shows it.

Heck, let 'em all choke on their dough and die from complacency. Me, I'm gonna play a Byrds record and forget I ever had to deal with this mess.

Robot A. Hull

BOB MARLEY &

THE WAILERS Kaya (Island)

The fire hasn't gone out, but it is on low flame and being used more for warmth than for arson. The politics of intimidation haven't totally been abandoned in Bob Marley's rebel music—there's still a warning voice, and sneakily smoldering technique—but Kaya takes on a conciliatory tone as Marley's inner world competes for attention/ with the gathering storm. His singing is relaxed, passionate and playful, closer than ever in spirit to such American soul sources as Curtis Mayfield, Smokey Robinson and Ray Charles (and sometimes the fatigued, druggy Sly Stone of Riot), and the album's mood and rhusical surface makes it his most instantly enjoyable studio album since the landmark Natty Dread; Kaya hasn't got that LP's incendiary steamheat, but it has a real attraction all its own. From the burning plant on the back cover and the two opening songs that are commercials for laid-back weed smoking (is "Easy Skanking" like "Slow Twisting'?), it's obvious that this album is going to be a sacrament for High Times addlebrains who'll embrace it the way hippies played Electric Music For The Mind And Body in 1967, but most of this stuff is too potent for them: it's dope music, but not at all dopey.

Kaya strikes a shaky balance between isolation and involvement, conjugal bliss and inevitable friction, optirriism and realism. On side one Marley is out of the fray, setting up house, getting high, watching the sun, and the pleasure is so palpable that one not only forgives but delights in Marley's "My Blue Heaven"-ly domesticity: "We'll share the shelter of my single bed/' We'll share the same room, JAH provide the bread" (Is This Love"). If this be MOR reggae, so be it. The guitar is suggestive, the horns jaunty, and Marley's lyrics are irresistibly quotable: "When the morning gathers the rainbow/Want you to know, I am a rainbow too/... /Monday morning, scoo-be-doopscoop-scoop/'Tuesday evening, scoo-be-doop-scoop-scbop..." ("Sun Is Shining"). Or the utterly reasonable request of "Satisfy My Soul": "Oh! please don't you rock my boat/'Cause I don't want my boat to be rocking." Marley has his spliff, his lady, a sunny afternoon, and "today could be your lucky number." One could even forget for a moment that life ain't like that, -that Jamaican and global politics are still in turmoil, thqt Marley has had to recover from an assassination attempt.

Until the record is turned over, that is. Somebody's rocking the boat, there's a mist hiding the sun, the lady has bolted for the door, and there's no running away from the crisis. Of course. "You think you're in heaven, but you're living in hell." "Some people think life is a dream/So they making matters worse." JAH giveth... Yet even when Marley is moaning, grumbling, admonishing, The Wailers are giving the music a snap that both Exodus and Rastaman Vibration were lacking. Maybe it's the fact that Marley has written some of his liveliest, most hummable melodies—"Is This Love" and "She's Gone," two sides of the home-and-hearth coin, are springy pop tunes that could be hit singles (and where, come to think of it, is "Funky Reggae Party'?)—but within the economy of the reggae medium, the group is doing some inspired playing. ''Junior Marvin, whose soloing is sometimes limited to three-note transitions, pulls off some fine guitar lines, the Barrett rhythm section has a subtle sock, and the chirping I Threes give Marley a soft cushion to bounce off.

To use Manny Farber's critical coinage, The Wailers create, despite their tackling of issues in broad contexts, "termite" as opposed to "elephant" art; it's the small movements that make the difference, the larger implications following from precise detail. Marley has used a wider screen in the past, but it's been a while since his eye and ear have been as sharp as they are on Kaya. So maybe it's true that marijuana heightens the senses (if I hadn't seen Fabian in Mary Jane, 1 might even try some/. Anyway, even without stimulants, Kayo's a pretty nifty record. "Friday morning, scoo-be-doop-scoop-scoop/ Saturday evening, scoo-be-doopscoop-scoop." Is reggae 1978 doowop? Is Bob Marley the Jamaican Sandman?

Mitch Cohen

CARLY SIMON Boys In The Trees (Elektra)

Who be this satin sulky sex seeping sylph rolling up her sullied nylons with French tart tackiness in some fag art director's fatal fantasy of seductive sluttishness? Has this would-be gamin not only received the boys in the trees, but—judging from the spasmed foliage at her feet —the sturdy oaks as well? How many a lymphoid hubby requires wifely face mutating into a flabby jowled reflection of his own blank stare to humblehum "Nobody Does It Better" with cross-eyed ecstacy whilst he slipsinks his mighty leg to and fro in the dame's clammy bog, lusting after just a glimpse of Carly's ctfrlies all the while? How many more rhetorical questions before the reviewer say CS has endearingly gazed too long upon the same lunar deceit as collegiate weiners who drool doggerel with Byron on their minds, but McKuen in their mouths?

Boys In The Trees is surfeited with the mollifluent anemia one hag. come to expect from the mistress of wimpy Bro' James. What is

hailed as "The Hit" on the elpee s wrapper, "You Belong To Me," is syrupy disco bilge which threatens to fade away at any moment, but unfortunately drags on for 3:52 & is better suited for masturbatory stools sitting before full length bedroom mirrors than any decadent dance floor. "De Bat (Fly In Me Face)" is cheap calypso camp and when CS jabbers, "One thing I forgot to tell you about the human race/Everybody get a little upset when a bat fly. in they face," you want to make it more specific and see if you can get a particular songstress totally pissed off with a brick in de kisser. "Devoted To You" will no doubt be popular amongst "contemporary couples" planning "now weddings", tho if the docile recitation (the harmonizing by CS & JT is as prissily precise as duets I've witnessed in well-lacquered and sick with sincerity evangelical musical messages hymned and heard in hinterland reveal services —on first listening I could have sworn I detected a fat-faced pharisee grunt a tithe of satisfaction from the amen corner) reflects the proof in devotion's pudding, we can anticipate a malignant acceleration in the national rate of romantic uncouplings. The total enormity of this recording's feebleness might best be exemplified by listing la sampling of lyrics from each of the wreck's 11 cuts and. whistling a medley of their peach smooth melodies; but if you've the stomach for such, your innards are made of sterner stuff than mine and besides, I don't whistle So good unless I get something hot to tootle.

Carly-Q, face it, hon. You just ain't tough enough to claim to be a bitch and make it stick. And why pussy face for your heart to be melted when a far, far better thing would be to put the arson to this disspirited and artificial humdum? Not even your stiffest admirers are going to be able to blow happy bubbles concerning its dulcet banality. So why not take off a year or hundred and knit the Holy Ghost of Dull a new moustache?

M. Bridgewater

REO SPEEDWAGON You Can Tune A Piano,

But You Can't Tuna Fish ,_(Epic)

One of the responsibilities of us rock critics is to put albums into bags. Not too difficult, once you get the hang of it—people in record stores do it all the time—but as time goes on, there are more and more bags and they sure take up a lot of room. The ones that hang out around my pla^e are pretty well-behaved, but lately they've begun to take on some of the characteristics of cats. Like when the mailman comes and I start to warm up the turntable, they start shuffling across the floor, rubbing up against my legs, and generally getting across the message, "We're hungry, Jack!"

So when the new REO SpeedWagon album shows up, I try to feed as many of them as I can as quickly as possible. The AmericanbancT bag gets fed right away, along with the big-in-the-Midwest-still-trying-to -break the-coasts bag. I consult my notes and feed the trying-to-followup-a-popular-double-live-album bag and the breaking-in-a-new-bassplayer bag (how 1 put the same re-, cord into more than one bag is a trade secret). Then l start to play the record.

At this point, things usually get weird. The bags can't actually hear anything but they seem to be able to pick up on vibes and they're definitely creatures of habit. Like the heavyweight-production bag knows, I can usually tell whether a record is well-produced or not before it gets through the first side. But this time, it starts buggin' me even before "Roll With The Changes" is done. 1 hold out 'til "Runnin' Blind" is over, then open the bag.

It greets me with a belch similar to the one it let out when the Boston album showed up and begins to munch gratefully.

By the time the first side is finished, the lines are pretty well drawn. I feed the potential-hitsingles bag and drag the innovative bag over to the corner (it's not putting up much resistance and even looks a little anemic; I resolve to try to find it something besides Eno to eat). I also forget about the redundant-progressive bag, which is evidently still stoned on Starcastle.

But as 1 start side two, some of the rest get insistent, particularly the guitar-hero bag. 1 gotta admit that Gary Richrath is pretty good, but he doesn't really stand out over Kevin Cronin's vocals or Neal Doughty's hot boogie piano so 1 say no. The blues-boogie and countryrock bags get some consideratidn but after the finale, "Say You Love Me Or Say Goodnight," I know that the panting good-time-rock 'n' roll bag needs its ration more.

So the record's finished and there are only a few things left to do. I take it off the turntable, toss it into the sounds-like-a-hit bag and sign off.

Michael Davis

WOODY ALLEN Standup Comic (United Artists)

MEL BROOKS' GREATEST HITS FEATURING THE FABULOUS FILM SCORES OF JOHN MORRIS

(Asylum)

This time around the lesson of the recycling of Woody Allen's 60's ■monologues is that Diane Keaton made a difference. There is priceless material on Standup Comic— the second, superior repackaging of these bits, with better photos, identification of routines, and where-and-when information—but Allen from 1964-1968 Was only (only?) a tremendously imaginative and ingratiating comic out of the Nichols & May urban psyche-baring school. These pieces of oral history show a one-of-a-kind wit at work, as do his early movies, but Woody Allen became a hero when he won the love of his best friend's wife in Play It Again Sam and then gave up that same delicious woman with a Bogartian gesture. Since then, Allen's view of neurotic rapport, nervous romance, anhedonia and New York chauvinism has made him one of the few comedians of our time with whom it is worth identifying.

Standup Comic is not the Woody Allen album I wanted, which was a movie compilation: Allen-Keaton dialogs, Sleeper's Dixieland score, Love And Death's Russian music, Woody as the reluctant sperm in Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex, Keaton singing "It Had To Be You" and "Seems Like Old Times" from Annie Hall. Instead, UA releases the foundation rather than the building. Interestingly, the parts of the album that hold up best are not the more personal pieces about sex, his marriage, his childhood, but the verbal cartoons, the exaggerated episodes: shooting a moose and bringing it to a costume party, seeing a Kansas childhood flash before his eyes while a captive of the KKK, being haggled over by kidnappers and cops, relating a sci-fi fantasy, that has the U.S. doing alien laundry. There is also a plethora of perfect one-liners, and samples of stuff that ended up in films, plays and the New Yorker. It's a comedy LP, more for the shelf than the turntable, but one day you'll have to hear about his days as captain on the latent paranoid softball team and you'll be glad to have Standup Comic around.

Mel Brooks shares with Woody Allen tenure as a Sid Caesar writer, preoccupation with Jewishness, movie memory and pafodic gifts, but that's where the similarity ends. Brooks is Catskills, Allen is Greenwich Village cafe, and the difference is between prostrating oneself before an audience and sharing oneself with it. There's a kill-for-a-laugh desperate aggression to Brooks' comedy, and if Brooks didn't score so often, he'd be as overbearing as the clowns he sometimes casts in his movies (Harvey Korman, Dom DeLuise, Zero Mostel, Ron Moody, Mel Brooks).

Greatest Hits...is what its lengthy title says. When it's on target, satirizing established song forms and stylings, the album is inspired 1ampoonery. One thing Brooks knows as well as anyone is show-business tackiness, the musical conventions we all grew up with, and his perversions of movie music are exceptional. He also has fine performers interpreting his exercises: Frankie Laine's delivery of the whiplashing "Blazing Saddles," Madeline Kahn's devastating Dietrich on "I'm Tired," Gene Wilder and Peter Boyle "Putting On The Ritz," Brooks himself doing a job on Sinatra on "High Anxiety." The. ideas -are funny (a nonsensical glorification of a tamer of the West, the ultimate in worldweary sexual satiation, a monster taught to hoof and howl "soooper dooooper," the hyperjazzy selling of a pop tune), but it's the execution that puts them over. The same is true of the production numbers like "Springtime For Hitler," "Hope For The Best, Expect The Worst" ^nd the brief "French Mistake."

The rest of the album, Morris' segments, shows considerable musical wit, as he varies the Anxiety motif on side one and contributes some canny, affectionate sections to the hits side, but that's not what you bought your ticket for. Brooks' hysteria is the lure, and it can be piercingly effective, yet the hilarity has a hollowness to it that Allen's never does, because Brooks never really confides in us, calms down long enough to admit that we are united by social psychology as well as by our gut reactions to kicks aimed at our belly.

Mitch Coher

DEAF SCHOOL English Boys/Working Girls (Warner Bros.)

Let's face it, Deaf School is a great name (not as great as Deaf Mutes, tho') but, as Arlene Frances (c'mon, you know: Arlene Frances, from To Tell The Truth—or is it What's My Line?) once said, "You know how deaf people are; they don't want anyone to know."

Well, I can't say I have any time for these boys—and neither do my friends. Remember when the term "art rock" used to mean technosnuff stuff like Yes, ELP, etc? Well, not any more. Today, "art rock" means art school (not to be confused with Deaf School—even though they both sound the same), which means Roxy rip-off time (and you can just bet that Enirico Hubcap and his band,of Roxy lookalikes threw one hell of a party upon their learning that Team Ferranti had dissolved, thus paving the way for their—supposed—take over).

Well, too bad 'cause (in the words of Tige Williams) Deaf School are done like a dinner. I mean, sure they've got a great image, but so what? Fran (of Kukla, Fran and Ollie fame) had a great image—and look where she is now.

Then again, it could be I'm biased. After all, I'm no femme and it seems that girls really get off on this kinda stuff. All I know is that their lyrics are straight from Reek City and that their music is pretty feh (not fey, it doesn't even rate that) too.

Go on, tell me I'm being unfair, see if I care. But one thing I'll tell you, Lou, is that I've listened to this thing seven times (prompting at least one friend to ask, "Why?") and it drives me up the wall faster than a case of methylphenidate (now I know how my lady feels when I play Sparks and Metal Machine Music—the Quad version —at two-thirty in the morning).

The real meisterwack, however, is the cover, which shows up Deaf School for the cloneheads that they really are. Bryan Ferry would never'ue allowed such a king-hell coti> to grace the cover of a Roxy LP—but, then again, maybe that's the point: Deaf School offers sleaze with ease.

But this is trash without class, so ^ass' Jeffrey Morgan

GENESIS ...And Then There Were Three...

(Atlantic)

The members of Genesis are three of the siveetest guys you'd ever want to meet. They would never hide behind a rock and show old ladies the bottoms of their feet. They've never taken part in a game of pin-the-shovel-omthe-infant, no matter how playful. And none of them ever stands still long for fear some passing housewife will pour gravy over them.

Such nice folks usually make music that belongs in the dairy morgue, but Genesis are different: While much of their material has an atmosphere enchanted enough to condyct telepathic communications between far-flung members of the Radar Victims Network, they always come down to Earth with their distinctiye, keyboard-heavy Atco-beat. Damn! Too many toy'makers in the dishwasher again! This intermittent thud, coupled with the band's determination to make all their own noises instead of relying on hordes of stringwinkers and anxious glockenspiel tappers, keeps their music from diluting itself into decorator puddles of Bible School Kool-Aid.

The candy heart of Genesis' appeal lies in their charmingly ftidicrous juxtaposition of silly songs about cigar-chomping silverware and all-fish bowling teams with chillingly essence-seeking arrangements. Take "Ballad Of Big," a trivial, amusing tale of feedbags and Indians. Even a story line cornier than clowns on gumballs sounds spooky when cloaked in a tense production of'ulterio/ harmonies and keyboard attrition. On top of that is Phil Collins' misty-crefepy voice, which sounds like it's sneaking through a colandar packed in medical ice. He can deliver the words "mother's milk" in a way that makes you think he's singing about iced snot. Give this guy a splitfingered fastball and he'll probably take over the world.

Collins' ever-steady nerve-saw and a sprinkling of attractive, small curd ballads make...And Then There Was Three... another winner in the long line of remarkably disbelief-suspending Genesis albums. Just once, though, I wish they'd get caught doing something rea//y disgusting. Listen, Phil—I hear that if you bait your mousetrap with a used tampon...ah, forget it. With

his luck, he'd probably catch Leif Garrett.

Rick Johnson

GOOD RATS From Rats To Riches (Passport)

According to the liner notes, the Good Rats recorded this new set in just two weeks last fall. Never mind that this was their first album since 1976, or their best chance at a national breakout in an even longer time; why should fhe Rats fuck around in the studio (even with Flo & Eddie ^producing) when their regular gig at My Father's Place (Roslyn, NY) was waiting for them?

Having long since taken the barband virtues of tightness and professionalism to new heights of apocalypse, the Good Rats had undoubtedly lived with the ten new songs of From Rats To Riches^ for months before they ever set foot in the studio, as the ready intensity of each resultant cut demonstrates. But then, each of the four Good Rats LPs has shone with instrumental riches, with a hard-rock style that's not quite like anyone else's; as the last surviving Long Island-rockers, the Good Rats continue to define the genre.

The band sounds better and better, and I'm ready to nominate Mickey Marchello and John Gatto as a new one-two guitar punch to give Perry/Whitford of the fading Aerosmith some real competition. Joe Franco may not be able to sneak many of his favored "Billy Cobham licks" past the boozeitups (young Archie Bunkers?) in the L.I. bars as yet, but his drumming, and Lenny Kotke's bass, are always solidly upfront, ready to cut through anybody's alcoholic (or psychic) haze.

And, as ever, the Good Rats' sound focuses on lead vocalist Peppi Marchello, from his odd, potent compositions ("Joey Ferrari," on the Rats' first LP, conceptualized punk behavior years before even the rock critics noticed it), to the endearingly ragged warmth of his deliveries. While 1976's Ratcity In Blue fairly bristled with songs of aggression and paranoia, From Rats To Riches exudes a more optimistic stance, probably reflective of the Rats' improved recording fortunes.

As the Rats' first set since they began national touring, From Rats To Riches almost inevitably includes" a few minidramas of the eternal groupie-quest ("Could Be Tonight," et al.) with, for Peppin, rather pedestrian lyrics. But he also comes through with. "Coo Coo Coo Blues," where the narrator's sexual odyssey is mpre than matched by his quirky, literate sense of humor. (Do the ItalianAmericans have a term that approximates "schlemiel"?)

"Taking It To Detroit" sums up the Good Rats' plans for conquering the American rock audience, besides saluting the one spot on Earth where the Rats have been as popular as on their L.I. turf (so far); "Dear Sir" backtracks to the Rats' struggle to get to this LP, and formalizes the stylistic integrity they've displayed all along. "Mr. Mechanic" is Peppi Marchello with virtuosity unleashed; while be-; coming machine-like has been tres chic among rockers this season, Peppi returns to the pre-cybernetic glory of the one real r'n'r machine, and becomes a car, with attendant symptoms of mechanical breakdown. Chuck Berry could hardly have said it better.

Oh, yeah, From Rats To Riches has the best back cover of the new season, too: Peppi Marchello carrying a giant football while bimbo mannequin is poised to give him immediate & unconditional head (code of the road, Jack). Get this one now\

Richard Riegel

ROOT BOY SLIM &

THE SEX CHANGE BAND WITH THE ROOTETTES (Warner Bros.)

Imagine a male version of Divine who blends the funkiness of Dr. John with the punk slobbishness of Wild Man Fischer, ingests these influences, and then before digesting the innutritious conglomeration, regurgitates the whole glop onto vinyl like a demented Don Van Vliet. AS revolting as that sounds, Root Boy Slim contrives an appetizing concoction from just .such puke absurdities.

Any eccentric who writes lyrics about outmoded topics like mood rings and kung fu is not only outrageous but also downright rude. Yet the hippo hails from Yale, and still he feigns dead brain cells. Come orri ya can't fool me, Root Kazoot! Only a grizzly Gnostic could growl these lines—"Had to try to hit Spiro Agnew at 60 m.p.h. just to see if the sucker had time to scream"—and continue to play DUM. (Crass ex. of dumbo humor: What's RB Slim's fav o rite drink? Ans: Root Beer! HARDY HAR HARM) Forget all that ironic Zevon/

Newman songwriting; now is the time for all jesters to revive slapstick. Root Blob's music can't be classified as satire because it's too blunt and malicious (note the! armpit stench of "Too Sick To Reggae"). Basically his songs are like watching Tom & Jerry pulverize each other into smithereens.

In fact, this cuckoo" colossus would appear to be just another Warner Bros. Krazee (e.g. Hirth Martinez) except that his Sex Change Band can raise hell better than Elvin Bishop. What makes RB's debut album so thrilling is the sensation that a few Root brutes must've ruptured their spleens producing such galvanic blooz^. E. Locker Room, son of Zoot Horn Rollo, bends and twists his guitar strings as if they were wires, and Rattlesnake Rattle's bass provides plump punctuation for sweaty Papa Blimp's flopping flab. "I Want It Now," "Country Love," "You Can't Quit My Club," and others .are structured to illustrate the band's prowess as well as being excuses for'Root's scabby wit. The Sex Band's tastefulness negates RB's tasteless grubbiness, elevating a stupid joke like "Boogie Til You Puke" (complete with retching noises as the song fades) to a really funny romp (alternate title: "Let's Puke While We Boogie").

Gotta give the Mi-T Joe Gorilla credit, tho, Root Boob does have a sublime flair for junk aesthetics. His "I Used To Be A Radical" (whaddaya expect from a D.C. baboon?) abases late-Sixties political motivations into pissing on the Pentagon, an insight that terminates the previous decade with a blasphemous fart just as Sha Na Na cheapened the Fifties with trashy mimicry. Garbage of the Seventies is contemptuously axed in "Mood Ring," which uses a UHF sleazola trinket as sexual metaphor so effectively that you can almost feel the spray from such a Huge Razzberry. In an effort to slander the disco rage, Root Poot on "My Wig Fell Off" poses as Barry White to rap about being too decrepit to dance (thematically akin to Joe Tex's geriatric act but with more spite and less novelty flash). Also, the description of his tortures while incarcerated "In Jail In Jacksonville" is an hysterically gross story of pigs vs. pud. All this successfully coalesces into a fetid style of buffoonery that a band like Dr. Hook would only tend to trivialize.

Certainly at a time when the vulgarities of unrefined barbarians like Chuck Barris and Idi'Amin rule the cultural world, it should come as no shock that a rowdy boor like Root B. Slim should arise from the scummiest depths o.f obscenity to spew forth his own brand of bile for uncivilized society's consumption. YUMMY YUMMY YUMMY, THANX YA BIG DUMMY!

Robot A. Hull