What I did on my holidays was travel round the USA. Not much to tell you. The Bee Gees rule, but you know that already. American radio is dreadful. Record of the trip was Joe Walsh's ''Life's Been Good": so it is possible to live in Southern California and keep a sense of humour; there's hope for the new Eagles LP yet. Not for poor old Dylan, though. He may have lifted our dull provincial spirits last month, but the American response to Street Legal turned out to be an unrelenting disdain. Oh well.

Strangest event of our trip was a concert organised by the Police Employees Federation in Charleston, South Carolina. A country show, of course: Roy Head in his sequins and chest was macho-soppy, Barbara Fairchild in her sequins and chest was ickytough, Joe Stampley in his backwoods beard and jeans was relaxed and nice. Never been to a proper country show before. We get real stars here, but not real audiences—just big boots and narrow ties—so this was my first experience of the relaxed, born again, raucous country music community. I sat in the front row, squashed between big bouffanted women and their silent, sinewy policemen.

They spent the first five minutes of each act taking colour snaps, polaroids; they spent the rest of the show above us; the rest of my row sat looking at their photos. They weren't even very good pictures—bored white poses on a dull black backcloth—but half this audience, it seemed, could experience the live show only via a dead picture. They could possess the event only through their literal possession of photographs; their own photographs, no different from those of their neighbours, but theirs. And I remembered the Dylan concerts and their permanent commentary of flash bulbs. And ail our holiday pix. And my record collection. And commodity fetishism.

Back to Britain and the only surprise: Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta

aren't top of the pops anymore. I thought "You're The One That I Want" would be there 'til Christmas. Quite right too—it's a wonderful record. Anyone can make good rock music— the calculations are easy—but the essence of a great single is surprise and what could be more surprising than that a marketing campaign, Grease, should produce even three minutes of such exhilarating music? The record's appeal rests not on John Travolta (he's still got nothing going for him but his hips) but on Olivia Newton-J. Strange casting: a home-counties-uninteresting colonial girl as a 50's-wise rock 'n' roll American street chick. I haven't seen the film (not out here yet), just the Top of the Pops clip, but Olivia is skinny and sexy and confident, not a chick at all but a woman firmly in control of her latest pose. What next, I wonder.

The best new record in the British charts is "Jilted John" by Jilted John. It has been out a while, on the Manchester label Rabid, but EMI bought it up while we were away and now it's a national success. Another timeless teenage record: John has been jilted by Julie who's gone off with Gordon. His account of this bitter blow is clumsy and wry, and the record is a funny post-punk exercise in non-melody,

J.T.: Hey, Ollie, ain't dot j.m. bridgawatar ovar dara by da punchbowl? O.N J.: Hoo baa . . . silly! That'* Mr. Frith!_

non-rhythm, and non-lyricism. I don't believe a word of it—Jilted John is not a naif, not another Wreckless Eric. But I still hope he never releases another record. So far he's reaped the benefits of doubt—what if his story were true?—but his next record will repeat the formula and then this single will lose its charm. The process has happened once already this year. Althea and Donna's releases since "Uptown Top Ranking" have all sounded just like it, and I'll never be able to hear its innocence again.

, But then innocence isn't a British quality. The other thing waiting for me when we got home was a CREEM; Robert Duncan's lovely piece on Bruce Springsteen. No wonder the critics like him—Springsteen still believes in rock with the passion that inspired rock writers to become rock writers in the first place. Their subsequent cynicism is disarmed and it all becomes very weepy. I don't think any British rock act could be so innocent in its rock 'n' roll passion. Everyone in the rock biz here is too knowing, too self-conscious. It's an effect of having a weekly mass music press, of the incredible flow of words that surrounds any rock act of interest.

Only the Irish are innocent, and even then not for long. Van Morrison had to leave us, Rory Gallagher had to become a hermit, Thin Lizzy had to become entertainers. And the Boomtown Rats were knowing from the start. They've got a good new album out, A Tonic For The Troops, and its best track, "Rat Trap", is Springsteenian in its structure, its sound, its desperate street theme. But innocent it isn't. Bob Geldorf now can't sing without a hint of a sneer and his band's rock 'n' roll craftiness, their mocking precision, undercuts the song's angry pathos. The Boomtown Rats are good because they know what rock 'n' roll is supposed to do; they aren't great because they don't really believe it can do it. They're in it for the laughs and the money and they're fun, good chaps and all that. But no soul saving. Nothing to get weepy about.