RAMONES Road To Ruin (Sire)

"Sometimes timing is everything, you know?"

"How do you mean?"

"The worst week, that four game humiliation at Fenway, and Keith Moon dying a lunatic's death, and I caught this throat thing, and she couldn't, or wouldn't, find the time to come over—"

"The Girl?"

"The Girl. I've told you about her? Anyway, all this stuff, and I'm obliged to assess a Ramones album. Now, I'm a fan—"

"Fan? Isn't that kind of a demeaning term? You're a reviewer, an ob-

jective, articulate judge of aesthetic value."

"Listen. Another Rolling Rock, Horace, please? We were fans first, before we found our way into the backs of magazines and in my opinion, the trick is to hold on to that, to keep that capacity for wonder-"

"Fitzgerald."

"Yeah, Gatsby. Keep that capacity for wonder, not be soured by the inundation of product, the platinumania of the industry. To temper our scrutiny with some wide-eyed admiration. Speaking of wide-eyed wonders, did I tell you about The Girl?"

"Months ago."

"All I know is, that the first time I saw the Ramones I nearly fell out of my chair, so taken was I with their idiot-savant gestalt, and they've had me in their pocket ever since. I anticipate Ramones albums the way I used to hang around Hymie's and wait for him to untie the bundle of new Spiderman comics, and here comes Road To Ruin—"

"Another Ramones album? Already? How many is this?"

"Four in just 'over two years. Each a grade-B classic like Teenage Doll or Sorority Girl—'57 Cormans —if you ask me, but like I said, I'm a fan. So here comes Road To Ruin

along with all this misery and damned if it doesn't cut right through. It's a beauty."

"But the same."

"The same. Different. The cover version is on side one this time, 'Needles and Pins'."

"Bono's moment of glory."

"Certainly. And a surprisinglyapt vehicle for Joey's snotty, slurry singing. He's improving, by the way. Some of his phrasing and intonation is genuinely witty. He always seemed a weak spot to me. Too dopey-sounding, you know? 'What, me worry?' But on 'I Wanted Everything,' 'I'm Against It'—"

"The Groucho Marx song from Horse Feathers?"

"Not quite. Close though, and nearly as funny a broadside. And on 'She's The One,' Joey isn't just a flat-toned jerk. All are brash and blaring tracks, and he's on the money.. I'm tempted to call this LP Ramones Grow Up, but that's not really true. They're still The Beach Boys of the, um,—"

"New wave?"

"Bite your tongue. Let's say of the urban rock 'n' roll revisionists."

"Classy."

"Besides the Beach Boys still haven't grown up. Have you heard 'Hey Little Tomboy'? What I mean is, the 'Mones have to hitch to the beach, and they're more concerned

MMt NYC's newatt penthouse power-poppers,

The Pigeon forgets I

with the outcast aspects of teenage psychology than the peer group normalcy of the California ethos, but they're as stupidly sublime as Brian Wilson, and not by accident. To throw in another reference, 'Hanging out on Second Avenue/ Eating chicken vindaloo' even bears comparison with Lorenz Hart."

"Who?"

"Do your homework, punk. The Ramones are, to put a fine point on it, swell songwriters."

"Now you've gone too far."

"Listen to the record. Sure, they're still hung up on social aberration—'I Wanna Be Sedated,' 'Go Mental,' 'Bad Brain'; they've done all that before—but there's no verbal or musical waste, no falsity. 'Questioningly' is a ballad, almost, with dialogue, scene changes, structural inversion, a guitar solo; 'I Wanted Everything' traces a kid from childhood illusions to menial labor to petty crime in bold strokes; and 'It's A Long Way Back' is a perfect example of Ramone compression, telegramese, one might say. In its entirety: 'You by the phone/You all alone/It's a long way back to Germany.' Eat your heart out, Jim Steinman."

"I'm not convinced."

"Fine. I happen To think the Ramones are fabulous. They're swift, cool, smart, loud, repetitious, and they're a band, not just a good idea for a band, which they also happen to be. Joey, DeeDee, Johnny, and Marky—"

"Marky? Like in Maypo?"

"New drummer. Tommy left, but still produces them. No discernable change in the sound to my ears. I do miss DeeDee's countoffs, come to think of it. As I was saying, the four of them are all they need, like The Who were on stage."

"Anything else?"

"Sure, lots. Only twelve songs (have I mentioned 'Don't Come Close'? Real nice), a Holmstrom cartoon cover, Greg Calbi's masterful mastering job (he's a friend and deserves a plug), and all in all, the best New York City rock 'n' roll album since Johansen's."

"You're prejudiced."

"Yes. Any record that can come out alongside a Red Sox collapse, another Monterey Pop casualty and romantic setbacks and make me laugh deserves a rave, so Road To Ruin's gonna get it."

"Sometimes timing is everything."

"Yes." It's as impossible to dislike this record as it is to get excited about it. I'll probably play it a few dozen times in the coming year, mostly on those early mornings when I'm trying to get ready to go somewhere or on those occasions when I'm talking to a friend and I want, something pleasant but not too distracting in the air. Not something dull, just easily absorbed. It's understandable why this album is predictable; Linda Ronstadt has reached that point in her career where she feels like consolidating rather than converting. Even if you've been marginally following her ascension since Heart Like A» Wheel, and particularly if you're familiar with last year's Simple Dreams, you'll find here what you expect, no more, no less. Well, maybe just a little more.

LINDA RONSTADT Living In The USA (Asylum)

As usual the selections are varied, balanced, and not all successful. Not that there's anything here that's gonna upset anyone, but an uninspired, rendition of Elvis Costello's "Alison", an unadorned "Love Me Tender" (the most simplistic of ballads, whose success depends wholly on the charisma of the singer) and yet another love-islost song by Eric Kaz, this one called "Blowing Away", all seem like time wasted on an album that runs under 35 minutes to begin with (and .mentioning the running time may seem like quibbling, but

You tay you'll consider an ovon trade for my roller skates and hair clippings?

considering album prices today I think not—besides, the album's brevity just adds to the impression of it being a minor effort). So a few minutes drag, so what; eclecticism inevitably pays off in part and when Linda gets a chance to wail or soothe with white rhythm & blues, she's as good as she's ever been, America's premier femme pop singer with some country and rock lurking in the fringes.

Speaking of which, there's "White Rhythm & Blues" by J.D. Souther (apparently the only song written specifically for this album), an electric country song about one minute faster than a ballad, with Linda appropriately passionate and the words giving the impression that for once she's not singing someone else's song—"Ah the night-time sighs and 1 hear myself/ But the words just stick in my throat/Would you think that somebody like me/Might have hurt much more than it shows". Right, and I think a large part of her appeal isn't the conveyance of vulnerability that * people like to talk about so much but rather her ability to give the. impression of having transcended vulnerability and gone on to the realm of emotional hunger. Subtle difference, maybe, but it keeps bringing me back to "White Rhythm & Blues" rather than her version of Smokey Robinson's "Oh Baby Baby" which sounds trite with its confession and self-pity as compared to "White" 's confession and grief. Anyway, at the risk of being blasphemous, I'd say the Souther song has a better hook.

And the wailing. The title tune is a lot better than it has any right to be and then there's the out chorus of "Just One Look" and the whole of "Alt That You Dream". Which leaves Warren Zevon's "Mohammed's Radio", a song about rock 'n' roll, not up to the standards of anything on Excitable Boy tho it's interesting to hear her phrase and bluster just like Zevon (and hear her voice on "Oh Baby Baby" become wispier like Smokey's) and a little nugget on the first side called "When I Grow Too Old To Dream" by Hammerstein and Romberg culled, no doubt, from some ancient operetta, a song as sentimental and engaging as an early 30's Ruritanian romance.

Like I said, it's a lot like the last one and the one before. What Linda Ronstadt should do, now that she has everyQne's attention, is try for another watershed album, maybe something into harder rock or a batch of original songs without the revivalist covers. Something different. But I didn't say this album was bad.J coulda said the album was a rjp-off and that Ronstadt's just coasting, or skating, on a successful plateau without giving her fans anything new or even particularly interesting. But I didn't. You might have noticed that our boys in the BOC haven't exactly been real prolific of late, conjuring up catwalk climaxes and whiplash bashes at an ever-decreasing rate. Like three studio albums in five years, only one of which, Agents Of Fortune, matched the excellence of their first two.

Richard C. Walls

BLUE OYSTER CULT Some Enchanted Evening (Columbia)

But hey, these guys are primarily a live band. They're about the only metal maniacs I go back to see again and again. And it's not because of their laser light show or because Eric Bloom gets me sticky wet or any of that. It's 'cause they're hot and musical at the same time, -ravaging the ranks with splendiferous riffs complemented by teasingly tuneful tidbits and technological tremors. A nightmare dream band all the way. Their previous live LP, On Your Feet Or On Your Knees,

was reasonable but at their best, BOC is unreasonably good so it was a bit of a letdown. But I just saw 'em a month ago and they were burning pretty bright, so I looked forward to this sucker.

And, uh, it's not a sucker, but like On Your Feet, it doesn't quite satisfy my crazed cravings either. They just never seem to have the tapes rollin' at their most inspired shows, which is really too bad.

But not too bad. Their Black

Sabbath-in-overdrive days may be over—did they change chemists or what?—but they still know how to be "heavy." So "Godzilla" tramples Tokyo just like he oughtta and "R U Ready 2 Rock" improves on the plodding performance that plagued Spectres, even if it doesn't really get going until Albert Bouchard comes alive during the drum break. The original versions of "Don't Fear The Reaper" and "E.T.I." prove too tough to transcend (at least they don't do it here) and "Astronomy" survives more on its special effects than its punch.

So what's to recommend? Well, they've come up with a couple of covers that work effectively—"Kick Out The Jams" and "We've Got To Get Out Of This Place." Their inclusion here pisses me off in a way —it means we'll probably never get live recordings of "Stairway To The Stars," or "Dominance And Submission"—but since Animals and MC5 records aren't that easy to

come by these days, and since the Cult does these tunes up righteous and rowdy (if not as the ultimate energy fixes), they're worthwhile.

-1 dunno, I see this LP more as a way of buying time than anything else. I'm ready 2 rock but I'm willing to wait; if time is what these guys need to generate more grade-A meathook material, I'll keep the faith. But in the meantime, I'll be feeding off my Agents and Tyranny albums a lot more often than the side dishes rehashed here.

Michael Davis

DEVO Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo! (Warner Bros.)

The Devo-nian period: not that geological unit of time pertaining to the Paleozoic era, characterized by the appearance of forests and amphibians, but a recently developing stage of a strain of rock 'n' roll dementia emerging from the larva

FOUR DISGUISES IN SEARCH OF IDENTITIES

PAUL STANLEY (Casablanca)

by Gregg Turner and Metal Mike Saunders

The press release for these four solo Kiss discs is entitled "The Kiss Albums: History Of. A Milestone" ("milestone" because "never before have a band's members been able to sain new insight into each other's musical dreams in such a comprehensive, unifying way"). This bioof-sorts runs down the usual dross —character-profiles, character-insights (Ace "wants to pilot his own rocket ship before he gets older"), but there's a punch line. We're treated to arbitrary samples-ofaffluence attesting to (one guess) the independent success and fortification-of-individuality each Kissling has attained. E.g., Gene has a "Sony Betamax system to view favorite classic films." Peter? An "antique-crammed house." The Space-Ace goes "wild buying toys in Japan," while Paul's got a "silver and burgundy Rolls Royce" and "breathtaking penthouse apartment!!" Ho ho ho!

Ho: The twist of irony being that rhythm-axe Stanley's solo effort here waxes positively welfare-oidl Strictly low-income, bankrupt of originality, poverty-stricken with excess dead weight. Adjectives like contrived, banal, vacuous and boring come to mind, but moreover the real turd-of-the-matter centers on Stanley's sellout of credible hard rock ("Black Diamond" and "Strutter" are undeniable monuments of

classic R-'n'-R) for some insipid variety of recycled-Raspberries aind miscellaneous power-pop swill. The songs on this album are an awfully dull lot, every clichd being dragged out twice over and given an unnecessary stomach hold as well.

Occasionally, increments of excitement are attenuated by means of the nearest adjacent prototype— the Raspberries 1973 Side 3. "Move On" and "Wouldn't You Like To Know Me" exude minimal cleverness (the latter tune very close to Eric Carmen's "Tonight"), yet achieve a competent thrust of guitar (interplay) and pulsebeat (Stanley's a very underrated rhythm gtr. slinger).

But overall, side one teeters dangerously close to the pop stripe of creeps like Dwight Twilley and Tom Petty; "Tonight You Belong To Me" seems particularly transparent. Side 2's "It's Alright" sounds suspiciously Tuff Darts redolent ("All For The Love Of Rock 'n' Roll"). God, yech!

The worst part of the album hasn't even been mentioned yet— the part where Paul goes "Beth." Yep, that strange and deadly disease strikes again. I useta think rock 'n' roll ballads meant "Last Days Of May" or "Dirt", but "Hold Me Touch Me" and "Ain't Quite Right" chirp otherwise.

Add a couple of fillers like ponderous "Take Me Away" and "Love In Chains" (sounds like a Kiss reject), and you have an album that basically starts nowhere and goes

nowhere. Oh yeah, the vocals are pretty bad throughout, sub-Kiss for sure and constantly overmixed.

A "milestone?" Try gallstone.

GENE SIMMONS, (Casablanca)

by Joe (see what happens when he gets serious) Fernbacher

The whole internal beauty of Kiss is simple—they would've been the perfect back-up band for Alice Cooper in his prime. If some hip honcho out in Vinylexecland got his smarts together, he'd form a real supergroup using the brilliant images of the Kiss show and all the refined gory glory of the Cooper shows—kinda like a Blind Faith of Ghouls. The entrail wars between Gene Simmons and Alice would be staggering. What a tapestry of the grotesque these two could conjur up: the God of Thunder in mortal combat with the snake-god Conchita; Alice and Gene dismembering a loyal sacrifice from the ranks of the Kiss Army; Kitty Kat skinning the Cyclops and stretching its skin over his drum kit in a Nazi fetish scene; Ace causing total sensory deprivation for 50,000 people with a power chord so massive and corrosive it'd melt flesh; a final jam consisting of two or three low yield atomic bombs set off in the parking lot; and a climax featuring the fusion

of the group with the 50,000 fired fans, forming a gigantic mutated ball of living protoplasm lurching its way about the countryside in search of Cleveland, every once in a while belching out a radioactive language balloon that says, "Redek, where's Redek?".

Which somehow brings me to Gene's solo album. For those who. were expecting the apocalypse from the tongue king, don't be too disappointed if all you get is a simple, conventional weapons skirmish. Simmons' LP heightens the .character quirks that make him the most outstanding .and complex member of Kiss. He seems to live the contradiction so many always talk about, apd in so doing he proves his merit as a rock 'n' roll master. Despite the personalities brought along for the sideshow [a cast that includes Cher, Bob Seger, Helen Reddy (hey, why not? She said "fuck" on Ear Candy), Donna Summer, Rick Neilsen and JANIS IAN], this record is all Gino. And for those expecting bone-crushing bass solos at every near turn—forget it, the focus is on Gene's guitar playing and his surprisingly gentle vocals.

Actually, after the initial shock of the relatively calm and serene pose adopted on the album, the listener can easily get caught up in the inner phase to rear on its own hind legs, named for the most visually active proponents of the postulation that the root extracted from a mathematical quantity (read from a slide rule elastically designed to register both the tonal and the attitudinal, separately and in combination) employed as the numerating denominator (or, as | the denominating numerator) of a differential equation will, when applied to a prescribed cybernetic computation,

workings of the man, not the monster. When I first noticed that he did "When You Wish Upon A Star," visions of Jiminy Cricket being squashed under the lizard's boots and then ingested ran rampant, but damned if he doesn't perform the number with a rather frightening sincerity.

The fact that it'll take both critics and fans a long time to sift through the multi-textured screens Simmons has erected here is testament to the LP's overall impact and effectiveness. Long after the sonic assaults of Ace and the other boys have been replaced by creatures as yet unknown, creatures that really will be faster and loupler, somewhere far off in the corner of the planet a little jukebox will be playing Gene's "When You Wish Upon A Star" to a bar filled with old Kiss lookalikes bemoaning the good old days. This album will be remembered, and that is a fitting enough criticism.

ACE FREHLEY (Casablanca)

by Kevin Doyle

Not bad, not a bit bad, considering what could have happened. If THE KISS ALBUMS are not so much records as paint-by-number reproductions of kinds of records (California-sessionman-modern,

yield the quotient POOTY POOPOO, or a derivative thereof. A rock 'n' roll calculus of sorts, fallible by nature, but valid nevertheless; a distentiori of the present present into the present future that remains inherently (if not overtly) connected to the present past yet antithetical to the past past.Comprenez?

The question is, now that we have in our hands evidence supporting said postulation, all you modern mutants out there, are you ready to become Devo-tees? Are you willing to brave the nest of the contemporary cockatrice and suck aluminum serpent eggs raw? As J.F.K. (my friend Joe Fred Kinney), speaking at the wake of a burned out boogie brother put it: "Ask not if Are We Not Men is rock 'n' roll enough for you; as if you are rock 'n' roll enough for Are We Not Men." In less time than it takes to read this sentence you can have an answer simply by. placing needle to

famous-friends-of-bats-mainstream, etc.), then Ace has donned the cloak of technocrat-hero. His record bears more than passing resemblance to the method, aura and sound of musical onanists in the tradition of Todd Rundgren—what with the credits, that have Ace playing everything but drums most of the time, the multi-tracked guitar emphasis, and even a kind of goofy, good humored naivete in the writing that smacks of earlier Todd days.

This should be popular stuff, second of the four on the charts only to the inevitably more commercial rodent in chains. There are a few obligatory, nominally druggyspacey tunes—"Snow Blind", "Ozone", "Wiped Out"—that seem to exist only to justify Ace's nickname; they ring hollow and boring. And there's an instrumental (how ambitious) called "Fractured Mirror" that never goes anywhere, despite some nice bird chirps and church bells at the the beginning.

The rest is nice, fairly cutesy pop, especially on Side One, which has few potential singles—all of them dealing with adolescent themes in a adolescent way...ballbusters, cars, man's inability to communicate with chick. Best is the last track on the side, "What's On Your Mind?" a translation of

vinyl.

The album's initial cut; "Uncontrollable Urge," is juvenile delirium fueled on a cyanogen cocktail, a poison-on-the-rocks concocted for a cerebellar demolition derby. It's followed by a version of "Satisfaction" that has its cool defiance key punched in calculated detachment —not as immediate or gripping as the original, but curiously arresting, its lack of demonstrable agitation well pronounced in the redundant precision of the band's performance. "Gut Feeling," with the memorable lyric, "Something 'bout the way you taste makes me wanna clear my throat," concerns a wipe out ricling the Big Wave to the sands of baby's beach, rejection in sonic overdrive that takes a wheelshrieking turn into the turbulent mother/lover hate of "(Slap Your Mammy.)" An updated re-working of the classic story of Mr. J.B. Goode, "Come Back Jonee," has the hero driving to his less-than-im-

Rundgren's "Couldn't I Just Tell You." It's a complete cop, from it^ conversion of the original witty, self-conscious teenage-eze into dumb, unconscious teenage-eze, and its very similar melodic line and reliance on guitars, guitars, guitars (electric and acoustic playing the same chords the same way at the same time).

There are, fortunately, no ballads, nothing that really qualifies as a slow—as opposed to comatose— song. Just harmlessly relentless guitar music, nicely crafted and produced, a few nice hooks, not too many solos (and no long ones).

And Ace's voice has it moments, Nasal, and a little shaky at the bottom of its narrow range, but its innocent deficiencies have their own particular charm. A small dose of humanity peeking out from the corners of this vast corporate undertaking.

PETER CRISS (Casablanca)

by Richard Riegel

Okay, so Kitty Kat gets to clean up his own litter box this time out. Since I've reviewed Kiss albums in these pages twice before, I don't have any astounding insight left to offer, just the by-now antiquated Kiss-katechism about how kids like 'em, and if you think Kenny Loggins is a more significant artist, you in big trouble, bud.

I could turn the tables On Criss's legendary musician's classified pledge to "do anything to make it" by saying that by now Criss would make anything to keep on doing it. But the album's better than that snotty put-down would suggest, and besides, Criss might just be the most humble of the four remarkably self-effacing members of Kiss, anyway.

Criss learned his humility from his instrumental role, as the old-

mortal ending in a Datsun, nothing but his guitar left behind for those j who have museums for minds-— B CJ come back Jonee (or Jimi), but don't hurry. Opening with a computer-sired bass throb, "Mongoloid" Vf is a seventies delineation of the wH "Well Respected/Nowhere Man," ■ L" kissed with a handsomely infectious l i chorus that would raise concrete laden eyebrows, and driven hard by whip-cracking snare shots that I reverberate like gun fire in an empty warehouse, the whizz-wizzardry of producer Eno's synthesizer surge, and choppy rhythm guitar that's as much fun as slaughtering hogs with a dull butcher knife. The macabre "Shrivel Up." sung from the padded cell of a demented soul, offers time-honored advice ("It's rule #1 living right isn't fun") and a feeling of being buried upside down . beneath the House of Usher. And ."Jocko Homo" shows what happens when you buy lunch from the elephant's care keeper at the Cleve-

guitarist-tales of rock culture have it that drummers are unimaginative drudges, who perform anti-social acts like shaving their heads, dying, or moving to Hollywood when they get older and a bit melancholy. So Criss was stuck with the feline (read: housecat) make-up early on, but this symbolic neutering and declawing backfired when Criss scored Kiss's first (and, to date, only) sizable radio hit with his "Beth", an album filler track that broke through because of its schmaltzy sensitivity and sincerity.

On his solo LP, Criss wisely avoids sounding like either the traditional Kiss fire breathers, or the proven "Beth"; he opts for a supposed exploration of his "NY roots," although by putting veteran popster Vinnie Poncia on the boards, and by hiring familiar studio names to saw away behind him, Criss has streaked his roots with an L.A. tint. The dominant sound is quite R&B (or what the studio denizens believe to be R&B, these gray days); somewhat like Eddie Money, except that Criss hardly believes himself God's gift to female est graduates.

Criss called in his old "Beth" -partner, Stan Penridge, and the "fifth Kiss", Sean Delaney, to help with the composition on this album. There are some rather horrendous cliches buried among the pedestrian competence of the lyrics, but again, the general unpretentiousness of the entire undertaking prevents serious quibbling.

So Peter Criss has acquited himself adequately in the first round of Casablanca/Aucoin's scheme to put the auteur theory to work keeping the Kiss-machine on the track. Besides, if the master plan fails, and Kiss finally do break up, this could be a worthy album to reissue (repackaged, with Criss's "real" face on the cover, of course). and Zoo.

So, if you're mutant enough, have it served your way. Personally, the last couple of days have found me wondering where it was I lost my tail and being erotically stimu lated by frogs. Not to mention constantly musing on strange thoughts, like the course Western Civilization might have taken if Jesus had emerged from the tomb wearing a polyester jump suit and dancing the poot. It's just a question of extracting the root—YOU GOTTA POOTY POO-POO, YOU GOTTA POOTY POO-POOT1!

j.m. bridgewater

CHICAGO Hot Streets (Columbia)

Chicago? Hell, this is man's music: a special taste, for the type of guy who makes a big deal about zipping up his fly on the way out of the men's room...guys who like naugahyde upholstery and Steak 'n' Brew, and Angel's Flight pants, and vl/ho still refer to the group as CTA. Well, don't worry—fans of this group will not be disappointed by Hot Streets, because after twelve successful albums, there is no appreciable difference in this group's sound.

To start, there is the same chanting of banal lyrics—in "Love Was New": "Remember when we were first falling in love/How we planned all the things we would do/Beautiful days/Nights all ablaze/Hoping our dreams would come true..." There are those same "moody" tempo changes, the chord progressions, the way songs change key in mid bar, and move up half a step, to finish with those meandering but "powerful" horns...yep, it's all here, everything we were promised with "Does Anybody Know What Time It Is? As Cora says, when you find something that works, stick with it. They have.

There may be some differences in the production values of Hot Streets, produced by Phil Ramone and Chicago, and those albums produced by James Guercio, although they are not great enough differences to set this album apart. (Unfortunately, the record company was unable to provide me with any information as to why Guercio

didn't produce Hot Streets.) There are some interesting touches, like the George Harrison-esque steel guitar on "Gone, Long Gone", or the ve*y obvious "Shaft" opening and soul riffs on "Alive Again". And Walt Parazaider deserves credit for providing one of the few interesting moments, a small flute solo in the middle of "Hot Streets". This group is strong, musically. Their mistake was in trying to create a synthesis of two very complex idioms, jazz and rock, without ever bothering to master either. It is not surprising, though; that in a nation of musical illiterates, Chicago can put over their piecemeal methodology as a powerful force in the current of mainstream pop. Remember, there are a lot of young adults around who consider the Moody Blues and Emerson, Lake and Palmer classical musicians. Well, at least no one can ever accuse Chicago of being a bunch of eccentrics. Oddly enough, Guercio visited CBGB's one night several years ago. Television, young and as yet unsigned, was playing a remarkable set. "How did he like them?" I asked a friend, eagerly, after Guercio had left.

"Like them?" snarled my friend. "He said they stunk on ice!" What? Television—brilliant, innovative, exciting, passionately involved albeit unpredictable at times, but still —magic is magic, and—I looked at my friend, stunned.

"He didn't like them? Well...well ...what does he like?" I stuttered angrily.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Chicago.

Fran Pelzman

LYNYRD SKYNYRD Lynryd Skynyrd's First And...Last _(MCA)

Post-mortem records are usually stiffs in more ways than one; sloppy mishmashes of eighteenth-rate stuff "just out of the can" (garbage, that is) dredged up and dished out by record companies anxious to see if there is cash after death. Yet First And...Last isn't bad at all, probably because Lynryd Skynyrd planned to release these tapes of their first recording sessions (Music Shoals, circa 1970) all along. (By some eerie coincidence, they'd started re-

mixing a couple of months before the plane went down.)

Three of the nine tracks here do sound pretty dated: ex-drummer Rickey Medlocke's wimpy "White Dove" and "The Seasons", and Rossington and Van Zant's message-y "Things Goin' On." But I can see why they were proud of this music. Skynyrd's best material made up in drama what it lacked in virtuosity, and the Muscle Shoals tapes have enough piss, hellfire and angst to keep a team of Faulkners supplied with years of raw material. Van Zant is singing about guilt, lust, father-son confrontations, and his voice sounds lean and hungry, with none of that lazy, self-satisfied growl of his later work. The Rossington-Collins-King guitar army gets a little sloppy at times, the three of them playing like they've listened to Wheels Of Fire a few too many times, but generally they whip out those riffs like a bunch of Cuisinarts on liquefy.

This was their first shot, and they shot well; I wouldn't trade Van Zant's randy "Preacher's Daughter" or the brooding, churning "Was I Right Or Wrong" for anything on Street Survivors. First And...Last may not come close to the depths suggested by Gary Rossington's icy, defiant stare (check the "before" snapshot on the front cover), but it's not a bad way to go out at all.

Daisann McLane

BEACH BOYS M.I.U. Album (Brother)

M.LU. (Maharishi International University) is surely one of the Midwest's finest educational institutions. Chancellor M.M. Yogi has set sadistic academic standards second only to the Council Bluffs Picayune-Times college-at-home program (located next to "Dear Meg" in the Wheatstyle section). The lovely campus, formerly a meat processing plant, features plenty of room to think and charming fences in place of dormitories. Although competition is de-emphasized here, M.I.U.'s meditation team, the Tractor Seats, captured the NCAA Division 92 championship by a full sixteen thoughts (a new record) over the rugged chal-

lengers from Eddie's Bible Skool of East Moline.

Since brainstorms hover like monstrous jellyfish hankies over M.I.U.'s cornfed campus, it's no wonder the Beach Boys chose it as the hallowed ground on which to put down their latest stack-otracks. The existence of a reekingnew, trillion dollar recording studio, financed by the pennies of Indian schoolchildren and located in the former blood tank, is purely coincidental. Like life itself, eh, Maha? But you'd think that with the two doughboys, two burnouts, a striped Jardine and hoards of worker beelike Maharishlings, they'd come up with an album that's somewhat more substantial than say, Totie Fields' last breath.

Meditate on. The M.I.U. Album bites the wicked waheenie. Another collection of trivial Brian Wilson tunes, slow-moving covers ("Peggy Sue" is a disgrace to homrims), idiotic Jardine/Love compositions and Dennis Wilson teardrop anchors, it has all the excitement of a web of circumstantial evidence. Worst of all is the incessant cuteness of most of the material. Even Mr. Rogers would pack up his hypno-eyes and leave the neighbor-. hood if he had to listen to goonwipe like "Pitter Patter" ("pitter patter, pitter patter, pitter patter, ooo" and more!), "Belles Of Paris" (hear them lonesome pigeons coo) or the total poodle-degradation of "Hey Little Tomboy." I bet you could put some perfume and cutoffs on' a hyena carcass and Unca Mike'd still jump on it.

This padded showroom of tinkertunes and baby hats is so sickeningly sweet, they should call it Momrock. Only Moms or child psychologists could sit through a whole side of it before being set upon by a destructive urge to knit somebody. POPULAR CASEWORKER BRUTALLY KNITTED BY "WRITER!" "Just A Prank!" Says Felon.

Let's all get together and hope that the next time the Blub Boys put the initials M.I.U. on an album, it stands for something completely different: MADE IN UGANDA!

Rick Johnson

HALL AND OATES Along The Red Ledge _(RCA)_

Sometimes a Freudian slip can give you a whole shift of perspective. Opening this one, I wrote "Hall and Oates' Living On The Fault Line"—and was halfway thru paragraph uno (this 'un) before I stopped and did a double take. "Hold it dummy, that's the Doobie Brothers!"—so I erased, wrote "Along The Red Ledge," and went on...

But I had stumbled onto something there. My original lead had been an explainer of this duo's eclecticism. Okay, so this L.P. shows 'em as all-El-Lay and eclecticas-ices; it should, they've been at said impasse for three, four elpees awready. But when they're naming new product with a formulaic title so familiar it melts into the massmarket place without a hookworthy hitch, what we are witnessing is a rampant case of Stasis. Ergo, a bit of Stasis-Assessing would seem to be in order.

Now, among the happy hooligans who hum these honchos' hokum (help!), I was one of those who cottoned to 'em along about Abandoned Luncheonette. And—caveat reader!—I still think their point of departure lies where the music and lyrics seem to take off together in metocomic mood dances of peaks and valleys that aren't always,clearly cohesive songs but make great mini-symphonies. Pop opera? Perhaps; but unlike Queen syrup, Hall and Oates stripped it down to that basic of one Motown-inten^e vocal at a time. And compelling soul can go down as a treat in these days of disco:..

But in considering this effort, that yardstick leads to trouble. Take the credits (please). The Basic Band is late-of-Elton plus extras; the Special Guest Stars are both Too Many and Too Much, including Robert Fripp and Todd Rundgren and Rick Nielsen—to name three out of ten. If you think Daryl or John needed that sorta stuff when at their best (or; live), yer worse'n whistlin' Dixie. Sure it's impressive; if they wanted to dissolve into the walls, they sure picked a good way to go—declining with a touch of class. But as it is, the chops herein are like the hot air that keeps a deflating dirigible off the ground.

That "deflating dirigible" being the songs—and if you want to know from forgettable, you couldn't have come to a better place. The best cut for my money is "August Day," and even there the words are as cliche-romantic as you'd expect from anything with that title but at least some of the old feel is there. In fact, that one cut reveals many of the flaws inherent in the whole. There's none of the Robert Fripp fire, none of the Roger Pope rock drumrolls, none of the heavy stuff hanging on the other nine tunes— and it's the only worthwhile song or production on the entire effort, simply because they stripped all

CHAMP CHOMPS CHUMP DUMP

that filler away and left a shining vocal front and center. Once Hall and Oates had albumsful of that ingredient to keep the occasional humble verse afloat; now it seems to be only a fondly-remembered rarity. And the lower-class lyrics are the albumsful. Alas.

So what's the rest of the album like, you ask? Okay, if I must. There's a pleasant and forgettable first side which is never quirky or reaching enough and wastes good musicians' sweat via pverproduction; and there's two rock songs that don't work because that wasn't H&O's style in the first place; and there's a ballad to Gershwin that winds up real irresolute-^-you come out unsure whether they'd really rather have Carnegie Hall rockihg or make Madison Square Garden classy-Cale...do me a favor, wouldbe devotee, save yer bux and buy Abandoned Luncheonette.

, Vicki Taylor

BLONDIE Parallel Lines (Chrysalis)

Deborah Harry is the eternal urban surf queen riding the concrete curl smack into the eternal skyscraper wall with an eternal smile and a casual shrug of her eternally pale shoulders. She hangs ten and surprises the teendegeneracy with

the bamboozle of beauty. Just like Annette Funicello reflected the passions of the 60's and the passions of all those Jr. Aldo Ray beach bumtypes, Debbie reflects the passionless morality of the 70's and the passionless nonchalance of all'those Jr. Johnny Rotten city bumtypes who've been so busy peeking around, the comers of tomorrow they've lost sight of themselves and the true potentials of the here and pow. I mean they call it the new wave don't they, so why not have a punk surf band?

Besides, Ms. Harry ain't exactly the Potato Bug. As a matter of fact, she's the big league blonde every era needs. As a matter of fact, she's just plain HOT. With an awkward femoral flash and the ever-present

painted pout on her lips (which are by far the best in the biz, even better than Freddie Mercury's!), she's managed to become the inevitable in suburban femininity while maintaining a slick pose as the streetcorner chanteuse supreme.

On her first LP she was the sonic bitch everyone wanted and needed, playing the dumb blonde role to the hilt, playing the anti-intellectual with a sensual "huh!" and proclaiming that she was gonna be the sex symbol for a generation out of touch with its own sexuality. On Plastic Letters she made many hanker for those heydays of heydays (when heyday meant HEYDAY and not just heyday), causing people to wonder about what had really happened to the girl groups and retranslating the need for a Ronnie Spector, albeit in the context of a safety pin aesthetic.

Parallel Lines proves once and for all that Bubble Gum music was, is, and always will be the fountainhead for most other musical forms, whether it be heavy metal, or even New Wave. Her link up with Mike Chapman of the infamous Chinn/ Chap team is a stroke of genius, not because Chapman can produce, a record and make it sound big league, but because the garage sound of Richard Gotterher was annoying in that you knew it wasn't really recorded in a garage. Besides, Chapman lends that aura of Saturday morning cartoon insanity to Blondie's music, thereby transporting it into another context, one that is based on the sexual myths of Isis and Kristy McNichols which are, after all, the real sexual myths of the 70's.

Parallel Lines has its moments, but somehow they never really seem to meet and create that overall magic that'd make this a truly exceptional record. The magic is there on songs like "Just Go Away," which sports a classic lyric of sorts: "Ya got a big mouth and Fm happy to see/Your foot is firmly entrenched where a molar should be ..."; when was the last time you actually heard "entrenched" used as a lyric in a song, eh? "Fade Away And Radiate," with ace oddite Robert Fripp on guitar, is a song which, if given the right kinds of cultural exposure, could create a new way to say goodbye—instead of "later," we just might end up saying "say, fade away and radiate man!!!"

But along with those magic moments are the fecal moments: "11:59" is as conceptually old as the New Testament; and "Pretty Baby" unfortunately has nothing to do with Brooke Shields and a tot to do with being a silly song. So when those parallel lines do converge and Blondie becomes the caretaker of the concrete we'll met at the house of the rising sun, play ritual games of mutual destruction, and sing to the glee of the city.

Joe Fernbacher