SEX PISTOLS

The Great Rock 'N' Roll Swindle

(Virgin Import)

by Mitch Cohen

Eddie Cochran's "Something Else" is a funny song about class distinction and aspiration, about what to settle for (the not quite ideal car) and what not to settle for less than (the dream girl). On The Great Rock 'N' Roll Swindle, the Sex "Pistols soundtrack/epitaph, the late Sid Vicious sings it in a goofy, boyish voice that more than any press post-mortem (except Lester Bangs' Village Voice report), more than Vicious' mangling of the thick-headed "My Way" ("To think/I killed a cat"what a pathetic claim of callousness), made, me feel something vivid about his life and death—not sadness, more like fierce rage about the wastefulness of misdirected rock emotion.

★ ★ ★

When you make,, a sincere gesture even one calculated to offend, and you get shot down (or worse, sloughed off)y it's human nature to. cover your vulnerability by saying you were only fooling. The assertion-of this album notwithstanding —the title song, which brags about how their early record labels gave them the sack but still turned over the loot; the trashing of the songs that established them; the ragged, ranting, inept squalling through rock classics—it's very hard to believe that the Sex Pistols were kidding. Not when you hear how Johnny Rotten vents his venom at the hopeful folk tale "Johnny B. Goode," turning it into inarticulate blather: rock's primal narrative mutated into babble; or hear the Pistols' live version of "Belsen Was A Gas," recorded in San Francisco on their brief U.S. tour. This is frightening music. "Kill yourself/Be a man." Just how seriously did Rotten tqke being a Sex Pistol? How seriously did Vicious?

★ ★ ★

If album sequence follows the film's scenario, then The Great Rock 'N' Roll Swindle (oversell even in crass self-exposure; you'd think there was never a Grand Funk), or Who Killed Bambi?, is the fourth movie that has "Rock Around The Clock" as its opening song. Maybe no future, but certainly ties to tradition. Rotten proceeds to shiv his reverse-image namesake B. Goode. "Fuck, it's awful," he shouts, and he's right. Stops and starts, gibberish, then J, Richman's "Roadrunner," half-fueled. Two other older songs are well-selected: Townshend's "Substitute" and. Boyce and Hart's "I'm Not Your Steppin' Stone." Both are pure Pistolian resentment and rancor and are therefore auteuristically valid, if aesthetically clumsy.

★ ★ ★

The theme here is cynical exploitation, so maybe Russ Meyer's diabolical dialecticism would have been appropriate for the Pistols' movie (the five W's of which I just don't know) after all. And yet, despite their name, this was as non-erotic a significant rock iband 'as any in memory. Roffen's vocal tantrums, his whine for attention, his cry of the Id, were pre-sexual. A true child of the damned, a huge, demanding infant. But he isn't on this album much. The Pistols were in shambles when Swindle was assembled, so the LP's group is essentially Steve JoneS and Paul Cook, Ronald Biggs, manager Malcolm McLaren (he sings, Val Doonican style, "You Need Hands") and assorted others in what turns out to be a four-sided, unprincipled autopsy report.

★ ★ ★

Never Mind The Bollocks is already in the bargain bins, its pink and green cover now adorned with a $2.99 sticker, screaming commercial failure, the failure of action, attitude, alternative. May the Clash fare better (a fair bet: Who-like hard rock professionalism seems in-bred). Meanwhile, Swindle is a brazen reassessment, and an admission that for all the slagging of rock aristocracy (reiterated here) the Sex Pistols couldn't topple the Jaggers, Stewarts, and McCartneys of the world. The Gallic interpretation of "L'Anarchie Pour Le U.K.," "EMI" recited like Re.x Harrison in My Fair Lady by Jones over an orchestral arrangement, the "God Save The Queen" overture and the sacreligious burble of the discoPistols hits medley all mock the fury of the originals. Then, however, there's a real "Anarchy In The U.K.," and damned if the power isn't there, that musical chainsaw massacre. The journalistic consensus that in 1977 Bollocks topped My Aim Is True for achievement and promise still seems shortsighted to these ears, but this passion can't be denied. It makes a lie of the line that it was all a lie. Some swindle.

★ ★ ★

The Great Rock TV' Roll Swindle i6, to steal a phrase, pretty vacant. Like tpost film-tracks, it lacks a certain dimension. Like most tworecord sets, it needs editing. It abounds in gags ("Friggin' In The Riggin'," a baudy sea shanty), sloppiness, disposable pop (Cook and Jones' new songs, "Silly Thing" and "Lonely Boy") and hardly makes a convincing case for the Sex Pistols as sultans of shock. The charitable will call if) a document. The cruel will call it a shameless shuck. What it is, is product. What the Sex Pistols were, it's too soon to judge. Let's just say less than great, more than formidable.

ROLL OVER COSTELLO (And Tell Nick Lowe The News)

GRAHAM PARKER AND THE RUMOUR Squeezing Out Sparks (Arista)

by Richard Riegel

Graham Parker must be the eternal bonus baby of rock 'n' roll; he's long since justified the figurative bonus America's rock writers laid on him in 1976, when they voted his very first tfcvo albums into second and fourth places in the Voice Critic Poll, but he hasn't yet earned a place in the starting rotation of the States' front office-dominated AOR turntable.

Worse, Parker may've been bumped off the bull pen bench altogether by the suddenly all-consuming triumph of his countryman and contemporary, lElvis Costello. Since Parker and Costello share , startlingly similar vocal textures, rhythmic gifts in resentment-stoked lyrical cleverness; if Parker got to record first, Costello has become significantly more popular here in the short run, thanks in part to his gratuitous good fortune and a) being covered by Linda Ronstadt and b) happening to be one more intensely intellectual soul who records on Columbia's invincibly-American red label, a Pavlovian set-up that rings Dylan/Springsteen bells in millions of U.S. bands' psyches.

Still, Parker also shares Costello's most endearing trait, an unswerving belief in the righteousness of his own self expression; Parker knows how precisely true, his aim is, and it's up to everyone else to recognize that fact. So all five Graham Parker albums comprise one consistently rewarding body of work; if you didn't like Stick To Me as much, that was probably only because it had to follow the astoundingly tough acts of Howlin' Wind and Heat Treatment, and if Parkerilla seemed like a prematurely time-marking live album, who could blame Parker for taking a second shot at shoving his amazing stuff under the recalcitrant consufners' noses?

Squeezing Out Sparks is emphatically true to its title. Parker's moved to a new label, but the Rumours survive their sojourn in Carlene Carter Country intact, and were more than ready to squeeze out ten more tough sparks through Jack Nitzsche's straight-ahead production. Titles like "You Can't Be Too Strong" and "Don't Get Excited" are-pump-it-up reiterations of Parker's stubborn demeanor. "Love Gets You Twisted," with its obsessive dissection of interpersonal relationships, is perhaps the biggest Costello-echo on this set, but it also suggests that barker is less willfully class conscious than Elvis the kvepch-is.

"Discovering Japan" is a captivating LP-opener, as its riki-tiki background twang seems to chart out that same Far Eastern territory Eno discovered in his forced march up the (albeit Chinese) Tiger Mountain. "Local Girls" contains a droll couplet that could give Mr. Costello a run for his misogynous moolah—"She's probably half witted/ Most likely strange"-*—while the infectious "Waiting For The 'YouFous' " suggests what Parker may decide to do if this album doesn't overtake E.C.'s latest broadside. (Then again,' judging by Parker's unprecedented rookie-year Voice sweep, he may have been dropped on us Mork-style, from a you-fou, in the first place.)

Memo to Arista: Pull the smashingly brain wave rhythmic "Passion Is No Ordinary Word" as the G. Parker single, and you could heat treat many a domestic raydio over the next few months.

ROXY MUSIC

Manifesto

(Atco)

It was back in the early 70's when, after a few months of being surrounded by movies like Accident, The Servant, Death In Venice and The Damned, that my colleague Herr Fernbacher happened upon the discovery of the continental suburban character-type and its role in the crumbling of modern civilization. It was noted that the traditional well-bred; suave European model had gone through some kind of transformation out of the Yves Montand/Laurence Harvey good/ bad axis and into a new realm. The rise of the suburbs had taken away the notion of the weary world traveller in the various metropolises of the world; the new breed was formed, of a new strain, a world weary non-traveller. Between the two parameters of behavioral patterns exemplified by Alan Bates and Oliver Reed in Women In Love, was the new embodiment of existential angst caused by suburban living, namely Dirk Bogarde. Bogarde's whole spirit in many movies has embodied the netherlands located halfway between the domains of Apollo and Dionysus: the hint of decadence behind the gates of the stately mansion; the drab life so seemingly well-ordered and yet: so frighteningly unhinged; the sentimental longing for some aberration or sheer recklessness of one's actions clamped vice-like by overriding intelligence, guilt, and knowledge and fear of consequences.

It has always been my feeling that Bryan Ferry is about the closest thing to a Dirk Bogarde figure that rock has ever producfed. It is not too surprising that Ferry's solo albums have never really come close in spirit to any of Roxy Music's LPs, for somehow the Roxy set-up—with Manzanera, MacKay and Thompson all being able to construct contrasting landscapes while always retaining a solid, identifiable core—seems best fitted to Ferry's refined tension. Perhaps the most surprising thing about Manifesto is how little it sounds like it should have sounded, namely just something for all involved to do because none of the reunited members had exactly been tearing things up on their own. Manifesto simply picks up where Siren left off three years ago, with Ferry still caught between street life and country life, unable to comfortably connect with either, let alone exist therein. It's an ambitious effort, and just may be the truest picture yet of Ferry's uncomfortably scattered musical and psychological philosophies.

The ironies abound right from the title cut. "Manifesto" is anything but a definitive statement of purpose, as Ferry simply checks possibilities, any or none of which could be valid for survival in the modern world ("I am for a life around the corner/That takes you by surprise...I am for a life at time by numbers..."). "Still Falls The Rain" finds Ferry splitting in two for a schizophrenic monodialogue, the romantic: wistfulness filled "doctor" attacked in mid-song by his darker side—"Call . me mister/Call me Hyde." But the crux of the matter comes with the last three songs on side two. "Dance Away" covers the same sequence of events as "Both Ends Burning" did, except that the band's performance of it, with simulated disco dance floor effect (the song stops completely, reverts to its bass drum and congas intro, then rebuilds from the top), raises it to much more intriguing ground. "Dance away the heartache, dance away the tears," sings Ferry, but then "Cry, Cry, Cry" has him fighting back with a vengeance as Andy MacKay pulls off a more than credible one-man imitation of the Stax horn section. But then comes the album's finale, "Spin Me 'Bound," and white-jacketed Bryan is alone in the ballroom, a dozen dying roses at his feet. "The dream is over, why can't I wake?" he asks as the music slowly turns around and around in a late night swoon. "Lend a hand," begs Ferry at the end, and once again he's back where he started—alone, unsure, sad, hopeful. Back on the periphery, watching the sunset with wet eyes, waiting at the end of the line, stranded. It's hard to believe that Ferry and company can go so far with constant examinations and re-examinations of the same few themes. But then, again, when you're trapped in the suburban nightmare, in that space between fantasy and reality, there's plenty of time to try and deal with all the repressed desires and hostilities. And out of repression comes a work of art. And Manifesto is certainly that.

Billy Altman

BOB WELCH Three Hearts (Capitol)

Some good Sanka-drinkin' music here, folks! Not like sticking your head in the peeper cage first thing in the morning or anything like that. 'Bout time too, I was getting so tired of spinning Billy Joel or Joel Billy while regressing through Robert Young's career each A.M.: Marcus Welby, M.D....Father Knows Best ...weird movies about sullen aviators...

Back to Reality! Really now, this is what you call an "acceptable second effort." My ex-girlfriend had her own ideas as to what an "acceptable second effort" consisted of, but this record won't make any demands on you like that. Just a bunch of sorta pretty ducklingimpulse love songs occasionally interrupted by industrial sabotage. The Big Beat is what I mean.

Good stuff first: a pair of friendly little poppers, "Precious Love" and "Little Star," likeable songs with bite-size hooks. "Oh Jenny" is kind of a nice ballad, pretty, but don't bother to pull the blinds. She won't. Plus, the title track is a radio rocker solid enough that, with any luck at all, will scare off the Phantom of MOR.

But Life Is Not Decaffeinated, as they say, and Three Hearts has got some bad, bad beans. Not to fly off the handle or anything, but HOW DARE THIS STUPID CREEP even try to remake the ever-great "I Saw Her Standing There"?!! Has to slow it down, queer up the beat and everything—this is not the song that rubbed beehives on my spine when first heard on a car radio in the dark somewhere near Dyer, Indiana. This IS Dyer, Indiana.

'Course, Welchie should know about pointless remakes. After all, this is the guy who remade his own goddam song ("Sentimental Lady") and he couldn't stop there. Oh no, him and his F. Mac cronies had to perform the same blandectomy on "Come Softly To Me," killing all the feelings like so many household germs. To say that Welch's voice is plain is like saying that people in Detroit sometimes forget their table manners on the street. In fact, a fish locater was needed to determine the nature of Bob's voice on several of these tracks. Smallmouth bass, near as I can tell. And is this turkey ugly, why this guy—

(Robert Young steps in calmly) and calls a halt to (he proceedings:) "What's the matter with Rick this morning?" "Oh, the doctor told him caffeine makes him irritable, but him listen?" "Has he ever tried... Bob Welch?" "Nah, I think he's gonna switch to prunes." "Is one enough? Is three too many?"

Rick Johnson

JOE JACKSON Look Sharp! (A&M)

1979 started out drenched in disco but as the months bumble by, it's looking better and better. True, there's lotsa new groups styxing to proven formulas but there've also been plenty of major record company debuts by artists intent on being themselves.

Like this guy, Joe Jackson. You could put him next to the Police, the Jam and early Elvis the Caustic and he'd feel right at home—in other words, he doesn't. You could tag him as English, outfront and yeah, sharp—but after a couple of listens, the labels come off and not because of shoddy workmanship.

Mainly, you'll just listen to his songs—sparse farces about real life hassles, half of which stem from those thorny opposite sexers. His vbice is always way up in the mix, pretty risky unless you've got the tunes and the ability to put 'em across. Joe does.

And he just lays 'em out, one right after the other. "One More Time" updates "That'll Be The Day" the way Ronstadt never could and you're on your way. Next he sings about his mom's spastic eye with a straight face but even that doesn't set you up for the opening line of "Is She Really Going Out With Him?": "Pretty women out walking with gorillas down my street." Huh and double huh?? Turns out Jackson belongs to the dress/impress school of would-be pick-uppers and he can't hack the thought of all these clods scoring when he's not. "Something's going wrong around here," he shakes his head. Ha! Doesn't he know that slobs make better lovers because they like gettin' sloppy?

No, he doesn't; he makes dates with his tailor instead. Bad for him, good for us—lack of satisfaction leads to good rock 'n' roll. So he attacks couples that are making it, his own libido, supermarket gigs, and the rush rush, proving himself a well-rounded screwball (with a few sharp edges) in the process. With more people like Joe Jackson on the radio, '79 just might turn out to be fine.

Michael Davis

THE GODZ Nothing Is Sacred (Millenium)

While most of you impressionable lemmings have been getting all wrapped up in last week's instant wonders, Devo, and the accompanying Akron, OH, rock community, something of real and lasting import—possibly the biggest phenom since Grand Funk— has been fermenting down the road in Columbus, OH, the geniune heart of Midwestern crunch and grind heavy duty blastoid music mania. I am referring, of course, to the ultimate religious experience presently available io the masses—the Godz of rock 'n' roll. I already know this as fact because metal music never went away here in Texas (the Sex Pistols are considered a temporary aberration down here; subsequent punkoids lumped in the same heap, too). San Antonio replaced Cleveland years ago as the hard rock capital of the U.S.A. and the Voice of S.A.—KMAC-AM, the best AM hard rock station in the nation—plays the Godz each and every day as they have been doing for the last year and a half. If it's good enough to listen to in the car then it's good enough to listen to at home is the way I figure it, especially since you can't get arrested for driving blind in your living room divan.

All regional polemics aside, this is the era of image in rock; the way you look counts a helluva lot more than what you say, or so the shingle at the local barbershop espouses. And image-wise, the Godz are the best development since self-rising biscuits: Without a doubt they are the ugliest band in rock 'n' roll; so ugly that lest real photographs depict their authentic slovenly selves and blow their cover, drawings were used on their first album. Whereas other bands of their ilk might attempt to cover up their physical deformities, the Godz milk such grotesqueries to the max advantage. Like Eric Moore (ugliest rock star since Jim Dandy Mangrum put on false teeth) explains on "Snakin'," the toe-tappin' continuation of their Rock 'n' Roll Machine boogie rap that started on "Gotta Keep A Runnin' " from their first album, the Godz may not be real smart or pretty, but they've got the basics of modern living—fucking, doping, and rocking—down pat.

Consider: until now, nobody's given quaaludes an even break in poem or song. Hey, everybody's always putting 'em down but putting 'em in their mouths at the same time. "714" js the first such song to tell it like it is without apologies, extolling its temporal benefits when compared to attending high school.

Consider: until now, every jackedup boogie band since Savoy Brown has been copping the same riffs from the legacy of Elmore James and John Lee Hooker (worse, twerps like George Thorogood actually attempt to imitate these arthritic masters word for word). At least the Godz have the imagination to make the basic 12-bar rotgut progression all their own by creating the first truly contemporary blues couplet in 30 years with "When I want a little lovin' you tell me I gotta wait/The head that I've been gettin' ain't worth the bitchin' that I take".

Consider: until now, no one (except one obscure unrelated band that made a couple of albums for the oh-so-obscure ESP label in the dark ages of the 60's) has had the nerve to bestow upon themselves the lofty (moniker of Godz and lived to sing about it, i.e., if you're gonna call yourself numero uno, you best be man enough to back up them words.

All things considered, the Godz are the kinda guys who can singe the crust out of your ear canal. They've got long hair, act crazy, ride choppers, and promise their fans that they'll control the world in ten years or less. Whatta platform! Given the choice between a bunch of dormitory wimps duding out in Army surplusvballoon suits and certified heathens like the Godz of rock 'n' roll, you can bet your booty that there ain't gonna be no room at the manger in Ohio for agnostics, come the apocalypse.

Joe Nick Patoski

DWIGHT TWILLEY

Twiiley

(Arista)

Melinda Mae Lumpkin works the night owl/early bird shift at the 1-35 North Denny's. Tulsa-bred—with a forehead not quite thick enough to, qualify her as what we, North Texas natives refer to as an "Okie Dopey"—and a good o!' gal waitress of the classic gum-smacking variety, Melinda Mae has a sandy bird-nest hairdo, Henry Fonda Grapes Of Wrath face, a Knobby Hills chest, and chalky chicken legs. In short, she's the scenic embodiment of a drive through the Oklahoma countryside. But good lord, does she have a voice. Twangy for sure, but always on the edge of breathlessness, with the effect that listening to her with your eyes closed provides an idea of what it would be like to be able to hear yourself drowning in a ginger pool of esoteric sexuality. And she does love to talk. Primarily about her various parking lot rendezvous (like her experience with the guy from the Denton Sears automotive department who insisted on wrapping her in battery eables and then groaned, "Die-hard, Die-hard" throughout their fleshy +ing and -ing), but also of the character foibles of the faces she's seen and served in her waitressing days, which began prior to her departure from Tulsa at the coffee shop of the Trade Winds Motel. In regard to that place, the tale Melinda Mae most enjoys gabbing forth recalls a raven-haired pretty boy whose morning coffee stayed black and turned cold as a result of him catching a glimpse of himself in the aluminum reflection of the cream ewer he was reaching for; a moment of inspiration that provoked a series of pouty puss poses by the willowy lad, which ended when a stout Halliburton driver a couple of stools down the counter growled something about how pansies primping in public ruined his appetite and heave-hoed the ethereally-framed tot out the door by the seat of his skinny-butt dungarees. And, as an addendum to her story, Melinda occasionally sees fit to relate that the kid briefly returned to the coffee shop's entrance to/scream, "You assholes! I'm gonna be a pop, star someday!"

Well, if that was Dwight Twilley—I mean the locale is in prder/ although the time may be suspect— he ain't made it yet.

And probably won't, pr at least shouldn't, on the basis of Twiiley which, while admittedly a rung or two up the ladder from Twiiley Don't Mind, is inconsistent, with Twiiley fluctuating more successfully between mincing imitations of the wistfully vital vulnerability and pulsating sexual innocence of Sincerely and creating such qualities afresh, but fluctuating still.

"Betsy Sue" is the album's most immediate enticement, an incendiary return to the rock-a-twilley style of "T. V." that was absent from Twiiley Don't Mind. One might suggest, since there is obviously a sensibility screw loose somewhere—leading off a pop album with a Genesis in search of Badfinger dirge, "Out Of My Hands," certainly indicates such—that Dwight and band might want to take a flight back to Memphis for further emersion in the Sun catalogue. "Alone In My Room" recycles "I'm On Fire" in fine fashion, a tale of where you go after the fire is gone. "Darlin' " lies somewhere between the Beach Boys and Stories' songs of the same title, and "Runaway" exudes a credible sultriness. The rest of the batch is your basic Blue Star Counterfeit Diamond commercial—bite down hard and eat glass—and could fit anywhere on the next Blue Ash record.

Wherein lies the rub. Twiiley is a pop aspirant to the incandescent glory the Raspberries were able to achieve (I don't ever mention the you-know-who's anymore—waste of breath at this juncture) and early on he seemed to be of the stuff of which Side 3's were made. But these days he's decidedly second division, battling Greg Kihn to stay out of the cellar. The only question I have left to ask, with Melinda Mae's possibly true story and with the cover of Twiiley as palpable evidence is, is there a death named narcissistic narcosis?

j.m. bridgewater

FRANK ZAPPA Sheik Yerbouti

(Zappa)

It's not surprising and only a little disappointing that Zappa's new tworecord set deals with the same old shit. Not surprising because it's been a long time since Zappa surprised anyone and a little disappointing because, after all, this is his own label and everybody knows how, throughout his recording career, Frank has griped about not having enough control over his product. It's disappointing to see such a solid excuse for grubby records disappear.

But even tho it's the same old shit, some of it is fairly good shit. Considering that it's very difficult, almost impossible, to be effectively outrageous these days, what with most constant media suckers having callouses on their tastebuds and a brutalized palate, and considering that the stance of Zappa's satire, the hip sneering at straight ineptness apd the amused leering at sexual aberrations, is continually becoming more dated more rapidly, then it's surprising that the old grouser can pump up his phlegm as often as he does. A piece of inflated slime like "Jewish Princess," wherein Zappa yearns for "A homey little Jewish Princess/With a garlic aroma that could level Tacoma," and weds the snide turn of phrase with a hookish melody, shows that his ability to make crassness hip hasn't entirely deserted him. But more often the scuzz is boring. The anal barbs of "Bobby Brown" and "Broken Hearts Are For Assholes" take a too childish delight in being naughty to satisfy as jokes, let alone songs, while the disco parody of "Dancin' Fool" and the punk parodies "I'm So Cute" and "Trying To Grow A Chin" don't have as much humor as the real thing. Disco is much too silly for light spoofing and punk's conscious anarchy undermines the efforts to make it look pointless.

When Zappa's not trying to be particularly funny, just surrealistic, he's more successful. "Baby Shakes" and "City Of Tiny Lights" generate a pleasant mindless energy and make a pleasing nonlinear musical statement simply because they are independent of the kind of extraneous attachment to an idea that keeps the satires from taking off. It's here that Zappa's originality can flow freely, allowing him to create his own sublimely silly world without worrying about making any points.

The instrumental cuts, which feature Zappa's guitar, are as disappointing as the comedy stuff. He's done it all, cleaner and with more ideas, elsewhere.

It's a pretty mixed bag, but the dull cuts outnumber the solid ones. The eclecticism that once made Zappa's music seem brilliantly kaleidoscopic now make it seem hopelessly limited. The widely scattered shots keep hitting the same targets. And the targets quit moving years ago.

Richard C. Walls

BAD COMPANY Desolation Angels (Swan Song)

This disc is highly recommended listening for all solo club and wedding reception performers who wish to go into the field of heavy metal. Because, troubadours, this is the definitive long-awaited demo of a new electronic device that's expected to hit the market in time for the fearly summer wedding and prom rush. I'm telling you, this baby is gonna get you bookings like you would not believe.

What I am talking about is a little thing called the Lanin, a truly ingenious bit of sound reinforcement gadgetry that the high tech boys at MXR have been developing on the hush-hush for a couple of years now.

The Lanin is a little box with a foot switch that connects to any electric or amplified acoustic guitar. Kick it in and Look Out! Your simple chords magically turn into full-blown Bad Company arrangements, complete with preprogrammed sexy rock 'n' roll lyrics voicesimulated in a timbre exactly like Paul Rodgers'. Very simple to operate, too. No tone controls, just on and off. Think of it as a very heavy Rhythm Ace that doesn't do chachas...you get the picture.

This beauty has performed like a dream in test marketing; musicians who have played around with it have raved. One act called Foreigner raved all the way to the bank—a couple of times—and now, as you'll hear on this record, even Bad Company itself has given the Lanin a crank. And now they say they don't know how they ever got along without it. Swear by the thing.

So, push and pester your local musical instrument retailers. Be the first in your area to get that Bad sound. People will notice. And you can bet they'll stop asking for "Hava Nagilla."

Kevin Doyle

TIN HUEY Contents Dislodged During Shipment (Warner Bros.)

Like forlorn retreads scattered on a desolate highway, melting against the simmering pavement while clouds of burping rubber darken the scene with malodorous discontent, the remaining bands still sloshing in the wake of the Buckeye Brouhaha may never receive the attention heaped upon Cleveland's dum-dum Dead Boys or Akron's gimmicky Devo. Too bad, because Tin Huey graces Ohio's parade of proletarians like a peacock spreading its plumage.

As with most semi-prog bands of recent vintage, Tin Huey's music sounds like Capt. Beefheart jamming with Steely Dan punctuated by disconcerting blows to the head. If you've heard one artsy-fartsy clone, you've heard 'em all, sez the Voice of Reason: except that Tin Huey doesn't get quite as bogged down with conceptual fakery as, say, MX-80 Sound or the Residents. By acknowledging its status as a progressive clone, this band avoids the pitfall of self-promotion through propaganda ("D-E-V-O")—its EPs were on Clone Records; Huey's Chris Butler, as a member of the Waitresses, recorded "Clone" (Akron's anthem); Harvey Gold (Huey's Mr. Wizard) cloned a single of John Cale's "I Keep A Close Watch"— not to mention the cloning of Robert Wyatt's version of "I'm A Believer" on this very album.

Except for the purple techno-psychedelics of Pere Ubu, the music on side two of Contents Dislodged is the tightest and best formulated rock yet to emerge from the Dada state. "Hump Day," "Squirm You Worm," "Puppet Wipes"—all are eccentric leaps onto a twisting Tilta-Whirl, pitching and tossing in the turbulence of a helicopter's propeller. Most of Tin Huey's material shares the off-center sound (and humor) of a '76 single, "Drano In Your Veins" (on the Mustard label), by Cleveland's Poli Styrene Jass Band, which with light Eno-doodling related ugly (but funny) tortures through the squeals of a castrated zombie.

Surprisingly, what was the strongest cut on the Overdone Akron Compilation LP (Stiff Import) is also the most power-packed on this album—"Slide," written by Chris Butler. Tin Huey has speeded up the tempo of the Waitresses' original version, putting more emphasis on/the clean glide of the slide guitar than the muddy blues of the mouth harp. I prefer the Waitresses' sloppy attempt, but there's absolutely no reason why Tin Huey's tidy version could not be a Top 40 hit (with Dr. Johnny Fever jabbering a stream of banalities during the sliding parts).

Besides the horde of Akron bands (Tin Huey at the top), another eminent conceptual artist resides in the Rubber City. Ernest Angley is his name, and faith healing is his game. TV's Ernest Angley Hour is an evangelical ballet featuring Ernest the Dancing Angel sashaying around a gaudy set of potted ferns and velvet curtains while ad-libbing lightning syllables in an unknown tongue. And in syncopation with his speech, quietly in the background, accompanying his every swish, the music of Tin Huey inspires Ernest to dance, dance, dance.

Robot A. Hull

BEACH BOYS L.A. (Light Album) (Caribou/CBS)

E: "Well it's been buildin' up inside of me for...." A: "Oh I don't know..." B: "How long..."

En route from L.A. to 'Frisco near the coast a few months back, I stopped in Pismo Beach t' score some food, unleaded gas, facsimiles of both/either; Pismo's this real grey place supposedly renowned for its clams (sea food) but locals're in an uproar, something to do with sea otters and otter migration southward (from Morro Bay),threatening the extermination of clams, their elimination as a natural Pismo resource, etc., etc. In a coffee shop just off the highway, met this geezer-middle-aged beach casualty (looked like he'd washed up with the tide more than once) by the name, of Chris Haizman. A real hepcat, too: he had a Yamaha acoustic gtr. and an Endless Summer songbook, wanted t' know if I could strum some of "Don't Worry Baby" while he chirps the words. The consummation of such has this guy unraveling brain-case anecdotes (for ex., about meeting Brian at a candy, store and an ensuing fight over a piece of chocolate that fell on the ground; and so forth), 'been moaning about how "they've lost their exuberance, their sensibility of fun-fun-fun..." Finally he yields the punch line, a fury encased in verse:

THE BEACH MEN

They're old and they're weak With minds that are thin No longer the Beach Boys Now they're Beach Men.

Real viable, this Beach Men theory. Brian still plays in the sandbox, but the rest of 'em convalesce, stupefied in old age mediocrity minds that are thin, that's for sure. Thjs new album single-handedly annihilates the sand and surf reality w/the most wretched batch of M.O.R.-fuck you'd never wanna hang ten for.

Light Album is music for your mom; slow and boring and dull, meticulously insipid. The stack-otracks on this Caribou waxing exudes the pitiful aspects of castrated energy (no guitars) and low-life-lifelessness.

Save for the lone Brian Wilson tune, "Good Timin'," actually an all reet opus (melody and feeling handin-hand), and "Sumahama Mama," an attempt at melodic arrangement more faithful to the past (ha ha ha), the stinkerinos assembled on this platter stagnate redundantly with massed vocal layering and tiresome orchestral backing tracks (no guitars) ad nauseam.

An 11-minute remake of Wild Honey's "Here Comes The Night" should score points w/disco farts. "Lady Linda" and "Full Sail" might have well as gone disco for alia the excitement tightly impacted into the grooves.

The Beach Men? Light Album waxes post-menopause/oid.

Gregg Turner