ROCK - A - RAMA
SCREAMS (Infinity)::Screams are essentially rather predictable neo-glitter rockers, even if these natives of Peoria, IL, do claim certain enthusiastic N.Y.C.-club residencies their dues-paying past. But there are odd lyrical snatches that make this album worthy of further listening: e.g., "Marc Bolan had it down/Now it's all too late", in "Pop Art".
The CREEM Archive presents the magazine as originally created. Digital text has been scanned from its original print format and may contain formatting quirks and inconsistencies.
ROCK - A - RAMA
This month's Rock-a-ramas were written by Richard Riegel, Michael Davis and Richard C. Walls.
SCREAMS (Infinity)::Screams are essentially rather predictable neo-glitter rockers, even if these natives of Peoria, IL, do claim certain enthusiastic N.Y.C.-club residencies their dues-paying past. But there are odd lyrical snatches that make this album worthy of further listening: e.g., "Marc Bolan had it down/Now it's all too late", in "Pop Art". Yeah, we did forget the T. Rex influence once the new wave broke. Give it an "E" for "eccentric." R.R.
ENRICO RAVA QUARTET—(ECM):: The big difference between this and past Rava/ECM entries is that here he's got ol' Roswell "big banana farts" Rudd to play around with. Tlrumpet, trombone, bass and drums playing a waltz, a march, a Monk and a lot of free improvs. Great for people who like a lot of fun in their seriousness. R.C.W.
NEW ENGLAND (Infinity); DIXON HOUSE BAND—-Fighting Alone (Infinity):: Gloss rock, boss rock, producers' pets/Heavies and harmonies help hedge your bets/Old games, big names behind the boards/Follow the leaders, collect your rewards (repeat until vomiting is induced). M.D.
GROVER WASHINGTON, JR.-Paradise (Elektra)::For a chartbuster, Washington has retained a lot of non-commercial jazz integrity. He's gof solid chops and doesn't hesitate to use them, doesn't bother with voices and strings,gives his sidemen adequate space, and favors a subtle funk approach rather than the heavyhanded kind most jazzbos take up when they get hungry. True, much of the music is airy and lame, but some of it is eloquent and pleasant, and all of it is harmless and inoffensive. Great for barbecues. R.C.W.
ST. PARADISE (Warner Bros.):: Graduates of the Nugent & Montrose Academies off Noise who obviously rqissed the main course. Axe grinder music without the axe; Derek St. Holmes can't cut it as the whole show. M.D.
TINY GRIMES-7-Some Groovy Fours (Classic Jazz):: Bop fiends will remember guitarist Grimes as the leader of Bird's first Savoy date in '44, but he's really a pre-bopper. On this 74 date, staying within the parameters of hep, groovy, and all-reetness, Grimes cooks like a melonfarmer. Groovy fours indeed. R.C.W.
BLACKFOOT—Strikes (Atco)::This is the second or third "debut" album' for these guys, and as much of my belief in Southern-rock as a rebel force went down with Lynyrd Skynyrd's plane, 1 can't get too excited. Oh-yeah, this is good boogie stuff, the same kind the Allman Bros, re-formed to re-crank out, but the fact that Blackfoot cover tunes by Spirit, Free, and Blues Image (!) herein says even more about their generational loyalties than those pissedoff-redneck long hairdos 'they persist in wearing. Still, Cub Koda and H-Bomb Week from Brownsville got in on the production of this LP, so/ all us Michigan-rock partisans should take note: new coalitions are coming. R.R.
CEDAR WALTON—Animation (Columbia), :: Pianist Walton seemed a weird candidate for Columbia's jazz popularization process 'cause if they played it straight (re: Dexter Gordon, Woody Shaw, Heath Bros.), his archetypical post-bop pianistics wouldn't sell ziltch and if they funked him up(re: Herbie Hancock)...well, Walton's too hip to allow himself to becomfe another synthesizer casualty* But what they've done is play it down the middle—funky postbop—and it works. An easy listening record with some meat and imagination. R.C.W.
JOHN HIATT—Slug Line (MCA):: It may not be "cool" for a moderately successful songwriter to jump on the Costello/Parker/Jackson bandwagon but a lot of this sounds pretty good and anyone who cart write lines like, "Martha & The Vandellas taught you how to do as you please/Now all you idiots are dancing with the Bee Gees," is okay by me. M.D.
OVER THE EDGE—Original Soundtrack (Warner Bros.)::Since those "24 Happening Hits" packages that graced the 60's seem to be happening less and less frequently these days, the creative only-the.-hits fan has to pick up the ' prjme compilations where he can. As such, this ostensible movie soundtrack provides four Cheap Trick cuts, two Cars sides, one each by the Ramones and Van Halen* plus certain nonobtrusive filler. Whatever, /these selections go a long way toward defining the state of American hard radio pop in 1979. Good listening f^lls readily to hand! R.R.
MICHAEL GREGORY JACKSON—Gifts (Arista Novus):: Guitarist Jackson's debut as a leader on a major label, is a pleasant surprise since having heard-his sideman work with such avant-gardists as Oliver Lake and Anthony Braxton hardly prepares one for trie generally light tone and melodic emphasis here. Jackson is a composer/arranger of considerable talent, deftly using voicings and mood fluctuations like a natural storyteller. Adventuresome yet eminently accessible, which is a ^dynamite combination. R.C.W.
BRAM tCHAIKOVSKY—Strange Man, Changed Man (Polydor)::Yeah, the Pere Ubuish, socialist-romantic cover art may be a bit of a come-on, as Bram Tchaikovsky are hardly experimental-rockers, even if the new wave did snatch at their pubrock preconceptions as it rolled by. Bram T. used to play guitar for the Motors, and he and his new band are late-pubbers ajl the way: neither so clever nor So acutely focused as Dire Straits, they somehow share that group's English-pop respectability, apd are eminently safe for fans new to the new wave. Pleasantly-ringing folkrock , guitars abound. R.R.
ART FARMER—The Summer Knows (Inner I City):: It sure do. Thisjs about as mellow as you can get without falling to pieces altogether. Farmer's fluegel horn playing is Milesian without Miles' intensity and tension. And if romance without tension . disallows a certain depth of feeling, there's still a lot to be said for uncluttered lyricism. Co-starring Cedar Walton as Mr. Piano (tastefully played, as usual) with Sam Jones (bass) and Billy Higgins (drums) as the laid back tap dancers. R.C.W.
IRON CITY HOUSEROCKERS—Love's So Tough (MCA):: It's going on four years since Bruce's Time/Newsweek twin-cover triumph, and the Springsteenian performers are still crawling out of the bars and garages of MidAmerica. This latest batch of urbansprawl romantics hails from Pittsburgh, PA, Lou Christie's home town, and are at least as entitled to singing about raging highway drjves on endless Chevy nights as any guy outa Nop Joisey. Sensitive-but-tough-but-sensitive-again stances, the kind you've come to know and love. Ancient echoes of J. Geils in the self-contained harp player, etc. Good ol' blues-honk, resurrected by real guys. R.R.
FRANK ZAPPA—Orchestral Favorites (Discreet):: Frank and his crazed .cuckoo clock orchestra are at'it again. Class and crass crash again and again as synthesizers buzz and feedback frolics on top of the orkwork. Kinda the aural equivalent of makin' messy on the guestroom sheets just minutes before your rich relatives from Vienna are due to arrive. M.D.
BITTER BLOOD STREET THEATRE-Vol. 1 & 2 (Vetco):: These days, actual occult rock is even more forgotten, and less mourned, than the acid-R context from whence it sprung, but as these pop styles inevitably go in cycles, we could be up to our holistic anuses in Black Sabbath revival groups in the next few years. So you might as welllchbck out the occult-rock archetypes while they're still handy: the Bitter Blood Street Theatre bucked their native Cincinnati's country-rock mafia for a few years of glory at the turn of the decade, to shower their enthralled audiences with various acts of "ritual majick", mcluding onstage dismemberment of baby dolls (an idea later adopted, with some success, by a skinny B.B. fan called, "Alice"). Bitter Blood contained a veritable Cincinnati Zoo of divergently raving person alities, and these LPs (recorded in the early 70's, but, not released until recently) reflect the band's consequent, monumental' confusion over whether they were the new Jefferson Airplane, or the new Savage Rose, or the new Black Pearl, or simply the same old Cooger & Dark Pandemonium Sh6w. Where else could you hear the redoubtable T.H.O. Knight de claiming his brain, in best Roy Clark lisping stereotype poetic style, or catch inimitable tune titles like "Battle of the Trees" or "Snake and Cave"? Highly recommended to all living alumni of the Lester Bangs So-Bad-It's Good Corre spondence School of Musical Appreciation. Vol. 1 & 2 of the Bitter Blood saga are $6.95 each, postpaid, from Vetco Records, 5825 Vine St., Cincinnati, OH 45216. R.R.
