CLASH London Calling (Epic)

by

Billy Altman

As much as I like and admire the Clash, London Calling leaves me caught in a dilemma that I’m not at all pleased to be in. The problems that I have with the two-record set actually lie somewhat to the outside of the LPs themselves and, because of that, it’s probably better to first discuss the work itself and then get on to what seem to be the more important questions raised by it in regard to the Clash’s self-pledged role in the world.

If it seemed to some that all the musical growth so evident in those absolutely amazing singles which followed the Clash’s debut album (in particular, the “Clash City Rockers” and “Hammersmith Palais” singles, and both sides of each as well) was stunted by the somewhat overbearing metalloid tendencies of producer Sandy Pearlman on “Give ’Em Enough Rope,” then London Calling is a fine re-affirmation of the unbridled adventurousness and progress that the Clash are capable of. The band, with the considerable aid of longlost Mott the Hoople producer Guy Stevens, touch the kind of bases that one used to expect, but now hardly ever sees from one, let alone two albums (if Tusk is F. Mac’s White album, I’m J. Lennon’s monkey’s uncle). The approaches here range from all-out sonic attacks (the title cut, which I’ll have more to say about later, is so powerful that one is utterly drained physically by the end as the Morse Code S.O.S. fades with Joe Strummer’s wails) to souped-up rockabilly (“Brand New Cadillac”) to free-wheelin’ r ’n’ b (“Lover’s Rock,” “Wrong ’em Boyo,” the latter featuring some swift “Stagger Lee” into “Sea Cruise” horn swings) to suds ’n’ sods pub croons (“Jimmy Jazz”) to Spectorial/Springsteen melodrama (“The Card Cheat”).

In short, everything that is around now musically meanders in for the ride somewhere along the line, and just about all of it does sound of a piece. Stevens has deftly brought out the best of this band, in particular the unfailing intimacy of Joe Strummer’s vocals and the constant supportive interplay between Strummer’s voice and Mick Jones’ chip-ins, both in his own singing and more importantly, in his gutwrenching guitar playing. And the sheer strength of the Clash’s energy is used deftly here, bursting forth at times and riding under the current at others. Stevens has managed to give the Clash the same kind of wonderful edge that he gave Ian Hunter and Mott, and it sure makes sense when you hear the almost Dylanesque way Strummer shouts “You can go it alone” on “London Calling” and “That’s just Montgomery Clift, honey!” on “The Right Profile,” a song that could very well have been found somewhere on the Basement Tapes. In these days of Chapman explicitness, it’s a treat to hear such un-overly-conscious production values.

But like I said, I don’t find London Calling an easy album to handle, and when I stated previously that my problems lay somewhat outside the work itself, you’ll notice that I haven’t mentioned many of the lyrics. That’s because the unavoidable fact of London Calling is that that very first track almost makes the rest of the two records immaterial. So explosive is it in its depiction of apocalypse now, so strong is its message, so challenging is its putting forth of all the questions and abhorrances that are flying through all of our lives at the present time, that the rest of the album’s lyrics just seem to be a weak addendum to a case already stated as well as it can be.

Which is something that I can’t help thinking about. For, having been attacked rather idiotically for the one instance so far where they’ve managed to forget about the world’s troubles and their fist in the air righteousness—namely the light and buoyant “1-2-Gotta Crush on You,” they seem almost too selfconsciously on the offensive here, and with this much room to spread out, I was praying that there’d be a little more light shed on what, if anything, the Clash can see on the other side. And if that light just isn’t there for them, then it is indeed some kind of vast wasteland they find themselves in. I guess perhaps that’s why those startling singles throughout ’7f^meant so much, for. they just seemed to spring up and grab you, shake you and hold you for three minutes and then release you, to mull it over. Here, though, the absence of relief is wearisome, and since there is no furf here that hasn’t/been mentioned in some shape or form beforehand on earlier Clash efforts (war, oppression, racism, sexism) I’m just kind of ambivalently perplexed. Because by now, we all should be hopefully well aware of all the dangers that the various political arid social systems that be are placing us in and under. But it’s hard for me to believe that’s all "that runs through Jones’ and Strummer’s heads, hearts and veins 24 hours a day. Which is not to say that all I want is a worldful of numbed Mr. Joyboys. But that rough mix between politics and music, one which heretofore the Clash had managed to incorporate into everything they did. better than anyone else has ever done—because they are such a phenomenal group—is getting a little messy.. Even theMC-5, at their rnost blatant, still tossed in “Looking at You” on Back in the U.S.A. without it interfering with the overall message. The four sides of London Calling have me feeling like I’ve been levelled by the weight of the world. Which very well may be the Clash’s intent. But I’m riot sure if that sticker that’s mentioned elsewhere in this Section is really what I want as a slim total of my feelings about the Clash.

RUSH Permanent Waves (Mercury)

In the past Rush has been an easy target for trigger happy critics looking for something so colossally bad it could absorb a double load of buckshot without flinching. Personally I laid off—the band’s slow, excruciating climb from heavy handed Led Zeppelin imitators to cloying, pompous art rockers schooled in the strident Ayn Rand mythology of Self was just too much for me to bear. Criticizing them would have been like going fishing without any water. But this grim Canadian power trio has done something so remarkable I can no longer hold my tongue—after seven tries, Rush has finally made a good album.

You think I’m kidding, right? OK, PH admit this record isn’t gonna make you forget about the Rolling Stones, but it might make you glad that Emerson, Lake & Palmer hung up their flying synthesizers. This is art rock in all its pretentious, desperately self-justifying glory, and lead singer Geddy Lee still sounds like a eunuch Jerry Vale at 78rpm (try holding your finger against the side of the turntable, while the record plays and Lee sounds pretty good). But Rush has filtered its sound down so effectively, figured out where to mask some of the mistakes and restrain others, that the band now clocks in a little ahead of Uriah Heep on the art rockometer, a substantial advance.

“The Spirit of Radio” starts the album off with a perfect illustration of the band’s strengths and weaknesses. In line with Rush’s “progressive” motives, this tune is meticulously arranged and performed with a minimum of free solo space. Alex Lifeson’s guitar playing, is relegated to its strictest adherence to the arrangement’s bones in the band’s history, a strategy which works well here as Lee’s multi-keyboards are orchestrated beautifully. Drummer/lyricist Neil Peart starts with a good idea—a tribute to technology’s liberating power. Where Deep Purple expressed it as “Highway Star,” Peart’s libertarian answer is to invoke the spirits of honesty and integrity to channel the technology to its “proper” ends. Yet when Peart refers to his radio as an “unobtrusive” companion and tacks on a mock Simon & Garfunkle coda “Echoes with the sounds...of salesmen,” he’s inviting the audience to laugh at his pathetic rhetoric.

Similarly, “Free Will” invokes a heady anti-superstition theme but ends up confusing Horatio Alger with L. Ron Hubbard. Such antimystic guru debunking sets Peart directly against Jon Anderson’s trippy Yes mythologizing, an effective move that even sounds right against the background of the music’s Wagnerian pomp, but the idea explodes like a Vienna sausage on microwaves before he can bring it home.

Interestingly, Peart’s most successful lyric on the record is “Jacob’s Ladder,” an obvious bit of celestial homage fashioned cleverly after Zep’s “Stairway To Heaven.” For once Peart doesn’t overreach—he describes the numinous phenomenon of sudden shafts of sunlight breaking through heavy cloud cover, and the controlled lyrics match the music’s majestic progression nicely.

After Peart’s stab at a love song, “Entre Nous,” and Lee’s fairly pretty Greg Lake imitation, “Different Strings,” the album closes on another superbloat Peart masterwork, “Natural Science,” where once again the theme of human integrity/honesty triumphing over technological overkill is strangled in a welter of overstated pronouncements and dire moralistic drivel. Peart’s smart enough to bounce off some good ideas in the process and there are several good lines in the song. It’s hard to argue against Peart’s angry assertion that music be allowed to exist on its own merits, free from a superhype marketplace, especially since Rush is one of those bands who’ve made it on a hard working tour policy. But if he doesn’t know it’s not that simple / by now he’s really in trouble. After all, it’s easy to trumpet the triumph of the will when you’re on top.

Of course, it could have been worse. According to Peart’s extensive notes for this record, we were almost saddled with his epic recasting of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, which he refers to as “a real story.” At this rate don’t be sur: prised if Peart titles the next Rush album Freedom Is Slavery.

John Swenson

PRETENDERS (Sire)

Believe it or not, there are people boppin’ around who are convinced that the Pretenders are already the Next Big Thing. Have been for months. Wherever the band’s import singles managed to grab a slice of air time, they connected immediately, both with the terminal trendies who bow down to the British charts and with the mainstream toe tappers who just know a good - tune when they hear it. Phones have been ringing off the hook, inquiring about this baby months before it was released and when it finally hit the stacks, crazy time! In some places, that is; in others—zip interest. But that’s rock ’n’ roll.

Anyway, so who are these people? Three strong, supportive British .rockers and frontmm..., uh, frontperson and ex-Akronite (yup, another one) Chrissie Hynde, who sings, plays one of the guitars, writes or co-writes the group’s material and comes real close to dominating this whole disc.

She don’t look bad, neither (even if her lips aren't as big as Steven Tyler’s) and the style sensibility she so coyly displays on the cover gives ya a clue as to the sounds found inside. The boys are dressed in basic black but the details point to different eras of sartorial slop. Missie Chrissie herself combines a heavily zippered jacket (bright red—She does want to be noticed) with these dainty dark wrist covering thingies, a strange combo until the “symbolism” hits you—she’s sposed to be a flashy, trashy, tough ’n’ tender trender. A real pretender and an ex-rock scribe to boot, as if ya had to ask.

And the music follows suit or rather, the other way around, because most of the musical pieces fit together. There’s lotsa nods to the mid-’60s—vocal (the Sandie Shaw/ Dusty Springfield parallel when Chrissie emotes) and instrumental (the “More” cop in the intro to “Kid” and the “Day Tripper” riff in “Space Invader” are the most pbvious)—but this band is doing more than just recycling yesterday’s papers. Mainly in the rhythmic department—“The Wait,” “Tattooed J_ove Boys,” and “The Phone Call” all feature these great collision course chords that’ll have you dancing the spastic chicken in no time.

But what of the “content?” Mostly relationship stuff but Chrissie ain’t no sissie. She’s modern—peace, love & understanding have given way to anger and lust—and she sees real clear but can’t deal with the consequences once she starts dishing it out. Like she tells some guy to fuck off in the LP opening “Precious,” then spends the rest of the album mopping up the mess, using Ray Davies’ “Stop Your Sobbing” as a centrepiece.

And why can’t she cope with the weeping wimpoids she attracts? I dunno for sure, but I got a theory. She admits on “Kid” that the reason she don’t wanna be around a downed dude is that it brings her down. I think it’s ’cause she knows that if she starts sobbing, all that mascara will run all over her face and she’ll look like Alice Cooper. And no way is an Alice Cooper lookalike gonna be the Next Big Thing, y’know.

V Michael Davis

UTOPIA Adventures In Utopia (Bearsville)

CBS Records, which gave us the odious “The Man Can’t Bust Our Music” ad campaign some years ago, has slapped an obnoxious sticker on the new Clash set proclaiming them “The Only Eland That Matters.” The Clash (and rock & roll as well) have lived through a lot worse and I’m sure they’llboth survive this particular corporate calumny (though perhaps Epic’s artist roster should consider a class action suit). There is a real point here, however: some rock ’n’ roll is so thrilling, so incisive, so erotic, so imaginative, so...je ne sais quoi that, like all important art, it simply demands to be heard and has the power to alter or elevate the perception of those listening. It is my duty to report that Adventures In Utopia has no such music on it and that the band, (now just plain) Utopia (formerly Todd Rundgren’s U), does not matter at all.

As things stand now the sons and daughters of 1984 will not sing Todd’s songs—in fact, they won’t even know who he was. Trivia buffs among them will remember him as the guy who produced the Dolls’ first album. Historians may cite side one of Something/Anything as a prime example of the pervasive influence of Carole King in the early ’70s (or was it the other way around...oh, cruel history!). But give the man his due—he was a true contender, if not a true star. There were nights when he and his unfortunately named band (the first Utopia: Ellman, Seigler, Schuckett, Klingman) were as good as it gets even as they sowed seeds that would eventually lead to this second rate derivative drivel. But the themes of ersatz Eastern wisdom and shallow science fiction continued to grow until they dominated Rundgren’s work, especially his collaborative (read Utopian) efforts. One had the discomfiting feeling that Faithful, Hermit of Mink Hollow, and Back to the Bars were condescending sops thrown to rear-guard impulses in his fans, radio people, (and perhaps himself) in order to keep the really important (read Utopian) projects afloat.

After all' that, Adventures in Utopia seems to want to sound like a Queen record (O brave new world!) with good, if trebly, production values and lots of shimmering stacked choruses. There is much Queenlike variety, a little Uriah Heepish beef, and lots of honest-toRa psychedelic touches. (This from a man who was a certifiable great rock hope at the beginning of the decade just expired. Patti Smith used to gush over his records right here in these pages.) After a few listenings a depressing pattern emerges: Utopia’s futurism is pristine, foolish, and totally useless. It is a vision of tomorrow that shuns today. It is the ’60s masquerading as the ’80s as if the ’70s never happened. What on earth (or planet of your choice) for?

To be fair, the record sounds good—they’re all accomplished players—but there is, most emphatically, a point to these proceedings and the point is bathetic. The lyrics, which they have ill advisedly printed on the sleeve, are alternately inane and fatuous. “The Last of the New Wave Riders” which begins, “The last of the new wave riders/will be the first of the new age masters” concludes with an idiot apocalypse:

We hit the supreme overload

And the great amplifier began to explode

The smoke is slowly clearing away

And the whole universe is a giant guitar.

1 hope John Sinclair isn’t listening. This is not, sadly, an isolated incident on the road to Utopia. That very tune, “The Road to Utopia” is a recycled British Invasion riff supporting more of the same visionary verse, making one appreciate the modest virtues of Herman’s Hermits. “Rock Love,” which you may have heard on the radio, is an empty anthem of adolescent anxiety. What’s worse, each of the songs is labeled as part of titled episodes (e.g.-, Episode 4: Vinyl is Final) which I take to mean there’s more to come.

Ultimately, there is only one song here (“The Very Last Time” if you’re still interested) good enough to have appeared on A Wizard/ A True Star. I’m no more interested in a lifetime of greatest hits medleys than Todd is, but A Wizard was a sustained tour de force and when an artist goes backwards ornowhere such comparisons are in order. It is true that Utopia is a band—there is no individual songwriting credit—and that the blame must be shared with Kasim Sulton, John Wilcox, and Roger Powell. But I don’t own 14 Kasim Sulton albums and it’s obvious that if Todd were not vitally involved there would be no Adventures In Utopia. Would that it were so.

Jeff Nesin

ARTHUR BLYTHE In The Tradition (Columbia)

With his Columbia debut last year (“Lenox Avenue Breakdown”), alto saxist Arthur Blythe achieved, after a protracted apprenticeship on the L.A. and N.Y. scenes, a much-deserved leadership status as well as the sort of critical huzzahs and analytical exegisis reserved for innovators. Myself, I held back a bit, writing in the August 79 CREEM that Blythe’s alto playing was “jubilant and ripe,” his arrangements “clever and upbeat” and saying of the album in general “nothing .groundbreaking br earthshakipg here, just positive, forceful jazz...during a more fecund season this might have gotten buried...” The reason for this fainthearted praise was partly due to all the worthy advance notices—altho it wasn’t hype, it was ju9t too generous for anyone to live up to— and more than partly (this is the punch line) because it seemed to me that the lameness of so much current record product made Blythe appear better than he was. In the context of Columbia’s “jazz” line, consisting mostly of outrageously bland records, often fusion-tinged or sweetened beyond meaning, Blythe’s debut was a momentous recording. But the feeling nags that people settle for a lot less than they should—that Blythe’s musical integrity shouldn’t be as rare and refreshing as it is. Ah well, some people are never satisfied...

Whether all that means anything to you or not, “In The Tradition,” tho fine, is not quite as ambitious a record as “Lenox Avenue Breakdown.” Unlike the forward-looking “Lenox” this album is a reflection on the past, featuring four traditional pieces (Coltrane’s “Naima,” Fats Waller’s “Jitterbug Waltz,” Ellington’s “In A Sentimental Mood” and Juan Tizol’s “Caravan”), interpreted with a beguiling mixture of affectionate wit and modernist chutzpah, plus two originals, one blues-based and both definitely in the tradition. And instead of the somewhat exotic flute-tuba-guitarrhythm group of the first album Blythe features here a more traditional quartet with Stanley Cowell on piano, Fred Hopkins on bass and Steve McCall on drums. Blythe has a hard, almost pinched (tho never tight-assed) tone which, on the ballads, gives his bellowing romanticism an attractively contrasting post-Ornette edge while somewhat limiting the emotional range of the up-tempo cuts. Cowell’s solos rely heavily on chording, tho they’re always pleasant and imaginative (Blythe is pleasant and imaginative too—they all are—in fact, in case I don’t get around to mentioning it I should point out now that this is a very good album) uh, right, and his comping behind Blythe is impressively sympatico. Hopkins and McCall (2/3 of the wonder trio Air, you should know) are especially adept at alternating between traditional rhythms and more expressive accompaniment. The whole quartet has the extra-sensory factor down pat, expounding the kind of felicitous groupthink that is the hallmark of all the best jazz. And, thb not an extraordinary album, it is among the current best.

Richard C. Walls

THE SPECIALS (Chrysalis)

British people have given the world plenty of jerky things over the course of history: mercantilism, the white man’s burden, Mary Poppins. But perhaps the surest sign that they’ve stood out in the proverbial noon-day sun too long is the fact that they’re perhaps the only people on this e^rth who will practically kill you for having different musical tastes than they do. Quadrophenia's Mods and Rockers was nothing compared with the pre-nuclear fall out of the National Front vs. Teddy Boys vs. Rude Boys vs. Punks vs. re-hashed Mods vs. Godzilla ward of England today.

One band at the center of this controversy is the Specials—a group who have made an album of very defined, even ethnic music (ska) whose major lyrical thrust is to confront the factionalism that now rages in England (musically) and the entire world (on every level). So take it that beneath the porkpie hats the Specials are in many ways just a bunch of “C’mon people now, let’s get together” youngblooded hippies. But that would be a LABEL and the band goes far beyond this. They work with a subtlety missing from The Clash or Tom Robinson’s tales about fill-in-the-blank bashing.

Interestingly, though a song like “Concrete Jungle” is an openly anti-fascist song, a lot of National Front neo-Nazis like the band cuz of their short hair. Kinda reminds me of the 17-year-old KKK member (and Foreigner fan!!) I saw on a local T.V. gawk show, who was given the nod of approval by all the phone in mothers simply cuz of his Brooks Brothers jacket and John Boy Walton manner.

The Specials’ lyrics are not all unification songs, though. “Stupid Marriage” is a great advertisement for contraceptives and “Too Much Too Young” includes this month’s Mr. Congeniality award for the line: “I’d like to spread manure in your bed of roses.” The sound on the album, captured by producer Elvis Costello, is wonderfully derivative of Nick Lowe’s dial twisting. Musically, the album ranges from straight ska (“A Message To You Rudy”) to the kind of nauseous pop XTC and The Pretenders do so well (“Gangsters”). A lot of it is as danceable as a B-52’s record and on many levels as funny, with Terry Hall singing as though his tongue is miles thick and his saliva is green and sticky.

Most brilliant, though, is the last song, “You’re Wondering Now”; a lovely hymn of final judgement. Here, Britain has fallen. All love affairs are broken. The apts have taken over the world. What we have left is a big question mark and the strongest blow against factionalism in the known universe: music that allows you to say, “Let’s just dance.”

Jim Farber

ZZ TOP Deguello (Warner Bros.)

First time I heard “that lil’ ole band from Texas” ZZ Top in the flesh was some five years ago in a football stadium where 80,000 heathens and me fried on an Astroturf griddle in search of El Gran Getdown. Those were the golden days when the aforementioned “lil’ ole band” sported glittering Nudie suits, scowled like badasses from Pasadena, and sang about “La Grange” (better known on Broadway as the Best Little Whorehouse, which is, in fact, quite true) and other mythic institutions of Texan proportion and diddled around with what we once knew as Blues music back when the Boogie Kings ruled the Gulf Coast. The most lasting impression of that era was pot any one piece of music but rather that I of ace NY publicist Howard “Moon Unit” Bloom taking several hours of his valuable time to explain beer drinkin’, hell raisin’, pussy huntin’ and other pursuits ZZ had immortalized in song to me—a mere native son much too pure to have allowed a Pearl or a Lone Star to touch my lips, too reserved to let my motor gin and too pious to have ever cast a wandering eye towards some sweet HP brownskin in Nuevo Laredo. Overkill, even from the , mouth of the previously mentioned Sr. Bloom, was enough to convince me the Top was simply a gussied up power trio living off the legacy of Grand Funk, Cream and/or the James Gang.

But time passed. ZZ Top went. through a few proverbial changes while taking a three-year recording and performing hiatus; the geezers at the football stadium who once wore “Boogie Til Your Pants Fall Off’ t-shirts grew older and moved on to more meaningful entities like Rush, the Godz, and Willie Nelson; and I actually began to appreciate The Boys as something more than a glorified car radio posing as a “people’s band.” After all, if you boil down all the info, ZZ Top’s Spanish version of “Francene” is a lot more fun to listen to than Linda Ronstadt’s “Lago Azul.” Similarly, they are still the only band to immortalize border radio in song (“I heard it on the X”) which is no small 'step for man or animal. Also significant was ace boon guitar man Billy ^Gibbon’s inconspicuous presence at the Big Blue Monday shows at the local Rome Inn with the Fabulous Thunderbirds, an experience he immortalized in “Lowdown in the Streets” and one that you can , hear in the lead breaks on “Fool For Your Stockings.” The man was picking up new sounds while he coulda been counting his oil well revenues!

All of which is to say Deguello (which sounds like a rare brand of Mexican hot sauce but actually means something entirely different) is OK by me. Hey, they’re still a power trio and all—“Hi Fi Mama,” with Dusty Hill’s tortured vocals, and “I Thank You,” with its mangled interpretation, both prove that the ZZ’s are still in touch with the masses, ready to duke it out with Van Halen, April Wine, or Nugent on any stadium floor. But listening to this album convinced me these dudes are almost as faithful preservationists as John Hammond, Ry Cooder or the Knack.

Just the facts, ma’am:

“I’m Bad, I’m Nationwide,” a positive piece of dirt that pays homage to Luckies (John Morthland’s smoke of choice), spiked heels (Nick Tosches’ fave footwear) and V-8s (Lester Bangs’ dream machine)—i.e., critics’ choice!; another car-tune, “She Loves My Automobile,” in which Billy, Dusty and Frank learn to play saxes and cameo as the Lone Wolf Horns; another anthem to vehicles with combustion engines called “Manic Mechanic” wherein power trio goes New Wave; and the unabashedly fetish-fondlin’ ode to hose “Fool For Your Stockings.” There you have it: Cars, girls, and blues. And that’s just the surface of it.

So you thirteen-year-olds out there can forget it. Find yourself some new idols. The 1980 version of ZZ Top is for us old folks past 20, down to their Rip Van Winkle beards which us geriatrics can emulate but you trike-pushers can’t (this potential trend just might replace jazz pokes with us dirty white boys—imagine: a coliseum full of Amish imitators). OK boys. Hit that Slim Harpo lick again and tell me how it used to be.

Joe Nick Patoski

THE ROMANTICS (Nefnperor)

I can’t accept Shelley Hack as a Charlie’s Angel (Spelling-Goldberg should burn in Nielsen purgatory for rejecting Claudia Jennings, who proceeded to smash up her car and end her life). And I don’t buy The Romantics as this year’s mostlikely-to-succeed power pop quartet. Pale, mimetic poseurs, both. Catchy is not enough. Stutterstep drumming, bouncy guitars and pearly, adolescent-toned singing are no substitute for inspiration and Detroit muscle. Alongside the newly spectorized ramone-antics of End of the Century, clash-by-night polemics of London Calling, insinuating suedeshoes sound of Present Tense, The Romantics’ artistic timidity seems almost invisibly quaint and retrograde. The album sounds like a demo, with reference vocals and solos standing in, waiting for inspiration to strike. On three or four songs—-“Tell It To Carrie,” “First In Line,” “Little White Lies,” maybe “Keep In Touch”—it does, momentarily, only to be scuttled by the overriding attitude of manufactured innocence.

The boy meets/likes/wants/misses girl songs of Wally PalmarJimmy Marinos-Mike Skill are knickknacks, without the smarmy smuttiness of (whatshisname? Mark? Don? Rod?) Fieiger, but without any particular brandname definition, or Chapman inscrutibility, either. The Knack at least live up to their name; their tuneful hookery is a knack, nothing more. Not a talent really, or a vision. But “romantic” is not a word to be used lightly, and certainly not as a Synonym for the moony love-struck sentimentality of this foursome. Romanticism involves emotional risk; you make the leap over the moat, or the alligators chomp on your ass. The Rotnantics’ notions are undramatic, and unearned: shivers up and down their spine, crushes on the girl next door, girls who get their motor running. “I just can’t stand the pain,” they whimper, and it sounds like a paper cut. Phrase-makers the composing trio are not; almost all of their originals have titular, and otherwise unrelated, twins: “First In Line” (Elvis ’56), “Hung On You” (Righteous Bros. ’65), “Little White Lies” (tin pan alley standard, i.e., S. Spacek as Verna, U.S.O. Girl), “Girl Next Door” (another t.p.a.s.)...

There’s a likelihood that The Romantics will be described as, and believed to be, Beatlesque:; the damned cheeriness of the record passing' for McCartneyish vitality, the clever rhythmic devices for Lennon innovation. Sure, and Shelley Hack is, Veronica Lake. In outline, The Romantics could pass (I gotta admit, I thought their live set and hometown 45 had genuine punch ’n’ promise, so go know), but listen to the way they blow the ready-made break-to-bridge turnover on the otherwise heartening “Tell It To Carrie.” Or to the negligible harmony vocals on “Till I See You Again,” or the irritating way the singer emphasizes the last word of each line on “What I Like About You,” or the repetitive performance of The Kinks’ “She’s Got Everything.” False endings, handclaps, harmonica solos (the new old cliche'), non sequitur screams: all signs of a band that knows the moves -but doesn’t have the motivation.

Besides, in those hideous red leather suits they’re wearing on the cover, The Romantics look like a set of bridge chairs.

Mitch Cohen

JOHN PRINE Pink Cadillac (Asylum)

Over a three-year period, payments on a 1980 Cadillac Seville will amount to $500 per month.

This hard, cruel fact probably would not phase John Prine in the least. Because he’s a sentimentalist. He still believes in the spirituality of rockabilly.

That rowdy genre’s as buried as Robert Gordon’s career.

Or, William Bendix’s lunch box.

So, on his latest album, Pink Cadillac, Prine attempts an impossible task: to re-echo an 6cho (which is essentially all.thSt rockabilly once was: a frantic stab at recapturing those magical moments when Elvis went gone in the hot belly of Sun Studios).

Often critically labeled the Bob Dylan of the 70s, perhaps Prine felt he could become the ’80s equivalent to Sonny Burgess.

Before recording his last album, Bruised Orange, Prine shopped around for a producer, dropping by the home of Phil Spector, who collaborated with him on a few songs. This - time around, Prine aimed higher and sought out Sam Phillips. Sam’s son, Jerry, answered the call, thus proving that one might as well always aim low.

Which is exactly where Prine aims when he’s singing. Why he is considered to be a respectable singer/songwriter is anybody’s guess. His vocal style consists of the flotsam of Kris Kristofferson and the jetsam of Michael Hurley mixed into a jerkwater notion of the humoresque.

Consider the firstline of the album’s first cut, “Chinatown”: “The moon is yellow and the people are . too.” Only Tom and Jerry would think that was cute.

• Ex-rockabilly superstar, Billy Lee Riley, must think Prine is cute, because he contributes not only guitar strumming but also his own composition (co-authored with Cowboy Jack Clement), “No Name Girl.” It’s basically a jam with a Bo Diddley beat, the loosest moment on the album.

Papa Phillips does manage to oversee the proceedings by pitching in on two cuts, “Saigon” and “How Lucky” (how lucky, “his first production work since 1959,” boasts the bio), But it makes little difference, except when the credits roll.

Probably Prine wanted what he imagined would be spiritual direction from Sam Phillips, as if Sun Studios were som? holy tabernacle and Sam the guru. But Sun is a tomb if it’s anything.

Simply listen to Prine’s rockabilly covers on this album. “Baby Let’s Play House’ is as inspired as James Taylor’s version of a Motown hit. And, on the forever-racist “Ubangi Stomp,” Prine confronts his real dilemma; unlike Warren Smith in ’56, he cannot today sing “nigger” and get away with it.

So, instead, he chooses to moon in a morgue, blinded by the glow of history to the ersatz nature of his own ambitious project.

Even if Prine can fool himself, he cannot conceal the truth from his own conscience. As he confesses on “Automobile”—“Whenever I get the hiccups/I .hold my breath till my head gets light.”

No genuine rockabilly artist could ever constrain his urge to hiccup. Yet, like Roger Miller (whom he readily admits first inspired him to write songs), John Prine employs hiccuping fever primarily for comedy relief, and that’s pretty sacrilegious considering where he has recorded his latest batch of folkie musings.

But let’s give the guy more credit than he actually deserves. Perhaps he was ill-advised. Or perhaps he’s a mere simpleton and does not know that:

’ a) in ’68, P.F. Sloan tried virtually the same thing at Sun (minus the Phillips’ guidance) on Measure OfPleasure and did indeed capture the mysterious echolalia of that timeless sanctum;

b) Applied Musicology does not necessarily result in great music.

Robot A. Hull

THE UNDERTONES (Sire)

Coming as it does in the midst of the relative stench of the current record company sponsored pop (however unpopular) music resurgence, The Undertones is a full 12" of Air-Wick solid. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I’m knockin’ (as vernacular gone by would have it) self-conscious, arrested development types like Shoes and the Pop (to name two favorites), but it’s nice to be reminded that some bands play basic, boy meets girl songs simply because they couldn’t do anything else if they tried. The Undertones, God love ’em, hail from swinging Derry, Ireland where they were (are you listening, Sting?) born in the ’60s.

Yet another Anglo import soupedup for its American release, The Undertones is 16 (!) sonic inducers to the dance floor, and I’m talking rock ’n’ roll, not one of those threeletter catch phrases so in vogue these days. The brothers O’Neill (what else—but the best is yet to come), John and Damien, are largely responsible for the songs. Nothing fancy, but with hardly an exception they grab you where it counts—in the chorus. The refrains are just aces for singing along with, seeing as how the song titles pretty much double as a lyrjc sheet. As for the verses, singer Feargal Sharkey (an old Don Rickies show, right?) has a brogue that could turn potatoes to jelly. I know the opening lines of “Get Over You” aren’t “Dressed like Thatcher/You must be livin’ in a different world” but with Sharkey a guy can grab some extra-curricular kicks. Go ahead, make up your own.

IT'S A MAD MAD MAD MAD WORLD !!!

MADNESS ONE STEP BEYOND (SIRE)

BY ROBOT A. HULL t THE MAD PECK

® MAD PECK STUDIOS 1980

Accent notwithstanding, Feargal’s pipes are truly remarkable and are the biggest selling point of the band. He’s got some kind of bird-like trill that doesn’t stop him from blasting with all the power of you-name-him. Roger Bechirian, who seems to get his name on two-thirds of the worthwhile records from Over There, does so once again, this time as producer and engineer.

Although The Undertones can be capsulely described much the same as was the first Ramones album (no song over .2:46; seven under two minutes), the small town lack of a world view—whatever it’s charms—ultimately keeps the LP from tipping the exhilaration meter like the (Forest) Hills Brothers did. And make no mistake, it takes such a comparison before the obligatory voice of reason can submit its two cents. But what the hey, who knows what’ll happen by the time the Undertones are as old as the Ramones?

Ira Kaplan

DR. BUZZARD’S ORIGINAL SAVANNAH BAND Janies Monroe H.S. Presents Dr. Buzzard’s Original Savannah Band Goes to Washington (Elektra) -

There was Estelle, only a couple of hours late for our irregularly regular get-together for drinks and some real conversation, handing me a pile of things: her famous fox stole, featuring complete fox, cookies and cakes from our favorite baker (“sweets for sweets, baby, to send you to heaven...”), some Plato, some Colette, last week’s People, and two copies of James Monroe H.S. Presents Dr. Buzzard’s Original Savannah Band Coes to Washington (“one to stay, one to go”). “I’m late, honey, bourbon and bourbon and make it b double, I can see I’ve got some catching up to do,” said Estelle as she settled into the divan, which I kept mostly for her comfort. Like a page out of Harper’s Bazaar, she started to take off her hat, gracefully removing one pin, then another*' then another, until a shower of pins flew around of their own accord. “Well,” she said. “I’ll deal with this mess later. Let me get acquainted with that drink. I have some stuff to tell you. I’ve been all over the place today—East Side West Side, checking the action, asking people in their sky-high offices and on the street, in the subway and Doubldday, ‘Listen, what’s up with you? What’s goin’ down?’ and all I’m hearing is gloomdoom and the world situation and nylons are up again at Saks and I was getting really depressed, heading for the Big Bummer, and I thought to myself: Estelle, what you need is some relief, some sprcease 'from all this pain and disillusion. And just then, I was passing this real low dive, no-jive record store, and I heard this melancholy mambo, ihsounded like someone was dancing on the black keys of the piano, and then this girl was singing, touching notes like the sticks on the vibes behind her, and I thought: That is either one careful syncopation or that girl hasn’t studied the tune worth a damn. I mean, her voice came rushing in, trailed by a whole lot of flat-sounding harmonies, and then this guy started tossing in a vocal here and there, and it had something to do with hers, and then just when I finally thought I had the melody and the rhythm figured out, the whole bunch—horns, marimbas, piano, guitar, everybody—would stop short and go off in some other direction, or modulate on over into some other key even in the middle of a line. Let me tell you, I was a bit confused, and the daiquiris at lunch didn’t help, either. But it all sounded like fun to me, cheerful and somewhat out-of-hand, sort of like Lucy and Ethel wresting control of the band from Ricky down at the Tropicana. 1 went into the store for a closer listen, and this girl was singing, :“If I choose/To sleep with you/Don’t mistake me for a whore,” and using foreign languages like French and something that goes; “Ummmpapoo Pazooozu/Ummmmmpapoo,” and the girl and the guy were both slinging and loving these girls, and I thought I wouldn’t ask too many questions, it’s always something new. But when they sang “Once There Was a Colored Girl...,” with this chorus that goes, “the yankee! humbug!/neo-nazi/the yankee? stumblebum!/neo-nazi,” I decided it was time to find out what this record was. I was swaying and the salesman was swaying, and he told me it was the new Dr. Buzzard album, and I said, ‘Uh-huh! Let me have two.’ And as I headed out the door, the guy on the record was singing, “Simple beings from simple means can score, honeys,” and the vibes sent me on my way, and I samba-ed over here to say that’s true.”

Jim Feldman