ELVIS COSTELLO SEEKS THE WINDOW UP ABOVE

ELVIS COSTELLO SEEKS THE WINDOW UP ABOVE

RECORDS

ELVIS COSTELLO AND THE ATTRACTIONSGet Happy!! (Columbia)

Jeff Nesin

When a 21-year-old Elvis Presley, stepping out from under the banks of studio lights at the Ed Sullivan Theater, cupped his hands over his eyes and gazed out over the audience grinning his Hall of Fame grin, he was, in George Wallace’s wonderful phrase, “sending them a message.” In one gesture he shrugged off conventional show biz decorum and reached out to kids everywhere, letting them know that thoug he may be on TV he certainly wasn’t iof TV. When, a few years later, the Rolling Stones sauntered into the studio for their first BBC appearance without matching band suits(!), a'couple of them in polo shirts(!l), the same thing happened. Mick J. stared at the camera leering his Hall of Fame leer • and the rest is history.

Great rockers have always had an anti-professipnal secret code for major TV appearances. But in 1978, when Elvis Costello first stumbled onto the set of Saturday Night Lipe, I missed the message altogether, unable to distinguish between the artist and the entertainers. As if live TV were just one more band rehearsal, Costello stalked the stage, charmless and bug-eyed, stopping a song in midphrase for no discernible reason and immediately starting another. At the time I thought the performance was more nervy bullshit from a minor league master of effrontery, further evidence of his generally graceless contrariness. I was wrong.

I’m suspicious by nature and my standards are—uh—rigorous. In the first flush of new wave enthusiasm, when those folks who now think that the Clash is the greatest rock ’n’ roll band in the world were thrilled to find a hard edged limey with U.S. commercial potential, I was genuinely offended. I thought he was a rock star from Superman Comics’ bizarro world—absolutely everything was somehow wrong: his assumed nom de bop (total irony), his appearance (Buddy Holly on belladonna), his petty nastiness (he certainly had no gift for the grand gesture), etc. And yet, obviously, something important was going on—I can’t usually list that many reasons for liking someone. The mid-60’s Dylan parallel was clear: the sound of the band, the “how far in do you want to go” lyrics, and, of course, the hortatory tone, the imperious, impervious cynicism. The second album, This 'Year’s Model, began to grow on me. With the release of Armed Forces last year, I felt compelled to listen and, grudgingly, to admire Elvis Costello.

None of this inner struggle (curiosity, repulsion, admiration) could have prepared me for Get Happy!!, a work of such richness, complexity, and unflagging energy that I remain astonished. I am frankly at a loss to explain why its release wasn’t treated as a certified, bona fide rock & roll event (it hasn’t exactly been greeted with a rush of acclaim) although this may have more to do with Costello’s quirky, constricted splendor than with the expiration of his 15 minutes of fame. Be that as it may, Get Happy!! is an extraordinary piece of work with 20(1!) songs—18 originals and two totally reupholstered soul covers—on one record.

Everything about this project, from the careful, unobtrusive production (the redoubtable Nick Lowe) to the bongo party cover art (the redoubtable VAT 245 4945 42) is precise and economical. Only two songs run over three minutes but all 20 are as long and full as they mean to be—which makes me think of E. C.’s long-standing intere£t in American country music formalized in last year’s duet with George Jones. The songs turn on clever verbal hooks and twists mounted on a straightforward and accessible melodic structure, punctuated by subtle and often unex: pected touches and cemented by fierce sincerity in the vocals. If this reads like a synopsis of Chapters 1-5 of the Nashville Hitmaker’s Handbook, so does .much of the record. It may hot sound like country, but it’s built like country. I wonder if he’s been invited to one of Johnny Cash’s after dinner song swaps yet. Better call him up June, the boy’s overdue.

Throughout the record it’s Clear that Lowe and the superb Attractions could do anything they had a mind to but, incredibly, chose to simply serve the songs. To present 20 songs—each one with its own integrity and intensity intact—is a minor miracle. Without going into detail (and turning this into War & Peace), the songs that are obscure sound great and hold out the promise of substantial meaning. The songs that are obsessive—as most of his are—don’t lose their universality for their obsessiveness. If anything, they seem to gain scope and suggestibility from their very singlemindedness. (Welcome to the 80’s.) Through almost an hour’s worth of tunes Costello dazzles with his impassioned singing and his inspired use of language, particularly his country-style genius for finding the complex in the commonplace. (Simile of the month: “Giving you away like motel matches”.) All this without the vanity of a lyric sheet—you have to listen to this record to know what’s on it.

1 don’t want to seem to overpraise Get Happy!!, but I’m not really sure I could. I believe you’ll be hearing these songs in many different versions for years to come (especially if he’ll stop beating on poor Linda R. while she’s trying to stuff thousand dollar bills into his pockets). When I listen I hear Willie Nelson taking a conference call from Burt Bacharach and Hal David and Isaac Hayes and David Porter. No matter what he said to Bonnie Bramlett, no ope recording today has studied the American classics mdre carefully and fruitfully. But influences and inclinations aside, Get Happy!! is a spectacular showcase for Elvis Costello. I still can’t say his name without a twinge, but if you care at all about rock & roll 'you must have this album.

BOB SEGER Against The Wind ) _(Capitol)__

Nostalgia. Webster defines it as “a longing to return to a past time or to irrecoverable circumstances; homesickness.” It was the bane of the 70’s (well, one of the banes) a symptom of the malaise that we’re > carrying into the 80’s, the malaise of a country blitzkrieged by assasinations and social upheaval and trying to find solace in a past that never .existed. Also a country bored on its ass( still affluent despite inflation, still tired, despite an obsession with leisure. Nostalgia feeds neatly a mood of ambivalence, a desire for something different combined with a desire for the familiar—which is why it was a staple of the 70’s entertainment (tho the recent past is still being mined mot only for its entertainment value but, depressinglyenough, as a source of wisdom and rules to live by. As I write this in mid-March, Ronald Reagan is knocking ’em dead in Illmois). Bob Seger broke nationally with a hip bittersweet blend of nostalgia at a ripe and right time. Lyrically looking backward, musically basic (some of the best rock in existence has arrived as a nexus of musically reactionary trends—Beggars Banquet, Give ’Em Enough Rope, Night Move's was a perfect example of Zeitgeist bop. Two albums later he’s still at it and as far as I’m concerned, despite a nagging fear of atrophy and a dim realization that if I indulge too much in nostalgia’s fuzzy romance I’m going to turn into a jar of Cheese Whiz, it’s great stuff. A brave sense of loss runs thru this album and reaches its apogee on the title cut, which scans like a Jackson Browne Song and sounds, at this point, like Classic Seger. Night Moves, take three.

Another of Seger’s main concerns nowadays, besides nostalgia, is risk taking—singing about it, not doing it. So, in “No Man’s Land” we’re told “...sanctuary never comes/without some kind of risk” while in “You’ll Accomp’ny Me” he is once again making a wary approach to love-^‘Tll take my chances babe/I’ll risk it all.” “Fire Lake” is in the same mode* More romance.

Tho Seger sings a lot about risks and it’s an important part of the whole efhos here it’s ironic, I suppose, that the music itself is as safe as milk. And as sensual. Which is its saying grace, which is why I find myself embracing this music despite its backward thrust—it’s as simple and sensual as a cool drink in the middle of a heatwave. What could be finer? Seduced again.

Richard C. Walls

PUBLIC IMAGE LTD. Second Edition (Island)

In the deepest recesses of my morbidity I have always found a special charisma of fear and dread surrounding pictures of famous people who’ve been murdered in particularly gruesome 'ways. Take a look at snapshots of Sharon Tate (later stabbed over\twenty times), any of the nine Chicago nurses (to be slashed up by Richard Speck or even Czar Nicholas (hacked to bits and burned), and they evoke a feeling almost as horrifying as the murI derers themselves—something to do with the inevitability of (ate I suppose. On Public Image Ltd.’s new album, Johnny Rotten/Lydon’s vocals have recreated this feeling of fait accompli horror exactly. On Second Edition Lydon’s voice is recorded in repressed victim mutterings; as fuzzily convincing an artifact as the kidnap tapes of Patty Hearst re-bom as the SLA’s Tanya. Like Hearst, it’s as though the Rotten of old has been murdered (or committed suicide) by virtue of some heavy guilt trip, coming out as a more serious/committed “soldier.” What results may very well be gloomiest slab of sonic remorse since The Door’s “The End.”

While the first Public Image album (not released stateside) largely continued the rotten image with snotty put-downs, this second edition no longer trusts its own accusing finger. Some of the same themes are explored (rfiedia hype), but with more bitterness. While The Sex Pistols and early PiL used the safety valve of exciting music and occasional self-parody, here Lydon' and crew are more straight-faced about their challenge: namely, to bring high anxiety to your ears without the slightest trace of melody, energy or overt will. The results may strike some as an aural equivalent of Sysyphus’ plight (or worse, another Pink Floyd record). But if you have an unnaturally long attention span (in 1980, this means you can read two entire issues of People In one sitting), you’ll appreciate what is in fact a daring outlipe of “the enormity of the problem.” Perhaps no conventional musical setup could drive all this home as well. Rather, each of the instruments is recorded like some limb from an i unidentified body wrapped' in its own Hefty Trash Bag and tossed into the gutter. The bass and drums are closest, keeping down a funky death knell, while repetitive tremeloed guitars squeal away in the background, like 6ne endless groove of a Grateful Dead record.

UNDR PUTS H€ft TWO C€NTS IN (FINALLY)

LINDA RONSTADT Mad Love _(Asylum)

Mitch Cohen

Mad Love neatly splits the difference between ’65 and ’80 without being the least bit reminiscent of the summer of 72. Mad Love is a modern rock statement by a woman who’s always sung rock ’n’ roll as though it were a foreign tongue. The sound is the sound of a romantic captive who’s learned that, “Long Long Time” notwithstanding,, the problems really start after you’ve convinced The One to share your bed: “How do I make you/Dream about me?” The theme is letting go or, alternately, looking out: “If I can’t get away from you/ What am I gonna dd?” Mad Love is rampant with questions, obsessions. It’s so hot it’s cool, and that’s a word I never thought would describe an album by Linda Ronstadt.

Of course, there are, righteous people who will say nay, who will accuse her of trend-mongering (better The Cretones than Chic), who will scoff at her technique (those tendencies to squeal in a

tight spot), or refuse tp believe that Ronstadt’s interpretations have validy (she can’t possibly understand Costello’s Conundrums, can she?). But plainly, Mad Love, Linda Ronstadt’s tenth solo LP, has such a distinctive heartbeat that one would have, to be as much of a curmudgeon as, say, Elvis Costello, to deny its achievement. These are ten unusually fine and intelligent rock love songs, and they’re sung with feeling. When Ronstadt’s notoriously unerring voice actually wayers on the word “okay” in “Hurt So Bad,” it’s more moving than any bleacher-reacher note she’s creamed on the meat of the bat.

She has ace support by keyboardist Bill Payne, who contributes wickedly familiar solos pn “Party Girl” and “Talking In The Dark,” by Russ Kunkel, drumming with slambang expansiveness throughout, by bassist Bob Glaub and guitarists Mark Goldenberg and Dan Dugmore.

As flash as they all are, no one steals Ronstadt’s thunder. By listening judiciously to younger colleagues (do I detect Some C. Hynde fillips on “Look Out For My Love’?), toning down her belting, taking risks with subject and style, she’s found a range that even her fans wouldn’t have suspected was in her. Linda’s success with “Hurt so Bad,” a soul torch ballad, is no surprise. Neither is her emotionally direct edit of Neil Young’s “Look Out For My Love,” or her snappy version of “I Can’t Let Go” that owes more to The Hollies than to Evie Sands. But how startling when she comes down hard on “I can’t help it” on the title track, when she practically whispers “they can’t

touch me now” on “Party Girl.” And when she flounders—gets shrill, or snotty—the imprecision isn’t as embarrassing as it would be if perfection were the point.

The musical energy of Mark Goldenberg’s hooky material—“Mad Love,” “Cost Of Love,” the sexually ambiguous “Justine”—connects faster and slicker than Ronstadt’s quirky forays into the nooks and crannies of Elvis’ song psyche, but also shallower. Costello is a champion at both lyric and melody', and his songs draw out compelling, chancy gender-transposed Ronstadt renditions. “Party Girl” lacks a particularly deft pun (“You’ll never be the guijty party, girl”; Linda slurs “will you” instead), but Ronstadt’s performance is dynamic without being showy; and “Talking In The Dark,” Elvis’ modernization of Rodgers & Hart’s “I Wish I Were In Love Again,” is a tricky new wave march sung with oomph and empathy and backed by an arrangement from somewhere on the left banke.

Wha( it tomes down to is that Linda Ronstadt, of all people, has made a grown-up girl group album, and those of her fans who wished that she had done more than just talked for Playboy will find her, on this album, as exposed as she will probably ever be. The songs and the singing are as authentic as overheard conversations through the restroom wall; they get physical about the distress of love: burning hearts, the barking and the biting. Ronstadt’s 1980 different drum is the opening Kunkel roll on “How Do I Make You” that kicks off the most blazing 2l/2 minutes of her career. She really seizes this moment, and it’s about time.

Then there’s Lydon’s muddy vpcals—different on each track— from “Albatross”, where he really sounds like you’d feel if a dead bird was hanging aroung your neck; to “Chant”, where he screams words which sound like “love/war/feaf/ hate” about ninety million times under lyrics which posit protest as rherely entertaining ambiance. The song is as complex as the Sex Pistols’ numbers which indicted the singer as well as “the establishment” (the moments that made the band so much more admirable than the finger-pointing Clash). There is irony here but certainly no fun. There are no rousing anthems to externalize the revolt. More to the point is “Birds” where even redemption is viewed as embarrassingly pat.

But the main thrust here surrounds the nuances of Lydon’s voice. He’s probably the only singer ever to match the emotional depth of white blues singers like Joplin and Cocker without the slightest technical ability to help him along. Perhaps this isthe scream of (he butterfly we’ve heard now-dead voices sing about for so many years.

Jim Farber

THE CRETONES Thin Red Line (Planet)

My line on Linda Ronstadt’s always been that she’s the continuing victim (prisoner in disguise?) of one of the crummiest critical double standards going. You ever notice how all the (male) critics gang up on each of Ronstadt’s albums, bloodthirsty to slap her silly little girlish wrist for even daring to interpret (they call it “misread”) Jehovah Costello’s holy lyrics, or for some other such petty infraction against (male) taste?

And then some of these same writers seize on each pathetic discharge of drool from Linda’s (male)Asylum cohorts, from certified nitwits like J.D. Souther or Jackson Browne (who taught Ronstadt much of what she knows and is trying to outgrow now), and praise that (male) drivel to the skies. Aw, shit! And then these misters echo ol’ man Freud, and* accuse Linda once more of not knowing what she wants!

( Which is where the Cretones come in. Ronstadt’s new Mad Love appears to be getting theusual shaft from the boys on the bus, even as her “punk” moves can be read as a healthy sign that at least one L.A. denizen is ready to get off her ass and just try something new, • whatever the aesthetic/critical consequences Elektra-Asylum’s promo of the new Linda Ronstadt has focused on the Cretones as the catalysts of her bold move into the 80’s, and I assumed from the euphoric press releases that Cretone leader Mark Goldenberg would be an organic, recenteen L.A. punk, a kind of Doug Fieger sans bullshit past (sans any past, hopefully).

. So I slap Side 1, Band 1 of the Cretones’ debut disc onto my turntable, and my speakers emit this super-volume but terminal-whine country-rock vocal, some guy bellyaching about “Real Love” as though the Ramones and Sex Pistols had never existed, as though Neil Young was the most progressive rocker we could ever hope for! Shoulda known they couldn’t scrape all the Eagles-detritus out of those E/A grooves before the Cretones recorded!

Obviously, the Cretones do have a musical past, and it’s a universally dismal one, if you’re hot to trot these guys out as legitimate sons of 77. Mark Goldenberg was in the Eddie Boy Band. Bassist Peter Bernstein hung around with prominent CBGBers on the order of Andrew Gold, Karla Bonoff, and Wendy Waldman. Ditto for drummer Steve Beers, once in Waldman’s band. These are definitely the kind of guys Lome Michaels won’t feel his> authority threatened by when they make it to Saturday Night Live. .

To be fair, though, the Cretones’ Thin Red Line gets more interestinjg once you’re past the misguided “Real Love”. Like many other leftover country rockers blinking at the bright-light 80’s, Mark Goldenberg teeters endlessly between his rock traditions and the lure of the newer waves. His vocals, in particular, waver between patented country-rock whine and patented punkrock snottiness, often in the same line—a thin red line, to be sure, but the whole album is infused with this muted schizophrenia.

“Everybody’s Mad at Katherine” starts to sound really good, as it suggests similarly successful country/wave fusions by Rachel Sweet, and then a few cuts later you’re right back to, “Real Love”, in the ironically-titled “Here Comes the Wave’^ a honky-tonk tearjerker full of the casual-love cliches. Do any of these c-rock procurers really know what “dime-a-dance” means? Henry Miller met his immortal “Mona” just that way.

But back to the Cretones and their “Justine,” not much of a song lyrically, yet instrumentally it features an incredibly rich base in Steve Leonard’s moaning-withroller-rink-passion Wurlitzer organ. Leonard may have been essaying Elvis Costello’s pump-it-up organ tone, but he’s accomplished something closer to that bizarrely compelling organ on Cliff Richard’s “We Don’t Talk Anymore”, a similar case of super keyboards rescuing indifferent material.

Thin Red Line is that kind of record: heavily flawed, schizoid, yet memorable for all its dangling, promising, ragged edges. Keep building on this, guys, and remember what they used to say around the Troubadour, “Let it all hang out...”

Richard Riegel

IGGY POP Soldier (Arista)

Now here’s a nostrum for the hebetude of the ages. This giddy splash of sonic-comedy for the nonce sets aside Iggy Pop’s overly publicized after-image as the vitriolic paramour of the much sought after punk ethic. Iggy, long the brooding, self-destructing looking glass image of the desperate 70’s, has lifted the veil of pretense surrounding the darker aspects of rock ’n’ roll attitude and has launched himself into the 80’s on tsunamis of laughter ’n satire. Surfs up!

On Soldier, Iggy’s cadaverous berceuses are replaced impishly with vulterine wit and crisp vignettes of comedic bellicosity. Anyone who doesn’t realize that Iggy’s been rock’s only comedian since the beginning really doesn’t understand the inherent humor of rock ’n’ roll and the inherent brilliance of the Pop's constant excursions into the pawky parody that underscores the basic textures of rock ’xf roll. The minute you begin to take the music, the poses, the business of rock seriously, you no longer posess the primordial spark of attitude which created rock music in the first place. The minute you take Iggy seriously is the minute you cease to really understand the real pain and torture of his sneering psychology.

Raw Power was chock full of the kind of gallows humor you’d expect Alfred Hitchcock to crack a smile to; Fun House was about, what else,’ fun—the only recurring theme and serious aspect of Iggy’s philosophy. Fun being the true brotherhood of opiated release keeping a majority of humanity from crossing the river Styx (the mythology, not the group) into the cinerous regions of conformity and automaton delight. Fun is serious business. Even the Ig’s much acclaimed New Values had flashes of laughter ranging from the self-parody of “I’m Bored’* and “Girls” to the outright musical slapstick of/'African Man.”

Soldier has all the yuks of a Jackie Vernon album and the quick wit of Henny Youngman doing a* three minute skit on a telethon for deranged Lithuanian midgets. For those who are going to decide that this album isn’t good because it isn’t laced with fiery rock damnations or physically abusive power canvases boy, are you missin’ the proverbial boat. If you want doom and demise go buy the new Styx LP or the latest by Public Image; if you want sbmething that’ll lift up your spirits in a paroxysmal display of rock beauty then Soldier is the drug prescribed by rock ’n’ roll doctors everywhere.

All the Pop-toons on this album are beau ideals of berserker hedonics. Starting with the opening vociferation Qf “Dog Food,” which is' self-parody mixed together with outright cynicism on the aseptic punk stance, the Ig hits the id with an image of Lome Greene subliminally flashing across the Twonkyeye decked out in the sparse fashion of a Soho punkite: a torn T-shirt sporting a burning map of the Ponderosa, crusty, shit-stained leather chaps, a safety pin stuck snuggly in his cheek, seated atop a squirming Hop-Sing while supping on a can of high-yield Alpo.

“I Need More” is about the intrinsic danger of the American dream. It’s a fat softg about the desire for overabundance. The Ig tells us that we all really want as much as we cari take, we want to distend our psyches with “More future/More laughs/More culture/ Don’t forget adrenaline/More freedom...”. “I Snub Ybu” is a barcarolle bump into someone on the street. These two songs and the absolutely crushing “I’m a Conservative” (an inner look into the philosophy of the Incredible Shrinking Man,) are the aces in this deck.

All the Popographs on Soldier abound with this insane cackling; and &11 the Popographs on Soldier abound with an energy that’s a welcome relief from the ergless tundra currently spreading through the music biz like some incredible green slime in search of an identification fix. This hecatomb to kicking up the mental heels and sayin’ “Whoopee” is a well received dose of lighthearted medication. It only stands to reason that what the Ig should record next is a disco-ized version of Red Buttons’ “Ho Ho Song.” This record makes me smile. Joe (You thought the leaden winter would bring him down forever...) Fernbacher

RAYDIO

Two Places At The Same Time • ■ t_(Arista) __

Ray Parker, Jr. has staked out Raydio’s territory at the junction of goodtime, riff-based party music and the rather more pop-vocaloriented smooth soul that reached its apogee in the late ’60’s and early ’70s with such groups as the Delfonics and the Stylistics. Parker (who produces, arranges, writes the songs, sings, plays guitar, etc. in a virtuoso display that even Stevie Wonder would find estimable) deliberately controls his musical ambitions—makes no attempt at an overwhelming cosmic perspective (a la Maurice White); nor does he aim for the tension and turbulence of Sly Stone’s best work; indeed, he manages to steer clear of even the hinted-at chaos in Kool and the Gang’s funkiest tunes (let alone the true lunacy of George Clinton’s PFunk). His stripped-down, fuel-. efficient brand of music is most successful when the melodies are shown off like small gems lying on a silky bed of his and Amell Carmichael’s trade-off vocals: last year’s “You Can’t Change That” (from Rock Oh) approaches the sublime. Guitars, drums, keyboards, and horns dart in and around the music, making the space between the instruments a factor in itself. Raydio’s music is danceable, but that is not its only orientation; there is a somewhat disco-heavy bottom, and yet the pace is often relaxed and undemanding. In fact, it is the harder funk numbers that are least successful; they seem ah obligatory response to the times and usually lack any real distinction. (An exception is the self-assertive and therefore funny reversal, “Is This A Love Thing,”—“or is this just a sex thing”—on Raydio.)

Two Places at the Same Time highlights Parker’s strengths and, except for one tedious instrumental, it is an effective, low-key synthesis of soul and funk. The dance numbers work almost hypnotically in a Chic-like groove (but with a lot more spunk), and “Tonight’s The Night,” written with Herbie Hancock, has a cool sophistication that is evidence of Parker’s continuing process of fine-tuning his tastes. Yet there is no doubt that Raydio shines on “Two Places At The Same Time,” “A Little Bit Of You,” and “Can’t Keep. From Cryin’.” The sweetest vocals this side of “La La Means I Love You” and “Reunited” —like flow are at the heart of three unassuming and lovely (destined to be) hits. Two Places at the Same Time won’t knock you out, but it’s hard to resist its embracing sublety.

Jim Feldman

THE JAM Setting Sons (Polydor)

So 1980 is going down as the yeair America finally accepts the Clash; as I write this, London Calling is crashing the Top 40 like an uninvited guest giving life to an all-too-predictable party. The Jam’s future is more iffy; although equally wellregarded in their homeland, their new album is bogged down in the lower ranges of the US charts as they begin their yearly invasion.

I guess it was inevitable that the Clash would break through first; theirs is a more romantic music than the Jam’s, dealing primarily with grand gestures of defiance and the myths that surround them. Like the Stones and the Who before them, they know that their anthems can provide rallying cries for their supporters but tunes like “Death Or Glory” and “London Palling” also show that they understand the limits'of their leadership.

In contrast, the Jam’s Paul Weller hasn’t concerned himself much with anthems or grand gestures; like the Kinks’ Ray Davies before him, he’s too busy adjusting the fine tuning, getting the details right. The one time on this album he confronts open conflict—between would-be revolutionaries and the establishment in “The Eton Rifles”—he does so without any illusions whatsoever; his protagonist ends up “Beaten and bloody and I was sick down my shirt,” and the powers-that-be win the day. “The Eton Rifles” was a #1 hit in England and is easily as strong a song as “London Calling,” yet it’s unlikely to have as much of an impact on American ears because the little details that help it hit home in the U.K. don’t quite have the same immedi.acy and depth of meaning here.

That’s been a real problem for the hand in the past, conventional wisdom’s prediction that they’re “too British” to communicate very well to us. But check out these new songs ...like “Private Hell,” which exposes the day-to-day drudgery in an uncommunicative family, as seen through the eyes of the mother. It’s set to a relentless, perfectly-controlled rhythm track and is effectively depressing; thank God there are no caffeine habits and valium hazes in America.

Or “Little Boy Soldiers,” about the joys of military service. “These days I find that I can’t be bothered /These days I find that it’s all too much/To pick up a gun and shoot a stranger/But I’ve no choice so here I come—war games.” But all that’s just because of the faded British Empire; thank Carter that there’s no need for conscription in America.

Or “Burning Sky,” a letter from one old schoolchum to another, complete with jolly reminiscing about past relationships and alltoo-cheerful dismissing of youthful ideals in the face of economic realities. But everyone knows that England’s been going under for years; thank Reagan that profit margins don’t determine moral values in America...

...Yeah, sure. If you believe that, you’ve had your headphones on for too lbng, mate, er, bub. I don’t have to make the connections for you, do I?

One more thing: there are a lot of people who still maintain that sinc'e the Jam are so firmly rooted jn the Who/Kinks tradition that there is no reason to listen to ’em while the originals are still around. That may have been true in the past hut with this album,' the Jam have pulled up with and passed their mentors. Just play Setting Sons back to back with Low Budget or Who Are You? and I think you’ll see what I mean.

Michael Davis

FELIX CAVALIERE Castles In The Air (Epic)_

Up-front rhythms and high energy were the essence of the Rascals, but you won’t find much of either of those qualities on Felix Cavaliere’s new solo album, Castles In The Air. Cavaliere and co-producer Cengiz Yaltkaya have chosen two routes tor reigniting Felix’s career: disco and mellow, Billy Joel-ish pop. But the disco cuts are dreary and bloodless, with such top sessipn players as the Average White Band s drummer Steve Ferrone, guitar star Steve Kahn and even exRascal Buzz Feiten all turning in competent, but hardly inspired, performances. And though the ballads do provide the few bright spots on the record, namely Cavaliere’s delicate falsetto moving through lilting melodies, they are almost completely undermined by the generally lifeless rhythm, string and horn arrangements.

“Only a Lonely Heart Sees” (Forget the bland romantic lyrics, here as elsewhere) has memorably lyrical verse, but just when you’re expecting the big hook, an awkward, ill-fitting chorus takes over (“Hey/Only a lonely heart sees/

What love can be [repeat]”). The Song’s soft-core status is further solidified by George Young’s alto sax solo which is strictly in the “Just the Way You Are” groove, and a relentlessly strumming acoustic guitar bogs the entire track down. There’s simply no fire or imagination at the base of the song, and the sweetening only serves to point that out.

“Good to Have Love Back” finds the band cooking fairly well, slick and subdued, but it’s hard to get excjted about a song that includes such doggerel as “My eyes have been gifted/With love’s sweet recipe.” There’s even a reprise of the Rascals’ “People Got To Be Free” with old sidekick Eddie Brigati helping out on vocals. The song, of course, is a gem, but the updated version substitutes power chords for the brass section that made the original and the results are predictably disappointing.

Cavaliere certainly has the talent to be a major star again, but it won’t happen without bolder production and a bit more discretion in the choice of material. On the album credits, Felix thanks his session men for, among other things, their “promptness.” Maybe Woody Allen is right when he says that 80percent of life is just showing up, but the other 20 percent sure would have helped here.

Allen Morrison

IAN McLAGAN Troublemaker (Mercury)

They all worked really hard to get this one right, and the effort shows. McLagan, the good timey keyboardist from the Small Faces and Rod Stewart’s Faces, follows Steve Marriott and Ronnie Lane’s solo projects with a sure-footed yet characteristically boozy set that fit^ right into the devil-may-care philosophy he’s lived his rock and roll life by. McLagan always seemed like a man with limited talents but the right attitude when he pounded the slippery ivories for the Faces, and his good nature has stood him in good stead here. A heady crew of session all stars showed up for this date with the expressed purpose of giving their old mate a helping hand and consequently lay out with a lot more purpose than the usual L.A. session collection. On hand for the event were Keith Richards, Jim Keltner, Ringo Starr, Stanley Clarke and Bobby Keys, plus ex-Faces cohort Ron Wood, who contributed an active hand that included guitar, horns arid vocals.

McLagan’s great advaritage here is his modesty. Rather than pulling the “do it myself” trip most ex-band merribers go for on their first solo buting, McLagan relegates himself to a “one of the boys” position, playing all keyboards but usually in a supporting role and using collective vocals rather than relying solely on his ou)n limited pipes. The result is a really nice, party feel to the record despite the meticulous recording strategy that was obviously used. “La De La” and “Headlines” open with a one two punch as heady as anything in recent memory, and while the reggae-fied “Truly,” which drags on far too long, destroys the pace, Mac . picks it back up with the raucous “Movin’ Out,” then follows with the knee-knocking second side opener, “Little Troublemaker,” a tune which would have easily made any Faces album. But my favorite song on the album is the eerie “Sign,” a bubbling New Orleans-influenced ballad which features great piano and organ fills. The record closes with a strong Rolling Stones flavor, pounding away with the rollicking “Hold On” before closing with the extended ballad “Mystifies Me,” a combo reminiscent of the superb Let It Bleed finale.

John Swenson

RACHEL SWEET Protect The Innocent _(Stiff/ Columbia)_

Lemme put it this way: Stiffmates Rachel Sweet and Lene Lovich are kinda like the Garbo and Dietrich of rock ’n’ roll, alright? I mean, they’re a classic case of opposites: hot ’n’ cold, soft ’n’ hard, get the picture?^ And to compare the two side by side, it would seem that, upon first impression, Rachel would be the one to be at a distinct disadvantage. After all, who has the orange hair, black crepe dresses and accompanying EuroSlavicharm?Meanwhile, at 17, Radhel is...well, you know how 17-year-old girls are.

Also, unlike Lene, Rachel is no singer/songwriter/B-movie screamer. And while Lene is (for the most parl^ a straight-out rock ’n’ roller, Rachel is...is...well, let’s just say that, she has the potential to go far as a chanteuse in either rock ’n’ roll or country and western—depending upon which style she chooses.

Unfortunately, on Protect The Innocent (this year’s follow-up to Fool Around), Rachel has yet fb make up her mind. The album knifedges between rock and coun-' try—and this time out neither side emerges as a clear victor. Rachel’s voice screams out the country inflections but it’s her band which rips out the rock.

Which is too bad. Protect The Innocent is certainly a more highpowered effort than Fool Around ever was, and yet on the latter not one track reaches the speakershredding intensity that “Cuckoo Clock” on the former did. At least on “Cuckoo Clock,” Rachel sang in an authentic rock ’n’ roll voice. By comparison, when she Tackles the Damned’s “New Rose” or the Velvet Underground’s “New Age,” the overall effect is somewhat akin to hearing some mutated Tammy Wynette crossover attempt—if that’s your idea of a good time at seven dollars a throw.

Still, as I intimated earlier, first impressions canT>e misleading and it may, indeed, be Rachel instead of La Lovich who could have time on her side in terms of career longevity. Should Lene’s schtick wear a bit thin with her public (Heaven forbid, but it’s possible), it’s not at all unlikely to imagine Rachel still around, full matured in her early 20’s as a singer of immense power. God knows the potential is there; to have command over such range at sueh an early age is to have a talent that must be cultivated. Here’s hoping that she’ll be allowed the chance to continue progressing from album to album.

On her next outing, however, Rachel should team up with someone who can direct her either as a rock ’n’ roller or as a country singer; someone with experience at helping young talents find their true identity.

May I suggest Max Von Sydow? He did wonders for Linda Blair.

Jeffrey Morgan