STORMIN’ THROUGH THE MIDNIGHT SHIFT

IRON CITY HOUSEROCKERS

Have A Good Time (But Get Out Alive) (MCA)

As a city where the populace chews steel for a living, Pittsburgh is an unlikely birthplace for a significant rock band (the Jaggerz don’t count). Heavy-metal dinosaurs excepted, it’s not a city actually jumping with rock ’n’ roll, probably because its citizenry has to work like dogs just to make ends meet. One cannot be a Soho artist in the Iron City.

It is around the sweat and grime of the work ethic which keeps their hometown in motion that the Iron City Houserockers were formed. The band’s music sounds so desperately alive that it’s as if they recorded it after a 12-hour shift at the mill. Yet it isn’t the hopelessness of enslavement to some lousy job that prompts the heroic urgency of their music but the Puritanical belief that hard work provides its own reward. Indeed, there must be a scrap of truth to such a maxim since Have a Good Time (But Get Out Alive), from start to finish^ roars like the fiery blast of aioundry furnace.

Nothing on the band’s 79 debut, Love’s So Tough, would have prepared us for this. More painstakingly crafted than the average barband LP, it was still too much of a neo-Springsteen outing, lacking the necessary vision that we have come to expect from American music rooted in the working-class ethos (Bob Seger, the Band).

But the Houserockers’ new album . earns them a permanent pedestal in the hallowed hall of the immortals—it is a work of uncommon drive and very sensitive rationality. While major artists like Costello and Parker are having to rethink the cliches that they’ve set up, this pack of nonentities has taken over with a tactic that never fails: STAMINA. “You can act crazy,” they sing on the title cut, acknowledging the universal desire to screw around, “but don’t be a fool.”

A criticism that will be leveled at the Houserockers is that they sound too often like too many other bands. Vocalist Joe Grushecky definitely has patterned his style after Parker and Springsteen, although his voice has a more ragged edge; he sings like he’s constantly clearing his throat, hoarse beyond the point where Life Savers would give any relief. At times, certainly the band echoes the early Stones or J. Geils, but more frequently, they play like the great lost bar band that never made it...and then finally did.

Still, the Houserockers transcend their references, not by flexing their muscles like macho men from the factory, but by conveying the idea that pulling oneself up by the bootstraps is in itself a revolutionary act. On “We’re Not Dead Yet” (a song that echoes Dion’s “Born To Cry” and even shares its fatalism), the band offers hope to the downtrodden by clamoring for a struggle against inertia. With Ian Hunter’s haunting piano creating a mesmerizing mood, “Hypnotized” attacks a nation so passive that it could foreseeably elect as president the former host of Death Valley Days. Further, “Pumpin’ Iron Iron” rocks with a dignity that would make Karl Malden’s Skag burst with pride.

The album abounds with innumerable moments of rich revelations: rock and roll dramaturgy as an act of self-denial (“Price of Love”), the unveiling of the Era of Real People (“Angela”), and the demystification of Deborah Harry (“Blondie”). The pairing of “Old Man Bar” and “Junior’s Bar” is especially inspired, as the Houserockers evoke a “juke box full of memories” while simultaneously exploring the pain of their familiar terrain—dimly lit dives and sloshy saloons.

Darkness on the Edge of Town, Heat Treatment, Mott, and Street Survivors—Have a Good Time (But Get Out Alive) not only recalls but also equals the mature depths of these masterpieces. Hopefully, like a red-hot poker, the album’s message will scar our furrowed brows: We are the people, and it’s high time we kicked in our televisions and got down to work.

BLACK SABBATH Heaven And Hell (Warner Bros.) TED NUGENT Scream Dream (Epic)

Now that all the new wave convulsionaries have allowed their initial crazed dervishes to lapse into the pipsqueak squawks and hollers of power pop, it’s time, once again, for the semi-shy, but always lurking, Romilar angels of Heavy Metal to leap out from behind their misanthropic confessionals and whip it out! Gasp n’ thwack!

It’s time to let these flabby custodians of the sonic necropolises tidy up the gardens of torpor and make them inhabitable for all of us techno-rastas, titupping Vapo-rub thudders, and maundering mutants of metal mania. All us noise junkies with our middle fingers unabashedly plugged into the nearest wall socket; our eyes and ears trickling greyish blood as a result of repeated listenings to old, scratchy copies of “Space Truckin’,” “DOA”, “Iron Man” and “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” at volumes loud endugh to move the ancient pyramids of Cheops around like Rubber Ducks in a bathtub. All of us skull-gnawing, nail-biting, rock croupiers who’ve been patiently wallowing in our grubby little piggeries playing endless air-guitar symphonies while making exotic rock star faces in candle-wax encased mirrors, (hoping against) hope to affect some mystical conjuration that’d call up those illusive, highly seductive, succubi of noise that’d make us feel rock ’n’ roll was alive again.

What with the steady influx of new HM bands like Van Halen, Judas Priest, Saxon, Iron Maiden, Krokus, etc. who play a new kind of metal sound—more thudding than power pop, less sentimental than straight pop, and totally ignorant of the social and political ideologies of punk—the old standbys from the bygone times of cough syrup hosannas and valium breezes have deemed it necessary to flounce back into -the fray and attempt to show the new beasts on the corner just how it’s supposed to be done. One, Black Sabbath, succeeds, the other, Ted Nugent, fails. The Great Mandella spins and spins-huh?

Black Sabbath's Heaven and Hell, sans the industrial wafblings of urban balladmonger Ozzy Osbourne—the absolute master of the HM banshee wail and a nonpareil Khan of metal zen—is a strange mixture of this new pop metal and the old flagging buzzes of trad-metal that works more often than not. And despite the cries that the album is too “arty” for a Black Sabbath LP, Heaven and Hell keeps alive the psyche of darkness the Sabs started with “Electric Funeral,” and “Paranoid.”

At. first it’s actually unpleasant to hear the Sabs sound without the skirling textures of Osbourne’s voice, but after awhile things settle down and you’re once again rockin’ with the Children of the Grave and crawling through the murky slipstreams of conciousness with Tony Iommi’s guitar fractiously soundtracking the way with physicianly certitude. Iommi, as usual, is the key factor here. His guitar, which has always been layered-and dubbed into infinity, thus creating that BS sound, has been left relatively alone on Heaven and Hell, resulting in some of his most haunting and lupine passages to date. This sonic tenderizer cooks with cannabalistic fury throughout, but he’s especially clangorous on “Die Young,” Lady Evil,” and the title track.

Ronnie Jame Dio ain’t no Ozzy Osbourne, but he’s sufficiently wellverSed in the high-stepping metal wail to rank highly in the pantheon of powerphobes. His voice doesn’t get in the way of the sonic panavisions being projected, like say Dave Roth’s does in Van Halen. And this is. definitely a proper attitude considering who he’s replacing. All in all Heaven and Hell isn’t as spectacular as some of the Sabs’ earlier stuff, but it’s certainly a step in the right direction—forward.

Taking two steps back and teetering on the brink of collapse is Ted Nugent. His imperial guitar wheedlings and his sense of humor about heavy metal made him the acknowledged top banana of sonic paganism. When he was blazing out songs like “Stormtroopin”’ and “Stranghold” he was a the top of his form. He was almost as rude as his Amboy Duke days. It was refreshing. But Nugent has apparently unravelled into an odious clown who’s beginning to give metal a bad name. Forsaking the felonry of his earlier guitar gonzoisms and donning a fool’s cap is a road few ever expected him to take. But he’s nonetheless taken it, and his last few LPs have de-emphasized the noise and over emphasized the chuckles. Now a rock-star comedian isn’t a bad idea, but he’s gonna have to get better writers if he wants to pull it off. Scream Dream is Ted Nugent doing a parody of Ted Nugent doing a parody of...y’ know what I mean. It doesn’t work. “Hard as Nails,” “Flesh and Blood” and. “Scream Dseam” are downright silly in the context of ha-ha sentimentality.

“Wango-Tango,” on the other hand, goes beyond the ridiculous almost far enough to become sublime. Almost. A stoopid song with potential, it rambles on and on with no visible means of guitar support and Nugent spouting rhymes right outta the rhyming dictionary. Real art. Boo. A scream of incompetence. I hate it.

If Scream Dream is a harbinger of things to come, I’d just as soon see a Ted Nugent sit com, or Ted becoming a guest for talk shows attempting to terrify his hosts with his learned rock madness. Personally, if there is going to be comedy-rock in the future I’d love to see a band comprised of George Martin, Henny Youngman and Rodney Dangerfield. They’d be better than the Strangeloves. Later. Much later.

Joe (Blood n’ Beans) Fernbacher

VARIOUS ARTISTES The Last Stiff Compilation (Stiff)

Twelve yrs. old, saved up buck eighty-eight in small change, went to Alexanders on Fordham Rd. after school, bought All The Hits By All The Stars on Parkway: Chubby, DeeDee, Orlons, Dovells, Rydell. Still have it, in fact. Play “Bristol Twistin’ Annie” once in a while. Warner Bros, mail order 2fers: got ’em (up to a point). Berserkley Chartbusters, 3 vols. of ECM promos, Antilles’ thing and 415’s, this L.A. hodgepodge on Planet, Philles and Sun imports, History of Bell U.K. Some filed alphabetically, some miscellaneous after “Zombies.” Record label LP compendia’re fun, and frustrating: no matter how cohesive the concept, there’s always some wart in the middle of a, side that you never want to hear again, like Seals & Crofts on The Whole Burbank Catalog mixed in with T. Rex. Beefheart, Sparks and Todd. Like life itself, isn’t it?

The Last Stiff Compilation... (a good one; Stiff’s usually are) bunches three indisputable bummers, the yapping and yawling of anachronisms Motorhead, Cockney Rejects and The Damned, at the close of side two, a definite consumer service right there. Their line-holding punk actions are embarrassing enough without being spread around. Otherwise, The LSC upholds the finer traditions of the sampler form by tossing together individual singles in one easy-to-acquire package (even more welcome in these days of $3.00 import 45s, in which form most of these tracks were previously only available), and trashes the equally venerable corporate-promotion tradition of the sampler form by licensing a bunch of ringers from such competitors as Sire, Polydor and Chiswick. Leave it to Stiff to seek out quality regardless of spawning ground. If A Bunch of Stiffs was, due to the all-around utility of Lowe and Edmunds and 1st taste of Wreckless and Elvis II, a ground breaking Kanesian declaration of principles, and Hits Greatest Stiffs was a somewhat shakier batch of “trivia for the collector,” this Last Compilation (“until the next one”) is an eccentric taste of 1980 U.K. musical pluralism that encompasses the Britinvasion R&B (Manfreds/Burdon division) of Lew Lewis, Madness’s slapstick ska, soul w/horns via Dexy’s Midnight Runners, plus Japanese fixations, electropop, girlgroup, straight-punk, John Ford variations, poetry, and more (and A. More).

Specificity: A. More’s “Judy Get Down” transmutes suddenly, in its chorus, from the whirrs, handclaps and vocal frippery of the NumanWooley school to the class of NashClarke-Hicks, proving that pop will out. The Cure and Madness you may have heard (or heard of): stiffnecked kinetics and goofily shallow white ska; by these two tracks (“Jumping Someone' Else’s Train” and “Bed and Breakfast Man”) ye shall know them and know whether you want their U.S. albums, neither on Stiff, as it happens. The Mo-dettes are a potential Little Ladies (Rock Follies) but lack a good producer and the spiky sex appeal of Julie Covington. Don’t want to hear much more of Any Trouble, particularly, ’tho “The Hurt,” like The Chords’s “Maybe Tomorrow,” is likeable journeyman rock. John Cooper Clarke strikes an interesting pose. Dexy’s Midnight Runners would, in all probability, make the best whole LP of the Newcomers: a knockout of a soul march/new wave permutation on “Dance Stance."

Lori & The Chameleons’ inscrutable “Touch” is one-off sublimity. Against a blip-and-gurgle backdrop, Lori, backed by “ah-ah-ah” voices, talk-sings in a dreamy English schoolgirl tone about discovering Japan: “We had such fun today...we went to the Imperial Palace...I love the music ...I just love the Tokyo lights...It’s so hot on the dance floor...could we go someplace where we could be alone? ...Oh, Kato, will 1 ever see you again?...Oh, Kato!!!” All the while, something like a synthesized koto strums away. Totally great. Continuing the oriental motif is Lene Lovich’s “I Think We’re Alone Now” in Japanese (except for the Englishwhispered title line). A hook is. a hook, a hit song is a hit song, in any language, you bet. John Otway and Wild Willy Barrett get away with abandoning the narrative climax of “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance”—the shooting of Valance, that is, making all else moot, of course— and turning the melody into a drunken reel. Shqesh, don’t contextual verities mean anything to these upstarts?

Oddities, mainly. No Lowes in the wings. No incubating Costellos. Lewis wailing away, waiting for an American album; Wreckless gleefully spiteful (brings to mind, somehow, Freddie Cannon),'on “Hit and Miss Judy”; Lovich doing a pink lady: these are the Stiff inheritors, the carriers-on (forget The Damned apd Motorhead, the inebriated uncles at the family reunion). Stiff is not what it was when it was going out on its indie limb, but hell, by All The Hits By All The Stars Volume 2, JoAnn Campbell was doing “I’m The Girl From Wolverton Mountain.” That’s just the way things go. Don’t they?

Mitchell Cohen

ALICE COOPER Flush The Fashion (Warner Brothers)

“Goodbye. Hey, goodbye guys! Maybe I’ll see—maybe I’ll see y’around sometime, huh? Hey, don’t make a stranger of yourself, huh? Remember the Coop, huh? I hope—I hope y’don’t forget me or nothin’. Goodbye...”

Alice, “Alma Mater,” 1972. A real man knows when it’s time to admit his mistakes—and I’ll, be the first one to publicly confess that the skinny little weasel sure as shootin’ had me fooled. Hell, I thought he was washed up. You know: Finished. Kaput. Had the bun. He probably had you fooled, too. I mean, how long did you stick around after the glorious wretched excess of 1973’s Billion Dollar Babies belched Up the afterbirth remains of the original Alice Cooper Group via the flaccid Muscle Of Love? Could you bear to watch one of rock’s great originals slide into a nickle and dime decline?

I sure as hell couldn’t.

So now it’s seven years later and, as late as two weeks ago, there was no way you’d get me to listen to an Alice Cooper album at this late stage of the game—let alone go out and actually buy one.

After all, we know what the Statute Of Limitations is on a body M.I.A., right?

Wrongo, boyo. Raise that curtain, hello hurray, old snake eyes is back with a two-sided disc-dose that’s more fun than freebasing with a polyester shirt on. After years of scamming us with a tightrope walk between rock ’n’ roll and bleeding-women bull, Alice has finally dug down, come up, and put his money where his meat is.

Still, seven years is a long time to be playing footsie with the die-hardrock fans of the world but, I kid you not, on Flush The Fashion, Alice shows the stuff that got him elected CREEM’s 1973 Punk Of The Year in that year’s annual readers’ poll (and when I say punk, I mean smart-ass—and, friake no mistake, next to Steven Tyler, they just don’t come any punkier than Alice).

So why, you ask, is this new LP gonna stick to the roof of your skull like a wet gob of Double-Bubble?

1. The title. Flush The Fashion is a great rock ’n’ roll title—especially in this day and age of terminal vagueness. (Agreed, Muscle Of Love was also a great title—and, hey, three guesses who pre dated the Sex Pistols on that one—butthat LP sucked glass doorknobs. This one doesn’t.)

2. The cover. Etched in fury with a rusty nail by old Salvadork A.C. himself, it’s a brilliant work hailing from the “who-gives-a-shit” school of design.

3. The songs. “Clones” you all know about by now. It out-replicas Gary Numan by adding a sense of humor tempered with a streak of masculinity. “Leather Boots” sounds like epileptic Warriors on speedballs and isn’t what you think it’s about. Nuff said? No? Well...

4. The lyrics. “Pain” contains some of Alice's best lines since “Second Coming” and, as for “Model Citizen,” can you find fault with a guy gutsy enough to sing a line like “I’m a friend of Sammy Davis (casually)”? I can’t, and I don’t even know the jerk.

5. The vocals! Maybe those nights in the detox tanks really did the trick, ’cause Alice sounds like Public Animal #9 again. When he snarls “I’m the burnin’ sensation when the convict, fries,” he sounds just exactly like you’d want him to sound.

6. The back-up vocals. Flo and Eddie, for that classic T-Rex sound. No Liza or Labelle in 1980.

7. The production. As I said: jackhammers. You can thank Roy Thomas Baker for this one.

8. The credits. It’s about time somebody gave credit to Basil Fawlty for inspiration on a rock ’n’ roll album.

9. The concept. The concept this time around is that there is no concept this time around—other than Alice declaring war on the new decade.

10. The score. Alice: 1, New Decade: 0.

11. The moral. It’s 1980. Do you know where your heroes are?

Jeffrey Morgan

THE FEELIES Crazy Rhythms (Stiff)

Says somewhere somethin’ about the name of this band “not meaning too much.” Just pleasant phonetics, that’s what they say. Feelies? Like feel-ease for free-lease; rhymes with freebies, close to frisbee(s) and fizzies.

Pleasant sounds? Happy vowels and consonants 4 sure, pleasantness seemingly the nature of the dog here. Anti-caustic stuff redolent of defanged Velvets and Stooges, J. Richman and E-n-o. Crazy rhythms? Yeah well, uh... some spooky tempos maybe...

Songs on this platter r-not angry or manic or crazy or gratuitous or really all that different. But they’re, uh, pleasant and fun to shake around with and actually sorta infectious onna subdued frenetic level (subdued frenetics always an integral aspect of hep Gnu Wave sounds). “The Boy With Perpetual Nervousness” hooks a groovy tomtom riff with a twangy-tremolo’d eminor/d-minor gtr. part that in its statcato-like persistence matches up an all reet surf beat with ethereal mid-sixties 6-string vision. It kinda suggests a distant cousin of the Modern Lovers’ “Old World,” “Someone I Care About.” Dorky vocals (singer.Glenn Mercer sounds like a real shmoe) oscillate in ’n’ out of the melody and melody-fragments. Some meaty pieces to be found in “Loveless Love” and “Forces At Work;” the former exhibiting some cagey V.U., synthesis of lyric and passion, the latter a weird inversion of Television’s “Guiding Light” and Dictators’ “Teengenerate” (“who’s that boy with the sandwich in his hand...”).

“Moscow Nights” and “Original Love” on side 2 seem contagious enuff with “Pushin’ Too Hard” chord switch-offs and minor-key fairy-tales; title track (strange rockabilly mutant??) and coupla others are sort of dull, not up to the standards of the faster ones,but are nevertheless ’ entirely listenable—nothing on this record approaches insipidness.

’N fact, acknowledgements on the inner sleeve credit one Charlie Beasley [very hep guy—we useta cruise in his old Renault on the prowl for rare vinyl longtime ago; once made it up to Redding, CA (110° in the shade) hot on the trail of four Yesterday And Today Butcher covers only to find some Balloon Farm 45’s and a gas-station creep threatening to exterminate Beasley’s skull] in the special-fanxto crowd!

Feelies ’re feelers, fooling around for feeling, freely feeling what they want. Feeling seems to be the common denominator on this disc—there’s a real clumsy, imperfect type of delivery and performance that jextaposes raw with meticulous. Postures culled from familiar turf, parent prime #’s, the likes of Sterling Morrison, Moe Tucker and Jonathan, come off anything but recycled fan tribute. Tunes here display a kneejerk awkwardness and non-superficiality that’s warm and friendly.

And pleasant....

Gregg Turner

THE KINKS One For The Road (Arista)

One For The Road is the third live Kinks album. The first (Live Kinks c. 1966) featured some fine early songs and a distractingly hysterical audience; the second, two sides of Everybody’s In Showbiz, had some decent middle-period songs and a distractingly coquettish Ray Davies. On this new album the . music is as good as ever, and Ray manages to keep the audience and himself under relative control. As with most in-concert recordings, there are a lot of crowd pleasers and few surprises. The double record format allows for a good scope of Kinks standards, all well suited to live performance for divergent reasons. Although their matching velvet suits have long since been retired, the group’s vast repetoire is still riddled with those contradictions set up as early as ’64 when the Kinks unfurled their mannered, sartorial impeccability hand in hand with musical chaos and abandon. Davies presents himself alternately as rock star, revisionist, lazy lush, hero, buffoon—changing roles with blinding speed. Throughout he manages to remain accessible, just another daydreamer who speaks for all of us, and his tendency towards selfindulgence both on record and on stage only makes him more endearing. Like a favorite child, we spoil and want to protect Ray, continuing to forgive his excesses.

The “I’m so sorry for myself because even though I’m lazy and ugly I’m nobler than the rest” songs are bearable here because you know Ray has an audience for his angst. “Victoria” remains the perfect antidote to “Anarchy in the U.K ”. “All Day and All of the Night” should be released immediately as a 12-inch single to show those club-hopping upstarts what D.O.R. is really about. Even that old reliable paean to perversion “Lola” gets, new life with a snappy acoustic guitar intro and an audience singalong which is, if obligatory, truly inspiring in its unbridled enthusiasm.

In a way, the Kinks ensured theif longevity by abandoning the traditional trappings of a narcissistic rock culture early on. They needn’t hope to die before they get old because their values were quite antiquated to begin with. With few exceptions, Davies composes timeless songs; one can imagine the Kinks performing them indefinitely without much embarrassment some, like “Where Have All The Good Times Gone,” may become even more timely with age. “Rock bands’ll come, rock bands’ll go. But rock ’n’ roll shall go on forever” proclaims the Kinks’ lead singer, introducing one of the songs that amazed a decade-and*a-half ago. Cliched, perhaps, but few know better than Ray Davies.

Terri A. Huggins

THE BUZZCOCKS A Different Kind of Tension (International Record Syndicate)

“Because there is no solution in the contemporary world of bogus solution, art itself becomes a form of defiant action...”

Lordy mercy, idn’t what Stephen Spender writ in his intro to Malcolm Lowry’s Under the Volcano the dad-blamed neoteric gospel, the only solution ya can expect a dime for two nickels from in these nuclear days being the one final?, Yup, neighbors, quandary quandary ever’ where, an epidemic of poison ivy heebie-jeebies from the crawling, sapping vine of modern malaise. Don’t it just undo ya? And ain’t we lucky there exists the All the Young Pseuds branch of the most musical form of defiant action, pickin’ at the rats alley scabbies with fictile fingernails, reaping portentous harvests of purulent provocation?

Why alrriost assuredly so. Consider the 2nd U.S. release by the Buzzcocks, a band with irripeccable credentials (an EP debut during the protomorphic stage of U.K. punk featuring Howie Devoto, with whom ‘Cocks point-man Pete Shelley colloborated to write Magazine’s rather epic “Shot by Both Sides”) and an initial stateside LP, the Singles Going Steady compilation, exhibiting an uncommon acumen in regard to le romance moderne (w/sidestreet implications available for the reading) and a handsome pop-metallic verve.

Without this recording I can say with all probable certitude that I would not today have once thought “there is no love in this world anymore,” or answered a single metaphorical bell, or mused the flipping of declaration’s coin. Not benefited by the title track, it is doubtful that I would ponder the blurring of choices in this virulent age, or the correlation of such to the declivity for the prospect of solution’s salve. Denied “Hollow Inside” I might have not have been prompted to swallow hard and gauge the degree of internal reverberation. The words “angst” and “existential” almost certainly would not have entered my mind’s playground if not fqr “I Just Don’t Know What to Do with Myself.” Deprived of this LP I most likely would have passed this fine summer afternoon blithely unaware of the paradox and debilitation bearing down hard on my spiritual condition.

I mean, so what if Tension’s concluding radio static reprise of Singles’ “Everybody’s Happy Nowadays”/“Why Can’t I Touch It?” inspires the comment that only “You Say You Don’t, Love Me” and “You Know You Can’t Help It” from this LP deserve favorable comparison to the muricate sensibility of its predecessor? I don’t mind. Hey, the obvious and the rhetorical make lots of people happy! And for them, A Different Kind of Tension is o.k. o.k.

j.m. bridgewater

THE BLUE NOTE CLASSIC SERIES (Blue Note)

Amid the fusion muck, the continuing re-issues, the reaffirmation of the verities and the unrelenting avant-garde, some of the most compelling jazz going down now can be found in the continuing series of Blue Note’s previously unissued recordings. Here then is a brief, hopefully not too glib, survey of the label’s latest batch of new/old sides, immodestly labeled of the label’s latest batch of new/old sides, immodestly labeled “classics,” and proof that nostalgia is only a small part of the Blue Note trip—most of these records sound remarkably fresh.

The new issues are, in chronological order:

Jimmy Smith — Confirmation (date of recording: ’57-58). An interminable jam session with only three cuts including a version of “Cherokee” that runs to 20 minutes. Trumpeter Lee Morgan is young, hip, and dazzling but organist Smith was always more arresting in a funky context than in a straightahead post-bop one...still, it cooks mightily.

Donald Byrd—Chant (’61). A typical Blue Note session with emphasis on both the blowing and the interesting head arrangements. A quintet is led by trumpeter Byrd and baritone saxophonist Pepper Adams thru six cuts ranging from “I’m An Old Cowhand” (which Sonny Rollins had brought into the fold) to Byrd’s righteous original “Chant.” It’s nice to hear straight jazz again from Byrd, who long ago disappeared into the far side of fusion, as well as a very young Herbie Hancock, not yet the master but fleet-fingered and bluesy and sounding happy to be playing with the big boys.

Grant. Green Solid (’64): Green, who died in early ’79, hada Jekyll/Hyde recording career, alternately making boring low-yield bar blooze and funk LP’s and meatier (needless to say, jazzier) efforts that revealed him to be one of the most original and expressive of modern guitarists. This set is in the second category, a sextet playing five selections including George Russell’s legendary “Ezz-Thetic” and tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson’s archtypical post-bop, burner “The Kicker.” The album would be worth having for drummer Elvin Jones’ time-bending polyrhythms and Green’s clean and always slightly melancholy guitar lines alone but there’s also Henderson (hot), alto saxophonist James Spaulding (sinewy) and pianist McCoy Tyner (Tynerish).

Wayne Shorter—The Soothsayer (’65). This is the kind of set that gets the veteran Blue Note listener salivating before the jam is even out of the cover—a sextet with Shorter on tenor, Spaulding and Tyner again, Freddie Hubbard, trumpet, Ron Carter, bass and Tony Williams, drums/playing five carefully arranged and attractive originals by Shorter plus an adaptation of Sibelius’ “Valse Triste.” Shorter’s shadings are exotic and Williams drumming is crisp and imaginative...a dream set.

Jackie McLean—Consequence (’65). Had this been released at the time it was recorded, in the wake of McLean’s astounding avant-garde dates, it would probably have seemed a tad too conservative for serious consideration—but now, heard with the wisdom of hindsight

Bobby Hutcherson—Spiral (’65 -’68). During his Blue Note years Hutcherson, along with Milt Jackson and Gary Burton, defined modern jazz vibraphone playing. This session, one of his less avant-garde efforts, is highlighted by two memorable compositions by drummer Joe Chambers, hard-edged and passionate solos by the underrated tenor saxophonist Harold Land as well as a cut from a ’65 Session featuring reedman Sam Rivers and pianist Andrew Hill.

Dexter Gordon — Clubhouse (’65). This quintet date could have been routine but the fabled Blue Note touches abound—the variety and tight execution of the six selections, the crackling joie de vivre of house drummer Billy Higgins, and the relaxed but never flabby improvisations by tenor saxophonist Gordon and pianist Barry Harris. Trumpeter Freddie Hubbard is, as usual, a little too flashy but what the heck. and the time-worn realization that, as critic Gary Giddins put it, “a thoughtful conservativism is not necessarily a greater sin than radicalism in things aesthetic,” the album comes on like an instant classic. McLean burns on alto, trumpeter Lee Morgan smoulders and once again bop cleanses the soul.

Hank Mobley—A Slice Of The Top (’66). Tenor saxophonist Mobley is a prime example of the underrated jazz musician (a double hardship), the kind of artist that people tell bitter stories about, stories that are too perfectly illustrative of The Injustice Of It All. Yet Mobley has made a rich series of recordings telling of the evolution of a distinctive and compelling voice. This is an atypical octet date and reveals Mobley to be an underrated composer as well.

Lee Morgan—Sonic Boom (’67). Apparently, while I was sitting in the park, sniffing the rarified air and sucking my love beads, trumpeter Morgan was keeping the faith. This is a typical Morgan/BN date, i.e., very good, with one big surprise— the ptesence of tenor saxophonist David Fathead Newman in a straight-ahead jazz context, and he plays like he’s always been doing it. Also, it should be pointed out to the youngbloods who would laugh that the obligatoVy funk tunes that became a staple of Morgan sessions after “The Sidewinder” hit it big always sounded corny, even way back then.

Stanley Turrentine—New Time Shuffle (’67). Speaking of corny funk, uh, well, tenor saxophonist Turrentine is not without his appeal, but this is exactly the kind of boring, shamelessly commercial effort that began to dominate BN releases toward the end of their reign. Nothing special.

Richard Walls

DEVO Freedom of Choice (Warner Bros.)

As a committed Devophile, I’ve been dreading the release of this album ever since the group first broke through nationally in 1978. Their Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are DEVO! debut set was one of the most striking records of that fluid new-music year, but it was also typical of many other bands’ first albums, in that it was a collection of songs conceived and developed over a long period of black-humored struggle against the oblivion of jerkwater existence (read Akron). Classic Devo tunes like “Mongoloid” or “Jocko Homo” were obviously satirical, topical fictions, but also managed to convey the reality of the group’s optimistic/no-expectations background, somewhere amid the jiving lyrics.

I wondered then whether Devo could keep coming up with so many good songs in the ever-shorter intervals between their subsequent albums, but cleverly corporate Devo second-guessed me at least on last year’s Duty Now For the Future, by including pre-Are We Not Men standards like “Smart Patrol” and “Wiggly World,” and by writing enough interesting new tunes like “Swelling Itching Brain” to conceal the album’s weaker links.

But the new Freedom of Choice is finally the naked Devo, and based on the album’s 12 all-original, apparently all-new songs, it sounds very much as though their minimalism is wearing thin, so to speak. Freedom of Choice is a highly professional, slickly-produced, mainstream pop album; each of the 12 cuts has a catchy, concise, highly-programmable riff to it, with Mark Mothersbaugh’s hooky keyboards very 1980-prominent. If this were the debut LP of some anonymous power popsters from the hinterlands, it would undoubtedly receive many complimentary reviews, even with the group wearing those plastic flower pots on their heads on the cover.

But Devo have already topped themselves (maybe for good) with their “Mongoloid” era material, and the new songs on Freedom of Choice sound dull by comparison, especially lyrically. There are some good lines on the new LP, like “When woman takes a back seat to man/She has to tell him where to go if she can” in “Ton O’ Luv,” or “Freedom of choice is what you got/Freedom from choice is what you want,” a title-tune aphorism that sums up the album better than Devo may have realized themselves. But too many of the other songs traffic in the cliches of road-fatigue and road-boredom (i.e., blank and/ or frustrating ’women), metallic bromides you’d generally expect to find on the third, fourth, fifth (any ordinary up to cutout-bin-time) album of your average arena boogie(or booji-, I should say) band. Just check out Freedom of Choice’s “It’s Not Right” (a counterdevolutionqry title in itself) and tell me whether it’s Devo or Kiss. Only Don Kirshner knows for sure.

As a fellow Ohioan, I can readily sympathize with Devo’s probably lifelong ambition of wanting to be big enough to have the choice of selling out, and I’m wel| aware of all the confusing feedback Devo must. have encountered when they made their free choices in self-producing this album. It is 1980, after all, by now old pros as old & pro as Paul McCartney are devolving before our very ears (cf. his “Temporary Secretary”); and the Feelies have emerged as the Devo-equivalent of the current season (Feelie Anton Fler buttons his polo shirt all the way up, just like a solicitous mongoloid’s mom would do for her extrachromosome offspring.) Devo can never dgain get by on the novelty value of their vinyl jumpsuits, not artistically, anyway.

A lot of people who hated Devo from the beginning are ganging up on Freedom of Choice with sermonettes on the wages of onedimensio.nality, but I prefer to believe that Devo can somehow recapture the personally-felt qualities of their earlier songs, while still giving lip service to their dada of devolution. There’s gotta be some worthwhile song material somewhere amid all this flux; no bands have yet taken my many hints about clothing engineer John T. Molloy, for instance,. Devo could do him up permanently: “Sloppy (I Gave My Baby a Surprise Leisure Suit)”. Just a suggestion...

Richard Riegel

ELTON JOHN 21 at 33 (MCA) CAROLE KING Pearls—

Songs of Goffin and King (Capitol)

Elton John and Carole King were among the most successful pop singer/songwriters of the ’70s, yet so many of their records are still as fresh and affecting as they were when first heard that their importance goes far beyond the gargantuan sales statistics. King’s and John’s most enduring works were straightforward pop gems that often incorporated elements of other musical forms—King always had a way with R&B (indeed, her biggest successes as a writer in the 60’s were with black artists) and as the 70’s took hold, her records took on an L.A. folkie flavoring; John’s rhythmic exuberance owed much to R&B (the ’77-recorded/’79releasea Thom Bell sessions were a natural, no . matter what - John thinks), he flirted with country & western, and he turned out some animated rockers. In any case, King’s and John’s best songs had a concise, melodic precision and a rhythmic understatement that were all the more ingratiating for the performers’ unstudied singing. And Bernie Taupin’s romantic; often mythologizing (whether personal— “Levon,” or historical—“Indian Sunset”) words and the simple, youthful themes of King’s lyricists (notably Gerry Goffin, Toni Stern, and King herself) fit comfortably into, the strict pop formulas employed.

Both performers have found their recent declines to be less than graceful. John’s 1976 Blue Moves, his last collaboration with Taupin and producer Gus Dudgeon, was variously pompous, ponderous, and surprisingly washed-outsounding.

78’s A Single Mart (lyrics by Gary Osborne, produced by John and Clive Franks) was spirited, if aimless, as far as the music went, but the lyrics were either ho-hum, sophomoric (“Caught up in the madness of a world gone mad”) or arrogant (“Part-Time Love”). Last year’s disco disaster, Victim of Love, was not only badly timed but also 100% insipid.

Carole King’s wash-outs are easy to figure out. Years of direct, everybody-can-relate-to-what-she’s-sing ing-about love songs (a prime example is Goffin’s classic “Tonight you’re mine completely/You give your love so sweetly/Tonight the light of love is in your eyes/But will you love me tomorrow”) gave way to well-intentioned but embarrassing comic-book sociological commentaries (check this title: “Believe in Humanity”).

Her first three Capitol albums were built around lyrics as ‘cosmic’ and ‘meaningful’ as “It just amazes me that I can be/Part of the energy it takes to serve each other,” “There’s a harmony of season and direction/This is surely sacred ground,” and—oh please, no more. These not-exactly-snappy lyrics (mostly her own) did not inspire King to come up with any memorable melodies. Or was it the other way around?

Elton John’s 21 at 33 and Carole King’s Pearls—Songs of Goffin and King are strong albums whose successes are attributable, not to any new breakthroughs, but rather to both John’s and King’s willingness to admit that what worked well before might just do it again. John’s record (produced by John and Franks) includes songs written with Taupin, Osborne, Tom Robinson (a natural teaming of sophisticates), and Judie Tzuke. This is a cocky album, but not at all obnoxious. Two of the John/Taupin cuts are the tautly held, and upbeat, “Two Rooms at the End of the World” and the bouncy, guesswhat-this-one’s-about “White Lady White Powder.” The former is a sentimental but honest consideration of Johms and Taupin’s relationship (“Coming to terms with the times that we couldn’t but we tried/....But together the two of them were mining gold”), the latter a factual look at the singer’s ambivalent response to coke. “Chasing the Crown,” a piano-based rocker with some fine guitar sprints by Steve Lukather, is typically obscure Taupin religious mythology. “Little Jeannie” (lyrics by Osborne) is as pretty as “Daniel” and sounds like it too. And the two John/Robinson songs are witty, practical first-hand observations of a very uncertain affair (“Sartorial Eloquence”) and the ineluctable power of sex (“Never Gonna Fall in Love Again”). A whole lot of people avoid excess and. play really well together, providing blithe support for a peppy Elton John. While not vintage, 21 at 33, is (not too) familiar, pleasantly so.

Maybe Carole King said to hell with it, why not just sing th’e old songs, if they’re so great. A good idea. There is only one new song on Pearls—Songs of Goffin and King, a welcome, Tapestry-type midtempo number. Three songs King recorded pre-Writer with Danny Kortchmar and Charles Larkey as the City, Their album is an out-ofprint collector’s item and these versions are fine, although the material is not Goffin & King’s best stuff. The new version of “Goin’ Back” is good, but the same song on Writer, with James Taylor’s signature acoustic guitar work and harmonies, was a quiet masterpiece. That leaves “Locomotion,” “One Fine Day,” “Hey Girl,” “Chains,” and “Oh No Not My Baby,” none of which King has previously recorded. Most of these songs are all-time classics and if her renditions evoke, without surpassing, the originals, King still sings them with pride and respect and an elan that causes them to shine anew. No doubt King never should have left the Brill Building for California. I wouldn’t object to a few more albums like this one.

Jim Feldman

MAGAZINE The Correct Use Of Soap (Virgin/Atlantic)

One of the most puzzling recent record industry moves involved Atlantic’s dropping Peter Gabriel, who’s getting really good at depicting creepie crawlers these days, at the same time that they’re picking up their option on Magazine, fronted by Howard Devoto, a man who starts off singles with lines like, “I am angry, I am ill and I’m as ugly as sin.” Why substitute one would-be dangerous English crazy for another, especially when the one passed on is the one with the established following?

Don’t look at me; I’m not the answer man. But that’s reality this week and I just hope the big wigs put up the bucks to break these guys as big as they deserve to be, ’cause Magazine are one hell of a band, last year’s disappointing Secondhand Daylight LP notwithstanding.

Most of the media spotlight has focused on Devoto, the ex-Buzzcock who tired early of punk rock cliches, deciding that he needed a more versatile band to accompany his often-enigmatic scenarios. His gnomic pole vaulter presence adds a powerful curiosity factor to Mag’s stage show but for this album, he really seems to be trying to communicate somewhat more directly for a change.

Even so, his persona is hardly an everyday one. He seems to see himself totally at the mercy of forces outside his intellect that he understands perfectly well but can never overcome; he even goes so far as to sneer, “I know the meaning of life and it doesn’t help me a bit,” in his icy monotone. He has antagonistic relationships not only with others (“You try to say that you possess me by your caress”) but with his own obsessions (“I want to burn again”) as well, and when he indulges in sin seekers’ guilt games, he comes armed with submissive weapons (“Do whatever you want to/I will let you huft me/Because I know it hurts you.”) A real sweetiepie.

But even if you think that the only correct use of soap with regards to Magazine is to wash out Howard’s mouth with, you have to consider the band and they're enough to make the most obnoxious frontman tolerable. Their individual contributions—Barry Adamson’s thick bass throbs, John Doyle’s percussion punches, Dave Formula’s rich keyboard tapestries, and part-time Banshee John McGeoch’s inventive, tasty guitar and sax lines— are not only amazing, but these guys also have the discipline to concentrate on creating group sound. Each person’s parts may not stand out as much as the ones on Real Life, the group’s debut, but the instrumental sound matches Devoto’s directness well without sacrificing interest. And after listening to a couple of their bizarre repent British B-sides, it’s obvious that the pop and funk elements are used here out of choice, not necessity.

So who do they sound like? Um, the best thing I can come up with is Roxy Music in their prime and that ain’t even close; Magazine are too distinctive for any clear cut comparisons. But there’s no reason to treat ’em like Roxy and wait till they peak before checking ’em out; besides, it would be real interesting to watch Howard hopping around on the hotplate of mass adulation.

Michael Davis

PAUL MCCARTNEY McCartney II (Columbia)

1. From two songs named “Junk” on McCartney (I) to “Silly Love Songs,” Paul McCartney’s Lennonless career has been an extended exercise in diminished expectations, if nothing else. But some people never learn. Me, for instance: seeing that McC II included one “Frozen Jap,” I all but frothed at the mouth at the thought of scathing anti-slant invective a la “Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips.” Harde-har-har. The jailbirdcopped out; the damned things’s an instrumental.

2. Brace yourself, I’m about to quote from the liner notes. “ ‘Bogey Music’ was inspired by Raymond Briggs’ book ‘Fungus the Bogeyman’....Bogey men live deep beneath the earth. Their lifestyle is almost opposite that of the people on the surfafce, who they call ‘dry cleaners.’ Bogey men hate music and prefer wet, slimy clothes to clean ones, but the younger generation rebel and develop a taste for rock ’n’ roll and cleanliness. ‘Bogey Music' is the first record made by ‘dry cleaners’ for the expanding Bogey market.” Imagine living next to Paul McCartney. I suppose the first time you met while taking out the garbage would amount to one of life’s big thrills. But can you conceive of talking to this twit? By the second month, you’d be avoiding him like you do Krishnoids.

3. Why does McCartney II come equipped with a lyric sheet? You couldn’t miss a word if you tried. And if you don’t try, you deserve what you get. Still, I’m intrigued by the fact that the word “I” is sung 59 times on Side 1, but only once on Side 2.

4. Why does McCartney II come equipped with a gatefold sleeve? Remember back when records were cheap, and all of them had such things? Seems to me, the cutesie shots of Paul in disguise that adorn the inside might have gone where the lyric sheet shouldn’t be. Could’ve knocked a dollar off the list price.

5. McCartney II is the first time since McCartney that the Cute One has played all the instruments and sung all the singing, although like last time “the Lovely” Linda chips in on harmony. Wings appear on the “special” bonus live version of “Coming Up.” (Is it special because it’s a one-sided record, or because it’s a limited edition for the first 500,000 lucky purchasers?) My my my.

6. This isn’t a bad album. It’s ironic that Paul McCartney has been eclipsed by one of his worshippers, Jeff Lynne. of ELO, in quality and perhaps even in sales. Both have given up trying to do anything but write catchy songs, and for what it’s worth, both have succeeded. Except when it’s gratingly adorable—like the bloozy “On the Way"—McCartney II is a nice album. I’d rather take a nice nap.

Ira Kaplan