CRYPTOMANIA

RECORDS

CRYPTOMANIA

ELVIS PRESLEY Elvis Aron Presley (RCA)

Dallas Mayr

A big drink, this album. According to the scale in my bathroom it weighs three pounds. I may benchpress it. Sixteen sides, more sides than most albums have cuts, and an enclosed superhype booklet filled with pretty pictures and lowbrow prose. If you sit down to listen to the record beginning to end at six o’clock—after dinner, say—you will not get to Coffee and dessert until after 10:30. And it’s not Wagner. It Elvis. Priced at $69.95 and in a limited edition of half a million. RCA’s attempt at the truly monumental, a very big drink indeed. But the thirst, see, is unquenchable.

RCA knows that, natch. How else all those reruns since E’s death? Album after album—the same old -cuts with a touch of addenda. Gospel albums. Kiddie albums. Now and then an alternate cut, an obscure single. But I don’t wanna hear another live version of “Hound Dog,” you say. So how about two of ’em? Here, kid.

Maybe I’m getting old. maybe RCA’s release policy has just worn me down. But for some reason I don’t mind anymore. I don’t mind that all this live stuff (10 sides of it) has forced me into the position of those most ardent of Elvis fans— which I never quite was—who went to Vegas year after year, not to hear what E would sing—they already knew that—but to hear how he would sing it or clown through it or whatever, to see what shape he was in and what mood-j|; just to check in again with The King.

Maybe it’s feeling that RCA have really shot their wad on this one, been more than generous with good alternates and outtakes, that there’s hardly any more addenda left in the stacks .except for the Quartet, and that legally snarled. Maybe it’s because I feel it’s the last time that I don’t mind anymore. Maybe it’s also that the remix and the balance and selection of material is so uncommonly good. On an Elvis record. It is!

Or that some of it is really rare. There’s the entire (apd justly famous) pirate album, cleaned up electronically, of the 1961 benefit concert for the USS Arizona in Hawaii, the last concert E was to do until his comeback in ’69. There are three spooky, wonderful cuts of Elvis singing solo and plunking the piano. And the only extant opportunity to hear him flop—a whole side devoted to his first Vegas gig way back in May of 1956 when, with Ray Bolger and Phil Silvers in the audience, with “Heartbreak Hotel” the #1 song in the land, Elvis plays third banana to the Freddy Martin Orchestra and Shecky Greene, struggling through a hard-rocking set to the most polite and matronly applause in a room so quiet you can hear the musical clinkers like gobs of spit in the face of the slick Vegas heartland.

It’s all there. All that Nick Tosches has said “will never be solved” insoluble still. The incomprehensible delicacies of feeling which allowed him, in 1968, to bawl so clearly and deliciously “she like to ba-all eu’ry mornin ” over national TV but which would not allow him to record the third verse of “The First Time Ever (I lay with you...).” The bizarre twists of fancy which find him telling a concert audience —in absolute seriousness—that “Softly As I Leave You” is a true story written by a guy dying in a hospital, whose wife falls asleep by his bedside just as he feels himself slip-sliding away, pen presumably clutched in hand.

And more. The ebullient tastelessness of “America the Beautiful” and the baroque, operatic baritone of his later years. The ingenuous warmth of “Wild in the Country”. Sex so hot, so violent and dirty flowing between him and his audience at the Arizona benefit (“One Night”) that it’s positively chilling. The hysteria; the clowning (during “American Trilogy” no less! is nothing sacred in the South?); the warm audience rapport.

And more. The appreciation for band and ensemble which would lead him, among other things, to tolerate the infuriating J. D. Sumner for a full five years, remindful that Elvis was a fan first and last, a fan and a thief to the end—Henry Miller to Jerry Lee’s Faulkner. (So quixotic a fan that he gave whole recorded songs to his. backup singers while he sang chorus [“Beyond the Reef’], and expected RCA to release ’em anyway. They did not.) The great affection for music, so evident on this piano side, the deep passionate singing. All these things and the great and huge Presley repertoire, from the over-recorded hits to lesser-known blues to “I’ll Take You Home Again, Kathleen.” It’s here. At one sitting, a little overwhelming.

But also very comfortable. I feel I’ve gone to Vegas and E’s in pretty good voice. Out of 16 sides, only the material in two has previously appeared on an album. That’s a good four hours-worth of “new” material. Fifteen minutes of that is the usual Elvis interview, in which he manages as always to sound both candid and self-serving. But the rest is RCA’s best and most honorable shot to date at slaking the thirst.

And, of course, it doesn’t.

JOHN OTWAY Deep Thought _(Stiff)

Over the past few weeks I have often thought of John Otway at 5:00 in the morning. While everyone in the world is asleep (except rock critics and aspiring axe murderers) I often come to think of Otway while watching the 1949 Jackie Gleason version of The Life Of Riley on TV. This show, which is billed as a comedy, centers on a downtrodden, almost penniless family with an insanely paranoid father (Gleason), who is always unfairly testing the faith of his next-to-friendless son, scaring all the boys away from his repressed daughter or receiving house calls from an overanxious undertaker. Recent zippy episodes include Junior having a giant birthday where only one person shows up, Gleason trying to teach his son a lesson about gambling by stealing his money and almost betting it all away, and the Great One being passed over for a job in favor of an even bigger moron than himself.

If Riley had lasted longer than its one season in hell, it probably could have lifted some new tragi comedy ideas from John Otway’s Deep Thought. Like Riley, Otway sinks to the lower bowels of human agony to get his yuks. His joyfully humorous U.S. debut album features such scenerios as “Cry Cry,” ip which Otway’s lover orders him to sleep in the bathroom, all his checks .bounce, his house gets broken into, and he winds up in the hospital getting 12 shots in the bum. Like Wreckless Erie, Otway is a likeable schlemiel; less cocky than Eric but seldom as pitiable as Gleason’s Riley. Kinda like Rodney Dangerfield if he were less upset about getting no respect. In fact, Otway’s singing is often blissfully doofey, like his elastic blabberings in “Body Talk,” where all your actions reveal you (“Everytime you breathe/everytime you sneeze, it’s body talk”). It’s paranoia personified, heightened by titles like the Dylanesque “Beware Of The Flowers (Cuz They’re Gonna Get You Yeah...).”

The weird part is that on the slower ballads his depressing comedy moves from joy to near profundity. “Geneve”, with its gorgeous melody, houses the line “I don’t forget and I don’t regret,” revealing maturity beyond all the persecution. And on “Day After Day” (a song in which his family moves on and leaves him) the humor only makes you more worried about his sorry state. But fear not. The rest of the disc is all uplifting, with bright musical passages like the country fiddle in “Louisa On A Horse” or an almost Motown bass line on “Can’t Complain.” The cover of “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence” is another surprise, turned as it is into a saga of the Old Eire tHan a Western Melodrama.

Actually, the' main recommendation for Deep Thought, besides its captivating melodies, is this element of the unexpected. There’s a different sound to every track and always those exaggerated 'vocals that seem straight from Planet Claire. It’s the sort of music Otway should be locked up for—hopefully in a studio where he can make records like this forever.

Jim Farber

CHICAGO Chicago XIV (Columbia)

Points to ponder toward achieving a more perfect spiritual understanding of this disc: “Upon Arrival” home from your nearest vinyldiscounter, you should “Hold On”j to that itchy, shrinkwrap-slitting index fingernail, until you have ascertained that you have'indeed purchased the proper Chicago reccord album, as the various editions of this band’s recorded works have disarmingly; sirpilhr Roman-numeral designations.

The correct set will be readily identified by the “XIV" on the spine. If this markjs not immediately evident, k>6kr for large, grainy thumbprints on both the front and back of the jacket. If your acquisition fails even this test, then regrettably you must proceed with (carefully) violating arid removing the shrinkwrap, to keep your own slovenly fingerprints from obscuring the Chicago thumbprint logos. Patience! This is not an “Overnight Cafe” of a procedure. Just remember always that a winning smile is as important as a properly-annotated register tape when you must return an_a!ready-opened record album:

Positive identification at last concluded, you are ready to begin er^joying Chicago’s latest “Song For You.” It is vitally important at this step not to be misled by recent,. highly ephemeral trends in popular rock-and-roll. Always keep, in mind that each member of Chicago was thoroughly schooled in the disassembly and maintenance of a slide trombone long before Grand Funk was a gleam in Terry Knight’s third eye, and that Chicago will still be keeping record-pressing technicians on overtime duty, long after Van Halen have sung “Where Did The Lovin’ Go” for the final time.

Chicago hooked permanently into their particular swing-rock vision of “The American Dream” as early as their second album (conveniently identified by a “//” on the spine), and they’ve never submitted to the 'constant attempts at “Manipulation” of their aesthetic standards, as promoted by rock critics and other outside agitators. Chicago XIV is more powerful installments of this timeless band’s belpved “Thunder and Lightning,” and it would make a wonderful gift for any “Birthday Boy” on your personal 'shopping list.

To sum up: Jimmy Pankow’s brave-new-world rerriarks to the contrary, the New Wave will surely go away, but Chicago will be around to entertain us forever. How do you write “59” in Latin?

Richard “I’d Rather Be Rich” Riegel

ROBERT JR. LOCKWOOD y & JOHNNY SHINES Hangin’ On , . (Rounder)

Robert Johnson, doomed to ;an infernal existence and finally poisoned by the devil in disguise, would be proud of the inheritors of his tradition: Robert Jr. Lockwood, Johnson’s stepson, and Johnny Shines, who first met Johnson in Helena, Arkansas, and then wandered with him. across America until Johnson met his violent death. Yet both Lockwpod and Shines are not merely spiritual heirs echoing Johnson’s calvary—they don’t just resurrect ghosts; like missionaries for the blues, they explore its. terrain, carrying the tradition forward, as if it were an adventure saga.

In his liner notes for Johnny Shines’ Hey Ba-Bd-Re-Bop! (a breathtaking live anthology released by Rounder last year), blues/rock scholar and part-time carpp director Peter Quralnick gives an example of Seines’ mission impossible...as,a performer! at a summer boys’ camp. “None of the campers, who ranged in age frorp 7 to 15, had ever heard of Johnny Shines,” writes Guralnick. “Few had even been exposed to black people, let alone the blues, and there was an edge of cultural tension as Johnny embarked upon a presentation which encompassed the black experience in America.” Thus, unlike many bluesmen, Shines understands that to preserve a tradition one must expose it by sharing its historyfonly then will the legends endure.

Lately, however, such a challenge seem insurmountable. Although Lockwood and Shines are willing to stretch the boundaries of the blues tradition, as evidenced by their current modernistic collaboration, Hangin’ On, the world may not be listening. They want to appeal to a younger generation—the only trouble is that the kids have all O.D.’ed on inept metallic blooze and the obnoxious noise of the no wave.

In a voice that could ring tbe silver out of the moon, Shines opens Hangin’ On (a joint effort in which every note seems to be split 50-50) with the mellow sense of humor of a middle-aged philanthropist. “Gonna get myself religion,” he sings on “Big John,” “Gonna join the Baptist church,/Well, I think I’ll start preaching/So I won’t [.have to work.”

Next, on the title cut, Lockwood reinforces the easy-going atmosphere with his fatherly intonations of strength and" solidarity. His cool, controlled style sets the pace of the album, which blues purists may argue is not loose enough. Nevertheless, it is a'relief to experience shared expressions of endurance such as these that do not, for a change, smell like an old dirty sock.

I The work does include some lifeless tunes, particularly Lockwood’s jam, “Just the Blues,” but these are negated by the gracefulness of the two bluesmen’s balancing act. For example, as compensation for “Just the Blues,” there-S' Shines’ acoustic picking of “Razzmadazz,” which gets so tangled in its own web that listening to it becomes an act of disentanglement .

The warmth between the two performers comes 1 through on Shines’ “Full Grown Woman,” ripe with the big bad curves of a sexuality that refuses to hide in the bedroom. Their hard times are depicted on Lockwood’s “I Gotta Find My Baby,” a bleak picture of a bleary-eyed soul roaming the halls at dawn on an endless search for his love (whom he must fine either “dead or alive,” just so he can get some shut-eye).

Another Lockwood composition, “Here It Is, Brother,” is rather startling. As funky as a standard James Brown riff, the song still remains rooted in the traditional dance rhythms formulated by Rufus Thomas and satirized by Pigmeat Markham.

Even though the two artists are. clearly not competing; with each other, Johnny Shines is the obvious victor. On “Lonesome Whistle,” he barely opens his mouth, almost whispering instead of singing, conveying the inner turmoil of a worried mind whose dearest love has vanished. “She blows like she’s not gonna blow no more”—Shines sings that line (the vibrato of his voice knowing both glory and defeat) as if he feared that his own metaphor might strangle him: the ultimate hellhound on his trail.

Perhaps, though, it’s the album’s cover that tells the whole story: Two aging bluesmen tugging on a wishbone, a smile dancing goodnaturedly between, them, giving each other the respective part of a tradition they both share, that which can never be taken from them— what they, together, have frozen in time.

Robot A. Hull

THE TREMBLERS Twice Nightly (Johnston/ CBS)

You don’t hear much about “personality crises” any more. But people still have them. People like Peter Blair Dennis Bernard Noone.

Twice Nightly is an engaging surprise, a jumpy little breakfast cereal of an L.A. rock album, but it would be much more of a treat if its If ad singer/composer/producer weren’t so determined to establish a character distinct from the one that made him the single most popular singer of the farly British invasion (in the U S.) and Joey Ramone’s vocal inspiration.

Noone has whipped up his Tremblers (abetted by the heart of the new California pop rockf rnembers of Petty’s Heartbreakers,, 20/20, the Twilley Band, The Pop, plus the Captain, executive producer Bruce Johnston, Elton vets, and Dave “FistfuKof Thump” Clark) into a , delirious head of steam that runs a hundred reference points past you, some so fast you can’t get a fi^ on them. It’s Mad Libs with pop hooks, and on riff-packed tunes like ' “I Screamed Anne,” “I’ll Be Taking Her Out Tonight” and “Wouldn’t I,” the derivativeness is secondary to the spirit.

But Noone ^cts as though he’s got something to prove, and he keeps shoving this attitude at you, putting on his night moves. It’s so deliberate, and so unbelievable, that it’s borderline funny. He opens the album with a statement of intent (“I’m gonna do this my way/I’m optimistic”), then stages a silly seduction: he touches her wire, she catches fire (wire? oh, a metaphor; I get it), then she touches his button (another metaphor, I hope) ...all this on' the first date. Then (different song) he and another guy cruise a hooker in London, then (different song, a variation of “Is She Really Gping Out With Him”) he puts down a girl’s date as a “toad” and a “small time geek.” We get the picture: Peter isn’t a simp anymore, leaning on some damned lamppost. He’s out for action. Even in “I’ll Be Taking Her Out Tonight,” his aim is to show her off. Showing her a good time is beside the point.

It’s a shame, in a way, because his singing is sharp and varied (no more “please, sit, may I ’ave some more?” whine), and with the right direction—-less L.A. swagger and maybe a turn north toward the Bay Area aging boyishness of Kihn or Loney: more his speed—Noone could connect. The Tremblers don’t lack competence, just something to say (the same problem as Ronnie Spector’s east coast all-star LP Siren, which with strong, sympathetic material could have been a New York City Broken English). The only song on Twide Nightly as cleverly crafted as Ray Davies’ “Dandy,” £\F. Sloan’s “A Must To Avoid,” Goffin & King’s “I’m Into Something Good” or Graham Gouldman’s “No Milk Today” is Elvis Costello’s “Green Shirt,” and its center is far too elusive for Noone to make real sense of it. Maybe next time all those L.A. ers’ll contribute some songs as well as licks.

Context matters. Alongside Beatles -’65 and Highway 61 Revisited, Noone sounded a little lightweight. Next to But the little girls understand and Glass Houses, he sounds positively groovy. Anyway,

I root for perserving ex-teen idols faced with public indifference.' My #4 fantasy is to be in 16 Magazine with features like “The Truth About Mitch: 30 Never-Revealed Secrets” and “Are You The Girl For Mitch?” and I don’t .like to see people who ^achieve this apotheosis suffer in later life. So even if ’e ’as ’ad ’is famous “toof” fixed (or so it seems), a welcome back, with reservations, is in order. Remember: second verse, same as.the first.

Mitchell Cohen (likes: chocolate mousse pie, “Duke Of Earl,” girls with expressive eyesh

MINK DEVILLE Le Chat Bleu (Capitol)

Urban rock & roll—the mythic sound of the city—is often misrepresented and misinterpreted. Its prime characteristic isn’t 'toughness—Freddy Patek is tough. It’s not ubiquitous grease, a Travolting exaggeration, and it’s not sleekness, though sleekness is often important. Still, Ricardo Montalban is sleek. To go head to head with the silk suited giants of the past you must have heart: For me, the English Beat do less for Smokey than Ronstadt did and that wasn’t much. The unlamented Jay and the Americans, no matter, what Becker and Fagen say about them, had visions of sincere grandeur that were not only sufficient, but absolutely necessary to the genre.

Willie DeVille has heart and grand visions in abundance as anyone at all interested in urban classicism has known for a' while. Willie does not, however, have a lot of great records. The first Mink DeVille LP, produced hy Jack Nitzsche nearly four years ago, was a stunning showcase for Willie’s uniquely rooted postures and has proved difficult to follow up. The second. Return To Magenta, sounded as if they weren’t sure what people loved about the first and so seemed lifeless and unconvincing by comparison. The good press the first record had earned receded rapidly. With the original band in tatters Willie re treated to, Paris last year to record with kindred spirit Steve Douglas, the Qhris Walter/Photofeatures saxophone player on many of Phil Spector’s greatest Philles Records sessions. Capitol was so ambivalent about the resulting album Le Chat Bleu, that they dropped the band and released the record only in Germany, prance and England last spring. A very high volume of import sales finally forced the corporate hand this summer and Le Chat Bleu has now been released in America. In yet another' of the accumulating ironies of the music biz, Willie DeVille’s quintessentially New York music is forced to Struggle back to the Apple from France by way of England.

I shouldn’t be hard on Capitol, though, because ' I’m ambivalent about Le Chat Bleu myself. Willie’s strength and singularity are largely clouded by the “Just what is it they want from me, anyway?” quandary that made Return To Magenta so uninspired. The new album is so gropingly eclectic that event hesympathetic listener ends up confused as Willie. There is “Turn You Every Way But Loose,” a supple bluesy track which recalls the sensuous power of “Cadillac Walk” which Willie mumbled to perfection on the first Mink LP, two raucous but generally undistinguished rockers, a weird, angular salsa flavored sound about street dealing, and a langorous, hip remake of the Jive Bombers’ “Bad Boy.” Not enough variety for you? How about an unbelieveably melodramatic^Edith Piaf style cafe ballad (using her very own string arranger) apporpriately titled “Heaven Stood Still.” The playing is sharp and well-conceived throughout—the new studio band features Elvis’ rhythm section— which only makes the lack of clear focus and direciton more disconcerting.

There is a platinum lining to this cloud, though, because hiding in this murky mess, like pearls in an oyster stew, is the best EP in recent memory. Willie’s penchant for urban classicism has led to a songwriting partnership with Doc Porous, one of. the acknowledged masters of the form. The three Pomus-DeVille songs on Le Chat Bleu represent the fullest embodiment of what they each do best. Warm, earnest and credible lyrics are filled to capacity by an assertive and intricate melodic structure and exquisite use of dynamics in production and arrangement. The links to the Leiber/Stojler/Spettor formulations are direct and vivid. The bed of accoustic gyitars, piano, bass and sax, the strings binding all of parts together, the crisp percussion accents (Shakers, triangle, castanets) that add depth and dimension to the sound all refer directly to the brilliant work Pomus did for the Drifters in the early 60’s. To say that these songs are in a class with “This Magic Moment” or “Save The Last Dance FQr Me” is to give1 them the highest praise possible within the form. And Willie’s singing is better by far on these songs than anywhere else on the record—the challenge of Ben E. King is ample inspiration. On “That World Outside” Willie reaches for Ben E.’s trademark, the sweet melismatic “m-m-m-m” with all the grace of the man himself. “You Just Keep Holding t)n” and “Just To Walk That Little Girl Home” have the same substance and detail. All three-"—and, for good measure, “This Must Be The Night,” a song Willie wrote by himself in the spirit—have the deep romantic power of-heart—felt testimony. A truly extraordinary group of songs with performances to match. Taping these four tracks and playing them back in sequence has proved to be one of the happiest listening experiences of the year, filled with the distinction and authority of timeless rock & roll— the kind of immediate music that makes mere nostalgia (op the dubbed out Clash, for that matter —I’d much rather hear any of these songs than “Daddy Was A Bank Robber”) sound puny.

On second 'thought, I should be hard on Capitol. They are in a position to issue a brilliant four song 12" EP which could be played on almost every radio station in the country. It would clarify future direction for DeVille and simultaneously bolster his modest recording career because these are h/fs, friends, the same existential risk and fundamental sincerity that people adore in Springsteen and Seger is right here in quantity, and the Pomus-DeVille songwriting team isone of the real discoveries of 1980. Do not be misled by a muddled album. There is^an EP of genius within that deserves to be heard.

Jeff Nesin

CHIC

Real People

(Atlantic)

The news is that Nile Rodgers i and Bernard Edwards have discovered the guitar. Electric AND acoustic. Every once in a while on Chic’s new album,Real People, Rodgers (he and bass player Edwards are the core of the group and ‘ also wrote and produced Sister Sledge’s We Are Family and Love Somebody Today LPs, the new Shelia And B. Devotion, and Diana Ross’s current chart-topper, Diana) steps out front, for a well-played electric guitar break; in fact, the guitar is mixed much further up throughout Real People than on previous chic projects. And there is a distinctly non-disco acoustic guitar on “You Can’t Do It Alone.”

“So what?” you may ask. “What does it all mean?” Well, Rodgers is the guy who said to Jim Farber in another publication last year, “I’ll tell you, if country & western were the next big thing, I’d be right out there with a cowboy hat on.” One might logically assume that this year Rodgers and Edwards have become cognizant of rock’s inroads on the dance floor. And, as we all know, play the guitar and. somebody’ll call it rock, right? Let’s just say that anyone who thinks a cowboy hat is all that’s needed to compete with Waylon Jennings is equally likely to grab at the rock/ guitar syllogism.

But who’s fooling whom? Real People is the same stuff Rodgers and Edwards have been putting out for three years now. (So are Diana and Shelia And B. Devotion.) Ex-, cept for a few embellishments and some slightly, Varied arrangements, the album, in every way, is a virtual retread. Lyrics are crammed into fit the beat, resulting in some weird configurations. Not that the lyrics aren’t ridiculous anyhow. In this year’s Chic slogan, “Rebels Are We,” “The whole world’s movin’/ We1 must stay free.../We want to be free/My baby and me” is sung by two women who aren’t permitted the least individuality. The title Song is equally inspired: “I propose to surround myself/With love and humanity/And with some real people.” That’s nice. As opposed to what? Muppets? Clones? Chic’s female vocalists? And the melodies (that’s i what they’re called) are practically cause for lawsuits aplenty, but you can’t sue yourself. So why not squeeze that riff a few more times! As long as it works, like a Bounty towel. But then, if the towel works, you only need one.

Jim Feldman

THE HEATERS Energy Transfer ■ _ (Columbia)__

Careful readers of rock critspeak learned long ago that, under-thesunwise, the beast known as the New Sound is extinct, however swell one or another variation on ap Old S. may be. Stands to reason that there’s no novel complaints left unlevelled at some of the less-thanswell.atempts. In\this spirit, I give you Energy Transfer by the Heat-^ ers, five ; more poprockids from i L.A. with perhaps, the first LP that I should have been a Nu-Disk (as-® suming that Columbia is taking cues from their corporate sibling Epic and plans to throw some of those buggers our way).

Said Nu-Disk might begin with the first two cuts on side (wo; the Heaters’ faithfully cute version of “Why Do Fools Fall in Love” fails to convince me, but my little brother (voice of the people) gives the thumbs-up. I have no such qualms about “Rushing to You,” the Heaters’ one honest-to-g’riess gift to R&R this time around. This time around? As Joe Jitsu vyould put it: “Hold ev’ryting, prease.”

U 1978 it was: The Heaters made an LP for Ariola, hit New York’s Bottom Line (souvenir photos provided on The new album’s inner sleeve!), but left the pond Tinsplashed. I’d have guessed they broke up, ^nd once I deduced they were not a bunch of 10-year olds with guitars (took two or three songs at the B.L., having left the binocs home that night), it wouldn’t have messed my. mind up much if they had. Now they’re back, and since you musn’t deduct any points for trend-hopping, I’m kinda pleased.

Back to the plastic. “Rushing to You” has melody, harmony, charm, kit, caboodle...you name it. So how come the band plods their way through the rest of the side? Maybe because they’ve got Columbia staffer Joe Wissert (Boz Scaggs, Dave Mason, Earths Wind & Fire, to name just three of his new wave/pop clientele) in the producer’s chair.

Side one, if bereft of the one ringing success of the second, at least offers sufficient leaners to flesh out an EP. Punk-nod “Is This Madness’' and “Sail Away,” are my choice, but there’s nothing hardfast about it. The five tracks are almost interchangable—everywhere you look there’s guitar get-downs just as you want ’em least (i.e. audible). Shd, three years of sdngwriting went into Energy Transfer; if there’s no followup, I’ll understand.

Ira Kaplan

MUSIC WITH 58 MUSICIANS, VOLUME ONE

(ECM)

Some people despise any element of mellowness in their music, wanting the soundtrack to their lives to, if not kick them in the teeth, at least supply them with enough grit to keep them in a teethkicking mood. I’m half in agreement with such surly moderns for altho I can dig.a certain amount of mellowness it isn’t what I gravitate toward and if f hear too much harmoniousness, be it via words or mUsic, I start to get restless with the irrelevance of it all. Music without a little tension, without some teeth (or, at the very least, the abstract tooth) is hard for an inveterate city dweller like myself to respond to with any enthusiasm. So why is it that 1 find myself about to write a most favorable review about that alleged bastion of mellow spacey music, ECM records? Well...

ECM has of late become' something of a controversial label. To a lot of people it’s positively the finest outlet for modern improvisational music, continually releasing challenging albums of high-tech perfection untainted by any commercial considerations, while to others it represents a decadent European influence on the virile body of jazz, propagating the worse tendencies of bloodless chamber music, documenting an elitist, effete, irrelevant milieu. The truth, as might be expected, lies somewhere between these1 two views. Many ECM records do seem to be graceful and boring, offering soul music for the teakwood and sandals set, but much of what they release, once you’ve penetrated the low-keyed veneer, is as exciting as other more I patently aggressive sounds. Music With 58 Musicians, Volume One, a two-record sampling of ECM’s first decade-has, and I say this as one who has become weary of the I label’s laid-back excesses, a surprising amount of exhilarating and invigorating music.

Some of the bloodless tendencies I mentioned are represented, e.g., there’s a duet by guitarists Ralph Towner and John Abercrombie wherein the sound of intertwining' guitars becomes so many mercury drops under my probing concentration and I’m sure that what is to some the music’s obvious rewards will elude me forever; a trio called Codona with multi-instrumentalists Collin Walcott, Don Cherry, and Nana Vasconcelos playing what Cherry calls “universal world folklore” and featuring an ethnically . accurate but boringly spacious interpretation of various (yawn) folk musics; a piece by guitarist Terje Rypdal (one of a gaggle of possibly decadent Europeans who are represented) that’s reminiscent of some of the more pompous trends of prejunk rock; and the presence, on two cuts, of Jan Garbarek, whose whiny tenor sax’s appeal escapes even my most objective scrutiny.

But then there’s the good stuff, and a lot of it, highlighted by a beautiful version of O. Coleman’s “Lonely Woman” by Old and New Dreams with bassist Charlie Haden’s stately melancholy seemingly supplying a link between tenor saxist Dewey Redman and trumpeter Don Cherry’s urban American ruminations and ECM’s European ethos; an excerpt from Steve Reich’s charming “trance” piece “Music For 18 Musicians” which should be of particular interest to fans of New Wave rhythmic succinctness; Pianist Keith Jarrett at his melodic best with even the nasty Garbarek less offensive than usual; an interesting cut from drummer Jack DeJohnette’s extraordinary album Special Edition with ace avant-gardists Arthur Blythe on alto and David Murray on tenor (horndominated new music being a departure from the usual ECM fare, the recent release of this and similar albums has been greeted with both delight and skepticism as a sign of better things to come); Trumpeter Lester Bowie’s “Ja,” from the Art Ensemble of Chicago’s Nice Guys album, a jaunty reggae tune surrounded by a moody dirge, a typical blending erf genres by this group; and a cut by the Pat Metheny Group from their bestseller American Garage (guitarist Metheny has been criticized for being too slick and shallow but I thipk that a bright surfacey effect is exactly what he’s going for and he does it very well— it’s tempting to begrudge him his commercial success but Metheny doesn’t seem to intentionally pander to his audience and he’s nowhere near being the mechanical clichemonger that most fusoids are. He may be lightweight but he’s an original).

Warner Bros, has been putting out this type of bargain-priced sampler for a long time (ECM is now . distributed by Warners) but they’ve always been pretty dismal hit and miss (find then miss some more) affairs. This one, however, is a genuine bargain with enough diversity to offset the dreaded mellowness. An easy introduction to an often difficult label.

Richard C. Walls

CAROLYNE MAS Hold On (Mercury)1

As it was the fate of the Girl Groups of the ’60s to be named after synthetic materials or anything ending in a diminutive, so it seems the new breed of rock performers who happen to be women are destined to condescending labels. Carolyn Mas is often branded “the female Bruce Springsteen.” Why not “the butch Linda RonstadtV? How about the “Caucasian Joan Armatrading”? In any case, Hold On is Mas’s second album in as many years; if she keeps it up, at this rate she should soon surpass Springsteen, if only in terms of productivity.

Mas’s material is original, with the exception of one composition by Steve “the American Cat* Stevens” Forbert. The majority of songs on Hold On are about the alienation of nouveau rock stardom and life on the road—no earthshattering revelations here. Mas states her lyrical case simply and without self-indulgence, then she proceeds to throw things out of gear by turning into “the Occidental Yoko Ono”: vocal and instrumental overkill subverting some other best stuff. The same raucous quality that made the debut album becomes tiresome here, and Mas’s vocals blend into one endless screech. To further muddle matters, Steve Burgh’s wall-of-noise production sets up the greatest losing battle between voice and instruments since Tina Turner met Phil Spector.

All this excess is a shame, because one of the things that distinguishes Mas from her peers (and probably earned the dubious honor of her label) is her no-holds-barred Style. She usually sidesteps the cliches associated with being a “chick singer” quite nicely. The lady is nobody’s chump, and she seems to have a definite idea where she wants to go. I just wish she’d let us in on it. Mas zips through Hold On like the Tasmanian Devil—the listener is left dusty and battered and wondering what the hell just happened. . -

Terri A. Huggins

ARTFUL DODGER Rave On

_ (Ariola)__

The real trouble with 99% of these spit-shined, vaguely Beatlesque power pop aggregations (aside from the grind ’em out/ assembly line aspect) is their overabundance of pop (consisting mostly of thin-skinned harmonies and throwaway mid-60’s melodies) and their almost complete lack of any real power (like an understanding of dynamics and a commanding lead singer, for starteri).

Had these nerds paid any attention to their e.arly 70’s forerunners in the field maybe they would have learned something besides how to knot a skinny tie loosely. For my money., the Raspberries and Artful Dodger were near the top'of the heap back. then. You can forget about the Raspberries; after they bit the dust, Eric Carmen discovered the joys of being a sensitive sap-head and it now takes almost a Herculean effort for him to get down at all—witness his latest 12" schlock-rock excursion.

Artful Dodger was last heard from on record three years ago and holy smoke, they’ve got a new album and their personnel is fourfifths intact. Unfortunately, that’s no big deal because on Rave On they’re barely fanning the flames.

Jesus, what happened? At most there’s three worthwhile cuts here and not a knockout in the bunch. A lot of the melodies are hackneyed rewrites cloned off the three previous Dodger LPs, the playing often takes a walk on the pedestrian side, and lead singer Billy Paliselli’s formerly forceful vocals continually come off mostly forced and occasionally gusho. Eric and Billy, have you guys been conducting a correspondence course?

I think they blow it pretty badly right at the offset with “She’s Just My Baby,” their choice for hitdom, but I say it’s no go due to lightheaded production and low wattage . group harmonies on the semicatchy chorus. On a genuinely good song like “A Girl (La La La),” they do throw in plenty of fatalistically convincing la-la-la*s but Paliselli’s Rod the Mod raspings are just a bit affected.

The over-emoting and strained agonizing that pervades much of what goes on here really walks the plank on sudsy, sulking ballads like “Forever” an(i “Gone Again.” Ah, the pain, the sorrow, the sadness. Oh, the overwrought handwringing, the martyred heartbreaking, the no-risk romancing! Forget it.'

I’ll trade this whole lamentable record for one AM spin of “Think Think” off the Dodgers’ still-great debut. They sure used to come up to the plate swinging.

. And if I hear from one more fresh-scrubbed pop peddler in a skinny tie, I’m gonna reach for my chain saw and carve out a melody all my own. Just $ay the word and I’ll hum it one time for you.

Craig Zeller