ROCK • A • RAMA

ROCK A RAMA

This month’s Rock-A-Ramas were written by Richard Riegel, Jeff Nesin, and Michael Davis.

VIVABEAT—Party in the War Zone (Charisma):: These milkshakes listened to Roxy Music somewhere along the L.A. fault line, and they’re primed to siphon ol’ Papa Doc Ferry back to us now, in 10 real synthesizer pump & dunk increments, about as elegant as the stuff comes. Pop on the road back from the squirtingflower abyss of Devolution, as it were. Just a tad/ less icy beat than those big beezles in the Cars, who took their driver training offa Bryan F., too.

I hereby nominate the enclosed Vivabeat to play the Cars in the authorized film biography of samejike if Mr. Subaru Ocasek won’t put down his crossword puzzle lexicons and please crawl out his art-deco window when they’re ready to shoot. B minus. R.R.

THE TONY RICE UNIT—Mar West (Rounder)::In pop and rock, acoustic guitars usually mean slow tempos and/or sentimental slush so it’s really easy for .rockers to develop an aversion to ’em. But just one listen to Rice can overcome the' most persistent electric listening habits. The man is hot. Drawing on folk, bluegrass, and Django jazz traditions, he can fry a fretboard with no help at all/yet remain tasty and tuneful too. Add ex-Seatrain fiddler Richard Greene, mandolin and bass, and you’ve got quite a stew. Geez, I even like the ballads. When the final power station fizzles, I know who / wanna be living next door to. M.D.

LIVE AND LOWDOWN AT THE APOLLO, VOL 1—James Brown (Solid Smoke)::This is a reissue of the extremely fare 1962 King LP— K. one of the five most important albums ever released in America. Is that clear enough? Before Dr. Brown, now Sydney Nathan Professor of American Culture was the Godfather of the New, New Superheavy Funk, he was Soul Brother #1. Before that he was simply James Brown, the wellspring of proto-soul, the absolute unique and unbelievable compendium of every West Africa to New World to American protor plasm move ever recorded (and many that are still uncatalogued). Those of you unfamiliar with JB before he packed his brand new bag and closeted the Famous Flames will be amazed to find the “hardest working man ip. show business” breaking hearts and vocal chords with the mariy R & B hits he’d had (five in 1961 alone) without notice or encouragement from the white world. Special Bonus if you act npw: the best stage introduction ever recorded. ' J.N.

KOOL & THE GANG—Celebrate (De Lite):: Caught my eye immediately that the Gang’ve added an actual “James Taylor,” a black-guy J.T. no less, as lead vocalist. Wow! Carly and I never suspected’a thing when James said he was going to sit inside the Three Mile Island reactor all weekend, as a protest. Hey, who you calling “Jessie,” babe?...But as I was saying, Kool & the Gang go on with the sweet, sweet funk here, the pervasive bass thump teams up with the missing lyric sheet for an evening of real getdown hotbox action. If I were a black Shriner, I’d be sure to hire these guys for my lodge’s next big wingding. But since I’m cawcajun & also ineligible for membership in the Masons, guess I’ll have to go with the Gizmos again. R.R.

RANDY HANSEN (Capitol):: Hansen’s been wowin’ the West Coast for the last few years with his “Tribute To Jimi Hendrix” show but nbw that he’s recording he’s moving in his “own” direction. Sure, just like I’m Jeff Beck. Randy’s got that familiar fuzztone guitar drone down real well but his original tunes are strictly nowheresville and he sounds like he took vocal lessons from Frankie Marino’s grandmother. But there’s still hope. I hear Blue Cheer is reforming; maybe he can get a gig with them.

M.D.

VARIOUS ARTISTS—Thru’ the Back Door (Mercury):: Phonogram apparently worried enough about the appeal of the recent English pop groups represented on this samplei/ to include a bonus single of vintage songs by the High Numbers (q.v.), but the basic LP cuts sound entirely decent to me, even if Mark Kjeldsen (that long cool one now fronting the Sinceros) is the only artist here who’d already been thru my front door. The donkeys are the cute Beatleish ones, the Tearjerkers are your -angry young Northern Irish contingent, Agony Column are XTC-clever (if vagaely Tullish), Daleki are salt-free Buggies, Mark Kjeldsen indulgesin some nice Farfisal organ in his Nordic-ska tall-guy stuff. Not so eclectic nor frenetic as the average Stiff rounderup, y’understand, but solid Anglepop throughout. R.R.