ROCK-A-RAMA

ROCK-A-RAMA

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

THE RODS (Arista):: Are like an American version of Motorhead, fast & loud & greasy & ugly & etc. And, for all you connoisseurs of metallic incest, this fellow David “Rock” Feinstein, the one on guitar and vocals, used to be in Elf with Ronnie James Dio way back when we hadn’t even decided to call heavy metal “heavy metal” yet. Which means the Rods are only about ten years behind their time, a real safe bet as this metal stuff goes. You’ve heard every song on this album a dozen times before...jeez, I just can’t stop myself from giving these guys one recommendation after another with the HM crowd. Well, as it says somewhere on here, crank it up! R.R.

NEW ORDER—“Ceremony” /“In A Lonely Place” (12” Factory import 45):: Now that Joy Division’s Closer LP and “Love Will Tear Us Apart” single are finally available domestically, the music of that profoundly influential British band can begin to worm its way into America’s rock consciousness. But the remaining members aren’t content to sit sighing around Ian Curtis’ tombstone. They’re continuing with a new name, constructing a ceremony for survival on the ‘A’ side before retreating to a lush, melancholic mire on the flip. Martin Hannett’s production is impressive while Bernie Albrecht’s vocals display an understated integrity that’s hard to fault. It’s too soon to tell for sure, but it appears that New Order definitely have a future in front of them, perhaps more like post-Barrett Fink Floyd than post-Morrison Doors. M.D.

THE ROCKETS-Back Talk (Elektra):: Hard to’knock a band that’s as unassuming a bunch of crunch rock survivors as the Rockets— they even credit the Royal Oak place that makes their leather apparel—so I won’t. The Rockets shuttle diplomatically between medium speed Bad Company, middle period Grank Funk, and funny-they-don’t-look-Whoish bridges, on the strength of David Gilbert’s protean vocals, Jim “Poor Man’s Jimmy Page” McCarty’s riffing and the rough and true stickwork of Johnny “Bee” Badanjek (still one of the best rock ’n’ roll drummers ever and still alive, thank God). They’re at their best on songs like “I Can’t Get Satisfied” and the title track, which carry on the hot ’n’ nasty bar band tradition as well as anyone since Deep Purple before acid. B.A.

KILLING JOKE-what’s THIS for...! (Malicious Damage/EG):: The joke seems to be that these guys give you all the thudboom fun of heavy metal without pandering to any of the lowbrow thus & so usually hung on ol’ HM. Fact, Killing Joke don’t bother with the typical metalgeezers’ kingstud wankoff lyrics at all, they just mutter Limey incomprehensibilities in the background while proceeding to piledrive yer brain into solid concrete with their sledgehammer drums and bass. Just pick your fave K. J. riff (any riff), and they’ll repeat it for you to infinity or 7:41, whichever comes first. And if that ain’t art, I’ll eat Steve Strange’s hat (all 59 of ’em). R.R.

JOHNNY COPELAND-Copeland Special (Rounder):: Copeland’s an impassioned contemporary bluesman—too traditional to be fashionable, too committed to be written off. What makes this album special is his horn section, which includes class A jazzmen like George Adams and Arthur Blythe alternating roaring solo spots with Copeland’s stinging leads. I don’t know where else you’ll get to hear these guys blow in this sort of a context, so if you care, hear it is. M.D.

SUE ANN (Warner Bros.):: Packaging of this album’s a real rockcrit cocktease; cover shows a swell black fox in a guy’s old leather jacket, she’s standing besude a ratty innercity warehouse, she’s from Minneapolis (home of the amazingly inspirational Prince), her album’s written and produced by that krazy Kraut Pete Bellotte, should add up to one helluva punkdisco fusion blockbuster, right? Wrongo, boyo, record’s barely disco, let alone punk, just some more sweetness & light (lite?) reconciliation-pop, from some weird decade I haven’t lived in yet. Sue Ann herself (who was just kidding about the leather jacket) gives “Special thanks to God, Warner Bros.,...” Yeh, I remember Him, I used to be on His mailing list back before the rock recession set in. R.R.

MASABUMI KIKUCHI-Susto (Columbia) : TERUMASA HINO-Doable Rainbow (Columbia):: What a weird way to introduce the second coming of Miles Davis. Cornet player Hino and keyboardist Kikuchi have put together a mass of American improvisors, many of whom have actually played with Miles, to record what come off as tributes to Davis’ electric period, from In A.Silent Way to Get Up With It. Actually, both of these records sound pretty goodin the mid-70’s space-funk vein but neither are really necessary, in part because the man himself is back. M.D.

BABY BUDDAH—Music For Teenage Sex (PoshBoy):: Applied synth technology, put to work demolishing old pop standards and remaking ’em the way they should’ve been done first time thru. The Baby Buddahs seem to have a particular fondness for unleashing this methodology upon unsuspecting C&W toons, and their reworkings of horseshit chestnuts like “Stand By Your Man” and “Your Cheatin’ Heart” are dang near wild & wooly enough to make me consider installing a mechanical bull in my house, the way that damfool Travolta did. Plus, a remake of “My Generation” that’ll send Peter Townshend scurrying for his ear trumpet, ’cause B.B. left out almost the whole original song! Plus (pedophiliacs please adjust their pacemakers before coming nearer), the homiest teenpoon cover photo since Rachel Sweet went legit! R.R.

THE MALIBOOZ-The Malibooz Rule (Rhino):: This record finds wax-down war veterans Walter “Mortar And Pestle” Egan and John “Zuma Beach” Zambetti resurrecting the lost sounds of their mid-60’s fenderbender band the Malibooz with a tremolo-laden batch of new and old surf ’n’ turf runes. California was, is, and will always be the home of the cool jerk, and so we have such glorious hommages as “308 (yup, “She’s real great, my 308”), the instrumental thriller “The Flourescent Hearse” (complete with “OK buddy, where’s the funeral?”) and “The Lonely Surfer,” an essence of dodoist monologue right up there with “Moulty.” Hardcore fans should be sated by “The Surfin’ Ghost” (“Hangin’ ten with your girlfriend, he’sthe surfing ghost”) and the teen angst melodrama of “(I Won’t Be) Too Young” with guest vocalist Lindsay “BooBoo” Buckingham. Liner notes of the decade: “The record is dedicated to David Marks.” Four Seasons, you better watch out!

B.A.

LUXURY—EP#1 (Angry Young Records):: Real Midwestern softcore eccentrics expressing themselves in the brightest post-Beatlesque pop, Luxury would appear to have a better than average chance of becoming the next Cheap Trickian phenoms-from-the-prairies. though they don’t seem to have come up with either enough songs or enough gimmicks to vault them out of Iowa as yet. Still, what they’ve recorded so far sounds highly promising, as songwriter Rick Swan has a particular gift for confronting the somber sides of Midwest life with loony, raving r’n’r exuberance (no Styxian melodrama in the whole gang). Recommended to ears of all persuasions. (Inquiries to 3701 Carpenter, Des Moines. IA 50311.)' R.R.

ROOMFUL OF BLUES-Hot Little Mama (Blue Flame):: As usual, Roomful Of Blues suffers from the stuffiness caused by playing everything too close to the vest—tastefulness may be the sincerest form of dedication, but that’s not necessarily what R&B is all about. That this nine-piece band usually rises to the occasion when they back up real-thing vocalists live (like their recent stint with Roy Brown, shortly before his untimely death) is their saving grace. That and the few moments here—mostly on side two—where trombone looney Porky Cohen and pianist A1 Copely get to stretch out. Note to Grandmother Ray Collins: This album includes “Caravan”—with a drum solo, of course. B.A.

VELVET UNDERGROUND1966 (no label):: There are many here among us who will claim that this near-hour-long-jam was recorded on the Velvets’ legendary Exploding Plastic Inevitable tour of the American heartland, and for my money, they’ll be right as rain. No recognizable songs here, no vocals by Nico’s sweetly pre-guttural la-la-la’s, but rather Reed and Cale and Morrison and Tucker industriously scratching away at the instrumental itches that could become “European Son” and “Sister Ray” a little further down the road. Plenty of high artiness here for all the arty Happening types who turned out for the Velvets in those days, plenty of camp art slashed up at all the right moments by the sweetjane posturings of Lou Reed’s Pickwick-trashy rock ’n’ roll guitar. Priceless relics of the Velvets in the Midwest turn up on a no-name West German label? Yep, perfectly logical. I found this album in a large American city, and you will too. ' R.R.