THE POLICE Ghost In The Machine )A&M)

Garry Ahrenberg couldn’t get into the Police, an esthetic predeliction that caused him no small amount of derisive peer pressure. When his buddies—and, worse, Darla Frakiss, the girl who distracted him almost to the point of swooning in Trig 304—piled into Jim’s van and hightailed it to Philadelphia for the outdoor Police show last summer, Garry stayed behind in Dover, New Jersey. “I don’t see trios in stadiums,” he proclaimed. “Your loss," Jim shouted, as Darla squeezed into the seat next to him, loopy from the batch or pre-trip margaritas.

“Wait,” Garry muttered to himself as he watched Hill Street Blues, “next thing you know, the Police’ll cut a Christmas album with Rupert Holmes: Pinata Colada.”

Come October, the gang all rushed to buy Ghost In The Machine (well, Kirk Chatsworth rushed to buy it; everyone else rushed to buy Maxell blank cassettes: the artwork sucked anyway, and there was no necessary info on the cover or the sleeve). Garry withheld judgement. He liked “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic” fine, but then again he’d also liked “Message In A Bottle” and “Da Do Do Do” (especially in Spanish, but even more by the guy on SCTVj yet found the respective albums otherwise tedious.

Soon, the sound of the new Police LP was wafting through the schoolyard, blasting from the Discovery record store at the minimal), a fixture at weekend sleazeblasts. “I’m so tired of the omegaman,” Sting sang. Garry was singularly unimpressed. “You will see light in the darkness,” Sting sang. “Lasarium music,” Garry thought. “Too ambitious, to simple-minded. Not unpeppy, though. I’ll give them that.”

One lunch period around Columbus Day—the school chef made a Spanish-Italian Special, a pizzarito—Jim, with a concerned look on his face, sidled up to Garry. “When’re you going to get cool, pal? Been bad-mouthing the Police ‘again.”

“Cool?” Garry sputtered. “Cool? Hey, I’m not into one-upmanship, but when my cousin Charles sent me the ‘Can’t Stand Losing You’ single from London, you turkeys called it ‘reggae-punk garbage.’ A few months later, you were ‘Raahxann’ing all over the place. True orfalse?”

“Well, true, I suppose, but—”

“Nothing. Look, like whomever you like, all right? But you have to admit that this Ghost In The Machine thing is as lame as Grandpappy Amos. The Police get pedantic. ‘Spirit In The Material World’? ‘Darkness’? ‘Invisible Man’? ‘Secret Journey’? What is this? Hawkwind? Snoozarama city, pal.” “So why is WBDR on it so heavy?”

“Brain Damage Radio. Doesn’t that tell you something? They fit right in there, right alongside Stevie Nicks, Journey and Genesis. What can I say? It leaves me cold. Sounds impersonal. Let’s drop it.”

“Looky there,” Jim said, and Garry’s head swiveled to catch Darla bopping in the aisle,'Walkman II riding on the succulent slope of her hip, headphones resting on her sleek black hair. “Go talk to her, Garry. Tell her you want to raise her rock consciousness. Tell her she’s dancing to the wrong beat.” Jim got up. “I’m going to the vendomat. Wanna cupcake?”

“Funny guy. This year, she’s mine. Watch.” Garry brushed the crumbs from his denim jacket and walked over to Darla’s wall.

“Hi,” he managed to eek out. “Hi:"

“J’aurais toujours faim de tois.”

“What’s that?”

“That means, ‘I am always hungry for you.’ It’s from the Police album. You know. Great track. I thought their early albums were pretty much out there, but this one’s really melodic and, um—”

“Progressive.”

“Progressive, that’s it. Hey, did you hear the b-side of the single? It isn’t on the album, and I happen to have a copy at home, and I was kind of thinking, well...”

BOW WOW WOW See Jungle! See Jungle! Etc. (RCA)

Your Cassette Pet (EMI cassette import) ’’W.O.R.K.”

C-30, C-60, C-90, GO” (EMI 45 imports)

Bow Wow Wow are the ultimate junk-food-for-thought band. With Malcolm McLaren as their evil stepfather, they’ve got lots of marvelous, gimmicky notions which McLaren is trying to pass off as Sweeping philosophical concepts, In interviews these days, McLaren yammers on about Bow Wow Wow as some theoretical platform for transcending the generation gap and redefining the work ethic or some such hog wash. Obviously, McLaren like to think of himself as a kind of educator through subversion. But to live up to that there’s got to be some deep-seeded passion in your packaging. Otherwise you’re just a prankster. In the old days, when McLaren suggested the New York Dolls play in front of a communist flag, he was adding a wittily threatening image to an already threateningly passionate band. Similarly, when he pulled his rock ’n’ roll “swindle” with a group as emotionally powerful as the Sex Pistols, the funny rip-off setting was partially embraced and also (intentionally or not) trascended by the band’s sheer conviction. But Bow Wow Wow turns out to be something completely different. This time, McLaren has the potential to show more of himself than ever. Acting as lyricist, he gets to pour the words directly in 15-year-old Annabella’s mouth. But what comes out of that mouth is something else again.

HEIL! HEIL! WE’RE THE VOXIES

ULTRAVOX Rage In Eden (Chrysalis)

Iman Lababedi

I’ve had one long headache writing this review—lost all sense of objectivity, overreacted to the album’s undertones, and generally wrote myself into corners I couldn’t get out of. The fault was not entirely my own, though; since Midge Ure joined Ultravox at the end of 1979, they’ve written the sort of metaphysical/junk lyrics and selfimportant electro-pop music that begs to be interpreted in the worst possible light. The fascist chic appeal is here alright, but it’s a subtext, a clotheshanger for the two subjects that really interest the band, namely themselves and themselves.

Ultravox are, of course, part of the dreaded New Romantic movement, but they are a little different than yer average NRs in that their pop can swing close to rock rather than disco, and on Rage In Eden, most tracks hang nowhere near either. The title track is a nefarious fake Catholic hymn, “I Remember (Death In The Afternoon)” is a synth-dirge—all minor chording at snail tempo—and “The Ascent” is a very short (little over a minute) instrumental that might have been written a century ago. What is gone from this album is the overblown Wagnerian pomp of Ultravox’s first album with this line-up, last year’s (very successful) Vienna. And although this works to the band’s detriment on the above-mentioned songs, it allows them on three tracks here to, if not have fun, at least relax a touch. “The Voice,” “We Stand Alone,” and “The Thin Wall” are flowing cantatas, mental illness as a singalongaMidge. Actually, if it wasn’t for the lyrics, some of Rage In Eden might be quite listenable.

Ah yes, the lyrics. The lyrics (there is only one word for it) suck. “A day in Europa/a night in the looney bin” about sums it up. And yes, there is a bit of the “better make way for the homo-superior” here as well. But, as with Spandau Ballet’s Roman epoch atmosphere on “Journeys To Glory,” lyrics used not as political tools, but rather as a time span/side-light. Songs about “new gods,” “gigolos and gigolettes,” “willing victims for the kill” are not necessarily evocations of Nazi Germany; they are just as possibly about the New Romantics’ never-ending pleasure in their own reflection, just another band saying “come and join this club for heroes,” and as harmless as “Hey, hey, we’re the Monkees.” If one wanted to, however, one could also make a casfe that the album is far more nasty than that—that intentionally or otherwise, Ultravox has produced a clever little piece of propaganda.

To make matters more complex, the music itself is not soulful enough to assuage the flak; the synthesizer is an instrument with which it’s notoriously easy to sound heartless, and you usually need the cotton candy bliss of a Depeche Mode or a Soft Cell to sound normal. Ultravox is possibly too good at the electronic sounds they work with: they sound inhuman even when they’re singing a song that is simply about the traumas of being a teenager, like “Accent On Youth.” When they’re singing something with the cruelty of the lyrics that follow from “The Thin Wall,” they sound simply fascist: “And those who dance will spin and turn/and those who wait will wait no more/and those who talk will hear the word/and those who sneer will fade and die/and those who laugh will surely fall/ and those who know will always feel their backs against the wall.”

I blanch at calling anybody a fascist, especially Midge Ure, whose work with Rich Kids I thoroughly enjoyed (this is, after all, the bloke who wrote “Never again/never again/do I want to hear/the sound of marching men.”), but the New Romantics’ elitist practices and narcissism have long been a thorn in my side. And just taken at face value, there is something horrid in Rage In Eden. These portentous songs build up to false climaxes, never explaining what the hell is going on. At what do Ultravox portend? Who are the new Gods? Why the fake chorales? Why this nebulous lyricism? As the answers aren’t to be found in the songs, the listener is left in various precarious positions. I wish Ultravox and their ilk would be a damn sight more careful with whatever they’re supposed to be propagating. There are many questions to be answered, and until they are, these bands can look forward to more ominous intetpretations of their music.

Interestingly, McLaren has pretty baby Annabella camp on the obvious accusations of Svengalilike manipulation right in the music. “I’m a rock ’n’ roll puppet in a band called Bow Wow Wow,” she gleefully chirps in “Chihuahua.” But with her air-brained, junior high school cheerleader delivery, she hardly seems to be professing sly modernist self-awareness. Instead, it’s just mindless teasing—as dippily self-promoting as Adam Ant’s musical advertisements for himself. Like the Ants (the blueprint for this band), Bow Wow Wow are essentially just for fun. Beyond the Ants, they’re kinky, provocative, intentionally witty, and mildly controversial. But it’s hardly bold enough to mean much (subversively or otherwise) . The idea of promoting home taping on the incredibly exciting single “C-30, C-60, C-90, GO” is nicely frugal, but out of Annabella’s mouth it’s also just a neat prank. And the band makes the supposed anti-work-ethic philosophy of “W.O.R.K.” seem like either a cut whim or just a good excuse to be lazy.

All of this is, of course, perfectly fine. You see, the band’s music, for all its exotic influences, is also essentially something quite simple —pop. But what pop. There’s that wonderful Burundi beat you’ve read about (10 times more danceable than Adam Ant’s version), an elastic funky bass, quirky, thin guitar lines, campy-catchy melodies, mock-tribal vocal grunts and Annabella’s terrifically bratty vocals. Sometimes she croons but mostly it’s charmingly ludicrous strident rapping. It all hits harder on the import-only Cassette Pet and the two attempted theoretical singles. But the RCA domestic “Golly Golly Go Buddy,” with a melody as kitschy as a safari suit. The import has a generally faster beat, more percussion-oriented production and less melody, which is fine since Annabella is even more likeable doing patty cake raps than singing. The import is also closer to kiddie porn—at times bordering on a rock ’n’ roll Chitty Chitty Gang Bang. In “Louis Quatorze,” Annabella happily sings about the joys of sex at gun point (not rape—it’s fantasy). And in “Sexy Eiffel Towers” our nymphet links up sex and suicide while pondering the phallic of one of the world’s greatest tourist attractions.

Of course, it’s all great for publicity shock-value and if McLaren can settle for being merely “outrageous,” then he’s done quite nicely for himself. Still, Annabella’s delivery is much more teenage silly than grown-up sexy. And everything is ultimately redefined by her apparent interpretation plus the band’s heated rhythmic playing, which adds up to one idea—life is a blast. That pure pop message is so clear that when McLaren shoves “political insights” into Bow Wow Wow’s mouth like “I am an affectation/I am like Ronnie Reagan” in “T.V. Savage,” it just sounds cutely absurd. And those of you who worry that all the jungle talk on the GP-rated domestic LP is a returnto-nature move, fear not. In the band’s hands you don’t go wild in the country because it’s “healthy” but because it‘s a kick. That’s the story the explosive percussion tells you (which is even stronger live). Likewise the ultra-funky bass and Annabella’s rope-skip cries. Bow Wow Wow have the best beat on the dance floor these days and even if it all adds up to bollocks, it’ll still drive you ape crazy.

Jim Farber

DEVO

New Traditionalists (Warner Bros.)

New Traditionalists is the biggest single leisure hazard to threaten non-commie ears in a long time. Not only is it Devo’s finest album, it’s thoroughly likeable!

The very idea of a “good” Devo LP makes this overrated headphone accessory feel like a player to be named later. I’ve always been a fan of their merchandising, but the music left me colder than a bowl full of anti-freeze ala king.

It’s hardly the first time I missed the Bitter Canoe of Destiny. Most notably, I thought the B-52s’ debut platter was just about the stupidest thing I’d even encountered on my initial hear. Well, I guess it is kinda stupid, but it’s still great and it’s not so-stupid-it’s-great, it’s just great because it’s great. Pretty stupid, huh?

Same thing with Devo. The tortured cleanliness of their, initial •efforts bingoed a magnitude 10 Who Cares on my screen, but the ultimate refinement of the Devo beat here on New Trads did a quick Mommy’s-an-airplane directly to my rhythmic think-pan.

While their signature beat is really just another version of the physiologically irresistable hesitation shuffle, the spudoids’ singular attack makes it all theirs. Something like the Dash soap talking washer and dryer tackling a full load of cheap silverware and high intensity beach/ travel irons. Yes, it chokes my gopher.

The nutty kooks score several big slurpy A-plusses. Lead-off track “Through Being Cool” requires no incubation period at all. The targeted beats of robotic goodfoot and zinger riffs make your toes stand at attention and yell hidey-ho! And the lyrics (“gonna kick some butts,” “Gonna eliminate all the ninnies and twits”) are perfectly contemporary.

More: “Jerkin’ Back ’n’ Forth” is ditto above, but with all-new toy harmony on the verse. Further dittum excelsior include “The Super Thing,” with its heavy keys straight out of TarJcusville and the silly drama found in “Race Of Doom,” featuring these punt, pass and kick lyrics: “Is it on?/is it off?/re-ply.” That oughta send you Kraftwerk fans directly to heaven for the mentally ill. See ya there!

And that’s still not all. Their smasheroo take of “Working In The Coal Mine” found her as an enclosed single—sounds as good as ever, especially slowed-down spoken bit, “Lord, I’m soooo tired. How long can this go on?”

Gamebreaker is “Beautiful iWorld.” It starts out pretty, if you lean believe that. And as if its mere attractiveness wasn’t enough, try on these lyrics: “Fine girl with the new clothes on/you can shake it to me all night long/hey hey!" This is Devo? This is pop?

All raving aside, my own thoughts on Devo fell into place yesterday afternoon, when I heard the following now-severely-paraphrased Oriental proverb from Barney Miller’s Nick, who’s in no position to argue about it anyway. Devo’s sound is kind of like a horse. with a broken leg. You can shoot it, but it won’t help the broken leg.

Rick Johnson

IRON CITY HOUSEROCKERS Blood On The Bricks (MCA)

I guess you could safely say that I’ve been eagerly anticipating this record. Last year’s Have A Good Time (But Get Out Alive) -got

BILLY BURNETTE Gimme You (Columbia)

Look what Freddie Mercury started! Everywhere you peep, there are pretty boys playing rockabilly— pink-panted, conked-out eighth wonders like the Stray Cats, Levi & the Sta-Prest, Prolecats. If it’s an odd year, then even Rick Nelson’s making a comeback.

You’ve undoubtedly all heard about Billy B’s pedigree. About how dad Dorsey and Unc John toted r’billy up from Memphis on a barge and flipped Bob Plant’s wig. Which may or may not be germane to the discussion at hand. That’s the discussion that begins “Hey, anybody tired of pink-panted revivalism yet?” and ends with the statesaturation play whenever I had control of the turntable. I was especially enamored of the bonecrunching title cut and “Blondie” (wide-eyed rock star idolatry turned tu sneering bitterness). But above ment “This Burnette young’un’s done the only significant work within the sub-genre known as rockabilly in many years. Does anyone really care?”

It’s a little like Doug Henning in a closet, Billy actually turning the trick after all this time. But he does it, right here on two cuts: “Whatcha Gonna Do When The Sun Goes Down” and “Gimme You.” This is fine stuff, probably fire-breathing when it gets onstage and it works in a good rockin’ way that all the fad gadget stuff the new rocka-romantics are doing doesn’t.

Gimme You gives you more. The bulk of it ambles down well traveled streets without kicking up a lot of dust: “I Don’t Wanna Know” reprises Sam Cooke smoothery well enough, “The Bigger The Love” is a suitable fat ballad move and on “Let The New Love Begin,” BB does his late dad’s style proud. But it’s “Whatcha Gonna Do” and “Gimme You” that throw sparks; the latter is the great new Jerry Lee Lewis hit that Jerry will never get the chance to have.

Between ’em, the nuevo rockabilly triumphs here mean a major cat has (potentially) arrived. Whether or not time, marketing strategies, or modern radio will allow Burnette to let loose and fly, remains to be seen. Tear it up.

Gene “Captain Trips” Sculatti all there was “Junior’s Bar,” a tremendously moving rouser about looking for a love, rocking your life away, and trying to beat the loneliness rap. An immediate classic, it never released its hold on me and I still think it was 1980’s ultimate sureshot-that-never-was.

I’m now into my 25th spin of Blood On The Bricks and I have yet to hear anything approaching the caliber of “Junior’s Bar.” The friends I play it for are less than bowled over with it. Too derivative, they say. They’re talking about the sound. Your basic Houserocker song owes a musical debt to people like Graham Parker, Garland Jeffreys, J. Geils, and sometimes Mink DeVille. (“Be My Friend” is vintage Willy.)

Then there’s been a few gripes about the lyrics. Too many forays into Springsteen country, they say. Dashed hopes, broken dreams and the defeats of a lifetime abound as does a bucketful of compassion for blue collar frustration.

I’ve thought a lot about it and such charges do have a basis in fact. The music is a white man’s soul serenade and the lyrics do continually dwell on raw deals ’round every corner. But the great strength of the Houserockers is that they can draw upon all these sources, inject them with their own brand of brave new crushed idealism, and breathe fresh air into old forms. They also rock it all out with a frequently fierce vengeance and as a happy result Blood On The Bricks emerges victoriously as one of the year’s best.

While it’s only too true that there are no all-out lapel grabbers a la “Junior’s Bar,” there are indeed a handful of hardcore highlights. The opener, “Friday Night,” should end up as some sort of pre-weekend anthem if there’s an ounce of justice left in the airwaves. Problems are postponed, funtime looms bright, and the Iron City boys triumphantly storm their way to glory, led by Houserocker mainspring, Joe Grushecky. He’s the man who keeps us supplied with the working class hero prototypes that demand our empathy, not our sympathy.

“Saints And Sinners” is another gripper, a grim, unsparing tale of a flipped-out friend “who came back from Vietnam with eyes that never closed.” Grushecky’s closing exchange with his buddy’s mother is a powerfully affecting; it’s got Deer Hunter atmosphere. For a more upbeat change of pace, “No More Loneliness” is a rollicking plea for main squeeze action with big Joe indulging in playful braggadocio: “1 want to be your 60-minute man... I’ll be your tower of power... I can’t wait to get you under the covers.” Bring on the protective devices.

“Watch Out” is a blistering attack on people who “suck you dry and throw you away when you get too old,” while the title cut provides a bleak variation on sweethearts carving out their initials. “A Fool’s Advice” sounds heartbroken enough to have Chi-Lites composition credits for the lyrics.

And so forth. Steve Cropper’s production is top-flight even if he does allow superfluous horn arrangements to lightly taint a few numbers. But that’s a minor beef. And so are those other complaints in light of the fact that you’re dealing with so much dynamic drama here. Derivations aside, the Iron City Houserockers remain one of America’s most vital bands and Blood On The Bricks is one of 1981’s most essential LPs. Sit down and show ’em all your brand new tattoo one time for me, Joe.

Craig Zeller

MARIANNE FAITHFULL Dangerous Acquaintances (Island)

Marianne Faithfull has been on the case—mostly her own—for 16 years. The path from the convent to “As Tears Go By” to the front pages and . courtrooms of Merrie Olde England to “Oh, Tony, you’re harder than Chinese arithmetic,” (the vilest piece of self-congratulation I wish I’d never read) and “Sister Morphine” to the stage, through wilhdrawl and into the 80’s (not forgetting pitstops like Girl On A Motorcycle) is strewn with literal pieces of her heart. So when she sings, direct and unguarded, “Where did it go to, my youth/ Where did it slip away to...” over the kind of quietly ominous intro that John Cale and Lou Reed used

to provide for Nico, the effect'if genuinely chilling—a subtler sort of raw power — and we are as far from “Hello again, Holiday Inn” as a singer songwriter could possibly get.

But harrowing autobiography is not what makes Dangerous Acquaintances, Faithfull’s second Island LP, so special, though it certainly charges several of the songs. What I find most impressive —and what I honestly didn’t expect —is that it’s such a good record with or without the personal history. I thought that Broken English, her 1979 return to recording, wrung such resonance from borrowed material, previous lives and the simple fact of survival, that it would stand as a unique one-shot, leaving little room for an actual career. Dangerous Acquaintances demonstrates that MariarTne Faithfull knows how to write a song—what phrases to repeat, how to get maximum suggestibility out of a line, just what to leave out—and how to sing one—not just to present her exquisitely ruined pipes as artifact or exhibit A, but to shape, phrase, color and hit the notes for greatest impact. On “Tenderness.” over a strong pulse embellished with handclaps. she sings “...Night is dark, night is cold/Passion lies down to die...” and remarkably deconstructs “die” to five sandpaper syllables. “For , Beau tie’s Sake,” a beautiful and smart song (with a characteristically lovely Stevie Winwood melody) about a beautiful and dumb guy and “Easy In The City,” an upbeat tune with a real radio chorus, show a relaxed approach to the pop possibilities of her music. The deep melancholy of the acoustically grounded ballad “So Sad” and the “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” mid-tempo majesty of Ben Brierley’s “Intrigue” glow with insinuation and undertow in the tracks rather than (or as well as) in the life of the singer. Faithfull’s low profile band, together four years now, deserves substantial credit for the well-conceived and arranged underpinning, the fluid coherence of Dangerous Acquaintances. But Marianne Faithfull’s emergence as a gifted songwriter and a rangy, intelligent singer is a small miracle in a period of “normalization” when, more often than not, one is thankful for small favors.

That said, I have a modest request. I hope, in the future, she will refrain from printing her lyrics on the album sleeve. It’s hard to take a song seriously when you know ahead of time that it contains the words “mode of life,” “identity,” and “freedom” in one hard to digest clump (“Sweetheart") or that it contains an entire verse of Blake (“Eye Communication”). They are both ultimately successful—particularly “Eye Communication”—but would be much more so if the lyrics were always and forever in context. How wonderful to have only minor league complaints. I do, however, have a big league concern. Will the pop arena of the U.S. and U.K., Usually only slightly to the left of Saudi Arabia as regards “lapses,” make room for a woman who will not stoop and bow? Can she—as Edith Piaf did—become a culture heroine by saying she regrets pothing? I rather doubt it, but I can hope. And we’ll certainly find out because Marianne Faithfull is not a tease.

Jeff Nesin

IAN DURY Lord Upminster (Polydor)

Despite what you may have read earlier, even in these supposedly enlightened pages, Ian Dury is not the ugliest man in rock ’n’ roll. For my dough, the champion clockstopper among popsters is none oilier than Jaco Pastorius (kungfuhippie double-ughl), besides which, I think Ian Dury’s kinda cute. Sure he had polio and all, but Stiff fixed his teeth, and he’s got big dark eyes, and when he lets his hair grow out into curls and he dons mirror shades (cf. liner of Do It Yourself), Ian Dury could pass for a Matchbox version of Lou Reed, sex symbol to the truly discerning.

But arguing about Ian Dury’s looks is only so much academics, and Dury himself gave up that pale life for rock ’n’ roll. Ian Dury’s been living inside the black-humored practical jokes his body’s played on him for nearly four decades now, and he tends to have a little more perspective on the grotesque than do whiny folksingers who only dabble in others’ infirmities. Ian Dury confronts himself in the mirror, and chortles with sarcastic glee at his image: a wasted limp or two, maybe, but still he’s got his brilliantly throbbing brain and cock, virtuoso overcompensations most “whole” blokes’ll never know.

Or, as Dury himself puts it, in his inimitable Cockney-in-yer-pants shouted rap, taken from his newest album’s opener, the provocativelytitled “Spasticus (Autisticus)”: “I widdle when I piddle/because my middle is a riddle!”, etc., etc., each internally-rhymed couplet more outre than the last. Ian Dury confesses to his spastic lifestyle right off the top, and has a ball doing so! Hire the handicapped, and all that, but I’m pretty sure middle-finger snorts like this aren’t what Eleanor Roosevelt had in mind when she exhorted the similarly polio-ravaged FDR to get back into public life.

Dury goes even more morphologically graphic in “The (Body) Song,” to get back at the limbs and muscles that’ve let him down over the years, in a calypso rap that recalls the hotshot word fetishism of New Boots And Panties!!: “The leg a source of much delight/ Which carries weight and governs height.” By the time he reaches “Themes of joy and songs of pain/ Come well inside the brain’s domain,” you realize Ian Dury’s not just kidding his bod, he’s actually melted down all our physical experiences into stark, almost Blakean imagery, so exact in its insights that it makes your skin... well, Jet Ian tell it: “The flesh we’ve got beneath our skin/Is what we keep our feelings in.” Pithy the poor Ian, etc:, declaiming over a wildly-burbling, squeezed-lemon organ (keyboard and putz).

Okay, so maybe not all the songs on Lord Upminster are as Blakeanintense as “The (Body) Song,” but Ian Dury’s still pretty much his ornery-mouthed, pet-mynah-bird self all over the album. “Trust (Is A Must)” and “Funky Disco (Pops)”— each of the eight cuts has a parenthetical (title)—are a brace of nice, crackling-hard disco tunes, wherein Ian Dury gets out on the dance floor and makes the spastic rhymes John Travolta couldn’t even begin to spell. And somewhere along the red ledge of this LP, Dury covers Sly Dunbar’s “Girls (Watching),” perhaps even more reggae-pithy than his D.I.Y. songs. Oh yeah, and if you’ve been following Dury since the good old daze of ’78’, Chaz Jankel is back, as co-writer and producer of this album.

Satisfied by now that Ian Dury’s a not-half-bad-looking clever bastard? Then get ready for another culturemulcher shock. Remember when I told you that the Ramones are the New Beatles, and Elvis Costello’s The New Dylan, and nobody listened to me? Well, here’s more prophet-without-honor fodder: lan Dury is The New Ray Davies! Yep, Ian’s just as clever in his last-of-thesteam-powered-trains concern for the little people, yet more outrageous and foul-mouthed and grotesque at every turn. (Oh boy the ''Celluloid Heroes” crowd are gonna howl about this metaphor!) Ian Dury, the actual train. Don’t miss him.

Richard Riegel

CARLY SIMON Torch

(Warner Bros.)

You’ve probably heard about this one, a collection of torch songs done straight (i.e., session sax players rather than session guitarists), big career change of pace, “... landmark... quantum leap...” says Stereo Review, by all accounts a sincere effort and it sounds sincere too. Still, a few complaints:

Dave Sanborn (alto sax) ruins one song, “Blue Of Blue” (N. Holmes/C. Simon), with its ersatz funk diddles while Mike Brecker (tenor sax) botches another one, “Hurt” (J. Crane/A. Jacobs) with his. Is this somebody’s idea of soul? —it sounds patently false. On the other hand, Sanborn has a decent solo on “I Got It Bad And That Ain’t Good” (D. Ellington/P.F. Welster) and Phil Wood’s (alto sax) obligato j on “Body And Soul” (Heyman/ Sour/Eyton/Green) is perfect. Unfortunately it’s smothered, along with Simon and the song, when Marty Paich begins to wield his lethal cushion of strings. In fact, this cushion makes quite a few ignoble appearances throughout the album, it being no doubt somebody’s idea of sophistication. I see.

Then there’s the matter of Simon’s singing—actually she makes a much more appealing sound on these expansively melodic ballads than she does when she’s trying to “get down” in a pop-rock context. It’s a smooth, carressing voice, not particluarly emotional but...clean. True, songs like “Body And Soul” and “Spring is Here” (Rodgers/ Hart) are almost foolproof ones that only a Norman Luboff could so harm to, but Simon brings to them the ability to do justice to a held

notv and sounds, like I said, sincere.

There’s a few exceptionally good things here too like producer Mike Mainieri’s arrangement of “I Get Along Without You Very Well” (H. Carmichael), cleverly complimenting the lyric, striking the proper chord of melancholy bravery; Simon landing hard on the title word of “Hurt;” the inclusion of “Pretty Strange” (J, Hendricks/R. Westton), an honest-to-goodness jazz song...

But unless you’re really into this sort of thing, it’s an album for special low-keyed occasions— having listened to it in a down mood (actually I was depressed about having to write this record review), I know it fits those occasions quite nicely. And though these polished performances make me feel mote sleepy than sad I’ll keep it nearby for the next time something has made me feel morose...sleep being just as desirous a response to self-pity as sadness.

Richard C. Walls

THE CURE .Happily Ever After (A&M)

“Order is a necessary condition for anything the human mind is to understand," writes Rudolph Arnheim in Entropy And Art. “Arrangements such as the layout of a city or building, a set of tools, a display of merchandise, the verbal exposition of facts or ideas, or a painting or piece of music are called orderly when an observer or listener can grasp their overall structure and the ramification of the structure in some detail.” If this seems like a ponderous way to begin a record review, well, we are dealing with a band who strongly wants to be regarded in just such a heavy manner. Much of the Cure’s music is what you might expect from a group whose big “hit” among-the hip was a song derived from the one Camus novel every semiintellectual has read (“Killing An Arab”/The Stranger).

And yet, the Cure does speak to what Camus called “the benign indifference of the universe.” There is an almost classical feel to their music—not that it is sculpted as an art form, but simply that the musicians strive for an order which usually cannot be found in rock ’n’ roll. Whereas bands like Public Image Ltd. or Bow Wow Wow seek a peculiar disorder, the Cure revel in the idea of order, shaping movements and passages that are sharp and clean.

...Happily Ever After is a tworecord monument, statuesque but never cold; essentially it is a lowbudget package of the Cure’s last two import LPs, Seventeen Seconds and Faith (their first, Boys Don’t Cry, having already been made available on PVC). All the songs suggest hushed conversations overheard in silent white rooms, and the overall imaginary tableau is something you might want to put on your coffee table.

Consider “Three.” Here, notes are hit at random, superimposed over calm mutterings; a drone' rushes in the background while the pulse beat begins to dominate. Despite what on the surface sounds like Gary Numan undergoing electrolysis, there are feelings beneath the synthesized setup: a cool, deliberate rebellion that seems to stalk the dark forest.

Because the Cure bears no intention of going beyond a strained kind of poetry (that is, the band blindly believes in their own literariness) , what unfolds in the music is a far cry from the cornball metaphysics of Pink Floyd, King Crimson, et al. On songs like “The Holy Hour” and “The Funeral Party,” the bands runs the gamut—children tdressed in white, blood, crucifixion —every possible symbol is dredged up. But the imagery (i.e, cartoonpoetry) is never so much, explained as' it is brought forth. Thus, the constant echoing of Robert Smith’s vocals on “A Forest” creates the impression of someone lost in the complexity of thought; or, the fuzzy tones of “At Night” convey the fuzzy-headed melancholia of all nocturnal owls.

You can easily drown in this stuff, and that’s exactly what happens on side two of the Faith album. From despondency to reli-» gious conviction, the songs move in a spiral as if following a fall from (and a return to) grace. Although “Primary” proves the band capable of going past the religious symbolism and rocking with the best of them, “Doubt” is where Robert Smith finds his heart and soul. A tortured supplication, the song allows Smith to take his voice outside its natual limits, as he chants ecstatically just to show he has a voice, his words practically irrelevant, decrying eternal damnation while proclaiming a life-long existence by the sheer power of his vocals.

Emerging from this passionate fit is the peaceful reconciliation of “Faith,” an obvious landmark in terms of the theme, but more importantly, in terms of the music as well. Again, nothing is sought but coherence, perfection and precision. If there is. a revolt in this music, it is against the idea that death, God, and everything held sacred is of a higher and indifferent order.

On “Seventeen Seconds,” the song abruptly breaks off in the middle, giving pause for thought, as if • measuring the pulse of life.

.,. Happily Ever After fully illustrates that the Cure knows how to measure their own lives, and happily enough, if their path often seems obscure, rarely (if ever) is it obscured.

Robert A. Hull

MINK DE VILLE Coup de Grace (Atlantic)

Dear Willy,

Long time, no see, yes? Last time you were out here in the land of dairy cows and blonde women, it was warming up for Elvis Costello. Then you got mad at your record company, went to Paris and made Le Chat Bleu—James Dean meets Edith Piaf—and finally the critics started to take you seriously. But there were no hits.

I write to you because I need reassurance. You don’t really want hits, do you? Coup de Grace sounds like you do. Look, Willy, I love you partly because the archetype in extremis that you were faithful to for three albums only cared about hits as a good way to get goodies financed for the Girl. I mean, basically, it was screw hits, screw radio airplay, screw innovation. And screw timeliness—the Beatles, those wimps, never did exist for you.

Neither did dressing like a slobbo hippie, worrying about women’s liberation or using computer school as a ghetto exit visa. The world was basically a mess—a backdrop to strutting, preening, singing and finding a woman so endlessly unsullied, erotic, selfless and faithful that loving her was like being told on Judgement Day that not only could you enter the kingdom of heaven, you could own the joint. Am I right? You were a cliche and a time warp, Willy, but you didn’t give a shit. It was like a religious calling—you had the looks, the voice, the attitudes and you wrote the right kind of songs.

Not that Coup de Grace is a lousy record, and not that much has drastically changed. It’s more insidious: “Just Give Me One Good Reason,” for instance. You’ve sounded like a lot of people in your career, but never Bruce Springsteen. “Love Me Like You Did Before” reminds me of Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes — hey. they've sounded like Bruce for years and they’ve never had any hits. “Love And Emotion” is Bruce-esque, too, and so is “Maybe Tomorrow”—with the latter gimped further by starting out with that tired old “Under The Boardwalk” groov'e you like so much. Same groove for the last songs on both sides. What, if you can’t hit AOR, you want high rotation on the golden oldies stations that are multiplying like rabbits these day?

On the plus side—your singing, which sounds more gorgeous than ever, is mixed pretty near perfect. So is the whole LP. “So In Love Are We” is the aural equivalent of long stemmed roses and satin sheets, and “Teardrops Must Fall” could make a nun sweat with those stops. I like this record, Willy. I do.

You know, of course, that the direct translation of “coup de grace" is “the finishing blow.” But you oughta know from your warfare with women that you can’t get us where you want us if you’re trying too hard.

Love anyway.

• Laura Fissinger

GENESIS

Abacab

(Atlantic)

STEVE HACKETT Cured

(Charisma/Epic)

Aha, Genesis and Steve Hackett,

what a piece of cake. I’ll just snap on my pre-fab preconceptions and ...there they are, lined up like sitting ducks: the men who helped take the progress out of progressive. Genesis—proud purveyors of stodge-rock—and Steve Hackett— the guitarist who left them to eventually form a similar group of his own. On the Respectometer, Hackett rates a nudge or two above the big “G” because of his (relative) unpredictability and his underdog status.

Of course, getting the preconceptions off once they’re on is kind of tricky. Taking them all the way off invariably leaves me with scars on my temples and hellacious headaches. But keeping them on while reviewing isn’t really fair, so I’ll just leave ’em lying lightly on the top of my head where they won’t bother nobody, (heh, heh, heh). On to the records.

For Cured, Hackett once again is working with co-producer/Engineer John Acock (no comments, please) but he has ditched most of his band. Keyboard accumulator Nick Magnus plays drum computers and synths while Steve thumps the bass and does all the singing. Since six of the eight tunes have lyrics, this signals a new direction for Steve but not for us—the blast of vocal harmonies that opens “Hope 1 Don’t Wake” sounds like a close neighbor of Yes’ 10-year-old “All Good People.” Hackett’s voice fits comfortably in between those of Jon Anderson and Gentle Giant’s Derek Shulman, which means technically OK but not very expressive.

What else is new? Well, the arrangements are tighter than usual, with tasty textural touches cropping up often enough to keep my interest from dying off altogether. 1 still like the varied tones Hackett gets out of his guitars but a few brief, brilliant fills ain’t enough. And for those of you who care about such things, the drum computer comes off a hell of a lot heavier than a rhythm machine but still lacks the physical thud-in-the-gut of a real drum kit.

There’s plenty of thud on the new Genesis album though. Phil Collins is drumming and singing more fervently than ever—nothing like a divorce to open you up (painful but true) and a successful solo LP to get your confidence going. Plus, this time around they’re using Hugh Padgham, who engineered the last Peter Gabriel album, and the rhythmic aspect is what makes the best things here work.

So Phil’s thud ’n’ thwack powers things along from track one, but what’s also noticeable right off is how Tony Banks abandons his familiar keyboard wash cycle from time to time for a more strippeddown approach. Genesis is even willing to take a few chances as a unit, so they do an unstructured jam at the end of “Abacab.” Nothing happens, of course, but it’s a nice try.

They do connect on the following cut, -though. Everyone plays rhythmic accents on “No Reply At All,” and the result is some of the freshest progressive funk I’ve heard recently. “Keep It Dark” and “Dodo” can also get you on your feet; evidently, 1981 is going down as the year British progsters learn to dance—it’s true for the new King Crimson, too. And as a footnote, I should also mention that “Who Dunnit?” with its interrogation tape loop-like structure, gets my Weirdy Of The Week Award.

So if you wanna check out a formerly rut-bound band in the process of revitalizing itself,' you might wanna lay your bucks down' for Abacab. And if you’ve got any change deft, 1 got a pair of preconceptions for sale. Cheap.

Michael Davis

JOHN ENTWISTLE Too Late The Hero (Atco)

Recently John Entwistle made the maga-paper rounds to chat up his latest solo album. During the course of these tour-talks, several interesting facts emerged.

First of all, it seems that John heartily dislikes Face Dances almost as much as you and I do. It sounds too wimpy for John, and he was dismayed that Pete raunched out on guitar on only two tunes: “The Quiet One” and “You” (both of which were written by Three Guesses).

Second, John thinks that all of the Who’s albums—Who’s Next included—sound pretty lightweight, and Live At Leeds is the only one that he listens to at home because it sounds the most like the Who in terms of sheer, out ’n’ out animalicjty.

Finally, John would like to see the next Who album recorded live and produced by the band itself so' that, in John’s words, “at least then it’ll sound like the Who.”

So you can bet that John’s gone and shown the boys how it should be done on his latest solo outing, right?

Wrong. Next to Too Late The Hero, Face Dances sounds like Raw Power. In fact, compared to them both, Empty Glass, Pete’s latest solo, sounds like Metal Machine Music.

In other words, John really blew it this time. Badly. Smash Your Head Against The Wall, 197l’s first Entwistle album cleans this newcomer on all counts. Even Whistle Rhymes, Rigor Mortis and Mad Dog have it all over this one.

All four rocked more, had wittier lyrics and were vastly more musically interesting—evert when the latter albums began to cross over into 50’s pastiche'. Even , their titles bespoke of the Entwistle style. Unfortunately, this time around John has traded his macabre image and 50’s fascinations for more base inspirations like...uh, sex and drugs. Which is cool: who can count how many primo rock ’n’ roll songs have been written about said topics? However...

“Sleepin’ Man” is a “Pick Me Up (Big Chicken)” rewrite with drugs substituted for booze this time around: “Talk Dirty” is a lame Martin Mull rehash without any punchline; and “Dancing Man” is a pro-disco song—something for which there can be no excuse, ever.

Only “Love Is A Heart Attack” has any of the old Entwistle punch to it music-wise, but the lyrics are almost top inane to mention. Almost. “Set your pacemaker to a boogie beat, you gotta dance love outa [sic] your life.” This from the man who once gave us “Boris The Spider” and “My Wife”?

Granted Entwistle (with a little help from Dave Langston) achieves the best sound he’s ever had in his solp career on Too Late The Hero, but so what? His bass may rumble along like an electrical thunderstorm Joe Walsh and drummer Joe Vitale, this power trio (and I use the term loosely) avoids any of the classic shenanigans that both Entwistle and Walsh are known for.

If you want to retain happy memories of a man who, in The Kids Are Alright, went skeet shooting with his collection of gold records, then stay away from this stiff at all costs.

In Kids, Entwistle said that the only thing he regretted about his success was that it arrived so late in his life.

John, if I knew 'that it’d mean ypur not ever putting out an album as lousy as this one again, I’d rather that success never came to you at all.

Jeffrey Morgan