TALKING HEADS The Name Of This Band Is Talking Heads (Sire)

Jeff Nesin

From a recent classified page: “We met waiting for the 96th Street crosstown at Third Ave., 6pm, Thurs. the 16th. I was wearing leather fringe jacket, you black leather. Too shy to speak then. Call me please. Nan: 622-2166.” We met? Where I come from that hardly qualifies as a meeting. Sounds like Nan’s in Talking Heads territory.

Talking Heads is a very good band—that much is clear. But for me, at least, they’re like a terribly homely, awkward couple who are very much in love. I’m glad they found each other, but I’d just as soon they grope somewhere else. Byrne’s stance and the band’s sound are the same: the apotheosis of neurosis —and I find it hard to get interested and stay interested for more than a song or two. The unique rhythmic vocal counterpoint of “The Great Curve” is always a pleasure, albeit a rather limited one given the nervous context. Even the expanded neo-tribal format of 1980’s Remain In Light seemed, at bottom, a move from the Freudian couch to a chic new group therapy —a larger, more colorful, more supportive springboard for the same primal discomfort and disquiet. It may be my own reverse Puritanism, but only John Fogerty has ever made great rock ’n’ roll that didn’t include fucking. I remain cool but curious.

Large numbers of people, however, are crazy about this band and now, with the release of The Name Of This Band Is Talking Heads, a two record live retrospective set, I thought I’d try to find out why. Since the original trio met in art school and since I teach at the School Of Visual Arts in New York, I decided to ship up a special art school survey to shed some light on T. Heads’ popularity, with the following choices: a) I love TH, b) I hate TH, c) I’m generally neutral on the subject of TH with the following exceptions..., and d) I could care less. The results were overwhelmingly ambivalent. Of 25 people polled, no fewer than 15—a full 60% — professed qualified neutrality, six loved them, one hated them, and three could care less. Of the handful of lovers (“Byrne is a convincing character to me,” “...they make great videos.”) the strangest but most characteristic response was: “They are a group that does new music and is still pretty accessible yet seemingly not compromising.” Hmmm...where I come from, that’s hardly love.

The neutral majority reflected an unmistakable Age of Reagan dubiousness more than anything else: “What I have heard I seem to like,” or “I saw them at Radio City a couple of years ago and dug them. But I have not bought any of their records and probably never will because of my limited budget. But if I get a lot of money I will buy some of their records,” or “They have a unique sound and seem to be making music with some substance. I’ll listen to anything twice.” My favorite was, “If they turn up on the radio, I’ll listen. If I don’t want to listen I hit the button. I think the topics used for lyrics are not what I like. However, I do like the riffs for ‘Life During Wartime.’ ”

This time I’m voting with the herd. I’m generally neutral on the subject of The Name Of This Band Is Talking Heads, with a few exceptions, too. I’m not neutral at all about Adrian Belew, the Marlin Perkins of the electric guitar; he and Fripp should go on safari to stay. I’m impressed by the power and vividness of the live sound and, yes, Talking Heads’ conviction and intelligence are unimpeachable. So, if that’s what you buy records for... Poll and all. I remain in dark.

JOHN COUGAR American Fool (Riva)

John Cougar might just be a Midwest rube, but sometimes I kinda like him anyway, and not just because he was cool enough to pose with Edith Massey on his last album cover. Like fellow , hick Bob Seger, Cougar’s got a gruff voice, lots of “straight ahead” AOR riffs, and a big fat romantic streak. The problem is, so much of Cougar’s material is dull, garden variety product that you may overlook his few, more personalized moments. True, his voice has none of the lived-in depth of Seger’s, but it is distinctive, likeable and horny. As far as pretensions go, Cougar’s music may shoqt for “heart,” but he unintentionally stresses the “playable” hard-but-melodic hooks over any emotion. Only six or seven tunes on his previous two albums really work well, even on this simple pop level (1 haven’t heard the long lost Chestnut Street 'Incident) , but the nice thing is each of his catchier songs has a little bit of personality' showing as well, the best ones being the upbeat ballad “Ain’t Even Done With The Night,” with its touching “Maggie Mae” mandolin, and the hard-rocking “I Need A Lover,” whose selfish slob lyrics lend character beyond the slick riffs, (hint: Cougar ought to up this sort of wit if he wants to form a clearer persona in the future).

Admittedly, this is not a staggeringly high success rate, but Cougar scores rather consistently onstage, where his charming clumsiness carries him along. When I saw him in New York last year he was as down to earth (i.e. likeably lunkheaded) as Arnold the Pig from Green Acres. I loved it when he buddy-buddied with the boys in the band, affectionately shaking them around, in between pulling low-key arena-rock poses that were too well-meaning goofy to be obnoxious.

Too bad his likeability is repeatedly stomped on by the cliches on his new album. Yes, a lot of it’s initially hooky, but in the long run it’s as forgettable as your last trip to Denny’s, with nothing to match his earlier standouts. (Possible exception: “Hand To Hold On To.”) Only Cougar’s sly voice gives the record any character at all. There’s one number called “Thundering Hearts”—can we please have a moratorium on thunder images— and in “Jack And Diane” Cougar gets all self-conscious, milking his nouveau noble roots with a descriptive line like, “two American kids growing up in the heartland,” one of whom does “his best James Dean” (you were expecting maybe a Jimmy Durante?). Even here Cougar’s pop sensibility keeps it from being as pretentious as it could be—this, after all, isn’t Meatloaf. As a whole, the album is not so much a total bomb as another filler-heavy, predictable (if sometimes on-thesurface enjoyable) effort by a guy who can give at least a little bit more. He still generally comes off as a nice guy, and when he plays in town next, I’ll definitely go and see him. In my book, nice guys like Cougar don’t finish last. But whether they’ll ever pull any real night moves, well, that’s quite another story. Jim Farber

THE BONGOS Drums Along The Hudson (PVC)

Any old anyone can write evasive lyrics. There’s no real trick to it. The trick comes in delivering the song with enough moxie to make the listener think the thing is supposed to make sense, to have you murmuring lines like “clay midgets dangle on a string” as though they were perfectly reasonable. The Bongos, a trio from Hoboken, New Jersey (where Sinatra’s boyhood home was recently put on the auction block; the community yawned), pull this off almost every, time. Richard Barone’s songs are damped strange— “I won’t be no sea-bass tonight”?— but verve this band has got to spare. And melodies? Play Drums Along The Hudson more than twice and the tunes will be circling around your head while you’re waiting for your morning Danish at 7-11; I can almost guarantee it.

Brevity is their byword, and they are persistent in their indirection. Typically,.they’ll set up a sketchy situation—an encounter in the Congo or on Pearl Harbor (they spell it “harbour,” a bad sign), a dialog about romantic signals, or something utterly inexplicable (“Automatic Doors”)—state the few facts, state them again, and that’s it. In a generous mood -(“Three Wise Men,” “Clay Midgets”), they’ll restate with some minor variation: “Sad cool night/Sad refrain/Three wise men/Three cool cats” will become “Cool refrain/Sad cool men/Three wise nights/Three sad cats,” Thanks guys.

There’s nothing frustrating about The Bongos’ set-the scene-and run game plan. In fact, the weakest cut on the LP, the only band original not written by Barone, is the most explicit “Video Eyes” takes a predictable swipe at TV commercials, and its spelled-out message is jarring. The rest of Drums Along The Hudson is sprinkled with references from left field—out of Disney (“one hundred and one dalmatians”), The Coasters (those “three cool cats”), The Bible. Barone, on vocals and guitar, gets such a lilting tension (pop, .he seems to be saying, is no either/or proposition) on “The Bullrushes” that the song, a total mystery with a girl named Sally and some unleavened bread, clings to you. His clearest, most conventional love song, the Shoe-ish “Hunting,” says, “These things that happen are never clear/These things that happen, baby/Should never happen.” And the beginning, “This must mean something/This won’t give clues.”

The Bongos aren’t smoothies,1 and they aren’t forbidding “decipher this” obscurists. They know the value of the insidiously catchy chorus, and they can toss in twangy folk-rock guitar and surf drumming when called for, even some “La Bamba” quicker than you can say “Maynard G. Krebs.” Like Squeeze, the dB’s, the Necessaries, the Individuals, the Plimsouls, ad merseyum, they’re mining a motherlode that appears bottomless. There seems to be no end to the possibilities for inventive L-McC permutations: descending moans crossed with perky crooning, edgy rock authority with marbled pop. On songs like the wonderfully drawn “Zebra Club”—Michael and Laura, both wearing stripes, both on fire inside, prepare for a meeting at a joint where black and white leather predominate—Barone achieves a shrewd mating of detail and understatement. “Zebra Club” is one of the album’s newer songs, and it points in a promising direction.

Drums Along The Hudson is so hook-happy, so free of instrumental bloat, and so eccentric that you can forgive the Bongos their liberal use ,of religious imagery and their calling an ,EP Time And The River (that’s just asking to be punctured). In Albert Zugsmith movies, the sound of bongos was known to drive sweet nymphets beat crazy, into the temptation of liquor, reefer and vice. These Bongos aren’t quite so corrupting, but they’re as lively as they are enigmatic.

Mitchell Cohen

ASIA

(Geffen)

How fitting to confront this record at the same moment the Royal Navy is steaming toward the Falklands, in the last-hurrah hardon of Tory imperialism. Asia, you see, longs for that 1970’s heyday when “progressive rock” from Brittannia ruled the airwaves,, and as they seem to think that their mannered style has lost some ground to powerpop or whatever here in the 80’s (yeah, my local FM outlet played Jethro Tull’s “Aqualung” only 5,999,999 times a year, down a whole thousand or so from ’80), they plan to reassert their class-will tell chart primacy. By force. If necessary.

And while I sincerely hope that the Falklands crisis doesn’t climax in bloodshed, I won’t cry if the Asia album dies a quick death. Many times over. Because Asia are a “supergroup” who have come together with an insult-to-injury vengeance. As principals in the respecive British pomporock bands Yes, dnd Emerson, Lake and Palmer, two of these new Asians, guitarist Steve Howe and drummer Carl Palmer, already hauled millions of misbegotten U.S. dollars back to England in the 70’s. And now that they’re financially set for life, and Sid Vicious hasn’t got a prayer of getting a new record contract, Mssrs. Howe and Palmer are back on our shores, to cozy up to the reactionary program directors with their antique music, and to begin hauling out (to be fair) fool’s gold back to Britain. Again.

Or, to quote one of Asia’s own songs, “They fight for king and country/While many millions are only put to sleep.” You bet!, I sure did take that line out of context— it’s from “Wildest Dreams,” a halfhearted, sub-Orwellian protest of militarism, television, and other current evils—but it unconsciously describes Asia’s bombastic rock approach so perfectly. I couldn’t resist. And that’s the one song on the record where these Asians even try to look out for their fellow men.

In most of the others, vocalist/ bassist John Wetton (late of U.K., he apparently got the lead singer role ’cause he’s the relative GQ spiffy in this moneyed crew) is standing all proud and free on the brave crest of an Ayn Rand dawn, pride-drunk (“I am a sole survivor/ Solitary fire”) because he’s just cast off another evil woman who was draining away his manly vitality! Not an unusual role for the hero of a Led Zeppelin-millennium rock song, of course, but Asia orchestrates all this overwhelming macho pride with grandiose Wagnerian constructions hardly called for by Wetton’s “I’m-going-to-take-myballs-&-go-home” pouts. An effect as depressing as it is disjointed.

So much for the three aristocrats in Asia. At least there’s one Buggle in this woodshedding pile, because that’s what keyboardist Geoff Downes was in his past life. A Buggle, that is (cf. “Video Killed The Rock Star”), and in the context of male-bonded Asia, an ex-twitrocker is a veritable bastion of humanity. Oh yeahr Downes thumps his “Fairlight Synthesizer” (funny, sounds like a plain ol’ mellotron to me) with all the symphonic bombast you’ve come to expect in rock as “progressive” as this, but still there are a few lovely moments on this record when Geoff’s synth is kinda between measures, and it rattles and vibrates of its own accord, much like the cheap drum kit of whoever accompanied Bo Diddley on his wonderful 1955 records. Just for that isolated second, rock ’n’ roll almost starts... but then Wetton’s back for another self-aggrandizing chorus and more tales from the pedantic puddles.

Obviously I hope these guys don’t get to make a second album, but as they inevitably will, may I suggest they give Geoff Downes his Buggled head, and just let him turn that synthesizer on, let it hum and vibrate on its own for a full forty minutes, and then package the recorded result as a kind of Metal Machine Music for upwardly-mobile types with finely-balanced stereo systems? Yeah! That would be progressive (as it comes)!

Richard Riegel

SPARKS

Angst In My Pants (Atlantic)

Sparks are...still around. Amazing. Usually in rock ’n’ roll, humor means novelty means quick rise and quicker fall. But here is, ten years (and six record companies) after “Wonder Girl” weasled its way onto a chart or two and the Mael brothers are still hanging in there, refusing to go away. With a steady stream of English/European hits to sustain them and a new generation of Angelenos discovering them as well (better Sparks than Oingo Boingo for God’s sake), they stand ready to once again take on an America that’s still not ready for them.

Why do they bother? Well, I got lotsa theories. First off, could they do anything else? I mean, can you imagine these clowns manning your local gas pump? But I think it goes deeper than that. I’ve always considered the Maels as sort of mutant offerings of Brian Wilsop and Ray Davies, who were probably forced in their formative years to go to Disneyland with the relatives once too often. I can almost hear their dad—“C’mon kids, one more time through ‘It’s A Small World’ with Aunt Agatha”—and see them squirming in the back of the boat as the tinker toy noises of the ride’s soundtrack intertwined in their traumatized minds with thoughts of revenge. Thus the melodic quirks and lyrical twists and turns of their music, not to mention their fop flash and moody mannequin stage personas.

Bat what now, you ask. Does the new album cut it? Well, yeah; it’s maybe a step from last’s year’s Whomp That Sucker and sounds like a logical (?) progression—more synths—from their mid-70’s Kimono My House/Propaganda/Indiscreet trilogy. The tunes are credited to both Ron aTid Russ and now feature fewer castrated chipmunk melodies than you might expect. And while several numbers are directly self-referential—“Mickey Mouse,” “Moustache”—stuff like “Eaten By The Monster Of Love” is as off the wall as ever.

And as ever, their celebrations of sexual confusion are their most effective songs. Russell threatens a drawl on the title track—I couldn’t take it if these guys went country— but even that pales next to “Sextown USA,” sort of a Beach Boys send up, with the innocence replaced with a blase attitude towards it all: “Look around/See the sights/ Go to bed/What 9 life.”

Still can’t take Sparks seriously? Don’t worry; neither can they. One of the catchiest things here is “The Decline And Fall Of Me,” which ends up with the line, “I’m fading away.” Then they come back for more. They always do.

Michael Davis

PHIL MANZANERA Primitive Guitars (E.G.)

So there I was, slouched down and hunkered away in the back of some local sleaze bar, putting away a few with Roxite A. MacKay when who should show up but none other than—you guessed it—the star of our review, Mr. Philip Manzanera himself.

This being 1975, Siren had just been released and Roxy Music were riding high on their first big wave of North American acceptance.

Me, 1 was riding high on my fifth rum and coke so I took the opportunity, on behalf of Roxy fans everywhere, to let The Manz know where he stood in the cosmic scheme of things (historical rear-view rock critic division, ’natch).

“1 just want to tell you,” I proclaimed in a slow, overtly loud voice, “that I think you’re the 70’s premier guitarist.”

To which Phil smiled, looked at Mackay, and modestly said with an ever-so-Slight shrug “What can I say?”

It was a real cool move from a real cool guy.

Unfortunately, Primitive Guitars isn’t.

Listening to this album, you’d be hard pressed to guess that it was the handiwork of the same man who fsinglehandedly redefined the electric guitar between the years 1972 and 1975 on all those albums he recorded with the likes of Roxy, Eno, Nico, Cale, Quiet Sun and 801.

Boring? Hey—I thought my razor was dull until I heard this album.

The only saving grace on this disc are the “snatches of dialogue” (Phil’s phrase, not mine) which link the various tracks together. And don’t be put off by visions of trite deathknellish conversations in the somnabulistic Byrne ’n’ Fripp tradition: the surprise here is that we’re treated to actual, honest-to-God snippits of actual sessions that Phil’s played on over the past decade.

We’re talking “The Bogus Man” (For Your Pleasure, 1973); “Gun” (Fear, 1974); “Remote Control” (K-Scope, 1978); and my particular favorite: an actual, in-progress example of Eno’s famed “automatic writing” technique on “Needles In The Camel's Eye (Here Comes The Warm Jets, 1973)— specifically the “They just give you one long glance and you go” line, after which Een is heard to exclaim, “I’ve got plenty of verses...I think that’s definitely the one for the single, that.”

What’s sad is that, after hearing these seconds of past glories, Primitive Guitars sounds even all the more dismal.

So pass on this one, demos or no demos.

Anybody who wants a concise sampling of Manzanera’s styles (which is, after all, the purpose of Primitive Guitars—that is, if we’re to believe the liner notes) is referred instead to the first \ three tracks on Stranded, or, better still, to Diamond Head, Phil’s first solo album—an effort which still packs enough wit, style and drive to flatten a fleet of Argentine battleships (and the phalanx of stellar guest stars who appear as support don’t hurt any, either).

Perhaps my feelings for this album are best summed up by Phil himself in his liner notes (which are, by the way, thoughtfully printed on the back cover so you’ll immediately know what you’re getting into): “Among my abiding interests has been the possibility of making a guitar sound as unlike a guitar as possible.”

Which is, when you stop to think about it, why this album is totally superfluous; and why, based on the evidence available so far, 1 won’t be telling Phil Manzanera that I consider him to be the 80’s’ premier guitarist the next time I see him,

Jeffrey Morgan

RICK SPRINGFIELD Success Hasn't Spoiled Ms Yet _ (RCA)

Soap operas are great. They reduce everything to essence. No circuitous, psychoanalyticallyderived rationales for romantic couplings and triplings, crimes of the heart, acts of greed, or powergrabbing machinations. For all the yammering that goes on—and despite the soaps’ recent trend toward “au courant”-cy, e.g., child abuse, abortion dilemmas, hookers with hearts of fool’s gold, even global survival—it all comes down to Rachel marrying Russ, Steve, Ted, Mac (and maybe more), while her mother, Ada, brews millions of pots of coffee and worries about her daughter’s heartaches, as her own husbands display the remarkably similar tendencies of dropping dead after a few weeks of marriage (what brand of coffee does she use?), without her ever getting out of the kitchen. Or else it’s young, lusty Dr. Noah Drake—aka Rick Springfield —breaking hearts in out-of-the-way linen supply rooms when he’s not repairing other hearts in surgery. Will he? Won’t she? Why doesn’t he? What if? What about? And don’t let KarenDonnaNicoleJaniceLynnlris (especially Iris) find out— which, of course, they do—or all hell will break loose—which, of course, it does, at least twice a day. It’s love,, it’s lust, it’s lunchtime life; in essence, it’s reality.

Rick Springfield’s catchy rock, three-mfnute soaps reflect his weekday milieu. Where Bruce Springsteen (in springfieldsteen, a young man’s fancies...) respects and explores youthful romantic angst, Springfield opts for the linear story line; obsessed with girls, he wins them, loses them, can’t find the nerve to talk to them, is myopically sure that love makes it (whatever) all right, but nonetheless “She’s such a mystery to me.” His new ‘album, Success Hasn’t Spoiled Me Yet, like all good soaps, retreads the standard episodes with mucho sincerity. Jessie’s back—“I want to get married and take a stand”—and so are all the teases, the girls \yho can’t say no, good girls whose dads aren’t so thrilled about their dating situation, the spoiled babes, the really hot chicks, girls, girls, girls, girls, girls, girls, girls, girls. Except 'for “April 24, 1981," a lovely, not-at-all maudlin tribute to his father (it should be longer, Rick), all the songs deal with minimalist trials, tribulations, and triumphs of young love. And yet, for all his devotion to the topic, Springfield calls one tune “How Do You Talk To Girls.” Geez.

Singing with appropriate and unflagging teenage ardor—or is it anguish?—Springfield evokes every steamy, momentous fade-out in the soap video files. As most soap actors are more than competent— don’t fool yourself, it’s hard work— so too are Springfield and his band up to the job of putting across simple rock lines with efficiency and the necessary dramatic understatement. (You know, when Alice went into a fabulous swoon after Steve’s plane crashed in Australia— don’t ask—it was all the more convincing, not to say a hoot, because Alice was the coolest, calmest and collectedest of all time.)

And like soap writers, who borrow anything from anywhere, Springfield and his producer draw shamelessly and specifically from the collected history of rock ’n’ roll to flesh out the vignettes musically. Let’s see, wasn’t that bit done by the Beatles, the Cars, Vangelis, Tom Petty, Bruce Springsteen, Rod Stewart? I know “Black Is Black” was a smash for. Los Bravos, leaders (and the only members, for all I know) of Spain’s rock movement in the 60’s; it’s good to have back again. If you liked “Jessie’s Girl,” you’ll really like Success Hasn’t Spoiled Me Yet. Springfield rewrites the song three times here.

Of course, my favorite things on soaps are the menacing bitches and moments of vehement outrage. And compared to “I’ve Done Everything For You” (from Working Class Dog)—a terrific smash in the face—the new LP is a mite tame. But 1’U stay tuned. I want to know what happens next.

Jim Feldman

VARIOUS ARTISTS Everything Is Old... Everything Is New (Ambient Sound)

Doo-wop...how sweet it was! And here in the throes of 1982, you have an opportunity to experience that magical and evocative sound once again, thanks to the marketing strategy of Ambient Sound Records. We’re not talking ambience in the sense of Brian Eno but ambience which seems like more than background rhuzak—what the record company cleverly calls the “sound of human America.”

There are six albums in the series, and the one to turn to first is .an anthology of tracks culled from the other five, Everything New Is Old...(or vice versa). The Vocal groups Represented on this package —and on LPs of their own cany heavy credentials: the Jive Five (formed at PS 54 in Brooklyn in ’59; hit with “My True Story” and “I’m A Happy Man”), the Harptones (of the street comers in Harlem; known by “A Sunday Kind Of Love” and “Life Is But A Dream”), Randy and the Rainbow (produced by the Tokens; remember “Denise”? Remember Blondie’s sex-changed remake?), the Capris (met while playing baseball for St. Anthony’s High in NYC; who has not heard “There’s A Moon Out Tonight”?) , and the Mystics (Brooklyn Italians once blessed with simpy Paul Simon’s presence on a recording session; “Hushabye” was improved upon by the Beach Boys but remains the warmest of cradlesongs).

The purpose of Ambient Sound’s production is not to deaden the music, as happens so often Using modern techniques, but to keep it alive (“we opt for ‘feel’ over technical perfection”). As self-conscious as the company is over its studio sensibility (the tactic is called “organic” and defended to the hilt), there is definitely an argument to be made for the approach, with these LPs as solid proof.

Everything New Is Old opens with the Jive Five’s version of Steely Dan’s (?) “Hey Nineteen,” instantly immersing you in the nostalgic concept, transporting you carefully to a time when (so the romance goes) all the past contain-' ed moments more precious than any of the contemporary kind.

This sentiment is soon undercut by Randy and the Rainbows’ vibrant cover of REO Zero’s “In Your Letter,” a transformation so surprising it’s like hearing a zombie have an orgasm. In addition, the “newies” side features a mushy if not morbid attempt to redo John Lennon’s “Imagine” by the Capris and a wild tune called “Doreen Is Never Boring” by the Mystics, as untamed as anything by the Ramones (no wonder, since Joey “King Of The Geeks” Ramone wrote it).

The “oldies” side fares much better, perhaps because the groups are more at home with their own material. On the Mystics' "Prayer To An Angel,” the Jive Five’s “Never, Never Lie,” and Randy and the Rainbows’ “Weekend With You,” the doo-wop form is effectively summoned forth and preserved—and you will weep. The Capris, however, with “Morse Code Of Love,” enliven the vocal-harmony ambience, providing the only dancing ditty on the anthology and a sure bet for the AM waves, if those waves were not so awash with colorless drek.

Yet, even (with all this excitement, the collection is not the gem of the series. That honor goes to the Jive Five’s Here We Are!, due to Eugene Pitt’s imaginative leadership, the presence of the Chantels, the exploration of (neo-) doo-wop as an exercise in modern musical stylistics, and the elaborate production (which contrasts musical stylistics. and the elaborate production (which contrasts impressively with the sparse instrumentation of the other albums in the eries). The runner-up award, then, must go to Love Needs The Harptones because of Raoul Cita’s tender songwriting and tough persistence (he made sure of the group rehearsed at least once a week—for the last 28 years) and because of Willie Winfield’s ability to send his tenor voice on wings into the arms of eternal love.

As for the remaining three LPs, they border upon mediocrity. The Mystics’ Crazy For You seems too coated with day-glo polyester, unable to escape the artificiality of packaged nostalgia, while the Capris’ album title says it all, There’s A Moon Out Again (whoopee). Randy and the Rainbows’ C’mon Let’s Go!, while certainly too forced and too shrill, does, at least, have some charming asides (particularly, the title cut and an update of “Denise” called “Debbie,” presumably to thank Ms. Harry for all those royalty checks).

Nevertheless, Ambient Sound’s method and madness does permit you to hear what can only be compared to the gooseflesh twinge of recalling a lost love suddenly regained at that intimate moment of remembering. Calling the company “the sound of human America" is certainly no mistake, but I hear something else, something even more significant—the sound of humanity itself.

Robert A. Hull

THE GREG KIHN BAND Kihntinuod (Berserkiey)

It seems kinda funny that Matthew “King” Kaufman who, in 1975, adorned the logo of his then new independent label Berserkiey with the tongue-in-cheek phrase “The Home of the Hits,” should finally manage to score a bona fide chartbuster some six years later at a time when Berserkley’s artist roster had dwindled to loneliest number status. Greg Kihn’s “The Breakup Song” was one of the nicer surprises of last summer, even if the manner in which it and the album it came from (RockihnroU) caught on was no surprise at all. The Greg Kihn “overnight sensation” story reads straight out of the long road to quick glory textbook, just like REO or even, lord knows, J. Geils—you develop a rabid local following (Boston, the Bay Area, Moosejaw, wherever), keep those platters coming to maintain some sort of radio profile, play every single town that’ll take you, and stay on the road waiting for the Program Directors of America to catch up with you before bankruptcy does. So that if you’re both persistent and consistent, things can indeed work out just fine. With the Greg Kihn Band RockihnroU turned the trick, an album that, like its predecessors, featured three or four superior tracks scattered among the consistently average others.

Kihntinued, then, delivers just what its title promises, namely more of what put the band into Top Twentyland. Both “A Happy Man,” a Moon Martin-styled rocker, and the infectious “Testify” should both receive a ton of airplay and, with any luck, become hits. And, since they’re the leadoff tracks on both sides, you can simply lift the needle after they’re through to avoid the somewhat too mixed bag of AOR rock that takes up the rest of the album’s time. The GKB gives you here some smatterings of reggae, white funk, two cuts that come dangerously close to Foreigner territory, a slice-of-life folk-rock number, and a remake of Jackie Wilson’s “Higher And Higher,” that’s, hopefully, fabulous in concert since it’s a bit embarrassing on vinyl. As for lyrical subject matter, well, this latest batch of Kihn originals covers the familiar ground of heartbreak, lying, cheating, life on the road, the glories of love, i.e., don’t expect any major insights.

What’s probably most troublesome is that it’s easy to tell that Greg Kihn’s got a rock ’n’ roll heart as big as all outdoors, that he can write quality stuff, and that he’s got a hot band behind him now, so how come his records consistently (there’s that word again) fail to reach those great expectations? Maybe it’s Kihn’s allegiance to old Baltimore buddy Kaufman, since some outside producing intruder might crack the whip and insist on better stuff rather than just hope for it. Look, anyone who claims Brooks Robinson as his greatest musical influence should know that you have to play every grounder tough, lest you blow both the easy chances and those unexpected bad hops of life.

Matty Goldberg

AMIRI BARAKA New Music—New Poetry (India Navigation)

There was a time when you could take Amiri Baraka (previously known as LeRoi Jones) seriously— starting out as a post-Ginsberg poet and evolving into a relevant black essayist/poet/playwright, he had cogent and cutting things to say. about black people in America, a spokesperson of sorts, but most renowned as an artist, which is to say eccentric in a way that people could learn from (Baraka’s the only black writer, in fact one of the few 20th century writers to be found in the 1973 edition of the semi-prestigious Reader’s Companion To World Literature, having bullied his way into the consciousness of the book’s classically-oriented Academe type editors—a measure of his impact). With the death of Malcolm X in ’65 Baraka became more reactionary, anti-Semitic and given to rants rather than coherent attacks. Aligning himself with Marxism in the early 70’s cooled his racism somewhat but screwed up his work mightily—always leaning toward the mystical and the imprecise (thru all his changes Baraka retains his poet-identity, i.e., as someone with great faith in his ability to intuit reality), the embracing of sloganeering and pre-fab thoughts made his illogic more glaring...critic Stanley Crouch has summed up Baraka’s descent succinctly enough— “In retrospect, LeRoi Jones is one of the greatest disappointments of this era and one of the most intellectually irresponsible men to have ever addressed a people tragically in need of well-researched and articulated information. He has almost completely traded in a brilliant and complex talent for the most obvious hand-me-down ideas, which he projects in secorid-rate pool hall braggadocio.” (Village Voice, Sept. 3, ’79—note the “almost”—Baraka’s detractors, myself included, often feel compelled to acknowledge hope—note too that Crouch, an incisive and unsentimental jazz and social critic, is on Baraka’s shitlist—as is everyone else who doesn’t share his non-complex world-view. This probably means you.)

New Music—New Poetry shares both the brilliance and the crackpot aspects of Baraka’s current work. As a jazz poetry attempt it’s exemplary—this is how it should be done. Assisted by David Murray (of the World Saxophone Quartet and some excellent albums of his own on India Navigation) on tenor sax and bass clarinet, and Steve McCall (of Air fame) on drums, Baraka’s poems become, as he has intended, “living...breathing’”—the musicians don’t stand off in the corner constructing incidental wallpaper but either embellish Baraka’s melodramatic recitations with pertinent program music or, more effectively, improvise a sympathetic accom1 panyment. ■

But there’s a basic contradiction! here illustrated by the following:a 1 poem called “Against Bourgeois Art” lives up to its graphic title trenchantly—“her work is about grey hair lost in the desert peeped in a tiny voice” and “bourgeois poets yodel nonsense about boring absence/they think up funny ways for letters to sit on the page,” yet in the following poem, “Strunza Med,” we get “If the world was/a/ poem/a/poem/a poem, if the world was/a poem/a poem/ it is a/poem what kind/what kind/ what kind/what kind/of poem what kind of poem” with Murray’s bass clarinet twitters and McCall’s drum swirls abetting the building passion, which seems, suspiciously, like just the sort of arty-farty display that Baraka rages against (maybe he thinks that good intentions— the poem goes on to say “jt wdn be no academic/poem, no dull poem, no dead rime no dead unrime”— makes the poem more relevant and accessible to all the good, simple non-bourgeois folks out there.)

Some of the poems are quite good—“I Love Music” is dedicated to John Coltrane and jubilantly throws in some Trane-ish bansheescat while “Dope” is a tirade against the deluding aspects of the religion/ capitalism/mediamatrix, a real who-done-it, done up as a sermon — but still you have to put up with a frenetic hatred, a kaleidoscope sourness and lines like “Long live the death of bourgeois clowns!” shouted sans irony. At the beginning of “In The Tradition,” a tour de force about black music (though with the usual racist underpinnings) Baraka evokes TV’s White Shadow and delivers the classic one.-liner “bench yrself in the garbagecan of history O new colonial dog” (in the accompanying lyric sheet “colonial” j becomes “imperial”,—these cliches' have interchangable parts). At any rate, the shift to the right in this country is reflected not by the sappy and paternalistic liberalism of The White Shadow as Baraka contends, but by the fact that it was cancelled. A bright 12-year-old could tell you that.

As Baraka continues to hear a monolithic devil howling at the center of every evil (this year is’s capitalism, but five years from now, who knows?) one gets the impression that history has passed him by—the shock tactics have turned to schlock tactics and his constituency is dwindling. God knows the times are newly harsh and we need, asmuch as ever, rallying criers, programs, clearthinkers who can cut to the bone and reach a lot of people, visionaries even. But not this, not really.

Richard C. Walls

THE JAM The Gift (Polydor)

“Happy Together”—Opens with a brief flourish of Clash-conscious dub. Paul Weller’s guitar is as slashingly dramatic as ever. He seems to get a big kick out of forcefully enunciating “bay-bee.” Title indicates heretofore suppressed Turtles influence.

“Ghosts”—Minor ballad. LP’s extensive use of horns begins here, to very little effect.

“Precious”—the Jam wanna get fun-kay! And make mun-nay! Forget it; this is small change. Saxes, trumps & trombs bleat out all over the place and the whole thing ends up like Chicago wiping their feet on a Santana welcome mat.

“Just Who Is The 5 O’Clock Hero?”—horns go for a nice Tijuana Brass effect here. Weller engages in working class social commentary that points out what a bloody drag life’s become. Revelations are coming fast and furious. Hope I can keep up.

“ ‘Trans-Global Express’ ”—Lots of-insistent jabbering and speechifying about bad government and the like. Whatever happened to singing about good old-fashioned lust, or (God forbid) indulging in some cheeky levity? Strident gloomdoom pace needs to be tempered. Use of “ba ba ba” shows continuing Turtles influence.

“Running On The Spot”—As depicted on the cover. Weller sounds intensely moved here. A quick glance at the lyric sheet reveals that “We’re just the next generation of the emotionally crippled.” Are his feet nailed to the pulpit or what? Still more “ba ba ba” ’s denoting, perhaps, fervent desire to cover “She’d Rather Be With me”? „

“Circus”—whackabout instrumental; token Bruce Foxton throwaw...excuse me, contribution.

“The Planner’s Dream Goes Wrong”—Terribly unwieldy title, eh wot? Here’s the change of pace we haven’t been waiting for: a mariachi motif framing bitter thoughts about —surprise!—the fall and decline of the limey empire. If these soapbox derbies had stronger melodies more attention would indubitably be paid unto them.

“Carnation” —They’re on to something here. Weller plays both piano and organ in a plaintive way that’s draw-you-in absorbing. “With me there’s no room for the future/ With me there’s no room with a view at all.” Johnny Rotten’s sentiments exactly, but J.R. couldn’t have stated it with such tender melancholia.

“Town Called Malice”—At last 1 we approach true greatness. Flirts ^irresistibly with soul dynamics and Surpremes inflections—see Foxton’s “You Can’t Hurry Love” bassline and Weller’s “Baby Love” quote. Extra added attraction: Rick Buckler’s Ali-esque butterfly/bee sting drumming.

“The Gift”—having a rave-up with the Jam, pure and raucous.

CONCLUSION: Cut-by-cut yakkety yak proves this to be the Jam’s most under-nourished album after five well-fed predecessors.

ADVICE: Longtime fans will find some value. Others can look to All Mod Cons and Setting Sons for peak Jam efforts and forgive them their slump. And hope that next time Weller’s desultory down at the mouth quotient is cut in half. Take it from the Turtles, Paul; you don’t have to walk in the rain.

Craig Zeller

HAIRCUT ONE HUNDRED Pelican West (Arista)

Here we go with this week’s English sensation. Could you just shove it under the door, please? After all, the British charts are so piddley-ass, you only have to sell eight records to hit the Top 30. And, according to recent scandal, the promo snorts buy all the discs anyway to pump their clients up in the numbers. As George Jefferson once so sagely observed, “one hand dry cleans the other.”

So this album isn’t exactly what you’d call monumental. Now, the Munsters episode featuring both Eddie Haskell and Cissy from Family Affair—that's monumental. This LP is more in line with what the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service would call an unexpected ferret bonanza.

Haircut One Hundred is just another one of these outfits that reproduces fungo dancebeat while hofn-quim squibs reed-death in the background. Guitarist Nick Heyward does indeed have the 80’s umbilical click-clack strum down to a parascience. Each cut kicks in stiff as a cold-storage yearling and exits ditto. If you remember the 93.7% sickening group Audience, well, speed it up a little and you’ve got your haircut.

I just don’t understand what the big deal is with all this credit card spanking, sax honk and dial-twaddle. Hell, you could dance to my sump pump every spring, but I don’t hear Clive baby tap, tap, tapping on my cellar door. And these groups adding horns just riots me to pieces. Didn’t we already go through this once before? Do the words Al Kooper mean anything to you?

OK, sod poodles, these are the numbers. Twelve cuts. Ten of them have the same exact understructure (that’s what happens when you hire two percussionoids). All tracks have the same guitar skeleton-teeth chatter, the same calendar backseat and the same unnatural sax. These putt-bunnies are just a worse Santana cranking out “Draggin’ The Line” with guest blow Tjay Cantrelli at his most unloved.

The only songs that stand out from the body rhythm hygiene are “Love Plus One” and “Fantastic Day,” both of which feature the same gorgeous hook—you know, the kind that gives your tummy the fluttery sensation of parachute sickness. The ’Cuts like it so much, they try it on a third tune (“Favourite Shirts”) but it never emerges from the rest of the brute flim-flam. Are these pencil-necks just O.M.D. with goalie-nose?

Do boxcars have breakfast nooks? Cheez-it, toe fans, all of these technosexual bands are about as exciting as arrested decay. If you don’t like that, then hey—go write a letter to an astronaut or something.

This is your proof-of-purchase paragraph.

Rick Johnson