THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF JUDAS PRIEST AND THE FLIVVER OF DOOM

JUDAS PRIEST

Screaming For Vengeance (Columbia)

Joe (Carving Deep Blue Ripples Through The Tissues Of My Mind) Fernbacher

Out here in Metaluna

There are no stairs,

Out here we stumble...

So there I was laying rubber down the boulevard in my orange flivver of doom yapping flapdoddle into a quivering bolus of carburetor fumes that'd been swirling about my head all day; my Walkman playing strange, unnatural games with the collected earwax of a decade— Love's long forgotten guitar opus, "Love is More Than Words Or Better Late Than Never," being the sonic culprit in this particualr war on my nerves—when all of the inevitable sudden I find Love tooned out and the radio tooned in.

Dazed? Well, let's just say somewhat more bewildered than before, and at least a little confused to be sure. So, standing on the verge of saying something ending in an exclamation point for the first time in weeks, I adjusted my paisley tarboosh and for a brief moment focused onto this persistent gnarring sound emanating from my flivvers' tiny, radio speakers: a sound that could've easily been mistaken for a drunken Krell's lamentations to a young Anne Francis; a sound that hypnotically kept beckoning me to scream for vengeance.

After doing so—unflinchingly I might add, and, frightening a few babies and dogs in the process, I realized that, lo and behold, this lilting fantasia of noise belonged to none other than Judas Priest, the band that make even metalboys cry the blues in those lost, lonely mercurochromed fits of dawn's early light.

I also realized in a snit of clarity that I don't know HOW to drive, I never did, and that I don't own a flivver of doom, let alone a car. Joggling my head around a few times in hopes of figuring out just what was going on, 1 came to the even slower realization that I was, yea and verily, sitting in my own bedroom, a jorum of Schlitz Light sloshing back and forth in front of me as if it had just been set down violently, and somehow was just/ coming out of some kind of joyous narcosonic scream-dream...the windows rattling as if they'd just been kicked by John Wayne's ghost...the air conditioner whirring along at downhill speeds...a snow storm (huh?) raging peacefully outside like some lost metaphor in search of a sentence; and a gentle thud, thud, thudding at my chamber door.

So what, you might ask, was the sonic-ambrosia responsible for returning me to (these) gritty shores of Metaluna and, subsequently, consciousness? It was, in fact, as well as in deed, the NEW Judas Priest album, Screaming For Vengeance, and I was "supposed" to be jotting down some drubs and drabs of criticalese for the masses to munch and mull over in between their Cocoa-Puffs and MTV.

Well.

Say, this LP's jake by me! It comes rushing headlong at you like a pair of knuckle-dusters being slammed, unceremoniously of course, up side yo' head.

On song after song the Priest heathenishly rimple the brow with their unnerving understanding of the limitless direction of metal's future. They say the simplest things usually lead to the most brilliant of conclusions, well, whether that's true or not doesn't really matter, because it's worked for the Priest. What they're doing is reworking the basic consciousness of metal itself taking it from a nostalgic spirit of lonesome guitar solos and pseudo-nihilistic blues derivatives to one churning, rhythmic, complexity. They've shuttled the beast from infancy to teenhood. All by realizing the potential of having two guitarists play as one. (Granted not the most original of ideas, but put in the context of metal, it makes a world of difference.)

Especially, when the two guitarists are Glenn Tipton and K.K. Downing, once described as the Dante and Virgil of metal guitar players. Their well-thought out flips of rhythm and gelatinous texturings, coupled with Rob Halford's taut, night terror screams, make the Priest a venturesome band of metal martinets calm in their continuing vision (they used to, after all, open for the original Sabbath way back when) and secure in their slickness, proving conclusively that practice does, indeed, make perfect.

After a listen to Screaming For Vengeance, all else pales, even those metal bands that ARE good like Def Leppard, Girlschool, and Van Halen. This record is about as far ahead of its time as Black Sabbath's Sabotage was, still is and probably always will be.

Side two is about as flawless as the skin on Kubrick's Starchild in 2001. If you can listen to "Screaming For Vengeance," and "You've Got Another Thing Cornin'" (both sure-fire hits), "Fever" and the chilling "Devil's Child," without getting excited enough to go into the living room and kick the TV set in and set fire to your older brother, then mister either you're a better man than I or you're ready for the killing floor and I'll be your Judas Goat!

Side One sets up side two with such perfection that it almost escapes criticism (I said almost). "Take These Chains, Pain And Pleasure," is a bit much...but then again didn't someone once say, "To escape from metal you must bury yourself in it..."? Well, "Shovel on," I say, "Shovel on..."

So there I was in my persimmoncolored Fokker dropping a pair of Ozzy Osbourne's boots on the enemy camp, my Victrola skipping out a crackling version of...

GO-GO'S

Vacation

(I.R.S.)

"Ask any ten people in the popular recording field about female singers and nine of them will say, 'forget it, the percentage of girl singers who make it is too low.'"— from the liner notes to the ShangriLas' second album, 1965.

One side of the Go-Go's story can be found in Alan Betrock's comprehensive Girl Groups: The Story Of A Sound recently published by Delilah. Here is the historical context in which the Go-Go's can easily fit: 1960-1965, those carefree days when girls sang as if God had intended them solely to sing (or so it seemed then). Betrock's accomplishment is in exposing this story, for in the girl-group sound the girl was only a commodity. Over and over again, whether he's writing about the Chantels or the Shirelles or the Crystals, Betrock details how women performers were cheated and even abandoned after they had served their purpose (since they were always at the mercy of a male producer or a male-dominated record label).

The other side of the Go-Go's story is outside the range of Betrock's history. While it's true that the girl-group sound is the Go-Go's reference point, they have escaped its repressive nature. The Go-Go's are not manipulated; instead, they do all tiie manipulating. Being the first all-female band to have a Number One album, the Go-Go's have power and freedom unbeknownst to their historical antecedents. Their producer, Richard Gottehrer (who produced the first two LPs by Blondie, a prime and living example of sexism run rampant), may be aiming for the sound he helped author and produce on the Angels' "My Boyfriend's Back" in 1963, but he has no control over the band's bounciness or natural exuberance, nor can he ever take away their playful image.

What we hear in the Go-Go's music, then, is the joyful celebration of this freedom—the awareness that women in rock 'n' roll now can pretty much do as they damn well please. It is the voice of experience, one that acknowledges the sacrifices of hundreds of young women during the days of the girl groups while at the same time proclaiming that such a tragedy won't happen again. If what you hear in the band's music is not toughness or bitterness—if what you hear is only "cute" or "bubbly"—then you're not listening.

On the new album, the chords of "Vacation" come ringing out with assurance, as if the band knew the song would be a summer-of-'82 hit before they'd even recorded it. From here on, the LP shares the identical themes of Beauty And The Beat: romancing and dancing.

Vacation is no extension of the Go-Go's successful debut; it is in fact so much more of the same that it's a pleasure to hear, like a missing second record of a two-album set. Although there do not seem to be any songs as catching as "Our Lips Are Sealed," "We Got The Beat," "How Much More," or "This Town," the sound is more "Professional" than on the first album.

"Get Up And Go" is the programpied follow-up to "We Got The Beat," and indeed, bassist Kathy Valentine and drummer Gina Schock are managing the beat with more authority this time around. And yet, the band can still talk trash, too; on a cover of "Cool Jerk," each group member demonstrates her musical ability—as always, it's a pleasure to hear lame songs played without any finesse.

Featuring a rocking sax, "This Old Feeling" is an effective showcase for Belinda Carlisle's melodramatic voice. It is Carlisle's voice that frequently carries the band forward—oyer the hump of an inept guitar lead, for example. On "Beatnik Beach," B-52's-style schlock rock, Carlisle's sense of control disguises the comers cut (even though the reference to Lloyd Thaxton Show is a bit arcane for the band's millions of fans).

As usual, there are overt nods to the past. "It's Everything But Partytime," with its brilliant hooks and lyrics ("when conversations become strcuning/no one's good at interest feigning"), recalls the greatest sobering party record of all time, Lesley Gore's "If s My Party."

Perhaps the two most revealing songs are "Girl Of 100 Lists" and "The Way You Dance." In both, the Go-Go's conceal a message beneath the sheen of pop, a craft they have perfected. Each song contains a cynical bent (the former regarding a girl tallying up her boyfriends, the latter about voyeurism replacing fulfilled desire), but the music is so laden with emotional truth that this fact cannot be understood except in time with the beat. When Carlisle shouts "Let's dance!" at the end of "The Way You Dance," she is not saying "let's party," but expressing a solution. Here, she is announcing, is the middle ground on which we stand.

Millions of kids and young adults have met the Go-Go's on this neutral' territory, the dance floor. And not since the Sex Pistols revolutionized rock 'n' roll in 1977 (once again, forcing it to become political) has a rock band had such an impact —that is, in terms of transforming the way we perceive the traditions of rock. For after the Go-Go's, no one in 1982 can look back at the girl-group era and not acknowledge how forbidding it was, how extremely repressive rock 'n' roll could be. Through their cheery music,' the Go-Go's have liberated us all.

Robert A. Hull

DONNA SUMMER (Geffen)

It's an unfortunate story, and the villains of the piece are David Geffen, Quincy Jones, and, yeah, Donna Summer, too. Geffen, whose eponymous, two-year-old label is on a hot streak (Lennon/ Yoko, Elton John, Asia, Quarterflash, Dreartigirls; signing Neil Young and Joni Mitchell), for some reason consigned to the vaults the Giorgio Moroder-produced followup to The Wanderer, Summer's leap into rock 'n' roll. He couldn't have done so for lack of quality. The Wanderer was a terrific album, blistering rock built around Summer's tough, urgent vocals and enough fine guitar work to satisfy most purists. Summer tackled rock from a mature, assertive woman's point of view, a welcome counterpoint to the cross-sexual macho imitations of Pat Benatar and the like. So if the unreleased Summer/ Moroder collaboration is more of the same, then Geffen should be sued for withholding some hot evidence. And if it's not rock—if it's disco or.soul or whatever—it's gotta be good anyhow. Together, Summer and Moroder came up with a lot of great disco records—basically, it was them who gave disco its credibility. Their records were predent-setting, different, always better than the concurrent disco. And each release was greeted—in its milieu—with almost the same excitement and immediate acceptance that always accompanied new Beatles records.

Maybe Geffen wasn't too thrilled with the fact that The Wanderer (his label's first release) didn't achieve the platinum and multi-platinum heights of its three predecessors. It could be that you-the-public just needed some time to adjust to the concept of Summer-as-rocker. (Not that gold status is too bad in my book. Geffen, on the other hand, has to worry about such stuff as cash up front and large contracts.) Whatever, Geffen went instead for a sure thing: these days, that's Quincy Jones. What was it, seven Grammies this year?! And Michael Jackson's Off The Wall a couple of years ago. Etc. Etc. Everyone I know was agog at the possibilities in a Summer/Jones teaming.

The thing is, Jones forgets sometimes that he is only the producer on certain records and not_ the artist as well. Patti Austin's Every Home Should Have One was another impressive example of Jones's state-of-the-art, slick techno-blend of pop, soul, funk, and dance music, but ultimately Patti Austin wasn't given a chance to be the star of her own record. Similarly, Donna Summer is kind of mistitled. As the featured singer, Summer sounds okay. On Bruce Springsteen's "Protection" (with Bruuuuce on guitar), her erotic side heats up; a duet would have been incendiary. She takes firm hold of Jones's trademark snapfunk on the single "Love Is In Control (Finger On The Trigger)," although she gets lost in the synthesizer-heavy swirl of the choruses. And her appealing conviction on the glossy, anthemic "Livin' In America" (we're all Horatio Alger, and even though it may take a lot of hard work, each of us can strut our way to the top) shouldn't be overlooked.

For all his musical wizardry, though, Jones hasn't realized that Summer's characteristic vocal style should—almost by definition—be the center of attention. Moroder got the sparks to fly, focusing on Summer as an erotic fairy princess or, in an unusual reversal, as an exalted flesh fantasy (check out Summer-as-Monroe on the back cover of Four Seasons Of Love). Moroder created an underlying mythology around the Summer persona and, making the most of Summer's intuitive, emotional power and her untamed cutting edge, he fashioned an aural atmosphere that offered tension, mystery, adventure, and release—just like the best sex, romance and rock 'n' roll. Jones, on the other hand, places so much emphasis on textures and the balance of sounds that Summer doesn't have much room to maneuver. As a Quincy Jones album, Donna Summer is a pleasant listen. The mix is rather full (even by Jones's standards)—heavy on the horns, percussion, and backup singers, in an overwhelmingly synthesized framework. And the songs are a varied lot, although a couple are more utile than interesting. There are only two clinkers: Billy Strayhorn's classic 1949 torcher, "Lush Life," misses, because Summer still has far to go in developing her interpretive skills (she doesn't uncover the song's ironic melancholy); and Vangelis' and Jon Anderson's "State Of Independence" is just pseudo-African, religious/spiritual silliness—Anderson's lyrics are an even bigger mess than the gook he wrote for the Chariots Of Fire theme. But Donna Summer is all about electricity; and since Quincy Jones stints on her share of the current, Donna Summer never really lights up.

Jim Feldman

WARREN ZEVON

The Envoy

(Asylum)

The Zeve is one of our most critically overrated troubled troubadours. 'Member those in-print cartwheel raves his debut garnered? Ever listen to the damn thing? A very dull dry run, easily as somnambulistic as the worst (best?) of Jackson Browne. The releases that followed scarfed up ovations here and there. I noticed some improvements, the main one being Warren's growing proclivity towards rocking out, however clumsy the attempt might have been. Heard some hot songs here and there: "Excitable Boy," "Wild Age," "The Sin," "A Certain Girl" (an inspired cover) and my fave, the howling joy that is "Werewolves Of London."

But one thing was blatantly clear with each subsequent release: the man cannot sustain an entire album. He is one of the most shameless indulgers of filler I've ever heard come spinning over a turntable. Fully half of Excitable Boy and especially Bad Luck Streak In Dancing School should've been given a fast heave ho. On the other hand, the good stuff you're left with leaves you hoping that next time he'll cancel the side orders and chow down on the main course.

Unfortunately, The Envoy continues to mix attention-getters with time-wasters. I mean, when he starts mucking about with soppy, clogged-up mishmash like "The Hula Hula Boys," "Looking For The Next Best Thing" and "Never Too Late For Love," it's strictly look out, Cleveland, bombs away. Ditto for the two odes to the deceased (whatta concept, eh?), a comball drug dealer lament ("Charlie's Medicine") and a D.O.A. dirge for Presley ("Jesus Mentioned").

What's left, if you still care, was worth my while and maybe yours too. "The Envoy," neck-deep in melodramatics, gets a B-movie productions with a heavy-handed hint of mushroom clouds on the horizon. When Zevon steps up to identify himself as the protagonist and says, "Send for me," you know he's got a bit of the buffoon in him (it's one of his most likable traits)

"The Overdraft," despite some blustery, sobersides harmonizing on the chorus (courtesy of an overanxious Lindsey Buckingham), pretty much stays in overdrive. Waddy Wachtel provides fully ignited guitar runs and a shout from Zevon elicits a foot-to-thefloorboards solo. "Let Nothing Come Between You" is a simultaneous bid for hello-young-lovers anthemizing ("Got the license—got the ring/Got the blood, tests and everything") and heavy AM rotation. It's got a good beat and you can walk down the aisle to it. Can a cover of "Chapel Of Love" be far off?

Best of all (and funniest) is "Ain't That Pretty At All," a rousingly demented combination of heated braggadocio ("I've done everything I wanted to do" followed by a stud service guitar jab followed by "I've done that too") and warped desperation ("Gonna hurl myself against the wall/'Cause I'd rather feel bad than feel nothing at all"). Hey, Warren, I didn't know you were a closet headbanger! Craig Zeller

BUD POWELL Inner Fires (Elektra/Musician)

Bud Powell died in 1966. He was to bebop piano what (let's say) Scotty Moore was to rock-roll guitar, which is to say he wasn't Charlie Parker and he wasn't Elvis but he was still one goddamn essential participant in a great music's sound, one enormous grand-generic sonic innovator. One of the more conspicuous aspects of his oeuvre was to commit simulations of the souped-up horn phrasings of Parker (et at.) to the keyboard, something no one has previously done with much success (forget about the technical impractibility of anyone trying to parallelconstruct Bird—there was still too many piano habits running against parallel-constructing horns, any horns, period).

Although his "Playing the piano like a horn" was overemphasized a bit much by the jazz-crits of the planet during his lifetime, there's this really great two-record set of stuff from '49 to '53, The Amazing Bud Powell (on Blue Note), that kind of shows what this hom-biz fuss might've all been about: right hand, left hand, both hands plunking out note clusters with full, dark, altogether untinkly sonic personalities; radically un-88ish sonic geometries with shape (and weight) well outside the standard thirtiesforties operating-procedural norm for the instrument. (Easily Bud's greatest collection of cuts, it's as awesome in its own right as, say, Aftermath.)

Then you go listen to his second best recorded outing, sides 3 & 4 of The Greatest Jazz Concert Ever (a Presitge twofer covering the big Bird -Diz -Bud -Mingus -Roach fandango at Massey Hall in May '53, an entire half of which features Bud in trio with Roach and Mingus), and you notice the horn bit is a lot less up front. It's there of course, but time-released just right into a flowing stream of piano-for-pianosake that's, well I ain't knockin' it 'cause it's a good'un. (As terrif as Electric Lady land.)

One last word about pianos sounding like horns (and prob'ly just as historically oversimplified and bogus as the rest of what I've said). By the early '50s Bud's close friend Thelonious Monk had of course taken the whole (horn) thing several sonic dimensions further than Bud would ever have bothered with had he lived to be 200 (it just wasn't his "trip"), opening up space on piano alone (this is Monk I'm talkin' about) that would later be explored by homfolk supreme like Ornette, Coltrane and Albert Ayler; that's all I've got to say about pianos and horns. Which is perfect since this new never-before-released album (from an April '53 live gig with Mingus and Roy Haynes), which I've got to admit is probably his third best waxing overall, is straight-ahead virtuoso pianistic (and nothing but). Prob'ly the most flat-out bravura virtuoso keyboard whiz (per se) this jerk has ever heard him be (true). Almost, at times, he's a bopified Art Tatum (one of Bud's teachers and gurus in fact) or even simply a jazzified Art 'cause most times I've listened to him he's been' so technically dazzling (if a little stiff) my mind & heart have failed to make the jazz connection although who the hell knows...

In any event, Inner Fires dazzle like spuzz and a whole lot more. Like on the bop classic "Salt Peanuts" he textures his opening sort of like Monk (y'know what the hey); unlike Monk however, who'd more'n likely have hung around to re-examine things, y'know looking back and whatnot, Bud speeds along without looking back for a sec. Real good technique-in-theservice -of -running -away -foreverishness (which is to say he's pretty speedy and fast and those kinda things) (and linear like a scream 'cause it's too fast to be nonlinear without him being God) and after a couple listens I'm thinkin' Bud is where even Cecil Taylor mighta picked up his no-quit rhythmic pulse. Like in the notes to Cecil's Unit Structures LP he says "Where are you Bud?" and I don't think he's talking Abbott. (Every bit as good as the first Killing Joke LP.)

Plus you get two interviews with Bud from some French TB clinic in '63 that've gotta be the scariest goddam stuff y'ever heard from somebody y'only know from photos, history books and piano albs. (If I hadn't got it free I'd've bought it just for this—no lie.)

Richard Meltzer

RICHARD HELL AND THE VOIDOIDS Destiny Street (Red Star)

Say you and these other guys used to hang out in this neighborhood, and you all had pretty much the same goals, the same diversions, the same frame of reference, and then you left the block for a while, and when you came back it all changed. This gang over here moved uptown, this girl fell in with another, artsier crowd, one couple went off and settled down and made babies, and a whole bunch of other people just dispersed, and when you asked about them, all you got were bored shrugs. On to something else? Could be, unless you really believe that there wets something worth preserving about the ideas that were zipping around, unless you feel that whaf s grown out of what started there* has become as tired and vacant as the order you'd been trying to break down.

The sound of Destiny Street— spiky, chaotic, agreeably wackedout—brings back the great American snarl and its sidekick, the serpent-tongued guitar, and knots them to the various forms they've sprung from and taken on. It's a five-year-on perspective on the post-punk recession, and better than it might have been expected to be. Far better, in fact, than the first Richard Hell and the Voidoids album. Robert Quine's mercurial guitar playing makes a sizeable contribution to the new LP's confident jitteriness, as do the choices of ringer material and the direction of Alan Betrock, but Hell himself has hit on a style—part Nuggets-era basement rock 'n' roll, part speedballing protest (not in content, but in attitude) rock, part confrontational CBGB psychodrama—that gives the album its pungent reverberations.

You don't hear The Snarl as much as you used to. Nowadays, the standard operational vocal approaches are Automaton-Detached and Hyperthyroid-Hysterical, and even the '70s punks and the hardcore-come-latelys are more bratty than belligerent. But there was a time when its contemptuous versatility proved suitable to all sorts of malcontentedness, from belittling an uppity female (the Seeds, Syndicate Of Sound) to expressing rage about social conditions (Barry McGuire). Richard Hell's adopted a sinister c. '66 model for his "Lowest Common Denominator" (itself a throwback to the inglorious days when women could be insulted for having the gall to treat the singer with shameful lack of respect), and it works as well for "The Kid With The Replaceable Head" and the two U.K. covers, "I Gotta Move" and "I Can Only Give You Everything."

In the spirit of the early Kinks, Van Morrison's Them, Dylan (Hell bravely ventures into Planet Waves to find an interpretable song other than "Forever Young," comes out with "Going Going. Gone" and makes his selection stick), Destiny Street has a haphazard, breathless one-take quality that's almost heretical in the modem nu-music marketplace, but is the aroma of Mom's apple pie to some of us older LP acquisitors. You could attribute the album's bowing in the general vicinity of the golden '60s to Betrock's input, but that would be cheating. Granted, his area of specialty as a critic and his entrepreneur's ear for nervy, well-crafted pop (the dB's, Crenshaw) are an asset. But unless the Voidoids (Quine and Naux on clash-of-theclangers guitars, Fred Maher on drums, Hell on Bass) had guiltypleasure yearnings to raid the garage-band icebox (Quine has a ball zigzagging through "I Can Only Give You Everything"), no theories of applied classicism could have coaxed these performances out of them.

For me, Hell's debut was a chore to get through; I belong to the (Mel) Blanc generation, and there was too much of the Foghorn Leghorn bjowhard in Hell's feverish attempt to stake out a place for himself in the movement's (such as it was) front lines. But this, except for the most philosophical, less frantic numbers on side two—"Time," "Staring In Her Eyes," and the title cut, a poem/story/song about confronting his younger self and learning to live in the present—is unpretentious fun. And wait for the 12" dance club remix of "Downtown At Dawn," a bouncy invitation in the honorable pattern of in-spot incantations such as the Drifters' "Three Thirty Three" and Chris Kenner's "I Like It Like That." As Hell tells it, this mystery "drop out disco," where inhibitions are shed and the trippers all go, sounds like a cross between Hernando's hideaway, Max's Kansas City and Plato's Retreat. Mitchell Cohen

JUICE NEWTON Quiet Lies (Capitol)

NICOLETTE LARSON All Dressed Up & No Piece To Go (Warner Bros.)

No less an authority than Kal Rudman (You know, Merv's pal) has declared Ms. Juice Newton ''...the new champ. I don't think any of the fading champions can hold her." What, I asked myself, can this possibly mean? My curiousity piqued, I got ahold of the new champeen's newest disc, Quiet Lies as well as All Dressed Up & No Place To Go, a recent release by Nicolette Larson, who'd made a couple of good showings on undercards but hadn't yet shown the consistency required for a title shot, slapped on the headphones and listened.

That was my second mistake. (Being curious was my first.) These gurls are definitely radio artistes. Listening on a Walkman nearly ruined my day. Neither album is intended to repay careful study, and prolonged exposure to the technosleek Hollywood wind tunnel production sound they both favor has been known to cause headaches and even temporary behavioral aberrations. Juice and Nic are heard to best advantage on tire airwaves—in short, isolated, and usually repeated doses.

The cover of Quiet Lies is earnest and instructive, like its contents. Front, back, and inner sleeve photos of Juice with lots of hair, lots of makeup, lots of doe eyes, but nary a glimmer of smile. In three different pics! The new champ— like Sonny Liston—is very serious. The jacket of All Dressed Up uses a more radical strategy, as benefits an anxious contender. The front cover photo shows Nicolette, wet & baleful, wearing even more hair than the champ, a bracelet, a couple of rings, and a barely adequate purple towel. On the back cover she's even pinker and wetter, covered here and there by bubble bath. In a froth I whipped out the inner sleeve but was crushed to find a mere smiling face. You remember what the Undisputed Truth said about that. Obviously, Miss Larson is smiling because, unlike me, you would have to buy the LP to open it and get the tease. Champ moving stiffly. Challenger looking to score points early. First round to challenger looking to score points early. First round challenger.

Once inside I was dismayed to find they had both printed the lyrics and musicians credits on the inner i sleeve. Champ fouls badly and is warned by referee for printing the following:

He said "I've seen you before'' As the band broke into Misty I put one hand on the bar The whole room by then Was starting to spin I said "You've got Hemingway's eyes"

And that night I called him "papa"

Challenger, meanwhile piles up the points by furnishing all the words to Lowell George's "Two Trains," then promptly loses same by actually performing the song. The was also some confusion at the judges' tabje because Nic feinted with a Little Willie John title, "Talk To Me," but then sang a boorish '80s relationship lyric with the same name. Overall, the champ's flaws are clear, but she's able to compensate with well-chosen remakes like Gene Pitoey's "Fm Gonna Be Strong," and substantial hits like the dumb but infectious "Love's Been A Little Bit Hard On Me." The challenger remains offbalance and erratic, treading foolishly on Dusty Springfield's already perfect "I Only Want To Be With You," doing nothing for the Supremes' "Nathan Jones," and dragging veteran comer girls Linda Ronstadt and Wendy Waldman into an unworthy bit of Beverly Hills reggae.

In the end Juice's title is never seriously threatened.

Showing plenty of reserve power for later rounds—"Love Sail Away" and "Trail Of Tears," two neo-popabilly tunes that sound like hits, and the Eagles-ish "Adios Me Corazon" —the champ's concentration and single-minded devotion to radio readiness completely outclassed a game but uncertain and poorlytrained opponent. Though Nic has a "better" and "prettier" voice, they both depend on pliability to score their points and the champ simply takes direction better—and gets better directions—than the hapless [challenger. Some of All Dressed Up's problems are probably caused by Warner Bros, executive trainer Ted Templeman, who, hoping to cut the losses he's suffered through retirement, clearly is grooming Nic as a Doobie Sister. She should go back to sparring with Neil Young, develop patience, and stay away from rogue promoters like Andy Gold.

Next month: Survivor goes after Journey in Championship Volleyball. See you there. Jeff Nesin

ROBERT PLANT Pictures At Eleven (Swan Song)

If you liked the later Led Zep albums, you'll probably pee your sneaks over Robert Plant's solo debut.

The format's the same (thunder/ canaries /mudslide /pussywillows) but the material is better. Mainly co-written with guitarist Robbie Blunt "Object," the songs are basic hard and heavy with the usual acoustic frosting. As structurally economic as Bad Co. chunk floaters, Plant and band steer clear of instrumental overkill. Instead, they offer new, improved megadeaths. More on that later.

Vocally, Plant has now fully recovered from the testicular affliction that made him sound the way he did with his late band. The guy can actually sing, a fact which I found as personally upsetting as Walter Cronkite's recent report on computer dating systems for horses.

You don't have to be a Zeppie to appreciate the better cuts. "Burning Down One Side" bums down one side with a hot riff and pure, unadulterated bron-y-aurness. Drummers Cozy Powell and Phil Collins pound away here, there and everywhere on this album like Mallethead playing the Billy Squier songbook. Love that thump.

Still another victory for poundage is "Slow Dancer." The first three or four minutes are fine, but it soon grows into a problem cut indicative of the LP's snore content. Thefe's a point where crunch turns to plod. According tp research, the point is 3:46. That leaves the nearly eightminute "Dancer" one soak over the line. Doesn't help the four longies on side two either. Four clunks for eight bucks, as Kentucky Fried Chicken would have it.

Important! These tracks won't seem overlong to fans of the heavy persuasion. It's not that their pulses are actually slower than ours, although their ranks do include a highly disproportionate number of lizard fanciers.

The only solid stinker is "Like I've Never Been Gone," a wimpy probable outtake from The Happy Zither that'll have you wishing he'd go away again soon.

Other small crud puddles exist, but Faye Dunaway never told you life was fair, did she? Other than that, the band is real solid, the lyrics contain "got da blues" and "baby baby" in sufficient quantity and "House" Plant's production is unobtrusive. He doesn't blow his nose in your waffles.

This ending is gratuitous.

Rick Johnson