THE WHO It's Hard (Warner Bros.)

by Gregg Turner

How hard is it?

Very hard: listening to either side of this record in one sitting; sorting out a coupla good tunes from a particularly bad lot; excusing this album's rampant mediocrity and banal implant of deadweight music for past glory (historical perspective) and otherwise myopic rationale.

The lure of the front cover (slick band photo) prompts conjecture about the moves in the grooves. Clean-cut Pete glares demonic as if "Can't Explain"-type hard-rock might be in the cards... Forget it ("Holy Letdown, Batman!!"), the sounds here to be found're just this drab continuum of slow stuff with plodding, turgid vocals.

"Athena" is the single, side one's opening opus, and a real bummer a la Face Dance/Quadrophenia. Everything you can't stand about the .singer's voice (that grody, guttural resonance employed to, one presumes, emote) jumps out from above a weasily thin backing track on nowheresville guitar (jive jungle rhythms) and horns. Kenney Jones plays the perfunctory Keith Moon patterns to the hilt—which is all reet cos otherwise you'd never inna million years believe the Who could sound this unidentifiably bland and trivial. So the song dies a lifeless death a fraction of the way through, a miserable and boring non-event from start to finish.

Then there's the title track and it's way better than the rest. Lowregister singing and passable melody (replete w/Townshendian chorus harmonies shades of "Happy Jack"—sort of) combine for a few convincing moments; but it goes on much too long and an obtrusive key change (sounds like) somewhere in the middle stripmines the simplicity. But that's not all.

There's this, uhm, other problem:

"Anyone can do anything if they

hold the right card

So I'm thinking about my life now

I'm thinking very hard

Deal me another hand Lord,

this one's very hard

Deal me another hand Lord,

this one's very hard"

("It's Hard")

If something smells sorta SERIOUS here you've caught the right scent. And, it turns out, odoronos abound. Excursions of lyrical GESTALT blown up bigger-than-life on the sleeves of each of the nine songs Townshend penned pop out unceremoniously to CONFRONT and CHALLENGE your perceptual hallucinations re: life and death. Pete's logged a lot of time thinkin' about alia this and it's clear that HE WANTS YOU TO DO THE SAME.

"The sun shines/And people forget

The spray flies as the

speedboat glides

And people forget

The girls smile/And people forget

The spow packs as the skier

tracks

And people forget

Forget they're hiding..."

("Eminence Front")

Now it wouldn't be so horrendous if you had (1) tunes that cranked and absolved attention from the glowingly self-conscious message themes and introspective crosstalk ("Cry If You Want"); (2) a, better lead singer—even subhuman morons like D.L. Roth or John Cougar would be a step above Daltrey-the-donkey's brays of takeme-seriously, this-is-heavy-stuff inflected delivery; and finally (3) crafted melodies or clever (?) arrangements if for no other reason than to obscure the heavy-handedness of the words. Townshend's soul-search for higher spiritual planes is about as interesting as a frog in a trout pond. Shrinks make big bucks listening to this heartfelt drivel ("I've Known No War," "One Life's Enough")—and drivel's about all that's left in the absence of unrequited power-chord histrionics.

Two of the three Entwistle pieces, "It's Your Turn" and "One At A Time," ghost semi-redolent of Mr. E's finer solo efforts (Smash Your Head) but the magic is missing— nothing memorable sticks and it all sounds like glop.

Middle age has hit the Who like a ton of bricks. There's nothing particularly FUN or ELECTRIC or DANGEROUS about any of the songs on this record and Glyn Johns' wormy production only helps to make this more painfully obvious. The conspicuous absence of these fundamental WHO bldg. blocks is replaced on It's Hard with the listless sobriety of ADULTHOOD.

Me, I'd rather listen to Tony Bennett.

FLEETWOOD MAC Mirage (Warner Bros.)

Sitting here on the veranda of my unseasonably chillbound wickiup, making snotty faces and rude gestures at the swarming teen clans as they sullenly make their way home from those first annoying days of high school—sweet Maybelline everybabes struttin' their stiff, designer asses, Eloi-like stud-boys sportin' forever tans and frazzled frisbees. And me, my Millers in tow, finding it disarmingly difficult to focus on all this pop gris-gris I've been shanghaied into dealing with today.

I rap my pencil against my carmine-colored jodhpurs, caress the corn-rows on my hair shirt, and yearn for my monthly brannigan of metalese. I can't seem to hear it. Instead, all I pick up in the distant background is this boggish ghee of L.A. solar-baked noise. "Fleetwood Mac," I woefully bray. "Fleetwood Mac?" Just how does one deal with a band that's been around for so. long and gone through so many changes, as many changes as rock itself, perhaps? What new pearls of insight do I have to jot down that haven't been thrown thousands of times before? Crinking my neck to the left, I think, "Hmmm." Crinking my neck to the right, I trill, "Ahh-hah!" It is, I realize, time for the ole "j'adoube" ploy.

A blink of the eyes. A sneeze and a cough. A cloud of dust. And a hearty...

Like fer sure man. I mean is this totally awesome or what? Like, gnarly to the max. Well, maybe not gnarly, and certainly not tubular, but then again not quite as grotty as I'd thought it might be, especially after that sun-stroked comedy of errors, Tusk. Cummon, man, THE USC Marching Band!!? Jeezuz!

Mirage is an undeniable expression of future-shocked mellowtude. Which, I'm sure, means that for some people it IS truly an awesome record; just as I'm equally sure that for others it is nothing more than a poor excuse for a record—a waste of time and a catawampus to be feared and denied.

Me, Pm into temporizing, so let's hem and haw for awhile.

On one hand, this is an excursion into the darker sides of the mellow beast, a look into the empty lacunae of laid-backness and a slicker than oil presentation by the dreaded money cabals. On the other, it is a deep glance into the souls of two of rock's most misunderstood, maligned and mistreated women.

Fact: Fleetwood Mac, as it stands in its current incarnation, is Stevie Nicks and Christine McVie. The men in the band are pure backup (despite the cloying efforts of Lindsey Buckingham to dig up the moldering spirit of Buddy Holly) and as such they just fill in the gaps, round out the record, or just plain snooze when the forces of Nicks and McVie grasp the moment.

Stevie Nicks is the Snow Queen , of rock 'n' roll, few people will dispute that. She's got a gypsy spirit that's captivatingly honest as well as sensuous, her songs reflect a complex soul wallowing in an even more complex lifestyle, and her voice is fascinating and probing. Whereas Christine McVie is the epitome of rock's earthier moments, her singing low and resonant and her demeanor just plain smooth. She's the kind of woman every rock writer yearns to marry. Both of these women write the music and lyrics that have taken Fleetwood Mac out of the soon to be forgotten and cut-out, blues band derivative tar-pits—taken them righteously or not, into the arenas of superstardom.

Mirage is a perfect example of what I'm talking about: While it's certainly not the Fleetwood Mac masterpiece everyone might be claiming it to be, it is a solid effort. Thanks mainly to the team of Nicks and McVie, with just a slight edge going to Nicks this time. Her songs—"That's Alright," "Straight Back," and the truly haunting "Gypsy," are full of power and force of vision. Her lyrical style is sometimes confusing, but when heard with her voice it melts in your mind not in your hands. McVie's "Hold Me," is the current radio favorite and well worth the time it takes to listen to it, and her "Only Over You," is pop luv-balladeering at its most endearing.

Lindsey Buckingham's songs are, well, annoying. Although "Empire State" could raise eyebrows or provoke a chuckle or two in the Chamber of Commerce offices in Albany.

And that's about it for the whole album. Does this mean I like it or not? I don't know. Maybe I'm just lost in the wondrous heat of my own inner-mirages of contradiction and annoyance at having to deal with this. Maybe. One never knows, does one?

Joe (Somebody Please Burn

His Goddamn Dictionary)

Fernbacher

ROMEO VOID

Benefactor

(415/Columbia)

Romeo Void's Debora Iyall has sajd that her band's name "means there are not romantic notions here—and there shouldn't be; we are about reality, not the myths created by other artists." Fair enough, especially since Romeo Void's 1981 debut album, It's A Condition, steered clear of so many other pop artists' myths that the band quickly earned critical raves aplenty.

Avoiding the romanticism of past rock is a taller order than you might suspect, particularly in these recycled-nostalgia pop times. I'm talking our romantic rock icons, everybody from Jim Morrison and his acid utopianism to Johnny Rotten, who believed for a few precious months that screwing the establishment could really mean something. Both Morrison and Rotten shouted about evil as a way (however unconscious) of putting the better world that could be into relief. But Romeo Void, as expressed in the lyrics Debora lyall writes and talk-sings, presents a universe so immediately realistic, so far beyond hopelessness it's starting to feel almost interesting, that the romance of redemption sure ain't lurking on the horizon.

TIME HAS COME TODAY

PSYCHEDELIC FURS Forever Now (Columbia)

by Jeff Nesin

The Psychedelic Furs think BIG: bigger than just 1977, bigger than just slicking down unruly attitudinal cowlicks to slip through coastal radar. The PF's think as BIG as Fun House, but with real fun—which comes from being youhger and dumber (or less old and less wise, if you will). BIG FUN—back to the days when drugs and motivation were purer, when hallucinations and visions were more vivid. And who better to play Virgil to Richard Butler's Dante than4 Todd "A Wizard, A True Star" Rundgren, who came of age in those halcyon days and whose very hair has often been mistaken for psychedelic fur.

The combination of the PF's dour, thickly impastoed drone and the resuscitation of Todd's long dormant, solid gold career as an independent tour guide (Badfinger, Grand Funk, the Dolls) was too much for me to resist. But there were serious problems: two of the sextet's founding members, guitarist Roger Morris and mellow saxophonist Duncan Kilbum, had left, so the question became not just how many ways can you gussy up a drone, but how can you beef up a thinned out crew and help them realize their retro fantasies at the same time? That Rundgren is not always successful is actually praise for the departed as well as the extraordinary sound Steve Lillywhite achieved on last year's Talk Talk Talk rather than knocks against Todd, the new PF's, or Forever Now.

That they hired Todd and not, say, John Cale, suggests that the band's imaginary '60s derive as much from Magical Mystery Tour as from the "weary of the schmaltz" Iggy/Lou that heated so many typewriters last year. That Rundgren, ever Faithful, is up to the challenge is especially clear on the last track of both sides, itself an obvious Sgt. Pepper sequencing move. "Sleep Comes Down," a sledgehammer lullaby, features Flo & Eddie's Lucy-in-the-sky-withrhinestones floating falsettos, some crosscut saw cello, and lots of ascending sound swirls just like the .good old days. "Yes I Do," side ' two's closer, lines up the same suspects and, for period authenticity, tosses in a snippet of calliope. And what about the drone, you ask? The Rundgren PF's offer some memorable dissonant drone on the title track, lifted largely from Bowie's "Heroes" (only goes to show they have good taste in '70s music, too); a single note drone, "Only You And I"; some disco drone with a marimba-like figure, "Love My Way," and some homy drone, too, "Goodbye." There's even an OK political drone satire with radio drone possibilities called "President Gas," which I should admit leaves me feeling droningly peevish. I mean, a couple of months in Noo Yawk and they've got the globe sussed. Better Butler should write about Mighty Maggie and her one month mutton war with the Argies.

But "Run And Run," a song with lyrics from the comic book of the streets, ringing guitar chords and an inescapable chorus, has won my heart forever and, more important, is a hit that you probably need to hear right now. Forget for a moment that we're dealing with a third hand response to third hand stimuli (Not real turtle soup but merely the mock, not real George Martin but merely Roy Wood.), "Run And Run" bridges gaps too numerous to mention, too cavernous to think about without dramamine. So call your radio station and demand it. Turn it up. In a devalued world, it sure beats Air Supply.

From little similes big metaphors grow, and Iyall's disillusionment with "romance" seems to have set in along with her fatal questions about the latest-date variety, all generations of pop have always yapped about. Check her out in Benefactor's opening cut, "Never Say Never," a shortened, remixed version of the song that highlighted Romeo Void's EP of the same name (which, incidentally, has just been rereleased on the new 415/ Columbia label.) "I might like you better if we/Slept together," challenges lyall, coming on with an almost materialistic aggression that's definitely not a traditional female pop role, even in the recent tradition set by cocky leather-jacket women like Chrissie Hynde. Yet, even as lyall denies it, there's a stubborn, pushy romance imbedded in her demands: "Something in your eyes that says/'Maybe.' That's NEVER!"

Throughout Romeo Void's forceful songs, which are replete with sexual imagery, lyall uses her very vulnerability as a club. Romance doesn't exist, but maybe it should, so maybe it will, my emotions have hurt me in the past, from now on I'm gonna keep a stiff upper (heart on my sleeve). As in "Ventilation," a steamy ska-roller where "Fingers like steamy languid wire" are the highest form of reality, except for maybe Ben Bossi's snaky sax, which coils around Iyall's vocals and the band's pulsating ska thrum with a languid-wire head of its own. "Layer under layer now/fanatical desire."

Benefactor is absolutely drenched with sexual energy, from the thrusts of Frank Zincavage's bass and Peter Woods' guitar, to the big-beat pump of Larry Carter's drums, back to Debora Iyall's lyricism, clipped and acute, rich with quiet fuck-yous. Rich with the imagery of somebody who knows all about this sex stuff: "Old couple walks by as ugly as/Sin, but he's got her/She's got him." Or the what-else-is-new detritus of a collapsing relationship: "Even the lamp's broke/cat's in the fishbowl." Iyall's got all the psycho-killer details, and she finds room for everything in her image-packed lines.

IyalFs details are so homely and alive that I'm true-believer convinced that she learned all these truths right off the streets of Romeo Void's native San Fancisco, and I'm more excited about that city's hilly visions now that I've been since I read up on Jack Kerouac's sad, end-of-thecontinent, flophouse Frisco, in The Subterraneans (a novel ironically enough based on Kerouac's new York experiences, but which he transplanted, for legal reasons, into the S.F. he knew just as intimately.) Like Romeo Void's music, The Subterraneans has a theme of love lost because it doesn't seem to mean as much as "romance" promised it would.

Debora lyall, bless 'er crusty heart, knows all about that stuff. Let her tell it one more time: "It's more fun/when you wanna go out but/you stay inside."

Richard Riegel

ARETHA FRANKLIN Jump To It (Arista)

Grande dames tend to rest on their laurels. After laying unquestioned claim to the title of Queen of Soul in the late '60s and early '70s, Aretha Franklin sought to expand her realm with a dowager's removed and misguided sense to her territory. In various ways, most of her producers throughout the last ten years went along with her seemingly self-satisfied approach; generally uninspired choices of material were matched with productions that were either reverent (the kiss of death) or forced (and cluttered) attempts to simply (hah) recreate the excitement of her earlier work. But much of her brilliance derives from her ability to draw passion out of playfulness and the way she's always rediscovering those unchartable connections between romantic tenderness and electric release. Aretha is not a singer to be programmed. No wonder that, her never-flagging professionalism notwithstanding, for far too long she's sounded as though she would have just as soon been out having a ham sandwich as recording another album.

Well, hooray! Jump To It is a gas. Producer Luther Vandross, whose own Never Too Much was the debut album of 1981, has an intuitive affinity for female .vocalists. With outstanding musicians, including Nat Adderly, Jr. on keyboards and Marcus Miller on bass, and a host of superb backup singers— Cissy Houston, Darlene Love, Erma Franklin (Aretha's sister), and Vandross himself, to name a few— he has provided Franklin a hip, wide-ranging framework within which to relax and let go to the fullest extent. Jump To It is a fine example of ensemble work; nonetheless, the musicians' and backup vocalists' primary purpose is to encourage Franklin to renew her zesty, spontaneous declarations of love and desire. Vandross uses the sexy rhythmic charm of early '70s soul, crisp, up-to-date production value (with the currently overworked synthesizer making an appearance only on the title cut), and an understated stylishness that recalls Bacharach/David productions in varying combinations on the album's eight cuts, four of which he wrote or co-wrote. (Aretha contributed one song, as did Smokey Robinson, and there is an update of the Isley Brothers' "It's Your Thing.")

Franklin responds to Vandross's pop/soul erudition with an effortless-sounding fluidity. On the album's saucy, sparkling title cut—a unique dance hit—Franklin is so high on her man ("My baby loves me/He told me that/And 1 never question/That point of fact"; "I can't talk to you now, girl/I got love to get/When my baby calls/l gotta jump to it") that she keeps interrupting her eros-tinged delivery of the verses with delirious scatsinging; during the break, she roots the song, chatting directly with a friend; "Dishing out the dirt on everybody/And giving each other the 411 on who drop-kicked who this week." All the while, the backup singers break in with the admonition, "Jump jump jump to it." Throughout the album, Franklin gets across her emotional involvement in the material with an open, conversational style, the intimacy of her readings of the ballads "This Is For Real" and "(It's Just) Your Love" marked by casual but forceful straightforwardness; the wellspiced, midtempo "Love Me Right" finds her calm and sure of her man; when she snaps out the funky chorus line, "Love me right/Make my body jump and shout tonight," she isn't making any demands, just basking in the sensuous, anticipatory glow of good feelings. And unlike her desultory duet with George Benson on her last album ("Love All The Hurt Away"), Franklin and the Four Tops' Levi Stubbs veritably revel in all the various possibilities of "I Wanna Make It Up To You." Jump To It fully reveals for the first time in a long time, just why Aretha Franklin is the Queen of Soul, past, present, and future. Jim Feldman

RAD COMPANY Rough Diamonds (Swan Song)

One point we should establish up front—Paul Rodgers is the ideal hard cock singer of our time. Robert "squeeze my lemon" Plant may be an equally hot shouter, but in a way he's too unique. Rodgers, on the other hand, epitomizes and perfects a more straightforward, completely sexual style. You could put him in front of any current mainstream hard rock band—Foreigner, Journey, my God, even Survivor—and I guarantee they'd sound 100 times better. (Notice I didn't say they'd sound good). The guy in Foreigner alone would probably give nine platinum albums to sound like him for just one recording session. Rodgers has the kind of voice that almost gives lamebrain macho a good name. He's got incredible phrasing, full, deep tone, real umph—everything but depth, which in this hairy-chested context is totally irrelevant anyway.

It's just too bad he hasn't had a great band to back him up since Free. Now don't get me wrong; Bad Co. have their merits. They don't play bloodless machine music like Foreigner, Journey, etc. But ultimately their muscle rock will always pale in comparison to Free's taut flex, and you can point the finger of blame at their guitarist and bassist. First, compare Boz Burrell to Free's sainted Andy Fraser. In the original band the bass protruded almost as far as the guitar, putting out some of the best bass hooks in history. (Check out Fraser's uprooting lines in "The Stealer" or "Little Bit Of Love"). By comparison Boz is the Ed McMahon of rock. And Mick Ralphs can far too often be found grave-robbing the late great Paul Kossoff—aiming for his slow stun timing, heavy tremolo and slur techniques. Even when he moves beyond this, his playing is still only passable. (On the new album—their first in three years—Rodgers takes over the lead guitar on three tracks and his work is no more .or less predictable than Ralphs'.)

Though the original ghost of Free will always haunt Bad Co., I have to admit that in with the dross they've also put out plenty of likeable crunch rock (much of it penned by Ralphs) and they have changed some over the years. Their early "it-don't-mean-a-thing-if-itain't-got-that-plod" has given way to shorter and sometimes more uppaced material while still retaining a generally weighty aura. Their last platter actually housed some of their best stuff. On the new record the pace is again "lively" but they've lightened the punch—a major tactical error. There's simply too much bounce on this record. They dippily rock out in "Ballad Of The Band" and romp gleefully through "Cross Country Boy." Plus there's a piano taking a light tinkle in almost every track. (The perpetrator was at least smart enough to escape liner credit.)

Of course, the two best tracks are the pressurized thuds—"Electricland" and especially "Kickdown." 1 essentially approve of the casual funk of "Untie The Knot" and "Racetrack," but there's nothing as aggressive as "Deal With The Preacher" or as likeably clunky as "Rock Steady" to counterbalance it. And this only makes the worst cuts more obvious, like the washed-out "Old Mexico" or Boz's "Nothin' On The T.V.," which includes such insightful lines as "we all know about rising inflation/it sure ain't no cause of celebration." Ralphs' guitar work here and elsewhere is generally aimless and Kossoff-derived. And Kirke, usually the model of the heavy drummer (weighing each thump so you feel like someone's dropped a barbell on your neck) seems to be suffering from amnesia.

Of course on the positive side, there's always Rodgers' surface soul, but with the overall mediocrity of the material, even die-hard fans should stay away. On the other hand, if you really want a "new" record of Rodgers and the heavy rock "soul" style at its zenith, search your better record stores for any of Free's records, especially Tons Of Sobs or Highway or, best of all, the live album. If you thought "All Right Now" was hot stuff, 1 can't wait for you to hear Rodgers' yelp in "Ride On Pony" or Kossoff's snarl in "I'm A Mover" or Kirke's bash in "Fire And Water" or... Jim Farber

SHOES

Boomerang

(Elektra)

In the last 10 years, the list of American bands explicitly smitten by the British Invasion of '64 has been long and lengthy. Furthermore,' the roster of U.S. groups over the decades that actively sought to duplicate Merseybeat Magic runs only slightly shorter. But as to the number of stateside bands that were actually able to surpass merely sincerely flattering imitation and instead absorb the influences and eventually produce something memorable of their own, well, that total is much, much briefer. Off hand, one can name at least the following: the Raspberries, Grin, Big Star, Artful Dodger, the Flamin' Groovies, Dwight Twilley Band, the Rubinoos, the dB's, and Shoes.

Shake Hands And Come Out Smokin'

THE BLASTERS

Over There

(Slash)

by Richard MeHzer

Lately I've been thinking: Friendship is more important than culture. Far as I can see, the latter hasn't done a heckuva lot recently to save one single solitary ass, while meanwhile many of the people I know/ like/love are fans or purveyors of music, visuals, lit-scribble & such I could eas'ly live without. My best gal Irene, for inst, is big on showtunes (which I can't fucking stomach) while every time I play the New York Eye And Ear Control LP she runs for the volume knob. Our relationship has so far survived the absence of sync for that sort of diddleyscoot, and I'd be a bigger jerk than I am to want it any other way.

It's a little tougher (maintaining friendships) when the people you like 're in bands and you can't stand going to shows. Dave and Phil Alvin of the Blasters are just about the nicest guys I just about know. I've played poker with 'em, I've read poems at readings with 'em, I've talked blues and boxing and math (which Phil used to teach and I once majored in) with 'em, they're people I consistently enjoy hangin' around. They're such damn nice guys in fact that next to the last time I was with Lester I brought, him to poker and he and Phil hit it off without Lester even being drunk. They're nice, they're swell, but they play live music and I won't go.

I haven't seen them play in over two years and not even 'cause I don't like their stuff. It's 'cause I don't go to live anything anymore (last time: Bad Brains in March) 'cause I can't stand crowds, I can't stand volume, I can't stand cigarettes and reefer, I can't stand having to get drunk. I'm a fussy old fusser who would rather take his dose o' music lying on the floor reading Sports Illustrated and eating a sandwich. Phil and Dave used to rub it in, but lately they've been swell enough to just let me wallow in my over-the-hill. Which hasn't (however) been enough to keep me from feeling guilty, friendship and guilt (often) running hand in hand.

So in lieu of actually catching a show in the foreseeable future I feel like I owe 'em this review. Which is not to say it hasn't been (critically) earned, altho with me you never know where one leaves off and the other whatevers. Rock crit and adhominem rant have always been the same basic hat for me; I've never been able to separate music from things like "Motives" and objective-correlative hairstyles and junk like that. So aside from debts and fact-that-I-like-their-records, I guess I'm reviewing them because they've wormed their way into my sloppy critical grid like nobody else I c'n currently think of. Simply put, their music (like them) is friendly—it says welcome and does not beat you over the head with statement— not the stuff of rock-roll hype & legend perhaps (and what a lame way to pay a debt), but whudda ya want, you want me to maybe lie or something?

Having got myself in what looks like a hole let me now try 'n' worm my way by putting such biz in some proper rock-roll context. Okay. When on their last 12-incher they sang about "American music," they were not being fascists or chauvinists or even regionalists; they were being genre-ists maybe but certainly what they were was populists. Y'know like Woody Guthrie (true) in every sense of the analog. And like on this here live EP five of the six tunes (seven on the cassette version) are rock-roll/rock' billy/ R&B covers, but that doesn't make 'em archive elitists showing off their record collections, nor does it make 'em '50s-worshippers rubbing your nose in dimensions of nostalgia you yourself could possibly live without. For one thing, I happen to know their collections include Albert Ayler and Johnny Rot as well as John Lee Hooker, and for another all they're really, truly after (as a band) is the goddamn gift of revival—a generous recapitulation of long-gone musical spheres that happen to ring truer for 'em than anything current or semi-, but which they're not (ever) gonna get messy or sticky about, like J. Geils or Ray Campl. They go for the proverbial (oh-so-corny) jugular neither as revival practitioners (i.e. living, breathing rockbanders like any others) nor as posers within then era revived (i.e. campy "kickassers" hellbent on porking your mom). Latter of which is not to imply they're lacking in musical "teeth"—as musicians they're far in advance of commercial purists like Butterfield and Charley Musselwhite or schlockos like Commander Cody and Asleep At The Wheel (for inst) as well as far more in tune with the true elective affinities of any actual rock-era central nervous system—it's simply my way of saying they're not (in any phonusbalonus way) full of crap.

For my money, what the Blasters ultimately are (you might like this) is a post-adolescent Dictators no longer playing games with "trendy," zen-secure enough in their musical homesickness to finally hone in on x without making a federal case out of it, without the need to be "funny" or "sarcastic" or even particularly ironic anymore. (Non-ironic bands that I like these days are indeed few.) Plus Phil is Narvel Felts (whom he amazingly claims he's never heard—there's still some innocence in the world) done one time, two times, three times more arch. And Blaster semi-Regular Steve Berlin (whom I still owe a lunch from a 1981 hockey bet) blows one incredibly ace baritone sax.

Of those nine bands, only the last two are presently active on record. The others are either physically defunct, wandering around in vinyl limbo, or footnotes to solo careers, and it's a shame that none of them ever achieved any kind of acrossthe-boards popularity. (Yes, I know the 'Berries had hits; I also know that FM radio and hordes of "hip" concert-goers shunned them throughout their too brief history.)

But what to do after you've passed out your fair share of posthumous acclaim, indulged in fond memories/bitter regrets, and spun those beloved discs one more time? My advice is to give thanks and praise to those dedicated youngblood torch-carriers who are still alive and well and raring to go.

Which is where a band like Shoes comes rolling in. This romanceobsessed quartet from the wilds of Zion, Illinois has yet to pack it in or grow stale after several years of creating ingeniously fresh popdominated rock 'n' roll while mass appeal remains maddeningly beyond their reach.

I don't know if Boomerang will change the situation; I certainly wish that it would. I do know that it is of a piece with its predecessors, Black Vinyl Shoes, Present Tense, and Tongue Twister. Like them, Boomerang is brimming with captivating melodies, deliciously intricate arrangements, and three songwriting singers perpetually falling in and out of love with that first time feel always abounding.

As always, a key element in Shoes' continual appeal is their expertly constructed, steady stream of spins, twists, and extra little touches that make each cut special. Such as the slambang harmonics of "In Her Shadow"; the delightful subversion of a Pat Benatar riff in "Curiosity"; the ethereal psychedelia in the midst of "Mayday,;" the furiously emphatic percussion of "Under The Gun"; the sweet evocation of the New Colony Six on "The Summer Rain"; and the use of a Casio VL-1 on "Tested Charms" for a most poignant effect. To mention just a few, really.

Boomerang is, quite simply, one of the more fully enjoyable records I've heard in awhile. If you have even the slightest affection for adventurous, lovingly crafted poprock, you'll want to own it. Shoes are establishing one very fine track record, indeed. Exercising your purchase power on their part could go a long way towards compelling them to continue it. Craig Zeller

CROSBY, STILLS, & NASH

Daylight Again

(Atlantic)

BEFORE LISTENING .

This is too easy. Where's the kick in slagging a record that lies down on the railroad tracks and moans, 'tie me up'? Plenty of people are already having a cheap hoot over the reunion of fat old David Crosby, fat old Stephen Stills and skinny old Graham Nash. (They'd be laughing at Neil baby, too, if he'd come along). Is this the '80s version of seniors in the work force or what?

Granted, "Wasted On The Way" sounds so Air Supply on the radio, it's hard to remember that once upon a time, in Buffalo Springfield and the Byrds and the Hollies and CrosbyStillsNash&Young, these three men made some extraordinarily beautiful music with voices and guitars. And on occasion, they made music that addressed itself to, you know, issues. The state of the world. Private citizen versus public chaos. People are beginning to open one eye to that stuff again now—could that be why the guys have regrouped? Hey! Graham's got a punk haircut. Have they been listening to the Gang Of Four? Look, if John Lydon isn't going to do protest music anymore someone's got to.

AFTER LISTENING

Now this is really no fun. It really is like Air Supply, but just better enough that complete trashing is gratuitous and a waste of energy. Besides, Air Supply has no past glories to shame them.

Mediocrity with glorious memories can only inspire a weary laundry list of sins. Here we have vocals with lovely texture but no teeth ("Southern Cross"). Here we have nice soft rock arrangements with no topography ("Delta"). There are simplistic love songs not simple enough to be simply simple ("Song For Susan"). Here we have ideas about what's wrong with the world, but no original ideas about expressing the ideas ("Daylight Again").

And here we have something that's no kick to kick: people who used to be caught up in saying things about the world changing, who aren't saying it anymore, and aren't even saying nothing very well anymore. What's so funny 'bout peace, love and understanding? If it wasn't such a waste, alright, this album sure would be.

Laura Fissinger

ABC

The Lexicon Of Love

(Mercury)

Desire sometimes goes unreciprocated. Sad, but it happens. Martin Fry, the leader of ABC, does not accept this with equanimity. He stares at his blueprint for romance, stares at the pictures in magazines, stamps a date on his heart as though it were a container of Yoplait (love him soon, or he'll curdle), and as the music slurps and swirls and pounds around him, he croons, sighs, talks, moans, whispers and pleads his way through The Lexicon Of Love.

It's a piece of sumptuous kitsch, this alb.um, this one man stand for true love in a world of new values. The rhythm section bolts right through the door onto the dance floor, the strings (globs of them, and non-synthesized ones, at that) envelop poor lovelorn Martin, and the whole shebang is so florid, so exaggerated, so damned catchy— you want to hear "The Look Of Love" a second time before it's even half over; it's a casserole of about forty different pop hits and advertising jingles—that you may feel guilty for falling for it.

If you do fall for it. Some small things might get in the way. Fry's tendency to pinch bits of phrasing from Bryan Ferry, for example (the album sometimes sounds like Roxy Music gone totally giddy). Some of his more metaphorical lyrics, for another. When, early on, you hear a couplet such as, "Like a world spinning 'round on its axis/I know democracy but I know what's fascist," you may give up right there (can't say as I blame you, frankly). Soon, however, you realize that Fry's notion of fascism is the same as his notion of economics, or archery, or Christmas. It's all a variation of his sob story. "The law of diminishing returns" simply means that some skirt has put him through hell.

Fry finds about nine ways (plus fanfare and reprise/coda) to express his disillusionment with love's laborious travails, and some ("Poison Arrow," "All Of My Heart," "Valentine's Day," "The Look Of Love") aspire valiantly to a kind of pop-song classicism, and succeed. As a lexographer, Fry can't match his models (Smokey R., Cole P., etc.), but on a formalist level these songs have rib-sticking tunes, and the arrangements are inventive and playful: supporting voices egg Fry on, or argue with him, just like Mary and Flo used to do with Diana; the orchestra swoops down with spoonsful of hot fudge; Stephen Singleton slides in with sax licks that suggest some modern version of the carioca. It's purely enjoyable—producer Trevor Horn has souped up and gimmicked-up the surface so that the throbbing heart of the album takes note of its own corniness but stops a few feet short of self-derisive irony (sort of like An Officer And A Gentleman) —and, at times, honestly moving. When ABC (the compositions are group-credited) drops the Motownish (did they take their name from the follow-up to the Jackson 5's debut single?) drawn-out conceits and Fry comes out with, "What's it like to have loved and to lose her touch?," that's when the arrow is sailing to its true target. On those songs, the ones that are driven by incomprehension of romantic circumstances and are dizzy with passion, ABC are on to something.

Just what that is, I admit, I haven't figured out yet. Sometimes I get the feeling that this is what music played at a Club Med disco in Martinique might sound like. And sometimes The Lexicon Of Love resembles nothing so much as a 1982 version of A Tramp Shining (Jim Webb's blowsy, melodramatic song cycle featuring the trembling voice of Richard Harris). Or Silk Degrees. A sleek, engaging work, and not much more. Then I'll rewind to "Valentine's Day," an acrid au revoir, or "The Look Of Love," on which Fry, searching for the wide-eyed beauty to turn his gray skies to blue, winds up "yippee-ay-yay"ing his histrionic lungs out, and the suspicion arises that here is an authentic, obsessed pop lunatic with a heart full of soul and a mental filecard of a trillion hit hooks at his disposal.

And then upon rewinding, I'll find that someone (some unresponsive wench, no doubt) has tossed a "marriage proposal in the waste disposal."

And then I'll pick up NME and discover that ABC has been toppled from the top berth of the charts by The Kids From Fame, and who knows what to makes of a country like that?

I give up. I rewind. I play "The Look Of Love" again.

Yippee-ay-yippee-ay-yay.

Mitchell Cohen

JIMMY SMITH Off The Top (Elektra Musician)

Is this a trend or what? I mean, 1) Wynton Marsalis releases an acoustic jazz record on Columbia, extending the tradition of the great '60s Miles Davis Quintet, and makes a point of not selling out, becoming a symbol of the music's immutable integrity for all the fans that kept the faith thru the fusion-laden '70s; 2) two new jazz labels have appeared in the past year, Antilles and Elektra Musician, both with impressive ad bread and distribution means, the majority of both their initial releases falling into the no bullshit actual jazz category; 3) labels like Muse, .Pablo, ECM, Black Saint Nessa and Galaxy continue to release unadulterated jazz records in sufficient quantity to give the impression that somebody must be buying them as well as the re-issues and old but previously unreleased sides from Prestige/Milestone, Atlantic, Columbia, MCA (Impulse), and Blue Note; 4) in a down beat interview Tom Scott, the flip side of the Marsalis symbol, the jazz musician who sells out with a vengeance, even ol' Tom opines that fusion music might just have run its course and he's considering getting into some jazz (but then he turns around and besmirches Elektra Musician's track record by cutting an E/M album of the same old obnoxious mood music); 5) here in Detroit, so long serviced by a lone commercial jazz station where the approach is to play one or maybe two jazz cuts an hour and then fill the rest of the time with vaguely related pop music or such marginal acts as George Benson, Jeff Lorber, and Grover Washington, Jr., a lowly public radio station has increased their jazz programming from a couple of hours a day to a 9 to 5 schedule— full spectrum jazz, they calls it; 6) Jimmy Smith, the godfather of the modern jazz organ, who, from '55-'70 was the standard against which all other mjo players were measured, whose classic albums from that period on Blue Note and Verve stand as a testimony to how Commercially viable jazz albums needn't have all the jazz left out (or even downplayed), whose impact was such that he continued to win critics and readers polls throughout the '70s despite the fact that his recordings were few and mostly uninspired...yes, JS has released a straight ahead jazz album dragging back on the track with him such stray cats as guitarist George Benson, drummer Grady Tate, and tenor saxophonist Stanley Turrentine (the group is rounded out by bassist Ron Carter, who's done some commercially oriented things but nothing quite as craven as some of the stuff the other guys have come up with)...is this a trend, I mean, you tell me.

This Smith album is % of a bad jam—on four of the six cuts (two Smith originals, the theme from M.A.S.H., and Fats Waller's "Ain't Misbehavin'") everybody takes care of business with unpretentious blues-oriented boppish solos and a super clean production that especially serves Carter well. Turrentine, notably on "I'll Drink To That," demonstrates how he became ohe of the legendary funk tenors and hearing George Benson play jazz has a certain novelty value nowadays (O.K., I'll admit it, he's real good here), but the main rush is gettin' down with the commanding organ presence presence of Jimmy Smith—the way he lurches into his solos makes most other jazz organists sound tentative and puny. Just like the old days. The remaining third of the record is comprised of the dreaded "Endless Love" (and how come no one's ever mentioned the fact that Lionel Ritchie bears a remarkable resemblance to Pooky from the old Soupy Sales show?) which starts out alarmingly (no! no! not the Arp String Ensemble! no! not the Wes Montgomery imitation!) but settles into an inoffensive laid back groove which carries into Benson's bossa original "Mimosa," and having the two snoozers back to back like they are here makes them easy to skip, if you wish, or use them for any upwardly mobile seduction scenarios that come up, if that's your, uh, bag.

Anyway, trend or no, you should pick up on this record if only so you'll have a real one to vote for under "jazz album" in the next CREEM Readers Poll instead of the usual embarrassing compromise you people come up with (Mangione, Jeff Beck, etc.). Don't be a lame! Get on it!

Richard C. Walls

JOE COCKER Sheffield Steel (Island)

GARY BROOKER Lead Me To The Water (Mercury)

Another minor coincidence here, gang. No sooner does Atlantic embark oh an impressive rhythm and blues reissue program—including a great two-record Coasters set and an awesome five-record Ray Charles box—than the generation of late '60s British soulsters who teethed on the stuff come back out of the woodwork. Fm not just talking about these two geezers either—Steve Winwood's got a new LP in the store, Paul Rodgers finally has Bad Comoving again, even Roger Chapman's got a double live album of updated R'n'B out for his fans in Germany. The roots rock on, even if they're an underground phenomenon in some cases.

Though both Joe Cocker and Gary Brooker are trying to hit the comeback trail, they're routing themselves via different roadmaps. Cocker, placed in Chris Blackwell's hands, has been shanghaied off to the Bahamas to do duty with Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare's crew. Ya gotta admit it's a good way to avoid American production line cliches, so the horns and background female voices that bogged down so many past Cocker projects are set aside in favor of taut, lean grooves, some reggaefied, some not.

The tunes themselves are not always amazing but sometimes, the simpler the sentiment, the more effective Cocker's anguished grizzly bear growl becomes. So "Ruby Lee" and "Look What You've Done" come off a lot stronger than the sum of their respective parts. And when Joe's offered something more substantial, like Winwood's "Talking Back To The Night," he sinks his teeth in all the way, making Winwood's own version pale in comparison.

Brooker, on the other hand, settles for a more conservative strategy on his LP, gathering together old colleagues like Phil Collins, George Harrison and Eric Clapton (Eric's band being the one Brooker's played in off-and-on since his first post-Procol Harum LP bit the dust without reaching paydirt). Unfortunately, this means that the guitar playing here is strictly of the chicken-scratch-and-peck variety, pointing up the unpleasant fact that Brooker's never really replaced (early) Robin Trower's aggressive brashness the way that, say, Winwood has replaced Chris Wood's reeds with synthesizers. Going down side one, song after song plods along competently; put together, they just about define tired middle-aged rock.

But damned if Gary doesn't get his blood up for side two. He regains the Procol stomp on "The Angler," adds a bit of dry wit for "Low Flying Birds," then explodes for his tale of wartime resolution, "Sympathy For The Hard Of Hearing."

So both of these old pros can still wail when they're inspired, but neither are liable to approach the limits of their talents at this point unless they're really forced to. My fantasies are having Gary record with Van Halen and Joe with Defunkt—make 'em sink or swim in heavy company. But that will probably never happen; Brooker & Cocker will most likely keep putting out hit-and-miss LPs like these until they finally fade away, for good.

Michael Davis