WALK & TALK IT

They weren't your usual brand of churchgoers, this barely-contained mob in leather jackets, black-on-black costumes with white pancake made up faces, all moaning 'Louew-ew!!!' like a herd of demented cows. But then again, this wasn't the usual session of rapt communication with your favorite non-earthly deity. What was happening in the vaulted cathedral around the comer from the West side Manhattan YMCA, was a rare night of earthly transcendence: over an hour of poetry reading by Jim Carroll—who does this often— and Lou Reed—who has done this sort of performance maybe twice in the past 10 years.

According to Jason Shinder, director of the Y's 'Writers Voice' program and organizer of the standing-room-only event, he and Jim Carroll—who is arguably more acclaimed for his written words than his three Atlantic albums—decided that getting Lou to present a reading would help create an extraordinary evening, and help raise some muchneeded funding for the literaryoriented program. Because Lou had enjoyed doing a reading with Carroll, Allen Ginsberg and many others at the St. Mark's Church a year and a half ago, he accepted their request.

So there he was, accompanied by his petite, dark-haired wife, Sylvia, and in a rather jovial frame of mind. Spotted by the faithful, Reed even smiled when a fan yelled out, 'Lookin' good, Lou!' as he and Carroll entered the room to tumultuous applause.

Artistry aside, the night was planned with a perfect grasp on audience dynamics—namely, Lou would be reading second. Despite their obvious impatience to hear their hero, Lou's minions responded well to Jim Carroll's opening set—no less than Carroll deserved, since reading his works comes as naturally to Jim as drawing breath. Unbothered by his peculiar 'opening act' status in the program, Carroll deftly played to the audience, draping his rangy body over the microphone podium, switching rhythms as he told his strange tales, inserting perfect pauses to maximum effect.

Carroll's written output is heavily concentrated on his dope-encrusted youth, when he ran wild in the streets and hung out with the Warholian scenemakers, back in the early '70s. He began with excerpts from the 'New Diaries'—'when I was 18 and still not being a good boy,' and was quite aware of how bizarre some of his exploits must have seemed to us quasi-normal types. 'It's true,' he playfully added, after relating a particularly gross sexual adventure, then grinned, when he slipped and referred to Warhol's 'Factory' by name, instead of keeping it thinly anonymous, as he satirized the group who demanded their 15 minutes of fame.

As Jim displayed perfect control over his performance, he moved into more visionary and serious material from his 'Book Of Nods,' and ended with an emotional narrative called 'Just Visiting.' Sitting on the sidelines with his wife, paying close attention to Carroll's delivery, Lou absorbed his colleague's interplay with the audience, and put it to good use when his hour approached.

Reed's relative inexperience in working without a band meant that it took him awhile to establish his own reading rhythm. Despite his nervousness at concentrating all the attention on vocal presentation, Lou jumped into the pool with both feet by commencing with the liner notes from Metal Machine Music. 'Not too many people got to see this; it wasn't on MTV,' he cracked, leveling the first of many digs at the music business. Freed from the usual constraints tied to his 'difficult' rock 'n' roll identity, Lou was able to speak his mind, knowing that he was among the kind of friends who graciously accepted such warnings as 'Most of you won't like this, and I don't blame you at all.'

Unlike Jim Carroll's sequence, which involved writings apart from his songs, almost all of Lou Reed's readings were his songs—given a new, crisp focus by being offered nakedly, accompanied only by fascinating little smarmy asides. 'I was really pissed,' he said goodnaturedly, referring to a stupid individual mentioned in 'The Murder Mystery.' Again, he butchered the record biz, saying with sarcastic wonderment, 'I'm always amazed, but never amazed enough,' as he dredged up incidents which occurred during various album productions. He introduced 'Dirt,' 'speaking of music business associates...' and the crowd just ate it up. For the first time, Lou's snarls and dry references were revealed as an integral, very natural part of his remarkable creative process.

Though most of the lyrics/ poems were necessarily brief (he and Sylvia sorted through all his songs and picked the ones which read best), Lou did a masterful job reading 'Street Hassle,' played to its dramatic climax—that cold verdict of BAD LUCK—with the audience eagerly chiming in. After concluding with several numbers from his newest album, Reed was loudly called back for an encore, and recited 'The Gift,' an absurdist melodrama straight out of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, with a spectacular interlude of Yiddishy Yenta dialogue. Roots, Lou....

He left us laughing, which was the biggest surprise of the night.

TEEN DREAM PARADISE

THAT WAS ROCK (THE TAMI/TNT SHOW) (Music Media)

Performing his show-closing classic 'Please Please Please' in the mid'60s, James Brown kept collapsing to his knees and allowing a concerned-looking sycophant to drape a cloak over his shoulders and lead him gently toward the wings. Every time he'd get 10 steps out of the limelight, though, he'd somehow dredge one last bit of strength from deep within himself, shrug the cloak off, dash back to his michrophone, and shriek himself into exhaustion again.

It was the most hilarious spectacle in rock 'n' roll at the time, but That Was Rock, a compilation of highlights from 1964's The T(eenage) A(ge) M(usic) I(nternational) Show and the following year's TNT, leaves it on the cutting room floor, along with the Barbarians—one of America's first and most delightfully ludicrous longhaired English-style groups (and that for which rock's most celebrated Captain Hook lookalike drummed with the utmost Ringoishriess).

That's what and whom you don't see and hear. But just get a load of whom you do—Chuck Berry, Ray Charles, and Bo Diddley, accompanied by the Diddlettes, in dresses so tight that surgically was the only way they.could have been removed at the end of the evening. Marvin Gaye, looking like a waiter in his white tails and double-breasted vest, but backed up by the sublime Blossoms and sounding like an angel himself. Gerry & The Pacemakers, Lesley Gore, Smokey & The Miracles, and the Ronettes, deliciously slutty in their mile-high hairdos and gallons of eyeliner. The Supremes— even sexier!—Ike & Tina (hilariously demure-looking in a skirt that touches her knees, but anything but demur e-sounding) Turner, and the Rolling Stones, fuzzy-cheeked, Fender-amplified, and entirely fabulous.

(In the present age of segregated radio, is it not amazing to note that the black stars outnumber the white two to one? Of course, the point could be made that with the exception of Brown's absolutely maximum R 'n' B, everybody's pop.)

The film's been reassembled so as pot to convey the unthinkable gall the Stones ('...from Liverpool,' according to the Jan & Dean-sung theme song) exhibited in following James Brown. In the original TAMI Show, the memory of Soul Brother No. One's astonishing dancing is still so vivid when the Stones come on that you can't help but giggle at how pathetic and feeble the baby-faced Mr. J. seems in comparison. And although the Stones' mismatched stage clothing was the stuff of infinite shock and wonderment at the time, in retrospect they look only tatty in comparison to the Supremes, say, or Brown's dazzlingly spitrshined Famous Flames.

The only new footage in the film is that of Chuck Berry introducing the acts. Would that it weren't. 'Here's how surfing music got started,' Chuck says of the ineffably feeble Jan & Dean, just as though the Beach Boys hadn't appropriated the music of his own 'Sweet Little Sixteen' for 'Surfin' USA' weeks before Jan & Dean thought to leap aboard the Boys' bandwagon.

You'll wish that non-stop hysterical Beatlemaniac-style screaming hadn't been dubbed all over everybody's performances—over black group's and white's, males' and females', over the Supremes' and Lesley Gore's as well as over the Stones'— much as you'll wish (after you're though laughing 'til you weep) that idiotic go-go dancers weren't forever shimmying behind, past, through, and sometimes even in front of the actual acts.

Unless you're the sort of person who believes that anything short of Quiet Riot is music for old people, though, you're also apt to have a perfectly marvelous time.

John Mendelssohn