RUNNING ON NEUTRAL

RUNNING ON NEUTRAL

RECORDS

THE CARS Heartbeat City (Elektra)

Laura Fissinger

Heartbeat City is a heavy duty history lesson. First: the Cars had more to say about what rock sounds like now than almost any other band of their era still living to tell the tale. And second: maybe living to tell the tale is not the best part of the deal.

Before the Cars and their 1978 self-titled debut, popular music was split into two sulking, self-righteous camps called disco and punk/new wave. (Arena rock, God love it, simply stayed out of the fray and kept making money.) To some excitable types it looked like the old war between (supposedly lowbrow) entertainment and (supposedly highbrow) art was finally going to kill the one art form (pop music) that could have played double agent and made a lasting peace. The Cars started out in generic white rock, made a pit stop at disco for the synth sound and the dance beat, then pillaged new wave for smartboy lyrics, stripped-down arrangements and some garage band guitar power. Presto. Half the 'dance rock' bands in Billboard's current Top 40 should wash Ric Ocasek's' feet with a drool of gratitude.

What Ric O. should do after his footbath is another matter, and Heartbeat City doesn't seem to make any interesting suggestions. That's not to say this record isn't OK. The Cars are superb musicians, and at least four Heartbeat City tracks— 'Magic,' 'Drive,' 'Strange Eyes,' and the title cut—could cruise with the rest of the Cars hit parade. But 1983 was the year that 'dance rock' took over the (music) world, and though the Cars still do it well, a number of other bands are now doing it just as well or better. Ocasek and crew were fascinating as instigators, but not so much as participants.

Trying to find specifics to back all this eulogizing is hard, so hard it's almost eerie—so much of Heartbeat City drifts somewhere out of a listener's reach. Every piece of evidence has a contradiction a moment later. One line in a song is a stupid, lazy cliche; the next line tells a volume of tales. One melody is dull, old-hat Cars, but the song's arrangement has a million cool nooks and crannies. So is a particular song good or bad? Do you like it? It's hard to tell—you can hear Heartbeat City, but you can't feel it. There's no center of gravity, no gut-level pull or energy, no heartbeat giving the songs life and force and weight. Which makes you think that maybe the heartbeat of earlier Cars LPs was really the time period they happened in. Which makes Heartbeat City a heavy-duty history lesson.

JOE JACKSON Body And Soul (A & M)

Anyone who's familiar with the Blue Note albums of the '50s and '60s will appreciate the homage paid by the cover of Joe Jackson's latest. The front is a take-off on a '50s Sonny Rollins album with Jackson assuming the exact same pensive pose with cigarette and sax as Rollins did on the original—even the lettering's the same. The back is a replica of every Blue Note album from about '53 thru '66, down to the row of snapshots at the bottom and the ostensible analytical, but basically partisan, liner notes (the single departure from the Blue Note formula is that the notes writer is unidentified). Letter perfect, and a cute idea. Unfortunately, a clever cover homage is essentially meaningless, especially if the record inside has little or nothing to do with it— and this record has as little to do with Blue Note's vital, classic jazz records as one could imagine.

Understand that I'm not a knee jerk Jackson slogger—though there's always been a slick calculation about his work that's a little off-putting, he's also had a knack for mixing attractive hooks with pointed and even droll lyrics. Even a seeming throwaway like the Mike's Murder soundtrack album had a couple of dandy little numbers anyone could be proud of. But this time out the hooks are missing and the supportive arrangements have become alternately bombastic and wispy, leaving the simple lyrics to die of exposure.

If past Jackson albums have suffered from a certain idiomatic second-handedness, still, none have been as boring as this one. With the exception of the peppy 'Cha Cha Loco' (with guest vocal by Ellen Foley and Elaine Caswell) and the poppish 'Happy Ending,' this album is a real snoozer offering up meandering melodrama ('The Verdict'; 'Not Here, Not Now'), upbeat by dumb sloganeering a la Fame ('You Can't Get What You Want, [Till You Know What You Want]'), 'Go For It'—which has the nerve to ask, repeatedly, 'Is that the best you can do?'—and the just-decent mood music of the ECM-ish 'Heart Of Ice.' Despite Jackson's professed desire to avoid the rut of pop song formula, too often (at this point) the sentiments are mushy, the arrangements are hackenyed, and the seriousness is dull. Get the picture?

On the other hand, given the popular premise that each Jackson album is his take on some particular musical genre—new wave, swing, reggae, salsa—one could consider this his version of the schlock pop school as practiced by the likes of Manilow, Diamond or the Bergmans (who composed the inspirational 'Where Do You Catch The Bus For Tomorrow?' for the film A Change Of Seasons.) In which case, in terms of fealty to the musical form chosen to emulate, the album must be considered something of a success—and the Blue Note cover something of an insult.

Richard C. Walls

BLACK FLAG My War (SST Records)

What happens to hardcore bands when they get old? They turn into Hawkwinds, that's what. Redondo Beach's finest have let their skinheads grow out and slowed down from amphetamine blurs to lysergic lethargy. They've even added a female bassist, I think, since the player listed on the album jacket is different than the one in the press kit. Which is part of the confusion surrounding Black Flag. Like punk Menudos, Black Flag's personnel lineup undergoes frequent changes—one of its members intellect goes past the level of the average 15-year-old, they're out.

But seriously, folks....despite the loss of such Flag luminaries as bassist Chuck Dukowski (who can forget this most mild-mannered of skinheads Xplaining hardcore to Tom Snyder on the Tomorrow show?), singer Dez Cadena and the legendary Robo, despite a long-running lawsuit with their former record company which prevented the release of new products under their own name for almost two years, despite an almost complete Black-out by radio, the rock press and even (god forbid) MTV, this seminal thrash band continues its kamikaze mission to spread, with religious-like fervor, the message of straight-edge.

On My War, though, the medium seems to have changed, as Black Flag has gone from lean speedballs like 'Six Pack' to six minute existential angst sludgebucket bleats like 'Nothing Left Inside.' This group has always been deadly serious in its concerns; on My War, the inadvertent laughs have turned to anguished cries of twisted metal, as the breathless punk spirit of Damaged has been replaced by a gloomy hard rock drone that sounds more like Black Sabbath or Deep Purple than T.S.O.L. or Fear.

Which is OK in my book. I mean, where can you go after being 'damaged' and having a 'nervous breakdown' except off to build a new value system in place of the one you just trashed? Hey, there are even songs here like 'I Love You' and 'Forever Time' which express—dare I say it—hope among the ruins of nihilism. And, for those who believe all hardcore sounds alike, the best parallel would be to reggae music, another repetitive form that novices can't fully understand without grasping the world-view lifestyle and cultural belief system that form its underpinnings.

The punk revolution of '76 has been defanged by MTV and its parade of blow-dried new music marchers like Duran Duran. But there are nagging ugly realities that just won't go away. You'll see them in movies like Penelope Spheeris's brutal hardcore comedy for Roger Corman, Suburbia, and you can hear them in records like My War. Sure, Black Flag ain't what they used to be. Who is? BUT THEY'RE STILL BEATING THEIR HEADS AGAINST THE WALL!! THEY STILL CAN'T DECIDE WHAT TO DO WITH THEIR LIVES!! THEY'RE STILL SCREAMING OUT OF PAIN AND HURT!! Support these descendants of the Amerikan patriots even though you may not quite fathom the depths of their despair. Maybe we can even save Black Flag before Henry Rollins becomes Ozzy and Gregg Gunn turns into Ritchie Blackmore. Straight-edge rools, OK? You certainly wouldn't want to see the credo of self-will, discipline and clean living demeaned into just another heavy metal ritual, would you? I thought not.

Roy Trakin

JOE ELY Hi-Res

(South Coast/MCA)

Joe Ely's Hi-Res has a feverish, jittery seediness, a buzz you can't shake off. Remember the first episode of Cheers, where the guys argued about the sweatiest movie ever made? Well, this might be a candidate for the dampest album. Between the southern climate (it's the heat and the humidity), the mouths glistening with lipstick and booze, the sweaty asphalt (even the synthesizers that run through the record sound like bubbling tar), and all the shakin' and rockin' goin' on, Hi-Res leaves a ring around the turntable the way a frosted beer mug makes its mark on a formica coffee table. Who needs DiscWasher?

Like so many honky-tonk hellraisers, Ely has a fatalistic streak; he punishes himself for having a good time. He's covered 'Good Rockin' Tonight' and 'HonkyTonkin'' on previous LPs, but the tone of Hi-Res is a lot closer to 'Heartbreak Hotel' (the John Cale version) and 'I'll Never Get Out Of This World Alive.' The simmering rockabilly on the album—'What's Shakin' Tonight,' 'Cool Rockin' Loretta,' 'She Gotta Get The Gettin' '—has an itchy undercurrent, an atmosphere that could turn mean, get out of hand. The music doesn't roll, it shudders. When the girl who's gotta get the gettin' says, 'Oh, oh, oh boys, can't you rock this joint?', it's a taunt, and when the couple who meet at Tipitina's ('Lipstick In The Night') and make it to the hotel room, they get into a fight ('Anyway, she wasn't my type,' Ely shrugs).

Compared to Musta Notta Gotta Lotta, Honky Tonk Masquerade and especially Live Shots, Hi-Res is strained and overripe. 'Imagine Houston' is an exercise in sultry imagery (How hot is it? It's so hot, 'the parking lots are steaming with a street sweeper's mist,' so hot 'your wheels are hotter than the hinges of hell.' Hot enough?) 'Locked In a Boxcar With The Queen Of Spain' is what we over-30s used to call Dylanesque ('You pour the sweet wine, I'll play the tambourine/Would your majesty mind if I just call you 'Queen'?'), and 'Madame Wo' is a cliched visit to New Orleans' red light district.

For a while, my purist hackles raised by the computer-generated graphics of the package and the electronic orientation of Ely's new band, I was ready to dismiss Hi-Res with a Rock-A-Rama-ish quip ('TechxMess'). At times, it's a bit like Neil Young's last two albums put in a compactor. But the melodies stick like a cotton shirt after a late July ride on the #10 bus, and Ely's grimness has evolved out of the flip side of rockabilly tradition (the lonesometrain-on-a-lonesome-track side), out of Marty Robbins's gunfighter ballads ('Letter To Laredo'), out of Mexican ranchero songs ('Dame Tu Mano').

No rock and country covers, no Butch Hancock songs, hardly any piano, accordion, pedal steel or sax, lyrics such as (I can't resist) 'Give me your hand, my little Virgin Mary/Where the mean streets meet the monastery.' Doesn't really sound like a Joe Ely album, does it? Just at the moment in the '80s when nuevo-traditionalists are pressing forward, Ely is breaking rank. Hi-Res tries too hard, but it does convey a kind of restlessness that gets under your skin. The songs are filled with people eager for action who just spin their wheels and end up nowhere. Shakin' fever has rarely seemed so gloomy, so filled with anticipatory remorse that the hangover arrives in mid-revel.

Mitchell Cohen

MADNESS Keep Moving (Geffen)

Madness warned us as long ago as 1979 that they intended to 'move with the times' as new pop fashions scudded across that fickle London sky, so it was easy to forgive them their quasi-ska Prince Nutty myth crap. Unlike the more ethnic-minded Specials, Madness didn't give a hoot about ska as such, but they used it to tart up the clever-goof routines they'd derived from the English music hall (home of their true 'ethnic' heritage).

The casual observer could take note of Madness's non-raciallyintegrated lineup, could predict for sure that Madness would never crash as hard as the Specials, and could then relax and enjoy their many bouncy tunes. Fun, period. Until last year, that is, when the Mad lads made their American breakthrough with the video/radio hit, 'Our House.' Yank under-12s, as yet unable to trace English pop history much further back than Duran Duran, went wild for this 'brand new' British group Madness. The pre-pubes were blissfully ignorant of ancient ska wars, but could relate at once to 'Our House''s sympathetic satire of young livelies forced to live at home with their stuffy (but basically decent, y'know) parents.

Meanwhile, those of us identified with the stuffy-but-decent generation watched and listened to 'Our House' too, admiring it for the way it rubbed our noses in the mustiness and schmaltz of British bourgeois life. The song also made us parentals think much of 'our' own Kinks, who, like Madness, began their career by flirting campily with black music styles, and then shifted into furiously sentimental examinations of the closets of their native English middleclass. Madness was right at the fertile crossroads of its ska impulses and schmaltz instincts in 'Our House,' 'House of Fun' and the rest of the accompanying Madness album, and that's why those songs worked so well.

But Keep Moving carries Madness away from the crossroads and farther down the schmaltz road, as it absolutely drips with the muted greyness of a rainy London October (time & place of the recording, for what that's worth). The trademark horns are more subtle, the drums are more tasteful, the guitars are in there somewhere. And the vocals are weepy with very Kinkish Londoncommuter, lonely-crowd wistfulness.

A couple of songs stand out for their melodies, notably the highly thematic 'The Sun And The Rain,' and 'Michael Caine,' as well as the rather lively and anthemic title song, which could almost pass for Thompson Twins or Human League material, if Madness would just let girls play in their band. The whole second side of Keep Moving, though, is one long blur of sad, clever, forgettable songs. There's a faded wife trying to recall 'One Better Day,' the commuter feeling for this empty heart—a whole Ray Davies repertory company of little people who are true enough,' but no longer all that interesting.

So the Madness boys have reverted to kind and gone muted on us. But I'm more disturbed by the fact that ticking-timebomb keyboardist Mike Barson (he's the Fred Rutherford-on-speed exhorter in the cover photos of both Madness and Keep Moving) left the group soon after this album was completed. If he's replaced by Paul Carrack as promised, the next Madness set could very well sound as relentlessly sober as an Ultravox-vs -Spandau Ballet 'battle'-of-the-'bands.' One step beyond, two steps back.

Richard Riegel

THE STYLE COUNCIL My Ever

Changing Moods (Geffen)

Granted, that Paul Weller is a talented guy who can concoct swell rock songs and crank out a pretty fair guitar lick. But the truth is that he's one poor singer. Of course, that never really mattered in the glory days of the Jam, since most of Weller's tunes needed nothing more than a flair for shouting. And Paul certainly does bellow with authority.

This here Style Council is a different story entirely, though. Having dismissed rock 'n' roll (and his fellow Jams) as no longer worthy of his valuable time, Weller has joined forces with keyboardist Mick Talbot to make a little soul music and do some real singing. Big mistake! If you thought the later Jam was muddled, get an earful of My Ever Changing Moods.

Why? Well, in much the same way that Almost Blue flopped because Elvis Costello just doesn't have the supple country pipes of a George Jones, My Ever Changing Moods fizzles because Weller can't begin to mimic an A1 Green or a Levi Stubbs. (Simple physics, if you will.) Hell, he can't even do a decent imitation of Hall & Oates or K.C.! For example, 'The Whole Point Of No Return' features a solo Weller gently stroking his guitar and turning in an impassioned protest against injustice. But his pitch recalls amateur night at the coffee house, and the forced spontaneity of his 'doo-dee-doodee' trilling is just plain embarrassing. Even worse is 'You're The Best Thing,' which contains enough lousy scat singing and falsetto crooning to qualify as toxic waste.

When Weller keeps his mouth shut, the LP takes a decided turn for the better. 'Blue Cafe' mates exquisite after-hours guitar with oozing strings to create a romantic jewel worthy of the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds. Guest chanteuse Tracey Thorn coos to cocktail-lounge perfection on 'The Paris Match,' this despite being sabotaged by self conscious lyrics like 'I'm only sad in a natural way/And I sometimes enjoy feeling this way.' Even the fake '50s bop of 'Dropping Bombs On The White House' provides a bit of second-rate fun via a lively trumpetsax duel.

You may have gathered that My Ever Changing Moods lacks focus. This irritating flitting from one style to another reaches a sorry nadir with 'A Gospel,' a self-righteous rap (by 'Dizzy Hite,' no less), and 'Strength Of Your Nature,' which takes Sly Stone's 'Dance To The Music' and beats it to a pulp. The point? You're supposed to marvel at the versatility. OK, we admit it—Paul Weller does a lot of different things. Badly.

No doubt about it, this boy is confused. And angry, too. He expresses his distaste for the system in surprisingly violent terms, such as, 'Governed by evil and all it will bring/I can't wait for the day they do the lamp post swing.' Hold on a second. How can Paul Weller have the gall to consider himself a spokesman for the disadvantaged? He's one of the biggest pop stars in England; here in the States, he has the support of mighty Geffen Records. A tough life indeed.

Weller's legion of British fans might choose to regard My Ever Changing Moods as a major event. Here in the U.S.A., though, without the influence of the herd, it's just halfbaked mediocrity by someone who's not as cool as he thinks he is. Good riddance.

Jon Young

GOLDEN EARRING N.E.W.S.

(PolyGram) SCORPIONS Love At First Sting (PolyGram)

Aspiring to metal while never actually becoming metal, both Golden Earring and the Scorpions tentatively shake and teeter along the duller edges of the metal beast like old ladies with walkers desperately trying to get to the 7-11 during an ice storm. Golden Earring has been around a long, long time and the group's early forays into mild-hitdom were yeoman efforts—especially 'Radar Love,' which comes on strong even to this day. And the band's album side-long version of the Byrds' 'Eight Miles High' was pure metal delia at its ginchiest, pretentious best. Last year's 'Twilight Zone' was semi-noteworthy, but couldn't really stand on its own without the video (all those leather mini-skirted bundettes doing their Nazi chorus line routine—turn, turn, slash, kick, inject, burn, turn, kick, kick) which carried the song beyond its limited scope and made the aud-vize experience on the whole fairly entertaining.

This year's Golden Earring effort, N.E. W.S. is also accompanied by the usual kinky video, this one featuring comely nuns with dirty habits (if things keep up, these guys are gonna have to subscribe to Fetish Times for inspiration). But, considering the glut of metal currently washing over the wastelands, N.E.W.S. is readily ignorable. A few songs do rise above the usual din. One, of course, is the afore-mentioned, bolstered by video 'When The Lady Smiles,' and another is 'It's Over Now,' which gives us just about all the energy there's to be had on this album— which isn't exactly saying much since the over-all energy level here borders on the ergless. 'Mission Impossible' had a lot of untapped potential but self-destructs after a few careful listenings. On the whole, N.E.W.S. is predictable and formulistic, and I suppose if you like your metal leaded and safe this'll be your cup of decibels. As for me, no N.E.W.S. is good news.

The Scorpions are another band who have been waxing noisy for more than a few years and their peculiar brand of arachnid-inspired metal has been consistent and of the highest sonic caliber. Heck, on their last LP, Blackout, their Euro-metal attitude almost succeeded in tickling the old M-spot to the point of metalgasm.

And what, you ask, is the M-spot? The M-spot is a place located deep inside the inner ear which can be stimulated only when sound waves reach a certain decibel level—a certain LOUD decibel level. Once properly excited, the aroused M-spot is capable of sending sonic-sexual wave upon sonic-sexual wave through the brain to that ever-shifting spot located at the base of the neck where all rock 'n' roll exists in its purest non-physical state. Once there, the signal is amplified, and all sorts of things begin to happen. Fists are involuntarily hoisted high into the air, Bics are mnemonically flicked, matches are set ablaze with vacant-eyed skill, moistness of all kinds abounds and the feet begin that ritualized twitching called dancing. Eventually, with some minor chemical assistance from alien narcotics and/or hootch, the metalgasm (also known as the NOD) is successfully achieved.

On this new release, Love At First Sting, the Scorpions do not, unfortunately, come anywhere close to the arousal point of the M-spot. Instead, they've gone the way of so many marginal metaloids; they've become MTVidiots. Their cluttered video is sad because it shows a bunch of over-the-hillers trying to ape a world of rockin' teens which they don't understand anymore. Not only that but the music, once powerful and nova-inspired, has become hackneyed, and lifeless. Songs like 'Bad Boys Running Wild,' 'Big City Nights,' and 'As Soon As The Good Times Rolls' are simply finger-downthe-throat-annoying.

So all c5f you cadets of the big huh out there in metaluna who're expecting to be brutalized by frenzied butchers of noise forget it, they ain't here. Unless that is, all you want from metal is something loud and noisy. To which all 1 can say is, caveat emptor, baby, caveat emptor.

Joe (They Call Me The Breeze) Fernbacher

EBN-OZN Feeling Cavalier (Elektra)

In case you werg under the impression that Ebn-Ozn is a new brand of Scandinavian ise cream-^maybe with Strindberg pre-lnferno and postInferno flavors—let me advise you that Ebn-Ozn is a curious acronym for a debuting rock duo that seems to have staked out a certain claim to delineating the peculiar world many of us have come to associate with New York nights or anything under the general heading of Urban Tremens.

Lately, The Dauph's own ventures into the Manhattan Melodrama scene have been confined to cultivated Park Avenue dinner parties backed with midnight prowls down waterfront streets in the company of demimondaines, so Ebn-Ozn, with their tuneful, often cheery, sagas of the homeless, the randy and the brain-splattered stirs memories of the participatory life.

Ebn-Ozn is short for Ned Liben, the techno wizard of the pair, whose contributions include the arranging and 'programming' of instruments. Ozn — real monicker Robert Rosen—handles the more human chores, among them lead vocals and, according to the credits, 'vocal characterizations.' Sounds impressive, right? Wonder if he can do Jimmy Stewart.

The 10 songs on the album may not constitute an embarrassment of riches, but I'll lay you even money that, unless you're a rank zombie, you'll form a quick, strong attachment to at least four of them and, if you check with a friend, you're likely to find they've done the same, only with an entirely different foursome. Sounds impossible, but it's that kind of record.

My own preferences, for the infectious 'Bag Lady (I Wonder),' the charmingly abrasive 'I Want Cash,' the Salsa-tinged 'The Video D.J.' and 'AEIOU (Sometimes Y),' probably the ultimate rejection-cumturnabout song since the Kinks' 'Lola,' may not be your own choices, but then if you agreed with The Dauph on everything, you'd have been institutionalized years ago.

OK, to these played out ears, there are flaws. Bobby Day's 'Rockin' Robin' is a time honored classic that shouldn't be tampered with via vocal distort updating. 'Pop Art Bop' is either too naive or too boring—probably both. But then there's the inspired casting of Tito Puente in a supporting role on timbales, cowbell and cymbal.

So what then is this Feeling Cavalier? Call it a danceable album

with street savvy. A techno-pop record with guts. No matter what, as a first album, it's a cheeky and inventive show of strength^ bathed in New York attitude and dripping with the kind of self-aware cool that should make each successive album from this tandem something to be dealt with. 'Cause that's the way we do things in the Naked City.

Edouard Dauphin