ATTACK OF THE PENCILNECK GEEKS!

QUIET RIOT Condition Critical (Pasha) TWISTED SISTER Stay Hungry (Atlantic)

by Gregg Turner

“Ladies and gentlemen...our next match is a one-fall tag-team event. On my left, at a combined weight of 736 lbs., here is, the TWISSSS-TED SISSSSS-TER...And now, making their way to the ring to my right, at a combined weight of 626 lbs., they wear the quadruple-platinum light heavyweight championship belts, they ARE the champions, here is, the QUII-ET RIIIIIII-OT...”

“Oh my goodness, WOW! Listen to that crowd, 25,000 packed to the rafters are going absolutely crazy as the Quiet Riot enters the ring! Vince McMahon here along with my friend Lord Alfred Hayes for yet another installment of Heavy Metal Wrestling as presented by the World Heavy Metal Wrestling Federation. Tonight we’ve got a barn-burner, a most unusual event in the WHMWF, a socalled Make-Up vs. Mask Match. 1 tell you Lord Alfred, this bout promises to be all of th'e rock ’n’ roll bloodbath the fans have been waiting weeks to see.”

“Well, that’s exactly right, Vince. Both teams of course are touting new albums—the Twisted Sister have in fact ‘Stayed Hungry’ and, from the looks of things, Quiet Riot’s ‘Condition’ is ‘Critical’. I’d be hard-pressed to pick a winner in this one.”

“Of course, here in the WHMWF, advantages are gained by one team’s displaying lack of originality, lack of subtlety, and lack of creativity and then flaunting these maneuvers in their opponents’ face. And, on the basis of past performance, Lord Alfred, you’d have to rate this upcoming battle very close indeed.”

“I must say, Vince, I’ve had an opportunity to sneak a preview of both long-players and the new material therein. Let me say quickly that there are really no secret weapons and no unexpected punches to expect. But we should mention that the Twisted Sister’s Make-Up is quite prominent through-out and it remains to be seen how prepared the Quiet Riot will be for this. No doubt the Make-Up shall play an important part in the eventual outcome.”

“OK, Alfred, we’ll see what unfolds. The lead-singer from each team shall apparently start in the ring, DuBrow with the Mask and Dee Snider with the Make-Up. And...OH MY! LOOK-LOOK AT THAT! As the bell rings, DuBrow is starting to whine the Quiet Riot’s new Slade cover “Mama Weer All Crazee Now.” Dee Snider seems stunned!! We might point out that this is the second Slade song re-hashed for a hit by the Riot and the sheer idiocy of this—or mybe it’s just DuBrow’s gutpiercing vocal chords—seems to have taken Snider very much by suprise.”

“That’s right, Vince. I don’t think anyone was expecting that. Least of all Mr. Snider—he’s going to have to come back with something even more preposterous and I’m at a loss tq predict just what.”

“Snider’s on his knees—he’s begging, pleading for DuBrow to stop. This crowd’s going absolutely berserk—they love it! WAIT, Snider tags, YES, the tag is made to Mark The Animal Mendoza! Mendoza, if you remember, played with one of the legitimately GREAT combos of all time—the Dictators. That he nonetheless traded it in for sequins and rouge and the Sister style of play is perhaps an unequaled feat of misjudgement and perhaps for that reason alone, Lord Alfred, he’s a very dangerous man.”

“Yes, Vince. Quite true. And if you notice, the Animal’s now fisting bass-rhythms at DuBrow and DuBrow looks rattled!”

“Tag is made to Riot guitarist Carlos Cavazo—DuBrow wants none of the Animal and Cavazo, sporting that poofter-image so popular in the WHMWF these days, erupts immediatley into some of the solos off Riot’s side one and—OH MY! They’re HORRIBLE! He has the Animal cringing!” If memory serves me, Vince, I believe these solos were first developed on ‘Party All Night’ and ‘Stomp Your Hands, Clap Your Feet’ off side one of their new album.

“You could be right, Lord Alfred. And are they truly repugnant! And from the looks of things, quite effective. The Animal seems lost, bewildered. He can’t find his corner and uh-oh—he’s smearing more Make-Up all over his face! He looks confused and in considerable AGONY! JUST A MINUTE! HOLD ON!!! Now they’ve ALL jumped into the ring—the Twisted Sister are all in the ring and they’re smearing Make-Up all over the place. Dee Snider seems to be going for some sort of outrage move, posing sinister. But I don’t think it’s scaring the champs. DuBrow’s laughing hysterically—he thinks Snider’s a moron—he’s calling them names and waving The Mask, but HOLD ON AGAIN—Sister’s ganging up for...a SUBMISSION hold on Cavazo!! YES! THAT’S IT! They’re attempting a SLEEPER-hold. This, if you recall, was pioneered by Jerry Garcia and then appropriated for the WHMWF by Ted Nugent and countless others!”

“They’re reaching for it now, Vince. I'm not certain exactly from which of their songs it’ll be, but.. .yes, here it comes...oh my...they’re almost bleating a chorus of lWe're Not Gonna Take It,” with a melody that’s a note for note copy of the Honeycombs’ oldie “Have I The Right.”

“Lord Alfred, I’m afraid this might just do it. DuBrow and Riot are yawning, DAZED!! They’re weakening, looking very very tired. Fighting to keep their eyes open!! WAIT -HERE IT COMES, THIS COULD BE IT!! Sister guitar-henchman Jay Jay French is going bananas!! This is TERRIBLE, one of the worst guitar leads I’ve heard ever in the WHMWF! Lord Alfred, I don’t think the Riot can stand any more. We may have new champions!! They’re down on the mat, Riot’s shoulders are dropping back! Here comes the referee’s arm down for the count!...ONE.TWO....OH NO! My GOODNESS—Mr. Fuji has just jumped into the ring with a trashcan of money and ...THIS IS UNBELIEVABLE! He’s dumped it over both teams and they’re... GROVELING in it.. .If they don’t get up, I’m afraid they’ll both be...disqualified... AND THERE IT IS, Lord Alfred, THE BELL ending the match. A\DOUBLE-DISQUALIFICATION!! OH BOY! The action never ceased here in the WHMWF—Well, we have to say good-bye to the fans now. We’ve simply run out of time and space!! But tune in for more thrill-packed WHMWF action soon! This is Vince McMahon and Lord Alfred Hayes signing off. WOW!!”

PETER WOLF Lights Out (EMI-America)

I have this theory about why Peter Wolf got 86’d from the J. Geils Band that was rfefined a couple months back by a conversation with the esteemed editor {?— Ed.) of this section over either beers in the Village or Connecticut in an airplane, I can’t remember for sure which.. Basically,

I think Peter wanted to be cool again. Recent efforts by the Geils Band were always entertaining, and sometimes even inspired, but they were seldom cool, because while they started out rooted in black music of their recent past, they made little effort to absorb subsequent developments like funk and disco. And after Freeze-Frame finally gave them some elbow room in the marketplace, I figure Wolf told the rest something along the lines of, “Hey, we’ve got it made now, we’re big stars and can do anything we want. Let’s do something really cool like cut an album with some of those electro-funk cats from Tommy'Boy.” To which I figure the others said something along the lines of, “Fuck you, we wanna record with Steve Lilly white.”

Lights Out is co-produced by Wolf’s fellow Bostonian Michael Jonzun; of Tommy Boy recording artists the Jonzun Crew. Jonzun co-wrote most of the songs, provided backup vocals, and played enough instruments to completely overshadow such guest artists as Elliot Easton, the P-Funk Horns, Adrian Belew, and Mick Jagger. In other words, his stamp is all over the album —he found (or created) the common ground between Wolf’s love for ’50s and ’60s black music and the machine-like black street-beat of today.

I count only two cuts of dubious value. “Gloomy Sunday” is a pretty faithful re-creation of the Billie Holiday era, but so what? “Pretty Lady (Tell Me Why)” is beyond throwaway, ineffectual enough— despite Jagger’s presence as backup singer—to prompt two thoughts. One is that the rest of Lights Out is really the album the Rolling Stones have been trying to make for several years now, and two is that the great Stones rip herein is actually “Crazy,” with its raunchy shuffling groove, Keith-like rhythm guitar lines, and [crashing keyboards.

Elsewhere, Wolf and Jonzun indulge shamelessly in their obsession with James Brown-style scratchy guitar, as on the title song, a thumping slice of salt & pepper funk which finds Wolf singing with an urgency and phrasing with a delicacy that kicks the album off in high style. “I Need You Tonight” has an unsettling aura of desire and foreboding echoed in Easton’s spare, eloquent guitar hook. On “Oo-Ee-DiddleyBop,” Afro-pop meets hip-hop, and the first side closes with the strutting Motown update, “Baby Please Don’t Let Me Go.” “Poor Girl’s Heart” fuses reggae with funk, Jonzun’s synth orchestrations somehow sounding lush and lean simultaneously, while on “Here Comes That Hurt,” Leiber and Stoller and the Drifters meet Afrika Bambaataa. “Billy Big Time is a cautionary tale of innercity mayhem and familial betrayal that alludes musically to “Shaft” but is more of an extravaganza for freakout guitar and the mighty P-Funk horns.

And let us not forget “Mars Needs Women,” a novelty inspired by the flick of the same name and an ideal vehicle for Jonzun’s techno-toys. It ends with our hero (his friend Eddie Gorodetsky, actually) reciting, a la Dion, “Every night I look up at the stars/And am glad my baby’s not trapped up on Mars.” At this point Wolf moves beyond the merely hip and into the realm of hep. And what could be cooler than that?

John Morthland

VARIOUS ARTISTS Every Man Has A Woman (Polydor)

You can just imagine John Lennon’s face at the moment he thought up the concept for Every Man Has A Woman: satisfied, excited, slightly smug. For years he’d been hearing people slam Yoko’s songs and Yoko’s singing. But what if he put together a whole LP of other people singing her songs, people who had never been accused of assault and battery when they sang? What a great birthday present for Yoko, eh? Now people would have no excuse but to listen to the songs themselves, and see how good they were.

It was a great birthday-present idea, but John Lennon died before getting a chance to finish it. So Yoko, in cahoots with a stellar battalion of musical who’s-whos, finished it just this year. It does indeed make you listen to the songs themselves, but not with the resulting change of heart that John intended. With all due respect to John and Yoko, this album is not very good, because the songs aren’t very good. (True enough that Yoko has written or cowritten some solid cuts over the years, but they always seemed like the exceptions rather than the rule— even to die-hard Yoko fans.)

Too bad the exceptions aren’t in . greater number here, since the concept is really, really fun. Because Yoko’s songs are so similar (on this album especially), it’s as, if all the performers on the album are doing personal interpretations of the same piece of music. How many ways can you skin a cat? Lots of ways. First we get John L. himself doing the kind of JJ Cale layback rock he did on his last few records. Harry Nilsson tries soft rock with synth decoration for two ballads (“Silver Horse” and “Dream Love”) and for a rougher, moodier lament called “Loneliness.” (Nilsson really is a loss to pop-rock— where ya been Harry?) Eddie Money turns Yoko-sound into AOR bar-rock in “I’m Moving On”—not a happy moment for Yoko or bar-rock. Rosanne Cash turns “Nobody Sees You Like I Do” into minutes of consummate broken-heart country; also tops in the great-singing department is Roberta Flacks’s slow reggae in “Goodby Sadness” and Elvis Costello’s crack-voice passion on the jittery “Walking On Thin Ice.”

What’s mind-blowing is that the songs getting the pretty treatment are really not at all that different in chords, melody, lyrics, you name it, from the ones that get bizarroed by Alternating Boxes (“Dog Town”) and Trio (“Wake Up”). The Boxes throw in the kitchen sink with noises, synth, distorted voices, while Trio does a kind of psychotic/furturistic folk and comes up with one of the most perversely interesting tracks on the record. At the low, low end of the interest meter are “Now or Never” and “It’s Gonna Be Alright”—the former done by the batch of kids called the Spirit Choir, the latter by the Kid Lennon himself, Sean. Both cuts are well-intentioned pleas for hope, peace, and love, and both are just impossibly corny and simplistic.

Ultimately, though, good performances or not, Euery Man Has A Woman is a collection of not-so-good songs. Yoko’s chord patterns are limited and dull, the melodies narrow and ordinary, the lyrics striving for simplicity but ending up merely simplistic. Maybe this is one of those birthday presents that should have been opened in private.

Laura Fissinger

A FLOCK OF SEAGULLS The Story Of A Young Heart (Jive/Arista)

Our question for today; What is so special about A Flock Of Seagulls? Our answer for eternity: not a flapping thing. “Special,” as in out of the ordinary, does not apply here. “Mainstream,” as in right down the center and all wet, does. Actually, if these guys get any more mainstream, they could rename themselves A School Of Salmon without changing a thing.

So what mainstream is this? Well, it’s the one that came together as stylish synth-pop merged with guitarbased rock just outside of Bill Nelson’s back door a few years back. But since Nelson’s primarily a homebody these days and rarely ventures into Hallmark Greeting Card Land, where these guys tend to find their lyrical ideas, it was A Flock Of Seagulls, admittedly working their tailfeathers off, who took this sound to the top of the charts.

As far as this particular platter goes, it’s a different recipe from the one they used last year. For the Listen sessions, they built their nest at Conny Plank’s studio in Germany and the ghosts of Can and Kraftwerk past managed to inject a few strange sounds into the unsuspecting eggs. This time around, though, they’ve left nothing to chance. Everything is in place: precise beats, bright, earcatching textures, blandly-yearning vocals, romantic lyrics that only the truly young could possibly be naive enough to need. And yes, it looks like “The More You Live, The More You Love” is on its way to becoming their latest hit.

But. hey, if I don’t praise these guys, I don’t come to bury them either: A Barf Of Beagles they’re not. There’s really nothing here to be annoyed at, at all. To paraphrase what someone once said about Love Story, getting mad at A Flock Of Seagulls is like getting mad at a glass of water. A Glass Of Water. Hmmm. Now that might be a name these guys could consider...

Michael Davis

SCANDAL FEATURING PATTY SMYTH Warrior (Columbia)

This record should come in a plain white package, like generic elbow macaroni; it has every 1984 mainstream (AORMTV) rock mannerism so down pat that it is, in a bizarre kind of way, a significant achievement. Patty Smyth starts off the LP with an elastic “ohwhoawhoa” vocal exercise that suggests she may have heard a Ronettes single once or twice, but from that point on nothing that passes her lips has anything like a feeling of spontaneity, and the band grinds out patently synthetic licks. You have to give Scandal Featuring Patty Smyth credit: when you can take a song like “The Warrior,” a song in which there is no line, lyrical or musical, that is not a cliche—it’s a parody of a rock song, really—and play it with a straight face, and make it a hit, you almost (but not quite) warrant the dispensing of critical immunity.

When they were only Scandal, they had a pair of songs, “Goodbye To You” and “Love’s Got A Line On You,” that were tolerably, no, make that likably, poppish. Who would have guessed that the tendencies of Warrior lurked just below the surface, like some creature from a ’50s sci-fi movie? This album mouths off promiscuously about passion, tossing around the requisite vocabulary: “danger,” “primitive,” “wildfire,” “heat,” “ball of flame,” but it’s all so stiff, so stiflingly precise, that you want to chase after the band, spritzing them with a seltzer bottle to douse their manufactured emotion. Smyth sings about getting swept away, about the erotic itch, about jealousy and recriminations, and you’d have to send the Enterprise to search for a moment that sounds honest, or original.

Part of the problem with Warrior is that its songs don’t sound so much like songs as they do scripts for videos. They have the texture of videos—that creepy, narcissistic overblownness, that fake feverishness. Songs such as “Tonight,” “Beat Of A Heart,” “All I Want” and “The Warrior” deserve not only to be switched off, but to be argued with. “No, Ms. Smyth, you are not the waw-ree-uh. You are a young woman of not-unpleasing physiognomy and a clear, strong voice, who, in another age, would have been belting out ‘If He Walked Into My Life’ in supper clubs.” Smyth seems to have stumbled into rock by accident, and she’s backed by a band that sounds as though it fell asleep with the radio on and tuned to a particularly conventional rock station, absorbing in the process every numbing phrase and empty hook you never want to hear again.

Scandal FPS are already making their videos in the recording studio, going for the big gesture, the underlined emphasis, the foggy intensity, the quick cuts. This S.O.P. reaches a peak of sorts with “Only The Young,” a song that (are you ready?) was written by Journey (three members thereof, actually) in the manner of Jim Steinman. Naturally, it’s unbearable, an “anthem” (yes) of excruciating pomposity and sentimentality. “In the shadows of a golden age/A generation waits for dawn/They carry on/They’re bold and they’re strong.” A frightening scene; it’s early ’85, Journey is on the road, Scandal is the opening act, Steve Perry and Patty Smyth sing this song as a duet, 18,000 fists are pounding the air.. .arrrrrgghhhh!!

No, wake up, it’s only a bad dream.

Oh, look, if tens of thousands of people want to stroll around malls, or sit around their MTVs, or go to their local arenas and sing along with lyrics like “Follow me stereo jungle child/Love is the kill, your heart’s still wild” (from the title song, now playing everywhere), are they going to believe anyone who tells them that that’s not only incomprehensible English, but lousy rock diction (not the same thing at all, as we all know) to boot? Me, I notice little things as 1 while away the worktime spent on this record: the out-of-nowhere Liverpudlian harmonies on the “I don’t wanna lose you” part of “Talk To Me,” the way a section of “Maybe We Went Too Far” is reminiscent of “Killer Joe” by the Rocky Fellers. I entertain the thought that perhaps every generation needs its Lydia Pense (too obscure? How about Lynn Carey? Lottie Golden?).

Warrior’s strident solemnity becomes oppressive, and the record leaves a claustrophobic weight in the room. “Victory is mine!” Smyth exults, but with stakes this meager, you wonder what she has to crow about.

Mitchell Cohen

TINA TURNER Private Dancer (Capitol)

If you’ve caught Tina Turner live lately, you know that the lady just gets better and better. Yes, her voice does sound as if it has had many a heavy run-in with a defective Vegematic, but what’s left—the honesty, the will, and the raw passion—brings on chills every time. Onstage, her moves are unreal. She shakes shakes shakes until I figure she’s got to be sweating cocoa but:er, and I’m worn out long before she’s done. And then, too, it’s worth the price of admission to look at Tina Turner. No other CREEM Dreem comes close, and Tina’s 46.

But would it all translate to vinyl? Oh, I knew that Turner was in fine form on her take of A1 Green’s “Let’s Stay Together.” But an album is another matter. No thanks to-sexist, ageist (read: stupid) record company types, Tina Turner had gone a long time without a contract, and it didn’t seem to bode well that Private Dancer listed five different producers. Better no record than a hasty move to cash in on the single, right? Well, so much for preconceived suspicions. Private Dancer is a must album. The material is top-notch, expertly fit for Tina, and whether synths are the thing, or a “real” instruments rock band, the various producers leave her all the room she needs to get to the songs’ emotional cores. Turner turns in the performance of the year on Mark Knopfler’s haunting, sophisticated title song, limning the resignation, cynicism, defiance, survival instincts, pain, anger, and barely lingering dreams of anyone who is plain old trapped. (Mel Collins provides great, moody atmosphere on sax.) She also keeps the passion in check in her dead-on, deliberately casual reading of the mega-hit “What’s Love Got To Do With It.” Again, it’s the pain of selfpreservation versus the pain of vulnerability.

If it’s unleashed passion you want, there’s plenty here. “I Might Have Been Queen” (I won’t even bother) is pretty heady stuff—the search for glory can lead you to reincarnation or history-as-the-story-of-one-bigfamily—but with one perfect cliche, “I’m a soul Survivor,” the message is grounded, and Tina gives the song a sort of grandeur, probing the verses and exulting on the choruses. “Better Be Good To Me” is simultaneously a demand, a threat and a plea; Turner spits them all out (take cover if she ever slings sarcasm your way) over a chiming guitar riff last heard, it seems like, on Joan Armatrading’s “Drop The Pilot.” And for those who prefer Tina at full force—which, I guess, is everybody—there’s “Steel Claw,” a soon-to-be-classic rock ’n’ roll anthem: the revolution might take off a lot faster if Turner sounds the battlecry with this song.

Hey, maybe the Private Dancer is working to the wrong music. Maybe things wouldn’t seem so bleak if she got ahold of this album, which is, after all, a real victory.

Jim Feldman

EDDY GRANT Going For Broke (Portrait)

Like Roy Hobbs in The Natural, Eddy Grant’s come back up to the big leagues in a mature bid for the stardom that somehow eluded his early promise. His original band, the Equals, had a string of hits in late’60s England, and were just about to break the U.S. with “Baby Come Back” when their big opportunity slipped away. Grant eventually left the Equals, released solo albums in a variety of styles, founded his own studio and Ice Label, and finally made it back to the top of the charts a full 15 years after the Equals had been there.

And that brings up the Roy Hobbs parallel again: Is Eddy Grant really the “natural” popster he seemed to be at 20? His “Electric Avenue” is one of the better singles to emerge from the home run derby that’s dominated the charts since the introduction of the rabbit ball of video promotion. Obviously, “Electric Avenue” is reggae-flavored rock rather than pure Island bump-bump, but any song that confronts the ruling class with that striking line “Deep in my heart I abhor you,” and gets it by pathologically careful radio/video programmers into heavy rotation is strong stuff indeed.

OK, so now it’s the bottom of the ninth, two out, two on, and up steps Eddy Grant, fresh from Dominican winter ball, and he raps' out his latest single...“Romancing The Stone”(?l?) Nothing but the theme to a sappy movie, which Grant honors with a melody that starts sweet and ends qp as cloying as Phil Collins’s ugly-mug “Against All Odds.” Well, I guess Grant gave us fair notice on Killer On The Rampage that he doesn’t ride “Electric Avenue” always, that he can be just as adept at those obsequious melodies the white folks seem to like so much.

Thankfully though, Grant’s new Going For Broke has some pretty tuff stuff once you’re past the popcorncrowd-pleasing nod of “Romancing The Stone.” Fact, the very next song, “Boys In The Street,” is a chunky syncopator that manages to echo both “Electric Avenue” and the Members’ “Boys Like Us” without overtly copying either tune. As a practicing wordsmith, I tend to stand at attention whenever a mere musician comes up with “one good line” per song, and Eddy Grant nails my attention span more than once on Going For Broke. Like with “Give me back my love/You’ve turned it to a poppy show,” in “Only Heaven Knows.” (For all / know, “poppy show” already may be a cliche in spliff lingo, but it sounds new & creative to me.) Or “Political BassaBassa’s” “And if Pershings were Cruise/We would live in a world/Where the real users lose.”

For a guy who’s good with words, Grant nevertheless found time to play all the instruments (except the horns) on Going For Broke, and he brings more tension and “interplay” to the one-man-band aberration than, say, Steve Win wood. Like this review, Eddy Grant’s Going For Broke is respectable contempo product from a guy born way back in the 1940’s. All in a decade’s work for us former naturals.

Richard Riegel