45 PEVELATIONS

45 PEVELATIONS

DEPARTMENTS

Ken Barnes

I always eagerly anticipate a new music year (it’s still January as I write this), and there always seems to be a record released right off the bat that throws the year into gear. Last year it was Van Halen’s “Jump,” and this year it seems to be John Fogerty’s “The Old Man Down The Road.” I know it sounds like “Run Through The Jungle” sideways, and a lot of the praise heaped on his comeback stems from fond memories, but the track really stings, and I’m startled how good it sounds to have him back on the radio and turntable (besides, a little self-plagiarization never hurts—see below). Now that Fogerty’s back, the J.D. Salinger of Rock award moves on to Boston, I guess.

While Fogerty revisits familiar territory, Jimmy Page and Paul Rodgers venture into new realm, not least the idea of putting out a snappy py rocker that clocks in at a cool 2:49. The Firm’s"Radioactive” has acoustics strumming and spooky guitar effects too — a nice surprise. Pat Benatar’s “Ooh Ooh Song” is also offbeat, with pleasing doowoppish vocals (shades of the Volumes’ “I Love You”), attractively cheesy organ, and a riff much like the weird 1978 British hit “Jilted John” (by, who else, Jilted John).

Bryan Adams is not so adventurous on “Somebody,” but its chunky and rousing chorus proves once again he has no real peers in mainstream rock artistry. Scandal’s third single off the Warrior LP, “Beat Of A Heart,” should have been their second, and makes a good sonic match with Adams—adroit radioprimed rock. Prince’s “I Would Die 4 U” holds up better for me than anything since “When Doves Cry,” and boasts a weird flipside Christmas death song worthy of Dickey “Patches” Lee.

Red Rockers’ “Blood From A Stone” is a solid rocker, but the flip, “Burning Bridges,” is a psychedelic drone monolith that outpaisleys the underground bands specializing in acid rock revivals. The Ramones modernize smoothly under Eurythmic Dave Stewart’s tutelage on “Howling At The Moon,” which should have been their best shot yet a hit, but wasn’t. Most present day rockabilly leaves me cold, but Steve Earle’s “Cry Myself To Sleep” has a touch of the feverish, ominous chill that shook and shivered genre classics from Jody Reynolds to the Cramps.

The strangest genre revival of late is Ferguson & Patty Stone’s “A Change Is On The Way,” a cover of the ’60s most fatuous protest song, performed by Terry Knight & The Pack. Lyrics like “The young generation is bad/And their purity has all been had” and “If the books of a nation burn/ln the fires of a nation that won’t learn” say more today than in 1966 ... since we’ve had 18 more years of bad rock poetry to put them in context. Scansion aside, it actually sounds kind of neat.

Self-plagiarization, as hinted above, is not necessarily a negative. If you’ve got good riffs in your past, who’s got a better right to plunder them—and you’ll avoid untimely George Harrison embarrassments. The Kinks are past masters of cannibalization, constructing half a dozen songs on a “You Really Got Me” chassis, resurrecting “Lola” and “All Day And All Of The Night” on “Destroyer,” and now exhuming the riff from an obscure 1968 B-side, “She’s Got Everything,” to power the pleasant “Do It Again.” Eric Carmen’s “I Wanna Hear It From Your Lips” veers close to “Fire” by the Pointer Sisters, but his album has a track called “You Took Me All The Way” that mimics the Raspberries classic “Go All The Way” to a frightening degree.

Eugene Wilde’s Top 5 Black/Urban hit “Gotta Get You Home Tonight” resembles “Sexual Healing” in all its best aspects, smooth vocals and melodic midtempo

groove—check it out. My current favorite is Siedah Garrett’s "Do You Want It Right Now,” as luxuriant as her Tom Browne collaboration, “Secret Fantasy,” but edgier (and not an Mtume soundalike).

Chaka Khan jumps on the pop hiphop bandwagon with “This Is Our Night” and assumes complete and classy control over the vehicle. More jittery but pretty high-tech hiphopping on “Touch Me” by Wish featuring Fonda Rae (whose “Over Like A Fat Rat” may be the best title of the ‘80s so far).

I don’t usually gravitate toward tribute records, but both current Marvin Gaye salutes are affecting. Lionel Richie wrote Diana Ross a dignified expression of regret on “Missing You,” and the Commodores’ “Nightshift” is even better, low-key and sounding more like Paul Young than contemporary American R&B (plus extra points for a verse about Jackie Wilson). Lonnie Hill’s “Hard Times” grapples with economic realities and, thanks to a catchy musical structure and impassioned vocals, communicates far more effectively than all those instant-tuneout political rap records mining the same worn-out grooves. Finally, I have to mention the Time’s new single, “The Bird,” the suavest dance sensation since the Slauson Shuffle and, along with the sturdy “Jungle Love,” a fitting epitaph for the group’s elegant Morris Day era.

My top British record is a flip side by Sideway Look called “Next Time We’ll Sit At The Bar,” which mystifies me lyrically but has one of those instant-classic guitar hooks groups kill for. Only in rockhating England would this be a B-side. Longtime favorite Kirsty MacColl and producer Steve Lillywhite take an interesting, rough-hewn Billy Bragg song, “A New England,” sprinkle cascading harmonies and chiming guitars on top, and emerge with a delectable candy-floss pop confectionery.

The Big Sound Authority’s "This House” is promising, sounding like Stevie Nicks fronting a soul band. The Armoury Show’s “We Can Be Brave Again” misses the mark, but the flip, “A Feeling,” has much of the stirring mystery of their debut, “Castles In Spain.” Flag Of Convenience, the reclusive band led by ex-Buzzcock Steve Diggle, achieves a certain abrasively hypnotic drone on “Longest Life,” reminiscent of the powerful Diggle Buzzcocks showcase “Harmony In My Head.”

Australian pop is becoming more inviting all the time. Noteworthy examples include Sekret Sekret, whose “Girl With A White Stick” kicks off with a borrowed Barbara Acklin bass riff and coils into a labyrinth of tantalizing blind alleys and switchbacks. Crystal Set’s “Drops In The Ocean” sounds something like Al Stewart backed by Echo & the Bunnymen, but is livelier than either. Decline Of The Reptiles’ “What I Feel” is guitar pop of a high order; July 14th’s brooding “Me & My Gun” reminds me a bit of the Dream Syndicate (frantic rocking flip, too). And New Zealand’s DD Smash fashions a sea chantey from rock materials, an ungainly but surprisingly seaworthy vessel.

Husker Du continues to transmute hardcore into some new melodic metallic rock alloy

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(there was a sale at House of Metaphors this month). "Celebrated Summer” is a guitar assault whose savagery is enhanced by the contrasting reflective passages at midpoint. On the garage grunge front, New York’s Frosted Flaykes sneer crudely and concisely through “Waste Your Time,” good and snotty. Sweden seems to stock a whole motley raft of garage bands — first the Pyromaniacs and Nomads and now the Wayward Souls, whose “Unknown Journey” is a powerful and accomplished Sixtiesish update of “Shakin’ All Over,” and Shoutless, who are raw buzzsaw snarl incarnate on “Insane.”

Finally, new British female garage rockers the Delmonas cover the Doors’ “Hello I Love You” as it always deserved—with a pure Kinks “All Day & All Of The Night” backing track. Plagiarism unmasked! This is a jape only the beat-crazy Milkshakes could pull off, and indeed it is that same prolific (eight albums in two years or something) British quartet who mastermind not only the Delmonas but a new EP of their own, “Ambassadors Of Love,” on which they perpetrate, on “Gringles & Groyles Again,” the most ludicrous imaginable tribute to Bo Diddley’s epochal “Say Man” (on which Bo and his maracca player/valet Jerome traded grievous insults and anticipated the Sugar Hill Gang and the whole brag-rap genre by two decades). Lame jokes abound, and you don’t want to miss it. Addresses:

Ferguson & Patty Stone: Lucky Eleven Records, Nashville, TN (best I can do; call information)

Lonnie Hill: Urban Sound Records, c/o

Creative Union Entertainment, 2060 Carboy,

Mt. Prospect, IL 60056

July 14th: Greasy Pop Records, PO Box 136,

Rundle St., Adelaide 5000, Australia

Decline & Sekret Sekret: Waterfront Records;

try through Phantom Records, 375 Pitt St.,

Sydney 2000, Australia; they might also be

able to get you the Crystal Set

DD Smash: Festival Records, PO Box 1170,

Auckland, New Zealand

Wayward Souls: Tracks On Wax, Box 2175,

531 02 Lidkoping, Sweden

Shoutless: Rainbow Music, Virebergsvagen,

15 171 40, Solna, Sweden

Frosted Flaykes: Midnight International

Records, Box 390, Old Chelsea Station, New

York, NY 10011

Husker Du: SST Records, PO Box 1, Lawndale, CA 90260

Delmonas/Milkshakes: Big Beat Records, 4850 Steele Road, London NWIO, England ^