THE VELVET UNDERGROUND VU (Verve)

by Gregg Turner

Maybe one fundamental reality of life on Earth ca. nowadays allows for recognition of the Velvet Underground as the indivisible and enduring prime-number of rock for which it deserved acclaim a long, long time ago. That Lou Reed’s Bob Dylan by way of Chuck Berry and Duane Eddy was indeed something very, very hip. That rock ’n’ roll—stripped of moral pretense and any sophisticated or inordinately ornate sense of things—could attain an aesthetic sense of passion and life-asserious commentary w/out sacrificing the humor, playful silliness or menacing growl.

Further testimony to this effect [some 20 or so years after Lou’s Primitives did the “Ostrich” back in '65 and (not failing to mention) a decade behind the opening of Sister Ray records in Medford, Oregon—2nd generation owner and employees not having the foggiest notion why their store’s got “such a dumb name” (true fact)] comes to the light of vinyl by way of outtakes and a missing album of trax placed just behind the third MGM-labeled release (the one with “Candy Says,” “Murder Mystery” etc.).

PolyGram’s Bill Levinson, in preparing for the re-release of the first three Verve/MGM Velvets vinyl (improved sonics recovered from original “Japanese masters’’), apparently stumbled across a “cache of uncatalogued tapes”—these turning out to comprise much of the fabled “missing 4th” MGM LP (i.e. pre-Loaded). Two of this album’s 10 tracks are from 1968, implying John Cale inclusion; the balance are culled from the aforementioned not-quite Great Lost Velvets platter-to-havebeen, and that means Lou’s ol’ pal, Dougie Yule’s along for the ride.

Despite this apparent discontinuity, VU glues together a wide range of pathos. “Stephanie Says” adheres dispassionate 3rd person girl narrative (in the better tradition of “—Says” accounts) to this incredibly fragile John Cale viola melody; it sounds corny to say, but it really is just soo pretty. Hard to imagine (in fact) the congruence of this alongside the brutality of, say, “I Heard Her Call My Name" or for that matter the entire White Light/White Heat repertoire. The other early cut, “Temptation Inside Your Heart,” finds Lou waxing Motown and the band playing along for fun—extra bonus features Reed & Co. making fun of the whole affair as the track unravels in the recording booth (“Wasn’t that awful?” he intones as the song trails out).

I think just about everything on this rec’d’s appeared reincarnate on subsequent Lou Reed solo albs (“Andy’s Chest” on Transformer and “She’s My Best Friend” on Coney Island Baby for ex), save for the ’68 tunes & "Foggy Notion” and “I’m Sticking With You.” “FN” recalls to mind the peak of the Velvets in high-gear, raw band grinding away blissfully in two, three chord overdrive; “Sticking” follows through with Moe Tucker lead vokes and similar to “Afterhours” (MGM LP, 1969), the song seems to be played for laughs (her voice against Reed’s succinct and somber piano accompaniment borders on the hilarious): “I’m sticking with you/Cos l-’m made out of glue/Anything that you might do/I want to do too”...But then somewhere in the second chorus Lou doubles the words and it turns into this genuinely touching, uh, duet complete with an “I Got You Babe” type of backand-forth; when Reed alone comes in with “I’ll do anything for you/Anything you want me to/l’ll do anything for you—ohhhoh I’m sticking with you” etc. he sounds so unbelievably angelic and sincere with this purity of commitment, its almost scary.

“I Can’t Stand It” is radically superior to the version found on solo-alb no. one. The whole hypnotic punch of Sterling Morrison’s rhythm-gtr and once again GREAT! Louis vocal acrobatics push it way over the top.

All of the songs were re-mixed in 1984 except “Ocean” which remains intact w/the orig '69 mix. So the quality of sound is quite good (bootlegs circulating—tape and vinyl—containing these cuts plus assorted others are of extrahideous quality). Also the packaging is particularly boss: some nice photos (one on the alb’s backside reveals Sterling plugged into a [Sears] Silvertone amp and bottom! All right!!) and a black Verve rec’d label attest to attempts to recreate the spirit and legitimize intentions of resurrecting a very special vector field of energy and feeling.

Because listening to the Velvet Underground you can’t help but get the feeling that the muzik-wecall-rock has long since crawled away and died several miserable deaths. VU seconds the motion.

MICK JAGGER She’s The Boss (Columbia)

No, it doesn’t sound like a Stones album. For one thing it’s too “clean.” Jagger’s alternate coproducers Bill Laswell (Material) and Nile Rodgers have kept the rhythm and the top layer clear and distinct with none of the customary Stones-grunge in the middle— instead we get sonic hooks like Daniel Ponce’s bata drums and Herbie Hancock’s keyboards (and whatnot). But mainly we get MVPquality guitar fills and mini-solos from Jeff Beck. Really, co-billing (“Mick & Beck”?) would not have been inappropriate.

For another thing, Jagger’s singing sounds somewhat more engaged than it has on recent Stones albums—in fact, there are times, on “Just Another Night,” “Lonely At The Top,” and the first half of “Lucky In Love, when you could almost believe in the guy again. But that’s probably the mix—Jagger’s up front here and knows it. It certainly couldn’t be the mostly lame-o songs (six by Mick, two co-written with Carlos Alomar, one with Keith Richards) that have inspired the extra effort being as they’re just a bunch of surly love women, idle boasts, and totally unbelievable assertions that the woman has the upper hand (the usual critical spasm is to give this material an autobiographical gloss—a handy approach but unfortunately based on the premise that songwriters are too stupid to make things up). Surprisingly, given the bland subject matter of the songs—nothing here that would offend Casey Kasem, gang—there’s very little really godawful stuff on the album. Only the ballad “Hard Woman” is a total bust—“she’s a tough cookie, hard lady,” Jagger whines, and while “lady” is one of those words that almost always gags my spoon, the real stomach-churner is when the goopy strings rise and Mick sings “how could I say good baya-bay.” Bleecch. Other pits are [plummeted on the deeply patronizing “Turn The Girl Loose” and the last part of “Lucky In Love,” a song whose first half has some of the album’s most appealing singing but is ruined by a prolonged coda featuring the sort of mockmacho minstrelsy Mick can do in his sleep.

But aside from all that the album, despite its pointlessness, its elephantine playfulness, its creepy condescension and richand-bored mise-en-scene, is, thanks largely to Laswell, Rodgers, and Beck, a tasty up-to-the-minute mainstream entertainment. And who could want more than that? I ask you.

Richard C. Walls

THE SMITHS Meat Is Murder (Sire)

Even though I happen to think that this group’s debut disc was one of the best albums of 1984, I’m afraid that they may be asking for trouble from the critics with the title cut of their new set. "Meat Is Murder” is an old-fashioned, straightforward protest song, in this case of most humans’ carnivorous behavior toward their fellow animals. This number includes actual mooing, among other tasty aural effects, and just wait till the burger-chomping critics who found these lads too “hypersensitive” last year get hold of that!

I dunno, maybe the Smiths were just too charmed by their album’s eventual cover photo—a snap of a Vietnam-era U.S. dogface with “MEAT IS MURDER” magicmarkered on his helmet—and thus felt that they had to construct first a song, and then an album, around that found concept. Speaking of concepts, title songs often beget videos these days, and if the Smiths do their “Meat Is Murder” literally, they’ll have to call up Bovine Equity and see if the old cow who graced the jacket of Pink Floyd’s Atom Heart Mother is still available for cameos. The audiovisual possibilities are udderly endless.

OK, now that my kidding’s predeflected the most obvious critical sarcasm Meat Is Murder will suggest, let’s get down to the real meat—so to speak—of this album. The best song pops up early on side one in “Rusholme Ruffians.” (But they couldn’t name the album that, because then the many U.S. K-marts would file it under “R” rather than “S,” and how’s Casey Kasem ever gonna get the news that way?) Johnny Marr lays out “Rusholme Ruffians” as one long Richie Havens-like guitar strummer, always varied and textured enough to keep you alert and tapping. Andy Rourke’s bass dips and swoops just like the carnival rides the song describes; “from a seat on a whirling waltzer,” Morrissey spins out his bittersweet nostalgia for an adolescent visit to the last night of a county fair. This provincial lad was assaulted with intense imagery he can’t blink out of his mind’s eye later: “and the grease in the hair/of a speedway operator/is all a tremulous heart requires.”

Ain’t it the truth! You don’t have to be gay (though the provincial part doesn’t hurt) to understand just how randomly and fatally a sexual icon can strike your naive sensibilities, and from then on you’re serving at that altar. Maybe, maybe not, because even as Morrissey has us convinced how unforgettable that greased hairdo must be for him, he claims that “the senses being dulled are mine.” In fact, “Rusholme Ruffians,” like several other songs on this album, has a really nice chicken & egg ambiguity about the origins of the gayness that colors so many of Morrissey’s lyrics. Which came first back in the dread Manchester—this charming boy’s discovery that he was gay, or his sense that he’d always be an outsider in any possible context the provinces could offer him? We’re not sure, because probably Morrissey isn’t either. All he’s certain of is the moment he recognized his dualistic fate "On the day that your mentality/catches up with your biology,” as he describes it in “I Want the One I Can’t Have”— and he goes from there.

Morrissey makes several stabs at understanding his own abnormal sociology in the other songs on Meat Is Murder, especially in “The Headmaster Ritual,” further Manchester autobiography, this time populated by sadistic educators who are both less sanguine than those recalled by the Kinks, and less fascist than those vilified by the paranoid Pink Floyd. Morrissey may have an axe to grind, but the song shines better out of its behind, out of his yodeling chorus and the instantaddiction hooks of Marr’s guitar. In a similar way, "Barbarism Begins At Home” cites current abused child theories, and then strikingly illustrates the point with the sinister sensuality of I’ll-tickle-you-until-you-cry guitar from the ever-astute Marr—guitar that reprises again and again (each time you think it’s over).

I’m not even going to bother making the by-now-cliched comparisons between the Smiths and the Velvet Underground or Television. If you really want to meet these guy’s musical cousins, you’d do well to check out the muchneglected Soft Cell. The Smiths share more than a U.S. record label with Messrs. Almond and Ball; both feature a curiously exhilirating, deviance-inspired drone/whine about the human condition, though Soft Cell express this with urban synthesizers, while the Smiths choose real guitars and drums befitting their provincial realism. Or you can trot out the ever-toney literary references: whenever I hear Morrissey intone “I am the son/and the heir/of a shyness that is criminally vulgar” in this set’s “How Soon Is Now,” I inevitably think of another Midlands-bred sensitive son of an overprotective mother, the amazing D. H. Lawrence.

Morrissey’s not quite in that league yet, but as long as he can keep his lonely, stance perfectly aligned with Johnny Marr’s guitar scrapings of the month, the pop possibilities look excellent.

Richard Riegel

PHIL COLLINS No Jacket Required (Atlantic)

FADE IN.

MIKE WALLACE: And now, a few minutes with Andy Rooney. ANDY ROONEY: My 14-yearold niece had a birthday last week. I wanted to give her a few dollars but her family said, no, what she’d really like is a new record for her stereo, so I went to the neighborhood record store.

Record stores sure have changed since when I was a kid, so I asked a salesman to show me some new releases.

The first one he showed me was comething called VU by the Velvet Underground. I’d never heard of them, but the salesman said they were famous for songs like “Heroin” and “Venus In Furs.”

That didn’t seem like the thing for a 14-year-old girl, so I asked to see something else.

The salesman showed me She’s The Boss, the new Mick Jagger LP. I passed on that one, too. The last time Mick Jagger recorded without the Rolling Stones, it was in Performance, and I don’t think a 14-year-old girl should be exposed to something like that, either.

Then I spotted this old, balding guy.

Looks like me, I thought. The saleman told me it was Phil Collins.

Not the guy who sings for Genesis?

Yes, the same guy.

I’d been hooked on Phil’s work ever since I heard “In The Air Tonight” on Miami Vice, so I asked the salesman to play me a few songs.

The opener, “Sussudio,” ripped off the intro to Prince’s “1999” and was way too loud for my liking. Come to think of it, so were “Only You Know And I Know,” “Don’t Lose My Number,” “Who Said I Would” and “I Don’t Wanna Know.”

I liked the ballads better: “Take Me Home,” “Long Way To Go,” and the first single, “One More Night.”

I asked the salesman why the album was called No Jacket Required since it not only came with a jacket, but with an inner sleeve as well.

He didn’t know the answer to that.

I also asked him why the back cover was an enlargement of Phil’s forehead from the front cover.

He didn’t know the answer to that one, either, but he assured me that No Jacket Required was the perfect gift for a 14-year-old girl.

He told me that Phil Collins is hot, trendy, and commercial. He warned me, however, that No Jacket Required sounds just like Face Value and Hello, I Must Be Going, Phil’s two previous albums.

I told him that since my 14-yearold niece didn’t own any Phil Collins albums, that wouldn’t be a problem. I thanked him for his help, bought the album, and gave it to my niece.

She took it back to the record store the next day and traded it in for a Motorhead LP.

Next year, I’m going to give her a sawbuck for her birthday and to hell with what her family says.

FADE OUT.

Jeffrey Morgan

THE BLASTERS Hard Line (Slash)

Far be it from me to keep you in suspense: the Blasters’ latest bid to tear up the charts is a letdown. Being a fan of the band, I know I’ll eventually bypass my reservations and find a place for it on the shelf next to The Blasters and Non Fiction. But if you’re new to the group, I can’t see Hard Line being the one that puts you in their corner.

Like a million other albums, the biggest drawback is an overabundance of commonplace material. Lead guitarist Dave Alvin continues to provide the bulk of the Blasters’ material. Many good things have been said about his socially incisive lyrics but I say the hell with his fine wordplay if it’s combined with tried-and-true music that’s ridiculously derivative. If you’re gonna be relentlessly enamored of every kind of '50s rock ’n’ roll to the point of genuflecting everytime someone yells “Go, cat!,” then brother you’d better be prepared to put some kind of spin on this stuff. A lot of Hard Line aspires for golden oldie status on the basis of sound alone; these boys know their rockabilly/R&B/ way-down-yonderin-New Orleans moves inside out, but this material lacks the special ignition that made all the original sources so classic.

And I’m not even talking about bona fide clinkers like the woozy “Litte Honey,” the hackneyed “Help You Dream” or the musty attempt to go gospel on “Samson and Delilah.” No, I refer you to potentially hot numbers like “Just Another Sunday” (let no man claim that Phil Alvin has forgotten how to wrench agony from his larynx), “Hey, Girl” (crazy cajun rave-up with Los Lobos’ David Hidalgo making steam come out of his squeeze box) and the anthemically titled “Rock And Roll Will Stand” (extremely danceable bar band Berry). I say potentially hot because the fact that this stuff has been heard a hundred times before takes the edge right off it. In other words, unoriginal originals. (And I wish someone would explain why the Blasters brought in the Jordanaires to backdate four songs after jettisoning their horn section so’s they could “modernize” things.)

After you hear the knockout job they do on “Colored Lights” (written and executively produced by John “Little Bastard” Mellencamp) you’ll wonder why they didn’t beg, borrow, and heist more Cougar nuggets. Brother Phil aches his heart out, brother Dave reels off a guitar solo that’s like James Burton going for broke and guest percussionist Stan Lynch will make your backbone slip. This one is fresh.

A friend of mine is fond of reminding me that I often advise people to buy the single and forget the album. Look, the Blasters appear to be in a bit of a slump. They’ve done better work before and they’ll do it again. And so I say to you: if you’ve got “Colored Lights” you’ve got the best this band has to offer in ’85.

Craig Zeller

THE STRANGLERS Aural Sculpture (Epic)

You may think of the Stranglers—should you think of them at all—as a surly, sexist quartet of thugs. That’s the way it was at the dawn of punk, when the Sex Pistols and Clash got the glory and the less-glamorous Strangs were left to grunt in the shadows. Since then, they’ve led a normal life back home in the U.K., experiencing the highs and lows common to any reasonably successful band. Here in the States, however, low sales have limited the Stranglers to a flickering presence, flash-frozen in the turmoil of 1977.

Aural Sculpture, a radio-friendly, rather frustrating LP, may finally raise the domestic profile of Hugh Cornwell and company, but it also inspires the question, “Who the heck are these guys, anyway?” If our young people are going to support a band with a tasteless name, we deserve an answer.

The Stranglers have always been a traditional pop band at heart, albeit one with a foul attitude. Eight years ago, they owed more to the melodic bent of the Doors than the rancid theatrics of Iggy. Today, Aural Sculpture finds the Strangs at their most engaging, with producer Laurie Latham (who almost made blueeyed soulster Paul Young sound interesting) applying a shiny veneer ABBA would envy. “No Mercy” comes on like the boogie woogie flu, thanks to jiggling guitar and chugging synth-horns, while “Under The Name Of Spain” boasts a funky bass that would compel James Brown to do the popcorn. The wistful “Let Me Down Easy,” which owes a debt to Bowie’s Station To Station, might even be judged wimpy, except that it’s about death.

So, who are these guys? What do they stand for? The Stranglers believe that life is a long, hard climb (“Souls”), populated by treacherous fair-weather friends (“Skin Deep”), dangerous women (“Ice Queen”), and bizarre eccentrics (“Mad Hatter”). Then you croak (“North Winds Blowing”). Same old crabby Stranglers.

Alas—they haven’t yet figured out how to perform smooth pop and retain that familiar hard edge. Only Dave Greenfield’s quaint organ licks, echoing the Zombies and Animals, have any identity, and Hugh Cornwell’s clipped, unsnarling vocals are frequently deadpan to the point of rigor mortis. What’s the point of housebroken Stranglers?

Happily, the scowling ones do cut loose a couple of times, first in the hilarious inner-sleeve notes that mock rock-star pretentions, and then in “Laughing,” a moving ballad mourning Marvin Gaye. “You’re laughing, we’re carving/ Your name in a tree for the kids to see/ We hear ya, we fear your ecstasy,” sighs Cornwell, passion overwhelming his reserve. Which is why “Laughing” is a great track and the rest are just diversions, however solid. Next time, the Stranglers should spill their guts more often. Respectability be damned!

Jon Young

ROGER WHITTAKER Take A Little—Give A Little (RCA)

Very few singer/songwriters enjoy the broad appeal of Roger Whittaker. Internationally acclaimed—and deservedly so—his heartfelt, deceptively simple songs appeal to young and old, wealthy and poor, and black and white. Having spent his collegiate years in South Africa, Roger knows the horror of discrimination well, even though he never sings about it. Comparisons with Zola Budd are inevitable.

Although he is generally held on a level with Springsteen, Dylan and others, Roger has been strangely reticent to discuss his craft in public. While this has contributed to his inimitable mystique, it has also robbed his millions of fans of a deeper insight into this complex artist. Not to mention the hundreds of motorcycle accident/brain death rumors.

With the release of Take A Little—Give A Little, I feel it is therefore appropriate to pretend I’ve interviewed Mr. Whittaker in the hope that his made-up answers will shed some timely light on the Whittaker phenomenon.

What is different or unique about this, your 397th album?

Well, it’s refreshing to be back with RCA. I’m rather proud to have delivered an entire nine track LP record, as well. I believe the public expects an artist to give that little extra.

We noticed that you collaborated with Chet Atkins on “Chicago Girl. ” Are there any other musicians you’d like to work with?

You know, J., there’s so many. Burl Ives is quite a hero of mine— he had a role in ABC’s acclaimed Roots miniserites as well, so he’s obviously a very talented person. [But I especially admire his records 'when he whistles because I’m not a particularly good whistler... so I’d like to get something down where I’m singing and he’s whistling—I think that could be very commercial. Dean Martin’s an exceptional balladeer—it would be interesting to sing with him if we could find a large enough echo chamber. And I really can’t say enough about Kevin DuBrow. You have positive feelings, then, about the resurgence of heavy metal?

Absolutely. As a musician who occasionally picks up an acoustic guitar tuned to an open E, I can appreciate what someone like Edward Van Halen is doing. And don’t forget that I was in Britain during the Bluesbreaker era. I was heavily involved with playing background tunes for dart-players in pubs, as well as teaching school. So I do have some historical perspective on the whole thing.

Do you have any misgivings about this album?

Perhaps this: I shouldn’t enjoy it if my enhanced popularity distorted the public’s perception of me as a person. And that can be a problem. Certainly my last Canadian tour—where radio stations would play several of my more popular songs two or three times a day—got a bit out of hand. I did an in-store in Saskatoon and there was substantial bumping at times...that can be a bit scary. It’s a thing I’ve discussed with Jermaine Jackson and he says his far more talented brother is subject to similar pressures ... so I’m not unique.

If you could have one wish for your career, what would it be?

To have the vocal range of Ricky Nelson, I suppose. Perhaps to be a more accomplished whistler. In reflective moments, I see myself producing Cheap Trick.

What would you like people to remember of Roger Whittaker?

That it’s two “t’s” and one “k”...that I don’t believe in Elvis...that I did a little downer ’bout an hour ago...there are so many things. I suppose I’d like them to keep in mind that my All Time Heart Touching Favorites album has sold over 700,000 copies worldwide and is— like my new album—still available.

J. Kordosh