45 REVELATIONS

45 REVELATIONS

One of the sacred songs of the serious “post-punk” crowd, the folks who keep their faces blank, their clothing black, and their music bleak, is “Love Will Tear Us Apart” by Joy Division, featuring the late Ian Curtis. Now, although I have no use for the gloom generation in general, don’t get me wrong—despite (or maybe even because of) Curtis’s dismal singing (no range, no pitch, very little musicality, period), “Love Will Tear Us Apart” is a great song.

And as with most great songs, singers who can sing have been attracted by the prospect of putting their own stamp on it. Paul Young was the first to try, and I thought he did a fine job, respectful but not over-reverent. But you should have heard the howls of sacrilege in England (here, too). It was as if Dee Snider had been picked to sing the national anthem to open the National PTA convention.

But if Young’s treatment was sacrilegious, then the latest cover (discounting a pale copy of Young’s version by one Michael John— there may be others...covers or Michael Johns, come to think of it) must be regarded as Satan’s own handiwork. If that was the case, then the old devil picked a diabolically clever agent of destruction: P.J. Proby.

Proby is one of my favorite underrated ’60s popstars, the kind of larger-than-life talented buffoon we see so seldom today and can always use more of anyway. A Texan rockabilly who reputedly sang demos for Elvis, Proby moved to England in 1964 and stunned its thentriumphant pop world into submission with extravagant claims that he could sing better than all the British Invaders put together. Arrogance but not conceit, as Sister Sledge used to sing; he was an amazing vocalist.

During a turbulent four years in the U.K., Proby demolished several standard songs beat group-style with Jimmy Page on guitar, split his pants onstage a few times to the horrified cination of the British press, made an album with Led Zeppelin (minus Plant) as his backing band, alienated everyone who might have entertained the slightest sympathy for him, and recorded Spectoresque ballads, classic swamp pop (“Niki Hoeky,” his biggest U.S. hit), hysterical R&B revamps, and treacly ballads, with wildly varying success. As did Jerry Lee Lewis, Proby played lago in the rock version of “Othello” (it is not recorded who won), and he is brought to life in all his blustery magniloquence in a chapter of Nik Cohn’s enduring book Rock From The Beginning.

Proby’s specialty was taking a standard, usually a ballad, and simultaneously singing the hell out of it while exaggerating certain phrases and intonations, quite obviously to poke fun and undermine the conventions of pop balladry itself. His finest moment, the West Side Story showcase “Somewhere,” makes Barbra Streisand’s version sound like Barbara Mandrell.

This is the idea, I think, behind his being dredged up from several years’ obscurity (a

KEN BARNES

previous 1985 release of “Tainted Love” was just plain awful) to tackle the Joy Division classic. He turns in a studio version on one side and a live performance on the flip that gives new meaning to the word “loose,” and they are hideously fascinating.

The backing band, for starters, is not exactly Led Zeppelin (although I think they’d like to be) and the arrangement is seriously out of whack, particularly the deafening walloping of the drummer and the hamfisted synths. And Proby seems to have lost a few chops over the

decades—except near the end of the studio version, when he adopts a smooth keening croon for a few lines and provokes a reminiscent chill.

He takes the song pretty seriously at least on the studio side, but can’t resist throwing in a typically subversive Probyism, intoning “Why is the bedroom so dadgum cold” in the middle of the song’s unrelenting bleakness. A great moment!

The live version is simply bizarre, opening with Proby caught in middialogue apparently accusing the Ronettes of being transsexuals and adding a perfectly gratuitous racial slur. Once he starts singing, there are flickers of the old form, more noticeable on this side thanks to a less obtrusive—but even more ineptly played—vaguely Velvets-styled arrangement. The performance actually starts to sound affecting when Proby brings it to a halt by ad-libbing, “Eat your heart out, Meat Loaf—I play baseball, too!”

I would give you an address to inquire about this amazing disc, but Savoy Records provides little information beyond this notation: “All rights reserved. The BPI (British Phonographic Institute) and the Performing Rights Society can go fuck themselves.” Try your local importer, or any retailer with drive, initiative, and raw courage.

Clearly Single of the Month, and I barely have enough room to skim the rest. Prince bestowed upon the Bangles the song “Manic Monday,” sort of a baroque rewrite of “1999,” and the band, one of this country’s two or three best, does a fine job with it, flashing their modern-day Mamas & Papas harmony chops in sterling form.

I’m becoming entranced with 10,000 Maniacs: anyone who rocks up traditional folk songs is heading up my alley, and they pull it off marvelously on “Just As The Tide Was Flowing,” with special praise directed toward Natalie Merchant’s warm, expressive singing. Raleigh’s Three Hits convey a similar flavor (though with original, neo-folk-rock songs) on the lovely, atmospheric “Pressure Dome”; flip side “Numbers” rocks harder while being _ equally melodic. (Hib-Tone Records, PO Box 54710, Civic Center Station, Atlanta. GA 30308.)

Wire Train, like 415/Columbia labelmates Translator and the Red Rockers, is one of the preeminent American guitar bands, and “Last Perfect Thing” backs up that contention admirably—superb songwriting and playing, plus a French version of their excellent “Skills Of Summer” on the flip.

Even in today’s trendy nouveaupsychedelic scene, it takes a certain amount of daring to flaunt the title “Flower Scene” on a single. It takes a large amount of talent to transcend the pale, purely imitative pastiche realm most attempts fall into, which Plasticland can’t quite puli off, but their song and its flip, “In My Black And White,” are about as good as British-style popart rock has been since the days when the Creation and early Pink Floyd roamed the earth.

Mike Alvarez revives the everfresh Bo Diddley beat, with heavy fuzztone, on the electrifying “The Night I Watched You Sleep.” (Not Records, PO Box 49734 Austin, TX 78765.) A $40 record in 1996, so buy it now. Crash stakes out a claim as the first American Jesus & Mary Chain on “Don’t Look Now”; the song is melodious, although the feedback doesn’t howl quite so stridently. On the somewhat fey, but very pretty rock ballad flip “International Velvet,” they appeal „to my slushier tendencies. (Justine Records, New York, no address given.)

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Speaking of my slushier tendencies, the Force MDs hit them broadside with “Tender Love.” the gooey ballad from Krush Groove. Sugary and irresistible, another Jam/Lewis writing/production triumph (love that piano). Another good ballad comes from a group with a bad name, Feelabeelia; “In The Middle Of The Night” is all tremulous vocals and shifting textures.

More upbeat movers include Jocelyn Brown’s Jellybean-produced, stirringly sung hiphopper “Love’s Gonna Get You”, Nayobe’s “Nowhere To Run”-styled “School Girl Crush,” and a pair of propulsive dance tunes from New York’s small-but-crucial Emergency label (discover of seminal pop hiphoppers Shannon and Xena), tho toughand-gritty “SOS” by Stolen Kiss and the lighter, more poppy “Love Oasis” by Patris.

Nicole (yet another singer cruelly robbed of a surname) fiercely delivers a thunderous, horn-driven dance ditty called “Don’t You Want My Love”—and the kicker is it’s written by pomp-rocking guitar strutter Aldo Nova, who on this evidence may have some Bryan Adams-like Canadian-chameleon versatility in him.

On the country side, two fingers, Gary Morris and the fabulous Crystal Gayle are able to salvage the ludicrous notion of basing a set of songs around the plots of “Dallas.” “Makin’ Up For Lost Time” fortunately has a general theme, rather than a specific one (e.g., “Pam & Jenna’s Song For Bobby,” the flip), plus a captivating chorus.

After a few too many undistinguished ballads, Gus Hardin turns her sandpaper voice loose on the solidrocking “What Are’We Gonna Do.” And Dolly Parton has her best in a while with “Think About Love,” synthpop instrumentation applied to a wistful early ’60s pop tune.

I’m highly impressed by the Fine Young Cannibals’ “Blue,” featuring a political message and singer Roland Gift, who sounds part of the soul-singing tradition but, for once, echoes no one in particular.

Been looking for a band halfway between the Jam and the Smiths? Even if you haven’t, you’ll probably like the Way Out, from England, on “This Working Way” and the slightly stronger “Just The Girl.” Paul Weller protege Trade Young sounds like Sade with a superior song on “Invitation.”

Australia’s Ups & Downs sound like a light cross between the Hoodoo Gurus and the Church on the lilting folk-rocker “The Perfect Crime,” a big favorite (Basketcase Records, no address). And if neo-Merseybeat grungerock is your favorite, check “One More Letter” by England’s Daggermen (great raving guitar break!), not to neglect the LP by their Empire Records labelmates Thee Mighty Caesars.B