Hundreds of years ago, when I was 11, some friends and i stashed a couple of girlie magazines we�d pilfered at a school paper drive in a secret place in the wilderness about half an hour by foot and skateboard from our homes.

I got more pleasure from looking at those magazines than I have from the total of every Playboy, Penthouse,

Mayfair, Oui, Club, and Gallery that I�ve ogled since. And I�ve ogled my share.

Publicly disembowel me and make footballs of my intestines, but I�m not so sure that it wouldn�t have been a grand idea to capitulate completely to Tipper Gore and her fellow would-be affixers-ofwarning-labels to rock �n� roll albums in the Parents Musical Repression Corps. Flay me alive for saying this, that is, but I think there may be more than one way to see the recent (at the time of this writing) controversy over the PMRC�s proposed lyric �censorship.�

Like long hair, rock �n� roll was a great deal more fun when it was taboo, when, as Bob Dylan recently observed in the booklet accompanying his Biograph anthology, one stood a very good chance of being tossed over a cliff for playing it—but would invariably be caught by a bunch of kids with a net. Drive hot bamboo shoots under my fingernails and drop me off a cliff if you will, but I�m not outraged by the possibility of K-Mart refusing to stock the latest W.A.S.P. product because it bears a sticker advising the prospective purchaser that he and the missus�ll probably want to wait until Junior and Susie are tucked in before listening to it.

Yes, I�m being flippant. But even if you point out that the big record companies will soon quit recording acts who write naughty lyrics, I�m still not outraged. I�d very much enjoy seeing the big entertainment corporations� dominance over rock �n� roll ended, and the whole medium

scaled way down. On the day that a record makes the Top 20, say, by selling 45,000, uh, units rather than 450,000, I won�t be despondent. Indeed, if the record�s by someone I like and admire, I�ll probably be happier knowing that one of every 20 American households doesn�t own a copy of it, along with a slab of Velveeta in the fridge and a television tuned to The Cosby Show.

I think, that is, that it might do rock �n� roll a world of good not to be merchandised so efficiently anymore, not to be used for selling cars or movies, not to be utterly taken for granted—indeed, to be driven underground. I won�t miss the golden age of the record/film/video tie-in, and that�s a promise.

Alert readers will recall this column�s

having been in a state of emotional disarray recently in the face of Warner�s gloating about having discovered its own Whaml/Duran Duran-style pretty-boy act in A-Ha, will recall that I wrung my hands in print at the memory of the grim frankiebobby days between Elvis and the Beatles. Well, after extensive reflection, I�m wringing no more.

The problem before was that I didn�t allow for having been a mere child in those days, of having no idea that there was a whole world of exciting music out there that wasn�t being played on the radio—indeed, that was getting within shouting distance of being played on the radio. But I can imagine if I�d been a few years older and correspondingly hipper, as young Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, to name a couple of famous examples were, and into the music of Howling Wolf and Muddy Waters, say.

I can imagine my music having an especial magic to me by virtue of its not spewing from every radio and displayed Wherever Fine Entertainment Products Are Sold. I can imagine feeling that way because several years later I did, as a typically zealous fan of the early Who.

I can�t imagine very many rock fans having that feeling nowadays, not when it seems that all an act has to do to get a trade paperback written about it is get a record in the Top 20.

I won�t miss the golden age of the record/film/video tie-in, and I won�t gnash my teeth with dismay at the prospect of rock artists having to record their albums on budgets of $20,000, say, rather than a quarter of a million dollars, not in view of the fact that Elvis�s �Don�t Be Cruel,� to name one of countless hundreds of examples, was one of half a dozen tracks The King recorded in a single afternoon.

With each new month, in fact, I feel more strongly that the Big Production that�s been par for the course the past 10 years or so actually alienates us from that which it supposedly enhances, actually intrudes between us and the music, tricks and deludes us.

I realized this the afternoon that I found myself adoring Stevie Nicks�s �You Can Talk to Me.� I�ve always considered Nicks one of the most conspicuously undertalented rock superstars ever, you see, and her vocal on the record in question— especially the part where her voice literally disappears into her sinuses—hardly makes me think I�ve judged her too harshly. Nor is the song anything remotely special. (Indeed, I think I may regard �Wounds get worse when they�re treated with neglect�—which we�re asked to believe rhymes with �subject�—as the most blatantly stupid line I�ve heard in a song since Elton John crooned, �And I�m going to be higher than a kite by then,� in �Rocket Man,� a song about astronauts.) But the production! Talk

about your big drum sounds— -

my god, aren�t those sampled (as by a �sampling� synthesizer) peals of literal thunder?

In the face of this production,

I am in absolute awe.

And I resent the hell out of it.

It was one thing (a small deception) for George Martin to have used various small tricks to conceal Billy J.

Kramer�s inability to carry a tune in 1964, and quite another (a Big Lie) for thunder to be pealing behind Stevie Nicks in 1986. As one of the two or three weakest singers in rock today, a feeble bleater, for Pete�s sake, Ms. Runaway Vibrato herself, Stevie Nicks doesn�t deserve the most thrilling drum sound in the history of recorded rock.

To tell you the truth, I�m more concerned about Big Production than I am about Tipper Gore and her fellow would-be affixers-of-warninglabels to albums. The presupposedness of Big Production —and the attendant outlay of very big bucks on unproven talent—keeps a great many

more deserving acts from being signed by the big record companies than the threat of PMRC disapproval ever could.

For the record, I ought to note that, while I vigorously favor rock�s going underground, I vigorously oppose that submergence having the result of this magazine paying its columnists less than it does presently.

And now, the moment you�ve been waiting for since well before the Change of Ownership. Hairspray�s the wave of the future. I realize that now. Ask how I know. I know because I recently (at the time of this writing) watched The American Music Awards. �Boy howdy!� I leapt to my feet

to exclaim at one point, at the sight of one particular female sexbomb with a mane such as the young women on the cover of Cosmopolitan habitually sport. Imagine my astonishment on learning that it was none other than the aging (who ain�t?) country-pop thrush Juice Newton, who may be a gifted musician, loyal friend, devoted wife and mother, pillar of her community, credit to her race (the human one) and all-around great gal, but has never exactly struck this column as one of The Real Lookers.

Without hairspray, there could be no Alarm, no Cure, no Motley Crue. Rock �n� roll as we know it could not exist. I�d be willing to bet that Tipper Gore herself has been observed to use the stuff on occasion, when intent on keeping a special �do just so.

Who dares now to complain that this column never addresses that which it�s supposedly about anymore?