45 REVELATIONS

45 REVELATIONS

KEN BARNES

Maintaining an alarming tradition of tardiness, the Single of the Month for this column was released (as an LP cut) about a year before the cover date on this issue. I’ve been hoping it would come out on a single, and in February this year it did—as a B-side. Which still qualifies it for coverage here, thankfully.

The song in question is “Over You” by Lacy J. Dalton, and it’s the most spinechillingly mournful song in years, an unbeatable argument against those who maintain that modern country has lost touch with its pre-20th Century folk roots. The minor-key melody would make a magnificent Appalachian ballad, and the exquisite fiddle and Lacy’s impossibly rich vocal add the frosting.

Turning to the more modern variety of country, many of its best songs are written by the stellar Deborah Allen (where’s her new record?). Among them is Nicolette Larson’s rather gorgeous “Let Me Be The First,” which is just as poppish and much better than any of her past, nominally poprock records. Dan Seals, whose “Bop” was such a refreshing country-rocker and the closest thing to a country-to-pop crossover in years, has a real pretty midtempo tune, “So Easy To Need,” on the flip of his pleasant “Everything That Glitters.”

Waylon Jennings has his relentless rock rhythm train chugging at full throttle on “Working Without A Net,” which would make a great comeback song for Frankie Avalon. Steve Earle, one of Nashville’s leading neo-rockabillies, keeps it taut and restrained on “Hillbilly Highway,” with tense guitar breaks that smoke, more than tuff enuff.

Speaking of “Tuff Enuff,” that’s the title of the Fabulous Thunderbirds’ best record yet, reverbed riffing descended on the paternal slide from Slim Harpo, blues on an ominously grand scale.

England’s Outskirts released a lone single about six years ago, a thrilling poprocker called “Blue Line,” which the astute Mitch Easter covered with Let’s Active. Suddenly the Outskirts are back with a mini LP and a single, “Too Bad,” in a kind of updated ’50s stroll bag with an insidious chorus (Glass Records, Linburn House, 342 Kilburn High Road, NW6, England).

The Droogs, the L.A. pioneers that time forgot, continue a fascinating evolution from their visionary garage-rock revival roots. “Webster Field” (an oblique reference to an L.A. rock-scenesters’ softball site) sounds much more like “Don’t Fear The Reaper” than the Seeds, Standells, or other previous

Droogish models. Cyclic, sinuous, and seductive (Plug ’N’ Socket Records, Box DH,

Van Nuys, CA 91412-1520).

The singing on “Repulsion” by Boston’s Dinosaur is on the shaky side, every bit as tuneful as early Neil Young.

But somehow that adds dynamic tension amid waves of guitars and makes for an intriguing effect. (Homestead Records, c/o Dutch East India Trading, PO Box 570, Rockville Center, New York 115710570.) “Where Do The Children Go” by the Hooters sounds sort of like “Mandolin Wind,” but that’s one Rod Stewart song that still holds up, and the Hooters are affectingly melancholy here. Bryan Ferry’s “Is Your Love Strong Enough” is more of the brooding brew he always concocts these days, but considerably more potent than recent past efforts.

While I wait impatiently for new music from the ’80s’ brightest star (or should that be luckiest star?), Madonna, there’s nothing like a good clone ^ record. E. G. Daily’s “Say It Say It” has all the right credentials, produced by Jellybean Benitez and co-written by Stephen Bray, both Ciccone collaborators. I can’t resist it and neither should you. Leon Sylvers produced some disco-era classics for Shalamar and Dynasty, and he’s still got it with Lushus Daim & The Pretty Vain (lose that name), whose “The One You Love” is a subtle, silky delight. Michael Henderson has traded in his jazz/funkster chops for a Princely “Little Red Corvette”

model on “Do It To Me Good”—imitative but enjoyable.

The SOS Band, reteamed with ace producers Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis (who produced three of the top four Black/Urban hits one week in February), aren’t quite up to the classic standards of “Just Be Good To Me,” but “The Finest” is a good groove and a grower.

Just when I was ready to relegate Dionne Warwick to permanent slushdom exile, she surprises with the very pretty “Whisper In The Dark,” produced by former Bee Gees collaborator Albhy Galuten and invested with enough clever melodic Gibbstyle touches to elevate it far above the dreary realm of MOR balladry.

Every so often I crave a really dumb record, and the best source for the last dozen years or so has been—no, not heavy metal—European disco. Boney M’s cretinous gangster saga “Ma Baker,” Vivien Vee’s fractured-English dance version of “Eve Of Destruction’’—we’re talking

quintessentially dumb.

The latest epic in the field

is Magazine 60’s “Don Quichotte,” an Italian masterwork with lyrics in three languages consisting for the most part of female singers chanting, “Don Quixote, Sancho Panza.” But what a plot!

It opens with an echoed female voice intoning, “No, no, no, Senor” a couple times, followed by the most naggingly irritating five-note synthesizer riff imaginable, a little of that “Don Quixote, Sancho Panza” chanting, massive rumblings of metallic guitar, and a few words in (presumably) Italian.

Then comes an injection of sheer drama. A phone rings (about four times, until you’re ready to rip the radio out of the dashboard) and an impossibly plummy English voice says, “Hello, can I speak with Mr. Dahn Kee-Shot, please?” The operator tells him, “No, no, no, Senor,” and, no doubt to relieve the unbearable tension of this unforeseen plot setback, the music retreats into some monotonous guitar riffing with a healthy dose of “Don Quixote, Sancho Panza” for flavoring.

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The musical highlight of this six-and-ahalf-minute experience is next, some quite vicious Shocking Blue “Venus”-style guitar. A five-second drum solo ensues, and recedes into more Italian monologues, guitar riffing, and “DQ/SP” mantras. There’s only one way to rev up that drama quotient, and that’s another phone call. The caller, who’s lost most of his British accent during the guitar break, becomes quite frantic, inquiring, “What’s going on? You’ve got a hole in your brain and I feel crazy!” This naturally upsets the operator, who replies in semi-hysterical Spanish, “No, Senor, Don Quixote y Sancho Panza no estan aqui.”

Synth riffing ensues, followed by a third and somewhat anti-climactic phone call, in which the caller’s entreaties are electronically treated and rendered incomprehensible, with the operator once again insisting that the elusive Quixote and Panza duo no estan aqui. We return to the bynow-soothing “Don Quixote, Sancho Panza” refrain and some gimmicky synthesizer to close out the song, and what a long, strange trip it’s been.

Having dealt summarily with Cervantes, Magazine 60 is planning, one can only hope, to tackle a little Tolstoy, or perhaps a trifle from Proust. I’m rooting for “Finnegan’s Wake” myself. (Baja Records, 8335 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90069.) 0