HOW MANY LABELS MAKE FOUR?

HOW MANY LABELS MAKE FOUR?

THE KINKS Think Visual (MCA)

by

Michael Davis

Traditionally—and what band is more tradition-minded than these guys?—the Kinks have always done good work when they’ve changed record labels. Muswell Hillbillies was probably their strongest album for RCA, while Sleepwalker, their Arista debut, sounded better than any of its immediate predecessors.

So it is with Think Visual, which climbs a couple rungs up the ladder of excellence from recent Arista efforts. Actually, it’s sonically quite similar to Sleepwalker. Ray Davies has put his film concerns in the background and seems to be focusing on writing individual songs, even if he is in a “visual” frame of mind. The band is arranging the material with more thought—and there’s a touch of gloss to the production—so even the so-so songs go down pretty easily.

Well, most of ’em, anyway. Dave Davies’s “Rock ’N’ Roll Cities,” the first 45/video, is such a shameless example of industry/fan pandering that I can barely listen to it; it’s worthy of brainless blow-dries like Autograph, maybe, but not the Kinks, forCrissake. Dave largely redeems himself with “When You Were A Child”’s soaring melody, but as for “Cities,” we all know what the off switches on our radios and TV are for, right?

Aside from “Cities,” Think Visual is one of those albums where you work your way through the snores (“Lost And Found”) and the heard-it-befores (“Repetition,” “Natural Gift”) to get your rewards. But they’re definitely there. Ray Davies has kept his eyes open to several sad ironies and gives them form, flesh and feeling in a hot handful of songs.

Like “The Killing Time,” a lovely ballad that leads off with the sly observation that: “Everybody’s going somewhere/See how they stand in line.” And like the rock-solid “Welcome To Sleazy Town”; musically, it could have come from the Lola sessions, but the idea of corporate decisions grinding out local color is as up-to-date as tomorrow morning.

This theme is expanded upon in the following “Video Shop.” Resembling “Shangri-La” as rearranged by UB40—which looks abysmal on paper, I know, but sounds fine on the old turntable—the tune tells of an enterprising chap who opens a video shop in the wake of a factory closing and ends up happily selling his friends and relatives images of escape. It describes the interaction between reality and fantasy with uncommon subtlety and scope, yet, as with much of the Kinks’ best material, its entertainment value disguises its depth.

The thing is, by the time most people have gained the knowledge and perspective to write a song like this, they’re either burned out, sold out or succumbed to cynicism. Ray Davies hasn’t and he keeps plugging away; for that, we should all bless the Kinks, or at least keep ’em around a while longer.

BIG AUDIO DYNAMITE

No. 10, Upping St. (Epic)

If Big Audio Dynamite’s second LP is a de facto Clash reunion, with Joe Strummer and Mick Jones co-producing and cowriting a number of songs, it’s the best Clash LP since London Calling. But what does that mean? Strummer finally cuts the crap? Jones finds his way out of the supermarket? We have no more expectations when it comes to the Clash?

All of the above. Big Audio Dynamite have improved on the scratch/hip-hop/white rock they pillaged on This Is..., Bandmember Don Letts now wears the mantle of a co-leader and not just a Jones protegee, while Strummer/Jones discover that, hey, egocentricities notwithstanding, they make a pretty good team.

On No. 10, Upping St. (as opposed to Downing St.), we get. Big Audio Clash, and, at its best, B.A.C. live up to the acronym. “C’mon Every Beatbox” steals Eddie Cochran’s “Summertime Blues” for a unity stamper which blows away years of flabby Clash anthems. Letts & Jones preach collectivism through musicial reconciliation, the music backs up the sentiments, and B.A.C. are smart enough to suggest you bring ID with you. And “Beyond The Pale” is a great song; a gorgeous melody pulls you into the very real problems facing immigrants in lands where racism is institutionalized. Old territory for the Clash, but still, when was the last time they were smart enough to write a line like “If I was in those shoes/l’d say Soweto’s gonna happen here too”?

Unfortunately, nothing else comes close to those heights. “Hollywood Boulevard” nods off to Kenneth Anger; “Ticket” is such a shallow view of ethnic regrouping and assimilation as to be useless in the extreme, and “Sambadrome,” which tells the story of a modern Brazilian Robin Hood, is armchair politics of the laziest sort. If you wanna figure out how bad “Sightsee MCI” really is, compare it to the Jam’s “That’s Entertainment” snapshot of life in Britain. B.A.C. knock off two instrumental fillers, and cap the lot with one of the dumbest lyrics I’ve ever heard for “Dial A Hitman” (do you really think ’Nam Vets might become mercenaries?!).

I also worry whether it’s entirely moral for B.A.C. to gentrify a sound forged by destitute black kids living in urban hell holes. When a Human Beatbox recycles sounds and music, plucking them without copyright, but with all the goodwill in the world, there is financial reasoning in the act: these kids are taking discarded cultural waste and making living music for very little money... because they only have very little money. B.A.C. don’t have the same entitlements, although they are helping (a little late), these people reach a larger (read! white) audience.

If this sounds as though I'm trashing B.A.C., I’m not. I expect very little from these guys, and—even though there’s much here I don’t want to hear again, even though their splicing of tapes and “found material” often suggest Cabaret Voltaire of a decade ago instead of their BBoy inspirations, even though I sometimes think they’re dumb fucks—they’ve given me more than I expected. No. 10, Upping St. is an honest, respectable failure.

Keep an eye on B.A.D. Phew, that’s something I haven’t said about Strummer or Jones in a long, long time.

Iman Lababedi

JASON & THE SCORCHERS

Still Standing (EMI America)

These things I know for sure: You can’t fabricate authenticity by going backwards in time, and cowboys didn’t use synthesizers. The first of which most certainly applies to Jason & The Scorchers, and the second of which most likely does—there’s no rhythm machines credited on the back of their new record, see, but in addition to “Perry Boggs— drums, vocals” we get “Percussion—Tom Werman.” This Werman guy, who produced Still Standing, got famous monitoring controls during the manufacture of white-hot Ted Nugent and Cheap Trick vinyl back in the days when men were men and girls were free and drummers drummed. But those were different times. And it so happens that if the jerks in the apartment above you were playing Still Standing real loud, you’d hear this fast thump-thump-thumpthump-thump, and you’d swear it was some disco junk like Madonna or Michael Jackson. If you played it for yourself, way down in the mix beneath that suspiciously repetitive beat, you’d find Jason Ringenberg’s exaggerated nasalizations and Warner Hodges’s heavily Loverboy-influenced guitar.

I should note that Jason & The Scorchers play country-rock. This basically results from Jason having a nifty idea a couple years ago that concerned uniting punk’s anarchical pose with hillbilly music’s sinful pose, thus creating a new pose. Lots of other confused people with nothing more honest to do had the same idea, but Jason had it first, and he managed to channel it into two marginally interesting indie-label EPs before he decided to drop the “Nashville” from his band’s name so they could get on MTV. In 1985 Jason & The Scorchers put out Lost And Found, their first disco record. Its most popular track was “Little White Lies,” for which the band made a video featuring several bimbos.

The best track on here is this metallic/melodic/’‘Authority Song” riff-thing called “Shotgun Blues,” which isn’t very good. The worst track is probably the disco remake of “19th Nervous Breakdown,” which has plenty of competition. Jason’s lyrics still force lots of archaic river, highway, and wind references into obvious rhymes and similes. The line that goes “Our cause was joined by other boys/who talked of pranks and lover’s toys” reminds me of “Puff The Magic Dragon.” The title of the last song, “Take Me To Your Promised Land," reminds me of Chuck Berry and Bruce Springsteen. Which, of course, is what it’s supposed to do.

Why anybody who ever heard Lynyrd Skynyrd would take this record’s fussy pretensions seriously is beyond me. Because the band wears cowboy hats, I guess. Face it: Jason & The Scorchers are wimps. And more useless than the BoDeans, even.

Chuck Eddy