ROCK • A • RAMA

ROCK A RAMA

This month’s Rock-A-Ramas were written by Jon Young, Richard Riegel, Michael Davis, Dave Segal, Bill Holdship and Chuck Eddy

BIRDLAND WITH LESTER BANGS (Add On)

Stop the presses, Bob, this one’s THE best rock ’n’ roll album of 1986—it’s got Springsteen and Thelonious Monster beat seven ways from Sunday! Soon after this album was recorded, (in NYC, April 1979) Bangs and Birdland parted company, with the band mutating into the Rattlers, even as the brutally wordy Bangs clutched his beloved fantasies of betrayal (takes two) to his breast and trudged off to Texas. Down there Lester recorded Jook Savages On The Brazos with the Delinquents, but even that amazing set sounds a bit nrftiddy compared to the naked clarity and raw fire of this new/old Birdland recording. Listen to songs common to both sets, like “Kill Him Again,” and note how much more existentially terrifying Bangs’s warbly drawl sounds framed by Birdland’s angular rhythms, especially the fat, abrasive guitar of Mickey Leigh. Bangs conquers all his demons on this one.

R.R.

DON DIXON Most Of The Girls Like To Dance But Only Some Of the Boys Like To (Enigma)

His voice may resemble a rusty gate in distress, but Don Dixon sure can make a swell pop record. Best known for his production work with R.E.M., Marti Jones, Guadalcanal Diary, et. al., this resourceful Southern boy makes unpretentious magic on his first LP, unlocking a treasure trove of snappy melodies and crisp arrangements. Like good ol’ Nick Lowe, whose “Skin Deep” gets covered here, Dixon excels in taking familiar sounds and making ’em fresh again. Choicer bits include “Southside Girl,” a rousing clapalong echoing the Searchers, the funky shuffle of “Girls L.T.D.,” and the hushed regrets of “Cliche.” Best of all, perhaps, Dixon closes with a soulful rendition of the classic “When A Man Loves A Woman” that’s genuinely moving. Fine stuff.

J.Y.

BILLY BRAGG Talking With The Taxman About Poetry (Elektra)

So the young Englishman with the electric guitar and the attitude out of the Jam and the Clash is now on a major U.S. label and is now using other musicians, including Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr, to embellish his tunes. This doesn’t mean he’s grown out of his commitment to social justice, however, not a bit. He’s still using song forms out of folk and even country & western traditions and his lyrics remain unsparing as they expose the human costs of contemporary conflicts. If you’ve graduated from the Alarm, you just might be ready for Billy Bragg.

M.D.

BIG FLAME Two Kan Guru (Ron Johnson import)

“God damn it! Revelation!” are the first words you hear on this 10-inch mini-LP, and after one listen to it, you’ll be saying the same thing. For Big Flame’re so far beyond the commonly accepted boundaries of any genre of rock (or funk or jazz or anything) we might as well create a new category for ’em. On second thought, let’s not. Let’s just say that the Big Flame sound is as far away as you can get from the Cocteau Twins and still remain in this solar system. Y’ain’t gonna seduce any women to this music. More likely you’ll break into a wild dance of pain (the good kind of pain). Spastic, scalding guitar & bass splatter in a thousand directions at once while the drummer bashes machine gun-like. They change time signatures more often in one song than some groups do in a career. The sound’s so brutally intrusive & corrosive your ears’ll feel like they’ve been raped by jackhammers. We’re talking uneasy listening that’ll keep you edgy & ulcer-prone, but when was the last time music had that effect on you rather than the usual feeble pinprick of sensation it normally causes? I swear this record is a real kick in the eye and Big Flame’re at least a decade ahead of their time.

D.S.

JOHN LENNON Menlove Ave. (Capitol)

Boy, they’re really scraping the bottom of the barrel with this one! Milk & Honey was pretty weak, but this is downright embarrassing. If you didn’t know better, you’d never believe the man responsible for this material could’ve written something as wonderful as “Strawberry Fields” or even “Little Child.” This is comprised of weak outtakes from the Rock ’N’ Roll sessions (including the worst version of “My Baby Left Me”—they get the title wrong here—I’ve ever heard) and “alternate takes” (read: demo versions) of stuff from Walls & Bridges. All of which would be fine, except I recall Lennon actually going to court to fight the release of a TV bootleg that included outtakes from the Rock ’N’ Roll LP. George Martin has revealed that Lennon was, oddly, always ashamed of his singing voice, trying to doctor it up in the studio, and I think he’d be upset if he could hear the grating rough vocals on “Steel And Glass” they’ve included here. Most of this stuff was recorded during one of the worst periods of his life. If he had wanted people to hear this, he would’ve released it himself. Everyone responsible for this travesty—including one Ms. Ono—should hang their heads in shame.

B.H.

CAMPER VAN BEETHOVEN Camper Van Beethoven (Pitch A Tent/Rough Trade)

Radio exposure to “Take The Skinheads Bowling” and “Where The Hell Is Bill” induced me to mistake these gents for the usual gnu-wave novelty dweebs until the Pony Express delivered this warp-nine set (album number three) to my abode. “Five Sticks” sounds more like “Kasmir” than the Zep tune subtracting one stick yields; “Joe Stalin’s Cadillac” talks about LBJ’s and General Pinochet’s and Moses’s too, and then tries to track down a bridge that’s been missing since “The Crunge”; “The History Of Utah” is for Mormon Zionists’ “We Saw Jerry’s Daughter” is catchy as Swine Flu; “Une Fois” is, I dunno, Pill's “Flowers Of Romance” meets Richard Thompson’s “The New St. George”; “Stairway To Heaven” (sic)” is not a cover version, but “Interstellar Overdrive” is; hot dogs, pretzels, ice cream, and armadillos are addressed elsewhere; Shockabilly rake-stroker Eugene Chadbourne cameos now and then; the LP jacket asserts that Soviet spies swim upstream disguised as a trout. Obviously not for the stupid. (326 Sixth St., San Francisco, CA 94103.)

C.E.

THE MIGHTY LEMON DROPS Happy Head (Sire)

Remember when Liverpool was really jumping? No, not way back in history, with the Beatles and the Swinging Blue Jeans, but back in ’79-’80, when Julian could still Cope with his Teardrops and Ian McCulloch was leading his Bunnymen on a journey that would lead to safety on the charts. Well, so do the Mighty Lemon Drops, and I mean they’ve got every move in place. Too bad nobody ever told ’em that if you take all your eggs from the same basket, your omelettes are gonna be pretty predictable. Their playing is agreeably spirited but their material is painfully generic. The post-punk revival isn’t due for at least another three years; look forward to hearing from you then, guys.

M.D.

JOHNNY WINTER Third Degree (Alligator)

Still yowling like a cat in heat, Johnny Winter sounds as lowdown and dirty today as he did 15 years ago. That’s probably ’cause he clearly loves what he does—the pale one cranks out those souped-up delta blues with an evil glee you just can’t fake. Sure, Winter’s a hot dog guitar, which ain’t too fashionable these days, but dig those lightning licks on “Mojo Boogie” and “See See Baby” and see if they don’t make your toes tingle. Curiously, some of the slower tunes are less powerful, since he’s always oh the verge of lurching back into the fast lane. No matter. Longtime fans wil be pleased to observe the return of early bandmates Tommy Shannon (bass) and “Red” Turner (drums) on three cuts, including a woolly “Shake Your Moneymaker.” This is one Third Degree that’s a pleasure to experience.

J.Y.

VARIOUS ARTISTS God’s Favorite Dog (Touch And Go)

Two cuts each from six ballsy acid-rockrevival congloms that want to convince you they’re the kind of white boys you oughtn’t take home to mother: the Buttholes surf the Sahara, avoid words, and bang a gong over an infinite closed groove; Killdozer elbow out a lewd “Sweet Home Alabama” that nods to their Wisconsin homeboy Arthur Bremer and turns into “Stairway To Heaven”; Scratch Acid repeat themselves and make nasty old versions seem slick; D.M.C./ Beastie-producer Rick Rubin’s Hose move misty mountains; Happy Flowers imitate shop class and request G.l. Joes for Christmas but only get clothes; Big Black send Racer X down-under to learn to swim and race his daddy in a big dumb car. The sound of young America: Technology harnessed into one fat rumble, play-acting hate for mankind. Kinda cute, actually. (P.O. Box 433, Dearborn, Ml 48121.)

C.E.

SHRIEKBACK Big Night Music (Island)

Although they’ve recently shed guitarist/ vocalist Carl Marsh, Shriekback remain one of the leaders in the British creative funk field. Singing chameleon Barry Andrews is more in the spotlight than ever, whispering his way from Knopfler to Waits to a falsetto that’s a near dead-ringer for early Russ Mael. If there are fewer physical tunes here then on ’85’s Oil And Gold, songs like “Sticky Jazz” and “Black Light Trap” display dynamic control with the best of ’em. Most of the rest are based on more subtle grooves, but the band’s ability to craft unusually effective arrangements makes even their less danceable numbers worth hearing.

M.D.

ANGELIC UPSTARTS Brighton Bomb (Chameleon)

These veteran agit pops date from the original British punk explosion of 1977, but like the light from a distant star, their U.S. debut album is reaching us only now, just in time for the nostalgia-for-’77 movement. At a decade’s remove from their source, the current Angelic Upstarts sound tough, hearty, committed, and just slightly stuffy (tho not fatally so), almost as if they’re ready to become the Pete Seeger equivalent for punk music. These guys’ll never go blooey like the Sex Pistols or Clash (the nostalgic upstarts memorialize the latter band in their “Joe Where Are You Now?”), because they’re not made of such combustible elements, but they provide a bracing, “mature” leftist alternative to moon calves like U2.

R.R.

AGE OF CHANCE The Twilight World Of Sonic Disco (Riot Bible import EP)

In essence, Age Of Chance are a Garage band with a noise huge enough to fill the world’s biggest cathedral. Packing more cathartic force than a boxful of prunes, A.O.C. unleash a mighty Great Wall of sound, a wall draped in barbed wire, to be sure. Two classics reside in these shocking pink grooves. “Motorcity,” has guitars that sound like those on the first Love LP, but with 12 Arthur Lees. “Bible Of The Beats” lays waste to the trendy, pathetic disciples of Kerouac, etc. as it swells and pummels to “Kick Out The Jams” proportions. The singer cracks, “Call me when you get born again” and other witty things, while a maelstrom of primal post-punkisms emanates around him. God’s favorite record of all time.

D.S.