RECORDS

RECORDS

PSYCHEDELIC FUR LOW

PSYCHEDELIC FURS Midnight To Midnight (Columbia)

Michael Davis

If pop music (yeah) is the medium in which successive generations define “love” according to their desires and needs, then what were the Psychedelic Furs doing on their first album? Richard Butler’s voice snarled razor blades, his mouth full of soap commercials and useless mantras, a veritable optical sewer, in his own words. “We Love You” is one of the most sarcastic songs ever recorded; no wonder many took it for an anti-pop statement.

Since then (yeah), the sticky marshmallow of pop acceptance has descended upon the Furs. Pop’s musical conventions and the band’s musical limitations have been running parallel long enough that, well, you show me the difference.

Instrumental^, the Furs remain as solidly unspectacular as ever. The guitars—there are two of ’em again—are effective at chording and textures but the best they can manage during the breaks are a few feeble steps towards The Edge or an inept nod in the direction of Manzanera. Sax man Mars Williams plays his parts well and makes the most of his brief solo on “Angels Don’t Cry.”

The band makes use of pop’s Redundancy Factor elsewhere, employing their Right Of Endless Followup for their first hit. Remember “Heartbeat” from ’84 or so? Well, welcome to “Heartbreak Beat” in ’87. If this twist of the old formula catches on, we might be subjected to “Heartbreak Beatbox Boogie Boy Go Boom” by the year 2000, so maybe we should nip this baby in the bud.

The song itself sounds fine, if familiar, but it’s as hollow a hit as the Furs have had. Butler applies a sort-of Burroughsian cut-up method to lyric writing, assembling love song catch phrases according to melodic constraints, then repeating them every which way. Hearing him croon, “There’s a heartbreak beat/And it feels like love,” certainly backs up Bowie’s claim of siring whole schools of pretention.

The next cut, “Shock,”

works a little better—lotsa good guitar grind—but then Butler starts tossing in S&M double entendres with all the subtlety of a steamshovel: "I hear my heart beat black and blue”—give me a break. When he exults, “I don’t call it love,” I can go along with him. I don’t either, Richard. I call it a pain in the ass, but to each his own folly.

As it turns out, following one’s folly (yeah) seems to be the theme of this album. One moment, Butler waxes romantic about his obsessions; then he turns around, observing, “I got vanity tearing me apart.” The most telling phrase, however, comes from one of the weakest tunes, “Torture.” “I can’t say ‘no’ and that’s no lie,” Butler complains, alluding to the weak underbelly of suckcess: when those doors you’ve only dreamed about fly open, you better know how far in you wanna go or else ... or else what? You end up playing the part of a New York leather boy, all bogus in black?

I dunno. Noted fashion consultant Buttermilk does not approve of this moooove at ail, and I have trouble even looking at the cover without hearing Lou Reed’s “Hangin’ ’Round" cackling in the back of my mind.

DEL FUEGOS

Stand Up (Slash/Warner Bros.)

The story so far: Spiffy little garage-pop quartet from Beantown roars out of the gate with ’84 debut LP, then suffers mild attack of proverbial sophomore jinx on follow-up, without sustaining extensive damage. And now, the moment of truth, a.k.a. album number three, has come at last for the groovy Del Fuegos, who find themselves under the gun to deliver, artistically and commercially.

A lotta combos have choked in similar pressure situations, but these guys handily acquit themselves with a solid (though not great) LP that passes muster as product and music. Although Stand Up isn’t the kind of disc that’ll leave you gasping in amazement, it boasts professionalism and intelligence aplenty. Don’t ask for too much and you’ll have a fine time.

A shift in priorities supplies the big news here. The Dei Fuegos as a band have been yanked from the spotlight, replaced by the single presence of dashing Dan Zanes. There were hints last time on Boston, Mass.,'and now the emphasis is squarely on the cute, curlyhaired lead singer. (He would make a nice pin-up, come to think of it.) Happily, Danny’s up to the task, delivering an ace portrayal of a white soul dude in the tradition of Eric Burdon and Peter Wolf. Just dig his tomcat struttin’ on the sleazy “Scratching At Your Door.” Intense, eh?

Producer Mitchell Froom, back for his third go-round with the fellas, goes all-out to showcase Zanes in his new role as testifyin’ guy, piling on blustery horns and backing vocals from a cool cast that includes Merry Clayton and Bobby King. And while the head Fuego lacks the lungpower of the greats, his half-sneer, half-moan attests to authentic gut feelings in emotional outbursts like “New Old World” and “Name Names.” These tense, tightly-wound tunes kick in immediately, recalling prime Tom Petty (a guest himself on the twangy “I Can’t Take This Place,” the greatest hit Graham Parker never recorded).

Stand Up evokes comparisons to other artists even when the groove isn’t so deep and sure. “He Had A Lot To Drink Today” shifts the tempo with a disjointed reverie inspired by Tom Waits. (Or is it Van Dyke Parks?) Alas, the leisurely pace merely makes Zanes’s vocal stylings seem grotesquely mannered. More successfully, “I’ll Sleep With You (Cha Cha D’Amour)” conjures up fond memories of Otis Redding’s "I’ve Been Loving You Too Long (To Stop Now).” Then there’s “News From Nowhere,” which recaptures the sizzle of their maiden outing via flinty guitar chords and whomping drums. Only now, instead of raving, Zanes mutters and grumbles just likecan it be?!?—Billy Idol!

Of course, there are those who’d say that isn’t so terrible, and they’d be right. Sure, I admit to some concern over the Del Fuegos’ loss of identity, underscored by the way Froom’s shimmering keyboards leave a more lasting impression. Sure, it would be nice if Stand Up occasionally resembled itself rather than somebody else. But if cutting a few creative corners can earn these working stiffs a well-deserved break, who am I to whine?

Jon Young

DURAN DURAN

Notorious (Capitol)

What is that strange, bothersome noise coming from my CD?

Could it be Brian Eno’s latest, Music to Shave Beards By Vol. 9 ?

Could it be Xaviera Hollander’s latest sonicstomper, Music To Shave The Wild Beaver By?

Could it be that W. Burroughs-inspired band, The Caustic Enzymes of Woo, and their EP, “Music of the Slinkies?”

Could it be some errant soundtrack music from Bob Leech’s newest cable access only series, Lifestyles Of The Doomed And Extremely Screwed, in which Bob dons some Salvation Army garb, a Geraldo Rivera mask and undauntedly tit-ups his way through the inner cities of the land, shouting at the top of his champagne besotted lungs about the inherent glories of

possessing a fur-lined heating grate and an auto-suck with batteries on Xmas Eve in downtown Washington, D.C.? No, but it’s about as close as it’s gonna get.

Could it be the sound of a thousand flaming hacky-sacks raining from the heavens onto a neighbor’s barbecue, y’know lotsa blood, lotsa contusions? Nope.

Could it be Notorious, the new LP from Duran Duran? Yupl That’s what it is, and (gulp!) that’s what we’ve gotta talk about now.

First off, this is the kind of music that’d jam up and erase all the Jane Fonda Fondaersize tapes in the land as if they’d just been zapped by a megakillaton’s worth of EMP flakes. Secondly, this LP is the sonic equivalent of what it must be like inside of Richard Gere’s mind. Thirdly, this LP bites the big one.

Early on, Duran Duran showed a little bit of promise because they were somewhat adventurous, both musically and style-wise. But somewhere along the line (I think it basically was when they started turning achingly-beautiful women into lizards and small herd animals, and become the founding fathers of the groupof-the-month club), they lapsed into that ever-expanding vortex of the “who-really-cares-anyway?” syndrome.

Notorious is a seamless, textureless mildgasm of Lilliputian proportions. Side one is so unnoticeable that I forgot it was on the turntable when I first played it, although "A Matter Of Feeling” did make me pay attention for about a nanosecond. Side two’s “Vertigo (Do The Demolition)” and “Winter Marches On” lapsed briefly into the realms of the almost OK, but “Meet El Presidente,” and "So Misled” led back to yawnsville dullathons. I don’t exactly know what it is about Duran Duran, but they are just so musically washy that it’s irritating. I suppose if I were a little teenqueen Everybabe, they might get my juices flowing, but I’m not—and they don’t. Ergless, useless, boring, Notorious does not live up to its name. May the Matt Moss eat them alive.

After this, if I ever like this band and their musical stance, may I get a fork-lift enema and actually French kiss Nancy Reagan.

Joe (void where prohibited by law) Fernbacher

CHINA CRISIS

What Price Paradise (A&M)

Chuck Eddy probably would not like this record. And why should he? And why should you? Through three stateside LPs, these earnest young Liverpudlians have raised facelessness to a new art. And that’s saying mucho in this era of interchangeable blowdried synth-pop haircut bands, for which you’d be excused for thinking China Crisis was one.

Whether shy or pretentious, founding members Gary Daly and Eddie Lundon prefer to let their music do the yacking, and vvhat’s so bad about that? The idea of pop musician as glamorous icon/auteur is just a bourgeois individualist notion anyway, which impedes real artistic progress. Now we’re getting into an argument Mr. Eddy (and even his good pal Lefty Christgau) can understand.

Once more, dear reader, why should you give a good damn about China Crisis? Well, they’re malleable, perhaps the most chameleon-like around in their ability to adapt; real Zeligs. On their first U.S. LP, Working With Fire And Steel, they took a cue from producer Mike Howlett and came across like a combination Cars and A Flock Of Seagulls, tight, snappy techno-pop with the added fillip of real stuff like oboe solos and string ensembles. The title track received its share of “new music” rotation, and remains the band’s only stateside whiff of airplay to date.

Flaunt The Imperfection, released in 1985, marked the return of Walter Becker to the music wars as producer. Being eminently open to influence, China Crisis virtually made Becker a member of the band, and the result studiously echoed Steely Dan in its sophisticated swing rhythms and even in the illusory lyrics, with their arcane references to mythical hipsters. It was kinda eerie how China Crisis allowed themselves to become virtually a vessel for someone else’s ideas to pour through. Ultimately failed, but fascinating still.

The new album marks a new label, as China Crisis moves from Warners to A&M. Perhaps the change will bring C.C. the luck it did fellow Virgin act O.M.D., who also hail from Liverpool. This time out, the group’s enlisted producers Clive Langer and Alan Winstanley, known for their brittle, pop-soul brass and dense, shimmering arrangements with the likes of Madness and Elvis Costello. So, it’s no surprise that “Safe As Houses” sounds like latter-period Madness and "Worlds Apart” like Costello’s Punch The Clock. But it doesn’t quite explain how the stately "Arizona Sky” comes on like Avalon or the jaunty, effortlessly soulful “It’s Everything” echoes A.W.B. at their blue-

eyed best.

By the time we get around to the epic, wide-screen scope of “A Day’s Work For The Dayo’s Done,” it becomes all too apparent the band China Crisis would really like to emulate ... and that’s their own North Sea forebears ... their Merseybeat uncles, the Beatles. Sure, sure you’re sayin’, everybody from ABC to Wang Chung wanna be the Beatles. The secret is ... songs. And the bottom line is, China Crisis’ melodies, lush and ear-catching as you listen, seem to fade away like, well, Chinese food. An hour later, ya gotta slap on Rubber Soul for a fix.

Still, why should pop music have staying power? Wasn’t it meant to be an ephemeral pleasure, a sandcastle that gives a moment’s satisfaction only to be washed away by an onrushing wave? Ah, but now I’m starting to sound like China Crisis, trying to sound like William Blake. Aw, go ahead. Let China Crisis be your mirror. You could do a lot worse. Even if Chuck Eddy might not think so.

REO GRAND!

REO SPEEDWAGON Life As We Know It (Epic)

Rick Johnson

REO Speedwagon figure prominently in my memories of the fun-fun-fun late ’60s/early ’70s era, when I pretended to go to college while spending all my time swallowing chemicals and chasing coeds.

Of course, they’ve changed considerably since then, though I haven’t. The main difference is the absence of former singer/frontman Terry something—who also doubled on claves for their epic set closing version of the Chambers Brothers’ “Time”— and the subsequent rise of Kevin Cronin. Terry left to start up Starcastle, a horrid bunch of arty Yessuckers about whom the less said the better. Tuff luck, dude!

One night, I even got to sit at the same table with the guys in the University Union. With my mouth stuck in automatic stall, I sort of tagged along with my budding-groupie girlfriend, who had severe hots for the lead guitarist, a pretty cool cat with white boots and the stage moves of a dirty dawg’s licking-intention signals. We were both tripping out of our skulls right then, as was the custom, so you can imagine how much I enjoyed the sight of the budding-one’s saliva all over the Formica, which to me was beginning to resemble the Houston Ship Channel.

Good guy Terry saved the day though, asking us to join them upstairs while they played a high school prom at the only big room in the county. We even got to sit right on the stage and witness the actual handling of percussion instruments, the ultimate big casino to our teenage selves. It also distracted girlie enough so that they could slip into their Greyhound bus and drive off without being sexually assaulted.

The guitar player left the line-up shortly thereafter to join Something called Buck Teeth, another brilliant career move. REO never again returned in that classic configuration, and I never again thought of the girlfriend as any more than the jill ferret she was.

Since that memorable night—which was permanently imprinted on my brain courtesy of the evening’s choice of medication—I’ve greeted each REO Speedwagon LP with the same joyful anticipation I would a bone marrow transplant. I really hated their hit ballads, and would love to lock their collected videos in a service elevator to Iran.

So you can appreciate my shock/dismay/urge-to-kill when I played Life As We Know It... and loved it! This is a pretty darn hot record, with very little of the dreaded “Can’t Fight This Feeling” cheese inertia and lots of honest, straightahead rock ’n’ roll. Apparently their two-year layoff—during which almost 50 children in the U.S. were killed by unsafe toys—got the old juices flowing or whatever physiological dodah occurs in the nervous systems of rock musicians.

Life is, for the most part, one of those back-to-the-roots switcheroos you rarely encounter in veteran chart-topping outfits like REO. Got some deadly rockers here, like the slightly Buddy Holly inspired “New Way To Love” and “Over The Edge,” a snakebit rouser with the sort of Wattsto-Wyman rhythm section that takes years of push ’n’ shove to develop.

They even tossed in some good melodies that won’t attract low-flying geese, best of which are “Can’t Get You Out Of My Heart” and the slightly spooky “Screams And Whispers.” You know, the kind you find yourself humming in the strangest places, like the White House “Situation” Room or while boarding a freighter.

My toe-ready ears detect only two stinkers, "in My Dreams” is the equivalent airbag version of “Can’t Fight” hidden rattrap-like in the middle of side one. “Accident’s Can Happen” is the other barf vapor, featuring some awful falsetto singing that sounds as though it came from a long night at the Cockpit Voice Recorder Lab.

Anyhoo, I think Life As We Know It is REO’s best album ever, emitting none of the overblown clunk-rock of their early LPs nor the yak mating calls of more recent vintage. OK? Now can I have my girlfriend back?

CELIBATE RIFLES

The Turgid Miasma Of Existence

(Rough Trade)

The name is like the Sex Pistols only different, get it? Sort of a homage. But the Rifles, an Australian band, are not your typical run-of-the-slaughterhouse post-punk hardcore whatever but rather, as evidenced by their U.S. debut Mina Mina Mina (culled from their first two Aussie albums, it reached these fatal shores last year), a consistently harddriving guitar band (two guitars actually) featuring a lead singer/lyricist with a gift for discriminating bile, dissatisfaction well-told, and (alas) a taint of melancholy romanticism. A little Iggy, a little Lou, a whole mess of Dee-troit style gee-tar grunge, a great little band. And though not hardcore, make no mistake, this is one of those groups with the buzz-saw ability to slice through the quotidian crappiness with an aim that’s true; it's a reaction bom of the perception that so much is either phony or trivial or worse ora balm meant to take your mind off that fact. If s a sensibility that says if you’re not angry you’re just not paying attention .. . a worldview that some young people arrive at by temperament, and then which most give up around the time they realize they have to plug into the bullshit in order to have a reasonably comfortable life (like one where you live indoors ...). Which partially explains why second and third albums by aware/angry types tend to be a little less spikey.

However. Turgid actually cracks the whip a little harder and grinds the metal a little coarser (with the dissonant sparks flying) than Mina. Lead singer/lyricist Damien Lovelock has maintained his acute critical stance without succumbing to braindead alienation or its flipside, sentimental muck (with the possible exception of “Eddie,” which could fit on the soundtrack of a teenage chicks-in-the-slams flick), though I could have done without the lyric sheet—this stuff is best when emerging from the rubble in telling bits and pieces (remember how clever—even profound—you thought Costello was before he started spelling it all out on the inner sleeve?). Anyway, Lovelock’s style ranges from plain (“Sometimes when I get home/ I just want to go out again/ Sometimes when I’m alone/l wonder what it’s all about and then”—“Sometimes”) to droll (“Let’s make some new mistakes/I’m sick of all the old ones/Let’s make some new mistakes/And broaden my horizons”—“New Mistakes”) to paradoxical (rhyming "semiotic” and “neurotic” in a song about pretentious people). Meanwhile, guitarists Kent Steadman and Dave Morris supply the kind of steaming interplay and crunch imperative that could keep even a less interesting lyricist afloat for a few years; on "Some Kind Of Feeling,” one of the two rises from the riffing to build a quick solo which reaches wah frenzy and then devours itself. Ecstatic guitar ejaculations figure in all the uptempo stuff while the slower ones (“Sentinel,” “Glasshouse”) have that doomy sensuality that harkens back to the golden age of post-acid deathtrips (or, to put it less weirdly, the great post -Pepper pre-Art Rock plateau).

In sum, then, a band that started out good has gotten better, keeping the faith and making the miasma a little less turgid.

Richard C. Walls

VARIOUS

ARTISTS

Athens, Ga.—Inside/Out (I.R.S.)

Maybe seeing the movie of which this album is the soundtrack will help, but if so, the film’s gonna have to have one helluva personality to compensate for the "quaint” amateurishness of too much of this music. In other words, if you’re not already a true believer in that fabled Athens, GA, rock ’n’ roll sound, this album sure won’t do the trick.

To be fair to Inside/Out’s own D.I.Y. premises, the movie crew recorded most of these tracks at various Athens nitespots during a whirlwind iet’scapture-the-flavor-of-the-place fortnight in early 1986, so it’s obvious that some of the recording environments were less than optimum. Even allowing for technical hoohah, though, I have little sympathy for the bands on here who apparently treated their recording spots as workaday gigs in the intimacy of their boozed-up pals, rather than as nationalexposure opportunities to put their best licks forward.

The worst example is Time Toy, whose “Window Sill” is an excruciating attempt to become Georgia’s answer to XTC’s transistor-intricate harmonies and rhythms. Hey guys, even XTC don’t try to play like XTC live anymore, their stuff’s just too complex for actual human fingers and tonsils to reproduce. But Time Toy struggle on in their offspeed warble, until “Window Sill’ finally runs down and collapses under its own mawkishness. Even the first cut on Inside/Out, the Squalls’ “Na, Na, Na, Na,” is so whiningly offputting that I started to lunge for the reject lever at once. But I hung on long enough to catch Flat Duo Jets, who sound like every other fourth-rate boogie band from Covington, KY, I’ve ever sat thru in my local watering hole. BUT I DO NOT HAVE TO LISTEN TO STUFF LIKE THIS IN THE PRIVACY OF MY OWN STEREO!

Athens, Ga.—Inside/Out leads so much with its sourguitared backside that it takes the aggrieved listener a while to realize that it does contain a few rather promising cuts. For openers, I’ll grant fine futures to both Bar-B-Q Killers (as fast & nerfus as life itself) and Kilkenny Cats (guitars so urgent & itchy they could “pass” in N.Y.C.). Similarly, I wish I’d listened more to the late Pylon while I had the chance, if their (studio) cut on here, “Stop It,” is representative of a general penchant for the cock-lobster beat.

On a further perverse note, Inside/Out has converted me into an R.E.M. fan at long last. I’ve always been suspicious of R.E.M.’s obligatory obfuscations (hey, I can live with you guys not being the saviors of the world, if you can too),but their casual performances of "Swan Swan H” and the Everlys’ “(All I’ve Got To Do Is) Dream” stand out by default in this motley context. And now their latest all-R.E.M. all-studio album, Life’s Rich Pageant, sounds another 500 percent better even than these samples.

So Athens, Ga.—Inside/Out has its redemptive moments, and I hear redemption is a hot topic among some of the I’lltake-my-stand Southern bands. But they can keep Time Toy— just hearing their prissy name gives me diarrheal spasms. Like I said, maybe the movie will help. See it with somebody you kinda like.

Richard Riegel

MINUTE MADE

MINUTEMEN Ballot Result (SST)

FIREHOSE Ragin’, Full-On (SST)

Chuck Eddy

Fool that I. am, I never saw a Minutemen show. I’ve regretted this mortal sin of omission ever since guitarist/singer/activist D. Boon was killed in a car crash the day after my copy of 3-Way Tie For Last—the ninth collection and last proper album by this most progressive and prolific of hardcore bands—arrived in the mail back in late December *85. I guess perversely, the tragedy made me listen, and I dug; no way were these San Pedro punks the humorless propagandists I’d always pegged them as. They were more like they called themselves, “chumps,” “corndogs.” 3-Way Tie had ’em calming the loose rhythmic abrasions,

upping all their folky melodiousness, replacing their surreal declamations with everyday words that said important things about Latin America, Viet Nam, bosses, courage, dope, hope: “There are still lofty dreams, meager desires, and still silliness.” They never forgot that politics is about people. Live, I hear they were about as serious as a garage band drunk on funk. Damn.

The new double-disc, Ballot Result, has gig-stuff (some from the Indian Cultural Center in Albuquerque!) that proves all claims, plus outtakes, unreleased tunes, practice sessions, and a greatest “hit” or two, mostly compiled from results of a ballot that was enclosed in 3-Way Tie, asking fans to vote for their fave Minutemen songs. Since it downplays neither the mersh (Pedro-speak for commercial) nor the harsh, I think this is the band’s best record. It’s messy for sure, even a bit self-indulgent—three tracks over sixpoint-five minutes, weird coming from a combo named for its brevity. And I bet the previously issued material, not to mention Ethan James’s slick hip-hop dub-remix of “No * One,” perturbs purists and veteran supporters. To me, the LP sounds like a jubilant history of three pals at work.

Mike Watt plays friction-bass that bangs and boings and quotes Madonna as it charges; George Hurley’s drums kaboom like anti-tank weapons or overflow like a kitchen sink. Boon’s axe is hefty as his ample self (the Sabbathy “Cut” is “meat locker rock,” the loving liner eulogy says) or magic-realism supernatural; he writes in stories, conversations, with bad grammar. This is intricate music, but it feels primal—“Punch Line” is the stinking goop that’s caked on our breakfast table after my two-year-old’s boWl of oatmeal with raisins. Mostly, though, this jagged spew feels felt; boho complainers, maybe, but these gringos weren’t cynics. They raged at “Joe McCarthy’s Ghost,” then covered Steppenwolf. What else is there? '

“Life just means surviving,” as D. Boon rapped in “No One.” So, inspired by the inexperience of midwestern guitarist/singer/busboy Ed Crawford, Watt and Hurley formed Firehose the summer after their friend’s passing. Ragin’, Full-On, the crew’s first vinyl set, is full of tricky time changes and grand illusions of dust in the wind—Ed aspires to the pointiessly bloated professionalism of Synchronicity and Who’s Next, and while I don’t begrudge his inevitable heartland-AOR influences, I wish Watt and Hurley had curbed his glitzy tendencies. The Minutemen were arty, but these fancydan frills want to be “art”: the jazz lounges, and even the funkbeats sound stilted. As hardcore-graduate arena-trios go, Husker Du makes a better U2—I think Firehose’s “Brave Captain” (about, and not against, no war in particular) might have made an OK single, but it’s still more Rush than Last Poets. If you prefer populism to pomp-and-circumstance, stick with Ballot Result. Mourn a brave man, and give Overcrooning Ed some time to grow.