RECORDS

RECORDS

THE UNFORGETTABLE SOMETHING OR OTHER

U2

The Joshua Tree (Island)

Richard C. Walls

I realize it’s only a coincidence, but the week during which I first became acquainted with this record was the week that teenage suicides became the media’s hot topic—even Nightline took a stab at it, always a sign that an issue has arrived. And though—as an assiduous consumer of TV news, nearnews and related features—I gained absolutely zero insight into this phenomenon of young people gassing themselves to death in garages, I felt, each time I returned to The Joshua Tree, that here were all sorts of possible explanations. Because this is an album that expresses a craving for peaceful oblivion—and (by the time this review appears) it’s going to be very, very popular. It’s an album that strikes a responsive chord in a new generation for whom ideals are less challenges than reminders of the limitatons of good intentions, and a generation who have the very real possibility of a nuclear holocaust as a seeming corollary to the anguish of their growing pains. When I was a teenager in the ’60s, there was a general feeling that anything was possible if you cared enough. Now, futility is a given and the best one can hope for is a little relief from one’s inevitable pain. It’s the topic of almost every song on this album.

And the weird part is that I rather like it (the album, that is).

Though in no way as much an improvement on The Unforgettable Fire as that album was on the group’s first three releases, still, the formula—the sound here—has been refined enough to make Fire seem sloppy in comparison. T. Edge’s evolution from guitarist to maestro of colors is now complete—the drones and raw, ripping textures that were there from the beginning have been tamed and now serve more neatly the programmatic designs of any given song. And Bono, who has always sounded to me, vox-wise, like Robert Plant’s younger, more cautious brother, has perfected his two preferred modes—drowning man bellow and a deep, almost sotto voce melancholia—to a tee. You may wince at his lapses into banality, but can there be any doubt that this man is sincere?

What else? The songs are tighter. I actually found myself humming one this morning. The lyrics are, from song-tosong, very similar—many not-

so-veiled references to the Crucifixion (credit Bono for ■ embracing a personal and I generous Christianity rather ■ than the exclusive-club-type

which you see on cable TV. References to love and suffering (making it confusing as to which is supposed to transcend which), some vague but seemingly angry references to America, and even, at one point, that old river running into the ocean image (Ah, yes...).

It’s all so blurry, so sad, so seductive. Listening to the album’s closer, “Mothers Of The Disappeared,’’ which is not as explicit as its title might indicate, I wondered if those moved by the song would also be moved to write to the Amnesty International address printed on the inner sleeve beneath the song’s lyrics. And if they might somehow make the connection between the sense of loss so skillfully evoked by the song and America’s foreign policy ... and if they made the connection would they know the most effective way to express their outrage. Or would they just give in to the wide-screen deep-focus sound of lamentation, a sound this band can produce now so superbly—a sound you can sink into without a trace, smiling.

HOODOO GURUS Blow Your Cool (Elektra)

Blow Your Cool is the Hoodoo Gurus’ third good album in a row, which certainly would be praise enough until you consider that three albums is all they’ve ever made, and from the way they sound here, it would appear at this point as if the fact that more people aren’t shouting their praises from the rooftops is really more of the world’s problem than theirs. Listening to this band’s seemingly endless supply of mind-and-ear catching hooks and riffs—most of which have this wonderful almost-familiar feel to them—-you begin to realize how useful an asset roots consciousness can be when placed in the right hands. The Hoodoos use their roots— an affinity for mid/late ’60s to early ’70s guitar-driven hard (but not progressive) rock—to establish frames of reference and basic backgrounds, and then proceed to rough things up through a nice combination of synthesis, energy and raffish wit. In other words, they’re real good.

Having already provided the great turntable in the sky with such should-have-been hits as “I Want You Back” and “Bittersweet” on, respectively, Stoneage Romeos and Mars Needs Guitars, lead singer and songwriter David Faulkner more than capably follows the side one, cut one, groovesteps of those predecessors with “Out That Door,” a gaspingfor-breath, fierce little rocker filled with the (by now) fully expected smoke-on-the-water, fire-in-the-chorus group trademarks exploding all over the place. And the best news is that, as on the first two Hoodoos LPs, side one, cut one, is only the beginning.

As long as you have nothing against guitars, guitars, and more guitars—and, oh yes, plenty of drums—you’re not likely to walk away from this record empty-handed. If the crunch-per-square-inch factor is important to you, then the whiplashing “Hell For Leather” should fit like a studded glove. If mindexpansion’s your bag, try inhaling “Where Nowhere Is” or “Middle Of The Land,” both of which feature lead guitarist Brad Shepherd successfully impersonating everything from stampeding rhinos to divebombing pterodactyls. If you like your ballads hard and sweet, then “I Was The One” is the one for you, filled with chiming guitars that actually glisten coming out of the speakers. And if you want those roots dug up and replanted, then go right to the end of side two, where “Party Machine” finds the Hoodoos taking parts of “Gloria” and “Psychotic Reaction,” among others, and grafting them together for no discernible purpose other than a kitchen sink full of noisy fun. I guess that’s as good a tag as any— HOODOO GURUS: A KITCHEN SINK FULL OF NOISY FUN. Pass it on.

Billy Altman

PATTY SMYTH Never Enough (Columbia)

Well, Never Enough does represent some improvement over Scandal Featuring Patty Smyth’s The Warrior, but that’s like saying that ham is an improvement on bologna: either way you slice it, you’ve still got nitrate-happy lunch meat. Ever since Patty Smyth and the original Scandal lineOp made two of the most perfect powerpop hits ever, “Goodbye To You” and “Love’s Got A Line On You,” way back in 1983, Ms. Smyth’s worked overtime to prove to the universe that she’s not just a pastel pop-tart, but a singer of substance who can do honor to the weightiest of material.

Tuff pork rinds, Patty, but the dismally overblown The Warrior suggested that you might be condemned to repeat the tragic career skids of certain of your pure-pop-for-now-people predecessors, such as Eric Carmen, who cashed in his con-

Itent for glossy style early on, and had no soul to draw on when he really needed it later. The Warrior sold well, but Patty Smyth must’ve taken some note of the hostile critical reception; she was brought up in Greenwich Village, after all, where intellectuals reputedly hold positions of authority.

Tom Waits (not necessarily one of his best songs, but just relaxed enough in tone for Patty Smyth to begin to reclaim her early promise). And I think I could live with “Isn’t It Enough” if it was between that or Genesis on my car radio.

But too often on Never Enough, Patty Smyth undercuts her own pop smarts by choosing the most abysmal of material, always from the same factory outlets who must supply Survivor, John Parr and their ilk with all those melodramatically phony anthems they favor. Never Enough’s title cut required five composers: producer Rick Chertoff, Hooters Rob Hyman and Eric Bazilian, one David Kagen, and Ms. Smyth herself. Despite (because of?) the collective talents of this committee, the song invokes so many cliches—“It was a promise in the dark”; “Some kind of hero”—that Casey Kasem will go all misty-eyed the first time he announces it. “Tough Love,” by Nick Gilder and Duane Hitchings, sends the cliche-o-meter right through the roof with its “Another story in the naked city,” a lyrical turd if I’ve ever smelled one. And that’s a double tragedy in that the song’s title, which falsely suggests that patented gettough style of parenting currently sweeping the nation, just cries out for rock ’n’ roll explication. Guess the Ramones’ll have to do that job, too.

Interestingly, Never Enough’s final cut, “Heartache Heard Round The World,” composed by the same committee as the title song (minus David Kagen, who had to run out of the studio to feed the meter), features Patty Smyth’s best moment of emotional conviction on the whole album. In the midsts of the usual glob-rock, she suddenly hollers out: “ ’Cause I just wanna sing like Bobby Blue Bland!” A worthy sentiment indeed, Patty, and you definitely should go for It! Just keep in mind the fact that Bobby Blue Bland would not touch a song like the mawkish “Call To Heaven” with a 10-foot conk.

(I will not mention in this review that Patty Smyth is married to Richard Hell, author of one of the most sublime rock ’n’ roll albums of ail time, Blank Generation, and I definitely will not ask whether Mr. and Mrs. Hell ever discuss songwriting and cover versions during their quiet evenings at home. They’re busy now raising a little Hell, as Patty’s bonus nursery rhyme at the end of this record promises, so I won’t bother them. Nope, I just won’t do it.)

Richard Riegel

HOW WILL THE THE THERMOS SURVIVE?

THE SMITHS “Louder Than Bombs” (Sire/Warner Bros.)

Roy Trakin

More musique maudit from the muezzin of melancholia. “So if you have five seconds to share/Then I’ll tell you the story of my life/Sixteen, clumsy and shy,” mourns Morrissey, who captures the awkward angst of adolescence better than any songwriter currently working within rock ’n’ roll. Call ’em morbid, call ’em pale, Morrissey and sidekick Johnny Marr have made the Smiths the leading contenders to follow U2 into the Next Big Thing arena sweepstakes.

Which would be gratifying on any number of levels, not least of which is Morrissey’s doomed, hyper-romantic bard, a high-low brow blend of Shelley and Keats, Reed and Morrison and Laurel and Hardy. There’s more gloom und doom here, boys and girls, but there’s giggles aplenty, too. What else can you say about a guy who sings, “I was looking for a job, and then I found a job/And heaven knows I’m miserable now ... why do I give valuable time/To people who don’t care if I live or die?” That he loved the Beatles, Bach and Beethoven? And he’s fully prepared for martyrdom?

How do I love the Smiths? Let me count the ways. “Louder Than Bombs” is a double-album which gathers some of the band’s U.K. singles and B-sides together with seven b.rand-new songs, but it stands as an epic work, coming as it does on the heels of last year’s magnum opus, The Queen Is Dead. Rock or racist, gay or straight, fey or faking, the Smiths are a thinking fan’s rock band. Morrissey is a postmodernist Hamlet, deciding whether he should live or die, and somehow the thought process becomes a slapstick meditation on the healing nature of I art. “Oh yes, you can kick I me/And you can punch I me/And you can break my I face/But you won’t change the I way I feel.”

The set includes such I controversial U.K. smashes as I “Shoplifters Of The World I Unite,” “William, It Was Really Nothing” and “Panic,” the latter of which has been criticized as an anti-black diatribe on the basis of its anthemic chorus, “Hang the I D.J.,” which, come to think of I it, is not such a bad idea in this 1 age of tight radio playlists. I

But the Smiths are not all I Morrissey’s sublime wordplay I and mock morose mindset. I There’s guitarist/co-songwriter ■ extraordinaire Johnny Marr, who creates a thick stew of multi-textured but sharply defined melodic pop to cushion his sidekick’s prickly persona. Check out the lush, shimmering cover of the 1965 obscurity “Golden Lights” (credited to one Twinkle), or the hypnotic, onomatopoeic instrumental, “Oscillate Wildly,” to see what Johnny can do on his own. Marr does more with less than any musician this side of Peter Buck and Bob Mould.

The bottom line is still how you feel about the troubled troubadour himself, though. People either love Morrissey or can’t stand his celibate, asexual longing, finding it insufferably pretentious. In the tradition of all great rock ’n’ roll (in my book anyway), the Smiths make you draw the line and come out fighting. I’ll take ’em over the P. Furs, Cure, Cult, New Order or any other current anglobands vying for the Yankee dollar and the vast teenage wasteland. Who said we won’t get fooled again?

After all, how can you not embrace a guy who croons, “Shyness is nice, but/Shyness can stop you/From doing all the things in life/That you’d like to ... Ask me— I won’t say ‘No—How could I?’ ” I second that emotion. There hasn’t been a poet who articulated teenage heartache so effectively since Smokey Robinson. Would I lie to you? CHRIS ISAAK Chris Isaak (Warner Bros.)

This may be hard for you to

believe, but even someone as I worldly and sophisticated as a I rock critic can still be caught off I guard and taken by surprise. 1 Every so often, without a word I of warning, a record comes I along by someone you’ve I never heard of and know I nothing about that successfully I captures your attention. (These I days, that’s nothing short of I miraculous.) Such a record I was 1985’s Silvertone by a I gentleman from Stockton, CalI ifornia named Chris Isaak. I

That album, pulsating with a I mood that might best be deI scribed as melancholy mysteriI oso, made it clear that a new I heartache specialist was upon ; us. Isaak turns out to be one of those people who sounds great when they’re miserable. Even when things were looking up (“Back On Your Side”) the anguish wouldn’t go away. And the songs had a habit of sticking with you; the ominous “Dancin’ ” haunts me to this I day.

After several spins of Chris I Isaak, two things become I apparent: 1) He’s beaten the I sophomore jinx; and, 2) The sting hasn’t gone out of his sorrow. Issak’s upset singing may have echoes of Del Shannon, Ricky Nelson and Roy Orbison in it, but he’s no mere revivalist; he’s firmly rooted in the present. Working with the classic set-up of two guitars, bass and drums, he spins his sagas of treachery (the threatening “You Owe Me Some Kind Of Love”), deceit (“Lie To Me”) and betrayal (“You Took My Heart”) and lets you see the black clouds over his head. Listen to the

way he seethes on “You Owe Me Some Kind Of Love” and stutters his “l”s or the way he snags that eerie high note on “Lie To Me.” You can practically feel the walls come crashing in.

He even pulls off a credible cover of the Yardbirds’ “Heart Full Of Soul,” almost making it sound like it was written for him. Occasionally the material lets him down (“Blue Hotel,” “Crying”) and the brooding

wears a bit thin. Maybe that’s why he threw in “This Love Will Last,” his most optimistic song to date and a pure pop sureshot. Of course even when he’s up, it still sounds like something’s wrong (will this love last?), but it’s a beautiful moment. So is “Fade Away,” a smoldering lament that leaves the singer almost as devastated as he is on “Waiting For The Rain To Fall,” the sad finale.

In addition to Isaak, the

I person who really makes these songs take hold is superb lead guitarist James Calvin Wilsey, who keeps his solos brief and bittersweet while drawing on everyone from Duane Eddy to John Fogerty for inspiration (at one point I expected to see the Ventures listed as creative consultants).

Chris Isaak will make you feel the hurt. And if the man who wailed his way through “Waiting For The Rain To Fall” is really smart, he’ll cover the Volcanos’ “Storm Warning” next time around. Talk about overcast.

Craig Zeller

SIMPLY RED Men And Women (Elektra)

After being totally ignored for six months after its release in mid-’85, Picture Book, Simply

Red’s deft debut album, kicked in with a flourish. The reason was “Holding Back The Years,” the third single Elektra had pulled from the album. Though prevailing music-biz wisdom has it that you can’t break a new band with a ballad, “...Years” was no ordinary slow song—it rivals Crowded House’s “Don’t Dream It’s Over” as the strongest hard-pop ballad of the era.

Once the single opened the door for listeners, Simply Red

quickly entered the major leagues in terms of recognition. They succeeded commercially and aesthetically by virtue of a smoothly soulful, utterly unpretentious approach to rock ’n’ roll; like Bruce ' Hornsby & The Range, the band transcended mid-’80s flash and sterility by employing the sounds of real instruments being played by real musicians. In Mick Hucknall, the band had a vocalist with an utterly singular voice and an unmistakable commitment to the songs he was inhabiting— particularly the Valentine Brothers’ relentless “Money$ Too Tight (To Mention)” and an Otis Redding-like rethink of the Talking Heads’ “Heaven.” Here, it seemed, was a band with authenticity and a purpose.

Those virtues, unfortunately, are somewhat less apparent on the follow-up, Men And Women. There’s something intangible missing here and there—a lack of true involvement with the intent of the songs^a.subtle slide from spontaneity to slickness—and what’s missing renders the album as a whole a mild dissapointment.

The biggest problems are on side one, which opens with the first single, a cleverly licentious groove tune called “The Right Thing” (for good reason— Hucknall must sing those three words 40 or 50 times). When I hear the cut, I keep thinking I’m listening to Boy George— and that ain’t where Hucknall and his band should be heading. There’s as much chorus repetition here as in “Karma Chameleon,” and that is a major turn-off. Cuteness and overstatement reign through the three succeeding cuts, including the Hucknall/Lamont Dozier collaborations, “Infidelity” and “Suffer.”

Hucknall’s high, reedy singing, initially an acquired taste, is already beginning to flirt with self-parody (a la Seger ■ and—dare I say it?—Springsteen); he’s most effective | when his voice is surrounded I by others to vary the vocal 1 tonalities. But Hucknall can | sing wonderfully at times; his I straightforward reading of Cole 8 Porter’s “Eve’ry Time We Say I Goodbye” (backed only by 8 piano and cello) ends the side 8 with the conviction and intimacy the preceeding songs lack.

Flip the disc and things improve considerably, starting with a marginally slick but still thumping rendition of Sly Stone’s “Let Me Have It All.” After a sidetrip into UB408 land on “Love Fire,” the 1 band rediscovers its Picture | Book command on a pair of 1 Hucknall originals: the sin8 uously uptown “Move On Out” 1 (in which he’s effectively joined on the choruses by Janette Sewell) and “Shine,” which possesses the suave punchiness of Earth, Wind & Fire.

The compelling quality of these two cuts underscores the band’s general problems on Men And Women: too much synthesizers, too little guitar, prefab drumming, simplistic song structures, an unvarying vocal approach. If you wanna hear what this band sounds like at its best, pick up the current single and flip it over. For my money ($1.69, to be exact), “There’s A Light,” with its evocation of the Ohio Players and the Average White Band, is easily as strong as any cut that made the album. The only imaginable reason for keeping “There’s A Light” off Men And Women is that the cut is simply too gritty to fit in with the rest of the music—and that’s too bad. On its next album, Simply Red needs to break a sweat and go for the soul; otherwise, they could wind up as just another British pseudo-soul outfit.

Bud Scoppa

THE THE Infected (Epic)

THE MISSION U.K. Gods Own Medicine (Mercury)

The The is the definite article! What started out as a slightly sour-mouthed Enoesque pavane on Soul Mining has blossomed (like an avenging triffid) into a rhythm-crazed psychosonic sushi on Infected. It’s nuclear winter muzak that could easily soundtrack your 19th nervous breakdown and your 35th viewing of Platoon— especially if you’re under the influence of thermal acid laced with the carbonation from a keg of Bud mixed with a condom full of that newest designer street drug that is destined to soon be featured in a 69-hour journalistic mini-series starring Geraldo Rivera and Vanna White.

In other words, The The is folk music for the seriously surreal. Kinda like what really happens down on Shakin’ Street after the bars close.

Matt Johnson—who, for all praptical purposes, is The The—has to be acknowledged as a sort of third generation Todd Rundgren gone all Zeitgeist mad on current events. I mean, the dude’s annoyed with himself and he makes no bones about it. He makes LPs instead, which he produced, engineers, composes, arranges, sings and plays a host of musical instruments on—he’s into a real Orson Welles trip.

His vision includes an eightfragment collage that’s a fiery series of chameleon percussions shimmying through some of the most self-incriminating lyrical debasements since Iggy convinced us that he really was dirt, but still OK after all. No slapdash philosophies or soapy attitudes here. This guy’s got some definite ideas about himself and his moment in this insane jungle of today. Just like I have some definite ideas about the songs on the LP...

The title track is the hit here, and the MTV video reminds me of a Klaus Kinski vs. Peter Tork Wrestlemania vision I recently had after snorting some uncut, powderized Sun Country wine cooler. “Out Of The Blue (Into The Fire)” is a mental, wounded dervish into the very heart of sexual darkness. Certainly not a song to toss on the turntable during a feminist fundraiser. “Heartland” is a pseudo-jazz mambo voodoo epic, styled for those in limbo with an E-ticket waiting for a destination—or at least those down on the farm in Oklahoma waiting for the sun.

“Sweet Bird Of Youth” kinda takes up—in a primitive synth way—where “Major Tom” left off. We hear it’s a definite fave on Khadaffi’s Beirut blaster. "Slow Train To Dawn” is yet another of those “sex-and-death-lead-to-alasting-relationship” ditties that will instantaneously remind you of the recent spate of relevant Farrah Fawcett TV tragicoms. “Twilight Of Champions” looks mightily into the souls of the likes of Lee laccoca, John DeLorean and Gumby. And “The Mercy Beat” takes over seven minutes to tell us exactly the same things Jerry Lee Lewis once said in two minutes on “End Of The Road.” That doesn’t make it a bad song, ’cause it ain’t. Just redundant.

Geez, I guess I really like this record. This is the first cut-bycut review I’ve done since I don’t remember when. On the other hand ...

On Gods Own Medicine, the Mission U.K. come off like a buncha psychotic convulsionaries tit-upping their way through the kingdom of doom, despair and agony, “I’m British” style. These are the guys who sit around the barbituate pool all day, fiddling with their older brothers’ hand-medown paisley, while using words like lanquid, moil, mordant, lassitude and rankle, when all they secretly desire is to become Wheelies and rake their collective noses through the vulval gardens of Vanna White’s discarded lingerie hamper.

C’mon. If I hear one more song about a “Wasteland,” I swear I’m gonna creepy crawl into the White House {He went into the room where his father lived and ... then ... he), push the friggin’ button myself and let ’em all suck in the reality of a real glowing wasteland. OK, so their edition of the “Wasteland” motif has all the appropriate doom chords and lyrics. It still pales beside the Who’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again” which in turn pales beside Barry McGuire’s “Eve Of Destruction” which in turn pales beside Rainy Daze’s “Blood Of Oblivion” and so on ...

The Mission’s Gods Own Medicine might be awright in another moment in musical time. But in the context of the here and now—and based on what has passed musically in the last year or so—it is truly redundancy at its most irksome, despite the fact that competency abounds throughout the LP. I mean, who has time to listen to the same stuff over and over again?

I know I don’t because I’m currently trying to get all the area kids into a rigid program of drug testing. We’ve asked to test any and all drugs they want tested...

Joe (2 + 2 is still on my mind) Fernbacher

SIOUXSIE & THE BANSHEES

Through The Looking

Glass

(Geffen)

An album of covers by Siouxsie and the gang, huh? The idea triggers memories: of their caustic attack on “Helter Skelter” from their debut, which not only cremated the Crue’s version, but made me glad that Charlie Manson and company didn’t hear it before going ga-ga. And, more, recently, of their competent sleepwalk through “Dear Prudence,” an exercise in psychedelic stylemongering which made it clear that Siouxsie didn’t really give a damn whether the little brat came out to play or not.

But a full LP of other people’s tunes? It may seem strange to those who are just discovering the band, but the fact remains that they’ve been stars in England for nearly nine years now. So, setting aside their personal catalogue of catastrophies, the Banshees take a rest from the demands of the minor arpeggio by applying their skills to outside material.

Like Bowie’s Pin Ups, or the first couple of Bryan Ferry solo efforts, most of the songs here date from the time when the artists involved were developing their aesthetic preferences, in this case, the early-to-mid ’70s. The most successful exception, “Strange Fruit,” is saturated with an icy string arrangement, then stumbles through a funeral march in the break; no signs of impending mellowness here.

As might be expected, the rest of the performances range from the ho-hum to the hoo-ha! These arrangements of Roxy Music’s “Sea Breezes” and Sparks’ “This Town Ain’t Big Enough For Both Of Us” follow the originals with minor variations, although “This Town” ’s stratospheric final note and the electric sitar licks rate a chuckle or two.

More impressive are the examples of Siouxsie’s saucy delivery changing a tune’s flavor considerably. Here, Television’s “Little Johnny Jewel” is transformed from a guitar jam to a more vocallyoriented song, complete with strings, while the Band’s “This Wheel’s On Fire” has been made over into a dance number, complete with a remix on the 12”.

Moving right on up, we have the tunes that have been dramatically improved by the Banshees. Iggy’s “The Passenger” just went along for the ride on Lust For Life, but a sporty horn arrangement and a lively vocal make it swing. And who would have suspected that there was such a fine pop song lurking within Kraftwerk’s droning “Hall Of Mirrors”?

As for “Gun,” well, I can’t say that the Banshees’ rendition surpasses John Cale’s savage original but it sure matches it slug for slug.

So, all in all, a successful side trip for the band; only “You’re Lost, Little Girl’”s forced, bloated arrangement disappoints. Makes me wonder if, in 1997, someone will be trying their hand at “Christine” or “Cities In Dust.”

Michael Davis

AFTER SHOWERING AT FIFI’S

JEFFERSON AIRPLANE 2400 FULTON STREET (RCA)

Rick Johnson

I Jefferson Airplane is the I most underappreciated AmeriI can band of all time. Period. I End of argument. I know that’s I about as tough a swallow as I the TV commercial that claims I buying cookies from a girl I scout will help her learn water I safety, but there it is.

I Let me tell ya, it amazes me I to no end that a rinky-dink outfit I like the Doors still sell bunches I of records today while the I musically superior and vastly I more talented Airplane are I pretty much forgotten. Or, I worse yet, thought of as a mere I starting point for the superI awful Starship . .. thing, just I because of Grace Slick’s inI volvement in both. I mean, the I Starship has about as much to I do with J.A. as the Firm does I with Led Zep or (gag-o-rama) I Wings with the Beatles.

I Anyway, am I safe in assumI ing CREEM’s current readerI ship (luv ya both!) knows nada I about the Airplane other than I the accidental hearing of I “White Rabbit’’ and “SomeI body To Love” between the I hooting of some ’80s radio I “personality”? Or that 1 barf-out-in-triplicate Paul Kantner/Marty Balin group with the incredibly bad, thus smasheroo video that serves mainly as a glaring example of MTV’s need for catastrophic taste insurance?

Good, ’cause it eliminates any need to quibble with the track selection on this LP. Like, if I tell you they should’ve included “Don’t Slip Away” instead of “My Best Friend” (hated that song for decades now) or ... say, “She Knits Without Hesitation” instead of “Wooden Ships,” it ain’t gonna mean squat one to you, right? Hmmm, I could even make up stuff and you’d never know the diff! But not in this magazine. That wouldn’t be valid.

OK, the format on this anthology is really stupid, not to mention hopelessly restrictive, not to mention useless, but that’s how they did it, fellow kayak enthusiasts. What’s more important is that most of the music here is greater than anything you’ll ever hear again, so who cares?

The first side is all tunes from the Airplane’s folk-rock days, and there’s some pretty tasty items here. If you like ’60s-influenced acts like R.E.M. or Smithereens, you could very well enjoy the singing and playing in “It’s No Secret” or “Come Up The Years.” Especially the latter, first of many Kantner/Balin comps about pole-vaulting underage hippie girls. “It was based on this one girl who looked like 35 but was 12,” says Marty in the liner notes. I like ’em the other way around, myself.

The flip side is from J.A.’s “psychedelic” period, and I do mean psychedelic. These suckers were so far gone most of the time, they could hear Xrays. It was a major event any time they could distinguish themselves from woodwork. So expect a bit of pure crap on this side, as well as the ironic “White Rabit,” the most famous of all the “drug” songs that weren’t about drugs, beating out “Eight Miles High” by a microdot.

The “Revolution” side is about as revolutionary as Carl Betz’s idea of having Donna Reed patented. Balin freely admits he got the idea for “Volunteers” from a Volunteers Of America garbage truck that woke him up one morning. Oh yeah, they be bad, man! Still, the rock ’n’ roll is hard-nosed enough to disolve kidney stones at 50 yards.

Only on the final “Airplane Parts” side do the stinkers beat out the good stuff, three to two. “Martha” is another fine “her heels rise for me” effort, and “Today” a beautiful ballad, but material like “Pretty As You Feel” belongs on side five.

Hope the various minor complaints above don’t discourage you from checking out 2400 Fulton Street, because it’s positively loaded with epic, timeless music.

Broken down into pure numbers, you get 20 excellent songs in 25 at bats; a sluggo percentage I defy any anthology extant to match. Forget Starship, forget Hot Tuna (no prob there), forget the witless Kantner/Balin “America” joke. Get the real thing while it’s still around. And remember, unauthorized conclusions will be towed at owner’s expense.