ROCK•A•RAMA

ROCK•A•RAMA

This month’s Rock-A-Ramas were written by John Kordosh, Richard Riegel, Michael Davis, Chuck Eddy, Richard C. Walls, Craig Zeller, Jon Young and Iman Lababedi.

BOB PFEIFER After Words (Passport)

I was real hot for Human Switchboard when they released their scorching Who’s Landing In My Hangar? album five years ago, but when I got closer to the group, I wasn’t sure whether I really liked Bob Pfeifer’s totalitarian those-who-are-not-withme-are-against-me script for his coming anti-superstardom. Secretly I cheered for Myrna Marcarian and her ravishing Farfisa, always ready to claw & puncture Bob’s William Burroughsian disingenuousness when he started pumping it up. Pfeifer and Marcarian made up a confrontationallycreative duo as explosive as the fabled Alan Price vs. Eric Burdon, but the pop public didn’t wanna know. Now Bob Pfeifer’s back, bereft of most of Myrna’s presences, and damned if he hasn’t risen to the occasion with an album even more naked & unafraidof-being-uncool than I really expected from the guy. Plenty of that good old Switchboardian push-pulsation, but in a drier, popier tone that never fails to be true to a suite of songs dedicated to the loss of a beloved woman. No time for yearning after Lou Reed anymore; this is simply naked Bob Pfeifer, in all his unashamed & infinite nakedness. R.R.

THIN WHITE ROPE Moonhead (Frontier)

Their name doesn’t really do ’em justice; they sound more like the barbed wire surrounding Crazy Horse’s corral. Since they’re a college town band, their guitarists must have majored in fuzzbox abuse until they became capable of producing an uneasy grind, and they dropped out. The singer sounds like a quavery Michael Stipetype crossed with a gravel pit, making mainstream pop acceptance unlikely but alternative pop acceptance a definite possibility. Don’t know how long they’ll be content to scuffle along between R.E.M. and the late True West, though. M.D.

VARIOUS ARTISTS Some Kind Of Wonderful (Hughes/MCA)

Writer/director/producer (Breakfast Club, Pretty In Pink, etc.) John Hughes is so good at integrating pop songs into his films that he gets to people’s pocketbooks/hearts with solid movie attendance and soundtrack LP sales, dunking bands like OMD, Simple Minds and the Psychedelic Furs into the mainstream in the process. This first release on his own label finds Polar Bear-madegood Stephen Hague producing a bunch of little-knowns, including several British cult bands. The consistency of the production can’t disguise the two tracks that stand out from the pack: the Jesus & Mary Chain’s effectivelyrefined re-recording of “The Hardest Walk,” and “I Go Crazy” by Flesh For Lulu, which evokes the spirits of T. Rex and Mott The Hoople especially well. The others include a fluffy bubblegum ballad from Stephen Duffy, Dexysish folk-pop from Lick The Tins, Brainy nthgeneration Roxy from Furniture, and two tracks from the instantly-generic March Violets, who seem to inhabit a midpoint directly between Heart and Siouxsie & The Banshees.M.D.

DOLLY PARTON, LINDA RONSTADT & EMMYLOU HARRIS Trio

(Warner Bros.)

As Jed Clampett might have said, they shore sing purty. Of course, you’d expect no less when these celebrity chanteuses of the downhome persuasion raise their voices together in song. However, you might well hope for more. Despite the preceding hoopla, Trio is surprisingly lifeless, a stiff ensemble exercise that suggests the three amigas were too much in awe of each other’s talents to get loose and wail. Top-flight material, including Dolly’s “Wildflowers” and Linda Thompson’s “Telling Me Lies,” plus sure support from the usual L.A. guys (Lindley, Kunkel, et al.) provide a boost, but there’s no disguising the stilted results. And without a few sparks, those soaring harmonies start to resemble fingernails on a blackboard mighty fast. J.Y.

RANK AND FILE Rank And File (Rhino)

Long before Jason took the Nashville out of the Scorchers, Rank And File were busily investigating modern rock sounds in country & western music. On Sundown, their debut, they worked a few wonders along those lines. Then they took a bad fall on album two, laid low, picked up the pieces and regrouped. I wish I could say that album three was worth such a long wait, but such isn’t the case. It certainly rocks a hell of a lot harder than its predecessor, but the songwriting could sure use some sharpening. And all that crunching guitar razzmatazz sounds like a case of trying too hard. But “Black Book” and “One Big Thing” are good enough to make me hopeful for album number four. C.Z.

HIPSWAY

Hipsway

(Columbia)

As the claimed next-big-tingle outta the U.K., these guys are so ho-hum (maybe hohummability is what they’re after) that their “jazzy” pop’d have trouble topping Paul Young’s paisley pajamas in an excitement poll. These precious lads seem rather presmug about such mild-mannered music, but I’m not surprised, as Hipsway grew up idolizing Steely Dan, an artistic apprenticeship akin to fantasizing about being comatose. And they’ll get their wish, too, as I predict that Hipsway will traipse down the same path as many another British fashionmongers of this decade, and will be declared officially chartdead a scant year from now (and it’ll be their own fellow Limeys who did ’em in.) R.R.

BRUCE WILLIS The Return Of Bruno (Motown)

Bruce Willis is a charmer. On ABC’s Moonlighting, he’s an all-American “lad,” a sleek spitfire of spike, driving Cybil Shepherd batty, and recently into bed. He exemplifies cool far better than Don Johnson does, and is a more suitable case for rock stardom. Bruce’s The Return Of Bruno doesn’t so much set up the case as sideswipe its limitations. With an unknown bar band raking over the coals, Bruce attempts a Blues Brothers-like vehicle and he succeeds. Bruno, if nothing that great, is far from an embarrassment. The band rocks, Bruce hollers and plays a mean harmonica, and the entire LPis a joyous, amateurish mess. Highlights? The hit single “Respect Yourself” and the braying “Cornin’ Right Up.” Lowlifes: an unbelievably naff cover of the Drifters’ classic “Under the Boardwalk.” Conclusion: that other Bruce has nothing to worry about. But so what? As a rocker, Bruce makes a superb actor. I.L.

THE WOODS It’s Like This (Twin/Tone)

The former Woodpeckers—now reduced to a trio—have redubbed themselves the Woods, and this album is an excellent, if spotty, debut as such. They sound very much like a mixture of the Rolling Stones, Everly Brothers, Georgia Satellites (Satellite Dan Baird was a former member) and perhaps even R.E.M., waxing harmoniously plaintive (“Girlfriends”), harmoniously poppish (“Chain My Heart”) and harmoniously thunderous (“Battleship Chains,” which the Satellites also recorded, but not as well). If the Stateside swing is, in fact, away from the Athenian sound, the Woods deserve a place near the front of the line—and if it’s not, they do anyway. J.K.

LESTER BOWIES’S BRASS FANTASY Avant Pop (ECM)

KAHIL EL ZABAR The Ritual (Sound Aspects)

Trumpeter and Art Ensemble of Chicago vet Bowie’s Brass Fantasy wants to have it both ways, an almost all-brass band (four trumpets, two trombones, one french horn, one tuba, and drums). They goof on both pop and brass cliches (Bowie’s originals “B Funk” and “No Shit,” a burlesque-y rendition of “Blueberry Hill”) and then play the cliches straight (Steve Turre’s Roman epic soundtrack “The Emperor,” a square shootin’ dance band version of Willie Nelson’s “Crazy”). This makes for crossover potential: hipsters can chuckle (and yawn), and those who think lots of brass is kinda hot can shop here too. As for the Zabar record, this is the real Bowie—a trio (fellow Art Ensembler Malachi Favors, bass; Bowie, trumpet; Zabar, drums) waxing eloquent on a 40-minute Favors composition, “Magg Zelma.” Here, when Bowie makes ruptured duck noises, it sounds like it means something. Context is all.R.C.W.

JIM AND JESSE Air Mail Specials:

Early Recordings 1952-1955 (Rebel)

Dignified brothers Jim and Jesse McReynolds, on brooding guitar and ebullient mandolin, waltz and shamble and wander across Virginia hillsides, through dreary days and blue nights, alone except for broken hearts and golden voices pointed skyward, bearing the cross of the Lord on their backs, wishing they could leave this world of despair and visit in the great beyond the poor little honeysuckle rose whose spirit so haunts them now. Morbid, mystical, tragic, naive, touching, beautiful, and nakedly honest, this is bluegrass after the landlord’s confiscated the farm and only the trees remain,and they’re all dead.This music moans into the chasm of nothingness, but it does it with only a whisper. (P.O. Box 3057, Roanoke, VA 24015.) C.E.

SHEILA E.

Sheila E.

(Paisley Park)

Sheila E. started out riding high with “The Glamorous Life”, and she’s been in a tailspin ever since. Prince’s sylistic influence is all over this record, even if he didn’t have anything to do with producing, arranging, composing, panting, etc. Trouble is, it’s hosed-down Prince any way you look at it. All the breathy moans and provocative pronunciations in the world can’t disguise the mediocrity of the material. “Pride And The Passion” has some style; the rest is a mess. Personal to Ms. E.: Did you catch your death of a cold posing for the cover? C.Z.

HEAVEN 17

Pleasure One (Virgin)

While the Human League’s Phil Oakey rapidly approaches pathetic joke status, former bandmates Ian Marsh and Martyn Ware have finally hit their stride. The first Heaven 17 release in many moons, Pleasure One boasts the vital element missing from most pallid attempts at Britsoul: a groove. Songs like “Low Society” and “Trouble” swing in earnest, even though the inevitable synths set the pace. Nor should we overlook sturdy singer Glenn Gregory, who dispenses love laments and politically correct advice with cool reserve that nicely counterpoints the hotter rhythms. So the ballads could be stronger—there’s still plenty of opportunity to get down. If these guys got together with Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, the outcome would probably be awesome, as in bad, meaning good. J.Y.