RECORDS

RECORDS

DEPARTMENTS

The Low Spark Of The Raccoon Lodge

STEVE WINWOOD Roll With It

_(Virgin)_

FADE IN.

(Scene: The Kramden kitchen. Ralph sits at center table reading a newspaper. The door opens and Norton enters, carrying a Sony Walkman.)

NORTON: Hey Ralphie-boy, what's doin'?

RALPH: Don't interrupt me, I'm checking my lottery numbers.

(Norton sits next to Ralph, puts on headphones, and turns on the Walkman. Loud music leaks from the headphones and Norton starts humming loudly. Ralph tries to ignore Norton at first, then looks at him, steamed. Finally, he gives him a shot in the arm.)

RALPH: Will you cut it out? Didn't I say I was trying to concentrate? What is that anyway?

NORTON: It's my new Walkman. I gave my old one to Trixie. All the guys in the sewer use 'em.

RALPH: Walkman, huh? Well, what are you listening to?

NORTON: A Date With Elvis.

RALPH: Mind if I listen?

NORTON: Be my guest.

(Norton puts headphones on Ralph and turns on the Walkman. Immediately, loud music leaks from the headphones. Ralph jumps up, tears the headphones off his head, and hops around the table, holding his ears.)

RALPH: GAAAAAAAAAA! YEAAAAAAGH! EAUGHHHHHH! (slugging Norton) What are you, crazy? Do you want to deafen me? Why is that so loud?

NORTON: You think that's loud, you oughtta try working in a sewer sometime!

RALPH: That is the worst Elvis Presley album I've ever heard.

NORTON: Elvis Presley? (laughs) That's not Elvis Presley, that's the Cramps\

RALPH: (looks at cassette case, then points to Norton) You are a mental case. Haven't you got anything else I can listen to?

NORTON: Just the new Steve Winwood tape, but Trixie's upstairs wrapping it up to give to Haggerty's wife for a wedding present.

RALPH: (eyes bulging, banging table) Wedding present! Wedding present! Norton! I'm in big trouble! Big trouble! (runs hand through hair) Tomorrow is me 'n' Alice's wedding anniversary and I didn't get her anything! She'll kill me if I don't get her something! What am I going to do?

NORTON: Why don'tcha get her a Walkman?

RALPH: (brightening) Norton! That's a great idea! Alice is always complaining about being lonely during the day! A Walkman'd be perfect!

NORTON: (chuckling) Yeah, now she can make pot roast listening to the Cramps!

RALPH: What are you? Nuts? What about the Steve Winwood tape? What's wrong with that?

NORTON: Absolutely nothing, Ralph. Of course, Roll With It is no Date With Elvis, but Winwood is big and gonna be bigger than ever once this one hits the airwaves. Just like Sting and Robbie Robertson—not to mention George Harrison—this latest by Winwood is strictly designer music all the way . . . which isn't to say that he doesn't get it up once or twice: the title track is a funky example of Steve thinking with his hips, while 'Holding On' is another example of Winwood's Pete Townshend/M/am/' Vice style.

Radio loves this guy, and the girls think he's strictly Va-Va-Va-Voom all the way, but if the guys listened to this in the sewer, they'd be nodding off and drowning in droves.

Don't worry, Alice'll love it—and Cassidy can get a deal on both the Walkman and the tape. I'll have them for you tomorrow, Ralph, gift wrapped and ready to go.

RALPH: Norton, you're a real pal.

(Scene: The Kramden kitchen, the next night. Alice is at the stove when Ralph enters, carrying his lunch box and a paper bag.) RALPH: Hi'ya, Alice.

ALICE: Oh, hi Ralph. Dinner'll be in a few minutes, (turning around) What's in the bag, Ralph?

RALPH: (sheepishly) Well, I— uh . . . (hands bag to Alice) Happy Anniversary, Alice.

ALICE: (taking bag) Ralph, you remembered! (pulls out box and removes wrapping) Oh, Ralph! A Walkperson!

RALPH: (proudly) Now you won't be so lonely while I'm at work, Alice. (absently nodding his head) There's a tape in there, too, Alice.

ALICE: (opens the Walkman) A Date With Elvis! Oh, Ralph!

RALPH: (does double take) What? Gimme that! (grabs tape and stares at it, eyes bulging, very steamed) Wait'll I get my hands on that Norton. (sweating bullets, wiping his mouth with his hand) Uh, Alice, I—uh . . .

ALICE: Ralph, how did you know I love the Cramps?

RALPH: Gee, honey, I'm awfully sorry about the—(does take)—you do? Oh, yeah, yeah . . . (swaggers and bobs head).

ALICE: Now I don't have to borrow Ed's copy anymore. Aren't you wondering what I got you, Ralph?

RALPH: Yeah, Alice, I's wondering.

ALICE: First, I made your favorite dinner, pot roast. Second I got us two tickets to see Steve Winwood at the Bensonhurst Hall. And third .. . (she whispers in his ear).

RALPH: (beaming, snaps fingers) Baby, you're the greatest!

EMBRACE AND KISSVILLE.

FADE OUT.

Jeffrey Morgan

ORNETTE COLEMAN AND PRIME TIME Virgin Beauty

_(Portrait/Epic)_

Since he first sprung upon an unsuspecting jazz scene in the late '50s, Ornette Coleman has been breaking jazz conventions into tiny pieces and reasssembling them as he sees fit.

At one time he was the leading exponent of ''free jazz,' where players did essentially anything that worked within a melodic framework. Players with the chops and brains to play Ornette's theoretical ideas have become some of the best respected players on the scene today: Blood Ulmer, Jamaaladeen Tacuma, Don Cherry, Billy Higgins, Ronald Shannon Jackson and Charlie Haden, to name a few: Over the course of two decades, Coleman's 'free jazz' experiments evolved into and were swallowed up by a large idea, harmolodics (introduced by name in the liner notes of his 1976 recording, Dancing In Your Head.) Yet, with all this experimentation, he has maintained a melodic gift that has made him accessible to any mainstream jazz and rock fan with a little sense of musical adventure.

This is not to say that Ornette ever approaches 'easy listening.' He has rarely been less than scabrous, with just enough prettiness to keep him from becoming annoying. But lately, that's been changing. On last year's double album In All Languages, the shattering solos and angry sputterings that punctuated much of his previous work were absent. It's not so much that Coleman has mellowed—there is too much going on in the music to say that—but that he seems more at peace with his music and his musicians. This carries over to his most recent release, Virgin Beauty.

Coleman's alto is still the dominant voice, but he seems more inclined to let it sing rather than scream. The title track is downright ethereal, the alto resting on a nest of guitars and basses. Yet his trumpet work has never sounded better than it does on the equally ethereal 'Chanting,' or the more rocking 'Bourgeoise Boogie.' Nor has Ornette laid down more out and out mainstream pieces of sax work than the largely unaccompanied 'Unknown Artist' or 'Desert Player,' which is further complemented by Jerry Garcia's Metheny-esque guitar work and Coleman's trumpet overdubs.

More interesting, if not as intriguing, are pieces like 'Singing In The Shower' and 'Healing The Feeling,' which, given the right remixes, could be sleeper dance hits. Even with the previous Prime Time battery of Tacuma and Jackson, Ornette never let himself get so straight ahead, churning funky.

The edition of Prime Time that shows its stuff on Virgin Beauty sets up a wonderfully undulating musical foundation for Ornette to weave his lines though. One of the ironies of the album is how well guest guitarist Garcia blends in with all this controlled anarchy. It's often tough to tell where his lines end, and Bern Nix and Charlie Ellerbee begin (or vice versa). The band sets up a virtual web of themes on the festive 'Three Wishes,' dodging in and out of the one Ornette sets up on alto. 'Happy Hour' falls into a hoedown complete with quick chicken-plucking guitar licks. Coleman gives the band a lot of space to stretch out (that's one of the fundamentals of harmolodics) especially on 'Honeymoon,' where the bass parts are every bit as upfront as the sax. When the basses duet, it's one of the most amazing sounds on any album this year. The entire band plays theme tag setting up the exploded fugue, 'Spelling The Alphabet.'

Of course, nothing as dynamic as Prime Time can remain too stable. As we go to press, longtime guitarists Nix and Ellerbee are no long with the band, and a Spanish guitarist and tabla players have been added, at least for Coleman's European tour. As they used to say at the end of newsreels, what will they think of next.

Hank Bordowitz

SHRIEKBACK Go Bang!

_(Island)_

I was raised Roman Catholic, and the tales that the priests and nuns crammed into my grade school head filled me with visions of hellfire and damnation as maleficent and horrifying as anything that could be conjured up by a hard rock Baptist preacher (or a Grade-Z slasher flick for that matter). The thunder and lightning ranting of the Old Testament prophets coupled with the long, painful, gooey death of Jesus (a death that I directly caused when I swiped that dime from the Sunday morning collection plate.) has given me a lifelong predilection for all things dark, dank and dangerous. Yea, I have been washed in the Blood of the Lamb and it's blood I crave to this very day. If ya wanna make me happy, serenade me with melodies that have been caressed by the stench of gloom, doom, death and decay.

I suppose it's my upbringing that's to blame for my love affair with Shriekback. Their music is as lurid and colorful as the cover of a cheap '50s crime novel and their lyrics are oblique, dark and dangerous; fairly reeking of cynicism and secular humanism. In an age when most pop music can be easily portrayed as 'product' they've managed to keep their sinister, sardonic edge. In fact, if my ears don't fail me, today's Shriekback is even more sardonic than they were back in the days of '81. If y'all don't believe me, check out their re-make of 'Get Down Tonight.' As originally cut by K.C. and the Sunshine Band, the tune was a piece of harmless party fluff, a symbol for many of all that was trivial and offensive about the swinging singles/disco lifestyle. Now it may be possible that some record company mastermind suggested that the band cover a cheery inoffensive little tune in a blatant attempt to grab a smidgen of radio play, but after the guys re-arranged it and stamped the sucker with the mindless, drooling vocals of Barry Andrews it sounds positively sinister. When Andrews says he wants to 'get down tonight' it sounds like an invitation to some kind of unholy ritual—a basement dismembering, perhaps. Final score: Band 1: Record Exec 0.

The rest of the disc easily lives up to the demented promise of 'Get Down Tonight.' Things get started with 'Intoxication,' a big beat invitation to the pleasures of the body. 'The capacity for innocent enjoyment ain't the kind of thing you learn out of your books,' Andrews sings, inviting you to dive into the deep, wet, wide river of sinful sensation and imagination. But if you accept his invitation be ready for the worst (lyrically speaking), 'cause for the rest of the LP the band blasts you with the surrealistic images of a world gone mad.

The central metaphor of Go Bang seems to be the death throes of capitalism, and we get to meet several characters who are hastening the system's demise with their greed and stupidity. 'Shark Walk' is a stompin' little ditty that portrays Jesus as some kind of fast talking, vampiristic, power hungry, capitalistic Anti-Christ. I'd love to see Tipper ('I love rock'n'roll. I even played drums in high school.') Gore's face when she gets wind of it. 'Over the Wire' is a sinister hunk of funk with images of a nuclear holocaust so total that it's even making Satan uneasy, while the nervous keyboard energy of 'New Man' introduces us to the embodiment of capitalistic society, a hustling businessman who wallows through the muck at the bottom of the ocean ready to cannibalize himself if it means continuing success.

Side two opens with the title tune, a cheerful ode to suicide, and continues with 'Big Fun,' a tune that uses a cliched heavy metal chord progression and a funky backbeat to address the pointless search for mindless kicks. ('I can't remember my own name, I must be havin' fun.') 'Night Town,' a spooky ballad with a juju rhythm, ends side one and 'Dust and Shadow,' the tune that closes the album, are moody dirges full of melancholy synth washes, hungry ghosts, and visions of death.

Throughout the proceedings, the band acquits itself with an amazing display of musical virtuosity and cerebral gymnastics. (How many bands do you know that have ever rhymed parthenogenesis with nemesis? How many bands do you know that even have an inkling of what parthenogenesis means?) And even though the subject matter is bleak, Andrews' snarling vocals coupled with the band's bouncy rhythms and the sparkling production keeps things from getting overly grim. If you've been craving dance music that'll let you exercise the grey cells as well as the sweat glands, look no further. Shriekback is the only band you're likely to find with a Ph.D. in Throw Down-olgy.

j. poet

BOB DYLAN Down In The Groove (Columbia)

For openers, it's pretty skimpy. The whole thing only runs a little over 30 minutes. That means that if you listened to it in LP format for two hours and 15 minutes you'd have to turn it over eight times. Of the 10 songs only two are Dylan originals while two are co-originals, written with Grateful Deader Robert Hunter. The covers are an odd lot, Wilbert Harrison's 'Let's Stick Together' sounding the best—though in light of Dylan's postSlow Train Coming Jeremiah persona, the lyrics don't seem as optimistic as they used to; they're more like a cranky nudge from God. Still, the mid-tempo groove keeps Bob's insinuating sinuses from sounding maudlin.

Or beyond maudlin, as is the case on another cover, 'When Did You Leave Heaven,' where his open-throated disregard for conventional song values leads him to, unintentionally I'm sure, briefly evoke the spirit of Sid Vicious (but just the spirit). This kind of blatant nonsinging can, has, been a plus—but not with ghastly material like 'Heaven.' No. To go into the other covers in any detail would give this review an unpleasantly morbid quality. Note, only, the partially redeemed warhorse. Shenandoah ; here Bob has obviously put some thought into the arrangement, mixing folk and rock and reshaping the thing with some clever double-timing.

Aside from skimpiness and mostly yuck covers, you get guest superstars who play in a could-be-anybody manner, e.g., Eric Clapton, who appears on 'Had A Dream About You Baby' and yet plays nary a Claptonesque lick, preferring to strum anonymously in the murk. Even more impressively meaningless are the spots by Paul Simonon and Steve Jones, whose individual musicianly personas are undetectable on the fatal filler 'Sally Sue Brown.'

Of the two originals, 'Dream' is the sort of tossed-off blues that Dylan used to handle with a certain wit—now he sounds like he's trying to mean it and it sinks like a stone. The other, 'Death Is Not The End,' is a moony pitch for suicide: 'When you're sad and you're lonely and haven't got a friend/ just remember that death is not the end.' Or maybe it's an argument against suicide. Chalk one up for ambiguity. Marginally more cheerful are the two songs cowritten with Hunter, both having that kind of middle-age rock bounce that temporarily wakes Bob up. Coming at the beginning of side two, when most of the damage is already done, few listeners will be similarly roused.

So the news this month is no news, man-bites-dog news, which is to say that another dud from Dylan has long been the rule, not the exception. There's not much one can do about it. . . except, maybe, we could get up a petition or something and take back his rock 'n' roll Hall Of Fame award. Ha, ha just kidding Bob (you ol' buffoon).

Richard C. Walls

PERE UBU The Tenement Year (Enigma)

More than a dozen years after foisting '30 Seconds Over Tokyo,' a completely surreal slice of psychedelipunk thud that kicked off (for better or worse) the indie explosion, these soundtrackers of Cleveland are further ahead of their time than ever. Funnily enough, this has a lot to do with their not having strayed too far from their original intent/execution, or, more accurately, having returned to their 'roots.'

'George Had A Hat' comes off almost like an 'I told you so,' fired in the direction of reunion-jaded cynics. It's that close to classic Datapanik-era scree. David Thomas's chatteringly slurred syllables clamber over the disrhythmic surfbeats like stunned rodents, while his musette bleats twirl happily amidst the soothingly atonal synthesizer sheets laid down by Allen Ravenstine. Ravenstine's still one of the only people around to use the synth for its intended purpose—generating sound pure and simple—instead of settling for merely parroting whatever instruments the pre-sets are, er, pre-set for. Whether he's lurking somewhere around the foundation (like on 'Talk To Me' and 'Say Goodbye'), acting as a space-creator, or madly slathering aural mortar into every conceivable (and inconceivable) crack (check 'Something's Gotta Give'), Ravenstine's pretty much responsible for what devoteesyammer on about when laundry-listing just what makes Pere Ubu so different.

Not to take anything away from drummer Scott Krauss, whose presence is the only tangible difference between the revived Pa Ubu and the last incarnation of David Thomas's less 'rOck'-oriented Wooden Birds. You might not notice it the first few spins since the material is so complex, but Krauss pummels his kit maliciously hard. Ditto 'newcomer' Jim Jones, a guitarist whose mention is sure to bring a knowing grin to the face of any CLE-addict. Jones off-handedly moves from pseudo-reggae riffing to one-chord bashing to languid leads that'll leave you scratching whatever it is you scratch when you're puzzled with frustrating ease.

While the bulk of The Tenement Year's material has antecedents in early-period Ubu (the funk concrete 'Hollow Earth' is Dub Housing revisited, while 'Something's Gotta Give' could play hide-and-seek on The Modern Dance), some of it is closer in spirit to Thomas's recent solo work. Considering the breathless naivete of a helluva lot of that output, Thomas's obvious enthusiasm for the noise end is surprising. Thomas never repudiated Ubu per se, but much like Jonathan Richman's disassemblage of the Modern Lovers, his decision to dive headlong into childlike wonder seemed unlikely to be unmade

But, for the time being at least, it has been. Pere Ubu are once again proving what they only hinted at last decade— that while other bands have roots, Pere Ubu is roots, and will continue to be for a lot of folks who'd echo what Thomas croons on 'We Have The Technology': 1/ wish we could take this moment and freeze it/ To come back again and again and again."

David Sprague

THREE DUB NIGHT

BURNING SPEAR Mistress Music

(Slash)

STEEL PULSE State Of Emergency (MCA)

ASWAD Distant Thunder

_(Mango)_

From an American standpoint, reggae music has been going through some tough times lately. Last year, after Peter Tosh and Waiters drummer Carlton Barrett were murdered in Jamaica, many despaired that reggae musicians would never get their just rewards. Others, citing the disarray of Bob Marley's estate and the absence of any comparable superstar to take his place, came to similar conclusions.

But reggae has become an international music—far more popular in many places than in the U.S. So a group like Foundation can emerge from Jamaica, aided by members of Third World, while Ivory Coast's Alpha Blondy can record with members of the Waiters. Aswad can have a massive pop hit in England with 'Don't Turn Around' while Maxi Priest can have an import smash in L.A. with a cover of Cat Stevens' 'Wild World.' For most of America, of course, the only reggae news is Ziggy fdariey's Top 50 hit, Conscious Party. Backed by Ethiopia's Dallol and Talking Heads' Chris & Tina's production smarts, Ziggy has come up with the most popular reggae release here since his dad's best-of, Legend. And in Ziggy's wake, by true coincidence, we find new offerings from three of the genre's strongest veteran bands.

Steel Pulse and Aswad have been mainstays of the British reggae scene for over a decade now. They both share roots in '70s funk and soul (War, Sly, EW&F) as well as reggae and both have proven themselves adept at walking the line between pop sensibility and 'roots' orientation. I'd even go so far as to say that Steel Pulse's True Democracy and Earth Crisis and Aswad's To The Top define contemporary pop-reggae at its best.

Steel Pulse have always been an ambitious band, but as group leader David Hinds stretches his stylistic wings, he seems to have lost his flair for writing simple, believable pop. For the second album in a row, his attempts at frothy innocence appear distant and unconvincing. Fortunately, percussionist/vocalist Phonso Martin covers that turf with his own 'Reaching Out,' the first dance remix released from the album.

Hinds's pleas for justice and righteousness dominate side one and it's here where he's in his element, personifying community problems on 'Dead End Circuit' and preaching unity in 'P.U.S.H.' The top end of several of these songs recall some of his past winners but, in true reggae fashion, it's the bottom part of the music that is most dynamic. The Pulse are now using less drum programming but they're negating that plus by using all-synthesized bass lines, which don't sustain like bass guitars. It's a mixed blessing but an undeniably unique approach; we'll see where they can take It from here.

Aswad favors a less militant, more relaxed style than Steel Pulse. They've integrated contemporary synth technology more fully into their music and appear to have no trouble writing live songs: Distant Thunder is full of 'em. But don't dismiss these guys as glibly talented lightweights. Turn your back and they'll surprise you with 'Justice,' which packs as much punch as anything on State Of Emergency. Or try 'Tradition,' which features real horns and quotes from classic Burning Spear tunes.

Burning Spear aka Winston Rodney is, with Bunny Wailer, probably the most respected man in reggae today. His records from the mid-70's embodied the roots approach—few musical frills, a devotional tone—and he's always maintained his integrity. Since his melodies are very basic and his lyrics rarely more than a handful of repeated phrases, he's never been touted as a possible pop star. He does, however, retains a strong underground following.

Now one of reggae's basic tenets is returning to Africa, in spirit if not in the flesh, and Rodney and his Burning Band have applied that idea to their recent material with some ass-shaking results. Mistress Music contains some Of the most expansive arrangements I've ever heard on a reggae record—horns and acoustic percussion bop alongside synths and drum machines—yet none of the parts get in each others' way. I can't tell you precisely which parts of Africa inspired which tunes, but I can tell you that this record contains some of the most monstro grooves you're gonna twitch to this year. You may not move the way you would to, say, New Order or INXS, but with this music surrounding you, you will move.

Michael Davis

STEVE KILBEY

Earthed

PETER KOPPES

Manchild & Myth

MARTY WILLSON-PIPER

Art Attack

_(Rykodisc)_

Talk about timing—it's been all of four weeks (as of this scribble) since Australia's premier psych-popsters the Church scored their first domestic Top 40 single ('Under The Milky Way') and album (Starfish), a feat that took a mere eight years, si^c Albums and three record labels to accomplish, and now, seemingly outta nowhere, come U.S. releases of solo LPs from Church bassist Steve Kilbey and guitarists Marty Willson-Piper and Peter Koppes. Kinda reminds me of the time Casablanca Records, with fantastic visions of unprecedented consumer exploitation dancing in their greedy heads, simultaneously released 'solo' stuff by all four members of Kiss, forcing completists to buy lotsa vinyl while purportedly heralding the arrival of the fellas as distinct artistes. Of course, the ploy worked—the LPs all went platinum, and Casa labelfolk probably ate filet mignon instead of porterhouse for a few months.

But CD-lovin' Rykodisc can't be accused of trying to pull a similar coup—it just so happens that the guys in the Church are quite a prolific lot. Unlike the Kiss plats these three records demonstrate, in various degrees, the individual talent that brought the band this far in the first place.

The most surprising of the bunch is probably Kilbey's Earthed, an all-instrumental excursion that bears little resemblance to last year's brilliant Unearthed. The songs are meant to serve as a soundtrack for the accompanying book of Kilbey's poetry (76 pages of wandering prose and fragmentary verse that read like a cryptic dreamlog), but depending on which side of the New Age fence you're on, the music comes across as either adventurous or pretentious, with touches of Eastern and African influences and a couple of tracks that sound like what you'd hear if Eno concocted the incidental music for a Jacques Cousteau documentary. Lotsa smooth synth musings to soothe the savage beast, but even the Staunchest Churchophiles might find a Kilbey record without his moaning, sing-speak vocals hard to digest, and his less-esoteric Unearthed or The Slow Crack are both better examples of what he can do on his own.

Koppes's Manchild And Myth, on the other hand, might've been better off as an instrumental disc. There's plenty of ethereal (an over-used adjective re: things Church, but one of those that still describes 'em best) guitarwork and waterlily melodies, but the plodding, machine-generated drum tracks and Koppes's colorless singing tend to detract from the record's high points. You might find yourself humming upbeat tunes like 'Comes As No Surprise" and 'A Drink From The Cup' as often as your fave cuts from Starfish, but Manchild & Myth also shows why Koppes has spent the better part of the Ghurch's near-decade behind a six-string while Kilbey has handled most of the lead vocal chores.

Not so of Willson-Piper's Art Attack, a terrific mix of neo-psychedelic scion and shimmering acoustic numbers that expose a songwriting talent only hinted at in the guitarist's solo efforts on previous Church albums. Stuff like the spiteful 'Evil Queen Of England' and the Meddle-eraFloyd-like 'The Lantern' (one of six songs from W-P's previous LP In Reflection included here) leave me hoping Marty has even more involvement in future Church outings. There are a couple of songs here that aren't much more than filler—most notably the eight-minute-plus 'Word,' which consists entirely of a series of words enveloped in a battery of special effects— but the overall result is bound to leave ya grinnin', and if you've worn out the grooves on all your Church LPs this is a fine place to turn.

Steve Peters