ROCK ~ A ~ RAMA

ROCK A RAMA

DEPARTMENTS

This month's Rock-A-Ramas were written by Jill Blardinelli, George Smith, Mike Rubin, Fran Kaphobe, Brett Bush and Karen Schoemer.

BOWERY BOYS

George Jones vs. Godzilla

_(Office Cassette)_

Talk about 'obnoxious' rock n' roll. This 6-song debut cassette from Champaign, IL's Bowery Boys has one foot in the gutter, warning ya from the first song that 'Here's more music JUST FOR BOYS!!! All the girls scream, saying what's that noise.' These guys sing about custom designing a cool convertible by cutting their used car in half, Black Labels and smokes, their gigantic skateboard ramp and 'yeah, card us, card us, we're so young, we're ffen guys with beer enough for one.' Bowery Boys music sounds like everything fun from Aerosmith to Woody Guthrie to Sweet/Raspberries bubblegum to Ramones. And I think this music is so obnoxious that, uh, well, I do know every last word and beat by heart. (Office Records, P.O. Box 1792, Eau Claire, Wl, 54701.)

J.B.

SUN RHYTHM SECTION

Old Time Rock N' Roll

_(Flying Fish)_

Here's one for all the BoDeans fans who dug the rockabilly covers heard on their most recent tour. Some session musicians who played thirty years ago with Elvis, Jerry Lee, Carl and Johnny reunite on this album. Like the best Sun label records (especially Elvis), it's raucous and cornball and wonderful. There's a stellar version here of 'Red Hot' (many of you may know the version by Jim Dickinson). This time, it's rasped by legendary Sun R&B wildman Sonny Burgess, which leads me to wonder if this song didn't inspire the long-legged beauty in the BoDeans 'Ultimately Fine.' Liner notes reverently tell us that the original Sun artists 'hammered out pieces of rock lore each time they stepped inside Phillips's tiny Memphis studio ...'. In other words, if you can't cut rug to this music, you might wanna buy those Depeche Mode discs I've been tryin' to get rid of...

J.B.

THE VERLAINES

Bird-Dog

_(Homestead)_

Graeme Downes, composer, vocalist and guitarist for the Verlaines, is one of those genius types: he's in his umpteenth year as a Ph.D student with a thesis on some 19th century composer, he named his trio after a French symbolist poet. He's this weird intellectual person, yet he writes rock songs like he grew up on a farm in Minnesota or something. They're like jack-in-the-boxes: smooth on the outside, nicely decorated, fancy even, but just boxes, really, then BOINNNGGGM out pops something totally unexpected, be it a sudden burst of punkish clamor, an oddball image, or an entire string section. He writes and sings lines like, 'And so, the tillerman will take hold, the shady bastard will come and make you bleed,' and you don't know if he means it about the tillerman, but you know he means it about the bastard. Graeme's lyrics are poetry, in that you can read them and not understand them, but in case you're in the mood for fiddling with allusions, analogies, and whatnot, you can rerly get something out of them, and it makes the songs even better. I mean, I think he's brilliant, and I think Bird-Dog is my favorite record of the year. It makes me really happy when I play it.

K.S.

TIM LEE

What Time Will Tell

_(Coyote) _

In the early eighties as half of a Mississippi more-or-less duo called the Windbreakers, Tim Lee helped define the Southern jangle school which also included R.E.M. and Let's Active. When the 'breakers split in '86, Lee (never really the band's jangly half) dove into various side projects in search of his own identity: acoustic psychedelia on Gone Fishin'\ garage goofdom with Beat Temptation; broad, hard pop on his 1987 'solo' effort A Different Sort. What Time Will Tell is his strongest, most consistent work to date, with Lee extracting the best of what he's learned over the years: songs like 'Turn Around,' 'Talked About It' and 'Sandra and Jim' have the kick of Some Girls-era Stones, the gritty sadness of Gram Parsons and the imminence of Van Morrison. Producer Gene Holder (exdB's) adds a polish that doesn't cover up Lee's raw, terse vocals; also helping out are Doug and Janet Wygal (of the Wygals) on drums and vocals, and Faye Hunter (once of Let's Active) who contributes one track, the reminiscent rosette 'Back in September,' and whose shy, sweet duet on the title track insure that What Time Will Tell will be a collection of treasure well down the line.

K.S.

feedtime

Shovel

_(Rough Trade)_

Cabdrivers of the world unite! The import-bin find of '87 is now the domestic home-wrecker of '88. Shovel is a crackshot collection of simple, unpretentious and molar-cutting music to run lights by. This group chews so hard they don't NEED a capital F. The back cover mug shots of this Australian trio reveal them to be a bunch of regular flannel-clad fellas, grungy guys you might easily mistake for your plumber or aluminum siding installer or local serial murderer. The feedtime groove hints at the latter, or rumbling rampage of shuffling drumbeats and sternum-shaking basslines and fists and sweat and stiff pints of lager, plus enough seamy slide guitar to make Ry Cooder into something you slap a slice of ham between. No mere prole art threats, feedtime attack with a savage honesty that could only have been borne from heavy drinking and frequent exposure to early Rose Tattoo. Each of Shovel's nuggets of noise assaults with like-minded fury, but the scratches they leave about your face and neck are all distinctive from one another, making this one of the most ROCK solid albums of this year (and last).

M.R.

AMBITIOUS LOVERS

Greed

_(Virgin)_

Arto Lindsay used to sound like— Vohweet-shaminnnnggg ... grun, grun, grun eengnthhh bwaang. Now he is more like—tinka, tinka tonkk (tasty lick) ch ch chink. Not a bad record as a continental dance-type thing, Peter Scherer (keyboards, synth bass, drum programming and Sampling ... oh yeah, and producer) graciously lets Art sing and play 'tasty' guitar to great effect. Too bad he had to ruin the record by actually letting the band rock on a couple of songs though. All it does is make the rest of the carefully wrought product sound like the ... well, I can't be mean because Arto is a god of guitar, let's just say it makes the rest of the record sound 'nice. ' I know that it's supposed to signal that an artist is maturing and 'branching out' when he does stuff like this. But I wish that passion and humanity weren't the first things that a 'mature' artist gets rid of.

F.K.

MONDO NEW YORK Soundtrack

_(Great Jones/lsland)_

This predictably worthless waste of vinyl features cuts devoted to the veneration of bad disco (Thank you, Phoebe Legere, we needed that!), skinhead transvestites, and poor ethnic 'street' humor. All about as funny as picking your nose. Only Manitoba's Wild Kingdom's resurrection of the Dies' 'New York, New York' is worthy of consideration; the transposition of the lyrics, 'I ride trains with Negroes . . . junkies, fags, and squares' to '. . . b-boys . . . junkies, gays, and squares' is interestin' in that it reveals even Adny Shernoff is worried about steppin' on societal toes these days. And the thought that Alan Douglas bankrolled this loser boils the mind. Hendrix wept.

G.S.

UNION CARBIDE PRODUCTIONS In The Air Tonight

_(Radium)_

Forget Mats Wilander. THIS is the year's ass-kicking import from Sweden. Side one is an osmium-heavy spew of early '70s Ann Arbor power chords, feedback fuzzier than Rob Tyner's hair, and tortured tonsil tones that stalk the aisles, fork the cash, and carve the turkey. Sure, Stooges' clones are a dime a douzieme these days, but UCP's m'ore brutal flogging of an ancient equestrian pumps a mustard that recent releases by Iggy ilk like the Impotent Rifles and Lymon Spiders just can't cut. Like most postmodern howlers, Ebbot Lundberg's vocals are from the Cave/Yow wing of the I. Pop school, but his gnarled epiglottis sounds just enough like Oscar the Grouch to make him endearing, rather than annoying. Side two attempts an artier approach ('looka mama, a sjong wita Frencha title!') but meanders, missing the Motor City methedrine motordrive that makes up for one's lack of originality. 'Ring My Bell' and 'Financial Declaration' glare with the most bloodshot of beady little t.v. eyes, but Holy Chiffons! 'Cartoon Animal' is the cakewalk winner of the 'My Sweet Lord Award' for it s potentially lawsuit-inducing note-for-note cop of the Sonic Rendezvous Band's 'City Slang.' Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, boys, but litigation is no way to start a career.

M.R.

THE RAYMEN

From The Trashcan To The Ballroom _(SPV)_

The Raymen are from Germany and make a Sound most easily defined as Cramps-like. But they also know how to play their instruments, so the guitars sound real good—super cool Link Wray (surprise) twangy and fast. Punchy drums are sparse and just up front enough, and that's about it—except for the occasional appropriately quirky piano tinkle and Hank Ray's psychotic warbling. It would be awfully easy to dismiss these guys (and gal) as just more of the same old drive-in slashabilly cats, and tried 'n' true song titles like 'Down in the Cellar,' 'Devil in a Big Blonde's Shape' and 'Theme From Space-H' don't help them live down that B-movie/voodoo/old Cadillac worshipping swampdweller genre pigeonhole, but at least they don't mention Ed Gein anywhere on this record. A recommended entertainment selection. Even if they are from Germany.

B.B.

RUN WESTY RUN Hardly, Not Even

_(SST)_

There are times when even rock isn't enough. You know, you've gone through Iggy, Sabbath, Hawkwind and Black Flag, and you can't even get up the vim and vigor necessary to whale on your little sister. That crunchy guitar nut that short circuits your sex-drive, narrows your eyes and destroys your posture ... that's what your body craves. Run Westy Run start with that craving, add a touch of internal madness, then run the whole thing through that acid-drenched car wash known as Minneapolis. Hold the hot wax though, the three brothers and their two henchmen who make-up this sub-beat combo want to take your brain to the sun before the ultimate Simonization. Dig! The first lines of the album scream 'Well I am the yolk of the dumbwish and I got a little luck from the ones who get from A to Z'. First band in while that has a psyche to match their sound. Heavy.

F.K.