RECORDS

RECORDS

WHITE CASTLE BLUES

THE FEELIES Only Life (Coyote/A&M)

The unending fuggin’ clicketysnick of 1,000 push-mowers jellies the afternoon air into a cube of dark boredom ’n’ inner numbness: the suburbs’ obsession with stability curdled into spiritual stagnation. Then one fine day, a clatter of cheap guitars and many drummers drumming rises to mock the drone of 1,000,000 mundane household chores and dull routines. A dense column of sonic hyperactivity starts to swirl. Prophets have appeared ’midst the lawn furniture and wrested redemption for themselves out of the dippity, deadening social milieu. The Feelies, outta Haledon, New Jersey, become the Ecstatic Everyman incarnate.

The sound grew out of the hallowed, hypnotic maximinial enerjet ram-THUMM of the Velvets, methodically extended and expanded ’pon. They cross-hatched it with the whorling whine of the Beatles’ Revolverera raga roll added angled percussives, sounding at times like choirs of chattering teeth. Plus the ethereal, excisive, electro troll-shriek lead guitar work—the outcome of too many nights spent zonking out to King Crimson and Eno. They created A Thing of exquisite simplicity, beauty and power.

Only Life is only the third longplayerthe Feelies haveyielded in

some 10 years, the latest fruit of their recent renaissance. It’s also the second album featuring their current and most durable line-up: founding members Glen Mercer and Bill Million on guitars: longtime percussionist Dave Weckerman; and the drillteam-precise rhythm section of Stan Demeski on drums and Brenda Sauter on bass. Where their epochal debut Crazy Rhythms emerges as a visionary text filled with aesthetically distilled, isolate methodologies, the later records are proudly rooted in rock’s more savory traditions. Not suprisingly, Only Life subtly evokes the Fab Four’s proto-psychedelicisms and the Velvet Underground album consistently througout—the debt to the latter band laid bare with a heartfelt, straightforward reading of “What Goes On.”

Less expected in the toughenedup, garagey cut-n-thrust of much of Glen Mercer’s lead work, best shown off on “Higher Ground,” a sweaty remake/remodel of the Seeds’ chestnut “Can’t Seem To Make You Mine.” And still, amidst these more conventional elements, the Feelies’ patented sense of dynamics, cagey textural strategems and crazy, crossrhythmic harum scarum are unmistakably at work. “Too Far Gone,” from the new Jonathan Demme film Married To The Mob, is an archetypal Feelies rave-up: full-tilt, guitardriven powerdronethat blossoms into a terse conversation between Demeski, Sauterand Weckerman. And there’s plenty more where that came from.

Without trying to live off the legend, Only Life firmly re-establishes the Feelies unique oeuvre as a preeminent presence in the rock underground while allowing them to slip outside its confines as the whim takes them.

Howard Wuelfing, Jr.

STEVE MILLER Born 2 B Blue (Capitol)

Like many rock vets these days, Steve Miller is going the roots route. 1986’s Living In The 20th Century was dedicated to late blues great Jimmy Reed and featured several examples of laid-back, cleaned-up blues, lightweight pleasures at best.

This time around, he’s covering a disc’s worth of tunes in various jazz and'r&b bags.

You might have noticed it’snotthe Steve Miller Band this time out; as a matter of fact, it’s just Steve, working with keyboardist/producer Ben Sidra n ’s band (the same guys who recorded Sidran’s On The Live Side LP a couple years back). They’ve got that light swing thing down and Ben and Steve have done good work together, off-and-on, over the past twenty ye^rs, but this project never really jells.

It starts out more like watery Jell-O, floating in on “Zip-A-DeeDoo-Dah,” then a way bleached “Ya Ya,” followed by a version of “God Bless The Child” that sounds like an

amateur night winner in a Michael Franks Wanna-Be contest. True, Miller’s-always had a smooth side, but this stuff slides by so quickly, your ears barely have time to notice it.

Fortunately, things improve from there. Jazz heavies Milt Jackson (vibes) and Phil Woods (alto sax) add musical weight to “Born To Be Blue” and “When Sunny Gets Blue,” respectively. “Just a Little Bit” finds Miller back on familiar r&b turf and "Red Top” closes things off with a snappy little fingerpopper of a tune that shows up everything else here.

Is anyone surprised that Miller sounds more natural with the rhythmand-blues based material than with the soft stuff? I’ve been listening to him since 1968 and if he’s had heavy roots in jazz balladry, he’s sure been hiding them well. This album is more than a vanity project, sure, but it’s less than a “Willow, Weep For Me”?? Sheesh. Slayer and Stryper, the forces of darkness and of light that coexist in uneasy balance within the realm of hard rock, are both continuing on their upward growth curves. Their audiences have nothing in common; neither do they, except the representation of ludicrous extremes to which successful acts can and will go within the loose confines of metal. That’s why it’s neat to review ’em together and sort of compare the two bands on an arbitrary basis designated by some pseudo-intellectual critic type (ME!) out to make hay for himself.

Michael Davis

STRYPER In God We Trust (Enigma)

SLAYER South Of Heaven (Def Jam)

First category—HAIR. No contest. Stryper have hair that most girls would kill for. Slayer, on the other hand, prefer the “don’t bother me now, I just finished pulling myself out of the brambles” look which is more “manly” but rarely the way bigger selling metal acts prefer to picture themselves—unfortunately. Still, first round to Stryper.

Second—COSTUME. Stryper wear those fey looking bumblebee duds. Very striking and finely tailored to accentuate their feminine lines but not original—Jimmy Lea of Slade sported the same threads back in the early Seventies. Slayer’s unique togs center around the creative overuse of spikes and masonry nails with their arm guards particularly shaming of porcupines and sea urchins. Because they are more “metal” and they keep hardware store clerks in cigarette money, Slayer are deemed to have superior garb.

Next—LYRICS. Slayer are a gabby bunch on South Of Heaven, the Hanneman dude speaks of gaining

eternity through blood sacrifice on “Spill the Blood”; Tom Araya does Stryper one better on “Read Between the Lies” with “Evangelist, you claim God speaks through you/Your restless mouth full of lies gains popularity.” The best Michael Sweet and Co. can do is “I’m always there for you.” Sheesh. Point for Slayer.

Fourth is THUD QUOTIENT. All metal bands should strive for maximum thud. Slayer achieve this with ease on South Of Heaven, "Behind the Crooked Cross” being the best example. Producer Rubin obviously understands this because he’s kept their sound stark and unadorned with a guitar presence solid enough to knock your teeth out. Stryper’s thud content is more problematical. In fact, I’d say that they totally lack thud. The choice of Shaun Cassidy’s producer, Michael Lloyd, as maestro of In God We Trust, has more to do with what little girls want to hear rather than any notions of what legit hard rock ought to sound like. Easy point to Slayer.

The rating of GUITARISTS is also essential in any metal wrestle-off. Slayer’s Kerry King and Jeff Hanneman don’t really play lead guitar— they just duke out little bursts of white noise which sound like the shrieks of dying rodents. They should do better. Conversely, they are riffmasters par excellence. The entire structure of South Of Heaven is built upon the use of their supremely heavy (if tuneless) riffs. Stryper’s Oz Fox and Michael Sweet however, are better at lead work. Their harmony is all over the new album and is always melodic and precisely.executed. However, Fox’s claim that “my style of playing would almost be at home in a thrash band” is specious and not to be believed. Result? Tie.

VOCALS are important. Slayer’s Tom Araya doesn’t sing, ever. He shrieks, screams, and growls in a manner befitting the material, but if you’re honest with yourself you'll admit that, with a little practice, even you or your kid brother could hand in a similar performance. Michael Sweet has a good voice and he uses it to good effect on In God, making the record as radio-ready as it can possibly be. He does sound a lot like that faceless goob who sang for Styx, and although that may seem like a solid enough putdown, it’s obvious that Stryper are the rulers here.

Metal isn’t complete without an element of REBELLION—imaginary or otherwise. Stryper have attempted to be controversial by tying together

concepts of God and Mammon but their message (that the acquisition of money and material goods for their own sake is false . . . wow!) is delivered in such an airy and vacant manner that it’s extremely doubtful that their fans will be able to grasp the point. (Actually, I liked the cover because it reminded me of Cooper’s Billion Dollar Babies, which is an irony that Stryper will never perceive). The only rebellion going on within this band is within their own brain cells if they really think that their “positive” outlook is what creates controversy. Their “let’s all be good guys and rock for God” message is cheering but not rebellious and certainly not “metal.” The controversy they speak of is created not by their outlook but rather by the perception of the opinionated within metal that they are not “good guys” (as if anyone cares) but “wimps.” Sad, but true. Wimpery and rebellion are mutually exclusive.

Slayer are kings of rebellion. Any kid can take this new album, play it at bone-crushing volume, throw the sleeve in his Mom’s lap and be guaranteed an immediate and radical response. That’s the hallmark of good rebellion! Point Slayer!

And the last and perhaps most gut-level category—PHYSICAL PRESENCE—goes to Slayertoo. I like to think that eons ago, when Black Sabbath were first grinding out the power chords to “N.I.B.” and Dickie Peterson of Blue Cheer was hatching the idea for the metal shriek which became Vincebus Eruptum, somewhere in the vast reaches of the cosmos a great tablet came into existence which had inscribed upon it something that might be interpreted as The Ten Commandments of Metal. Of these, surely one was “Thou shalt not be of girlish countenance if you are a man!” Sorry Robert, you lose.

In more succinct terms—if the guys in Slayer marched up to the "rock squad for God’’ and Kerry King growled, "Jesus wears army boots!" do you think that Stryper would do well using fisticuffs to defend the honor of their Man? / know the answer to that and so do you. In metal, one should occasionally be prepared to literally fight and win for what one believes in. There be no turning the other cheek.

Final score: SLAYER 5, STRYPER 2 with 1 tossup. So it’s clear, South Of Heaven is two and a half times as "metal’’ as In God We Trust.

In case you think that this comparison was ‘‘rigged’’ from the very beginning given my attitude and talk about “arbitrary" categories, I assure you that you’re perfectly correct. Many enjoyable things in life are “rigged,” like wrestling matches, the MTV Top Ten, college radio playlists, promotion at the office... the sooner you learn about and accept these things, the better.

George “Metal” Smith

BLUE OYSTER CULT Imaginos (Columbia)

I was reading the latest Harvey Pekar opus the other night, whilst in the background the TV softly hummed, spinning out John Carpenter’s Prince of Darkness. I wasn’t paying much attention to the tube, although I could figure out that the good guys had been blockaded into an old church by a buncha psychopathic street people and that the 10,000year-old tube in the basement that was starting to crack and ooze foul smelling green mucus all over the floor was fulla Satan’s sperm.

The people stuck in the church are scientists working with this old wacked-out priest and they’re tryna find a scientific basis to prove the existence of evil in the world, or at

least the specific evil that’s leaking from the tube downstairs and turning several of their fellow investigators into homicidal maniacs. Eventually, one of the female scientists shows up with an angry bruise on her arm, and inside the bruise is a symbol we all know well, the Coptic crucifix/ sickle that we’ve been seeing on the cover of Blue Oyster Cult albums for lo, these many years. Quicker than you can say ‘‘Tipper Gore,” the woman’s become a slavering mass of ulcerated sores and bleeding skin tumors. She looks not unlike the average parent’s conception of what happens to you after ingesting too many recreational substances and listening to too much heavy metal music. Seems she’s going to have a baby.

Meanwhile, people are having their heads ripped off, or being eaten by swarms of cannibalistic cockroaches, or getting impaled on bicycle handlebars, while the priest goes around rolling his eyes and generally over-acting and telling us that Christ wasn’t the son of God because there is no God and the Catholic Church discovered this years ago, but they were afraid people would flip if they knew they were alone in the universe at the mercy of the forces of darkness, so they invented the myth of salvation in order to placate the masses, and maybe make a few bucks in the process, but now that the ULTIMATE EVIL is about to be born out of the goo in Satan’s incubator, the priest realizes that they’ve made a big mistake and they’d better start listening to the weird dreams they’ve all been having, which aren’t really dreams but transmissions from a future time that’s already been raped by the Satan spawn that’s about to erupt from the basement below and is desperately trying to send a message back in time to get someone in the church to do something drastic, like maybe nuke San Francisco to prevent the forces of darkness to laying waste to the planet earth.

And, ladies, fish and gentlemen, if you think that preceding sentence is a confusing mess, you ought to try to decipher the arcane gobbledygook that's offered as a rationalization for Imaginos, the latest post-apocalyptic, pre-historic, magical, mystical, mishmash of pseudo-occultism and sci-fi that the Oyster Boys have unleashed upon the unsuspecting, and, sad to say, increasingly uncaring, universe. You got your Invisible Beings, your Frankenstein Castles,

your Parallel Universes, your Secret Blood Rites, and a story with no beginning, or end, or middle. Or plot. But not to worry, they tell us. Drop the needle anywhere on the record and enjoy the-concept.

I’d love to enjoy, to suspend disbelief, to crank up the volume and trance out, but when the strongest tunes on your latest album are rerecordings of things you did 14 FUCKING YEARS AGO, you know that the search for inspiration is starting to become just a little bit too desperate. What we’ve got here isn’t exactly bad, but its overly familiar, larded with all the same old BOO tricks, including excessively long and pointless guitar solos, oceans of overdubbed voices screaming in confusion, lyrics so dense and oblique that it’d take a computer several generations to decipher ’em, and lots of references to Mystery, Astronomy and the Forces of Darkness that may have excited my imagination in my youth, but that seem painfully pedestrian as I (and the band in question) creep up on the big Four Zero, a Middle Age that’s gonna be more scary in the '90s than any of the far-off times they celebrate on this album.

j. poet

UB40 (A&M)

Saying I never much cared for reggae is a stupid way to start a UB40 review, but it’s the truth. (Of course, if you get annoyed at writers saying stupid things like this, you should keep copies of Foreign Policy piled up next to the toilet instead of CREEM, doneha think?) Okay, saying I “never much cared" for reggae is a needlessly polite way of saying I hate reggae. Unlike so many of my suburban high shool peers back in the 70s, I was never seduced by dopily bouncing rhythms and declamatory, dogmatic vocals describing some sort of comprehensive politicoreligious system that we didn’t really understand but knew involved getting high a lot.

Why wasn’t I sold? Was it the unrelenting squishiness of the reggae beat that always reminded me of walking home in cold, wet sneakers? Did it have anything to do with those goofy knit caps that look like a haven for popping Jiffy Pop popcorn? Or the consuming attraction to deceased African heads of state? I’ve more than once suspected this whole reggae-thing was all a big put-on— why else would Bob Marley insert the Banana Splits’ theme into the middle of “Buffalo Soldier”? It made me think, let me tell you.

The fact that I hate reggae all leads very predictably to the fact that I like UB40. Thankfully, UB40 bears no allegiance to reggae orthodoxy— they lift some of the stylistic vocabulary of reggae to create a tuneful pop potpourri that meat-headed First

World rock fans like me can dig. Oh, I can see the taut smiles and narrowed eyes of the Reggae Purists among you, I remember that look from when I told a Country Purist that I liked Rosanne Cash.

Purists be damned. UB40, the only (more or less) reggae band in the world that I like, should be allowed to make a living, although unemployment was its nominal if not actual starting point. (The “UB” stands for something like “Unemployment Bureau’’ and their local branch office in depressed industrial Birmingham was #40.) A self-consciously “political” band, UB40, like the late Housemartins, paints revolution and social upheaval in bright pop pastels. There was a good deal of sociallyconscious material on their new UB40 album, but even though we critics are known for recklessly slamming whole genres of music, we still don’t get lyric sheets with these pre-release cassettes. So I’ll sidestep a probing analysis of “Contami-

nated Minds” and the album’s other topical tunes lest I misidentify someone as a neo when they’re really an anti.

What really makes UB40 rise above the ganja smoke is their supreme poperafting skills. UB40 attests to the fact that their songwriting skills are still sharp enough to sustain catchiness for an extended groove like “You’re Always Pulling Me Down.” A true masterwork of their supersmooth dub-pop is “Come Out To Play,” with its enduringly strong melody, clever horn charts and an undeniable rock hook spoken in the phraseology of reggae. “A Matter Of Time” has a bright groove whose lilting, lovely musical lines rise and fall while jingly synths noodle along in the background. Chrissie Hynde joins in on the midtempo duet “Breakfast In Bed,” a tune hampered by the fact that its verses are way more interesting than its chorus. Reports of another"! Got You, Babe” were premature. On certain occasions, UB40 fully transcends any stylistic labeling and makes classic rock ’n’ roll. “Cos It Isn’t True” is resplendent in its boisterous party atmosphere framed by playfully blatting horns. The final vocal on UB40 proves that even stodgy doctrinate lefties can make good-time music—“Music So Nice” is so deep and so basic, it would’ve been an ideal doo-wop hit if it had been written back in ’57. Is that what they mean by roots, mon?

Drew Wheeler

WYNTON MARSALIS QUARTET Live At Blues Alley

BRANFORD MARSALIS Random Abstract

HARRISON/BLANCHARD Black Pearl (Columbia)

Well gang, let’s drop in and see how the Neo-Classical All-Acoustic Jazz Brat Pack are doing this month. Ah yes, I see that everybody has his uniform on—the spiffy suit and tie having become the dashiki of the ’80s. Wynton’s looking especially elegant in a sort of burnt orange tweedy number, Terry Blanchard is going for the firm-but-you-can-reasonwith-me silk look and—what’s this?—no tie, Harrison!? But he redeems himself on the inner-sleeve, sporting not only tie but natty pocket handkerchief, and then ... whoooaa, look at Branford! Bermuda shorts and T-shirt! MAJOR BREAKTHROUGH, BRAN!! And people say the young neo-C’s aren’t willing to take risks ...

Next, before getting to the music, we have to survey the liner note situation, very important. B&H opt for no liners .this month, a sensible if not

particularly original move. Bran has inner sleeve liners by brother and producer Delfeayo, who sounds a little defensive (and when we get around to the music you’ll see why). Only Wynton gets Crouched this time out, meaning a full-length manifesto by neoconservative culture cop Stanley Crouch. In backbreakingly turgid prose best described as High Neocon, Stan manages to disinvest the listener of any expectations of pleasure—listening to this double “live” album is going to be hard work, and not everyone will be fit for the task.

Having worked through a little of the faddish bullshit that always surrounds these projects, we can consider the music. Though trumpeter Wynton has definitely left behind the young hotshot’s infatuation with his own technical prowess—no more cold calisthenics—he isn’t exactly dripping with feeling either. The music on this just-under-2-hour set is often up-tempo, with its assiduous group interplay leading to explosive, climactic passages—butthough it takes up the cudgel of ’60s acoustic jazz with its swirling dialectic of traditional (blues, bop-swing) and avant-garde (polyrhythms, tonal ambiguity) elements, it has an ’80s terseness and, in its obsession with minor moods, an ’80s emotional caution ... apparently, that ramrodup-the-booty packaging isn’t all fashion-mongering. But within these modest parameters the group swings hard and cuts up like the unruly little mo’s those tasteful threads can’t disguise.

Meanwhile Bran, shorts and all, seems to be having an identity crisis. While Wynton has used the acoustic tradition to his own ends, saxophonist Branford has apparently been overwhelmed by his contemplation of past tenor titans—on the homagemad Random Abstract he comes on like the Rich Little of jazz. Sometimes

the impression is precise—Coltrane on “Crescent City,” Ben Webster on “I Thought About You”—while at other times, as when he’s all hardbop business and forward motion on Wayne Shorter’s “Yes And No,” or does a dramatic/romantic rolling and tumbling strectch on an extended version of Ornette Coleman’s ‘‘Lonely Woman,” it’s more cf a stance, suggestive of various artists. “Woman,” in fact, should be the album’s grand climax, but in this context it sounds like just another hat trick. Not that all this variety isn’t well done and very entertaining, but it leaves the impression of a player with a geod memory (and good taste), but not much to say at the present.

By contrast, trumpeter Terence Blanchard and saxophonist Donald Harrison have developed into distinct personalities. Though recognizably neo-Cs (the compositions tend to have a rhetorical flavor) they rise above the replication blues, Blanchard by dint of his maturity—his restrained yet warm solos seem to speak from a calm center—and Harrison through his eccentricity. Always willing, even eager, to go out on a limb, there are times (“Ninth Street Ward”) when the saxist actually works at forging a new syntax. Harrison is, in fact, the only one of these bright young horn men who plays as though he wasn’t spanked frequently as a child; B&H, then, win the competition this month and leave us with this useful moral: if you want to make great jazz, it’s not enough to wear clean underwear—you have to Be Yourself too.

Richard C. Walls