Roadrunner 4(5) June 1981

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smt-mm fhiaikulpoo 3 RRR-FM, Australia’s leading public broadcasting radio station, faces imminent closure.

The threat to Triple R holds critical implications for the entire public broadcast­ ing network, as it exposes the Weakness of current funding methods for this media in Australia.

The Station’s Manager, Dr. Jeff Langdon, siiid: “ $100,000 is needed within five weeks if 3 RRR-FM is to survive” .

Dr. Langdon, launching a public campaign to raise this money, said the crisis was due to a shortfall in expected educational funding from Victoria’s key education institutions.

A meeting of 70 staff and volunteers a g re e ^ to an all-out campaign to raise $50,000over the next five weeks — and the station’s Board of Directors has pledged to match that amount, dollar for dollar.

But, the Board warned, there was no guarantee that Triple R’s 14 staff members could be paid after this week.

3 RRR’s Station Manager said “ It would be tragic if such a viable, popular and dynamic educational enterprise went to the wall simply because of short-term cash flow problems” .

Dr. Langdon, who accepted the position of manager only three weeks ago, stressed that if this immediate crisis could be overcome he was confident of establishing a stronger financial base for the station in the future.

Launching the public appeal on air, Jane

Clifton, of Stilleto and Prisoner fame said, “As our regular listeners will know, this station has been funded by 10 of Victoria’s education institutions in pafrticular R.M. I.T. has substantially supported this important broadcasting project since it started in 1976. “ But financial cutbacks in education, gen­ erally, in Australia and the recent so-called Razor Gang recommendations make these funding arrangements extremely difficult, to say the least.

“Yet, paradoxically, the current economic and political climate makes an independent and alternative broadcasting voice like Triple R more important than ever. “ If Triple R, Australia’s leading public radio station, does close the national network of public radio stations will obviously be jeopar­ dised. But this station believes this must not be allowed to happen.

“We need your financial support to take us but of this crisis but even more importantly your support will demonstrate to the educa­ tional institutions and to the other organisa­ tions from whom we can seek funding . . . that RRR is the most important and popular community education project that has yet been established in Australia.

STOP PRESS: The Angels, The Sports and Little Heroes will be performing at Festival Hall, Melbourne on July 3rd in the 3RRR-FM “Alive and Kicking” Benefit Concert.

TOURISTS Guitar legend Roy Buchana/i will be touring Australia for the first time later this month. Very much a ‘musician’s musician’, many bona fide guitar heroes, including Clapton, Page, Townsend Beck, Leslie West and Nils Lofgren, have claimed him as an influence.

Buchanan has nine albums available in Australia ranging in musical style from country/rock/blues through to jazz fusion on an album with Stanley Clarke.

Buchanan and his band will be sup­ ported on the eastern leg of their national tour by two stalwarts of the Australian blues scene. Matt Taylor and Phil Man­ ning, reunited for the first time since the days of Chain. The Manning-Tayior Band will have an album, ‘Oz Blues’ released just before the tour. o oc

BIRTHDAY PARTY TO BE CANONISED? Latest reports on the recently dubbed ‘perfect’ Saint Birthday Party has them soon embarking on a tour of Europe, taking in Belgium and Holland, and then to Rome. This is to be followed by a tour of the entire east coast of the United States.

The band are releasing a new single, with two songs which they’ve also recorded in a Joiin Peel session. Also in the same session they recorded their erstwhile encore, The Stooges ‘Loose’.

Ah, all this perfection’s given me a nose­ bleed.

Mike Oldfield, reportedly delighted with the success of his single, ‘Wonderful Land’ and album, ‘QE2’ is set to tour Australia later this year. Outside the U.K., Australia is the first country in the last couple of years to actually sell a quantity of Oldfield albums. No details on the size of the touring party are yet available, but it is doubtful if Oldfield will bring a whole orchestra with him as he did on a tour of Europe not that many years ago.

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SPRINGSTEEN TO TOUR IN JUNE? ’FRAID NOT, BUT IT JO H N DOE WASA SEVEN BECOMES GOOD RUMOUR.

POWDERWORKS

MOHDO ROCK JOIN COOL POOL After the recent acquisition of INXS, Sydney based Dirty Pool agency has added the sixth string to its guitar with the signing earlier this month of Mondo Rock.

The addition of the two acts follows the separation of the agency wing of Dirty Pool from the management function. And with two of their main acts. Cold Chisel and Flowers, looking more and more at the U.S. in the second half of the year, it’s obvious the agency could handle the business.

Ray Hearn and John Wood ruffe, who jointly manage the Angels and Flowers, have set up a management company called A Gentleman’s Agreement, while Rod Willis and Jetemy Fabyni retain their individual management roles with Cold Chisel and

Mental As Anything respectively.

All will retain their involvement with Dirty Pool.

CONGRATULATIONS JANE AND JIM M Y ‘Wild Man Of Australian Rock Marries Secretly!!!’ screamed the front page of Truth.

In their own inimitable way they were announcing the betrothal of Jimmy Barnes, of Cold C hisel, to his girlfrie nd Jane Mahoney.

The wedding was apparently a spur of the moment decision and the ceremony was attended by only a few close friends.

Cold Chisel hit the States on June 25th for a six to eight week tour, and will be doing some dates in New Zealand on the waytiverc-

Seven Records, reeling after an accident at their Sydney warehouse wiped out most of their stock, have been bought out and has changed its name to Powderworks, once upon a time the label that Midnight Oil recorded for. The label will be distributed through R.C.A. The Powderworks label will release Aus­ tralian product only (overseas artists will be released on Powderworks’ Junction label) and the first new release will be a single by the Radiators.

Powderworks inherit Seven’s distribution deal with Missing Link, the XL Capris’ Axle label and the Stunn label.

Up and coming releases from the label include the new Cure album, and Ronnie Specter’s ‘Siren’.

The proud new owners of Powderworks are Tony Hogarth and Alan Watson. While in charge at Wizard Records Hogarth was responsible for the Australian release of the Sex Pistols, the Buzzcocks, Sham 69 and many other punk heroes of the time. He was also responsible for the original signing and success of Marcia Hines, Hush, the Studs, Supernaut and Air Supply.

N.B. Birthday Party fans who haven’t been able to lay their hands on ‘Prayers On Fire’ yet. This is the reason.

Host Steve Curtis announced June dates for Bruce Springsteen on Adelaide’s Music Express late last month, an announcem ent that jam m ed the sw itchboard at ADS Channel 7 and prompted hundreds of enquiries to Adelaide’s Festival Theatre.

The Springsteen tour rumour, one of the longest running Australian rock rumours, flared into life when one of C .B .S.’s com puters churned out the wrong serial number on one of the Boss’ previous releases.^Ah ha!’ thought C.B.S. in Adelaide. ‘A new Springsteen album to co-incide with the tour.’

It also appeared that Adelaide’s Fes­ tival Theatre had been booked for June 30th and July 1st, and no-one knew by or forwhom.

So, two and two were put together.. .to make five.

Once the computer error had been realised (the computer was sacked im­ mediately) and the mystery act was discovered to be living guitar legend Roy Buchanan, the rumour quietened down again. But it’s not dead yet. The latest word is that Bruce and the E-St. Band will grace our shores in October. There are reported to be three Australian promoters chasing the deal at the moment in the States.

Ah well, where there’s life, there’s hope.

HOWARD STICKS BOOT INTO RLM BOOM As part of the Federal Government’s Election platform a tax concession scheme to encourage investment in Australia’s film industry was promised.

The terms of the scheme, as outlined by Treasurer Howard, were that 150 per cent of money invested in a film project could be claimed as a tax deduction, in the year that it was outlayed.

Not surprisingly, it set off the biggest investment boom in the film industry’s history.

And it also looked set to improve the lot of many of Australia’s out of work actors and actresses, film technicians and even musi­ cians. Many of the films planned in the rush to celluloid were to have a rock based sound­ track. Freedom, with music from Cold Chisel’s Don Walker, Starstruck, with music from the Swingers and others and the film of Helen Garner’s Monkey Grip are just three examples.

Great, you might be thinking . .. and it was

up until late last month when the Government made a crucial alteration in the terms of the tax scheme.

Instead of being able to claim 150 per cent in the year of outlay, the new terms specify that the money can be claimed only in the year that a film is both completed and used to produce income.

Within a day of this announcement three of the proposed films had stopped production.

Luckily none of the three previously named were among them.

The sum invested in film projects since the scheme was mooted is believe to be around $200m.

The film industry, which at the moment is lobbying to have the decision reversed, is claiming that the new restrictions will cause investment to be diverted to quickie-type sex ploitation, cops and robbers and horror movies (mmmmm. Sounds like commercial Australian television doesn’t it?) and there­ fore seriously tarnish the world’s growing

respect for Australia’s films.

At the time of going to prpss it seems Mr. Fraser could be about t6 step into the dispute. With $200m looking like slipping out of the Government’s hands, the film indus­ try’s future doesn’t look nearly as bright.

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“if EDITOR & PUBLISHER: Donald Robertson ADVERTISING Lyn Saunders (08) 42 3040 OFFICE Giles Barrow" HA! HA! HA! I CAN S M E L L TH E F E A R

IN T H E W E S T E R N

WORLD'

Graffiti on tne th wall across the road.

Let’s talk about rats. Not just a couple of rats, I m ean m illions and m illions of rats. Dirty rats, sm elly rats, evil rats.

Sinking ship rats.

I d on ’t violently object to rats, but W illard really liked them , and look w hat they did to him.

But this is really about the other sort of rats.

It’s the world where ‘success stories’ like Brenton Roberts are accurately cast as B-grade used car salesmen, for the conniv­ ing ignoroids conniving the ignoroids they are. The market place full of rotting fruit right next to an orchard with the sign ‘Trespassers Persecuted’. The decay, disease, pestilence and disgusting psychological poverty that is the stinking rats’ nest that is rock and roll (or UN-r’n’r depending on how you view it).

It is the ruined scene.

It is the terrible things that are done in the pursuit of the mighty dollar. It is the shocking destruction of humour, energy, integrity and the pleasure of diversity. It is the creating of cretins, and then keeping them cretins. And the final seal on our doom, is that somewhere in there, the cretins learned how to create cretins, and keep those cretins cretins. The cretins are proliferating cretins that actually like being cretins . . . cretinous?

The real agony hits home when the sm arter cretins start m asquerading as human beings. They succeed in persuading the dumber cretins into believing them. Then they make the dumber cretins give them all their money, under the false pretence of being humans. And they tell the dumber cretins, who believe them, that the people who really are humans, aren’t. And the real humans don’t get any money.

Indeed, don’t get me wrong, there’s lots of very affectionate terms I can (and do) use in reference to money. Why, ite fantastic stuff.

I’ve seen cretins having all s (^ s of fun with it.

It’s easy to spot a happy cretin. He’s in the process of giving all his money to a smarter cretin (or else he’s been given money by a clumber cretin).

N othing against money, it’s just the methods and practices of those who have it, and how they got it.

I’m waiting for the cretins to blow up the world. Problem is, it’ll croak all the humans too.

Ah yes, ratsnbatsnthings that rattle in the night, I guess it’s time for me to start the Birthday Party backlash. I deem it my journalistic duty to fight fire with fire, and for the perfect ban, we must have the deluxe model, perfect backlash. I’ll sneak in a review of a prehistoric gig from the days when they used to cover the Ramones’ Shocktrooper.

Yes, yes, yes, some old skeletons. It wouldn’t surprise me if they turned ’round and played it again, just to get up people’s noses, but I should think that they have more constructive forward moves to make.

But I must admit to being touched when they did The Stooges’ ‘Loose’. A simple thing for them, it is relevant; but how many of the ‘trendy’ part of their following would have let themselves think of it, themselves. They would have been breaking the rules, it would have been (can I say this?) uncool.

And it sets the Birthday Party beautifully apart, that they have NO rules. Yet people turn around and use them AS a rule. They see a totally non-conformist band as an image to conform to — incredible.

I derive a great deal of cynical pleasure from observing stupid trendy copy bands getting completely lost by spending too much time barking under the wrong tree. They’re stuck in a pattern of leaping up to copy the newest fashion, grasping at new ‘formulas’

To whom it may concern, conversations with the musicians This is a reply from DNA to John Doe’s concerned as weti as “formai” inter­ comments in the last issue. views. i wouid have thought that any (1) DNA is not a punkzine,' it is a fanzine “muso” taiking to me would have (there is a difference) realised that they were in an informal (2) I retract the personal abuse I wrote interview situation. about Mr Doe (6) the Bad Poets buy their own drinks (3 ) 1 agree fully with Doe’s comments (7) I only abused Doe in print in the first about punks today being the hippies place to get some publicity for myself of the eighties, I expressed sentiments and my crummy publications ajoiip these lines In DNA, try re­ (8) i thank Mr Doe for his corrections to reading it. my m isinform ation regarding the (4) the presence of a lot of fanzines may Sputniks and invite him to contribute seem healthy, but don’t forget that I more often to DNA’s information ser­ alone write (or at least) print most of vice. Over to you J.D. from media them — they don’t call me Adelaide’s magnate, Harry Butler Rupert Murdoch for nothing. (ednor o f DNA, Wombat Turd and Rip (5) DNA does NOT collect Its information Off fanzines, and printer of Public via c ^ s ip or eavesdropping as J.D. Servant and Board Stiff) implied). I get my stuff from casual

tor expressing the same sentiments, and concentrating more on the formulas than on any sentiment, usually making an artform out of the simple act of boring people.

I love that old faithful ‘anti-success’ (you )wa (or (i know, Adam’s ticket) attitude in this crowd at least the noisy denials). And they want success so badly. That old “ No-one’s gonna notice if we change just a tiny bit, why after all, change is the essence. Can’t be conser­ vative and stand still, can we now?’’.

Just so it happens to be toward a formula that someone else already invented, and then not lucky. Then they need to change just a little bit more. Mind you, they have to keep a pretty close eye on themselves so that they can direct the changes.

Just a little bit more.

The success doesn’t come, and then they’re fucked. So these lemons are cut, bleeding with paranoid winces and looking at the blood of their serious endeavours, wondering “ Why have I been let down?’’.

Too paralysed by their narcissistic convic­ tions, they’ve failed to see in any way how their initial thoughts and inspirations were very much chosen for them by others. The early stages of this realisation, like good propaganda, sim ply narrowed and strengthened their views, until in the end they became so narrowed as to be lost.

One minute blindly certain, and the next completely lost. Then they’re looking around (backwards) to see what the name was of the last town they were in.

And then it turns out that they are sufficiently lost, and sufficiently narrowed and grasping at straws, to be of the utmost use to their erstwhile would-be enemies.

These nameless beings see in fhem the potential of easily moulded, directed, exploited and then disposed of PRODUCT. That’s the way the money goes.

To Roadrunner, Great to see your music paper giving The Reels a fair go. I’ve heard a lot of crap recently about the band being 2nd-rate and unpopular, and it was good to see The Reels getting the hearing they de­ serve, because they’re one of the best around Sydney!

I first heard them last year, now I’m a Reels fan for life. Despite Polly leaving they can still pull a good crowd and put on ™ a good show, even if the keyboards (when they are played) sound a little shallow* Your May edition was the first I’ve seen and it’s encouraging to see you plugging for the exciting and innovative Aussy ^ bands around the country, rather than ■ cheap BRIT imports or slow, boring YANK “Superstars”. Most radio stations aren’t in tune with what’s happening on the local scene and I feel there should be some sort of local content rule to encourage the stations to play Aussie bands. The only Sydney station that plays popular local bands is 2JJJ. Keep on doing a great job.

SYDNEY EDITOR: Stuart Coupe (02) 569 8964 MELBOURNE EDITOR: Adrian Ryan (03) 347 3991 BRISBANE: David Pestorius PERTH: Kim Williams LONDON: Keith Shadwick, Larry Buttrose, Chris Safewicz

I

CONTRIBUTORS: Stan Coulter, Goose, Tyrone Flex, Span Hanna, David Langsam, Adrian Miller, Sue Wylie, Craig N. Pearce.

DESIGN & LAYOUT: And Productions — Richard Turner, Kate Monger, (08) 223 4206.

TYI»ESETTING: S A . l y p e C e n t r e (08)2118811

DISTRIBUTION: Gordon & Gotch for Australia and New Zealand PRINTER: Bridge Press, Seventh St., Murray Bridge, S.A. 5253 Ph: (085) 321744.

Recommended retail price — 80 cents ROADRUNNER is registered for posting as a publication Category B. HEAD OFFICE: 103 King William St.,^ KENT TOWN S.A. 5067.

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;

PHIL JEN KINSO N W EST PYM BLE LETTER OF TH E M O N TH A W A R D V-

Doadniiiner 7

“I’M A PERFORMING

BEAST

II

M idnight O il’s low profile, ‘com m ercially’ speaking, disguises the band’s large and devoted follow ing in all of A ustralia’s Eastern cities Sydney, Brisbane, M elbourne and Adelaide.

And they seem quite happy to have it that way. Midnigh Oil operate outside the established order of things in the Australian rock industry. They do not currently have a recording contract, which according to drummer Rob Hirst, gives the freedom to “ break up without being sued by anyone” , preferring to deliver finished tapes and artwork to Seven Records who distribute it. The band have the freedom, says lead performing beast, Peter Garrett, to negotiate with whoever they choose.

The latest information about the band clears up the cautious statements from Garrett when I interviewed him in Adelaide in March about “ big things being in the air” (I thought he might have been referring to himself, after witnessing the Oil’s white hot performance under the stars at Adelaide Uni later that night).

The band flew to London at the end of May and while there will record an album with Glyn Johns (who has produced people like the Stones and the Who) as well as doing some club performances.

According to manager Zev Eisik, negotiations are proceeding with a number of companies in the U K. for the release of the album outside Australia. Front runner at this time seems to be A&M, who recently signed Melbourne’s Models to a worldwide release deal.

The following interview was conducted in Garrett’s Adelaide motel room. Also present were Terry Bradford and Paul Storey from 5MMM-FM whose tape recorder I used. Thanks chaps!

There had been a degree of consternation as to whether Garrett would.make the gig as at last report he was said to be shooting crocodiles in the Northern Territory. Ted Nugent eat your heart out! So let’s clear that one up huh?

n

8 Roadrunner

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says Peter Garrett o f M idnight O il.

Donald Robertson doesn't feel like arguing. (pic: Algra)

-t DR: “ Were you actually shooting crocodiles or Ju st ‘ checking out the Top End?” PG: “ Yeah, I was wrestling them with my bare hands (laughs). No, I was Just having a look. A holiday. I liked It up there so much, I decided not to come back. But I came-back anyway” v: DR: *1t seemed to be typical of M idnight Oil in that you don’t tow any kind of line except the one you make up ' yourself.” - 'VPG: “ Everyone was very very perturbed about it — especiaiiy the people w ho’d lined us up to do important things. Of course in the old days If you decided you were going to cancel things it was no big deal. Now it’s a little bit more important. I relinquished my desire to hang around in the mangrove swamps and came ..home.” r : The Adelaide University show was one In a series of dates that Included the reopening of Selinas, a show In Star Hotel country (Newcastle) and a couple of dates in Melbourne. ■- \ : I asked if the ‘Bird Noises’ E.P. was released Just to get something out.

PG: “ No, not at ail. In actual fact, we started demos for the third album prior to recording ‘Bird Noises’. ‘Bird Noises’ was Just a series o f demos fo r the L.P. We recorded those tracks at the Music Farm with the addition of ‘Wedding Cake Island’ which was originally going to be part of a soundtrack fo r a surf movie. Some people asked us if we had any surf m usic and we bad heaps — we love it. But just as a joke I’d put a dialogue over it, what we thought the surf movie should be all about. Relating it to the coast and going up north from Sydney. We recorded it and It came out really well.

Everyone liked it. But It was im possible to press if because of this monologue over the top which was fairly extreme and obscene. We realised we had four things all recorded In the same studio, all of which ,sounded quite good, so we thought, why not? In actual fact we’d done it all ourselves, we paid fo r it all. We got distribution back through Seven and put it out. And it turned out more successful than any of us expected it to be.” ■ DR: “ Possibly the most successful thing you’ve , d o n e ... ■;■ PG: "Yeah, it m ight be, although ‘Head injuries’ s till keeps going.”

DR: “ In fact, ‘Wedding Cake Island’ was the track that everyone picked up and played."

PG: “ Yeah, well, it was the only thing that radio has had the chance to play that hasn’t had me on It! (laughs) And secondly It did n ’t contain peculiar noises and ly ric s . They o b v io u s ly Jumped on it, th in k in g , ‘Everyone knows about this band, aw yeah, this is great . . , sounds very pleasant, let’s play it . . . ’ And then they can say they’re doing their bit fo r Australian rock’n’roll.”

DR: “ Which isn ’t really a very honest approach to .Midnight Oil, is it? ” ?: PG: “ Not as far as we're concerned. We’d given airplay a miss. There are certain stations that are going to play us, but they aren’t the ones that dictate popular taste.

They’re more Important to us, hut we didn’t think we’d get across the board ., DR:“ Has the E.P.’S success changed any of your attitudes towards the established radio or the industry in gener al ?’’

J PG: “ No. in fact we don’t even think about it asm uch as we used to. We’re just intent on doing our own thing (laughs). We were surprised That people took ‘Bird Noises’ so seriously. Things like. “ This is a radical change In direction’, ’this is a significant departure’ and all these phrases, waaagh! That’s got nothing to do with it. It was fun and obviously shows that we can do more than we’ve done In the past.” “ We’re not under any pressure to record quickly

’Cos we’re not signed up with anyone. And seeing how we don’t have ‘h its’, it’s not necessary. We don't work all that quickly. We experiment an enormous amount, behind the scenes. I think It would surprise people if they knew how much . . . but we don’t care how long it takes as long as we’re happy with what we do.”

Garrett offers a succint answer to the query about the band using the Music Farm Studio In Northern N.S.W. ‘We were on our way back from Queensland and it was cheap’ said he. The Farm’s reputed ‘laid back’ atmosphere didn’t really get to the Oils though.

"B y the tim e we got Into the studio we’d just been hanging around fo r a couple of days, and we were really eager to knock the songs out quickly and get out of the place,” he laughs. “ And there’s a lot of energy on those tracks.’’ - ; - :— - : What about the ‘m ythical’ vocal on 'Wedding Cake Island ’ that didn’t make It onto the record. “ The reason It did n ’t make it,” says Garrett, “ is because it’s grossly Itbellous. Like It was just this monologue describing the trip up the coast, like a folklore kind of thing, but I got caught up on how Port Macquarie had been fucked up by developers. 1named people.” He doesn’t look at air contrite. “ Real estate agents are one of my pet hates. I gave ’em a real hammering. Right over one of the nices guitar bits. I’m going ‘AW FUCKING BULLSHIT’ blah blah blah I got a bit excited.”

M idnight OH are definitely a Sydney band. In fact once upon a tim e people used to say M idnight Oil and the Angels defined a Sydney Sound. Comment Peter Garrett: ■’ ■. ' “ They define a sound in the sense of the power. I th ink that’s from having to get through the intensity of a city like Sydney. It’s an overpowering place . . . it’s also a result of going in to the big suburbs and having a go at them. I thing there fs a Sydney sound, also altho’ I don’t know if I’d credit those two bands with it. Even, among the very new bands; they play it like Sydney bands.-..-./' “ There’s a tradition otperform ance in Sydney, There are a number of acts, of which we’re a very very good example, who have decided they’re going to break the whole thing apart by their performances. We never would have had a chance doing it the other way. We would have been obscured and loved by a few people. “ A band like Hush, who were a pretty awful band, but who dressed up a n d p e rio rm ed . . . they were playing in Sydney at a time when nothing was happening, when ail the m usic was in Melbourne, and there was this bunch of guys jum ping around in their Chinese outfits and what have you, and they went over a storm. “ It’s really pizzazzy . . . a lot more showhizzy too.”

The current d e c ib e f meters and early closing in Sydney are not much to Garrett’s liking. “ It’s terrible, terrible. In fact fo r the Oil’s it’s even worse ’cos we’re a Sydney band basically and we can’t play inner Sydney at all. We’re already lim ited in the number of places we’ll play, because of our own preferences; it’s ju s t . . . turning into another fucking headache. There is Selinas now though .

What’s the drum on the band buying a whole heap of shirts fo r their fans so they could beat Selinas (now rescinded) dress restrictions? : ' “ f’m not convinced we’re going to pay all that money at alL” says Garrett. “ But yes It’s true. The idea’s great, It’s just that we’re not all that rich. Selinas weren’t going to let anyone In who was wearing a T-shirt. We found out about this very late. It wasn’t really our fault It was the fault of the people who organised the gig.

Of course fo r some audiences it w ouldn’t really matter, but fo r the Oil’s audience it was really crucial. There’s ju s t masses of them and they’re alt grotty. / walked in wearing a T-shfrt and jeans. I perform like that half the tim e, So originally we were going to pull the date out,

but it was tcu Sc we cought a whole stack of shirts, stamped Midnight Oil on them, and every person who didn’t have a shirt got one.” Did you take them hack after the gig? “ No, they were theirs to keep. We’re not Indian givers!” Garrett exclaims. “ In actual fact,” he lowers his voice, “ we bribed the doorman, you k n o w . . . drugs . . . “ Come on, get It together, let 'em in.” Most people took their shirts home which was te rrific.”

Talk turns to the rash of Sydney Independent releases, leases, young hands getting a single out after only playing a handful of times. Garrett finds this ‘terrifi­ cally, enorm ously healthy’ b u t;/ :. “ It’s worrying too. I’m a performer. I am a performing beast (laughs). There's still nothing more exciting, as a perform er or as a punter, than going somewhere, be In a 2 f^ capacity pub or a 2000 capacity hall and seeing a band I enjoy having a good night. That to me Is fantastic. There’s nothing that’ll ever beat that. And yet we’re losing that. People are having to look at other mediums ot comm unication. You can record and press records cheaply now, and that’s great, but the whole a r t. . . it Just worries me. People tell me that video is the next big thing and that people soon w ill be paying $5 to go to a pub and see videos and I say ‘Bulishit they are.

We w on’t have anything to do with that.’ I don’t beiieve In th a t Someone could say, ‘That’s retrogressive: Cassandra; Luddite, blah, blah, blah’. But it means much much more fo r me to do It night after n ig h t” The O il’s don’t have a reputation fo r massive six month bone crushing national tm irs. I ask the obvious question — is that to retain perspective? To live your own lives outside the band? “ Of course It Is,” says Garrett softly. “ Of course It is.

We’ve never been enamoured with becoming a rock’n’roll treadm ill. I’m Inclined to think that unless you’re extremely well looked after, then, constant touring generates an enormous amount of income and you don’t see much o f it. And really, touring is a fucking bore. The only real enjoymeint Is that 1Va hours on stage.” -' When one is as distinctive, appearance wise, as Mr. Garrett, ft could prove d ifficu lt to have any kind of ‘normal’ life that doesn’t involve immediate recogni­ tion. But then Peter Garrett’s idea of a normal life Is perhaps a little different to m ost peoples. “ I lust live my life. I’m a person of extremely modest means. That blue bag (he polnts to a beat-up coverall In the corner of the room) I have had fo r 2% years, t travel round the world with it. And I don’t own much else. I don’t even have a house to live in or anything like that. I sleep on the floor of my brother’s house or with friends. And if i wanna go away I go away. I have a tendency to go to oi.it of the way places, where they haven’t heard of me, and ju st hang out there.”

There are still places like that? “ There are a few (laughs). I got recognised in Darwin th o ’. f was amazed.” ^ Midnight Oil haven’t had the massive exposure, via T.V. and radio, that most o f their peers have had. That’s because, with T.V. at least, their attitude has always been one of ‘not interested’ unless they can have control the way they are presented. Garrett feels the band is possibly underexposed, but concedes there isn ’t really a push fo r it. I tell him about the live NIghtmoves footage that was shown in S.A. on the night of the last election, and how It was the perfect antidote to my ‘three more glorious years’ post election depression. He seems genuinely pleased T d ' enjoyed It so much.

The band’s attitude must make negotiations with record companies rather difficult, someone com■m ents.-/" ' “ Astonishingly.” says Garrett.

I ask about the Powderworks label, which was OH’S own at one stage. ^ , “ We lost ail control,” says Garrett. “ In the m iddle of one of our Seven Records fights they said, ‘We’ll put anyone out on Powderworks we fuckihg well like,’ and we said, naah, naah, nyaah, you know, one of those ones; and we said, the iabel, the idea of the label, you’ve destroyed i t We were bitter and upset, but our hands were tied lo r various reasons.” , But you are actually free at the moment?‘‘We can do whatever we want, yeah.”

Weil, there probably aren’t many bands who could say that..“ No, there aren’t.”

Drummer Rob Hirst, who has just walked In, adds chirpHy,“ We can even break up and not be sued by anyone.” Laughter. “ We’ve always kept ourselves free of those com­ m itments” Garrett continues. “ As soon as ycai sign on that dotted line it becomes business, which Is just irrelevant.”

But you’ve done that anyway, haven’t you? “ Yes we have” says Garrett. “ But the difference is, we're our own businessmen. And by anyone’s criter­ ion we would not be what you would call efficient businessmen. If you go signing those things you’ve got other people telling you what to do, when to make records, when to tour etc etc. Now, we make those decisions and, in fact, we’re lousy businessmen.”

Well, they m ight be lousy businessmen, but that night, on stage In the Adelaide Uni grounds, Midnight OH put on one of the m ost searing, white hot, incandescent rock and roil performances I have ever • had the privilege to see, I had the good fortune to be leaning on the left of the stage, a perfect vantage point, . no crowd crush, and fo r an hour and a half I stood - transfixed. Power? If the energy of the O il’s could be tapped we wouldn’t NEED to dig uranium (we don’t need to anyway, but that’s another tale.) Energy crisis, what energy crisis? , It was awesome, brilliant,: the closest to a perfect j rock gtg I’ve ever seen.

I was listening to an Interview with Lester Bangs, ' notable U.S. rock writer, a few weeks ago and he said that the two qualities he treasures in rock m usic above / all else are passion and vision, r Someone buy hirri a ticket to see M idnight OIL I think '■he’d like them.

-/' i ' ■ R oadrunner !9

“ Public Image Lim ited has been can­ celled in order to preserve their public images, so if you w eren ’t here last night, you m issed it.” This snooty little m es­ sage w as on the answ er phone of New Y ork’s Ritz as an oblique explanation of the venue’s failure to provide the second of their tw o advertised PiL show s. A ctu­ ally, the Ritz had been preparing to play host to Bow W ow W ow on the Friday and Saturday in question, but fo r som e un­ e xp la in e d reason (pe rh a p s A n a b e lla couldn’t get tim e off school, ha ha ha) they cancelled. Perhaps M alcolm M cLa­ ren w as w orried about putting them on in N ew York so close on the heels of two other ‘costum e’ bands, Adam and the Ants and Spandau Ballet, w hose well organized publicity cam paign got them loads of attention in the fashion and m usic press.

Whatever the reason, those at the Ritz’s UB 40 gig (they were mighty) on the Thurs­ day night discovered that PiL would be there on Friday and Saturday nights. (We were also told that Saturday night would be the first anniversary of the club, so a great knees-up was to be expected.) The PiL gigs had not been announced in the press, but news travels fast in New York, ^ o yours truly queued in the rain at 10pm wherKlhe doors opened, to make sure of getting in (totally unnecessarily as it transpired.)

The Ritz is a rather large dance hall of art deco design, revamped last year, and run by some pretty clever operators who have made it THE spot for seeing the best new music from Britain (UB 40, Teardrop Explodes, U2, etc. have all played there in recent months). It holds about 1,000.

By about 11pm, a crowd 20 deep was pressed up against the stage — mostly white males, a ll of whom would have looked equally at home at a Foreigner concert. Over the P.A., Jeff and Jane Hudson were an­ nounced, and walked on stage to a fairly hostile reception. This couple belongs to the

avant garde music scene in New York and plays a tasteful if unoriginal brand of synthbased music. On stage, they are small time, one mike (they both sing), a backing tape, and a syndrum which one of them occasion­ ally hits. I begin to wonder whether this sort of music belongs on a stage. Why don’t they put the syndrum and the vocals on a tape recor­ der too, and then we can all listen to it in the comfort of our own homes?

Anyway, the Hudsons get pretty shabby treatment from the assembled sophisticates, and scurry off stage under a hail of abuse after the fourth number. The voice from the heavens announces that PiL will not be among us until 1 am, so it’s cool down boy for another hour and half.

During this time, damp patrons continue to fill the hall, and by 1 am, so it’s cool down boy for another hour and a half.

During this time, damp patrons continue to fill the hall, and by 1 am, a crowd is packed sardine-style close up on the stage. This stage is completely hidden by a giant video screen, used to show clips and meaningless film footage during the breaks. When the band is ready, the screen is raised — the band revealed in all their glory.

This time, however, things were going to be different. At about 1.15, the disco stopped and some activity started up behind the sc­ reen. Assorted electrical noises were fol­ lowed by a giant image of John Lydon’s head up on the screen. Cries of “ Raise the screen” died away as we began to realise that the ‘show’ had started and that all we were going to get by way of visuals was going to be on that screen. There were a couple of video cameras behind the screen, and someone (presumably ‘extra member’ Jeanette Lee) was mixing shots of Keith Levine and Lydon on stage, with some very tedious home video they must have shot earlier. Behind the screen, a mixture of tapes (including taped vocals) and musical doodlings were being managed by Levine and Lydon. All this was very tantalizing, as you can imagine. ^Ne could even see Lydon. He was standing with his back up against the screen — so near and yet so far.

This situation lasted about 15-20 minutes until the crowd realized that not only was this not art, but it wasn’t even music . . . and it was all they were going to get. The swelling mur­ murs of discontent did not go unnoticed be­ hind the screen, and the typical, predictable Lydon sneers began; “ You’ve been conned.

This is a swizz. You’re not going to get your money’s worth, are you!” Certainly looked that way, John, especially once the people down the front decided that if the screen was not going to go up, then it was going to come down.

The screen (a very expensive piece of hardware) was then quickly raised, revealing the shambles beyond. Then began a won­ derful piece of audience response. “ Why don’t you throw bottles?” sneered Lydon. A wave of bottles dutifully assailed the stage.

Mayhem occurred. The folk at the front started to pull the groundsheet on which the equipment was set up into the audience.

Mike stands toppled. Keith Levine dived into the melee and had to be rescued by the bouncers. The crowd washed back and forth as bottles from the back fell short of the stage, and bouncers waded in for their piece of the action.

The band left the stage and the disco de­ sperately started up. People streamed out of the club, some to leave in disgust, others to try to foment riot in the streets. Hell, I hadn’t had so much fun since Elvis Costello failed to do an encore at the Regent Theatre in Syd­ ney in 1978 and four seats and a glass adver­ tising case were trashed.

On cooler reflection, however, I felt very very angry. Angry that Lydon should resort to such a tatty old trick to get a bit of attention (if that’s what is was), and angry that the crowd would let themselves be manipulated by him in such an obvious way. The reviews of the eight PiL live ‘shows’ had not led me to ex pect that Lydon would do more than stand with his back to the crowd and occasionally empty his nostril on us, but I must admit I was surprised by the dimensions of the rip off.

Fortunately all was not lost, for this pitiful spectacle was followed by one of the most inspiring and educational evenings of music ever witnessed >by your correspondent. Al Green is a black singer from Memphis, Ten­ nessee. Chances are he started off singing in church, where he developed the voice of an angel, the voice that won him widespread recognition among black audiences here, if not among whites. While his work with pro­ ducer Willie Mitchell on such albums as Call Me (made in 1973, this album is a classic, perfect in every way. If you ever get hold of it, never let it go) won Green a well deserved and form idable reputation amongst his peers, he has not had the ‘cross-over’ suc­ cess which would earn him that vital place on the pop charts. You may, however, be famil­ iar with his song. Take Me To The River, covered by both the Talking Heads and Bryan Ferry.

Three years ago, a fight with a woman left Green with a face full of boiling water and a new-found faith in the Lord. So, it was the Reverend Green that headlined a night of gospel music at the Charity Neighbourhood Baptist Church in a black area of Brooklyn.

Tickets were 20 dollars a throw, but I’d pay almost anything and walk over the proverbial hot coals for a chance to hear that voice live.

So having braved the all-black restaurant

next door (not at all threatening, just well aware of the fact that I am one of the oppres­ sors, not the oppressed) and the people at the door (who were friendly but, like me, slightly uncomfortable), I found myself sitting in a church for the first time in I don’t know how long. It certainly wasn’t like the churches x)f my youth, however, being a converted theatre, a little larger than the Regent in Syd­ ney, full of mostly women, all black, and dressed in their best and ready not only for a worshipful experience, but also an enjoyable and celebratory one. In the dark it was easy to be anonymous and also to stop worrying about the fact that I was a card-carrying non-believer. The minister and a woman in a purple hat appeared on stage amid the mike stands, keyboards and drum kits, and, after a few words, launched into some pretty im­ pressive singing. The crowd joined in too, clapping, singing, waving their hands and saying ‘amen’ and ‘hallelujiah’. After we were reminded that the evening was to be a ser­ vice in God’s house, not a show in a theatre, the first of a series of gospel groups ap­ peared.

The Bible-ettes, six women in white dres­ ses, accompanied their harmonious singing with piano and drums. Ten minutes was all they got, and the Macedonia Ensemble Gos­ pel Singers, several women in green dres­ ses, praised the Lord for their allotted time.

When the Rugged Cross Singers appeared a woman behind me said: “ At last, some men.”

This vocal group hotted things up considera­ bly. The women had good voices but the men seemed to give it even more, dare I say it, soul.

Both this outfit, and the all male Southland Singers that followed, used the same formula that whites like me have come to know and love as soul music. All the ingredients were there, the inspired vocal harmonies, the in­ tense emotional feeling, all the stage move­ ments and tricks of show biz professionals, but all in the service of religion, not romance.

Audience involvement was high and it was easy to see that religion was not a painful duty but an enjoyable well integrated part of life itself — a jo ^u l occasion.

The evening reached a clirriax with the ap­ pearance of Brother Green who was obvi­

ously more than just a religious figure, judg ing by the numbers of large, carefully dres sed middle-aged women who rushed the stage when he appeared and proceeded to fight over the red roses he occasionally tos sed into the crowd. Dressed in a white suit and backed by superb singers and musi cians. Green would have been equally at ease on any stage. His overt religious fervour lent a strange dimension to what seemed to be a very sexual experience for many of the faithful.

There is little point in describing his voice beyond saying that anyone who had fallen in love with it on record would not have been disappointed. While not enough to turn me into a born again Christian, it was an uplifting and inspiring performance. If you have never heard his voice on record, do yourself favour and listen to any of his albums. I tend to go for Call Me (several songs from this LP are on his Greatest Hits) and Belle, but any will do. His singing certainly ranks with the greats — Smokey Robinson, Marvin Gaye Otis Redding and Sam ,Cooke. Now that’ saying something!*

10 RbadrUhner

I also wondered why, if Lydon believes rock’n’roll is a con and a hoax, he bothers to even pretend to perform AND why he himself commits the most monumental of all rip offs, suppose there was no way he could lose The pathetic doodlings of PiL would either be accepted reverentially as great Art, or there would be a riot, adding to his stature as a rebel hero. And there’s not much of a band left in PiL anyway, just Lydon and Levine endlessly masturbating each other to the sound of the sychophantic and fawning re views in the English music press. I’m just waiting for the interview where Lydon says “ Oh PiL, yeah, that was a good one. We just put down all this rubbish, and all these people treated it like it was serious music. Ha ha” .

Anyway, we all lost our 12 bucks and learned a valuable lesson (don’t go to any more John Lydon gigs), and the Ritz was forced to celebrate their anniversary with Die Hausefraun and the Helen Wheels Band. No I hadn’t heard of them either.

G A H L A IT D A

N O T

J U S T

R U M O U R

rc JUNE

Garland Jeffreys, attended by the Rumour, sold out three nights in New York. The Rumour, without the demonic singing jockey, Graham Parker, and keyboard player Bob Andrews, got to do a set on their own first.

Although the three guys who shared the lead vocals, Brinsley/Schwarz, Martin Belmont (the guitarists) and Steve Goulding (the drummer), looked a b^t sheepish as each took his turn (“ All right, it’s my turn now” , said Steve), the band is just so good (the only white outfit to touch them for tasteful ensem­ ble playing would be the Attractions) and so nice (no pretentions) that they won the crowd. The Rumour’s set featured mostly stuff from their third LP, Purity of Essence, rerecorded for the States, and recently re­ leased here. They also threw in ABBA’s S.O.S. (“This is a Swedish song” ) and the Spinners’ Rubber Band Man. Nothing beats the playing of these two guitarists, so diffe­ rent in style, and yet so complementary. The absence of keyboards allows them much more room (as Brinsley Schwarz said later, with keyboards, you don’t really ever need two guitars) and even improves some num­ bers. Their current live version of Frozen Years from their second album Frogs, Sprouts, Clogs and Krauts is superior to the one on disc. Their only real problem is the lack of a confident, dynamic focal point for the band, but once the three singers feel at ease with that burden and have worked out the best way to share the vocals, there’ll be no holding back.

The night was really Garland Jeffreys’, however. Riding high on success with his cover of ? and the Mysterions’ 96 Tears, this is Jeffreys’ one big,chance to crack it in the States, and he really pulled out all the stops.

He covered most of the material from Escape Artist (his latest), and his classic from 1977, Ghost Writer — faithful recreations of the songs as they appear on the albums for the most part.

He worked the audience hard, dropping to sit on the edge of the stage on several occa­ sions and taking a stroll through the crowd while he sang / May Not Be Your Kind — all very calculated, as was his stage get-up — something for everyone — a ska hat, a lurex tie, make-up and dreadlocks. The final blow was an embarrassing interlude during Cool Down Boy, where he carried on at length about how his father used to beat him (“And he hit me and he hit me. . .” ). A rock’n’roll stage is not the place for such cheap psychodrama, especially not from a 37 year old man.

It’s not that I begrudge Jeffreys his suc­ cess, but, as a repent review of Escape Artist

by Tom Carson in the American Rolling Stone points out, he’s just so insincere. After the show, I spoke to Brinsley Schwarz and asked him to compare the two singers, Graham Parker and Garland Jeffreys. He put

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it like this: “ Working with Garland is different from working with Graham in every way you can imagine. VUithout going into the sordid details. I’d say that Graham is much more a man of the people. Garland Jeffreys is like a show biz star. Musically, Graham Parker is real and Garland Jeffreys is not. Garland Jeffreys works much harder at what he does.

It’s nothing to have a two hour sound check and play the introduction to a number ten times. Whereas Graham just wants to make sure his monitors work and get on with it.

When we play as the Rumour, we play as ourelves. When we play with Graham Parker, we give 150% commitment to everything he does. It’s easy because we feel the way he does. I don’t, and I don’t think anybody else in the band feels the way Garland feels about music or about the way to perform.”

How serious are the Rumour about their career as a band? “Very serious,” Schwarz assures me. “A lot depends on what happens on this tour and how the album Purity of Es­ sence (their third without Parker) does here.

We’ll either carry on as we are, or maybe draft someone in. After five years with some­ one doing all the front running for us, it’s a bit of a shock.” He laughs, but not as much as I’d expected, at the idea of Nick Lowe (exsinger/songwriter/bass player of the band Brinsley Schwarz) joining the Rumour now that Rotkpile have split up. Apparently the idea had crossed his mind.

Graham Parker, Schwarz says is just about to record an album in England. “After the tour of Australia in late ’79, he found OLft an awful lot of things were wrong with the financial, managerial and record company side of his affairs, so he decided he was not going to do anything else until all of that was in order and he had everything the way it should have been from the start. He’s never paid us any retainers or anything, just for the actual work we’ve done with him, so we had to say, well we’re going to have to do some­ thing else. We also felt, and he did too,'that it was time he did something without us, be­ cause we’ve always influenced him over those five or six albums we’ve made with him.

And he hasn’t really been going anywhere in terms of sales since Squeezing Out Sparks, really. So when he makes this album, he’ll decide on touring, and if he wants us, and we have no other commitments, we’ll be back!”

SYDNEY Wednesdayl? Sgt.Peppers ThursdaylS War And Peace Friday 19 Sefton Hotel Saturday20 Doyalson RSL

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Records from polyGram polyG

jm em um i

Graham Parker down and out in London according to Rumour.

Roadrunner 11

j

THE M O VEM ENT: Known variously as The C ult W ith No Name, The Blitz Kids, the M ovem ent. A bunch of am bitious kids from north London connect w ith Rusty Egan, Richard Burgess and Steve Strange (all involved with bands old and new like R ich Kids and Visage) at several im prom ptu clubs (the idea being that they take over a room in a pub for the night, run a disco and fill the place w ith like-m inded persons). Those persons have as their over-riding interests dressing up and taking photographs of each other looking good and having fun.

Dressing up, ‘doing your own thing’ fashionwise (shades of old hippie philosophy) becomes a solace for those dull nine to five lives (be a bore by day, but the night belongs to you). Add to this the fact that ‘doing your own thing’ can bring fame and fortune and you have the idea. Around the nucleus of the band, Spahdau Ballet, develops a coterie of clothes designers, photographers, graphic artists, writers etc. This do-it-yourself idea comes from punk, but has the serious money-making edge that punk never had. Initially anyway, punk bands were in it for the fun — no thoughts of being a professional studio musician by the age of 30.

Add to these ideas some very clever marketing strategies and you find that not only is the music press interested (the glossy new music monthly, the Face, looked like the Blitz Club official publication for several issues), but the straight British press is positively obsessed — full of sociological analyses of what they see as the post-punk youth movement. And it’s so much nicer than punk, ladies and gentlemen, so clean — and dressing up and making money are such commendable pursuits — much better than putting safety pins through your nose and threatening the system.

THE BAND: Although several bands are connected with this move­ ment, Spandau Ballet are the front runners. Visage, Land­ scape and Ultravox (all bastard offspring of Kralwerk on one band, and Roxy Music/David Bowie on the other) have made a showing, but the chart success of Spandau Ballet in Britain has been phenomenal. Their three singles. To Cut A Long Story Short, The Freeze and Musclebound were all top ten hits, (the first sold 400,000 copies) and their debut album. Journeys to Glory, earned them a gold record and went to number three.

Spandau Ballet are managed by a smart cookie called Steve Dagger, who whipped up a frenzy of interest in the band among the record companies. Because they did not play at regular venues and the gigs were advertised by word of mouth, record company reps found it hard to see the band. Polydor and C.B.S offered deals for £.100,000 without having even heard a demo tape f I was told that they signed with Chrysalis for a greater sum than the Sex Pistols made in all their dealings with their various companies.

They also got their own subsidiary label. Reformation, and total control over their music, promotion, packaging etc.

The 5 band members and manager met at Owen’s Grammar School in Islington, north London, and, as a sign of how vital Dagger’s role is, all monies are divided in a straight six way split. Band members are Gary Kemp (songwriting, keyboards, guitar), his brother Martin (bass), to n y Hadley (vocals), Steve Norman (percussion and guitar) and John Keeble (drums).

As important as any member is producer, and drummer with Landscape, New Zealander Richard Burgess.

THE PRESS C O N FERENCE: Spandau Ballet and six clothing designers who work around the band, headed by Jon Baker of Axiom, arrive in New York at the invitation of Jim Fourrat and Rudolf, two club operators with an eye for fashion. The band is to do a show at their club (the Underground), incorporating a fash­ ion parade. There are models, writers, photographers and friends travelling with the band and this giant entourage almost outnumbers the media at the restaurant.

Videos of the band’s three singles are shown, as well as a TV documentary made in Britain. These people have come to sell their music, their clothes and their ideas to New York. Much is made of the fact that ail of them, with the exception of Richard Burgess are ‘under 24’. Wow, I think, fancy people that young being able to make clothes and

12 Roadrunner

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music!

T H E G IG : It’s the hottest ticket in town — even those on ‘the list’ have to wait in a long line in the cold. Inside it’s a wonder­ land of bizarre fantasies. Although apostles of the Move­ ment say there is no one ‘look’, there is. For the masses, it’s basic pirate, with lots of scarves, flowing robes and tunics.

For the Axiom crowd it’s largely a stilted, unflattering com-, bination of styles of the forties with some of the sixties' cutouts (a la Mary Quant), all made in sombre but tasteful fabrics.

The fashion show goes down a storm, even though the friends/models are obviously shaking with fear and rush, rather than float, down the catwalk. Jim Fourrat appears on stage to tell us we can all be individuals. Thanks, Jim. (Never trust people who tell you to be an individual) The band appears before a tightly packed crowd and launches into The Freeze. Lighting designed by friend Simon Winter fails miserably. The intense white lights blind the audience and make it almost impossible to see the band. Is this what they want? I think.

Perhaps they have taken to heart English rock writer Julie Burchill’s scathing remarks about them being a bunch of fatties, and are ashamed to appear before us. Burchill has adopted a wonderfully aggressive stance towards this new movement, referring to singer Tony Hadley as ‘the potato-faced lead sporran’, and summing up the whole shebang thus; “ people so desperate to have a good time that they take pictures of each other laughing/drinking/ conversing to prove that they really did.” Perfect.

It soon becomes apparent that for all the funky dance beat, Spandau Ballet have only two songs, one fast, the other slow. The ‘lead sporran’ is in fact about as emotional as a potato and has an irritating, melodramatic singing style — tons of wind but no heart. The band members all strike heroic poses (there’s more than a touch of fascistic narcis­ sism in this whole ‘New Romantic’ thing). I must admit I prefer my rock aristocrats to be thin and working class (Bowie and Ferry), not fat upper class twits. The whole Robin Hood/religious cleric clothing style they now adopt reminds me of nothing more than a latter day Jethro Tull.

Can any of these men stand on one leg? I muse. Bored and near blind, I stumble from the club and prepare for. . .

THE INTERVIEW: As you can see from the preceding, I approached my interview with Gary Kemp with a somewhat unsympathetic attitude. I thought the whole thing had been blown up out of all proportion and was repelled by the constant insistence on how wonderful it was that ALL THIS had been done by people actually under the age of 24.

I was also put off by the self-righteous put-down of Viv­ ienne Westwood, cohort of Malcolm McLaren, who helped dress the Sex Pistols, Adam and the Ants and Bow Wow Wow. One Spandau sycophant told me that Westwood ‘just looked to see what the kids were wearing on the street and then made her own copy of the look.’ He also told me very seriously that she was ‘another generation altogether’.

Still, the connection in terrris of fashion styles between Axiom and Westwood, and between the bands Adam and the Ants, Bow Wow Wow and Spandau Ballet — all rely heavily on a ‘look’, and a similar one at that — is obviously annoying to the Spandoids.

I spent half an hour with Kemp and left feeling a small but grudging respect. His ideas were coherent, he was articu­ late, and even though their little scene can hardly be called the next youth movement, Spandau Ballet have made some impact on the British music scene — and these boys sure do have sound business sense.

K.P.: Can we talk a bit about your music?

Gary Kemp: I’ve never been interested in bands as such, preferring to go to clubs where you can mix with other people and dance to good recorded music, generally soul music. I don’t want to make that kind of black American musi, but to draw on it to create my own sort of emotional dance music. My main musical influence would be jazz funk, Grover Washington and Ronnie Laws.

I think clubs are important because they are places where people can express themselves and their individual­ ity, and I think that music should provide the sound-track for this. That’s what I’m trying to do, provide a sound-track. If people are not there to consume a band they can do things

together. That’s how this whole thing began for us. Two years ago we were just a bunch of friends knocking around together. We’ve shown that you don’t have to be a big, established company, showing your clothes in Paris, or anything. You can just get some clothes together, get your friends to model them — just normal kids off the street.

The lyrics of my songs are not important. I’m not getting across political ideas or trying to be philosophical. The songs are just pictures really — images. I prefer not to talk about the lyrics. I want them to be ambiguous within the music.

Synthesisers are okay, but they should not run the band.

They are there for texture. I’m getting into jazzy guitar and percussion a lot more now.

KP: Have you carefully worked out the image of the band?

GK: Not at all. When we started out, we were all interested in clothes, but we agreed not to try to work out an image, just to wear what we would normally wear to a club. Obvi­ ously we think about what we are going to wear. I think about what I’m going to wear all the time, always have done, but it’s not a uniform like punk was. We just want to reflect whatever is going on in London — just like a mirror.

KP: What’s your opinion of bands like Adam and the Ants and Bow Wow Wow? GK: Obviously following in our footsteps, they realized these days you’ve got to have a ‘look’. The time for bland dressing is over. I think what Adam is doing is good, but he’s into one image and I don’t think he’s going to progress very far. We’re into progression, into reflecting what’s hap­ pening, rather than telling people what should happen.

As for Bow Wow Wow and Malcolm McLaren — that band does not really exist as a band, it’s just McLaren operating some puppets. I’ve got no time for him. He realized there was something happening in London, but he couldn’t form a band like the Sex Pistols and tell people what to do any more, so he had to get in on what was already happening — and that was us. I don’t know what Bow Wow Wow are like — I haven’t even heard their record.

KP: What do you think of the response you’ve had from the music press in Britain?

GK: The established rock press is dying on its feet, run by lave fooled them­ patronising middle-class hippies who he selves into thinking they are socialists. These psuedosocialists probably have a guilt complex about their backgrounds. They have this image of the working class as this scruffy, ignorant mass that hangs about on street cor­ ners and beats each other up and wears terrible clothes.

The punk bands fitted into this and were easy for them to accept. They didn’t like it when we said this isn’t true, this is what’s really happening. Kids want to look good because it’s probably all they’ve got, even if they haven’t got a lot of money. Bad press doesn’t worry me. We can get bad press and still get a top ten hit because kids don’t read the music press, they listen to the radio. If they like something, they’ll go out and buy it. I could give my philosophical chats and everything, but they only care about the song.

KP: Given the bleak economic future for most kids in Britain today, do you think the idea of dressing up, looking good and going out at night is any sort of solution to that in the long term?

GK: What are the solutions? I think they are only possible within political parties. Music has nothing to do with politics.

Music is about the biggest form of escapism there is, even more than sport. What do kids feel when they go to see a so-called political band like the Clash? They come home feeling like they have done a political deed, when really they have done nothing but finance the promoter and help capitalism along its way. I’m saying you should be aware that you are more than just a part of some big grey mass.

You’re an individual, and that’s really important. It’s hard times, I know, but if you’re looking for solutions then forget about music for a start. Join a political party. I’m actually a member of the Labor Party, but I can only contribute money, not time. I’m afraid.

KP: Were any of you in bands before? What about the Makers? the Gentry?

GK: (blushes) Not exactly. Before we ever played as Spandau Ballet, we were considering names and once briefly considered the name Gentry. That was not sup­ posed to mean gentry as in rich, but to suggest that al­ though we were normal kids, we were elite in that sense of the word.

Steve Kilbev

*

TH E CHURCH by John Doe. T h e C h u rc h a p p e a re d p re tty s u d d e n ly a c o u p le o f m o n th s a g o to a g e n ­ e ra lly e c s ta tic re a c tio n .

T h e y ’ve b e e n g e ttin g th e ‘n e x t b ig th in g ’ tre a tm e n t fro m all a n d s u n d ry . F o r a b a n d w ith so little o f th e u s u a l h is to ry , th e y c e r­ t a in ly a r r iv e d w ith a s p la s h .

T h e ir first album ‘O f Skins a n d H e a rt’ , re c e n tly re ­ leased along with the single ‘The U nguarded M om ent’ , has bee n m et w ith e n ­ thusiasm % such powerful s tu ff as C o u n td o w ti, and tre a te d to c o n s id e ra b le push, although not much a c tu a l s tu d y . ‘ The U n ­ g u a rd ed M om ent’ is their s e c o n d s in g le , and c u r ­ rently doing fair business in the shops.

Steve Kilbey (bass, voc­ als), M arty W ills o n -P ip e r (g u ita r), P e te r K o p p e s (guitar) and Richard Ploog (drums) are the Church, and th ey’ve recently com ­ p le te d a b rie f s o rtie to Adelaide, and should now be re c o rd in g th e ir n e xt single, scheduled for re­ lease around August. This single will contain no songs from this or the next album (to be recorded around A u­ gust, for O ctober release), and is planned as a limited edition, double single.

The band a re picked up a fte r a m in im a l n u m b e r (five) of gigs, and signed by th e B e a tle s ’ p u b lis h in g c o m p a n y A T V N o rth e rn Songs. Steve Kilbey exp­ lains that the deal was the result of one of the album tra c k s . C h ro m e In ju ry , “ ....playing on a dem o tape through the walls. Chris Gilbey w as sitting in the next office, he’s the boss of ATV Northern, he heard his second in charge playing it, and came flying in and said, ‘W hat’s that?’

Cosy.

The resulting album was then recorded, m ostly in Septem ber last year, pro­ duced by Chris Gilbey and mixed in Am erica by Bob C le a rm o u n ta in , w ho has worked with the likes of B ru ce S p rin g s te e n , G a r­ land Jeffreys and The Jim Carroll Band. Around the tim e o f The U n g u a rd e d M o m e n t’s re le a s e . T h e C h u rch a p p e a re d on C o u n td o w n a c o u p le of tim es, with Steve Kilbey hosting one show. In the course of an interview with Steve and M arty W illsonP ip e r I a sk a b o u t th e Countdown appearance.

S.K.: “ I enjoyed doinp the film ....well, I sort of enjoyed doing it in a strange per­ verse sort of way....H osting it w as a different thing, I don’t know if I should have done that. Not from any credibility point of view, just the point of view that 1don’t think 1 did it very w ell.”

I c o m m e n t th a t it all seem ed to happen fairly suddenly.

S.K.: “ There was a year’s work behind that.”

M.W-P.: “ It was more a m atter of four guys w ho’ve been playing in different p la c e s fo r y e a rs , s e p a ­ rately, and then all of a sudden arrived at the same place.”

The album, ‘O f Skins and H eart’ is a distinctive piece of work, well produced, and definitely w orthy of praise as an Australian pop record.

It’s full of that much praised ‘jingle-jangle’ Byrds influ­ enced guitar, and notable for its colourful, but obscure lyrical style.

To wit: ‘A palm tree n o d d e d at me last n ig ht Said you look so pale I d o n ’t know if it was the air or the breeze in m y hair I h a d a feeling I h ad failed So dow n to the beach ju s t out o f reach The m oon was being trailed A g irl a nd a sailor and a hot dog trailer That’s their holy g ra il’ from ‘Bel-Air’ S.K.: “ I started writing like . that, because when you first s ta rt w ritin g , you sh o w people the lyrics you write. If it’s anything sort of per­ sonal, you have a bit of a laugh, or you feel em bar­ rassed. So I started off being deliberately obscure right from the word go, as far as the lyrics w ent.”

T h e y e x p la in th a t th e band had been together for some four m onths at the tim e of recording the album, adding that the next (with Bob Clearm ountain coming from Am erica for the occa­ sion) should be “ a lot better, more coherent” . B u tjh e y are pleased with ‘O f Skins A n d H eart’, and Steve exp­ lains: “ The album contains th e b e g in n in g s of T he Church, and a lot of various offshoots that we started g o in g up, and p ro b a b ly w on’t be going up any­ m ore.”

They express the desire to have freedom to diver­ sify, and progress, citing it a s an a m b itio n to w a rd s w tis fa c tio n , and point out th a H t w ill bother them not one bit If tbair m usic turns out to be c o m ^ ^ ^ a l, as long as they like it.

S .K .: ‘‘W ith o u t so u n d in g conceited, we want to try and do what bands like The B e a tle s d id , and th a t’s being able to put out almost anything and still sound like The Church, but just in a com pletely different style.

I’d like to experim ent with orchestras, and sitars and banjos, and just do m ore o ff-b e a t th in g s , w ith o u t being obscure.”

It’s difficult to tell just how long The Church will stay in the public eye. The band’s lack of outward intensity concerning such things as ‘deep m eaningfulness’, for want o f a better cliche, gives the im pression o f a certain aim lessness m their approaoh. ^ It’s not easy to decide how m uch of this im pres­ sion is gained due to th eir stated priority of enjoying them selves at what they do, and their belief that a lot of the seriousness in peoples’ attitudes towards m usic is unfounded. In one instance Steve and M arty discuss the difficulties of joking with each o th e r d u rin g in te r­ views, since the interviewer may not have a real clue as to how light hearted the conversation might be, and as M arty put it “ How do you write down a tone of voice?”

Steve makes the point that they are very honest, which is true, and which does leave them fairly vul­ nerable, since a ‘realisticpoint of view does usually seem a little less exciting than som e idealistic, hys­ terical save the world type chatter.

S.K.: “ I don’t take it too seriously. I think people would enjoy them selves if they didn’t as w ell.......De­ s p ite w h a t a n y o n e s a ys about us. w e’ve all got a built in sense of humour about ourselves."

He sum s things up pretty well in answer to the usual aims and am bitions ques­ tion: Just to keep on doing what w e're doing, that’s a sk. D o in g it's re w a rd enough in itself really."

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“ When I hear a , Springsteen record I don’t just hear Springsteen and the E Street Band. I hear the Drifters singing ‘Under The Boardwaik’. I hear Bo Diddiey, Fats Domino, Uttie Richard, Jimmy Jones and a hundred other biack men out of the 50’s we ail owe more than a little debt to. I hear ALL those Roy Orbison records, not just ‘Only The Lonely’. I hear Jerry Lee and Buddy. I hear Otis, Wilson, and a little bit of Muddy. I hear Ben E King singing I (Who Have Nothing)’ and Jackie Wilson screaming ‘Lonely Teardrops’. It’s Elvis meets The Ronettes meets Chuck Berry. I hear Jerry Butler with and without the Impressions, and Dion with and without the Belmonts. I hear the Righteous Brothers and Van the Man. I hear the Rolling Stones and the Animals. I hear the Byrds and the Yardbirds, and Bobby Day singing ‘Rockin' Robin’. I hear Smokey Robinson and every other artist who ever recorded for Berry Gordy and Motown, from Jnr Walker to Martha and the Vandellas. I even hear Dylan and Johnny Rivers. I hear the Band. I hear Creedance. I hear Gary U. S Bonds. I hear Sam and Dave shouting ‘Hold On (Tm Coming)’. I could go on and on, because 7hear a little bit of every rock’n ’roller who ever laid a track on vinyl. Yet the Springsteen IE Street sound is unique. It wasn’t stolen from what proceeded it. ‘Rosalita’, ‘Born To Run’, ‘Thunder Road’, ‘Badlands’, and almost all the rest are the result of twenty-five years of evolution’’.

LOU COHAN — THUNDER ROAD MAGAZINE

S TU A R T COUPE: “Who me? I just love rock’n’roll”.

Being a rock’n’roll fan equals obsession. I’m one of those people. For as long as I can rem em ber I’ve listened to rock’n’roll, been inspired by it, sung its best choruses in my mind, and seen my own life reflected, and clarified in it.

I grew up listening to a small transistor radio at home.

The first time I had enough money to buy a single that’s exactly what I did. It was The Easybeats’ Friday On My Mind. I cried when my parents said they didn’t like it. I never set out with the intention of having rock’n’roll separate me from them but it happened. I loved it and I couldn’t figure out why they didn’t too. But I’m not restricted to parents these days either. It’s simply those that love and those that don’t, it’s the ones that do who become my friends.

When it comes to being a rock’n’roll fan I’m a fan of Bruce Springsteen above everyone else. I love stacks of people — hundreds of them, but Springsteen stands head and shoulders above them.

Springsteen’s music is about struggle, determination, loving, travel, dependency and independency. The history and spirit of rock’n’roll prevades every line, every note, that he plays. And above all he’s a fan, just like me.

Since I’ve been writing about rock’n’roll I’ve written very little about Springsteen. In fact this is the first lengthy piece I’ve written about him. And it’s also the hardest. How do you do justice to him and his music? This will probably be the longest story ROADRUNNER will ever run'but I’m stuck with the problem not of filling up the space but what to leave out.

But if it comes out vaguely coherent and adds something to your appreciation of Springsteen and rock’n’roll then it’s worth it.

It’s written for Margaret in Melbourne who reckons she’s my biggest fan because I like Bruce Springsteen best of all and she thinks Born To Run is the greatest song ever recorded. She could be right, you know.

To my mind Bruce Springsteen is the only rock’n’roll perform er to em erge in the Seventies who has any real claim to rank with Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, and The Beatles.

There’s a depth to his vision of contemporary life, and a spirit in his music that simply dwarfs those who would be King.

Greetings From Asbury Park, Springsteen’s first album, was released in 1972. I remember vividly the first time I heard a track from it. I was living in Launceston and conditioned to religiously taping Chris Winters ‘Room To Move’ program on the ABC. One night he played the staggering Half Past France from John Cale’s Paris 1919 album and Mary Queen Of Arkansas from this guy called Springsteen. I played those two songs over and over till the tape almost broke.

Then a friend brought a copy of the album back from England. Springsteen wrote in a rush of Dylanesque images, long lines crammed with images, and song titleslike It’s Hard To Be A Saint In The City, Does This Bus Stop At 82nd Street, and Spirit In The Night.

In these songs I met Crazy Janey, Wild Billy, Hazy Davy the Angel, Jimmy The Saint. Kids who lived on the streets.

Kids, like Springsteen, who were growing up:

STUART COUPE FINDS THE KEY TO THE UNIVERSE IN A TRIP TO PARIS PAID FOR BY CBS.

“I stood stone-like at midnight suspended in my mas­ querade I combed my hair till it was just right and commanded the night brigade / was open to pain and crossed by the rain and I walked on a crooked crutch I strolled all alone through a fallout zone and came out with my soul untouched I hid in the crowded wrath of the crowd but when they said ‘Sit down,’ I stood up Ooh...growin’ up........

The flag of piracy flew from my mast, my sails were set wing to wing I had a jukebox graduate for first mate, she couldn’t sail but she sure could sing ....... And I swear I found the key to the universe in the engine of an old parked car’’.

Springsteen grew up in New Jersey, raised as a Catholic in the small town of Freehold. One of the most legendary stories about his Catholic schooling concerns a school

Roadrunner 15

FEATURING A CAST OF THOUSANDS INCLUDING THE BOSS, MIAMI STEVE, CLARENCE, MIGHTY MAX, SANDY, JON LANDAU, DAVE MARSH, SPANISH JOHNNY, ROSALITA, LIH LE DEUCE AND TEN THOUSAND FRENCH PEOPLE

assignment where Springsteen’s class were asked to draw their impression of Christ on the cross.

Young Bruce handed up his drawing — Christ crucified on an electric guitar.

Prior to the Bruce Springsteen Band days Bruce had numerous bands like The Castiles, and Steel Mill (a dreadful heavy metal outfit) who worked around the bars of New Jersey, especially the resort community of Asbury Park. Yes Virginia, there really is an Asbury Park, and the boardwalk is still there. Maybe Sandy really did walk under it one night.

In some ways Asbury Park was probably like Liverpool in the early Sixties. Hundreds of bands coming and going, changing members and playing to each other and their fans. Eventually one of them makes it big — in Liverpool it was The Beatles, in Asbury Park Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band. In this context Southside Johnny and The Asbury Jukes filled' the role of The Searchers, to Asbury Park’s Beatles.

(The Southside Johnny saga is a colourful and interesting tale in its own right and will be appearing in these very pages in the very near future. —ED.) Back to the saga of the boy next door and his guitar. A year after Greetings From Asbury Park, The Wild, The innocent and The E Street Shuffle is released. It’s less frantic than the first. More relaxed and sensuous, with the sound of cars sliding along wet streets and girls walking along the boardwalk on hot summer nights.

There’s a whole host of new characters — Diamond Jackie, Spanish Johnny, Kitty, Jack Knife, Weak Knee Willie, and Big Bone Billy.

Through all the songs there’s a sense of moving. Wild Billy, who works at the circus, is always on the move, the guy who loves Rosie gets a record contract and wants to shift from New Jersey to Southern California, and in Fourth Of July, Asbury Park (Sandy) Springsteen sings of leaving his youthful innocence behind: “ Sandy, the waitress I was seein’ losther desire for me, I spoke with her last night, she said she won’t set herself on fire for me anymore.

She worked the joint under the boardwalk, she was always the girl you sa w b o p p in ’ down the beach with the radio.

Kids say last night she was dressed like a star in one of those cheap little seaside bars and I saw her parked with her loverboy out on the Kokomo, Did you hear, the cops finally busted Madame Marie for tellin’ fortunes bettkr than they do.

For me, this boardwalk life’s through, you ought to quit this scene too’’.

The Wild, The In no oe n t. . . made it pretty obvious that Bruce Springsteen had a lot to say and was going to be around awhile saying it. As Dave Marsh writes: “There are a few precious moments in rock when you hear a musician overcoming both his own limits and the restrictions of the form. At those times, the rpusic flows into something as awesome that its force is undeniable. Van Morrison’s Asfra/ Weeks, Eric Clapton’s Layla, Dylan’s Like A Rolling Stone, Phil Spector’s Da Doo Ron Ron, Roy Orbison’s Running Scared, perhaps Neil Young on Helpless and Tonight’s The Night, certainly the entire first Jimi Hendrix Experience LP and The Who’s M y Generation and Substitute are moments such as that. For Springsteen, the watershed 16 R o ad ru n n er

came on his second album. If he has already written greater music, explored the possibilities of his ideas more completely, made better recordings, none of it can ever sound quite this fresh. Neither he, nor we, will ever again be quite so astonished by the dimensions of his talent” .

It was three years before Springsteen made another record. Problerns with manager Mike Appel, and the resulting law-suits kept The Boss from releasing any new material.

During this period critic Jon Landau wrote a story reflecting on his life as a rock’n’roll fan, and the importance of Springsteen to renewing his faith in the music. The piece was about growing up listening to The Righteous Brothers, The Four Tops, The Rolling Stones and Motown. The last four paragraphs sealed Springsteen’s fate — Landau, at this stage, was the most influential critic in America. He wrote: “ But tonight there is someone I can write of the way I used to write, without reservations of any kind. Last Thursday at Harvard Square Theatre, I saw my rock and roll past flash before my eyes. And I saw something else: I saw rock and roll future and its name is Bruce Springsteen.

And on a night when I needed to feel young, he made me feel like I was hearing music for the first time.”

Landau’s quote became — the most famous line ever written about a rock’n’roll performer — I Saw Rock and Roll Future and its name is Bruce Springsteen. . Springsteen has lived with that tag ever since. He hates it. During his first English tour he physically ripped down and disfigured billboard posters bearing the slogan.

Late in 1975 Born To Run was released, one of the truly great rock’n’roll records. Springsteen had refined his songwriting. Prose poems were still poems but they translated to rock’n’roll songs perfectly.

More songs about cars, movement, escape from mundane lives and nostalgia for the innocence of youth.

Here was Springsteen’s most famous song. Born To Run : “the highway’s jam m ed with broken heroes On the last chance pow er drive Everybody’s out on the run tonight But there’s no place left to hide Together, Wendy, we can live with the sadness I’ll love you with all the madness in my soul Someday girl, I don’t know when.

We’re gonna get to that place Where we really want to go And we’ll walk in the sun But till then tramps like us Baby we were born to run.’’

These were the same kids that inhabited the first two albums. But they’re getting older, a little wiser. They’re looking for a way out — driving cars, crime, hiding in the backstreets, street gang camaraderie.

With its searing Spectoresque sound Born To Run was worth every minute we’d been waiting for its release. The only question was, how long can he keep recording rock’n’roll classics, each one better than those before?

Two years later there was no sign of him slowing down.

Darkness On The Edge Of Town turned out to be one of the greatest rock’n’roll records in the history of the music.

On it Springsteen’s politics were more explicit and defined. The innocence of the earlier albums was completely gone and instead his characters were facing the grim reality of life. They struggled to break out but they were

caught every time. It didn’t stop them trying. > Darkness . . . was received by critics and the public as ar depressing, defeated album. This upset Springsteen who? saw the songs as being about positive struggle against the* odds. In Promised Land he sings: ^ “ There’s a dark cloud rising from the desert floor I packed my bags and I’m heading straight into the^ storm * Gonna be a twister to blow everything down ; That ain’t got the faith to stand its ground t Blow away the dreams that tear you apart Blow away the dreams that break your heart Blow away the lies that leave you nothing but lost ancT^ brokenhearted * The dogs on main street howl }. ’cause they understand, ^ If I could take one moment into my hands Mister, I ain’t no boy, no, Tm a man, And I believe in a promised land. ’’ ■■ \ As Dave Marsh wrote: “You could say that this music is; about survival, but not the easy kind that pop musicians and. consciousness cults like to talk about. This sort of survival isn’t about being “ happy” or having “fun” , or resolving the' dilemmas of being sensually satiated. In this context, the? kind of “ survival” — in which demons are neither; conquered nor conquering, but simply ignored — is fa rf more meaningless than death itself could ever be. Fo^ Springsteen, survival is a matter of facing up to everything^ that saps psychic and physical strength; it means taking llte| on its own terms, and never giving in. “ When Brucet Springsteen sings on his new album, that’s not about ‘fun’” ,| said Pete Townshend, “That’s fucking trium ph, man.” C Besides containing Springsteen’s most fully realised! songs. Darkness . . . highlighted the musicianship of The E !

Street Band. Springsteen’s guitar playing opened up new! possibilities for the use of the instrument and the” performances by the band left no doubt that they were the^ tightest rock’n’roll band in the world. ^ The River, a double set, was released late in 1980. It? sounded as though Springsteen was reacting against th e ! supposed depressing feeling of Darkness. This time therej was a stack of up tempo rock’n’roll songs. » But the classic ballads were still there. Three in/, particular. Independence Day, Point Blank, and Wreck On The Highway, rank with the finest stuff Springsteen has recorded. And for the first time this album contained first person love songs. In the past all Springsteen’s overt love songs had been g[iven to other people ro record. Not now. !

The car was still the dominant symbol in Springsteen’s songs. All but three songs on The River are reliant on automobile metaphors. : The River is also a much more mature album .!

Springsteen’s characters have got older with their creator and as Ken Viola, publisher of the Springsteen/Jukes / fanzine Thunder Road, told me in New York: “ The River represents, at least to me, what a 30 year old guy who grew up relatively middle-class thinks about and experiences, and it’s a very urban, kind of city thing. The songs seem to / be directed at older people — 30 year olds. That isn’t bad ■ necessarily but it doesn’t have the youthful vitality that some of his earlier records did” .

The River is the work of a maturing man but it still contained more rock’n’roll spirit than just about anything ^ else recorded last year.

But enough of the skimpy history. Lef s get to the point of ^

|this whole story. It is about time isn’t it?

PAUL RUSSELU i “You wanna go to I Europe and see BruceSpringsteen play?” .

Springsteen has never played live in Australia. It’s hard I enough to get him out of America, let alone to Australia, f Nevertheless, there’s been almost as many rumours of an I impending tour as there are for a Rolling Stones or Who I tour. He’ll definitely be here next month they’re always |saying. He never is. & For a person with such a huge reputation Springsteen f; doesn’t sell a lot of records, here or overseas. Hungry ^Heart, the first single from The River, hovered around the 1 lower regions of the Top 40 before disappearing and The ^R/Ver sold well but not spectacularly, t It’s the same in America. “ We’ve really got to break him I with this album,” Julian Shapiro from CBS International in ^N e w York tells me. “ I mean Springsteen isn’t really a big seller. The River’s his best selling album but it’s only done 1.8 million copies. Compare that with a guy like Billy Joel , who regularly does 4 million units, f “The way we look at it The River has seven or eight r potential singles on it and we’ve really got to get him away I this time. I mean we may not get another album from him for f two years” . ^ The closest comparison with Springsteen was the late i Bob Marley, a guy who didn’t have gigantic sales figures I but had a real reputation for putting on an amazing live ! show that made the records seem almost insignificant.

4 “ But wait till you see him live” has always been the > classic Springsteen fans’ response to people who remain i unconvinced after hearing the records, f As far as Australia is concerned that’s where the Catch ;^22 comes in. Rumour has it Springsteen wants around a 1 million dollars to tour Australia — he travels with 46 people, : his own sound system, staging and lighting.

-€ A million dollars is a lot for a promoter to risk on the ® reputation of a guy who isn’t an established superstar (read r McCartney, Stewart, Joel, Police) in this country.

It’s worse when he says he won’t play outdoors on principle. % And then he says he won’t come till record sales increase. Whereas tours are the traditional way to increase ^ record sales. “ We think we need someone to go to Europe and tell * people in Australia what Springsteen is like live,” Paul Russell, the managing director of CBS Records, Australia, - ' tells me one night at a Charlie Daniels party cum record , presentation. “ Do you think you could find the time to go over?”

Could I find the time? What a joke. I’d walk over broken glass to see a Springsteen show. Wasn’t I the person who i wrote in my book that my greatest desire was to see Bruce

f

Springsteen in concert?????????

Initially I have tickets for three of the five sold out shows at Wembley Stadium in London. Then comes the announcement. Springsteen has collapsed and the English dates have been postponed till after his European concerts. “ I’m not so sure he really did collapse,” Julian Shapiro says. “ Between you and me I think he was tired after a really long American tour but it’s more that he doesn’t want to go to Europe and realises that when he does go he’s stuck there for six weeks.”

So Paris it is. A few days into the tour Springsteen and the E Street Band are playing two nights at the Palais des Sports, a sporting venue that holds around 5,000 people.

This will be the first time Springsteen has appeared in France. “ No football, no football,” mutters the French cabbie who can’t figure out why I want the Palais des Sports. I show him my ticket. “Aaaah, muzic consert.” He’s sussed it out.

It’s bitterly cold. People are huddling around hot food caravans. I’m handed a postcard for Rose Tattoo announcing their European dates.

Around Paris the posters for Rose Tattoo outnumber those for French election candidates by two to one. The Tatts are, like The Saints, much more popular in Europe than they’re ever likely to be in Australia.

The show starts at 9 o’clock. There’s no support act. I’m with John Peters from 3XY who’s also been flown over for the concerts. Our tickets are about 15 rows from the front, just to the side of centre. Not bad at all.

We’re both pretty tired. John arrived from Australia only a few hours earlier and I flew in from New York that morning, devastated after three weeks of constant activity in that city.

It’s a strange sensation. After dreaming of this moment for so many years it’s hard to believe it’s real. Am I really sitting in the Palais des Sports in Paris about to see the finest rock’n’roll performer to appear in the past ten years?

Could he possibly be as good as my expectations??????

What happens if he’s dreadful? Less than great?

Christ, CBS has just spent over $5,000 on me seeing this show. Sure, they get a few other interviews but this is IT. The purpose of the whole exercise. Now, I make a big thing about having a reputation as a critic who says ONLY what he thinks, what happens if I get back to Australia and have to tell CBS and the world that this guy just doesn’t cut it????

Great records but all this ‘you’ve gotta see him in concert’ stuff is a load of crap. He’s OK but so are The Boomtown Rats. Gulp. This is getting worrying.

The lights go down. Oh well, we’re on the way. It’s just after 9. The French are really into the flickering light routine.

The moment the house lights go down hundreds of matches and cigarette lighters flicker in the darkness. It really is quite moving.... honest.

I’m expecting the big blast as the E Streeters and Bruce slam into Badlands or another rock’n’roller. Not so.

Springsteen walks out. He’s like a shadow. Just a faint light illuminating his face. The crowd cheers and then goes silent. Slowly, oh so slowly, Springsteen starts singing Factory, just a slight guitar sound in the background.

"Early in the morning factory whistle blows, Man rises from bed and puts on his clothes, Man takes his lunch, walks out in the morning light.

It’s the working, the working, just the working life".

He’s stunning. Chilling. Then the lights flash. Max Weinberg thrashes the drums and it’s Prove It All Night.

The E Street band are on two tiers. Across the back there’s keyboards player Danny Federici, opposite him is pianist Roy Bittan and in the middle is Mighty Max sitting behind the most basic drum kit I’ve ever seen. But does he hammer those four or five drums? You betta.

Down front Clarence Clemons is on the left, then Bruce, and bassist Garry Tallent, next to Mr Cool himself, Miami Steve in a black suit, and black hat.

All the band stand out as individual characters. Federici plays the whole show with this ‘don’t fuck with me’ snarl on his face. He’s a large man who treats his organ like a toy.

You see it shaking on its legs, expecting that at any moment they’ll break. Weinberg looks like a would be high school librarian. Glasses. Frail build. Only difference is that he drums with the power of Keith Moon. Bittan sits sedately at the piano. He’s balding, has a beard and looks as though he’d be just as happy tinkering away in a piano bar. Doesn’t even blink an eyelid or look up when Springsteen leaps onto his piano, sings a few verses and then propels himself back onto the stage. Clarence is fabbo. Blowing sax, hitting a tambourine. Dressed in great suits, real leather hats, etc.

The whole bit. Then there’s Tallent, a pretty sexy bass player. One of those guys whose body moves like the bass notes. They kinda slink around the stage in slow, rhythmic motions.

As for Bruce. Well, he’s short and looks like all the zillions of photos you’ve seen except that he’s grown these long Elvis Presley like sideburns. And is he active? The only time he stands still during the show is when he’s playing guitar and singing, hence he can’t drag the mike with him.

Prove It All Night leads into Out In The Street, Miami snarling the choruses with Bruce. “ When I’m out in the street I walk the way / wanna walk. \ talk the way / wanna talk,” or something like that. Then Ties That Bind, and Darkness On The Edge Of Town, in which Bruce changes “ I lost my wife” to “ I lost my girl” , the only time he changes a lyric during both shows.

Take my word for it. This is pretty fuckin’ exciting. By this stage I’m registering about one chill up the spine every 30 seconds. Every word, every line, every solo seems so much more impassioned, and felt in a concert situation. It’s sorta like hearing the records but everything is highlighted and more immediate. This is one concert where you’re NOT better off saving money and staying home listening to the records.

Independence Day is followed by Springsteen’s version of John Fogerty’s Who’ll Stop The Rain, a song he apparently added to the set after Lennon was shot. Two Hearts, and Promised Land are next.

Story time and Springsteen tells a version of the story about going past Elvis’ place after a concert. It was close to the version Dave Marsh quotes in Born To Run. Miami Steve and Bruce hop into a cab after a show in Memphis; “ We told the cab driver, take us somewhere quiet. He said, ‘Are you guys celebrities?’ ‘Yeah’. So he said he’d take us out along the highway, by Elvis’ house. I said, ‘You gotta take me to Elvis’ house’. He says, ‘Okay. Do you mind if I call the dispatcher and tell him where we’re going?’ So he calls the guy, says, ‘We got some celebrities here. We got.... ’ and he shoves the mike in my face, so I say, ‘Bruce Springsteen.’ They didn’t know who I was, but they were pretendin’ to, y’know? He told the dispatcher we were going

V-

Roadrunner 17

to Elvis’ house: he was crackin’ up because the dispatcher thought we were going to drink coffee with Elvis. “ When we got to the gate, I looked through. It was three A.M, but all the lights in the house were on. I said, ‘I gotta see if he’s home.’ So I climbed over and started up the driveway: it’s a long walk ’cause the house is set way back.

And I was almost at the front door, just getting ready to knock, when I see this guy looking at me from the trees. He says, ‘Hey, come here a minute.’ I said, ‘Is Elvis here?’ He said, no, he was in Lake Tahoe or something. “ Well, now I’m pullin’ out all the cheap shots I can think— you know, I was on Time, I play guitar, Elvis is my hero, all the things I never say to anybody. Because I figure I’ve got to get a message through. But he just said, ‘Yeah, sure.

Why don’t you let me walk you down to the gate. You gotta get out of here.’ He thought I was just another crazy fan — whiclvl was.”

In Paris the only alteration to that story was Springsteen pondering what he’d actually have said if The King had been there and they’d met. Springsteen also talked about the Presley songs that impressed him most — How Great Thou Art and The American Trilogy. “And I rate this song with those,” he said, introducing a very straight, folky reading of Woody Guthrie’s This Land Is Your Land, complete with harmonica solo.

Then The River, Badlands and Thunder Road. The French audiences were singing along with all the songs off The River and Darkness but they didn’t have the faintest idea of Thunder Road.

As the lights dim after Thunder Road the band stagger to the front of the stage. It’s 10.20. “ Don’t go away,” Springsteen says. “ We’ll have a short break and we’ll be back to play another whole set for yas.”

Twenty minutes later they’re back. This is easily the greatest rock’n’roll show I’ve ever seen and it’s only half over.

OK, this time there’s Cadillac Ranch, Sherry Darling (complete with a young girl dancing onstage with The Boss), Fire, Look But Better Not Touch, Wreck On The Highway, Racing In The Streets, Candy’s Room, Ramrod, and Rosalita. By the end of Rosalita the place is going beserk. Bruce introduces the band and off they go.

Everyone’s standing up. Seats are getting smashed and thrown out of the way.

Five minutes of roaring applause and they’re back on.

And in five minutes Springsteen devastates everything else in the concert. A slow, unaccompanied version of Presley’s / Can’t Help Falling In Love With You. Boy, and if you ever thought rock’n’roll couldn’t put tears in your eyes and a lump in your throat.

Three more killer punches end it all — Born To Run, The Detroit Medley and a version of the John Fogerty song Status Quo made money from. Rockin’All Over The World.

Zoweeeeeeee. It IS the greatest rock’n’roll concert I’ve ever seen. Springsteen and the E Streeters are THE best.

And you betta believe it.

little nervous tonight but after he got going, it was great. “ He was certainly better than The Stones or The Who. Sometimes The Who were as good but not so consistent­ ly.”

Later on in the evening Marsh is discussing the crowd’s resp nse that night with some French rock journalists who think that only about 15% of the audience could understand English. “ Maybe Bruce attracts a more literate audience,” Marsh says. “ But then the whole p in t, for me, is like the story he used to tell before Independence Day about the records he used to hear on the radio and how he was moved by the sound, not the words. The im p rta n t thing was the way he sang.”

Garry Tallent looks pretty approachable so I start chatting with him about records. He and Southside Johnny share the same record collection which they keep at Garry’s place. “ Southside needs to get down near the beach again,” he says. “ He’s like a fish out of water where he’s living now.” He tells me that most of what they collect is do wop, rockabilly, and Roy Orbison. This is the guy who is re p lie d to have been enlisted into the E Street band on the strength of telling Bruce he broke down and cried the first time he heard Running Scared on the radio. He s p a k s in awe about a recent show in the stage where Orbison came along to see them play and came backstage afterwards to say how much he enjoyed it. Hey, these guys are first and foremost rock’n’roll fans — that’s what makes them so s p c ia l.

Flitting around is Miami Steve. “ Australia? Don’t they s p a k another language down there?” he asks.

Throughout all this manager Jon Landau keeps a watchful eye over his flock. He comes across as being as tough as Jake Riviera except he smiles more. People who dorrt like Landau say that at the same time as he saw the future of rock’n’roll he saw the future of his own bank account. But certainly he’s a fan as well. During the concerts he’s there clapping as hard as the most enthusiastic audience member.

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN: “Hi, I hear you’re from Australia. My name’s Bruce too.”

It’s well after 1am when we leave the venue. The Boss and CO. played for over three hours and afterwards it seems like 3 minutes.

Outside into the freezing, and I mean freezing, Paris night and off to the p s t gig party at this ritzy nightclub cum disco called Captain Video that CBS have taken over for the night.

It’s Hke a normal disco, a bit classier than most. On the video screen I see clips of Rose Tattoo and some live footage of The Angels.

And the big question? Will THEY turn up? Sure enough, about 3am Miami Steve arrives. Then Gary Tallent, Springsteen, and eventually everyone except Clarence. “ Stay where you are, Bruce is coming over in a minute,” Celia from the French CBS office tells John and I. A few minutes later Springsteen comes over to the table, looking tired and dressed in jeans and a lumber jacket. He can hardly talk. His voice is a husky rasp. “ I hear you’re from Australia,” he says. ‘‘Sorry I can’t talk but why don’t you come backstage after the show tomorrow night.”

He’s led off to meet some more people. I start talking with Dave Marsh who’s flown from New York to see most of the Europan shows. His wife, Barbara Carr, is Springsteen’s publicist and they’ve bought their kids along. Just like family affair. “ Daddy, have you got 20 francs,” the 10 year old asks Marsh.

For a long time Marsh has been my favourite American rock’n’roll writer.'His Springsteen biography was magnifi­ cent and he’s been the most prce ptive and, dare I say caring, of the Rolling Stone brigade over the years. He looks like your average American college kid, only a few years older. I ask him now good the show I’d just seen was com pred to others. “ I’ll tell you how g p d it was,” Marsh says. “ I had tears in my eyes and a lump In my throat. When he came out and sang those early songs like Factory I saw my whole life flash p s t me. It was one of the best shows I’ve ever seen him give.”

Marsh e ^la in ed that the shows had been cut down in length for E u ro p and how Springsteen had worked out how to put It all across in around three hours. “ In Callfomia he was doing four and four and a half hour shows but he was wearing the band, the kids and everyone except himself out.’’ ^ Then to the show’s highlight, / Can’t Help Fa///ng....‘Tve never heard him do that song. He’s never done it before.

Who is he when he sings that song? Elvis wouldn’t sing it that way. Neither would Dylan. “ Sometimes he’s Elvis, other times it’s Dylan, and other times he’s crazy enough to be Little Richard. “ Maybe John Lydon is right — there is nothing new in rock’n’roll. But does it matter? That’s a oood question.”

Marsh was surprised and pleased that Springsteen’s first apparances in E u ro p had gone, sq well., ‘,‘t p r e vyas q tirne when we didn’t think AiTfonpans vyould ’ urider^tand what the guy was all about, let alone Panslahs'. He v i ^ a

18 Roadrunner

The party fades about Sam. The E Streeters drift off to the hotel. Me likewise.

Sunday. It’s Easter in Paris. Off to t p art galleries in search of t P Mona Lisa.

Concert n u m P r 2. We travel out with Amos, a rock’n’roll journalist from Israel who’s just been to America on the CBS account and seen G P in t P form of Styx. Is it p s s ib le that P could also P a Springsteen fan? “ If you’re a fan of rock’n’roll it’s hard not to be a fan of Springsteen,” he replies.

T P concert starts right on time. Tonight tP r e ’s no seats.

It’s first in first s e rv P a P already people are P in g squashed at the front.

Again, it’s a slow start. Springsteen s h r o P P in darkness singing a song called Follow That Dream, a curious mixture of words by Presley a P Roy Orbison, along with some of his own. it s p lls out t P Springsteen philosophy: “ The heart is restless So tired and weary And you can’t g a on y Iri ihe distanpe a d ^ m is calling you .\ ...

'• W 0 th'ere’e 'just m e thing that you can do

Well you’ve got to follow that dream Wherever that dream may lead you ' Now baby I walk in dreams And I talk in dreams I need someone with a love I can trust And together we’ll search for the things that come to us in dreams Tm gonna follow that dream wherever that dream may lead me Now every man has a right to live The right for a chance to give what he has to give The right to struggle for the things he believes For the things that come to him in dreams, baby in dreams, in dreams.”

All is silent. Lights flicker. Then BANG. Cascades of r P , green and blue lights spotlight the players: “ Lights out tonight/ Trouble in the heartland/ Got a head on collision/ Smashin’ in my guts, man.... ” Badlands, and the hall is dancing. I’m exhilaratP. The contrast is so magnificent.

Ties That Bind is next, before 10th Avenue Freezout, which Springsteen begins standing on Bittan’s piano, then, taking a mighty leap onto W e inP rg ’s drum rostrum, and finishing up singing t P last verses on the next stage level.

After Darkness On The Edge Of Town it’s time for another story, one of his best: “ I grew up in this house where there was never many books or, I guess, anything that was considered art or anything and I rem em Pr when I was at school — at the time the things they were trying to teach me and the things that later on, when I got older, I m is s P not knowing, but when I was 15 or 16 either it was the way they were trying to teach it or I just wasn’t interestP, but in my family when I got older I lo o k P back and saw that my father — he quit high school and went into the army and he got m arriP really young and p ic k P up jobs where he could working in the factory and driving a truck. And I look back on my grandfather and he w o rk p in a rug mill in the town that I grew up in and it seemed that we all had one thing in common — that we didn’t know enough. We didn’t know enough about what was happening to us. “ I’m 31 now and I just s ta rtP to read the history of the United States (cheers) and the thing is that I s ta rtP to learn about how things got to be the way they are today, how you end up a victim without even knowing it and how people get old and just die after not having hardly a day’s satisfaction or peace of mind in their lives..... but I was lucky too because I met this guy when I was in my middle twenties who said ‘you should watch this, you should read this.’ Most people from where I come from never had someone to try and help them in that way. So all I’m saying is try and learn about, learn about yourselves and about who you are (cheers) and try and make it better for who’s going to be coming (cheers) because the real future of rock’n’roll is only about nine years old today.. .anyway.... Well, papa go to bed...... ” A beautiful version of Independence Day. Tonight’s set contains a large number of the same songs as the night before but they’re placed in different order and there’s a fair stack of different inclusions - Because The Night replaces Fire, Point Blank is in instead of Wreck On The Highway. I Can’t Help Falling In Love is still there but we also get Highschool Hop thrown in with The Detroit Medley and a romping rendition of Sweet Soul Music, a song that’d been played through the PA during intermission the previous night.

The highlights are numerous. A poignant verson of Racing In The Street during which I became very conscious of the total stillness in the hall. Hardly a movement except flickering flames from lighters and matches. During Ramrod Clarence and Bruce walking across the stage on their knees, and during Rosalita moving closer and closer and closer together until they’re facing each other. Quickly they kiss each other on the lips before spinning round and round till Springsteen reaches his microphone to sing the next verse. Because The Night is greeted with raised fists rising in time with the music. And for This Land Is Your Land Springsteen talks about how “this song was originally written as an angry answer to God Bless America. Was this land made for you and me? That’s a question people should ask themselves about where they live” .

Again the guy, and the rest of the E Streeters, don’t stop moving. They’re tireless, and what’s more, they look like they’re enjoying every fuckin’ minute of being up there. “ They know every rock song there is,” a friend of the band tells me. “At practice Bruce can just call for a song, any song, and they all know it” .

Even the stage and road crew are reacting like the audience. You can see ’em sitting along the sides of the stage clapping and singing along with all the songs.

One thing that strikes me throughout both concerts, and is a little worrying, is the constant suggestion and presence of Presley in Springsteen’s show.

Besides the Presley songs, and all the references in stories he really does LOOK like Presley. When he takes off his guitar and stands side on, crooning a ballad with those sideburns, the black hair, and some of the clothes he was wearing he looks just like The King.

Near the conclusion of both shows it becomes even more obvious. He falls into the classic Presley movements from the Fifties of throwing his head, shoulders and arms back in time with a drum beat. Hmmmmm.

In his article. The Man Who Would Save Rock And Roll, Greil Marcus has looked at the similarities between the two.

After detailing all the failures of rock ’n’ roll today writes: “A concert by Bruce Springsteen offers many thrills, and one is that he performs as if none of the above is true. The implicit promise of a Bruce Springsteen concert is that This Is What It’s All About - This Is The Rock. Whether the promise is more than a night’s happy illusion is, at the time, less important than whether Springsteen can live up to it.

“As songwriter, singer, guitarist and bandleader, he appears at once as the anointed successor to Elvis Presley and as an imposter who expects to be asked for his stage pass: his show is, among other things, an argument about the nature of rock ’n’ roll after 25 years. The argument is that rock ’n’ roll is a means to fun that can acknowledge the most bitter defeats, that it was a coherent tradition which, when performed, will reveal possibilities of rock ’n’ roll the tradition did not previously contain” .

I guess the big question is whether Springsteen can keep Presley as an inspiration and not become a clone.

Unfortunately, during the Paris concerts there were moments when he skirted a little too close to the latter.

But b a c k s a g a of Ari Aust;ralian ip Paris watching A Bruce Springsteen Concert.

STUART COUPE: ‘‘Hey I’m in Paris and I’m just about to interview the future of rock ’n’ roll.”

Sunday night, the second concert over, th e re ’s about 30 people w earing backstage passes and w aiting for an audience with The Boss. “ Don’t expect anything to happen for about an hour” Celia from the French CBS office says, “ Bruce has a rub down after every show. It doesn’t matter if his parents are waiting - he has a rub down before he sees them.”

Gradually the band appears - Clarence, Max Gary, and Miami Steve who’s drawn into a discussion about the Gary US Bonds album he and Springsteen produced.

Somehow a long haired, sandal wearing guy has got .through the security cordon. He walks up to Miami Steve and asks him to autograph his forehead. Miami Steve turns on him, a mean sneer on his face. “ Where I come from, you know what we call people like you” he taunts, pushing the guy’s chest with his finger. “ Hippies! Fuckin’ hippies, now get out of here hippie, fuckin’ hippie.” The abuse continues till the hapless individual is safely out the door.

I recall Ken Viola telling me, “ Miami Steve is the key to the whole band, he knows everything, remembers every face, and every conversation.”

Around 2.30 in the morning the band, and most of the touring party leave in a bus for their hotel. Only Landau and a few others are hanging around inside. There’s still about 80 fans shivering outside waiting to see Springsteen.

Amos,, by this time, is just about asleep standing up against the wall. “ If I was about to meet Bruce Springsteen for the first time I wouldn’t be falling asleep” CeliaJaughs.

Three o’clock and we’re ushered in. The dressing room reeks of linament, just like a football team change rooms.

There’s towels everywhere. Springsteen looks tired. He’s short - shorter than he appears onstage even, dressed again in jeans and an old coat. His skin bears the marks of adolescent pimples and his jaw juts out. In the flesh he’s far from the spunk that people imagine him to be. He looks much better in 98% of the photos than the real thing!!

But he’s friendly. Questions start. How about training to keep in shape for such mammoth concerts? “ I usually go into the gym a week befor a tour begins to do a few light workouts” Springsteen says. “ It’s more what I don’t do than

what I do. I don’t do drugs or booze and I need sleep. If I don’t get eight hours sleep a night it really affects the show the next night. “ I don’t go out much these days. I don’t stay out all night but I do stay up all night.”

Springsteen says that when it comes to Australian music. he’s heard records by The Angels and Jo Jo Zep and The Falcons. I mention Friday On My Mind. “That song . . . forget i t . . . it’s one of the greatest rock ’n’ roll records e ve r. . . and one of the hardest to play. I never could get the, chords right to that one. I used to try real hard but they’d never be exactly right” Surprise is expressed that the band is finishing the shows with Rockin’ All Over The World which, although written by John Fogerty, is known mostly in Australia and Europe as a Status Quo song. “ I didn’t know it’d been a hit for Status Quo” Springsteen laughs. “ I just think of it as a John Fogerty song. But when I suggested we do it the band slapped me on the back. They said ‘Boss, how’d you think of that? How’d you know it’d been a hit for Status Quo? It’ll go down really well here’. “ It was just luck on my part. I didn’t look so good when they found out.

“There’s just that one line that says it a ll. . . ‘I like it, I like it, I like it’.”

Springsteen says he’s heard that the name ‘Bruce’ is really common in Australia and that people make a big thing about it. I explain that Brooocccceeee is used in the same way that non-New Jersey residents say Joooiiisssy when referring to New Jersey. Pretty much a term of derision and mockery. Springsteen talks about the isolation in New Jersey. “My sister hadn’t been to New York till a few years back and then she and her husband couldn’t find Fifth Avenue so they came back.”

Fifth Avenue is the main street in New York!!

Can Springsteen remember seeing any great bands in the Sixties. “ I didn’t see too many bands till I turned twenty and became more mobile” he says. “ When I was fifteen I saw Herman’s Hermits head lining over The Who and The Blues Magoos.”

The range of rock ’n’ roll classics that Springsteen and the E Street band have, at times, covered is quite awesome. I prompt Springsteen about one of my favourites. The Animals song. It’s My Life, and he launches into his feelings about radio in the Sixties.

“The main thing I notice about the diference between radio then and now is that songs back then seemed so much more socially conscious. “ Things like The Animals’ It’s My Life and We Gotta Get Out Of This Place, and I just love Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On . . . \ always have a copy of that with me.

“And then there’s The Temptations’ Papa Was A Rolling Stone and Cloud Nine, and all those great Impressions tracks with Curtis Mayfield. “ I really haven’t heard anything good on the radio since 1974.”

I’d assume that exceptions to that last statement would be Thunder Road, Hungry Heart, Born To Run and other Springsteen songs that stood out like beacons amongst the other dross.

Both shows in Paris were different. Does he and the band alter the sets every night? “ We try and make every night different” says Springsteen. “ We’ve never done Factory like we did it last night. We always change it because it keeps us on our toes, and it’s important when we’re playing more than one show in the same place.”

His reaction to French audiences? “They know all the songs from The River and seem to know more from Darkness than Born To Run" Springsteen says. “They’re not too good on Thunder Road but they know Backstreets which we’ve been doing a bit on this tour.”

John’s interested in whether Springsteen saw the movie Badlands before he wrote the song. “ I saw that after making the record but I’d read Carol which is the story of the girl recounting the story of what happened from jail - the part Sissy Spacek played.

“The song really doesn’t have a lot todo with the movie.”

On a bootleg recorded during the 1978 American tour Springsteen makes a reference to a book called Born On The Fourth Of July by a Vietnam Veteran, Ron Kovic.

Springsteen dedicates Darkness On The Edge Of Town to Kovic who is in the audience.

Born On The Fourth Of July is all about Kovic’s experiences before, during and after the Vietnam war. At 21 he was paralysed from the waist down. The result of a life dreaming of being an American hero like Elvis Presley and John Wayne and going to fight for his country.

After the war Kovic became increasingly politicised, eventually joined a Veterans Association and demonstrat­ ing at political conventions and touring the country speaking out against America’s involvements overseas. “ I read that book after recording Darkness On The Edge Of Town and it just really affected me” Springsteen says.

“The guy really knows how to get it ail down. “ They say that Dispatches is supposed to be the definitive book about Vietnam but Ron’s is much more human and powerful. “ It was strange. I was taking a few days off at this hotel in California and there wds this guy in a wheelchair there. I kept nodding hello each day and we just smiled whenever we saw each other. You know how it is when you see the same person every day. Anyway, one day he came up and said ‘Hi, my name’s Ron Kovic’. It didn’t register for a .moment and then I realised who he was. He’s a really inspiring guy. And the way he ^ t s it all down about wanting to be an American hero and tieing it up with John Wayne and Elvis, it’s an amazing book. We’re talking about doing some shows together when I get back for the War veterans organisation.”

And the BIG question - what’s the possibility of an Australian tour? “ Well we finish up touring Europe, then we go back to America for some more shows. We ^ o u ld be in Australia in The Fall, at least before Christmas. We want to go everywhere this time!!!!”

Hey ho, that’s what I wanted to hear. It’s getting on for 4 a.m. and Springsteen wants to eat. Plus there’s a stack of other people waiting to see him. He signs a few autographs for people in Australia. Mine says “To Stuart. It was nice to meet you. See ya in Austra'ia. Bruce Springsteen” .

And that’s a promise!!!

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M

THE BEST FUN YOU COULD HAVE AT A GIG IN SYDNEY

Australian m usic is a m ost peculiar animal. Of course th at’s n ot surpris­ ing c o n s id e rin g w e ’re stuck out in the ocean thousands of m iles from anywhere. W e tend to get the best and w orst of everything from England and Am erica all rolled into one big bundle and then it’s left to the poor m usic fari to try and make head or tail of the w hole thing. So it’s not all that surprising when you se e s k in h e a d s w ith m akeup w ho ca n ’t really d e c id e w h e th e r th e y w ant to be boot boys or pirates.

And the media, who are supposed to know better, tend to confuse things even more. Take Molly s ham fisted introduction to the Beat’s "Too Nice to Talk Too" on Countdown the other week. M olly, of course, was totally sucked in by Sting’s pathetic bid for credibility in wearing that Beat T-shirt. And all this from a man whose lyrical genious extends to "do do do do, da da da.da’’ or some such gibberish. The Beat sing “ Stand down M ar­ garet, stand down please’’, and 1 doubt if Sting would know who Margaret is, he’s been in the good old U.S. of A. courting the Americans for so long. The damage done to reggae by the Police, the Boomtown Rats and Blondie in just a few short records is enormous.

Back at grassroots in Sydney’s inner city rock circles, things are no less confused. Mod is making a late bid for world domina­ tion via the Sussex Hotel and only a year after the w hole affair was finally dead and buried in Eng­ land. And the irony is. Mod has been grabbed by Syd­ ney’s wealthy North Shore kids as if it was their own.

When all the while it was a working class movement of youth trying to look sharp 20 R oadrunner

and show a bit ot suss amio the grind of working life.

Pilled to the eyeballs, our young heroes could speed the weekends away (to the latest soul sounds of course) and forget for a while.

Well, now Sydney has its own Ska band the Allniters, and at last, maybe they can tie together all those dang­ ling loose ends attached to the punk and mod scene here. At least that’s the way it seems. Two or three times a week, punks, mods, skins, even a few pirates, gather in their hundreds to stomp the night away, and all those confusing tribal barriers get broken down amid the sweat of the dance floor. Pretty colourful stuff you might say, but I have never seen another band inspire such frenzied scenes of dancing and cameraderie. Naturally the stage is invaded by skinheads (always in good humour), and from the front of the room to the back, not a single pair of feet are idle.

I’m surprised it’s taken so long for a Ska band to emerge in Sydney. I always thought Ska was one of the best and most worthy of the post punk m usical de­ velopments. Unlike Mod, which is a mere rehash of sixties fashions and styles with very little m usical creativity. Ska is often quite inspired. Not only have bands like the Specials, the Selector and the Beat im­ proved on the original thing, they’ve provided that rally­ ing point for white and black youth, in England at least.

And while the Merton Par­ kas and Secret Affair sink without trace, the Specials and the Beat go on to bigger and better things.

Like all good Ska bands, the Allniters have a heap of members, eight in all, and trying to get them all to stay still long enough to talk to is not easy. I managed to pin three of them down in a pub in Paddington, and armed with a cassette player, tried to get their views on one

thing and another. The fun began straight away when I asked them who the band members were and no one could remember all their names, so we stuck to first names only. There’s Mark on organ, Brett on vocals, and percussion, and Martin on guitar (all present) and enough other members to form a whole new band, Stuart on guitar, Dave the drummer, Graham on bass, Fil on sax, and Peter another singer. And they only once had trouble fitting on a stage. That was at the Sussex Hotel, which is about the size of an aver­ age living room so you can imagine the problem. Any­ way large bands have their advantages as Martin says, “ If anyone gets an ego in this band, there’s seven other people ready to pounce on them.”

Martin’s something of the driving force behind the band though Mark does most of the writing. The band itself sprang from Mar­ tin’s long standing love of reggae. As if to illustrate the point, he’s wearing a red, green and gold T-shirt be­ neath his leather jacket. But then the whole band look just right both on and off stage, black and white and pork pie hats and that occa­ sional flash of red, green and gold. Once on stage they show an almost bound­ less supply of energy.

Everyone’s bouncing up and down from the start of the show to the end and even on a stage which would make a three piece look crowded.

There’s a splendid feel­ ing of honesty about their music. Though there’s not a dark face in the band, you know the music is from the heart. Perhaps a Ska band in Sydney seems incongru­ ous but says Mark, “ Everyone uses black ideas. The Rolling Stones did. Twelve bar blues is black. Now Steve Cropper was one of the best soul guitarists in the world and he was born in London. It’s the feeling, not what colour

you are.

Well put. Feeling they have lots of, and it is dis­ tin ctly th eir own. Brett bounds on stage armed with whistles, rattles and all manner of percussive in­ struments. He and Peter have voices which com­ plem ent perfectly. Brett sings and Peter, well, he raps I suppose. In fact on one song, ‘‘E verybody Goes Bluebeat” , he makes it up as he goes along. “ Malcolm Frazer goes blue beat, George Best goes blue beat, Sammy Davis Jnr. is a deadbeat.”

And it’s great to hear them add a bit of a sunny flavour and do "Pipeline” or Nancy S in atra ’s ‘‘These Boots are Made for Walk­ ing" adjusted to "These Boots are Made for Stomp­ ing". Perhaps they deserve some criticism for lack of lyrical depth — in their faster songs at least! A band like the Specials never seem happy unless they have something by the scruff of the neck: they meet an issue head on and never pull any punches. There is a danger the Allniters could get too concerned with image and the whole thing could disappear up its own backside.

Songs like “ Everybody Goes Blue Beat" and "Allniters (theme song)” do little more than perpetuate the skinhead myth. But for the time being, it is all the best fun you could have at a gig in Sydney (and that is essen­ tia lly what the A llniters stand for, good fun) and despite the “ boots and braces, busting faces” graf­ fiti in my street, there is never any trouble. Says Martin, “ From the start, the skinheads have followed our band, and our band’s for having a good time and they realize that. It’s always something else which starts any trouble. Everyone thinks the skinheads are a bunch of rough necks, but it’s not true.”

The pace of an Allniters’ set is fast and furious but every so often, they slow things down with a reggae number and that’s when I like them best. In their fast songs they sound very full, but when they’re slow, they leave a lot of beautiful spaces for a band with eight members. Mark explains, “At practice we present the chords and everyone just does what they like. Really we jam on stage.”

And their slower numbers are lyrically superior to any­ thing else they do. "Socie­ ty" and "What Gives You the R ig h t’’ , both self explanatory, are splendid songs.

They do have their own strong political and social views. Legalize the herb isn’t the only plank in their party policy. Mark espe­ cially, who’s only a year in Australia from the south of England, knows much from first hand. He’s seen illegal West Indian immigrants lit­ erally climbing up the white cliffs after coming over from the continent. Then as Bobby Sands had died ear­ lier in the day, conversation naturally drifted round to the I.R A “ If they were just fighting the soldiers, that would be alright, but they’re killing their own kind. They’re kil­ ling innocent people in Lon­ don, Birm ingham and Northern Ireland. And there’s all these little kids sayibg, ‘oh we’re having a lovely time’.”

You probably have your own opinion of the I.R.A., I’m confused, but I do know Irish killing Irish is a terrible waste. And unfortunately I must say, the sectarian riots of Belfast or the racial strife in Brixton seems very re­ mote on a sweaty night dancing to the Allniters. And they know that and are concerned. They expres­ sed a keen desire to play with No Fixed Address, which would be a fine bill. I noticed some rather sinister graffiti from the window of the train the other day. It read, “ Bristol yesterday.

Brixton today, Australia to­ morrow, keep A ustralia white, support the National Alliance.” Everyone swore viciously when I mentioned it, and it’s true. Racism is there, vile and spreading under our very noses. But th a t’s a personal hobby horse of mine and I’d better get back to the story I suppose.

For a band that’s only been together seven months, the Allniters have come a long way fast. Their crowds are often four or five hundred strong, and soon they’ll have a single to go with them . “ Drives Me R ound the B e n d ’’ with “ Made a Monkey Out of M e” or the "Allniters (theme song)” on the flip side, will be out in a couple of weeks.

They’re signed to the very respected Sydney inde­ pendent Green Records (they released Tactics) and the word is, there could be a distribution for them in Eng­ land. I’m pleased they went for an independent, so av­ oiding the corporate slime so to speak. To quote Brett: ” We had offers from De­ luxe and WEA but we know all about big companies.

We’ve got a bit of suss. With Green Records it’s like a team and we’ve got con­ trol.”

At times, Martin is disarm­ ingly honest. You can tell he’s a bit confused by the band’s sudden rise to prom­ inence. “ We honestly thought we’d never get past the Sussex Hotel. And we ha ven’t had any new songs for so long. We’ll have to start pushing it now or we’ll kill it for ourselves and our audi ence. You know, I don’t feel in control of it anymore.”

Well the last time I saw them, they did three new songs, so they’re not about to give up without a fight.

But I really would suggest seeing them soon before the whole music business repulses them too much and they give it all up in disgust.______________ SCOTT M ATH ESO N

1

The Spell Adelaide University Bar Flowers are blooming for Mother’s Day. Students gee up for exams and end of term essays, The Spell play, they too are on the ladder. The atmosphere is not alien.

Interest occurs as students file past from door to bar, from bar to seat, from seat to electronic game. I muse. Clothes lists must be dispatched with book lists at the com­ mencement of the academic year. Confor­ mity becomes rampant when taste is absent.

Alf Omega, mainstay to himself, is tense, he counts to ten precisely. The band he writes and sings for have built up a pleasing momentum of late. He knows too well that the pace has to be kept up, the wheels are turning for him at long last.

Tables and chairs take up the dance floor to prevent any embarrassment. Battle lines are drawn. With doctoring of the P.A. complete the band emerge on stage. An old Valuables song, ‘Check-Out Girl’, is resur­ rected for the public sound check. Jemmi Fingers plays a busy bass, Andre holds the drum beat and adds occasional vocals, Mick minces his rhythm guitar with onstage grimaces, Vicktor plays an aggressive lead guitar that can be melodic (sometirnes), while maintaining a blank face (all the time).

Alf Omega vocalizes, relives the moments, contorts, and precipitates.

All knobs have been adjusted so into ‘The Hairdresser’. Omega laments about plea­ sure won (“ Our love was really peaking like a

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two way trip” ), and love lost (“ I heard something vague about another guy” guy ) at Bombay Rock. Almost immediately I hear ‘Bourgeois Fad’. This song moves with danceable tandem guitar, as Alf cynically aims at the wolves in workingmen’s clothes.

So far applause has not obtained any great decibel reading.

As with pop the highlight-remembering songs are left to last. Jeremy Bender adorns the stage to add strong vocals to O.K. Alright, and dare I say humour, as his bandy legs carry him to undiscovered parts of the stage.

Our education system is succinctly summed up in 7 Don’t Believe You’. Omega surprises with some varied vocals here. In a pub you would be doing your mating dance on the floor by now. Soaring guitars and a crashing rhythm herald 7 Get Scared’. Omega is riveting as he grapples with his dream till the suppression of truth gives way. Next up is ‘Modern Computer’ by Andre. A witty well measured body jerker that throws a few barbs at 5MMM. The last song of the afternoon is Alf Omega’s chef-d’oeuvre, ‘Ivory Tower’. It chronicles the trials and tribulations of achieving. The music builds slowly before slipping into a frenzy, with Omega berating you T o leave the wife and the kids behind you’ before going down again and onto t h ^ finish. This desen/edly wrenches strong applause. Ironically I think the students thought it was about them.

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B ro d e ric k S m ith ’ s B io C o m b o : ‘Faded R oses’ (W heatiey B ros.)

Just magnificent. It’s a delight to be able to play a new song with Broderick Smith’s voice on it. The guy has more soul and feeling in his vocal chords than a pride of pretty boy pop singers or a gaggle of techo future warriors.

O.K. so he’s not covering any new ground; when traditional rock is this good, it doesn’t matter.

Jim Steinm an: ‘R ock and R oll Dreams Com e T h ro u gh ’ (C.B.S.) I guess all those people who bought ‘Bat Out Of Heir will check this one out. Big production again, and given the incredible popularity of ‘B a t.. . ’ it’ll probably be huge.

Me? I think it’s as big and as vacant as America itself.

P o s itiv e N o is e : ‘C h a rm /A n d Yet A g ain ’ (S tatik) Imagine a cross between Dexy’s Midnight Runners, Joy Division and Talking Heads.

No, I can’t either, but Positive Noise manage to combine elements of all those three into a corking two tracks. I think I actually prefer the flipside with its wild fluid virtuoso sax. On ‘And Yet Again’ they remind me of fellow Scots, the Associates, who also go for the neo-Celtic romanticism approach. But it is Pop even so. Only available on import at present, but someone’s mad if they don’t snap up Pos. Noise immediately.

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A u s tra iia n C ra w i: ‘T h in g s D o n ’t S e em ’ (E.M .I.) Up tempo number lifted from the up and coming ‘Sirocco’ album. Having heard the album, it wouldn’t have been my choice for a first single - 1reckon there are much stronger tracks than this on it. Beaty pub rocking, competently performed, but certainly not spectacular. Give this a miss and listen to the album. p

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The Gist: ‘This Is LovelYanks’ (Rough Trade/G A P ) The Gist is Stuart Moxham (ex-Young Marble Giants) with his brother on bass on ‘This Is Love’ and someone else on bass on ‘Yanks’ . Moxham comes across as a budding minimalist Mike Oldfield. Both tracks are understated in the extreme and retain the naive attraction that was the crucial element of Y.M.G. Music to drive bicycles through.

Nina Hagen Band: ‘My Way’ (C.B.S.) A German language version of Sid Vicious’ version of the Sinatra song. Sounds con­ fused? So am I.

Giris At Our Best: ‘Po litics’ (Record/ GAP) On first listening this sounds like a chirpy singalong with high breathy female vocals.

But don’t be deceived by the superficial innocence. Listen to the subversive beat and the pointed lyrics. Excellent.

Sharon O ’Neiil: ‘Waiting For You’ (C.B.S.) Assembly line pop. Last year’s model, only two owners. Good for another 40,000 re­ cords at least.

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The Sw ingers: ‘It A in ’t What You D ance, It ’s i h e Way That You D ance It ’ (M ushroom ) It must be a real problem following up a debut single that went to No. *1, but the Swingers have come up with something that could quite easily repeat the feat. The production of David Tickle is very interesting here, with heavy use of echo and reverb on Phil Judd’s vocals, and other effects used constructively and effectively. Like ‘Counting The Beat’ this didn’t grab me on the first couple of listens, but the more you listen the more it infiltrates. Although it sounds a million miles removed from ‘Counting. . . ’ it’s put together in a similar sort of way, with chorus well to the fore. Clever and catchy. Oh, and the single sleeve folds out to show an arty little college and the film clip is just stunning.

Yup, another monster.

Men At W ork: ‘Who Can It Be N o w ? ’ (C .B .S.) Some pleasant sax propping up what is basically a pretty average rock song. The Men are going to have to work a bit harder methinks.

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v v The Ears: ‘S carecro w ’ (M issing Link) The bones of the song are good, but it doesn’t seem to be fleshed out in the right places. Still the promise that was evident on their previous single, ‘Leap For Lunch’ is still present. Whether the Ears will extract themselves from the great unwashed mass of Melbourne Pop is still up to them.

'W HAT BECOMES OF THE BROKEN HEARTED'

Dave Stew art/C olin Blunstone: ‘What B e c o m e s O f The B r o k e n h e a r te d ’ (B roken/G A P) A great song, with more than a sympathe­ tic nod to Jimmy Ruffin’s original in the vocals department. Backing is keyboards only and they’re tasteful and tasty. A worthy cover.

The flip recycles the riff from ‘Message In A Bottle’ Yes, already.

Robert W yatt: ‘At Last I Am F ree’ (Rough Trade/G A P ) Wyatt’s distinctive vocal works well over the slightly jagged musak that constitutes the music on this single. A charmingly haunting atmosphere prevails. Could be a song about death, but not depressingly so.

Heaven 17: ‘(We D o n ’t N eed ) This Fascist Groove T h an g ’ (Virgin) The first overtly political electro future pop song and the best single to be released since ‘Holiday In Cambodia’. No bull.

Jack Green: ‘This Is J a p a n ’ (RC A ) Dunno anything about this chap, but the single is more than slightly excellent. ‘Shinto and rock’n’roll at the Budokan/Say goodbye to the sacred samurai’, Mr. Green sings.

Sounds like he’s actually been there, which is more than could be said for most oriental band wagon jumpers. A name to be remem­ bered.

M agazine: ‘A bout The W eather’ (Virgin) Funky piano, funky beat, funky female backing vocals. Another superb Magazine single, well produced, dynamic, intense and like all the others since ‘Shot By Both Sides’ doomed to critical acclaim and commercial noneventfulness. Shame. There’s a lot worth listening to in this.

The H um an League: ‘The Sound Of The C ro w d ’ (Virgin 12") That big electro pop beat, guaranteed to cure sick babies at 50 paces. The League give their synth’s a good thrashing, their syndrums a good cracking and it’s all so clear and crisp, if it wasn’t 4.38 a.m. I’d be dancing round the kitchen. As it is, I think I’ll hit the sack, toes a-tapping.

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M otorhead/G irischooi: ‘Please D o n ’t T o u ch ’ (Bronze) A bit of harmless heavy metal picnic music.

Great concept, the rough and dirty old Motorheads and the rarity of rarities, a young female heavy metal band. Quite touching really. v » e ie

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The Shakin Pyram ids: ‘Take A T rip ’ (Virgin) Scottish McRockabilly. Young fresh and enthusiastic.

Landscape: ‘Einstein A Go G o ’ (RC A ) An electronic novelty record.

Diagramme de Brian Eno sur son Evolution discographique entre le physique et le spirituel.

R oadrunner 23

* 1

June 10th 11th 12th 17th 18th 19th 20th 21st

Wed. Thurs.

Fri. Wed. Thurs.

Fri. Sat. Sun.

Enfield Boulavard Hotel, Sydney Cronulla Leagues Club, Sydney.

Selinas, Sydney.

Kyeamba Smith Hall, Wagga.

ANU, Canberra.

Stagedoor, Shandon Hotel, Adelaide.

Crystal Ballroom, Melbourne.

Sentimental Bloke, Melbourne.

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ALBUMS THE FLOWERS OF ROMANCE Public Image Ltd. Picture this; your three-in-one, home entertainment centre, has been re­ placed by a signal-to-noise combo cap­ able of reproducing the utmost in bass drum vibrations. Standing amidst the glory of your bluestone Norwood maisonette, anxiously clutching the new P.I.L. album. Being hip enough to let the neighbours know you possess such a recording, the volume knob is, of course, right-of-centre.

‘Four Enclosed Walls’, the opening tune, introduces the ears to the exciting new sound of P.I.L., now minus the legendary Jah Wobble, (who left in style with P.I.L. backing tracks under his arm). No more electronic dub for P.I.L. now — hear the flip-side of the 12 inch single (T.F.O.R.) for Jah Wobble’s swansong. The BIG BEAT now predomi­ nates! Martin Atkins’ drums a-go-go sets the sound for the entire album.

After the spine-chilling opener ‘Track 8’ comes as more of an ‘e a sy-liste n in g ’ number, with disdainful nursery-rhyme voc­ als from Lydon and subdued funky dischords, per Keith Levine. You are feeling more comfortable by the zither-like, Levan­ tine sound of ‘Phenagen,’ when the danceable title track gives chance to the quaint habit of lyric listening. “ Behind the dialogue we’re in a mess’’ Paranoia, contempt, momentum — things that make our world go ’round. However obscure you may find the lyric-sheet to be, it’s this interpretation that results from the actual tensile nature of the music itself. ‘Under the House’ continues with this disturbing con­ cept.

Hmmmm. Side one has ceased. With expertise that comes with experience, you smartly flip the disc.

“Nah, couldn’t be.”

“Sahnds like our oT mate John, dunnit Paul.” “ ’Ere Steve, what the ’ell’s that?”

After the final, chaotic party-time ‘Francis I won’t answer the door The theme music from those larzan Keep ,banging the door’’ (floor?)

Massacre,’ you stagger outside haemor­ cult-classics comes pounding out like an rhaging from imploded eardrums, and fall You feel that way yourself right now! elephant stampede, on the instrumental Lurching into the clockwork ‘Go Back’, face-first into the garden of soursobs — ‘Hymie’s him ’.

Lydon again utilises the vocal manner heard smiling.

Zulus have the house surrounded. With The Flowers of Romance. But can one on ‘Track 8’. Keith Levine does his bit, that familiar greeting. Rotten introduces you although you might well consider how under­ dance to it? Hell yes! But then, fuck dance — to ‘Bangin the Doors’, (my fave track on this stated his guitar is on this record. That fascist let’s art! album), employing a delightfully ominous groove thang, so rampant in P.I.L. land, cops synth. background.

B U RB A N K JAR G O N the cynical treatment it rightly deserves. “ I won’t answer the ’phone

UK SQUEEZE — EAST SIDE STORY (A & M)

for the next one. In the meantime, give this album more than one listen — it improves with familiarity.

A D RIAN M ILLER

At the time of writing this I don’t know which track has been lifted off East Side Story as a single, although I’ve heard that the album is getting FM airplay at least. I only admit this fact because in this case it makes an interesting gues­ sing game. There are several ways it could go. Given the current rockabilly revival craze, for example, it could be ‘Messed Around’, a nifty little number that would do the Stray Cats proud, a sure-fire party hit. But if they did that I can imagine loads of hoppers rushing in for the album only to find they’d been conned by a one-off thrown in for variety, in much the same way as ‘Cool for Cats’ was not terribly representative of the material on the first album.

" ’Frustratingly lightweight’ huh?”

Gien Tiibrook iooks pained.

Pic. Aigra

Variety, in fact, is the key to this album . . . alm ost to an annoying degree. Like McCartney, whose work they appear to be emulating, writers Chris Difford and Glenn Tiibrook (whose voice at times is uncannily similar to McCartney’s) show that they are comfortable working in a wide range of styles — from the long-winded C & W drawl of ‘Labelled With Love’ (got a feeling producer Elvis Costello had a hand in that) to the ultra-McCartneyish slow ballad ‘Vanity Fair’, to the slightly more experimental ‘There’s No Tomorrow’. ‘Someone Else’s Heart’ and ‘Is That Love’ are both strong enough songs to be potential singles. Or perhaps the Dave Edmunds produced ‘In Quintessence’ — being first track first side makes it a favourite for FM airplay.

New keyboardist Paul Carrack’s vocals on ‘Tempted’ provides some welcome relief from the Beatle-ish harmonies of Tiibrook and Difford, and gives the album a slightly tougher edge. Because, like McCartney (sorry to continue the comparisons, but they are odiously obvious) the overall product, though it has its moments of brilliance, is frustratingly lightweight. And the variety they pursue apparently for its own sake leaves you no clear picture of what they’re on about.

Although nearly all of the songs individually are quite interesting and listenable, collec­ tively they don’t make up the great album that UK Squeeze give hints about being able to make. Maybe they’ll get it sorted out in time

B.E.F. “ BRITISH ELECTRIC FOUNDATION” (Virgin) Well, here we have it, the non-vocal half of Human League making with the ambient muzik and trendy electro-funk Not a bad range of nifty instrumentals to spin while writing home to Ma or knocking up a new set of kitchen cupboards — Eno would be proud wouldn’t he?

But for those already accustomed to ‘wall-paper music’ this serving is hardly above the aveiage — marginally beyond minimal electronic bleeping married to mor sels of funk bass and smatterings of sax. The only stand-out track happens to be an instrumental version of “Fascist Groove Thang," the current single for Heaven 17 (their alter-ego). Apart from such bits, it’s hard to comment much, except to say that it keeps your walls warm and doesn’t give you indigestion.

T YR O N E FLEX R o adriinner 25

■-tl-

TH E JIM C A R R O L L B A N D

He was a friend of mine.

Those are people who died, died. ” I can’t say that I relate to much of this, but Jim Carroll does, and the whole band rocks out while Carroll lists heaps of people who were friends of his “who just died” . Wasted potential.

Side two starts with City Drops Into Night, with saxophone courtesy of Bobby Keys.

Carroll sounds a bit like Bob Geldof (circa Joey’s On The Street Again from the first Rats Album) in this song. The ‘city’ atmos­ phere of the music, especially the sax, is absolute, and beautiful.

The whole album reeks of genuine, straight-forward r’n’r, with nothing weird or dinky. The sounds have been made before, but this is pretty sincere, and most enjoyable to listen to. You don’t HAVE to tie yourself in knots concentrating, but it grows and grows, and drags you into Jim Carroll’s world.

Catholic Boy (Epic) Jim Carroll is 29 years old, born and raised in New York City, an acclaimed and respected poet, an ex-drug addict, and has just released an album for kids dealing mainly with death, drugs and religion. A New York street kid who was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for his second book of poetry (named ‘Living At The Movies’, the first, written between the ages of thirteen and fifteen was titled ‘The Basketball Diaries’). He was hold­ ing the microphone while It was taking part in the recording of ‘The Velvet Underground Live At Max’s Kansas City’. Enough pedigree to make anybody sceptical.

He says: .. it’s an incredible opportunity to be a poet who’s gonna be around to see the end of civilisation.”

Anyway, the Jim Carroll Band has just released Catholic Boy, and you guessed it, it is a rock and roll album. It’s a good, perhaps a great r’n’r album. Carroll and his band play powerful, colourful, and interesting music.

This music complements and brings out Carroll’s fine lyrics and distinctive delivery.

Guests on the album include Bobby Keys, and Allen Lanier from The Blue Oyster Cult.

The singing is sometimes reminiscent of others, but is usually very much Jim Carroll, clearly spitting out his pearls so that you hear every word.

The first side opens with ‘Wicked Gravity’, a medium-fast rocker which sets the tone for the whole album. Set against a grinding, low register rhythm guitar, with flashing full chords chopping in and out, alternating with colouring lead riffs, the song establishes the pace and style, which are built on over the rest of the record.

Three Sisters is quicker, with a great five second guitar chorus. Economy, with pow­ erful effect. “ Though I don’t really understand her I iove my sister name Miranda The boys from uptown, they can’t stand her The more she denies them, the more they demand her.

But she’s one to lay in bed all night Reading Raymond Chandler.”

Day And Night, with Allen Lanier playing Keyboards, could be Garland Jeffreys. It’s a much softer track than most of the others, and a necessary contrast. Speeds up again in Nothing Is True, and then into People Who Died.

People Who Died is the killer track (oops, I apologise). It is the best song. “ Chas hit the glue he was twelve years old Fell from the roof on East Two Nine, Cathy was eleven when she pulled the plug Twenty six reds and a bottle of wine, Bobby had leukemia, fourteen years old He looked like sixty-five when he died.

26 R oadrynndr

Relaxed, quality playing, particularly Lindley’s slide work, pleasant harmonies and innocuous but not annoying vocals make this album OK background music, but nothing more. Lindley is an excellent musician and he’s probably a great touring partner to have in a band. Fine, but there’s no point at all in him making solo records and there’s no point in buying this one.

the church

JO H N DOE

JO H N N Y R IVE R S

Borrowed Time (Festival) When I saw a record by Johnny Rivers in the Roadrunner review stack I offered to review it because I was keen to know what Johnny Rivers was up to these days. I wish now I hadn’t. From the time I heard Johnny Rivers in the mid-sixties singing a lovely little ditty called Moun­ tain of Love, I’ve always enjoyed his voice. It had a warm, vibrant quality about it, and was superb at interpreting others’ songs. Why, it was a Johnny Rivers album of Van Morrison songs, that really helped the Irish bard take off in a big way in the States in the late sixties.

But that was then and now is now and Johnny hasn’t travelled the years too well.

Borrowed Time is dross of the highest order.

Clever doodling mainstream pop music, that means nothing and is nothing. Impeccable credentials. Recorded at Muscle Shoals, with the famous Muscle Shoal rhythm section, it has no emotion, no spark. It really does sound the product of session people who have one eye on the clock and the other on the paymaster, while their fingers ab­ sently strum the same chords in the same way they have for the past ten years. Rote playing.

And somewhere along the line, Johnny Rivers warm, wonderful voice has been lost.

It’s now dull and turgid and not worth listening to. To paraphrase a great TV record reviewer ‘Do yourself a favour and don’t buy this record” .

CH RIS W ILLIS

D A VID LIN D LE Y

El Rayo X (Asylum) • Is this man serious?

A reggae version of Bye Bye Love?

The words to “Twist and Shout” printed on the sleeve in case we didn’t know them? It can’t all be serious can it?

Thankfully it’s not. David Lindley, guitarist for the likes of Jackson Browne and Ry Cooder, explained his first solo album like this: “ I was overjoyed to find out I could go into the studio and act weird, and somebody else would pay for it” . {Rolling Stone) And weird he acts. 12 short songs; old standards and a mixture of newies of no real significance.

Live, which begins magnificently with the strains of an instrument named a vocoder (spelling uncertain) which sounds some­ where between a synthesiser and droning human voices. A song that captures a real tension, it develops into a typically ringing Church/Byrds co-composition.

She Never Said is a noisier, punchier, rougher and more dynamic song for the most, with cutting, far off sounding guitar and thumping drum beat.

Next, Fighter Pilot . . . Korean War be­ haves typically, with the usual ambiguous, uneconomical, but moderately colourful lyri­ cal imagery. Steve Kilbey’s lyrics are de­ finitely not written for the purpose of direct statem ent, and border often on meaninglessness, hoping mainly to convey a feeling, a gist of some thought or situation which happens to exist.

Don’t Open The Door To Strangers ends the album on a kind of sad, worn out, hung^ver late at night feeling. It’s basically acoustic, piano and guitar (no, they don’t play it live), with some electric lead, giving it a distant, Dark Side Of The Moon atmosphere.

A notable Australian pop album. Of Skins And Heart may become just another curi­ osity or it may be the beginning of something.

That’s up to The Church.

of skins and heart

JO H N DOE

TH E C H U R C H

Of Skins And Heart (EMI) This is the debut from Sydney four piece The Church. The Church came together about a year ago, and secured a deal with the Beatles’ publishing firm, ATV Northern Songs, soon after beginning live perfor­ mances.

The album. Of Skins And Heart, was produced by ATV’s Chris Gilbey and mixed in the United States by Bob Clearmountain. It is well produced, clear and dynamic, accenting The Church’s distinctive aspects.

Since the recording was com pleted, drummer Nick Ward has departed, being replaced by the extraordinary Richard Ploog, resulting in a punchier sound.

Of Skins And Heart opens with For A Moment We’re Strangers, which is in writer, vocalist, bass player Steve Kilbey’s words about “ . . . knowing someone, and then seeing them again as you did when you first saw them.” It also establishes a kind of theme which runs through the album to the last track, the sad, acoustic Don’t Open The Door To Strangers, where “ .. . you find that the person going all through the album is a stranger to start with.”

For A Moment We’re Strangers is a good example of the whole album, which can’t be said, although it is distinctively The Church, to have a great deal of variation. It’s a medium quick pop song, notable for the ringing, jangling Byrds/Beatles influenced guitar, a little distorted, hinting at the much more powerful live sound. The song flows smoothly, rising through the verses, to a choppy chorus, which fades down to quiet again for the next verse, all the while accompanied by melodic lead guitar and Kilbey’s nasal vocals.

Chrome Injury, with its Byrds harmonies is much the same, and leads to the single. The Unguarded Moment, and that reminiscent Ticket To Ride riff.

Memories In Future Tense is more power­ ful, with its insistent chugging rhythm, and a little more necessity in Kilbey’s singing. A more aggressive song, with the guitars, in patches, grinding with a harder edge.

Finishing the side is Bel-Air, which is a quieter, commentary sort of song, which hangs mainly on the “ He can never be” at the end.

Side two opens with Is This Where You

V A R IO U S P E R F O R M E R S

Game As Ned Kelly (Larrikin) Possibly the most respected, dedi­ cated and visible exponents of “ pure” folk music operating in Sydney today, have co-operated to produce this album. “ Game As Ned Kelly” is a must for Kelly buffs and stands as a most satisfying collection of Ned Kelly songs. In a world of multi-million dollar film clips, synth­ esizers and Ranger trucks full of W-bins and fog machines, it’s good to be reminded that music belongs to the people and can celebrate our heroes in a respectful fashion. “ Game As Ned Kelly” is a collection of traditional Kelly songs, unpretentious, a trifle naive, yet historically pertinent and utterly accessible. Arrangements are sparse, too sparse at times, and in keeping with the tradition of folk music, instrumentation takes a back seat to lyric. It’s a shame in a way, because people like Phy LobI, Tim Glover, Graham Seal and Dave De Hugard are fine players in their genre and could have well decorated some of these tracks with some clean and pretty instrumental passages. I am surprised too, and a little disappointed that the album lacks vocal harmony or at least chorus. These performers have been knock­ ing about together for too long for them to present a vocally homogeneous set like this.

To my mind, tracks five and seven on side two are the best pieces, yet that is open to debate as all the songs and recitations are adequately produced and most competently performed. “ Game As Ned Kelly” won’t grace your T.V. screens between the fumbling fingers of Countdown’s talent co-ordinator, nor will it feature on 2SM’s play list - both good reasons for giving it an ear. If you collect Aussie folk, this one’s for you. If you don’t, have a listen anyway. Its honesty, its naivity and its cultural value might persuade you to take it home with you.

C A R L O V A71CAN.

ALBUMS SA M E A G AIN TO M TOM PETTY AND HEARTBREAKERS

THE

Hard Promises (Backstreet) There’s all the right kinds of Tom Petty on Hard Promises. Cute, pensive, loved and left. A Tom Petty you can believe. At least that’s what the formula would have us believe. But really if you listen to the record more than a few times, as I have this week, you begin to wonder, can I really believe this?

Hard Promises confuses and compels me.

In many ways the ingredients for a fine record are there, but too often I get the feeling that they are there because the recipe says so.

The right buttons are pushed but for the wrong reasons. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers recall their past efforts — 3 fine albums — with energy and diligence, but that’s not enough. You’d be a little short if you didn’t feel suspect at their efforts to just re-enact last year’s musical (and commer­ cial?) successes of Damn the Torpedoes.

Somehow this one just misses.

It’s not that it’s reasonable to expect total originality in rock, a musical form dominated by commodity demands, mass production and mass consumption. You can’t demand that. Hence this album cannot be faulted just because it carries trademark Petty sounds like the 12 string Rickenboeker, piercing, neat solos, organ fills and crisp production.

The playing here is fine and can’t really be criticised. But a performer like Petty, working in fairly standard areas of rock, has to give us more than a faithful and competent repro­ duction of the form. Like Bruce Springsteen, one of the few current artists to whom Petty can, I think, be fairly compared, he needs to offer the listener new emotional insights through the lyric content and the quality of

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performance. Unlike Springsteen, however, he fails here to develop his themes of love, lost love and waiting for love in ways which enlighten or inform us.

In the past songs like ‘‘American Girl" from the first album or Refugee from Torpedoes have done that and succeeded. Here, “The Waiting” , “A Woman in Love” , “ Letting You Go” , “The Insider” and “You Can Still Change Your Mind” thematically link to­ gether to tell of Petty waiting for a woman he wants to come around to him. It’s all said in a charming fashion but it’s nothing that even Jackson Browne hasn’t told us on his 1980 failure Hold Out. That’s the level of conviction (or lack of it) you’re dealing with herb.

Let me tell you about the good parts of the album too. Strangely Hard Promises’ suc­ cess is “ Kings Road” , a song not linked to the thread running through the album. What could be just a throwaway rocker is lifted by vocals, lyrics and music that work together in a romp down London’s centre of fashion where Petty finds there are all kinds of problems for “ a new world boy on the Old Kings Road” . Mike Cambell’s guitar is clear as a bell and Bentmont Tench’s organ fills at times delight. Other successes are Stevie Nicks’ backup vocals which confirm that she should have stayed on sessions rather than straying out in front of the financially suc­ cessful but artistically vacuous Fleetwood Mac, and the sharp, clean production by Petty and Jimmy Irvine.

I’ve played this record many times in the past weeks. I do it out of a real appreciation of Tom Petty’s past work and the pleasant associations something new on rocord from him gives. If you are a fan like me, it’s likely you’ll snap up Hard Promises. If you’ve not liked or understood Petty before this is not really the place to start. As Petty says on the LP’s last track “ you can change your mind” — but you won’t this time.

M ARK B U RFO R D

'' '' ' ' '

TH E S P O R TS

Sondra (Mushroom) The one predominant aspect I’ve always found in the Sports music over the years has been confusion. Occasionally they would do some wonderful

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all together, somehow make the whole thing gel, they’ll be great” . Potentially wonderful but not quite.

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songs, but the overriding impression was, does this band really know what it’s doing? The worst of that came during the Pete Solley production period when big, bold sounds came allied with quirky little lyrics and equally distinctive melodies.

But instead of eclectically original, it tended to sound a little confused, because no unity really surfaced. It was always as if, “ yeah well, if the boys get it

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But of course over the past 12 months things have changed. There’s now settled line up, apparently, a new producer, the latest whiz kid Cameron Allan, and a new album Sondra. And if it doesn’t put the band back in the teeny bop league rocketing up the charts, and doesn’t win them lots of Countdown type awards, it at least shows they have found an identity that sticks, and have made a fine record.

From the first, slightly unsettling sounds of Against The Dance on side one, through the self doubt on Black Stockings for Chelsea to the surrender (or is it satisfaction?) of Last House on the Le/f, Jhe album is a journey through Australian urban existence. But no romantic trip, say in the way Bruce Springs­ teen uses urban existence as an allegory of life and death, winning and losing. It’seimply telling it as it is. People doubting themselves, distrusting each other, sometimes feeling good about rblationships, sometimes just feeling pissed off. But it’s all just life. A series of musical vignettes from which you can draw your own conclusions.

The playing of the band and the production play an equal part with the lyrics. For instance the threatening drums of Against the Dance, loud and clear in the middle of the mix, combine with the guitars almost scratch­ ing away at the sides to underline the slightly twitchy lyrics: / know this little private war, I ^it here watching your front door,

And now this thing won’t let me sleep.

And I shake my head and tap my feet.

Against the dance.

The sparse, taut melody and the superb production of Steve Cummings’ voice on Black Stockings for Chelsea only em­ phasises the feeling of self deprecation: Tongue in cheek, sarcastic.

Still you’re looking at me, there’s not a lot to see.

The entire production is crisp and clear, but with an underlying feeling of neurosis or hysteria lurking just below the surface. Just listen to the accusatory, repetitive chorus of How Come: How Come, How Come, How Come, You’ve been telling lies.

Little, secret alibis.

How Come.

Or the nen/ous, urgent vocal of Stop the Baby Talking, where pity turns to anger: It’s a sad situation, and I can’t see a way out.

Stick her in a creche, let her scream and shout til her face turns blue.

Baby shut your trap.

Sondra provides no revelatbns, gives no answers, but then again tells no lies. For all, that it is important. It marks a definite transition for the Sports from a band slowly sinking in the inanities of commercial pop music, as it was 18 months ago, to a ba^Sd that is trying for something a little higher and a little harder to teach.

CHRIS W ILLIS

inlAP) XENNEDYS sw b

pi ^ R oadrunner 27

1

ALBUMS D A V ID B Y R N E A N D B R IA N ENO.

“ My Life in the Bush of Ghosts’’ (Sire) Now tell me, is there anything new under the sun, and Is there anything left to say concerning dear Brian’s already long and winding pilgrimage thru the valley of the shadow — of sound and vision? You may do well also to ponder how far from the city nerve-end the ‘bush of ghosts’ really is? I came to this Byrne/Eno offering with the usual mos­ quito swarm of hopes and preconcep^ons, and in some ways, it provided the Mortein, in others, a new batch of eggs.

What do you expect from a couple of turkeys who’ve been to the top of the hill and decided that the ones beyond are just as interesting?

Enough imageful silly-buggers, on with the real McCoy, Coy, if there is such a beast. Hurdle no. 1, this is not a trendily ethnic album to trot out while your friends yack it up with the handcarved ‘African’ masks brought home from your hike across the Sudan. Most of the vocal sounds are tape-looped English and the m usic doesn’t stoop to ‘pseudoauthentic’ tribal reflections as one might have expected. Hurdle no. 2, nor is this “Remain in Light (part 2)” . As should be known, “My Life . . . ” was recorded before the Talking Heads’ release and held back so as not to confuse the befuddled buying public.

As usual, would-be reviewers of the daily papers are puzzled by the aural meanderings, but have been hyped into giving favourable reviews. Well and good. LOTS of us regular folk could hack a track or four while cleaning the bathroom or watching Dallas for the second time ’round, with the sound down.

And if it’s loud enough or our concentration is aroused, we’ll be able to discern the many delightful subtleties therein. These seem to be the album’s ‘raison d’etre’ as most of the obvious structures and tones are tasteful but bordering on familiar as far as ‘afro’ and middle eastern bits go.

My favourite threads are the discreet noises that pop up, zip ’round, then disap­ pear, and the vocal bits that are pre-recorded spoken phrases put through bizarre tape transformations, converting normal speech into a rhythmic and melodic organism.

Byrne’s guitar sound is moulded with the same imaginative twists, at times reminding, one of dear ol’ Robert Fripp (to be expected when working with Eno) but also coming out with a few twists of its own. If you like playing ‘Spot the reference’, you’ll come across the obvious Talking Heads allusions and funk legacies, but there are also lines running back to Bowie’s “African Night Fiight” (Lodger), early Eno albums like “ Taking Tiger M ou nta in ” and ‘‘A nother Green World” , and “African Sanctus” , the sound­ track to the movie “If” .

As is ot^ious, “My Life . . . ” hasn’t got a ‘Including THE hit single’ sticker, and I doubt do whether it’ll go screaming up the album chart, but what car we for such hallmarks of commercial success, eh. Just an interesting album to put between “Remain in Light” and the last Eno effort you added to your collection.

TYR O N E FLEX

V A R IO U S A R TIS TS

CONCERTS FOR KAMPUCHEA (Atlantic) Hell, am I really listening to this? ^ Tragically, this album is the shoddy product of what should have been a positive, relevant contribution to the relief of Kampuchean suffering; a mar­ riage of old and new (plus one or two 50—50’s) English megastars, rocking out in the name of human dignity.

Sornewhere during the process, the spirit of the occasion went right down the plughole, leaving a slimy residue of tarnished musical reputations and Paul McCartney’s questionable motives. Did he really want big bucks to go to hunger relief, or rather an evening of mutual back-slapping and self-congratulation?

Charity is frequently motivated by ego rather than compassion.

Charles Shaar Murray in his-N.M.E. reyiavy 28 R oadrunner

of this turkey advises the would-be buyer to forward a donation direct to U.N.I.C.E.F. instead. I can’t argue with that. There are no highlights of any kind on this album, e.^ther in terms of individual excellence or collective enthusiasm. That overall atmosphere of exuberance and harmony which should be evident on the rare occasions people of this calibre band together for a “good cause” , is painfully absent. Alright, then, an obvious question. Why couldn’t some of the wealthier artists involved in this project donate a percentage of royalties, concert fees or other income derived from their NORMAL careers to the cause?

The logistics of setting up these concerts would surely have minimised actual profit.

Playing a free gig in the company of fellow stars, followed by the usual gratuitous backstage food and drug fest reeks of tokenism. I’m reminded horribly of that sickening early seventies phase when m egastars, in th eir form er guise as superstars, organised catastrophic cockups in the name of humanity. Such unmemorable events as the Eric Clapton Rainbow Concert (where Pete Townshend held up said guitarist by one arm for the duration of the show) and George Harrison’s well-meaning but musically disastrous Bangladesh affair, were, I had hoped, a thing of the past. Then

W A R D 13

Flash as a Rat (EMI) Now this is a bit of a surprise. “Flash as a Rat” is Ward 13’s debut album and, without getting carried away, I must admit it’s a vast improvement on their last vinyl outing, the “Robot Wizards” E.P. You may rem em ber “ R obot Wizards” as the biggest load of hard core dog c/ap to find its way into the record shops last year. Well I do anyway. At that stage Ward 13’s sound lay somewhere between the Angels and Mi Sex (with absolutely none of the endearing features of either band).

You know the story, a bit of flashy fast H.M. guitar, a little space age imagery and camp it up with the odd(?) bald head and vinyl suit. And hey presto, world domination. Mercifully “Robot Wizards” sank without trace. Even Molly pulled a face while introducing the clip on Countdown and I thought hec ould keep a straight face through anything.

Well according to the press handout which came with this record. Ward 13 took a three month break from playing in late 1980 and “Taking advantage of the sense of perspec­ tive such a break introduces, the band started exploring new avenues of sound, developing a complementary synthesis of styles” . In other words, we blew it boys, let’s try something different. And I do believe --------- struck ■ :k upon a considerably ............... more they’ve marketable formula this time. Already, the single, “See Venice and Die” , is charting in Sydney. It’s a dreamy little piece, melodic if a shade too familiar at times, while the whistled introduction could be the highpoint of the album. . . .

“No Nukes” came along. And now this. Do these people really need to go to such lengths to feed their already bloated estima­ tion of themselves? Can’t they just write out a cheque, or drop a few coins in a collection box like the rest of us? Christ on a crutch!

What’s that, chief? Oh, the music. Right.

The Who kick off (the bucket?) Side One with a turgid, tired version of “ Baba O’Riley” , and supply the best argument I’ve ever heard in favour of their disbanding. Roger Daltrey provides even less excuse than usual for his presence, post-“ Who’s Next.” I wish Ken Russell would buy him back forever. His voice is a forced, hapless croak, probably from arguing over the shrimp with Pete Townshend in the dressing room. As for Pete, he’s forgotten to tune up, and outdoes even Daltrey in the “ Young Talent Time” vocal stakes. “ Let’s get it together before we get much older” , heaves Daltrey. Bloody oath.

The Who segment occupies all of Side One, and further comment on their set, other than it’s shamefully Godawful, would be superfluous. Flip over and it’s The Preten­ ders, ripping it up with “ The Wait,” and “ Precious,” but rapidly descending into a maelstrom of stammered lyrics, confused chording and very much a “ let’s get this over with” feel. Chrissie Hynde sounds like she’s

And there’s hardly a robot in sight. “Stai System Five” (a David Bowie “Space Odd/fy” influence here) is the only bit ol futurama on the album, which is a relief. Bul herein lies one of Ward 13’s biggest prob­ lems, they really have precious little of any consequence to say for themselves. The themes explored are so over used and cliched, they have almost upped and died.

Take the mystery thriller bit on “Electric Detective” . It was all done so expertly by Elvis Costello three years ago, this song should bp renamed “Eclectic Detective” .

“Cold Hearted Lover” and its innocent young girl comes to town, gets corrupted, meets an untimely end is a bit pathetic, while who really wants to hear the “ I lost my girlfriend because I play in a rock band” saga continued on “ Nervous Lovers Breakdown” .

That’s probably why “See Venice and Die” stands out. It’s a nice thought, you know, if you don’t mind a bit of water. But apart from Venice, the other ten tracks are almost bereft of an original thought. Add to that, a most peculiar little artefact with a cover of the Undertones’ “/ Gotta Getta” . I can’t possibly imagine what this is doing here unless it’s something to do with the lead singer being I .............................. . known as “ Irish John” Arthurs. Work it out for yourself.

The sound is dominated by guitars, with a dash of keyboards and a touch of sax.

Throughout, as you may have guessed, the musicianship is correct if not spot on. By that I mean they play with lots of style but not much feeling. Still, it all adds up to a fairly listenable sort of record. It never really goes anywhere, if it ever was meant to. But that’s the state of the art on Australian radio at the moment, so this will probably be a hit. Oh well, if you like that always safe, a bit laid back, occasionally raunchy (use that word and you’ll know who you are) school of Australian rock music, you could probably really go for this album.

Actually, I’ll bet you’ve already got it.

SC O TT M A TH ES O N

dying for a piss. Elvis Costello almost gets it up with “ The Impostor,” one of the standout tracks from the unjustly-m aligned “ Get Happy” album. However, like almost every other performance on the album, the live mix sounds as though it was done by a deaf mute who doesn’t like rock’n’roll anyway, and is out to aurally sabotage as many bands as possible. By the way, is this song dedicated to Pol Pot? Maybe. It’d be typical of Elvis’ brand of savage humour. Rockpile career wildly through their set, wondering when to stop. Just when you think they’re going to pack it in, Robert Plant is wheeled on for a sorry rendition of “ Little Sister,” with aimless backing from the aforementioned combo. It works about as well as Max Bygraves and The Rolling Stones.

Are you ready for Side Three? Queen waste everybody’s time and patience with their typical clutter of squealing brain-candy guitars and cock-rock thunder, full of sound and fury, or so they think. I suppose any Americans in the audience would have gone apeshit. Despair mounts. Onward to the Clash’s “Armagideon Time,” usually a pow­ erful indictment of global injustice. This time it lumbers along to an early death. Which way to hitsville U.K. now? Failing that, can you tell me how to get to dub graveyard? Minutes become hours, despite the noble sentiments expressed. Ian Dury and The Blockheads clock in with “ Rhythm Stick,” and sound totally buggered. Damn this album to hell forever! Are there any artists on it who aren’t completely bored with their own material?

The Specials jerk through Toots Hibberts’ “ Monkey Man,” a weird choice for this package, as a live version is already availa­ ble on their first album.

Side Four is set aside for one of the hardest working and least interesting people in showbiz, the om nipresent Jam es Paul McCartney. Wings don’t sound any different to their usual post-Beatle blandout selves. “ Got.To Get You Into My Life” almost pulls them out of the shit-pit this concert has obviously become by now, but for someone of McCartney’s repute it simply isn’t good enough. Grand finale time bursts into being like a broken pie through a brown paper bag, and the shit really hits the fan as the world’s biggest garage band lurches drunkenly through “ Lucille.” M cCartney evidently thinks he’s still the greatest Little Richard impersonator of all time (actually he was, about sixteen years ago), and the assembled mega and semi-megastar multitude cavort in a sea of silver top hats and a fatal overdose of limelight. “ Let It Be” and “ Rockestra Theme” close these depressing proceedings with no survivors in sight! Hmmm. I guess that’s entertainment.

Is it?

M AR K C O R N W A LL

PERE UBU

The Modern Dance (Rough Trade/GAP) D U R U TTI C O LU M N

The Return of the Durutti Column (Factory/GAP) The advertisement states quite un­ equivocally that this is the essential first album from the Pere Ubu catalogue — it’s hard to disagree.

The Modern Dance has been available (only on import) since 1977 and ironically it’s still streets ahead of most albums on current release. Many of Pere Ubu’s contemporaries are yet to come close to the brilliance of this record. It’s one of those debut albums in the league of Costello’s “My Aim is True” and, dare I say; The Sports’ “Reckless” .

At the time that The Modern Dance was released, one must remember, that the minimalistic punk movement was blossom­ ing in the U.K., and while the bulk of that

phenomenon by-passed America, there was a collective of bands in the States (primarily on the East Coast) doing something a little different.

An album called New York New Wave Max’s Kansas City (C.B.S. import) was an early vinyl documentary .of a select group of these bands. The record was an introduction to bands like Suicide, The Fast and Wayne (Jane) County, but the stand-out track was entitled “Final Solution’’ by a band from Cleveland Ohio called Pere Ubu. Recorded in 1976 it reveals a singer (and overall creative talent in Pere Ubu) in the person of David Thomas who proclaims with undeni­ able conviction". . .don’t need a judge, need a final solution.” While there are a few singles that precede “Final Solution’’ it was a handsome indication of true potential.

The Modern Dance sees an extention of what came earlier in “ Final S olutio n ’’.

Thomas’ unique vocal sound was only hinted' at on that early recording, and likewise his own brand of songwriting which quite overtly juxtaposes political concepts and his obses­ sion with human relaiionships. The opening cut “ Non Alignment Pact” is a prime example of this. While Thomas’ vocal delivery is very much the major vehicle for the development of tension in Pere Ubu the tasteful, if often sparse, use of drums, bass and guitars can not be overlooked.

This album was worth every penny when only available on import, now there are NC excuses.

By moving across the Atlantic and adding another three years you (might) find the Durutti Column. A perplexing name, yes, but a little explaining will put you right in the picture. Only two people involved. Their names — Martin Hannett and Vini Rielly.

Hannett’s production credentials are more than satisfactory, with such things as Joy Division: Magazine and a whole host of smaller English bands under his belt. Rielly is a lesser quantity, but a guitarist of immense talent. His connection with Hannett harks back to John Cooper Clarke and, more recently, Pauline Murray whose albums he plays on.

The album, almost classical in feel, feat­ ures superbly crafted guitar instrumentals with Hannett making his presence felt in “ other” areas. What sets this recording apart from others in a similar vein is that it never even verges on self indulgence despite the multi-tracked guitar. The two tracks that standout particularly are called “Sketch for Sum m er’’ and alternatively “ Sketch for Winter” . Both tracks are perfect musical descriptions of the seasons, and while the concept isn’t remarkably original (classical composers like Beethoven and Mozart were early exponents) (Wot about Vivaldi? -ED) you can almost see the leaves falling off the trees in the latter. “Sketch for Summer” is the most obvious of the multi-tracked guitar songs with Rielly clearly enjoying the warmth and light hearted mood created, and Hannett playing with electronics to make a sound like birds chirping. Elegant.

DAVID PESTO R IU S

TH E B O O K S

“ EXPERTISE” (Logo)

More mediocre mutterings that don’t really deserve much space. More vinyl and cardboard to fill the gaps between markers on record-shop shelves. More Americanized ‘new wave’ simulations, even two synthesizer players in the band (haven’t learnt their post-Eno lessons in tone and motion tho)!

The Books are largely Stephen Betts’ baby, and, to give him due credit, the album does contain one very good single in the title track, and one interesting novelty song, “ Ballroom Debut” that reminds me of early Deaf School in a positive vein. The main problems with the other songs are: over-slick production by Colin Thurston, largely super­ fluous (pretentious) lyrics, and dubiously linear synthesizer burblings that spend too much time with cleche modulations.

For general listening satisfaction. I’d re­ commend starting with side two, in case “Expertise” isn’t released as a single, and forgetting about the other half. Not quite the debut one would have expected considering the effort put into production and art-work.

T Y R O N E FLEX

9 B E LO W Z E R O —

‘DON’T POINT YOUR FINGER’ (A & M) The rest of the world may have changed rather drastically in the last twenty years but according to 9 Below Zero the world of r’n’b hasn’t changed a bit. From the opening bars of ‘One Way Street’ you just know you’ve heard it all before a thousand times. That’s not necessarily a put down, just an attempt to put the album in context. You can’t approach this album expecting to hear anything new. This is full-on R’n’B, no more, no less, played with appealing freshness and confidence. As the mes­ sage on the sleeve (‘We hope the fun and feel come across to you’) suggests, it’s not what they play, but the good time they have playing it. Line-up is the standard guitar, bass, drums and the obligatory harp player, who in this case plays some inspiring stuff.

Comparisons to Other R’n’B Acts we have heard would have to begin with the three non-original tracks, all of which appear on side two. ‘Treat Her Right’ and ‘Rockin’ Robin’ have both been done much better elsewhere (and more than once). ‘Sugar Mama’ is a pretty standard slow blues standard (“They all sound the same dear” — sorry blues aficionados. . .) — so they don’t score well on the copies. Fortunately they show rather more promise on the originals, particularly album standouts ‘You Can’t Please All The People All The Time’ and the raging ‘Three Times Enough’, which sucks me in every time. These two tracks also appear on side two, which makes it rather uneven. Side one is much more balanced, perched about halfway in between the two extremes of side two. A quick glimpse of titles like ‘Doghouse’, ‘Liquor Lover’, ‘Ain’t Cornin’ Back’ and ‘Don’t Point Your Finger At The Guitar Man’ gives you some idea of what’s going on. It’s loud and brash, ideal for drunken parties perhaps, but at this rate Nine Below Zero don’t seem about to give the music scene a shake-up. For enthusiasts only.

RITA & BRIAN

RAB N O A K E S

Self Titled (MCA) KEVIN C O Y N E

“ Sanity Stomp” (Virgin) ! don’t know the first thing about Rab Noakes and after listening, fairly atten­ tively, to this album I propose to do two things. Firstly, I will cling tenaciously to my ignorance of Mr Noakes and his “work” and secondly, leave this album on the next train I catch. Harsh words, but really, it is a colossal non-event.

Love songs of a mindless nature, such as these, annoy me intensely. Well produced, well played mindless love songs only serve to remind me of the countless songwriters and musicians with something sensible to offer, who have not and probably never will make it on to vinyl. Give Mr Noakes a big swerve and spend your money on an Australian album unless you’re heavily into deli­ ciously ornate mush. “ Call it a day” is the best of a bad lot.

I’m hardly the person to comment on Kevin Coyne either. I have heard none of his ten or so albums and this particular double-set is, by all acounts, not up to the standard of his earlier work. His press kit describes ten years or more of hard, if latterly misguided, activity in music, poetry and the theatre.

There are some good moments on this album and some that are, shall we be kind and say, less than inspiring? Side one of record one is a fairly energetic rocky affair, rough, spirited and reasonably likeable. To my mind “ Fat Man” and “ Monkey Man” are the high points. Side two of the first record marks a distinct dive in quality. “Admit you’re wrong” probably epitomises all that is wrong.

Coyne sounds like Joan I’matradin’ singing with a throat full of millipedes and the lines, “ You been singing the same loving song Admit you’re wrong” repeated to the point of

JO E JA C K S O N BA ND

Beat Crazy (A&M) “ This album represents a desperate attempt to make sense of Rock and Roll.

Deep in our hearts we know it was doomed to failure. The question re­ mains: Why did we try?”

For those of us who manage, perhaps reluctantly at first, to push on past the garishly bad taste cover of Beat Crazy to the inside sleeve, this is the message that awaits us. Well if Joe Jackson fails, Joe Jackson goes down fighting. Let me show you how.

The opening track is, not surprisingly, the title track, ‘Beat Crazy’. The fact that the album is credited to the Joe Jackson Band, and not just the man himself, is quickly reinforced by the fact that the first lead vocal you hear is not by J.J. but by bass player Graham Maby. After a hearty scream and the catchcry — ‘What do you want — blood?’, what you fear might turn into a noisy onslaught turns out to be a rather melodic reggae-tinged update on that old theme of ‘what’s the matter with kids today?’ The answer is, of course, that they’ve all gone beat crazy, along with all the essential vices that implies. In the hands of a lesser mortal the lyrics on such a theme could have turned out a bit tacky, but Jackson has done well.

Next song, ‘One To One’, the album’s tenderest moment (what, already?) is a truly modern love song about being in love with a political activist and wishing for a little more campaigning on the home front. Great stuff.

Next comes perhaps the best track on the album, the truly haunting ‘In Every Dream Home (A Nightmare)’ and by this time I’m nausea, I find quite ironic.

The second record is infinitely more interesting, if subject to highs and lows. While “ New Motorway” (side three track one) is singularly lacking in melody and lyrical import, “ Taking on the Bowers” arrests the attention, if only by virtue of the solitary cymbal backing. A nice experiment, the success of which depends upon your view of what constitues music.

Side four, thank God, opens with a truly startling piece called “ Wonderful Wilder­ ness” . Coyne bleats on about something or other against a backdrop of excellently produced and executed “ experim ental music” . Like “ Fat Man” and “ Monkey Man” I

beginning to wonder whether I’ve stumbled on some kind of minor masterpiece. The two closing tracks on this side, however, revert to the kind of song, energetic and danceable but undistinguished, which I had for some reason been expecting from this album.

However, I was encouraged enough to listen to the other side, and anyway it would have been irresponsible of me not to. The opening track, ‘Crime Don’t Pay’ is instantly likeable, except you have that uneasy feeling that the band have padded out the music a bit, to compensate for the fact that Jackson only managed one verse of lyrics. But who are we to notice? The next track ‘Someone Up There’ Is again a very strong song to the point of being a potential single. Alas the next track, ‘Battleground’, apart from yielding the line ‘Now you don’t have to be black to be a nigger no more’ is a trifle too ambitious, and Jackson’s clumsy delivery (which like the song itself appears to be dedicated to Linton Kwesi Johnson) lets it fall short of its intended impact. Likewise the next song, B-l-O-L0-G-Y, (I had thought Billy Connelly’s D-l-V-O-R-C-E would put an end to these dreadful spelling bee songs) is another weak point.

But just as your interest in this album could be beginning to wane, Jackson finishes strongly with ‘Pretty Bays’ and ‘Fit’, leaving you with the feeling that this is a much under-rated talent at work.

In short, I derived rather more listening pleasure than I expected out of an album I had originally flipped past very quickly in my local record store.

Joe Jackson wants to be taken seriously.

Can you help?

ADRIAN M ILLER will play this track again, if only to work out what.the hell Coyne is croaking about. As for the remainder of side four, you should listen to it stoned. Then you can really say that you know what boredom is.

Ah . . . I don’t know. It’s not a bad album, however I’m left thinking that Coyne can do better than this. A strange observation from one not in any sense a Coyne initiate, but there must be something to be said for intuition. I’d probably opt to buy an Australian album. Like most of us I can afford only a few albums every month.

C A RLO VA TIC A N

R oadrunner 29

ALBUMS BOW W O W W O W

“ Your Cassette Pet” (E.M.I.) Here at last, whether we need it or not, regardless of legitimacy, and flying in the face of ‘artistic etiquette’ (another bluff), we have Malcolm McLaren’s first major pseudo-assault since the legendary Sex Pistols Scam. As with all mere revolu­ tions, the Pistolian momentum has been absorbed by the ‘Powers That Be’ and even in McLaren’s case, what once was ^ a n extremity is now a colony, more a trite tickle than the old long-nailed scratch.

The other connection worth noting in­ volves McLaren, Adam Ant and a group of musicians who were once Ants and are now Wows. Adam and Malcolm had something akin to a ‘philosophical’ disagreement, and the ‘Pop Star of the 80’s’ kept his integrity but lost a backing band. The ‘theft’ also involved a lot of A.A.’s ideas - rhythms. Red Indian aspects, and ‘buccaneering’ fashion. But fortunately, Adam and the Ants have already surfaced, leaving Bow wow wow looking a little dubious in the image stakes.

Such things considered, one might im­ agine it a simple matter to dismiss BWW as merely an acute case of ‘hype and cir­ cumstance’, but, as much as I would have liked to, it’s not that simple. There is that trace of ‘formula’ involved; a 15 year old singer called Annabelle Luwin, lots of “ Is she really going out with him” vocals, a rhythm section that funk-and-fidgets in current cute style, and guitaring that most often conjures up pictures of Shadow-stepping and simple stratocaster bits, however incongruous. But, there are quite a few areas of straight­ forward achievement, places where the strands do actually gel without the aid of over-pretentious devices and ‘concept-forconcept’s-sake’ insincerity.

There’s really only one track that deserves a ‘silly-title-and-big-raspberries’ award. “ Uomo Sex Al Apache” is just begging for it (“doggydoggydoggydoggy” ) and in general, “ sex” is thrown around so much it might as well be canine calling cards (gee, have I stumbled on the hidden significance of it all?)

McLaren’s vocal production doesn’t give much depth to Annabelle’s casual and obviously naive vocals, which leaves them swinging from whiney to infectious. The tribal drums schtick suffers sim ilarly^t’e -also the most obvious rip-off suspect, especia^ly^iff^ ‘‘Radio G String” , the main difference being Bowwow wow’s constant machine-gun rush.

As you might have guessed, this ‘flip pack pop’ isn’t the most sincere offering, but the version of “Foo/s Rush In” has that ring of truth to it, and sounds good too (even tho the ‘nice’ jazz chords are a little schmaltzy). “/ Want My Baby On Mars” lets the pitter-patter percussion sink a little further in the mix and almost takes on a bluesy soul sound that warms rather than wriggles - a welcome change. And lastly on the list of cuties (or better bits) comes ‘‘Sexy Eiffel Towers” quite blatently Donna Summer at 6969km/h.

Well folks, that’s it in a five-paragraph nut shell. An interesting item, but I doubt Mr. McLaren will have quite the same success with this particular product.

better known as “ Skunk” . Remember the Doobies? Johnny could be right; whatever the reason, Nazareth are a considerably changed band. They use a lot of acoustic guitar, the songs are melodic and quite tasteful, and the overall sound is very simple but well rounded. Gone are those boring guitar solos and the emphasis on heavy riffing.

The “ social conscience” songs are clever and not too self-righteous, and are balanced quite nicely alongside the more usual rock’n’roll fodder.

Side One opens with ‘‘Dressed To Kill” , a rock’n’roll song that features a lovely piano riff in the intro. It moves without being abrasive or committing overt acts of aural assault. No overkill. A light, entertaining song with good lyrical content about the Russian imperialists. Then we move on to ‘‘Another Year” . Pink Floyd might be justifiably upset if they hear the verse, but the chorus is excellent, a hooky treatment of the “so you think YOU’RE in trouble?” theme. Add synthesizers and it could almost be a Split Enz style pop song. ‘‘Moonlight Eyes” is a semi-ballad that unaccountably puts me in mind of Aussie Crawl. Can’t really pin down why. Good song, but. ‘‘Pop The Silo” takes us backJo the basic rock style for an “ end of the world” song. Not a ponderous one, though. Some nice tempo changes are used, and it utilizes something of a devil-may-care attitude to the “ big one” that’s on the way. To wrap up the side, we have ‘‘Let Me Be Your Leader” .

Everyone has done the white rock reggae thing now, but this is a very melodic, creditable attempt.

Side Two has a similar mix of the slow and the up-tempo, and features an excellent live version of J.J. Cale’s standard, ‘‘Cocaine” . I was highly contemptuous when I read that on the cover, but it/s a very good version, and features some good 12 string acoustic guitar from Zal Cleminson. (His only appearance on this album; I get the impression he has left the band).

This is a very relaxed, easy listening effort

by Nazareth. Move over Fleetwood Mac. All these boys need now is Stevie Nicks and they’ll make a fortune. (Hold on, they’re Scots, aren’t they? Perhaps they could convince Sheena to join.) Anyway, the point is that this is a very creditable effort by the boys. Flash tells me it’s not as good as the last one, but I didn’t even bother to listen to that one. If you made the same mistake and like your music relaxed and your albums to be liberally peppered with acoustic guitars and nice simple melodies, listen to this one.

It’s not an earthshaker, but it is good. I still don’t go much for Dan McCafferty’s vocals, but at least they’re not over-strained here.

Overall, pleasant. Some very nice piano.

22 at 34! It’s the man without the rose-coloured glasses, a year older but by the sound of his latest package his best year for some time.

Being an avid Elton John fan for many years I grabbed the first chance I had to review this album.

Titled ‘‘The Fox” it has a competent mixture of songs from the ballad-like ‘‘Chloe” extending some excellent backing vocals, to the rocky ‘‘Heels of the Wind”. Keyboard wizard James Newton-Howard still shows the influence he has had on the band since his inception on ‘‘Rock of the Westies” . Most of it works apart from the rather drawn out ‘‘Carla/Etude” and ‘‘Fanfare”.

Bernie Taupin chips in, writing four songs on the album. Although they are well written he has failed to retain the poetry of some of his previous gems. 2-4-6-S man, Tom Robinson, also contributes, penning a love song, ‘‘Elton’s Song” based on the traumas of schpolday romances.

Looking for good tracks, I tend to favour the title track ‘‘The Fox” as the best song on the album. It reminds me of something out of the ‘‘Tumbleweed Connection” era and is vintage E. J. ‘‘Breaking down the Barriers” showing Elton’s piano-playing prowess (some rather intricate arpeggios) and the bluesy ‘‘Heart in the Right Place” , giving guitarist Ritchie Zito a chance to show his ability, are two of the outstanding songs on the album.

To wrap it up, Elton has gone to a lot of trouble to get this one together, the compiling of it spreading over three continents, but for me and a lot of other E.J. enthusiasts it seems well worth it. Good FM material.

POLLY

PAT T R A V E R S

Radio Active (Polydor 2391 499)

“ The Fool Circle” (Vertigo #6302 099) I haven’t sat down to listen to a Nazareth album for yonks, and I was quite surprised at what I heard. Johnny Flash tells me the last one was similar.

He gives much of the credit for the change to producer Jeffrey Baxter,

I am one hundred percent certain that Travers has idolized Hendrix at some stage, and he sounds much like any one of a veritable army of Hendrix idolaters. Most obvious of these, of course, is Robin Trower.

Apart from their similar surnames, both rely to a large extent on a heavily phased guitar sound and the liberal use of echo, compres­

N A ZAR ETH

“TH E FO X ”

CYCLOPS

A somewhat hopeful title, but I doubt that Pat Travers will get much action on the radio (at least, in Australia) with this album. For those who don’t know, Pat is a Canadian guitarist who dabbles in keyboards and vocals. Primarily, he is being presented as a guitar hero in the style of the old school. He is a very good, competent player, but is not terribly distinctive.

TYR O N E FLEX

sion, extensive equalization and a host of other studio effects. Travers does achieve a very rich, thick sound, but there isn’t much straight, honest guitar on this album, and as a result the “special” effects become standard effects and lose much of the. impact they would have is used less often.

The other musicians do a creditable job In laying down the basic tracks. The only name I recognize is that of Michael Schrieve, who is credited with percussion. Unfortunately it is rather hard to pick his work, apart from the occasional tambourine. The rest is swal­ lowed in the mix, and is hard to distinguish from the drum tracks.

The music here is more or less a grandiose, slick, well-orchestrated splinter from the heavy metal tree. It is not as formularized as AC/DC or others of the cheese-grater brigade, with Travers intro­ ducing some calypso and reggae-influenced rhythms, some quite melodic vocal work and a smattering of keyboards. It is more akin to the work of the likes of Styx or Jefferson Starship.

The songs tend to grow with a few spins, and are of quite a good standard. Some might get picked up by radio, but there are no blatantly commerical, A. M.-tailored efforts. “/ Can Love You”, ‘‘Peelin'in Love” and ‘‘Play It Like You See It” are nice, with quite good hook lines and nice arrangements. ‘‘Live It My Way” is a slow to medium blues based track which works well. ‘‘Untitled” is a fairly pointless instrumental which highlights Travers somewhat dull keyboard playing.

I would like this album more if the guitar wasn’t phased and phucked around to buggery. I can see it doing well in the States, but I don’t think it will appeal very widely anywhere else. It’s just not honest enough. It doesn’t bite or attack, and is generally slick and inoffensive, thus unmemorable.

.38 S P E C IA L

Wild Eyed Southern Boys (A & M) M A R S H A LL T U C K E R B A N D

Dedicated (Warner Bros) THE O ZARK D A R E D E V IL S

M O U N T A IN

Nuclear Fishin’ (A & M) Between them, these albums have one minor redeeming feature. The Ozark’s “Greatest Hits” album has the

sweet “Jackie Blue ” as its opening track.

Apart from that these three records collectively represent everything bad that American country rock can get up to.

Marshall Tucker are a bunch of maudlin old drunks. .38 Special are a bunch of sexist, lecherous young drunks. The Ozarks are too vacubus to characterise. Between them there’s not an interesting or original idea, note, lyric, solo etc. to be found. It’s a crime that superb producers like Tom Dowd (Mar­ shall Tucker) or Glyn Johns (Ozarks) should become associated with this. More’s the pity too that Ronnie VanZanelt (former Lynyrd Skynyrd) should have a brother (Donnie) to carry on his legacy with the bar room sludge of .38 Special.

Avoid these records at all costs!

M ARK B U RFO R D

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