Second Time Round

Rip It Up, Issue 11, 1 May 1978, Page 16

Second Time Round

Evolution (Tjie Most Recent) Taj Mahal Warner Brothers

Taj Mahal is as much musicologist as musician. He has run the gamut of the music of the Americas, from the electric blues of Chicago through the Mississippi Delta to slave chants and the roots of Caribbean music. Evolution offers a hearty helping of the various facets of American music without becoming bogged down in academia. Taj Mahal is using modern “disco” rhythms in the manner of Boz Scaggs. The combination of light funk with the steel drum sounds of the West Indies and rhythm and blues changes makes a very rewarding sound. Taj's humour hasn't deserted him either. There's a sly impersonation of Howling Wolf. But the biggest buzz is a hypnotic instrumental, "The Most Recent (evolution) of Muthafusticus Modernusticus". For repeated listening. Ken Williams

Ry Cooder

Boomer’s Story

Reprise The Stooges

Funhouse

Elektra

With Ry Cooder booked for an Auckland concert in May it is particularly apt that WEA records have chosen to re-release various Cooder material. This man's following, though perhaps cultist, is founded upon deserved respect for a brilliant musician’s adaption 9 f his surrounding culture. And it is a following that will be grateful for any Cooder repeats. The re-issue of Boomer's Story, as an example, allows easier access to a superb album and affords a chance to re-state Ry Cooder’s public service in bringing diverse and ethnic American music to a rock audience. Boomer’s Story, his third album recorded in 1 972 is a characteristic collection of musical Americana, ranging from the traditional “Boomer’s Story” to the wartime anthem “Cornin’ in on a Wing and a Prayer". The Cooder treatment includes those virtuoso, if shambling, picking and slide styles of his and of course his voice. The latter is a truly remarkable instrument, graced with a blend of cynicism and drunken reverence for the music of his birth-

London Town Wings Capitol Well, blow me over with a bikie’s b.o. McCartney manages to sound like everybody (including Abba, Fairport Convention, Elvis Presley and Peter, Paul & Mary) except himself. He seems to have deserted his excellent bass-playing and singing for old age. He still hasn't deserted his wife, alas. (OK, Ferns, start moaning). The songs on the album are fairly weak particularly in relation to his successful commercial stuff (eg “Let Em In’’, “Letting Go”) and as well, the usual high standard of arranging has gone. Instead we have an acoustic bias in the strum-strum vein (a la Matamata on Saturday night) and Linda’s keyboard work is particularly unadventurous. Many of the tracks are co-written by

place. Like personal friend Randy Newman, Cooder projects a laconic indulgence in his native America. And like Newman’s his is likely to be a lasting contribution to a Yankee tradition. Boomer's Story is simply recommended as a fine exhibition of that achievement. Apart from country of origin and roughly comparable vintage the Stooges’ second album Funhouse bears no relation to Cooder's in any way at all. Why mention it here? Solely because it too is a re-release, emerging through the same distribution company. Recorded in 1970, Funhouse claims historical merit as prefigured punk, a splash of the new wave much before its time. However Iggy Pop and friends pound through seven compositions, sadly obscuring in the process a reputation the Stooges have as a crunching guitar-riff outfit. At fault is an appalling production, all mush and middle, and some wildly irrelevant sax playing by Steven Mackay. Funhouse was recorded without Stooge guitarist James Williamson and will disappoint those who expect a driving new-wave anachronism. Only Iggy’s voice, raucous and bluesy, really escapes the acid rock time warp in which the backing is enmeshed. Sadly Funhouse is as dated as Boomer's Story is timeless. Bruce Belsham

Denny Laine and lyrically they are quite insubstantial. I know a tiny waterfall A magic little place Where we can play together And watch the fishes race As well as Laine on bits and pieces, guitarist, Jimmy McCulloch, and drummer Joe English, help out to a questionable extent. (Both have now left the group although it appears that English wants to rejoin. Sap). Overall however, it is the songwriting that really fails. Late last year McCartney was talking to old friend Tim Finn and he mentioned that he liked “Charlie". Now if he could write songs like those boys, old London Town would be a great deal more interesting. As it stands though, I guess it’s bye bye Macca. Mike Chunn

Jefferson Starship Earth Grunt Like the roofpaint, this band just keeps on keeping on. Can you credit, it's 12 years since it took off? Sure, things got a bit turbulent there for a while, what with pilot trouble and all, but now the Starship enterprise seems to be cruising more smoothly, than the Airplane ever did. It seems more popular too. Fancy getting a Grammy award. Has middle America embraced the revolution? Hardly. Flight plans became modified; that’s all. The only sign of Kantner’s old hippies-plumb-the-galaxy ethos on this album is the title and cover. The only whiff of politics is on one track “Show Yourself." Many things, however, do remain the same. The music still has vestiges of that amateurism-made-good feeling which characterized so many 60's San Francisco bands. Often, ideas displayed in both song structure and performance seem’ dated. This is particularly evident in the guitar and keyboard soloing. Yet there’s also a positive side ot the retaining of things past. Many tracks are redolent of that semi-structured, ’psychedelic’ free-flow so appealing of the Airplane. (This is not to belie the tightness of the band; simply to emphasize that even though musicians may change, the sound 1 remains defined by the three original copilots.) But then, hasn’t the whole flight-log itself become a bit of a bore by now? Surprisingly not. Earth is probably a better record than it’s immediate predecessors. While it may not contain a single of the magnitude of, say, "Miracles”, (though that remains to be seen) as an album it’s far more unified and of higher overall quality. There’s not that impression of a couple of good tracks standing out in an uneasy mixture containing too much filler. The singing, too, is better, more assured. Although the odd strain still shows, Grace and Marty are sounding more comfortable now. My initial reactions to Earth were largely negative. I was going to write about aging rockers who refuse to retire gracefully. But, dammit, they do still pack a wallop in their own, somwhat atavistic manner, and besides, the tunes have been hanging around my head for days. Peter Thomson

Karla Bonoff - CBS p| Hot on the heels of Libby Titus, another new songwriter from C. 8.5.. This is Karla Bonoff ex-back-room-girl for Linda Ronstadt, everyone’s favourite Girl Guide. Bonoffs first album is produced by her own husband, Kenny Edwards who just happens to be Linda Ronstadt’s bass player .. . Ronstadt fans will like the Bonoff album, although :mercifully, she abstains from at-’ ' tempting the Buddy Holly revival that Ronstadt seems to be always forcing on her audiences. This is a rather gentle and reflective album,. which -I. think will grow in my estimation the more that I play it. Perhaps I was lucky to start by listening to “Isn’t It Always Love” the rather catchy little opener to Side 2, by far the better half of the disc. Lyrically the songs seem to treat, if not indeed harp upon, the problems of love. This is something of a danger when you have an-album being basically written by one person, because it can become pretty unvarying. True, Ronstadt also favours love songs but different writers give the albums ‘ the variety they need. In fact the two nonBonoff songs, Craig Safan’s “Faces in the Wind’’ and Steve Ferguson’s “Flying High” really stand out which may be taken as some criticism of Bonoff s own songs. Let’s face it, you’re brave if you write and sing words like I'm not telling you lies now I need you You know how I think I can see how to let you grow I've got to let you go unless you're Andy Pratt. Session musicians like Waddy Wachtel, Russell Kunkel, Leland Sklar, Andrew Gold, Wendy Waldman etc. etc. etc. make it all smoothsville, but I suspect it does lack a little bit of variety as an album. William Dart

Isotope The Best of IGujJt HMBI Tangerine Dream Cyclone Gong Expresso II Virgin

Tangerine Dream is one of the few groups to survive the early 1970’s interest in experimenting with strange electronic sounds. It is no longer trendy to venture into the avant-garde but this group is still pursuing the unknown. The group's latest Cyclone takes these musicians a step further. Tangerine Dream has always been among the most subtle and accomplished of the groups trying to create electronic masterpieces. Many such works have been rejected because of their cold distant approach and their overdose of synthesizers. They’d play with the new toy and forget about trying to create good music in the process. Early Tangerine Dream used an impressive lineup of keyboards plus the occasional guitar. The group borrowed ideas from leaders in the 20th century classical electronic field like Stockhausen and Ligeti (whose works were included in the film 2001). They sought to help create the music of the future. Vocals feature on Cyclone perhaps not as successfully as one may have hoped. It inevitably draws comparisons with the Alan Parsons project or even Pink Floyd. Possibly this album will make the group more accepted by a wider rock audience. Gong has had a more unstable career. It was founded by poet-guitarist David Allen who also founded Soft Machine. At one time it achieved cult status in France but has gone through many line-up changes. This album includes Mick Taylor.

Eddie and the Hot Rods Life on the Line Island Eddie and the Hot Rods play fast. Very fast. On Side One of Life on the Line they burn through five songs at a high velocity. A wall-to-wall adrenalin rush that speeds in on the best song on the album, the great single “Do Anything You Wanna Do”, and exits at much the same speed sixteen minutes later. In fact that’s the problem here. The songs are mostly so fast that there’s no room for dynamics. The same buzz-saw guitar solo recurs and little apparent variation is achieved in the flat-out format. So you get several rewritesofthesamestylewhich range from the classic (“Do Anything") to the

good (“Telephone Girl”) to the dire (“Don’t Believe Your Eyes”). Thus, although only half of this album is a total success, the Rods have solved the where-do-we-go-from-here problem. They arrived as a tough R&B based guitar band. A precursor to punk they became swamped in the flood of the New Wave. The addition of guitarist Graeme Douglas from the Kursaal Flyers has moved the band in the direction of what’s currently termed powerpop. The Rods have got power aplenty and with a little more concentration on the material and pacing, the next album should see them safe and well away from having to put their lives on the line. Alastair Dougal