Singles

Rip It Up, Issue 19, 1 February 1979, Page 18

Singles

KEN WILLIAMS

Elvis Costello has built a personality based on barely repressed anger. With Radio Radio” he sounds as if he's about to finally blow his stack.

Elvis gets great back-up from the Attractions as he tears into everyone in sight and when he spits "the radio is in the hands of such a lot of fools trying to anaethetise the way you feel” the .vinyl runs with venom. ("Radio Radio" isn't on Costello’s new album.) High emotion also features on the AllWeather Parker, a thoughtful coupling of Graham Parker’s "Heat in Harlem” and "Thunder and Rain.” GP surpasses himself on "Heat.” The band gets into a groove that doesn’t quit and Parker seethes with the sultry haze of sweating cement. The other side of the weather forecast is only marginally less intense. Dragon's "Still in Love With You” manages to suppress their rather unpalatable machismo in favour of solid keyboard playing and a sensitive production by Peter Dawkins. Could be their best yet. Piping organ features on Split Enz’ “I See Red.” A real garage band sound this, more rock and roll than we’re used to from Enz but that essential touch of the manic is still there.

"Egyptian Reggae” by Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers is crazy enough to be a hit. It’s wonderful, tuneless harem music of the sort that would accompany the gyrations of belly dancers in such unsung movie classics as The Voyage of the Son of the Third Toenail of Sinbad.

Also of interest are the Boomtown Rats’ "Rat Trap," a Bob Geldof street corner fantasy; "American Squirm" by Nick "A Song to Remember” Lowe; Heads Down No Nonsense Mindless Boogie" by the British satirists Alberto Y Lost Trios Paranoias; "Angels with Dirty Faces” by Sham 69, the social conscience of the British New Wave; and "Public Image" by Public Image Ltd, the new band for John Lydon (aka Rotten), who is assuredly the voice of British punk.