Records

Rip It Up, Issue 77, 1 December 1983, Page 20

Records

Russell Brown

The Doors Alive, She Said Elektra Jim Morrison's poetry was never right on paper. I have a book at home and the rhythm is wrong. What seems wrong on cold paper makes perfect sense from Morrison's hot mouth: It crawls out of the Virginia swamps Cookand slow With a backbeat narrow and hard to master. The words slide seditiously and seductively off his tongue in a bare, slow version of Texas Radio and the Big Beat' that must be 4am radio in the dark. If the Doors had been born in the cynical 70s they'd probably have sounded very like the Birthday Party. Living in the Me Generation precludes talk about the children overcoming the thinking man turns within himself. Morrison's acid ramblings and Cave's cynical bet-hedging are different sides of the same coin. That over, the facts are these: this is a live record cobbled together from recently discovered tapes covering a three-year period. It opens with a mischievously carnal version of Van Morrison's 'Gloria' taken from a 1967 soundcheck. The story goes the. band had spent all day waiting for the production of Hair to vacate the stage and were in sore need of a tension releaser everything goes into this.

Other highlights are a graceful version of Light My Fire' that highlights the genius of Ray Manzarek's- swirling keyboards and Morrison's monologue in Texas Radio'. But it's all good (and so's the sound quality) and in some ways better than the Absolutely Live volumes because it's tighter and harder all the tracks picked are high points.

You can buy this record because you've got all the others (no songs appear on Absolutely Live and Gloria' and Little Red Rooster' can't be found anywhere else) or you can buy it because you haven't got an" of the others.

The age of this, music doesn't matter and if you listen to it maybe you won't get old. Russell Brown Public Image Ltd Live in Tokyo • Virgin . Ladies and gentlemen, the following phrases are destined to become classic critical cliches over the next few months. You are privileged indeed to read them here for the very first time ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, the brand spanking new Public Image review! One: After two years, Lydon (nee Rotten) can only produce three new songs, none of which would stir the brain cells of the. most feeble-minded pistolpunk! Two: Lydon (nee Putrid) has assembled a band of PiL copyists who slavishly ape their betters to little effect, turning revolt into style (Copyright Geo. Melly, nine-teen-sixty something). Three: Four-year-old songs are treated with scant respect and small skill by Lydon (nee Carcinogenic) and his slick but shallow band of men he dares to call PiL. Four: Where's Wobble with his deeply eccentric bass, Levene and his anarchically scything guitar, Lee with whatever the hell she did on Flowers of Romance! Where is the grandeur of Metal Box, the passion of First Issue ? Where is the gents, I wanna throw up. Five: The most theoretically radical of them all. King Punk, prince avant-garde, Johnny Lydon (nee necrophilia) plays it safe and. crawls out of his neon coffin'to sprawl in front of a tame Japanese audience and ever so cleverly and with utmost decorum spread himself rice paper thin over four digitally recorded 12" 45 sides, the bastard!

That's it ladies and gentlemen, this has been an historic occasion. You may now smoke. Chris Knox Dave McArtney . & The Pink Flamingos The Catch ZE Disc Kiwi rock's most modest elder statesman delivers 10 tracks that showcase all his strengths and one or two weaknesses. The compositions vary in age but the arrangements have been carefully tailored for coherency. The whole album has the methodical and professional approach we've come to expect from McArtney. Particular attention was given to the mix and it's certainly the best sounding record I've heard from this part of the world this year. Full marks to Harlequin. If it sounds like I'm damning this with faint praise, perhaps I should plead guilty. It's McArtney's melodies that lie at the heart of the problem. There's too much deja vu. Listen to Red Boots' or 'Carry On' and see what I mean. McArtney has written these songs before. He seems to have spent more time on the lyrics, which are some of the best he's ever written, lucid and often intensely personal. But some of the tunes just don't seem to fit. As examples, take 'l'm in Heaven' and 'Beauty and the Bottle', both of which receive lightweight treatments that do not befit their subjects. 'Wretched Youth' and 'Japan Affair' are the standouts because McArtney is far more adventurous in both melodies and arrangements. 1 feel both mean and churlish for writing this, because McArtney is such a damn nice guy who has taken a lot of knocks. I honestly hope that the fortunes of this album match his optimism about it. But also, in all honesty, it doesn't excite me Duncan Campbell The Body Electric Presentation and Reality Jayrem Wellington's Body Electric are .unique among New Zealand . bands. They have embraced computer technology wholeheartedly and produced synthesiser music that stands tall alongside the

works of European exponents of the form.

Presentation and Reality, their self-produced debut album comprising nine tracks, raises the question: is there life after 'Pulsing'? On this evidence, the answer is yes. The album is far superior to the earlier effort both in terms of composition and production. The album tracks are more mature, feature better hooks and more intricate instrumentation. The standouts are 'lllusion' and 'Zanzibar' but interest is maintained throughout. The most obvious flaw with this album is the overdramatisation of the lyrics on several songs by vocalist Garry Smith.

It's easy to take the facile route and slag this pnusic on stylistic or inspirational grounds. Yet com-' position using technology takes a high degree-of skill as it's difficult to breathe life into artificially created sounds. Body Electric have succeeded in the endeavour as well as any synth band. _ . Presentation. and Reality is a sound effort which, at the very least, deserves an audition. David Taylor Bob Dylan Infidels CBS Who knows what are the concerns today of the Dylan fans of yesteryear? Gone on to mortgage land? Hello out there (in there?), if you recall with a thrill and a smile the battering of 'From a Buick Six' or the crash of 'Maggie's Farm' then you owe it to yourself to listen to Infidels. Producer-guitarist Mark Knopfler understands Dylan's music like a soulmate but that was clear from the first appearance of Dire Straits. Around him he has gathered the stellar rhythm section of drummer Sly Dunbar and bassist Robbie Shakespeare, Dire Straits' keyboardist Alan . Clark and former Rolling Stone Mick Taylor, who adds the beef to Knopfler's sinewy sound. The music has the meat of the previously mentioned Dylan classics of the mid-60s but it's a contemporary sound, too. Usually a fast, even rushed, worker in the studio, Dylan took a month putting down basic tracks and then took a break before choosing his best tracks. It shows. On the lyrical side, Dylan is still attacking hypocrisy and greed, his voice rising and falling in those eccentric cadences, which even he admits he sometimes finds difficult to listen to. If Dylan's voice remains a stumbling block to some, the splendid music of Infidels should ease them in. If they have ears, they'll be hooked. Ken Williams The Henchmen We've Come to Play Cadaver Tony Goth and Norm Dillinger have been steadfastly ploughing their own furrow for some years now, releasing their first album as part of the Dum Dum Boys and now this one as part of the Henchmen. The sound here is the Detroit Sound via Radio Birdman - very hard and dense and fast.

Bitch Goddess' isn't much of an opener, it's hackneyed, musically and lyrically but the version of Iggy's 'I Got A Right' captures something of the spirit of the original. 'Metro Blues' steals the Damned's 'New Rose' riff (I wonder who they nicked it from?) and is okay.

The best tracks are the rerecorded single 'Do the Maelstrom', which gets across a real

sense of excitement and the wahwah laden theme song We've Come to Play'.

I'm something of a fervent Stooges fan myself so the ideas behind this record appeal to me but I can't help feeling the Henchmen have missed some of the essential factors that made the Stooges what they were. The Stooges were never this straightforward. Never quite this much head-down hard rock. The thing that's missing here is the sense of humour, the mocking. But for all that this record has some great moments and as far as energy goes it eats silly metal parodeers like Stormbringer. Hard rock if you want it. Russell Brown Say Yes To Apes Who's That TV Eye I was disappointed with this record at first. As an afficianado of the TV Eye tapes I'd been looking forward to the first real Godallmighty kickass vinyl thang. But initially- this didn't seem to have the perverse genius to be found on the Picnic Boys (for these are a mutation of them) albums and subsequent tapes like Weirdicats and The Hamburg. But after a couple of listenings it starts, to make sense. Well, as much sense as it's meant to make. Kevin Smith's songs are my favourites. The last chaste man in the Western world has much to communicate it pours from him in quite disquieting fashion.

‘ I like Man Alive', 'Let Them Eat Cake' 'Bloodsong' and The Burma Sun'. Throughout Smith sings, still apparently uneasy with his voice, Steven Watson gets multi-instru-mental and Patrick Faigan's drumming ensures things never get predictable. But I can't really describe this music other than to say that it sounds like the cover design. Which isn't much use to you if you can't see it, is it? There are many clowns in this world to whom you couldn't play this but if you can forget ideas about tune, tempo and decorum there is much here. These are prodigiously creative people. Give yourself a Christmas present. . • Russell Brown (Available for 58.99 from 506 Queens Drive, Invercargill.,Write to them they send great letters back.) The Rolling Stones Undercover Rolling Stones Undercover's strongest track is 'Too Much Blood'. Significantly it's also the least traditionally Stones sounding. Even more significant is that it's the track on which the extra musicians most outnumber the group. Four additional percussionists and a guest guitarist set up a hypnotic rhythm around the bassline (Bill Wyman's?) Then a horn section punches in the riff and all Jagger has to do is babble various inanities over the top. Presto! Another great Stones' dance number.

Otherwise, the track which you've all heard on the radio by now is the only other number to seriously rival Too Much Blood'. From there things fall away pretty rapidly as the old lags recycle ideas that were tried ten years ago. 'She Was Hot' has the simple virtue of a brisk pace but the rest of the album makes me want to hurl it out the window and slam on Sticky Fingers or Beggars Banquet before all those memories get soured too. One other gripe. I know Jagger's

always been a misogynistic bastard in his lyrics but this stuff scrapes the pits. The violent edge to his strutting sexism seems more blatant than ever. Obviously the past umpteen years of women's • consciousness raising have ,had absolutely no effect on him. Peter Thomson The Pelicans Eight Duck Treasure Eelman No one can say it's been a thrillpacked year for kiwi rock'n'roll. ' Little that's new or exciting has developed and just like the chaotic British scene we have so many bands pursuing their little piece of the fashion action. Only the maverick talents of the Tall Dwarfs, the Verlaines, the Neighbours and now the Pelicans have .kept the year from going under. From Wellington, the Pelicans have inherited the Hulamen's spirit, as. well as some of their musicians and record label. Guided by the dominant presence of guitarist/vocalist/songwriter (invariably political) Bill Lake, they lean towards an easy funk horn-laced feel that allows Lake's songs to be conveyed naturally. As a singer, he's no Peter Marshall more of an untroubled David Byrne. But his song content on Eight Duck Treasure probably noses a 50 per cent.success rate. The best means 'Shuffle-itis', the' loping reggae punch of 'Banana Dominion' (listen to the lyrics) and 'Down to the River' and the slow, measured funk of 'Down to the River'.

The rest 'Curiosity', 'Dead Cars', 'Out of the Frying Pan' and 'lf It Ain't Too Easy' aren't too inferior. And this all means the Pelicans have managed to close the Kiwi year with optimism still beating in a few breasts. George Kay R.E.M. Murmur IRS • This album took a while. I'd heard a lot about R.E.M. but I wasn't particularly impressed with this record at first listening. Infact, it wasn't until I saw the 'Radio Free Europe'-video on TV that I was really caught up by that song's winding, easy melody.

It's that kind of record. Listening closely pays off there are subtle touches here. Song structures aren't verse/chorus, phrases are repeated but they tumble into each other in a quite natural way. The shift in pace or rhythm within a song can be quite marked and almost go unnoticed because it seems to fit 'Pilgrimage' is one

example. Echoes of the Byrds and Dylan shine through clear and strong on several tracks. In fact, but for the production a curious but effective murk pierced by Bill Berry's clean (both in terms of production and playing) drums I suspect they'd very much like something from the 60s on some songs. Yet it's almost a matter of oldfashioned components being moulded into a modern sound.

Vocalist Michael Stipe sets much of the tone. He's sometimes gruff and sometimes reedy but it's generally hard to pick up his words. He apparently doesn't place much stock in his lyrics anyway.

But for all that, it's not an album that's going to set the world on fire. It's maybe a little too underplayed for its own good. It's an album I very much like to listen to but not an album that really excites me.