Records

Rip It Up, Issue 88, 1 November 1984, Page 26

Records

George Kay

David Bowie Tonight EMI Last year may have been international Bowie year, what with his money-raking world trek and the

mega-sales of Let's Dance, but from a critical point of view it was probably his worst ever. No arguments, the Serious Moonlight tour was an over-rehearsed, preening circus and at least half of 1 Let’s Dance tried too hard to make a popular comeback and so sacrificed Bowie’s usual' strengths of depth and durability. At first glance Tonight seems to suffer from the same artistic laziness, since five of the nine songs are covers, three of them lifted from Iggy Pop. Bowie may have defused The Idiot version of ‘China Girl’ for his own purposes on Let's Dance but Iggy should

have no complaints about. the brash showbiz swing of ‘Neighbourhood Threat’ or the easy, reassuring reggae of the . title track, both originally on Lust For Life and [co-written with Bowie.■ From New Values comes i,'Don’t Look! Down’, the Iggy Pop-James Williamson advice on living on the! edge and Bowie adopts another reggae ’ temper, nice and "cool, "making the song deceptively casual.

Looking at the other covers and his treatment of the Beach Boys’ Ftef Sounds number ‘God Only Knows' is as assured as the heady ballads on Station To Station and

that only leaves 'I Keep Forgetting’, a . Leiber-Stoller standard roller recorded in 1962 by Chuck Jackson and Bowie cranks it up the way it hasjtab&QHMHU The originals may be outnumbered but thrall j hit the target. The crucial seven-minutes-plus opener, ‘Loving the Alien; is a spiritual [and [musical cousin to [‘AshesVTdTAshes’, a great song. Blue Jean’, the single as a cheap shot, T fits perfectly into the album's scheme of l things, as does new collaboration with"} Iggy, ‘Tumble and Twirl; the last chance to dance before ’Dancing With the Big Boys! a song that ironically recalls the tenor L of The 1 Idiot .MW Bassist Carmine Rojas wasn't far wrong when ; he jokingly told RIU last year that Bowie was so unpredictable that his new album could |be swing-time. With the Borneo Horns tightly laced through most of the songs and a nightlife production engineered by Hugh; Padgham, the album is a blaring, blinding trip through the bright lights and precarious nature of pop and life. So those, people who thought and maybe hoped I that he was down and out with] Let's Dance t better think again, because Tonight is Bowie back on form. „ George Kay Box! of. Frogs CBS After forming out of the famed Marquee Club 25th anniversary in: mid 1 1983, Box Of Frogs held a tonne of promise as an overview, of the 60s blues boom 20 years on. ■ ' .

Comprising three ex Yardbirds (Jim McCarty on drums, Chris Dreja on rhythm guitar, producer/ songwriter Paul Samwell-Smith on bass) and former Medicine Head multi-talent John Fiddler on vocals and guitar, this debut should have torn the lungs out of most of the competition. Unfortunately, however it

comes across as a characterless collection of tunes performed by a mid-70s style old boys club (with the addition of another ex Yardbird Jeff Beck on guitar for four tracks, and famed Irish tenor Rory Gallagher for two) unhampered by anything so simple as a direction.

The vocals , could be almost anybody you’ve never heard of, and the whole shebang only really works on the opener ‘Back Where il Started’, a boogie in the vintage John Lee Hooker style. A good production, but even with all ithese!reputations behind!it,fthis record is less than memorable: Dave McLean The Bluebells . Sisters London Not too. long ago you-could classify Scots bands into two main categories;' the Postcard clan of Joseph K. Orange and Aztec Camera, united [in their belief of garage and the Velvet Underground, and the opposing Big

Sounds of Simple Minds, Big Country (nee Skids) and the Associates.

These days things aren't quite so clear-cut, with the emergence from Glasgow of the likes of Lloyd Cole, James King, Friends Again, the Blue Nile and the Bluebells! who all fall somewhere between the two extremes.

Take the Bluebells, who’ve often been compared to the Postcard people because of their jangling guitar sound and unpretentious approach to the world of song. And that’s a comparison borne out by the likes of ‘Red Guitars’ and 'Syracuse University’ on their debut album, Sisters. But the band, based around the nucleus of chief songwriter Robert Hodgens and the McCluskey brothers, owes more to the 60s pop harmonies of the Hollies and the plaintive style of those other brothers, the Sutherlands, than to the vague secondhand influence of Postcard Records.

Love songs like ‘Everybody’s Somebody's Fool; ‘Cath’ and their new single ‘l’m Falling’ are a cut above the average boy-girl romance hard-luck story, not only in lyrical honesty 'but in catchy melodic hooks. The Bluebells also dabble in politics, sometimes too explicitly, as in the Falklands 7 plot 7 of ‘South Atlantic Way’ and the Celtic lilt of ‘The Patriot Game’, a song written by a friend of theirs, Dominic Behan. But on {Learn To Love’ their point is more veiled and therefore more effective.

Although they scale no great heights or set new standards in songwriting, the Bluebells have a fresh-faced sincerity that avoids tartan sentimentality and new image hype.