Records

Rip It Up, Issue 104, 1 March 1986, Page 18

Records

Vioient Femmes The Blind Leading the Naked = WEA There was little room for polish or embellishment on the basic three-piece sound of those great first two Femmmes LPs — minimalism was it. The influence of country was developing on Hallowed Ground, but the diversification really takes off here on The Blind Leading the Naked, with the Femmes being joined by the 12 members of the “Horns of Dilemma” and playing everything from almost-hardcore to gospel blues, country, Arabic music and an ampheteminal nursery rhyme. Fellow Milwaukee-boy, Talking Head Jerry Harrison produces and helps to fill out the Femmes’ sound, polishing but not masking their musical enthusiasm. ‘Old Mother Reagan, 28 seconds of high speed anti-Gipper nursery rhyme immediately. st.ows Gordon Gano's new lyrical concerns. Along with his infamous lingering teenangst, The Blind Leading the Naked mixes Gano's forthright Christian convictions with his political ones — also evident in ‘No Killing’ and ‘Faith the latter a wonderful straight Chicago blues declaration of “l don't believe in no car ... General Motors ... Reagan ... or the League of Women Voters / | got my faith baby, in the Lord.” Vocally, Gano's love songs are desperate messages. ‘Special’ matches a Dave Thomas shriek with a manic thrash of genuine Übu-esque proportions, while the mellow ‘Good Friend ‘and ‘Two

People’ appear very much in the style of (never!) Lou Reed ...

Brian Ritchie’s Arabic music interests are to the fore in ‘Candlelight Song, and Ritchie sings ‘Love and Me Make Three, dirtyass rock’n'roll with a piano pushin’ it hard.

Horns go wild in ‘I Held Her In My Arms' (a live highlight) and Bolan’s ‘Children of the Revolution’ gets a big baad treatment that the old, sparse Femmes would never have imagined being within their capabilities. . In fact, there’s a lot here that'is way beyond the old Femmes. It's not an LP for those at His Majesty’s who cried, “You're not the Violent Femmes” at any song not off the first album. Gano's lyrics are not going to appeal to the narrowminded, and musically they've developed light years away from ‘Blister in the Sun’ (great tho' it is ...). And good for them — The Blind Leading the Naked is a joyous ard wonderfully crafted album. It should be loved. Paul McKessar Suzanne Vega ; A&M : : : The advert in last month's Rip It Up for this debut album compared Suzanne Vega to Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Rickie Lee Jones and Laurie Anderson. Some large scale expectations there. Pretty unfair too. For starters Vega has little in common with Dylan apart from the fact that she belongs to the tradition of contemporary folksong he pioneered in the early 60s. :

Secondly, she has almost nothing in common with Laurie Anderson. Ms Anderson may well play about with conventional song forms but so do lots of people. Searching for such similarities with Vega's style of songwriting or

performance is misleading. Ditto for Rickie Lee Jones. Vega's intense, introverted romanticism is a far cry from the sassy West Coast beatnik persona cultivated on 1979’s Rickie Lee Jones. The backdrop one imagines to Vega's songs is invariably Greenwich Village, Manhattan. Moreover the huge success of Ms Jones's debut centred on her instantly infectious hit single, and upon sober examination her album soon reduced to a mere three or four worthwhile songs. Not so here. Suzanne Vega contains no likely hit single — she’s not that kind of musician — but then nor does it contain anything that’s disposable. Every one of these 10 tracks contains such precise craft that its full riches are revealed only gradually. It is an album that continues to grow even after several hearings. The-record company’s comparison of Vega with Joni Mitchell-is, while again somewhat misleading when describing a new and original talent, at least partly understandable. Suzanne Vega contains the same consciously poetic in-

trospection and cryptic emotionalism that characterised Mitchell’s 1968 debut. (There's even one or two of those romantic folk parables Mitchell used to love writing. Check ‘The Queen and the Soldier’). Vega is very much a confessional balladeer of the kind that flowered in the 60s and then, with few notable exceptions, drowned in their own neuroses during the 70s. Of course it is possible she could go this way too, but the overall strength of her recording debut holds out the promise of much more. .

‘Considerable praise must also be given to the superb accompaniment these songs receive. While all arrangements centre on her own acoustic guitar, the addition of electric guitar, keyboards, rhythm section, is always deft, entirely complementary and never overbearing, no matter what the dynamics. Try the funk & roll on ‘Neighbourhood Girls’ or the marvellous synth and violin interplay on ‘Some Journey:. In fact try the whole album. Peter Thomson The Fabulous Thunderbirds Tuff Enuff ; CBS: ; This is the T-Birds third LP to be released down here, and their finest yet. One of the hottest bands to emerge from Texas, with the mean guitar of Mr Jimmy Vaughan slippin’ and a slidin’ through some classic rhythms. The earlier blues sound has given way to something similar to the Blasters: and the Le Roi Brothers; American music rooted in all the grand traditions — the white soul of country music and black rhythms of R&B. Just one listen to the title cut should convince you that these

boys are more than ‘tuff enuff’, the rhythm section of Fran Christina on drums and new bass player Preston Hubbard really cook. Just love the drums on ‘Look at That, Look at That'’: rock steady and a monster tom sound courtesy of Dave Edmunds at the control board. All 10 tracks are absolute gems, with the cool vocals on ‘Two Time My Lovin” and the harp on ‘I Don’t Care’ being standouts. | just wish there were more than just 10 tracks. The TBirds are touring soon with Jimmy’s brother Stevie Ray and it's gonna be a real kKiller. , Kerry Buchanan Pete Townshend White City: A Novel : Atco ; A little note on the album sleeve says: “A film written by Pete Townshend, directed and adapted for longform video by Richard Lowenstein and based on this record ... It stars Frances Barber, Andrew Wilde and Pete Townshend. The videogram contains music not featured on this record and vice versa.” So where’s the‘‘novel” bit come in? Well the main sleeve note, written by Townshend, is a sort of fictionalised background to the film and could qualify as a short story. This story does include the pub gig rave-up episode that we've recently seen promoting ‘Face to Face’ on television. But that ‘Face to Face’ is a slightly different version from the one on this album. Oh, and the record sleeve photo is an illustration for the short story (and probably film t 00). Is that multi-media enough for you? (Obviously Mr Townshend’s recent authorial debut via the esteemed Faber & Faber publishing house has further

stimulated his interests in the literary and visual arts.) But for the moment let's separate White City from any attendant film soundtrack or literary narrative functions and just treat it as a bunch of songs. As such, side one is all good, solid stuff. Nothing of classic proportions mind you, but certainly well crafted. There’s both the tradTownshend dependability to satisfy old Who die-hards and also enough original spark not to seriously let down after those finé solo album precedents, Empty Glass and Chinese Eyes. Side two opens with the continued strength of side one, but after ‘Crashing by Design' the spark almost disappears. The remaining.three tracks are no more than workmanlike (whereas on side one even the shop-worn boogie of ‘Face to Face’' is executed with cunning flair). On ‘I Am Secure’ for example, two minutes of repetitious synth introduction gives way to a maudlin melody and bathetically selfconscious lyric. In fact it’s only on these final three tracks that Tewnshend'’s typical wordiness really becomes apparent. Elsewhere the music is sturdy enough to successfully integrate the lyrics. : But all told, six good tracks out of nine ain’t bad. With Chris Thomas again producing and much the same group of musicians who’ve played so well now on all his solo sets, Pete Townshend is still musically secure enough to keep any literary aspirations as a strictly secondary career. Peter Thomson Clan of Xymox s 4AD _ English critics have been lauding praise on this slab of vinyl from

ultra-hip indie label 4AD’s latest signing from Holland, Xymox. But along with all this praise has come mention (in every review) of another band, one called New Order ... ‘And justifiably so, not only because in amongst the dark dance machine thuds of ‘A Day’ and ‘Stranger’ emerge rhythms and sounds that one would usually associate with a certain other band, but even the lyrics (occasionally clumsy in their English phrasing — writing in a foreign language ain't the easiest thing to do well) concern the same old soul-searching, loneliness and despair themes. Mixing lonely bedrooms and packed dance floors ... pretty bloody familiar scene, eh punters? But let’s not say “new order” anymore — apparently Xymox don't appreciate the comparison. To be fair to Xymox though, their dense, layered moods set them apart, into an area sparsely populated by synth-dance groups, and that distinctive sound emerges as a dark celebration of something that | can’t quite comprehend through the heavy Dutch accents ... Chris Roberts in Sounds said, “the frightening thing is, they could be even better” and that’s true. But, I'm convinced that what is also true is that they're not as good now as he and the rest want to think. Still, they’re not bad, but that’s hipdom fo’ ya. Paul McKessar The Waterboys This Is The Sea Island ' The Waterboys' Mike Scott isn't one to address himself to the mundane things in life. Nope, as a sensitive, serious-minded visionary, on A Pagan Place his mind was moved by nothing less than epic patriotic sagas (‘Red Army Blues)), big personal philosophies (‘The Big Music’) and religious metaphors (A Pagan Place’ and ‘Church Not Made With Hands)). And because lyrically he's brushing against mountain peaks Scott has felt obliged to ram home his ideas with an equally BIG exaggerated production technique. This Is The Sea follows the same path as A Pagan Place but its fair to say that Scott has trimmed one or two of his excesses back to a credible level. It still sounds as though it's been produced in a fjord with the odd

wave crashing for good effect, but, on Side! Two especially with: ther business-like aggression of ‘Medecine Bow’ and ‘Be My Enemy’ and the nagging piano riff prodding ‘Old England;, Scott shows that there is real intent behind the shades. i The first side is reserved for three statements that could have been abbreviated into three workmanlike songs. The trumpet fanfare that croaks the entrance of ‘Don't Bang the Drum'’ is a vacuous flourish for a song that has the occasional Dylanish sting in its tail. ‘The Whole of the Moon’ plods along innocently enough and ironically make%a nice point about reaching ‘too, far too soon, but neither it nor the spiritual searching of ‘The Pain Within' have the pulse to make them convincing. So, This Is The Sea, despite some refinements on A Pagan Place, still leaves the question as to whether Scott’s pilgrimage is really gonna be worth the trip. George Kay Various Artists Outnumbered By Sheep BiFM By-production I'm rilly pleased that my favourite songs on this BFM Auckland compilation are not from the old established artists, but the up and coming local bands. It shows the talent that’s there. : All four of these bands provide absolute to gooey garage pop — the out-outstanding song being “Travelling Grave' by Goblin Mix. The Pterodactyls play the Buzzcocks-poppy ‘Everytime it Rains; and both the Bird Nest Roys and changed line-up Able Tasmans outdo their older, but recently released material with-‘Who is the Silliest Rossi?’ and ‘Carolines’ respectively. Also worthy of mention are the (unfortunately, now terminated) Children’s Hour two-parter’ Creeping Flesh’ and the (alive -and; menacing) Headless Chickens' “Trigger. And Fetus Productions, usually tending to be carefully restrained on record, really let loose on-‘Sparks Fly’ Chris Knox provides ‘lndigestion, a Canned Music out-take, while the Fold’s ‘Need of Want’ sounds like some sort of choppedup Birthday Party out-take. The rest is: ‘Liberal Cad, an Expendables track from early 1984 ‘Dragons in Eden; a Kiwi Animal soundscape; ‘Oceania, a

monotonal ode of sorts from Kim Blackburn; and ‘Testament’ a raw acoustic number from Nick Smith.

The “wild sheep on the town” David Mitchell is great, and it's obvious that Debbi Gibbs and a lot of people have put heaps of hard work into this whole project, so support this record cos it's got some mighty moments. Remember too, to support student radio. Martin Phillips sings his BFM ditty in the end grooves: “There’s only one station worth listening to ...” Believe him. Paul McKessar UK Squeeze J Cosi Fan Tutti Frutti A&M Having reformed last year after their 1982 split, Squeeze have been in the game for nearly 14 years, five if you convert that to albums. Based around the DiffordTilbrook songwriting team, the band’s East End grittiness and way with a good tune haven't really netted them the returns they've deserved. In fact Jools’ Holland is probably the best-known member of the band and that’s because he fronted Channel Four’s The Tube. Cosi Fan Tutti Frutti (Mozart meets Little Richard), domestic bliss was never like this, won't catapult them onto high-rotate playlists; gleaning the worth from the density of most of the songs here steers the album well clear of any real commercial potential. But there’s gold in these grooves. The leanest pickings lie in songs like ‘1 Won't Ever Go Drinking Again’ and ‘Hits of the Year, too drab to make the grade. Things get better with the adulterous hi-jinks of ‘No Place Like Home' and the murderous ‘Last Time Forever. But the best has to be the typically Squeeze happy families, ‘King George St. (“She left in the middle of the night with the kids, wrapped in a blanket with a packet of crisps”) and the touching little humilities of ‘By Your Side’ and ‘I Learnt How to Pray: Like all the best songwriters, Difford and Tilbrook have a knack of pulling back the curtain to expose that glimpse of reality that you've always taken for granted. Cosi Fan Tutti Frutti needs patience and so it isn't the ideal introduction to their repertoire. But as an example of substance before marketing, you'd be a mug to miss it.

George Kay