RECORDS

Rip It Up, Issue 126, 1 January 1988, Page 14

RECORDS

The Bats

Daddy’s Highway Flying Nun

Some clever people say that Robert Scott is the best songwriter in the country. You know why? It’s because he taps the essence of all instantly hummable, instantly likeable pop: simplicity. That’s been evident through all previous Bats records, but until now (aside from the fab 12” Made Up in Blue) those songs haven’t come even close to being fully realised in the studio. Now things change: Daddy’s Highway has it all, songs, performance (believe me, this band is humming), and finally, it’s a Bats record that doesn’t sound like it was recorded by the band in a wardrobe to a microphone on the other side of a brick wall. It doesn’t sound “huge” but it sounds right, and it’s a whole album, what's more. Twelve songs! Robert Scott’s words (“north by north / still following you”... “tragedy begins at home /so I'm told”) form part of a world view that observes things a lot more closely nowadays. Charming as they were, characters (Mr Earwig “feeling blue,” Claudine’s “father standing still”) have fallen by the wayside in favour of a more Scottcentered viewpoint. Now Scott sings it is “I” who is “feeling like a block of wood.” These are all songs closely revolving around familiar, personal themes; no ideology, just an intricate awareness of what’s going on around him, developing, like the song structures, complexity and that awareness through an accumulation of “simple” images.

His singing is now in tune,augmented by Kaye Woodward’s harmonies, and that enhanced focus on the central vocal melody frees up her guitar to stretch songs (‘Miss These Things,’ ‘Daddy’s Highway’) out a little. Elsewhere, the Rip’s Alistair Galbraith plays violin on three tracks; twice to good effect (‘Treason’ and ‘Sir Queen’), and finally on ‘North by North,’ where the Bats really catch you by surprise. Robert Scott calls it a “guitar freakout,” and when you add a manic violin skating across the top, it’s not exactly what Music from the Fireside would have led you to expect from a Bats album!

Ultimately, the best of a consistent bunch would have to be ‘North by North,’ ‘Sir Queen’ and the single ‘Block of Wood.’ All through the album, the Bats have a rhythm section, Paul Kean and Malcolm Grant,

who provide Scott’s tunes with a robust edge — it’s not that their songs seem like they keep trying to run away from you, but it’s just that they can’t stop moving, so propulsive like they’re rushing headlong, over and over again. Laced across the top of that comes the lyrical charm and diversity of melodic temperament that really make Daddy's Highway. Don’t miss it. PaulMcKessar The Housemartins The People Who Grinned Themselves to Death Chrysalis Like some proletariat version of the Monkees, the Housemartins have returned to prove that their first album London 0, Hull4was only a pilot for the

series of sharply focused shots that make up The People Who Grinned Themselves to Death. Last year's Housemartins came on too cute, too eager to please. Still, their refusal to succumb to the glittering pop temptations of London in reference to remaining in the dowdiness of their homebase Hull was a merit point for integrity. And their wholesome, un-hip if slightly wet Caravan of Love EP vouched for the honesty of the convenient humanism and socialism of London o's erratic attack.

The People Who Grinned reflects lessons learned. Scarcely pausing to check what’s on their sleeves they launch into the dangers of royalty spotting on the title track: “And even when their kids were staving / they all

thought the Queen was charming.” P D Heaton’s words are as sharp as tacks as he crucifies yuppie smugness on ‘I Can’t Put My Finger On It’ and while the band cook like the Undertones on heat on ‘We’re Not Going Back,’ he pitches into nostalgia: “Do you remember the good old days? / An empty stomach and a tear-stained face.”

The ballad ‘Johannesburg’ (“I’d like to see a world without you”) is selfexplanatory, while ‘Pirate Aggro’ is an irrepressible Booker T ripoff. The price of progress where new slums replace old slums in New England is the subject of ‘Build,’ far and away their best effort at combining gospel and pop from the depths of Hull: “Treated us like plasticene town / They built us up and knocked us down.”

The People Who Grinned isn’t a radical shift in philosophy or musical style, rather it’s a consolidation and refinement of the strengths offered in their first album. This inoffensively named but cunningly subversive band have finally got the songs to match their impeccable politics and consciences. George Kay Bryan Ferry Bete Noire Virgin There’s a really odd side to fashion, a region where style becomes so mannered that it moves out of step with accepted tastes and becomes disturbing and weird. The English have it down pat, this slick, beautiful oddness — check out Harpers & Queen. Or listen to Bete Noire, which covers the same eccentric territory. Bryan Ferry records now arrive once every two and a bit years. Record companies would hope that he’s working at the same tempo as Michael Jackson; in reality, he’s probably working according to the winter solstice. Mr Ferry is getting more sordid as he ages, like an Edwardian count shot through with port and opium. In Bete Noire’s title track, backed by a trio of 60 year old tango musicians, Bryan gets so mannered that he nearly falls over. The record as a whole staggers: from patchy collaborations (‘Seven Deadly Sins’) to tres tight singles (‘Limbo,’ ‘The Right Stuff) and then stumbles across three of the best songs Ferry’s ever written.

‘Zamba,’ ‘Day For Night’ and the title track of Bete Noire are the said best. This is not bad going for someone old enough to be my dad who, depending on what interview you read, would rather be (a) a farmer,

(b) a mountaineer, or (c) Grace Kelly. The panache with which they are arranged is equally satisfying, gazoolike horn riffs, screeching backing singers and constant “jungle” ambience, interrupted only by a digital watch alarm (listen for it!) and an “Indian” guitar riff courtesy of Windsor Davies.

Johnny Marr plays guitar, one of many musicians used on the album. Ferry himself only sings and, as is revealingly credited, “directs.” He has never cut a solo album with less than 15 other musicians on hand. Bete Noire, in its years of making, has involved about 30. New faces Marr and Patrick Leonard rub shoulders with old-timers Rhett Davies (on trumpet, I think), Tawatha Agee and Simon Puxley. Ferry has gathered a real family around him for recording purposes; there are only five or six names here which I could not find (in a very bored and pedantic moment) on at least one of his previous albums. I hope Bryan Ferry is still going at 60. He never did move overly fast, so there’s no worry about him slowing down (unlike Lou Reed and David Bowie, who look worse every year) and besides, I’d miss such a good line in tuxedos and whimsy. Judging by Bete Noire, things will only get better. Odder, hazier, more jaded and bleary, but better. Chad Taylor Eric B and Rakim Paid in Full 4th & Broadway The first thing that hits you about Eric B and Rakim is their attitude. It’s a problem. Rakim is a sardonic streetman, with a mocking, accusing rap style. Eric B is a teddy bear, but a pragmatic technician; he's gently arrogant. On Paid in Full they swagger through the album with a laissez faire cocksuredness. They work together easily, using classic beats like 70s James Brown, Barry White and Original Concept. It makes for great hiphop.

‘I Know You Got Soul’ and ‘Eric B is on the Cut’ are showcase pieces — literally a tour de force for their first album, but other tracks are just B-side remixes of the original singles. ‘Eric B is President’ is a shadow of its bad self, and ‘My Melody becomes a demo-thick recording of subsonic bass and reverbed vocals, it’s anarchic, and either a work of genius or vandalism. Perhaps the best fun comes from a Def Jam-styled ‘Paid in Full,’ where Eric acknowledges their management, Rush Productions, who are the other half of the Def Jam label. My betting is that with these

associations, and some of Russell Simmons’ marketing discipline, Eric B and Rakim will wind up bigger and deffer on their next album. Peter Grace David Sylvian Secrets of the Beehive Virgin ABC Alphabet City Mercury Two albums from musicians once at the forefront of UK fashion pop. ABC have overshot the scene once more; David Sylvian has opted out of it altogether. Sylvian’s is the most ambitious album. It is virtually all acoustic and, in his own words, places the emphasis on lyrics and songwriting. This is a bad move since neither are his strong points. Sylvian’s great and unexpected talent is in organising and collaborating with others, as his earlier Brilliant Trees and Gone to Earth prove. Both those albums were classics, and will be revered in years to come for their mood and their eloquence. Secrets of the Beehive (bad name for the NZ market, too) is just as worthy but, having dazzled us with the variety of Gone to Earth, its simplicity is disappointing, not refreshing. Buy his first two solo albums instead, they will keep you happier for a lot longer. ABC are still trying hard to break into the mainstream while retaining all their class and quirks. The fact that they have not been successful reminds you how full-on Ferry, Bowie and co are. Alphabet City contains three superb songs, but then again their previous How To Be a Zillionaire contained nine, and it got them nowhere. Louis Jardim, Anne Dudley and Bernard Edwards join them in the studio but Alphabet City has nd time for them; Martin Fry and Mark White bully all and sundry into playing the two-chord songs that graced their very first album. ‘When Smokey Sings’ contains Fry’s best lyrics (“When Smokey sings I as she’s packing her things I the front door might slam / but the back door it rings”) and also his worst (“When Smokey sings/1 hearviolins”) but it remains a heavenly little number. ‘The Night You Murdered Love’ starts flat but ends up real good, and then you must wait until the end of side two for ‘One Day,’ the other winning ballad. In between, well, I can’t really remember what’s in between. I’ve gone back and put on Zillionaire, frankly. Maybe I’m just getting old. Chad Taylor ’ *