RECORDS

Rip It Up, Issue 130, 1 May 1988, Page 24

RECORDS

The Dead C DR 503 Flying Nun The Dead C, a trio from just outside of Dunedin, can make some beautiful moments on their debut record DR 503 using the unlikeliest of tools; things like untuned guitars hit with drumsticks recorded onto a Walkman. Their record works quietly in a way that commercial rock music cannot — by disregarding convention and using the antithesis of high technology and overblown production they make me think how much better that photo is than the record it covers. The Dead C use a suggestion of a mood that’s not quite expansive en-

ough to convince the listener that they’re sure of what’s going on. F’rinstance, in ‘Speed Kills,’ because you can't really hear parts of the song, including the lyrics, you’re forced into filling in those gaps yourself, expanding on a song where fragility and atmosphere are achieved through its being so deliberately unintelligible. The Dead C’s music is not particularly clever experimental work in the sense that they are working in a genre that can be all too easily dulled by intellectualism or calculated formalism, but they do bring an intelligence and deliberation of intent to DR 503 that makes its atmospheres very real. That is partly achieved too through their intuitive approach, due to the fact that they are simply two non-technicians, playing guitar with a rhythmically agile drummer. It manifests itself in a way of feeling their

way through a song like ‘Three Years’ until it explodes with a totally unexpected lead break played on a bass amidst crashing cymbals, led by a rise in the tempo of the stillsubmerged beat. And even though the Dead C would have to accept profound irritatin as a valid reaction to their work, only through its excesses of what is now “traditional" in experimentalism (such as ‘Mutterline’s sampled TV noise and accompanying cut-up philosophy) am I bored or irritated. Sometimes DR 503 can be difficult to listen through in its entirety, but that is valid too, part of its challenge to the listener; creating moments of provocation and extreme tension alongside passages of mournful fragility, this is extremism, music to think and squirm to.

Paul McKessar

The Jello Biaf ra Spoken Word Album No More Cocoons Alternative Tentacles OK, sb who thinks Jello Biafra is God? If so, you’ve probably already bought No More Cocoons. This double album “contains monologues, harrangues, observations and responses intended to amuse, inform and educate.” Jello’s been in the news a bit lately as lead singer for Dead Kennedys and boss of the Alternative Tentacles record label. An inner sleeve of the DK’s FrankenChrist LP featured a surreal, erotic, classic HR Geiger painting. The record was sold to a 14 year old so the moralist right decided the time was ripe to busted the sickos who had “distributed harmful matter to minors” (and generally encouraged their moral decay and dec-

adence). Well, No More Cocoons is essentially a campaign and, I might add, victory album. Alternative Tentacles’ chief staff faced imprisonment and fines in a costly test-trial that could have paved the way for a floodgate of lawsuits from parents suing evil fiends like Ozzy Ozbourne, Prince and of course Dead Kennedys, for destroying their kids minds. American teenagers are knocking themselves off left, right and centre and someone's to blame, right? Mr Biafra more than answers the charges on this double LP by making a total mockery of everything scared to Uncle Sam. Defence, religon, censorship, drugs, moralist groups, politicians and the space program are all given a Biafra bollocking. Some of the spiels are extremely funny, like the home-order Urinalysis kit for only $24.95 “to home-test your kid for drugs”! An 80’s exercise in misdirected moralist paranoia, like a Reefer Madness movie. Some of the language is also very clever and with

a mixture of lectures, talk-back shows and campaign speeches it makes an interesting, amusing, entertaining piece. On the negative, it is an airing of Jello’s political underwear, and the mood very much preaching to the converted. However, a political document very much in need of being with all the pro-American muck about. ~ Biafra swings in a few home truths in these stranger-than-fiction, hor-rible-but-true tales. Ken Stewart General Kane Wide Open k Motown This has an ugly cover. The General doesn’t look that good, very freeform hairstyle and studded dog collar. Not a sign on any gold or Italian leisure wear. But when you put the needle to the record there’s nothing about being paid in full, just real stoopid stuff like “Woppity wop” about “hit yo’ Momma” and “Girl pulled the dog” when the General was “out back with some pussycat.” We are getting into P-funk territory here, just outrageously funky, as if the General has gone into hyperspace and drunken from the same interstellar well as Clinton. He even does ‘Flashlight,’ a song so pure it’s hard to match the inspiration of Parliament. But the General does it hardcore, and comes close. Lots of good stuff, like in ‘Love Knee Deep,' ‘The Grown Up' and single ‘Houseparty.’ Like life's a jam, so let’s party and pin the tale on the funky. It’s so much like Clinton, I've taken to replaying the old Parliament/Funkadelic albums, and then remembering how stoopid they looked on their covers. These are very cool people. - The record’s a real blast, a bundle of funky fun.

Kerry Buchanan