Records

Rip It Up, Issue 147, 1 October 1989, Page 26

Records

MOTLEY CRUE Dr Feelgood (WEA) It's party time again! The Motley lot are back with their follow-up to 1987’s hot Girls Girls Girls and the boys once more demonstrate that their ass-kickin’ abilities are infine form. Street sirens introduce the crack track about a heavy medical mutha and adirty dealer called ‘Dr Feelgood'. This istrue Crue at their bestin the tradition of ‘Wild Side’. Vince Neil is singing better than ever and Mick Mars is effective as hell at executing the guitar parts, proving that you don'thave to be overly technical to sound mean and great. ‘Slice Of Your Pie’ begins with a soft blues tune (just to trick you) andthenroarsinto life as a piece of hardrock sleaze. So trashy, andit's even finished off with the riff from the Beatles’ song ‘She’s So Heavy.” Nextin line is the especially likeable ‘Rattlesnake Shake’ thatis played so very tightly and has horns added for a bit of extra class. More borrowing can be heard in ‘Kick Start My Heart’ as it is similarto the Sweet's ‘Hellraiser’ but no-one will mind ‘cos it's such a ripper piece of action. ‘Sticky Sweet’ is another real high point with Tommy Lee's beat keeping the band real together. Fans may argue how Dr Feelgoodrates next to other Crue favourites but one thing's for certain — it's perfect medicine for the coming summer. GEOFFDUNN

THE BEATMASTERS Anywayawanna (Arista) ; Still relatively unknown in Kiwiland, the Beatmasters are a London based trio who made it big in England by supplying a cool groove for guest rappers Cookie Crew on ‘Rok Da House’ and borrowing Soul ll Soul Songstress Caron Wheeler to belt out

their creations. It's this impressive lineup that gave the Beatmasters inspiration and credibility to launch their own effort, along with friends, of course. The overall result s just as impressive. This music isinnovative and fresh. The title aptly demonstrates just how diverse the Beatmasters are. The trio pen, perform and produce the album and it definitely-ain’t stale. Thisisn’t totally House but balanced to include

soul and arip roaring techno edge. It's this sure-fire combination that ensures commercial success. The only whinge is that some of the tracks—those that have been - released, suspiciously enough— are absurdly brief; perhaps a cunning market strategem promo plugto get hold of the 12-inch. Cunning or not, this music’s strength lies in the extended play. Tryandlisten to the 12-inch of ‘Hey DJ/ICan’t Dance To That Music You're Playing’ and indulge in the funk rap of MC Betty 800 and quirky chorus line courtesy of Beatmaster Claudia Fontaine, for MORE than two minutes. ~ Thisisasimple high-tech groove. A paradox, perhaps, but creative House combined with definite soul proves to be successful and essential listening. JULIANHOOPER ALICECOOPER Trash ; (CBS) , Not since Welcome To My Nightmare has Alice had such a hitand the reasons why are obvious. With Desmond Child producing and co-writing, pals from Aerosmith and Bon Jovi appearing and a new band as well, Trash has so much commercial potential that it just had to be the big comeback forthe Coop. The previous blood-letting Raise Your Fist And Yell must have been a contractfiller; it

seemed hurried and Allice has since changedrecord companies. The irresistable ‘Poison’ single has already infected the world charts and there's plenty more where that came from, like the piercing ‘Bed Of Nails’ which soundslike Bon Jovi's ‘You Give

Love ABad Name' putthrough the mincer. ‘Only My Heart Talking'is beauty ballad with Steve Tyler helping onthe yelping. The reason many humans can't handle Alice Cooper is perhaps because they take himtoo seriously. ‘l'm Your Gun' is a good example of his sense of humour and if you're shocked by itthen be thankful it's not another necrophiliac nasty. Trashis actually his 18th album and as good a place as any to start experiencing the outrageousness of Alice. GEOFFDUNN THEDARLING BUDS Pop Said ... . (Columbia) The Darling Buds are the latest Brifish benefactors of critical preconceptions as to what exactly constitutes classic pop. Eversince the peerless Ramones and Buzzcocks slapped buzzsaw guitars on cute sentiments there's been asteady flow of imitators backed by critical enthusiasmtrying to tell us that

here’sthe essence of pop, suck on it now! ;

The build-up the British press have given the Darling Buds has bordered on estatic because they conform to the predictable patterns of what's meant to be accessible and joyously disposable in pop terms. Of the three obvious UK contenders who have traipsed up this primrose path— Shop Assistants, the Primitives and Darling Buds — only the Primitives seem to have the raw talent to go the distance. ]

The Darling Buds have everything sussed. Andrea is blonde and fetching and not dizzy but self-composed and intelligent enough to think she’s choosing this pop stuff because it's light and frothy but meaningful and entertaining. Harley plays guitar like everyone'stried to since Johnny

Ramone discovered that a fret-board wasn't afour by two and with that ambition he gets to write the songs with Andrea. Around her words of revenge (‘Hit The Ground'), happiness ( Things We Do For Love’) and loathing (‘Big

Head'), Harley keeps the pedalto the floor easing up only for the semi-ballad-‘When It Feels Good'".

Pop Saidthat the Darling Buds have been over hyped, because they meeta check-list of what makes good pop music. Sure, there’s charm and sweetness and even some nice little twists in Andrea’s lyrics, but they're too good, too contrived and too predictable to be true. GEORGEKAY :

VARIOUS ARTISTS Black Havana - (Capitol) Atatime when anew dance style s foisted on us every week, the last thing we need is a compilation of yet another variation of House music, but Black Havanarises above the morass of beats we are expected to embrace as the next hot thing. - Black Havand's strength liesin its diversity. Reggae, Caribbean percussion and standard House and rap beats blend together to good

effect. The blend is helped by the highly impressive collection of talent somehow assembled by executive producer Kenny Ortiz. Blaze, Ten City and Dave Morales weigh in with their considerable production muscle forthe likes of Jersey legend Charvoni and occasional Raze vocalist Keith Thompson. : Mantronik also makes a welcome and impressive return to the public consciousness. He mixes Thompson’s . ‘Can’tTake It, a nifty ragamuffin / House crossover, and appears with his own Sound Factory, whose ‘Cuban Gigilo'is a sparse but clever slice of House — definitely standouts. Butthen again, so is Charvoni's exuberant Garage sound, Crowd Control's weird and wonderful Throw ‘Em The Chicken’ and Vice Versa’s ‘Do It Steady’. Black Havanais just one of those albums, folks. | guess you'd call it essential. KIRK GEE ;

WIRE Onßeturning / (Harvest) ' IBTABA (Mute) - Up until today, | wouldn't have said that the 80s have'been kind to Wire. Wasn'tit enough that every dough-head from Steve Albini to Michael Stipe started to associate

themselves with Wire's legacy without Gilbert, Lewis, Newman and Gotobed deciding to get back togetherin 19852 Atruly pointless gesture from a band who used to see irony in such things, refracting life through a prism of cryptic deconstruction; now a flabby white disco band, Depeche Mode with grey hairs, their angular sound filled outinto awaistline you'd probably notice on stage. 3

By the high standards of the three albumsthey recorded in the late 70s, The Ideal Copy and A Bell Is A Cup (the firsttwo post reform records) don’t rank atall, failing fo live up to the sardonic throb of Pink Flag, Chairs Missing and 154. Likewise, retrospective compilations had failed to do justice to those three records. The bestto date, Wire Play Pop, marred its excellent track listing by being too breif a glimpse ofthe classic Wire ovevre. On Returning, simply by way of its length (CD — a wopping 31 tracks!), manages to get it right. Even with an inferior live version of ‘I2XU’, you get enough views of the band to begin to appreciate their abilities and their ideas— justhow good they were at drilling a one chord dumbo-rocker right into your skull or screeching ‘Fragile” into your mind, using “rock” and playing games with the other people were so earnestly baring their souls. Wire were too cool forthat. : IBTABA, on the other hand, serves in alot of ways what Wire are not these days. They are notyoung. They are not funky. And they cannot go “neeurgh!” the same way that James Brown does when they want you to boogie to their stilted rhythm. - 'Eardrum BuzZ, via BC Gilbert's Edge-scratch guitar and Lewi’s flabbo bass, resembles “Wire play U2”, but elsewhere it's “Wire play New Order”. The odd thing is that now it seems like the best thing Wire can do is recreate the sounds of popular rock, whereas once these destructo-minimalists carved up that contemporary pop culture to make their own matrices, their “French films blurred” and “map refs4l-N93-W". There are glimmers of hope, though. IBTABA's lows probably sit with the worst of A Bell Is A Cup, but some stuff — notably ‘Over Theirs’ — is pretty listenable in the old style. Plus, in the UK, EMI have put out the first three albums with reportedly useful extra tracks. Maybe we'll see ‘em someday. OK like the Village Voice photo caption— “this is Wire and they used to begeniuses”. “Thisisyour correspondent, running out of fape, gunfire’sincreasing—"etc. -~

PAUL McKESSAR