Emerson, Lake & Palmer: Black Moon & The Atlantic Years (1992)

(As published in Rock & Roll Disc ... )

Emerson, Lake & Palmer
Black Moon
Victory 383 480 003-2
Producer: Mark Mancina
Engineer: Steve Kempster
Total disc time: 48:57 (no SPARS code)

Merit: **½
Sound: ****

The Atlantic Years (2 CDs)
Atlantic 7 82403-2
Producers: Various
Engineers: Various
Total disc times: 74:19, 76:26 (no SPARS code)

Merit: ***
Sound: ****

With the possible exception of the Knack, no band that emerged and made its fortune during the '70s has endured more negative criticism than Emerson, Lake & Palmer. Although four of their albums went top ten in the U.S., three more top twenty, and all of them even higher in Europe, no critic that I know of except Lester Bangs has ever been willing to risk his credentials and admit that ELP were anything other than a trio of pretentious dilettantes.

Which isn't to deny that on one level they were pretentious dilettantes. But they also possessed an anarchic streak that could be counted on to erupt with a magnificently perverse lack of propriety, especially live, where Keith Emerson's multi-keyboard screechfests fostered many a heavy-metal fantasy and Carl Palmer's drum solos encompassed a dazzling variety of percussion wizardry.

The group's weak link was Greg Lake--or, rather, his role in the group. As a bassist anchoring Emerson to Palmer, he was perfect; as a cosmic folksinger whose job it was to emote throughout fifteen-minute jams, he was hopeless (as anyone in his position would be). But democracy and pacing demanded that he take center stage as often as the other two, so he did, and therein lay the band's Achilles' heel.

Therein also lies the explanation for why Black Moon--named, apparently, for a lunar eclipse--shines forth only dimly. As the featured performer on seven of the ten songs, Lake ends up hogging the spotlight. His voice has gained resonance over the years, but he still writes lyrics like "Take my love into your breast. / Commit my spirit to the test. / You will see him like a knight. / His armor gleams..." and so on. Meanwhile, although Emerson piles on his share of industrial-strength progressiveness, Palmer's role has shrunk to little more than maintaining a steady four-four. All of which means that Black Moon finds ELP at their most conventional instead of at (or even near) their most daring.

The same can hardly be said of The Atlantic Years, a great-sounding two-CD, two-and-a-half-hour compilation featuring many of the lengthiest and most extreme exercises of ELP's first decade. "Tarkus" (twenty minutes), "Karn Evil 9" (thirty), "Pirates" (thirteen), and a fourteen-minute excerpt of the group's album-length Pictures at an Exhibition receive the digitally-remastered-from-the-original-master-tapes treatment to good effect. Now more than ever, one can admire the technological architecture of these rock equivalents of the Tower of Babel.

Yet ELP were at their strongest when blowing up that architecture, and by including only one cut, Ginastera's "Toccata," from the three-LP live album Welcome Back, My Friends, to the Show That Never Ends (where many of these pieces are available in louder, gnarlier versions), and by editing the band's demolition of Copeland's "Fanfare for the Common Man" from nine minutes to five, The Atlantic Years gives ELP's metal-machine power short shrift.

Not that fans won't find pockets of pleasure in these discs. Among Black Moon's highlights are Palmer's plundering of Queen's "We Will Rock You" beat for the entire seven minutes of the title track (even heard it on the Olympics!) and the unabashed virtuosity of the two full-band instrumentals, "Changing Staes" and Prokofiev's "Romeo and Juliet."

And The Atlantic Years, although it features too much Lake, sticks mainly to hummable Lake like "Lucky Man," "From the Beginning," and the surprisingly enduring "I Believe in Father Christmas" (in its original seven-inch, as opposed to the Works Volume Two, version).

But there's a lot of foggy-headed filler too, especially on Black Moon. And most of it bears Lake's name.

Dead Milkmen: Soul Rotation (1992)

(As published in Brian Q. Newcomb's Harvest Rock Syndicate ... )

Dead Milkmen
Soul Rotation (Hollywood)

Feel free to dismiss my enthusiasm for this snotty and hilarious concept album as the backlash of my senses against too much Billy Ray Cyrus and Sir Mix-a-Lot, but don't dismiss the snotty and hilarious concept album itself: It's probably the most dynamic, provocative, and relevant "spiritual" album of the year.

Amid songs documenting the quartet's usual obsessions with UFOs and paranoia are two that up the ante considerably: "God's Kid Brother" (a deeper, funnier, and more rocking expression of troubled agnosticism than XTC's "Dear God" or Springsteen's "Reason to Believe" that explains life's absurdity by positing the existence of a mischievous junior god) and "Belafonte's Inferno" (the story of an adolescent daydreamer who, like our Lord, creates a world and populates it with creatures who welcome him with crucifixion).

Musically, everything from paisely jangle to horn-spiced funk gets called upon to serve the oddball vision. And although their dizzying stylistic shifts may be a bit much for some people, it should be clear by now that, six albums into their career, the Milkmen take their schtick very seriously. And to meet them halfway is to go whole hog.

Lou Reed: Magic and Loss (1992)

(As published in Brian Q. Newcomb's Harvest Rock Syndicate ... )

Lou Reed
Magic and Loss
(Sire/Warner Bros.)

In Magic and Loss as in Songs for 'Drella, his 1990 tribute to the late Andy Warhol, Lou Reed attempts to make public art out of private grief. His strength lies in his ability to maintain the verbal and musical elements of his eulogy for fifty-eight minutes, his weakness in his inability to connect the details of his friends' deaths to the universal themes that, for him, those themes conjure up.

A similar problem dogged him on 1989's New York, an album of what he called "rock-and-roll for adults" and the one that restored him to critical adulation as surely as it signaled the exit of his sense of humor. In it he passed off details as insight and political correctness as compassion, and in the end it all rang hollow. In Magic and Loss he passes off details as insight and Kubler-Ross's stages of grief as emotion. Wordy above and beyond the call of poetry, he often sounds more fascinated by his mourning than by his ostensible subject: loved ones and cancer.

Ultimately--and somewhat ironically--however, that same wordiness partially saves Magic and Loss from the pretension in which Reed seems intent on drowning it. Listening to him stumble over similes (in "What's Good"), cite mythology ("Sword of Damocles"), and cram too many syllables into the ol' four-four (almost every song), you can't help getting some idea of how deeply the loss of his friends affects him.

But the only truly transcendent song, "Harry's Circumcision," transcends by way of digression. Subtitled "Reverie Gone Astray," it deals with neither magic nor loss but with turning into one's parents, a fate that--unlike slow, painful death--awaits us all. And in the tradition of the Talking Heads' "Seen and Not Seen" and Reed's own "The Gift," its warped humor swallows death whole.

John Austin: Moody Blues (1992)

(As published in Brian Q. Newcomb's Harvest Rock Syndicate ... )

"I wrote all the songs on this album in a bathroom underneath the chapel at Moody," confesses Glasshouse recording artist John Austin. "The acoustics were great."

The album Austin's talking about is his recently released debut, The Embarrassing Young--"another dose of melancholy for the Christian market," as he calls it--and "Moody" is the venerable Moody Bible Institute of Chicago, where Austin earned a degree in theology when he wasn't jamming in the men's room. Now, at twenty-three, Austin considers himself a former singer-songwriter because he's putting together a full-time rock-and-roll band to enrich his Windy City live shows.

"We have a band basically," says Austin. "We just keep going through bass players."

One can't help feeling a little sorry for those bassists. They have to live up to the standards Austin became accustomed to while recording his LP with the likes of David Miner (T Bone Burnett, Leon Russell) and Tim Chandler (DA, the Choir). "I felt totally spoiled working with them," says Austin, "and with [the guitarist] Buddy Miller. Buddy didn't even listen to an entire song before throwing down these incredible hooks."

What spoiled the novice album-maker even more was the producton savvy of Mark Heard, who oversaw the five sixteen-hour workdays into which the entire recording process was crammed before his untimely death last August.

"The album was meant to be a demo tape to shop to major labels," Austin explains. "I hooked up with Dan Russell, who's a publicist on the U2 tour right now, and he set me up with Mark. I borrowed six thousand dollars and flew out to L.A. for a week to make a demo, and we did ten songs.

"But by week's end we were in a position to avoid further debt, I thought it would be the smartest thing just to sell it to Glasshouse. They reimbursed me for the money I borrowed, and that was fine with me."

There was, however, one glitch in Austin's rapidly developing career scenario, a glitch that most serious musicians, Christian or otherwise, become acquainted with sooner or later.

"Glasshouse was pretty happy with the first ten songs," says Austin, "but they said, 'We need two more songs to sort of justify this album being in our market. We need a radio single.'" So Austin flew back to Los Angeles and recorded the plaintive "We All Need Love" and the infectiously upbeat "Back to the Garden."

"It's definitely not overproduced," observes Austin of the finished product. "Mark wasn't into that. He liked the raw. I think Glasshouse was sort of scared of that. They wanted to hear more mysterious textures."

Perhaps Austin's new live band will add those textures.

"I'm excited about the sound that's coming out," he says. "These guys have great stage presence. They're all a bit older than me, but there aren't any ego problems because they've been through it all.

"They just want to make good music."

Richard Marx: Rush Street (1992)/Paid Vacation (1994)

(From Rock & Roll Disc [unpublished 'cause the magazine folded) and the Illinois Entertainer respectively ... )

Richard Marx
Rush Street
Capitol CDP 7 95874 2
Total disc time: 65:35 (AAD)

Merit: **½
Sound: ****

Buried amid the pointless "hard rock" that dominates this overlong bestseller are three pretty solid pop songs and two chart-topping smashes--the slinky "Keep Coming Back" and the spooky "Hazard"--that deserve every bit of their market share. But for the most part Marx is trying too hard, cramming too many minutes into too many songs and singing them in a strained voice that owes more to Kenny Loggins than it does to any of the vintage rock-and-rollers whose records Marx told Jay Leno he collects.

Richard Marx
Paid Vacation
(Capitol)

Marx has so refined his mixture of rock, pop, and R&B that only Bryan Adams can boast more homogenized hooks-per-minute. And that's no put-down. Though none of this album's dozen rival Rush Street's "Hazard," only one of them--the fifty-four-second throwaway "Baby Blues"--doesn't draw a bullseye on a ready-made audience.

His guest list this time includes Luther Vandross, Lionel Richie, Fee Waybill, and, on the country-tinged "Nothing Left Behind Us," Vince Gill. True, they're subordinated to Marx's over-riding radio-friendly aesthetic, but they also inspire him to up his game with first-rate production and the least histrionic singing of his career.

Still, he does leave himself vulnerable to detractors convinced that he'll never outgrow his wimpiness: "There are too many nonsmokers dying each year as a result of second-hand smoke," he writes in the liner notes. "Demand a smoke-free environment." Next: Rock Against Cholesterol.

PJ Harvey: Dry (1992)

(As published in Rock & Roll Disc ... )

PJ Harvey
Dry
Indigo 162-555-001-2
Total disc time: 40:08 (no SPARS code)

Merit: ***½
Sound: ***½

It's tempting to dismiss Harvey as less than the sum of her influences, among whom she must surely count Patti Smith, Sinead O'Connor, and the Velvet Underground. Where else could a young woman have gone these days to learn the art of welding brutal, scraping guitars to lyrics obsessed with the violence of romance? Yet even on the songs in which she tries too hard and her rhythm section not enough, something's at work--a hook, an image--saving the music from (complete) pretense. And when she gets it just right ("Dress," "Sheela-Na-Gig," "Joe"), she may as well be the future of punk.

Rush: Roll the Bones (1992)

(As published in Rock & Roll Disc ...)

Rush
Roll the Bones
Atlantic 82293-2
Total disc time: 48:06 (DDD)

Merit: ***½
Sound: ***

Unbeknownst to many, Rush spent the '80s streamlining itself. Starting with Permanent Waves, Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson, and Neil Peart quit blending Yes and Zeppelin and began sounding a lot like the Police. Not that Police fans will admit it. They'll argue that Sting sang more soulfully than Lee and that the Police's bare-bones approach had nothing in common with whatever Rush was was playing. Well, I dare any Police fan to explain the difference between "Synchronicity I," for example, and Roll the Bones' "Dreamline" or "You Bet Your Life"--the same chirpy guitars, the same light-yet-virtuosic drumming, and the same earnest singing about fate's role in the grand drama that is life. Lee no longer sings like a helium-sucking parrot, and at no point does the band condescend to its fans. So why not become one?

Todd Rundgren: An Elpee's Worth of Productions (1992)

(One of my many reviews that went unpublished in Rock & Roll Disc when the magazine ceased publication in 1992 ... )

Todd Rundgren: An Elpee's Worth of Productions
Rhino R2 70519
Total disc time: 73:22 (AAD)

Merit: **½
Sound: ***

Rhino's knack for creatively repackaging old music fails them a little this time. By chronologically assembling eighteen songs that Todd Rundgren produced for other performers over as many years, the compilers prove merely that when he works with great bands (the New York Dolls, for inastance) he gets great results and that when he works with crap bands (Meat Loaf and the Tubes, for instance) he gets crap--just like any other producer. Of course, there's plenty that falls somewhere in between, and if you program the Bourgeois Tagg, Grand Funk, Fanny, and Lords of the New Church cuts consecutively, you'll brighten your day. But given the inclusion of ho-hum songs from Hunter, Jill Sobule, the Rubinoos, and Rick Derringer, wake-up calls from Hall and Oates' War Babies and Badfinger's Straight Up would've been nice.

Marvin: The Mandolin Man (1992)

(One of my many reviews that went unpublished in Rock & Roll Disc when the magazine ceased publication in 1992 ... )

Marvin
The Mandolin Man
Restless 7 72582-2
Total disc time: 44:37 (AVD)

Merit: ***½
Sound: ***½

The V in the SPARS code stands for "vinyl," which to Marvin Etzioni (ex-Lone Justice) sounds better than the coated, laser-read plastic of CDs. So what we're really hearing here is a digitally mastered recording of the playing of an LP. And you know what? There's no difference. So these eleven brooding folk songs either stand or fall on their own. When Marvin captures the contrition and the hope that are his main concern, he rivals Leonard Cohen, and both God and man come out looking good. But when he slows down a great pop ballad like "Can't Cry Hard Enough" until it sounds like a dirge and then pitches it out of his range, only T Bone Burnett (whom Marvin sings exactly like) comes out looking good because at least he'd know enough to rock it up a little.

Pleasure Thieves: Simple Escape (1992)

(One of my many reviews that went unpublished in Rock & Roll Disc when the magazine ceased publication in 1992 ... )

Pleasure Thieves
Simple Escape
Hollywood 60999-2
Total disc time: 49:15 (no SPARS code)

Merit: ***
Sound: ****

This remarkably faithful recreation of mid-'80s Psychedelic Furs has its weak points. Lead vocalist Sinjin overdoes his Richard Butler impersonation, and the lyrics babble themselves into a stupor. But it has strong points too: a real string section, catchy hooks, and what may be the punchiest non R&B horns ever heard on college radio.

Britny Fox: Bite Down Hard (1992)

(One of my many reviews that went unpublished in Rock & Roll Disc when the magazine ceased publication in 1992 ... )

Britny Fox
Bite Down Hard
EastWest America 7 91790-2
Total disc time: 41:15 (no SPARS code)

Merit: ***½
Sound: ***½

With new frontman Tommy Paris and his hard-rock shriek replacing old frontman "Dizzy" Dean Davidson and his glam-rock shriek, Britny Fox no longer sound like Slade on steroids. But sounding like Slade on steroids is what made their two CBS discs such dumb fun. Yet the new guy definitely adds more chomp. "Six Guns Loaded" packs a monstrous metal wallop, with "Closer to Your Love" and "Lonely Too Long" close behind. And the ballads, both of them, don't wimp out so much as recall early Boston (the band, not the city).

Thompson Twins: Queer (1992)

(One of my many reviews that went unpublished in Rock & Roll Disc when the magazine ceased publication in 1992 ... )

Thompson Twins
Queer
Warner Bros. 26631-2
Total disc time: 48:03 (AAD)

Merit: ***½
Sound: ****

In 1984 they sounded ethereal. With "Hold Me Now" and "Doctor Doctor" making fans of radio listeners and MTV watchers on both sides of the Atlantic, the Twins successfully toured the continents in support of their multi-platinum Into the Gap, even sellin out the Hammersmith Odeon several nights in a row at one point. Meanwhile, Tom Bailey and Alannah Currie learned that eight-year-old success stories won't buy them another hit in an era of what-have-you-done-for-me-lately. So Queer's "Come Inside," included here in two versions, makes news by making the twelve-inch and club charts although the top forty continues to resist. Too bad, really, since "Flesh and Blood" and "The Saint" capture an iconographic sensuality that, properly promoted, usually sells. And at least half the others bubble along in a pleasnt, psychedelic haze.

Poison: Swallow This Live (1992)

(One of my many reviews that went unpublished in Rock & Roll Disc when the magazine ceased publication in 1992 ... )

Poison
Swallow This Live
Capitol CDP 98046-2
Total disc time: 59:39, 55:35 (no SPARS code listed)

Merit: **½
Sound: ***

This live double represents neither Poison's greatest hits (since it omits their greatest hit, "I Won't Forget You") nor their knack for radio-ready concision. Something called "Poor Boy Blues" meanders for eight minutes, while "Drum Solo" and "Guitar Solo" combine for a useless sixteen minutes more. That's twenty-four minutes during which listeners of taste can be forgiven for nodding off. And what will dozers miss besides Bret Michaels' continual announcements to the Florida hordes that their huzzahs are going to end up on a live album? Not much, although "So Tell Me Why," the best of the four studio add-ons, deserves inclusion on a best-of that does justice to the band's glam-metal fusion.

Eye & I: Eye & I (1992)

(One of my many reviews that went unpublished in Rock & Roll Disc when the magazine ceased publication in 1992 ... )

Eye & I
Eye & I
Epic EK 47973
Total disc time: 49:16 (AAD)

Merit: **½
Sound: ***½

Considering that they're graduates of New York's artsy Black Rock Coalition, Eye & I come off surprisingly straight laced. They include occasional hip-hop touches and squalling guitars, but their predominant style is MOR top forty. Nothing wrong with that, but, as their cover of the Velvet Underground's "Venus in Furs" and their own apocalyptic original "World Without End" confirm, their gift is for loud psychedelia and anything else that will allow them--and vocalist DK Dyson especially--to cut loose.

John Waite: Essential John Waite 1976-1986 (1992)

(One of my many reviews that went unpublished in Rock & Roll Disc when the magazine ceased publication in 1992 ... )

John Waite
Essential John Waite 1976-1986
Chrysalis F2 21864
Total disc time: 75:23 (AAD)

Merit: ***
Sound: ***½

If this compilation really represented the "essential" John Waite--i.e., his hits with the Babys and Bad English as well as "Missing You"--it would rival Bryan Adams' Waking Up the Neighbours as much in sheer pop quality as it does in length. Alas, none of Waite's Babys or Bad English hits, of which there've only been half-a-dozen or so, are among these twenty tracks, raising truth-in-album-titling issues that "Missing You" and about half the others are, nevertheless, good enough to make you forget.

Enya: Shepherd Moons (1992)

(One of my many reviews that went unpublished in Rock & Roll Disc when the magazine ceased publication in 1992 ... )

Enya
Shepherd Moons
Reprise 9 26775-2
Total disc time: 43:33 (no SPARS code)

Merit: ***
Sound: ****½

Yep, she's a New Age chanteuse and therefore something of an airhead. But just when she's about to sing something really stupid, she switches to a Celtic tongue and leaves us commoners none the wiser. Anyway, Enya isn't about words. She's about how to make synthesizers sound like angels. The results aren't rock-and-roll, obviously, but then again you can't rock your baby to sleep to Nirvana.

I Shall Be Unreleased: The Songs of Bob Dylan (1992)

(One of my many reviews that went unpublished in Rock & Roll Disc when the magazine ceased publication in 1992 ... )

I Shall Be Unreleased: The Songs of Bob Dylan
Rhino R2 70518
Total disc time: 63:55 (AAD)

Merit: **½
Sound: ***½

This disc of various artists covering obscure Dylan songs would've been livelier if Rhino had used Joe Cocker's "Seven days" instead of Ron Wood's, Maria Muldaur's "Ain't No Man Righteous" instead of Jah Malla's, Dave Van Ronk's "All over You" instead of the Raiders', Johnny Cash's San Quentin version of "Wanted Man" instead of the studio one, Eric Clapton's "If I Don't Be There by Morning" instead of his "Walk Out in the Rain," Dylan's Clapton duet on "Sign Language" instead of Dylan's Doug Sahm duet on "Wallflower," and George Harrison's version of "I Don't Want to Do It" from the Porky's Revenge soundtrack instead of almost anything else here. True, Blue Ash's gleeful trashing of "Dusty Old Fairgrounds" and the Staples' "John Brown" smoke, but they're snuffed out by wet blankets from the Hollies, Dion DiMucci, and Pete Seeger.

Mitsou: Mitsou (1992)

(One of my many reviews that went unpublished in Rock & Roll Disc when the magazine ceased publication in 1992 ... )

Mitsou
Mitsou
Hollywood HR-61264-2
Total disc time: 37:50 (no SPARS code)

Merit: ***
Sound: ****

To dismiss Mitsou as the Canadian Madonna or Samantha Fox is to miss what makes her special. Her NC-17 videos, for instance, justify more than her love, and her lustrous voice enhances her burnished sexuality instead of the other way around. She sings half these songs in French, but there's no danger of losing the hooks of either the gorgeous slow ones or the randy disco ones in translation. And her transformation of Janis Joplin's "Mercedez Benz" into a pulsating, high-tech critique of materialism is determinedly kinky.

My 100 Favorite Singles (1993)

(In the pre-Internet early '90s, Phil Dellio solicited favorite-100-singles lists with accompanying annotations for his fanzine Radio On. By the time I was invited to submit mine, Dellio had already published many others and Plume Books had already published Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock and Soul: The 1,001 Greatest Singles Ever Made [which I allude to below], so I went as far out of my way as I could to avoid over-selected classics and to spotlight glorious but seldom-if-ever-acknowledged bursts of sonic greatness. [A few of them may not even have been singles.] Of course, eighteen years later, much of it feels dated. [The "dancing queen" would be fifty-two by now.] And in retrospect at least ten percent of it is completely indefensible. In many places, though, it still constitutes one bazooka of a mix-tape [er, playlist.])

Have we room in the sane house for a little madness? With my list I too have asked myself, "If I were to flip on a radio right now, what songs would I most like to hear?" But I've also avoided choosing songs that my fellow Radio On contributors and Dave Marsh have picked clean. Any exceptions indicate either extreme enthusiasm (Nos. 8, 22, and 23, for instance) or extreme carelessness on my part.

My decision not to duplicate Marsh accounts for the slender amount of black pop (approximately nineteen songs) and the abundance of bubblegum, since his book only included every song by Chuck Berry, Aretha Franklin, and Little Richard while ignoring glam and its offshoot genres almost completely. (Special thanks to Marc Weisblott for choosing Chicago's "Old Days" and thereby relieving me of the responsibility.)

1. "Bohemian Rhapsody," Queen ('76, '92). Tired of waiting for rock's multi-segmented epics to include everything, Freddie M. took it upon himself to include everything in such a way that no one would ever want to do it again simply because it would mean too much work. Some of those epics: "Good Vibrations," "River Deep, Mountain High," "Beach Baby," "Stairway to Heaven," "Go All the Way," and "Layla," most if not all of which have endured remakes because they left themselves open to the possibility. "Bohemian Rhapsody" didn't. Not that the middle-school girls who've occasionally burst into renditions of the "operatic section" during my homeroom will ever care about that.

2. "Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep," Mac and Katie Kissoon ('70). Nothing makes sense here--not Mac, not how Katie went from this to background chickdom with Van Morrison, or why a song about the abandonment of a "little baby boy" by his parents packs the hardest-rocking, most cheerful bubblegum ever grooved into seven inches of vinyl.

3. "Leave a Light On," Belinda Carlisle ('90). The latest pretender to the Fifth Beatle throne (for getting the best guitar solo in decades out of George Harrison in the bridge) detonates a heart-and-history-stopping bomb comprising the most combustible elements of girl groups past, present, and future.

4. "Dancing Queen," Abba ('77). Steve Nieve must've learned his "Oliver's Army" riffs here. And by now the "teaser" of whom Agnetha and Frida sing must have celebrated her thirty-fourth birthday at least.

5. "Rubberband Man," the Spinners ('76).

6. "Modern Love," David Bowie ('83).

7. "I Knew the Bride (When She Used to Rock 'n' Roll)," Nick Lowe ('85).

8. "Jump," Van Halen ('84).

9. "Panama," Van Halen ('84).

10. "Fox on the Run," Sweet ('75). The best rock-and-roll haiku ever: "You think you've got a / pretty face, but the rest of / you is out of place."

11. "Love Really Hurts Without You," Billy Ocean ('76). And the 1987 PWL remix available on Next Plateau's Turn It Up multiple-performer compilation is even better.

12. "Rock and Roll Love Letter," Bay City Rollers ('75). In which Les McKeown sees a "nation's [nascent?] rhythm in a man's genetic code" then vows to "keep on rock and rolling till [his] genes [jeans?] explode."

13. "So Tell Me Why," Poison ('92).

14. "Tonight It's You," Cheap Trick ('85).

15. "Swingtown," Steve Miller Band ('77). Miller's version of Prince's "Delirious," though more bubblegum-bluesy in direct proportion to the ratio of Miller's body fat to Prince's.

16. "Regret," New Order ('93).

17. "Good Girls Don't," the Knack ('79). I knew girls just like this in high school, and hearing this song always gets me as misty as "Moon River" gets Audrey Hepburn fans.

18. "Sticky Sweet Girls," the Zeros ('92). A "Good Girls Don't" for the '90s. Time: 1:58.

19. "Do Ya," Electric Light Orchestra ('76).

20. "Can't Cry Hard Enough," the Williams Brothers ('92). The perfect acoustic shimmer.

21. "I Don't Mind at All," Bourgeois Tagg ('87). More perfect acoustic shimmer.

22. "The Boys Are Back in Town," Thin Lizzy ('76).

23. "Getting Away with It," Electronic ('90).

24. "The Message Is Love," Arthur Baker and the Backbeat Disciples Featuring Al Green ('89). The "Featuring Al Green" means a lot.

25. "Can't Do Nuttin' for Ya Man," Public Enemy ('90). My favorite political song.

26. "Daydream Believer," Anne Murray ('79). In which she changes "Jean" into "Gene"--or does she?

27. "Miss You Nights," Cliff Richard ('76). More perfect acoustic shimmer, assuming orchestras qualify as acoustic.

28. "Little Black Book," Belinda Carlisle ('91).

29. "Church of Your Heart," Roxette ('92).

30. "Waiting for a Star to Fall," Boy Meets Girl ('88). Do you raise or dock a song for a line like "Carry your heart into your arms"?

31. "Hot Line," the Sylvers ('77). My second-favorite political song because of the haiku "I asked the C.I./A. if it was O.K. to / use their private phone."

32. "Dead End Job," the Police ('79). On a chilly afternoon in the fall of 1983, a friend of mine and I stopped into Nick's Canteen on the West Virginia University campus for what was supposed to be a quick lunch between classes. As we waited for our orders to arrive, we examined the song selections contained by our table's jukebox unit, eventually noticing "Roxanne" by the Police. I convinced my buddy to let me play the record's B-side, the then-rare "Dead End Job." I would not have normally felt comfortable subjecting my fellow diners to the song, a noisy punk rant that hardly qualifies as dinner music, but given the recording's brief duration, I figured no harm would be done. What I didn't know was that Nick's copy of the record was scratched. So instead of singing "Don't wanna be no number, don't want no dead-end job" and getting on with the song, Sting ended up singing "Don't wanna be no number, don't want no dead-end job" over and over. Because the skip did not interrupt the song's natural rhythm, no one noticed. Although it meant missing our next class, we decided to stay put and see how long it would take for anyone to complain. Eventually, someone sat down adjacent to us, made his own jukebox selection, and ordered and ate his lunch without getting to hear the song he'd paid for. Miffed, he brought the situation to the attention of Nick himself, who immediately stopped what he was doing and disappeared through a door, reappearing only after he'd brought "Dead End Job" to an end—forty-three minutes after we'd started it.

33. "Rock and Roll Part Two," Gary Glitter ('72).

34. "Rainy Day Bells," the Globetrotters ('70). Bubblegum doo-wop.

35. "Cheer Me Up," the Globetrotters ('70). Bubblegum James Brown.

36. "Robert DeNiro's Waiting," Bananarama ('84). My favorite song "about rape."

37. "Break Every Rule," Tina Turner ('87).

38. "I Don't Think I'm Ready for You," Anne Murray ('85). The melody skirts schmaltz, the words come as close to real romantic life as the words of the non-poets who buy her records do, and her voice cracks just enough to let the light in (as the poets who buy her records might say).

39. "Justified and Ancient (Stand by the Jams)," the KLF ('92).

40. "Everywhere," Fleetwood Mac ('87).

41. "The Things We Do for Love," 10cc ('77).

42. "I'm Too Sexy," Right Said Fred ('92).

43. "Yesterday's Heroes," Bay City Rollers ('77). Once on the Mike Douglas Show, these chronic lip-synchers had this song begin while they were walking toward their instruments! (My favorite fantasy album: Milli Vanilli Unplugged.)

44. "Beware My Love," Wings ('76). The B-side of "Let 'Em In."

45. "Daddy Cool," Boney M ('76).

46. "Love U More," Sunscreem ('93). Do you raise or dock a song for a line like "My sex hung, torn and quartered"?

47. "2 x 1," Arthur Baker and the Backbeat Disciples ('89).

48. "I Don't Know Why You Don't Want Me," Roseanne Cash ('85).

49. "Half the World," Belinda Carlisle ('91). In which heaven is a place on earth.

50. "Right Back Where We Started From," Maxine Nightengale ('76).

51. "If She Knew What She Wants," Bangles ('86).

52. "Hot Legs," Rod Stewart ('77). The expectorations beat Steve Miller's in "Take the Money and Run," the slaverings come in second only to Ted Nugent's in "Wango Tango," and we get the second-best rock-and-roll haiku ever: "You've got legs right up / to your neck, you're making me / a physical wreck."

53. "Living in Oblivion," Anything Box ('90). Best if heard immediately before or after "Personal Jesus."

54. "A Fool for You Anyway," Average White Band and Ben E. King ('77). The "and Ben E. King" means a lot.

55. "Didi," Khaled ('92).

56. "I Touch Myself," Divinyls ('91). The further you get from the video, the less literal the words "touch" and "myself" seem.

57. "I Hate Myself for Loving You," Joan Jett and the Blackhearts ('88). Her "myself" seems more literal than her "hate," "loving," or "you."

58. "Action," Sweet ('76).

59. "Be Aggressive," Faith No More ('93). The British B-side of "Easy."

60. "Wild Thing," Tone Lōc ('89).

61. "God Don't Never Change," Blind Willie Johnson ('30). Acoustic punk gospel from the days when every record was a single.

62. "Cruel to Be Kind," Nick Lowe ('79).

63. "When All Is Said and Done," Abba ('81). Do you raise or dock a song for a line like "Slightly worn / but dignified / and not too old for sex"?

64. "I Just Can't Help Believing," B.J. Thomas ('70). You don't notice the altitude Thomas achieves here until the bottom falls out just past the mid-point and for a second you cling for dear life to a feeling you didn't realize until then you were hooked on.

65. "Dance Away," Roxy Music ('79).

66. "Good for Me," Amy Grant ('92).

67. "I Got a Man," Positive K ('93).

68. "Don't Go Breakin' My Heart," Elton John and Kiki Dee ('76).

69. "Your Baby Never Looked Good in Blue," Exposé ('90).

70. "Long Long Time," Linda Ronstadt ('70).

71. "I Can't Help It," Three Dog Night ('83).

72. "Time Bomb," Lake ('77). In the tradition of German singers who sing embarrassing lyrics in English because they don't know any better, Lake's James Hopkins-Harrison cheerfully lets loose with "I feel like I'm sittin' on a time bomb, baby, / and it's going to explode" as if no one would ever think to accuse him of eating too much sauerkraut.

73. "I Won't Forget You," Poison ('87).

74. "Hello Old Friend," Eric Clapton ('76).

75. "I Just Don't Know What to Do with Myself," Dusty Springfield ('62). Her "myself" seems extremely literal.

76. "When You Wish upon a Star," Cliff Edwards ('40).

77. "Little Willy," Sweet ('73).

78. "Armageddon It," Def Leppard ('88).

79. "New Kid in Town," Eagles ('76). You can live in this song.

80. "Tangled Up in Blue," Bob Dylan ('74). I have lived in this song--the first three verses anyway.

81. "The Joker," Steve Miller Band ('74). When my two-year-old son asks me to sing "Batman's song," I sing him the TV-show theme. When he asks for the "Joker's song," I sing him this.

82. "Apples, Peaches, Pumpkin Pie," Jay and the Techniques ('66).

83. "Mixed Emotions," Rolling Stones ('89).

84. "Part Time Love," Elton John ('78).

85. "Dreamin'," Cliff Richard ('80).

86. "A Little in Love," Cliff Richard ('81). Represents, along with No. 85, the best of Richard's crisp, Europop, Alan Tarney-and-Terry Britten phase.

87. "All I Want," Toad the Wet Sprocket ('92).

88. "Giving Yourself Away," Ratt ('90). Thanks, Desmond Child and Diane Warren.

89. "I'm Your Boogie Man," KC & the Sunshine Band ('77).

90. "Keep It Comin' Love," KC & the Sunshine Band ('77).

91. "Passionate Kisses," Mary-Chapin Carpenter ('93).

92. "Saturday Night," Bay City Rollers ('75). For those of us who could only afford to Rock and Roll All Nite one night of the week and who could never afford to party everyday.

93. "Girls' School," Wings ('77). The flip side of "Mull of Kintyre."

94. "Cherish," Madonna ('89).

95. "Golden Years," David Bowie ('76).

96. "Chop Chop," Cutty Ranks ('93). Not a cover of the Sweet song.

97. "If You Know What I Mean," Neil Diamond ('76). The melody skirts schmaltz, and the words come as close to real romantic life as the words of the non-poets who buy his records do. Poets don't buy his records.

98. "Call Me," Spagna ('87). Not a cover of the Blondie song or the Al Green song.

99. "Spending My Time," Roxette ('92). Do you raise or dock a singer who can "fall asleep to the 'Tears of a Clown'"?

100. "Shala-Shala Twist," the Dark City Sisters (somewhere between '50 and '62). "Led by Joyce Mogatusi, the Dark City Sisters ... were by far one of the most prolific [South African vocal groups] on record. A 'simanje-manje/jive group, the Sisters were ... produced by [Aaron] LeRole ... and later by Rupert Bopape" (from the liner notes to Flying Rock: South African Rock 'n Roll 1950-1962 [Global Village Music, P.O. Box 2051 Cathedral Station, New York, NY 10025).

Don't Tread on Ted: An Uncensored Interview with the Damnedest Yankee of 'Em All (1992)

(This is a slightly edited version of a piece that ran as the cover story of CAMM's final issue in December 1992. Perennial thanks to John Everson for giving me the assignment--one of my favorite journalistic memories to this day.)

It’s a chilly October morning, and Ted Nugent, fresh from a pheasant hunt on his southern-Michigan property, has some news he’d like to pass along.

“This new record,” he hisses, “is a motherfucker!”

The record, of course, is Don’t Tread (Warner Bros.), the second long-player from Nugent’s current band Damn Yankees. And, as usual, Nugent is absolutely right.

According to Nugent, however, it could have been even better.

“I believe that this new album has captured what we’re about,” he explains. “But I still would’ve liked to have heard more guitars and a little more shit on the vocals. Tommy and Jack’s real power isn’t necessarily in their melody, though that is incredibly powerful. Their real power is in their sass, and that only surfaces twenty-five percent of what it could and should.”

Tommy and Jack, in case you’d forgotten, are Styx’s Tommy Shaw and Night Ranger’s Jack Blades. Together with Nugent and the former Eddie Jobson drummer Michael Cartellone, they comprise the best of the current crop of arena-rock-veterans supergroups, a crop of which Bad English, the Storm, Hardline, RTZ, Arc Angels, and, technically speaking, even the Traveling Wilburys are merely the first half-dozen that come to mind.

Does Nugent think a live album would capture Damn Yankees’ other seventy-five percent?

“I’d be willing to try it,” admits Nugent, whose two live albums from the ’70s, Double Live Gonzo and Intensities in Ten Cities, set new standards of the wild-and-wooliness that live albums could contain. “But you’ve gotta realize what a ‘live’ album is. A live album is a live basic track. Then you go into the studio and redo everything.”

Surely Gonzo and Intensities weren’t studio recreations?

“No, they weren’t. They were almost pure. I redid the bass track myself on ‘Baby, Please Don’t Go,’ but that’s about it.”

So why would a Damn Yankees live album have to be different?

“Because of the caution factor in the record industry,” Nugent answers matter-of-factly. “Everybody wants to be really cautious.”

Everybody, that is, except Ted Nugent.

For most of his forty-three years, Nugent has been a hunter, and a big-time one at that. Even now, when Damn Yankees business keeps him busy eight months of the year, he stalks and bags game steadily during the other four. And although he belongs to the National Rifle Association and over a dozen other gun-owner associations, his weapon of choice is the bow and arrow. That’s why, during the first Damn Yankees tour, he was able, night after night, to hit the group’s eight-foot effigy of Saddam Hussein smack dab in the oysters.

That’s also why he has founded the Ted Nugent World Bowhunters Organization (“9,206 members and growing!”) and authored the book Blood Trails: The Truth About Bow Hunting, 120 Detailed Kill Stories.

“This kill is interesting because it was a going-away shot right up the butt at thirty yards,” writes Nugent of his killing of a 250-pound black wild boar. “The big, wide broadhead penetrated all the way to the neck, severing lots of good stuff, and he bled out the front, back, nose, and mouth. He ran only fifty yards before dying.”

Sure beats Leonard Nimoy’s I Am Not Spock.

Anyway, with Hussein now out of fashion, whom does Nugent intend on castrating from the stage this time out?

“Oh, probably stoned hippies on the front row,” he laughs. “I know I’m gonna shoot my guitar with my bow and arrows as part of the stage show, but who knows what might happen?

“The point is that it’s your duty to warn people that Ted Nugent will be armed this year.”

As if his guitar weren’t weapon enough. And now as ever, Nugent credits his gift for unleashing the fury of nature from his guitar to the sensual acuteness that comes from his hunting and drug-free lifestyle.

“I’ve never done drugs. I’ve never gotten high. I’ve never smoked a joint. And I’ve never eaten broken-glass sandwiches because I’ve got a fuckin’ brain.

“It was simple,” he explains. “I love me. I love my music, and I love my waking hours. I love to be able to sneak up to a deer with my bow and arrow. I love the smell and the sight and the sound and the sexuality of life, and I didn’t want any fog rolling into my senses to obscure the experiences therein.

“As a young person--and as a forty-three-year-old young person--I am defiant. I am not a wimp-ass, dickless rebel without a cause. I am a rebel with a cause, and the cause is spelled T-E-fuckin’-D. And if it’s good for me, I will ride it into the sunset. If it’s bad for me, I will shoot it, gut it, and stuff it up your ass. Anybody who doesn’t understand that has got shit for brains. And anybody who decided to laugh at me for not taking drugs I merely looked in the eye and said, ‘Oh well, fuck you! And call me just before you die: I wanna watch.

“I was laughed at by Keith Moon for not drinking Jack Daniels. I was laughed at by Bon Scott for not drinking Jack Daniels. I was laughed at by Pete Townshend for not smoking dope and for killing innocent animals. I was laughed at by Jimmy Page for not snorting cocaine and not shooting heroin and for carrying a gun. I was laughed at by Jimi Hendrix for not taking LSD. Fuck them! They’re a bunch of drooling, unclean scum-masters.”

And as if that weren’t poetry enough, Nugent has a genuine rhyme to cap it off.

“Most of them are dead, and I’m still Ted.”

Nugent first got together with Shaw in 1988 for an evening of jamming at the urging of the veteran A&R man John Kalodner. It had nothing, according to Nugent, to do with the fact that both his and Shaw’s ’80s albums weren’t selling all that well.

“I had just finished my If You Can’t Lick ’Em … Lick ’Em tour,” Nugent recalls, “a tour I considered to be the best of my life. It was phenomenal! The music, the fun, the short skirts--oh, the short skirts! It was just too much fun for a white guy.”

But Kalodner prevailed, and Nugent did the unthinkable: He spent a night of hunting season not hunting.

“Tommy and I sat down, and literally within sixty seconds. I knew that we’d been weaned on the same R&B stuff. And I realized that Styx hadn’t tapped into even a spit of his talent. We were honky-tonkin’-boogie-woogiein’-Sam-and-Davein’-Wilson-Pickett-and-Motownin’ up a storm!

“I watched him with Styx,” Nugent remembers, “and I knew that when they unleashed Tommy he went head and shoulders above the soulfulness and energy of what Styx could facilitate. And the same with Jack Blades in Night Ranger. When I first heard ‘You Can Still Rock in America’ and ‘Don’t Tell Me You Love Me,’ I thought, ‘Man! These guys kick fuckin’ ass!’ And I knew that the rockin’ Night Ranger stuff was Jack Blades’ real element.”

Ironically, it’s been Blades’ and Shaw’s knack for coming up with chart-topping ballads like “High Enough” and “Where You Goin’ Now” that has greased the Yanks’ multi-platinum skids.

“Let’s be perfectly honest here,” says Nugent. “You can’t have a successful record nowadays without a ballad. But I don’t even consider those songs ballads. I consider them soul songs. We’re just shit-ass lucky that Tommy and Jack can deliver the foundation of these basic, incredible, soul-ballad songs that are vehicles for their incredibly soulful vocals--and that I can jump in with incredibly soulful guitar embellishments and chord changes.”

The reunited Tommy Shaw-less Styx should be so lucky.

“Yeah,” Nugent chuckles. “In order to be in Styx now you have to check your dick in at the door. I always figured, ’Hell, I could’ve been in Styx--if I’d lost my dick in a terrible accident!”

And speaking of testosterone-fueled rock-and-roll, Nugent isn’t particularly fond of Motorhead’s March or Die version of “Cat Scratch Fever” either.

“It just seems that someone neutered their version somewhere along the line. There’s no soul, no sexuality, no groove, and no short-skirt impact. And if it doesn’t have any of those things, I’d rather listen to a bellowing rhino.”

Well, a bellowing rhino and Jackyl, whom Nugent “personally requested” and who along with Slaughter will open all of the ’92-’93 shows on what will be billed as Damn Yankees’ “Uprizing” tour.

Mention of the “Uprizing” tour leads to a discussion of “Uprising” the song (yes, they’re spelled differently), Don’t Tread’s closing track and Nugent’s only lead vocal on the album. It articulates his disgust with the urban jungle in no uncertain terms, a topic that’s particularly fresh in light of the L.A. riots that followed the Rodney King trial last March. Ask Nugent to describe his emotions at the time--especially regarding the savage beating suffered by the innocent bystander Reginald Denny when he was dragged from his construction truck--and his voice drops to a clenched-teeth whisper.

“They were intense as hell itself! I wish that they would’ve tried to drag me out of my vehicle because those animal scum need to know that scum can die too! I’d have shot every one of them motherfuckers right between the fuckin’ eyes. And I would not have run out of ammo.”

Spoken like the true George Bush-supporting law-and-order-loving, former Michigan County Sheriff Deputy that he is. Spoken also liked the guy who thanked Bernie Goetz, the New York City subway rider who shot four alleged muggers in 1984, in the liner notes to his 1986 LP Little Miss Dangerous.

“I live by an all-encompassing, undeniable, bullet-proof law of the land that still exists in the ’90s,” says Nugent. “regardless of concrete-jungle warfare. And I find that I have no conflict at all with Jack, Tommy, or Michael regarding my passions for hunting, self-defense, independence, and productivity. And although it manifests itself in different ways among the four of us, it manifests itself nonetheless.

“We don’t drool on ourselves. We don’t get high and disrespect our God-given senses. Rather, we respect our senses and use them to our best abilities. We believe in our musical statements, in our musical vision, and in how we can help each other make those statements and expound on the various visions that we bring into the group as individuals.

“The difference between Damn Yankees and the hairspray trendsetters,” he concludes, “is that we don’t have boogers coming out of our noses from being hip to the latest drug.”

Point well taken. And in case that Damn Yankees live album ever does get made, what would Nugent like to call it?

“Up … Your … Ass.”

And the cover art?

“A four-wheel drive,” he laughs, “with a big buck on the hood.”