Lester Butler: 13 with a Bullet

(As published in Real Groove, 1997)

Were truth serum forced down the throats of blues aficionados, many of them might confess to admiring or respecting the importance of the blues a lot more than they actually enjoy the music. And who could blame them?  The blues is, after all, the most repetitious music in the Western world, and let him who has never trumpeted music for ulterior motives cast the first rolling stone.

Lester Butler, the thirty-seven-year-old, harp-playing force of nature who first came to notoriety as the front man for the late and much-lamented Red Devils, plays a different kind of blues altogether.  In fact, he and his new band 13 don’t so much play the blues as allow it to inhabit them and throttle them within an inch of their professional viability. (“We broke mics, and it was fun,” laughs Butler in reference to the recording of 13 Featuring Lester Butler, their new Hightone album.  “But we’ll never record in that studio again because they’re totally pissed at how many mics I broke.  That wasn’t ‘respectful.’”) As a result, the thirteen songs on 13 Featuring Lester Butler—especially the homicidally maniacal “Plague of Madness”–don’t sound performed so much as possessed.

Butler, who almost played New Zealand several years ago with the Red Devils, recently talked to Real Groove about his past, his present, the number thirteen, why some of his friends occasionally look at him funny, and why Kenny Wayne Shepherd deserves to be eaten by B.B. King.

REAL GROOVE: At one point the Red Devils were booked to play in New Zealand, but you canceled at the last minute because…
LESTER BUTLER: No, we didn’t.  We never cancel.

RG: What happened?
LB: Whoever was involved in promoting it couldn’t put the money together.  It was going to be the Paladins and us.  I was stoked to go, too.

RG: The cancellation had nothing to do with the Red Devils turning into Bruce Willis’s backing band?
LB: That’s such bullshit.  I played with Willis for a long time because he’s my bud and I ran the Planet Hollywood band, but…

RG: —–
LB: Actually, I saw a movie about it.

RG: —–
LB: I’m being sarcastic.  My girlfriend’s looking at me like, “Gosh, you’re blowing it again!”

RG: The cancellation boiled down to money?
LB: Yeah, but that’s cool.  Business is business.  Somebody couldn’t come up with the dough and gave us an excuse like “Oh, you missed an interview!”  You know how the biz gets sometimes.  But I forgive them all because that’s their job: to bullshit people.

RG: One of the best things about 13 Featuring Lester Butler, by the way, is its punk-dirty sound.
LB: Oh yeah.  I read about that in a book [laughs].

RG: —–
LB: I never lived it.

RG: The album sounds more like a natural extension of Funhouse than of any blues album.  It doesn’t sound like an affectation.
LB: Thank you very much.

RG: It sounds like the next, logical step.
LB: Thank you very much.  As Howlin’ Wolf said, “Make it yaws!  And don’t play with nobody that don’t know their changes!” [laughs], which we thought was really funny considering how much one-chord shit he does.

RG: How did you get the dirty, mic-in-the-mouth sound?
LB: You know the mic they use for the room mic?  I can’t remember what it’s called, but I was singing through that, which you’re not supposed to do, and the guys at the studio were like, “Back in the booth!  What are you doing with the room mic?”

RG: Which songs did they end up letting you sing through the room mic on?
LB: “So Low Down,” “Black Hearted Woman,” “Sweet Tooth,” “Close to You”–Those were the ones that made them go, “There’s the shit! We’re sorry for not letting you sing through the room mic!”

RG: Did they really say, “We’re sorry”?
LB: Of course not.

RG: Perhaps 13 Featuring Lester Butler will become known as the blues album for people whose tolerance for the blues is limited.
LB: My tolerance for the blues is limited, too–except for James Harman.  I love him.  He’s like a father to me.  I saw him at a gig the other night, and I said, “You know, James, I’ve been coming to see you over half my life!”

RG: In what sense is your tolerance for the blues limited?
LB: I hate the homogenized copycats who are replicating Chicago blues instead of doing what Wolf and Sonny Boy did, which was to make it evolve.  And I can’t stand to see kids like–I hate to talk negative.

RG: We don’t mind.
LB: Those people who have no right to be up there singing the blues because they ain’t lived through shit–they’re little kids!  “Oh, Kenny Wayne?  Yeah, he’s a bluesman!”  Please!  I’m not trying to be egotistical, but what’s that about?  Did Albert King play that way?  “I’ll show you how many notes I can hit.”  Oh yeah.  B.B. King, Albert King, Elmore James–they were all about fancy riffs.

RG: In your liner notes, you thank Geza X, the Dead Kennedys’ producer.
LB: Oh yeah.  When Geza became involved, magic started to happen.

RG: Like what?
LB: I re-sang a lot of stuff up at his house after Jeffrey Lee Pierce died.  You know Jeffrey Lee Pierce?

RG: The Gun Club guy.
LB: Jeffrey Lee, my buddy, had just died.  I’d been listening to his music just the night before, and I said, “Let’s go there, and let’s be like a vanload of punks slamming into Howlin’ Wolf.”

RG: What vocals did you re-record?
LB: We did “HNC,” “Smoke Stack Lightning,” and “Baby, Please Don’t Go” up there.  It got more and more punk rock as the days went on.

RG: What made you want to do such war-horses as “Smoke Stack Lightning” and “Baby, Please Don’t Go”?
LB: My “Smoke Stack Lightning” is not about Wolf’s “Smoke Stack Lightning.”  His is about a train.  My “Smoke Stack Lightning” is about guys with crack–bums–and they’re drinking poison wine and shit, and they know it, yet they’re still drinking it.  It’s a very desperate time, one that–thank God–I got through.

RG: You’re through it?
LB: Thank the Lord, I got through it.  That’s what my “Smoke Stack Lightning”’s about, and that’s the thing about the whole thirteen thing.

RG: By the way, should people look for the album under B for Butler, T for Thirteen, or wherever stores stock albums by bands with numerals for names?
LB: I’ve got friends calling me from all over the world, saying, “We can’t find your record. Is it 13?  Is it Lester Butler and 13?”  My intentions were the best–to not be “Joe Blow and the Alligators” or whatever.  It was going to be “13,” and then we were going to sticker it: “New Music from Lester Butler!”  But it got out of my hands.

RG: What’s special about the number thirteen, by the way?
LB: Besides being my lucky number?

RG: Yeah.
LB: Well, do you know any bikers?

RG: Dozens.
LB: You’ll have to ask them what thirteen stands for.

RG: May we say Lester Butler sent us?
LB: Well, I’ll tell you.  It’s a code for, like, weed and mushrooms and–you know, it’s underground.

RG: We dig.
LB: I also have this belief that all the trouble and shit you go through can carry the seeds of strength and benefit.  My whole life’s been like that.  I know guys who are kazillionaires, but they’re not as hard as people I know who’ve fought for the last cheeseburger in the dumpster.  That’s the whole thirteen thing: Bad luck is good luck because it’s going to make you stronger if it doesn’t kill you.  The whole album’s about being through the shit, and it’s to heal my brothers who’ve gone through the same shit.  My brand-new stuff is the same.  I have one called “Post-Binge Depression Blues” that’s for everybody who gets up in the morning and says, “Aw, Jesus!  I can’t be alone in this!”

RG: You even have thirteen songs on the album.
LB: When you come see us, you’ll be lucky to hear maybe half the album.  Or maybe you’ll get the whole thing, depending on how I feel.  But it’s all about spirit and emotion, about what’s going on right now.  That’s the whole thirteen thing.  The worst shit I’ve been through–losing my best friend, “Black Hearted Woman,” all that shit–the worst shit I’ve been through is going into the best songs I’ve ever made.

RG: Do you ever worry that, now that your gutter days have passed, you might run out of material?
LB: Oh, don’t worry about that [laughs]!  I’ll fuck ‘em up [laughs]!  But, you know, once I was playing tennis with some rich cat I know, and all of a sudden I said to myself, “Jesus fuckin’ Christ!  You’re playing tennis?  You have tennis shorts on!  Go to the liquor store now, get fired, get penniless, and get real with yourself, then go write some real songs, man!  How are you going to write about playing tennis?”

RG: Did you go “get real with yourself”?
LB: As sad as it sounds, I did once intentionally fuck my life up.  I said, “What the hell?  You got money, you’re a yuppie, you got a nice car–what are you gonna say to people?  ‘Hi! My life’s perfect, and it’s all good’?  Now, I’m not a fan of Iggy Pop or Jim Morrison or any other sweat-drippin’ maniac.  I’m not akin to them.  But I spent every penny I had to straighten myself out without going to rehab.

RG: Rehab is a rich man’s prerogative?
LB: Oh, it’s pathetic.  I love my brothers in NA, but I’ve lost more friends coming out of rehab because of its spring effect.  Rehab crushes that spring down, and then they get out, and booiinngg!  It’s really sad.  I mean, I can laugh about it now, but…

RG: How did you pull through the last time?
LB: You wanna know the truth?  (My personal manager’s looking at me like “What are you doing?  You’re ruining your career!”)  I died legally.  I was lying on the table, cold blue, out–“Oh, he’s gone, we electroshocked him, we have adrenaline, he’s gone, he’s dead”–and I saw God.

RG: —–
LB: He appeared as an apparition to me, and he said, “Go back.  You’ve got work to do, man.  You’ve got healing to do.  You’re not ready to come here yet.”

RG: —–
LB: I don’t know.  It might’ve been delirium or whatever, but I have certain beliefs.  People look at me and say, “Yeah, sure you’ve got the ten-thousand-year-old spirit of a shaman in you [laughs].”

RG: People have believed weirder stuff.
LB: I mean, I feel it.  And the more tattoos I get, the more I feel this spirit.  My tattoos are like a spiritual thing to me.

RG: How many do you have?
LB: Right now I’m sleeved on both arms.

RG: “Sleeved”?
LB: Completely covered.  It’s like ritual mutilation.  “Hey!  Guess what I feel, my close friends?  Please don’t tell anyone, but I think I have the ten-thousand-year-old spirit of a shaman in me.”  I don’t know its name or anything, and I don’t mean to sound egotistical, but I know I have that essence.  I’ve got healing powers.

RG: Do elaborate.
LB: Before there were words, before there was anything, there was a drum, and there was a guy who, if the tribe needed food, would dance around and symbolically kill whatever the ills of the tribe were.  And everybody would dance in unison, and there’d be a cathartic release.

RG: People find this weird?
LB: Not my friends, but people who aren’t hip to that kind of thing just look at you and go, “Uh-huh.  And I caught you reading the Bible last night.  What’s that about?  We caught you with the Koran in your bedroom!”  I have this friend–he’s a preacher–and right now he’s on skid row.  I go down and try and give him some money and buy him food and shit, and I mean he was the most benevolent cat there ever was when I first met him.  And I’m not a Christian, but because he has faith in this, I’m down there reading chapters of Matthew to him, saying, “Tell me if you don’t have faith anymore.  That’s cool.  But if you still claim to, here we go.  You’re being persecuted by hypocrites? Here’s Matthew 11: ‘Blessed are they who are persecuted because….’”  I’m reading this shit to him, and some of my really cool death-rocker friends who have cool leather jackets and stuff–and I love them, too–they look at me like, “You’re a pussy.  You’re no longer cool.  This preacher guy is weird!  Don’t bring him around here anymore.”

RG: Nice guys.
LB: I tell my life to people, and they go, “Yeah, that’s gotta be made up!”  “Why’d you start playing harmonica, Lester?”  “Well, it was the only instrument I could steal out of the music shop.”  “Oh yeah, that’s a good line.  Which publicist made that up [laughs]?”

______________________

From Wikipedia: "[Lester] Butler died of an overdose of heroin and cocaine on May 9, 1998, in Los Angeles at the age of thirty-eight." 

Time and Love: The Music of Laura Nyro (1997)

(As published in New Zealand's Real Groove ... )

Time and Love: The Music of Laura Nyro
(Astor Place)

Having never met anyone who owns a Laura Nyro album and having only owned one myself (a promo of 1984's Mother's Spiritual that I traded in after listening to it once), my familiarity with the recently croaked songstress comes courtesy of the hit versions of her best-known compositions: "And When I Die" by Blood, Sweat and Tears, "Eli's Comin'" by Three Dog Night, "Wedding Bell Blues," "Stoned Soul Picnic," and "Save the Country" by the Fifth Dimension, and "Stoney End" by whoever had a hit with that. So I'm always surprised to discover that some people, instead of regarding her as the female Jimmy Webb and letting it go at that, actually worship her. Writes Peter Gallway, this album's producer, in the liner notes: "Her concerts were religious experiences. Laura gowned, surrounded by roses, alone in purple light at the grand piano. Her style, her holiness, her reclusivity, her high standards"--what, she wouldn't date the boys that chew?--"became the stuff of legend"; Roseanne Cash: "Laura Nyro is a part of the template from which my own musical and Feminine [sic] consciousness was printed"; Beth Nielsen Chapman: "Laura Nyro's songs have always touched me deeply" (if it were Madonna talking, I might be jealous of Laura Nyro's songs); Jonatha Brooke: "I wasn't familiar with Laura Nyro's music--I'm not sure how I missed out." Hey! Who invited this heretic? Anyway, the good stuff is Phoebe Snow doing "Time and Love," the Roches doing "Wedding Bell Blues," Beth Nielsen Chapman doing "Stoney End," and Dana Bryant doing a Tricky-like "Woman's Blues." Everything else here is girls being girls, with all the amorphous, Tori Amos-like ooze that girls being girls implies. And Jane Siberry, who couldn't decide which one to do, does a medley of four. Talk about ominous implications for future tribute albums!

Gina G: Fresh! (1997)

(As published in Real Groove ... )

Gina G
Fresh!
(Eternal/Warner Bros.)

Discerning listeners may disagree over how many immaculately conceived disco-tech albums a music-weary world needs, but if they don't agree that the world needs the Clearasil-clean effervescence of Gina G's aptly titled Fresh! at least as much as the pock-marked grittiness of whatever sprouts up in the wake of Alanis Morissette, maybe they aren't so discerning after all. An inspired ripper-offer (of clothes as well as tunes--she wears nothing but chocolate on the front cover), G steals only from the best, i.e., Madonna. "Ti Amo" is to "La Isla Bonita" as "Every Time I Fall" is to "Live to Tell" as "Rhythm of My Life" is to "Where's the Party," and as long as the Real Thing persists in seeing trophy babies and Evita as acceptable substitutes for immaculately conceived disco-tech albums, more power to the Inspired Fake. As for G's weary-world-conquering "Ooh Aah ... Just a Little Bit" (when has a titular ellipsis ever spoken such volumes?) and its likely follow-up "Gimme Some Love" (when has a song beginning with "Gimme" ever not ruled?), their juicy, built-for-strobes synth riffs should delight liberteenyboppers of every significant demographic from now till August at least.

Danny Gatton: In Concert 9/9/94 (1997)

(As published in Real Groove ... )

Danny Gatton
In Concert 9/9/94
(Big Mo)

Most musicians who get hyped as "best-kept secrets" deserve to remain under wraps. The late Danny Gatton, however, deserved more exposure. By the time he turned in this sixty-five-minute performance at the Birchmere club in Alexandria, VA, he'd already spent two or three decades as a D.C.-area guitar hero, enjoyed a short-lived major-label career as the "best unknown guitar player in the world," and returned to obscurity as one born to it. Judging from the barely audible 'tween-tracks applause, the crowd in front of which In Concert 9/9/94 was recorded couldn't have exceeded one hundred. Yet Gatton and his backup duo (the upright bassist John Previti and the drummer Timm Biery) really bear down and stretch out, treating an impressively diverse program of jazz (Sonny Rollins' "Sunnymoon for Two," Duke Ellington's "Caravan," Vince Guaraldi's "Linus and Lucy"), demijazz (Chuck Mangione's "Land of Make Believe"), rock-and-roll ("Apache," a "Surf Medley" of "Walk Don't Run" and "Wipeout"), folk-boogie ("Orange Blossom Medley") and originals ("88 Elmira," "Blues Newburg") with an improvisational intensity and lightness of touch not usually associated with journeymen. Enjoyable under most circumstances, and essential for those times when one's drinking buddies get misty over Jimi and Stevie Ray.

Orb: Orblivion; Orbit: Libido Speedway (1997)

(As published in New Zealand's Real Groove ... )

Orb
Orblivion
(Island)

Orbit
Libido Speedway
(A&M)

From an alphabetical perspective, only Roy Orbison stands between Orb and Orbit. From a musical perspective, however, other differences come into play. Orbit, for instance, has songs like "Nocturnal Autodrive" and "Amp," which pile garage guitar and rabble-rousing choruses atop cool bass riffs and hot Slade ones respectively. Orb, on the other hand, has "tracks" like "Ubiquity" and "Bedouin," which pile computer-generated samples atop computer-generated samples and go sprockety-wockety when they're not going chick-a-wocka or schprrroinnngg! Orbit has songs like "Bicycle Song" and "Carnival," which deal with bicycles and carnivals respectively. Orb, on the other hand, has tracks like "Delta MK II" and "PI," which deal with, you know, like, the void and stuff. Actually, one of Orblivion's tracks, "S.A.L.T.," deals with sex and the Book of Revelation, if I'm hearing the "lyrics" correctly. Another, "Toxygene," begins "Now, wait a minute!" then develops a disco gallop. And "Secrets" begins with a weather forecast before flaaanging off into sheer schwoosh! In other words, Tangerine Dream meets Metal Machine Music--or is it Einsturzende Neubauten? On stage, the three members of Orbit play guitar-bass-drums and sing to clubs full of beer-swigging fans. Orb, on the other hand, plays "raves," its two members generating clackety-schmackety in time to strobe lights that catch the dancers standing around doing nothing until the drugs kick in. Or, to put it another way, Orb diddles while Orbit burns. Ratings: Orbit (7), Orb (2), Orbison (10).

(More Orbit: http://arsenioorteza.blogspot.com/2010/07/orbit-libido-shuffle-1997.html)

The Skeletons: Nothing to Lose (1997)

(As published in New Zealand's Real Groove ... )

The Skeletons
Nothing to Lose
(Hightone)

One might expect a four-piece named the Skeletons to play bare-bones rock, but with this much spirit and humor? On most of these fourteen songs--twelve of which they wrote--the Skeletons begin with a '60's AM-rock riff, establish momentum by singing and playing like the inspired bar band they are (roll over J. Geils and tell Huey Lewis the News), and transform material that looks formulaic on paper into the stuff of really cool jukeboxes. Their nostalgia infatuation is palpable: The two-chord staccato strum of Lou Reed's "Heroin" runs through "Pay to Play," the dirty water of a thousand garage-rock rants runs through "Downhearted" and "I Ain't Lyin'," the theme from an imaginary western runs through the instrumental "Tubbs' Theme," and a chilly Bob Dylan organ (courtesy of the Skeleton key-boardist Joe Terry) runs through practically everything. Their tip-of-the-Stetson to country swing, "Country Boys Don't Cry," is no less spot on, and their covers--"On Your Way Down the Drain" (which Danny Kortchmar wrote for the Kingbees in '66) and "Teardrop City" (which Boyce and Hart wrote for the Monkees in '69)--are as worthy of becoming frat-rock shout-alongs as their untitled, roller-rinky-dinky forteenth track is of becoming the most-danced-to polka at Bill Black's high school reunion. And, to top it off, clever lyrics abound. Anyone hoping to make "bone(r)-pulling" jokes at this group's expense will just have to wait.

Blue Oyster Cult: Club Ninja Reissue (1997)

(As published in New Zealand's Real Groove ... )

Blue Oyster Cult
Club Ninja
(Koch)

Why Koch--a Port Washington, NY, label that deals mainly in reissuing old C&W--has chosen this 1986 Blue Oyster Cult album to establish their rock-and-roll credentials is anyone's guess, but one thing's for sure: They couldn't have picked a better album to demonstrate the collective shortsightedness of rock critics, MTV, and radio. In '86, critics preferred college rock, MTV preferred heavy metal, and radio preferred I can't remember what. But no one preferred BOC's sci-fi-laced metal-lite. Too bad, too, because Club Ninja is almost as much self-deprecatingly dumb, stadium-rock fun as Agents of Fortune and Spectres. In "Dancin' in the Ruins" it even had a track as worthy of FM immortality as "(Don't Fear) the Reaper," "Godzilla," and "Burnin' for You." Jim Carroll wrote half-decent lyrics for Buck Dharma's "Perfect Water," Richard Meltzer did the same for "Spy in the House of Night," Sandy Pearlman produced, and the title of "Make Rock Not War" explained what went wrong with the Woodstock Generation. Not that Club Ninja holds a candle to Licensed to Ill or Graceland, two 1986 albums about which critics, MTV, and radio were right. But it sure sounds fresh compared to Husker Du's Candy Apple Grey and REM's Lifes Rich Pageant.

Taj Mahal: Señor Blues (1997)

(As published in Real Groove ... )

Taj Mahal
Señor Blues
(Private)

It's weird to realize that a guy who's spent the last thirty years as a living encyclopedia of black musical styles and who goes by the name of a 350-year-old mausoleum in India actually did his growing up in that hotbed of funky ethnicity, Springfield, Massachusetts (pop. 164,000). It's also weird to discover that after thirty-five albums he still brings a sense of discovery to the songs he covers. But the thirty-sixth time's the charm: Señor Blues is the punchiest jazz-blues-gospel-soul album since critics mistook Ted Hawkins' The Next Hundred Years for the real deal several years ago. Jazz, blues, and gospel are inevitable from a living encyclopedia; Mahal was put on this earth, after all, to get first-rate results from second-hand material. But when it comes to soul--well, who'd expect a rendition of "Think" that rivals James Brown's, of "At Last (I Found a Love)" that rivals Marvin Gaye's, or of "Mr. Pitiful" that rivals Otis Redding's? By linking them with jazz (the sinuous Horace Silver-penned title track), blues (Freddy Simon's "I Miss You, Baby," Delbert McClinton's "Real Bad Day"), and gospel (Jon Cleary's pew-stompin' "Oh Lord, Things Are Gettin' Crazy Up Here"), he gives the soul cuts a context rather than a (mere) history. And by singing Hank Williams' "Mind Your Own Business" like Louis Prima and "I Miss You, Baby" like Ray Charles, Mahal proves he's the sizzlingest one-man musical melting pot currently recording for a Windham Hill subsidiary.

Alison Krauss & Union Station: So Long So Wrong (1997)

(As published in Real Groove ... )

Alison Krauss and Union Station
So Long So Wrong
(Rounder)

For Alison Krauss, following-up her Grammy-winning best-of Now That I've Found You must have been daunting. What were the odds, after all, that the sequel to one of the best bluegrass albums of the '90's would live up to expectations? Neither Krauss nor Union Station sound daunted on So Long So Wrong. Their touch is as light and relaxed as ever. But they don't always sound focused either, and the reason may be as simple as Krauss's desire to be perceived as a group member (the acronym "AKUS" gets production and arrangement credit) instead of as a solo artist. To this end, she surrenders the lead vocals of five songs to her guitarist, Dan Tyminski, a likable fellow who might wow 'em on open-mic night but who won't have agents banging down his door. Of the eight that Krauss sings, three belong on her next best-of. "Deeper Than Crying" and "Find My Way Back to My Heart" (both written by Mark Simos) prove that nothing suits her like a melancholy melody and lyrics about lost love, and "There Is a Reason" proves that nothing suits her like a Ron Block gospel song. As the possessor of the most beautiful voice in roots music today, Krauss has no business sharing lead-vocal duties. Here's hoping she gets over her democracy kick and starts acting like a benevolent-dictator again soon.

Ace Frehley: Twelve Picks (1997)

(As published in Real Groove ... )

Ace Frehley
Twelve Picks
(Megaforce)

If you caught the Kiss reunion tour last year and paid attention, you know that Ace Frehley supplies the band's real osculatory muscle: Next to his power chords and showcase solos, Criss's beat is mere stamina, Simmons' and Stanley's fretwork pure plod. Twelve Picks is half studio best-of and half never-before-released live, and because the latter includes run-throughs of "Cold Gin," "Rocket Ride," and "Deuce," you might think it rocks and rolls all nite. It doesn't--the Comet's finer points get lost in arena acoustics, and there’s nary a "New York Groove" or a "2,000 Man" in sight. But the studio six wear their chrome hooks well and suggest that on a bigger label than Megaforce Frehley might've given Cinderella, White Lion, and Poison a run for their platinum. The best cut, "Trouble Walkin'," even packs a misheard lyric: "I am trouble walkin' / I am every mother's nightmare" sounds like "I have trouble walkin'" and is therefore almost certainly huge with Mothers Against Crippled Sons-in-Law.

Echo & the Bunnymen: Evergreen (1997)

(As published in New Zealand's Real Groove ... )

Echo & the Bunnymen
Evergreen
(London)

It's been a long time since Ian McCulloch and Co. posed for a poorly illuminated album-cover photo, the very nocturnal shadowiness of which connoted mystery, secrets, and a vampirical fear of a tan. Still, the Los Angeles Times' Robert Hilburn detects "a delightful summer pop-rock breeze" blowing through "I Want to Be There (When You Come)"--McCulloch's answer to "She Bop" and "I Touch Myself," obviously--so can a tan be far behind? Why, the title of "Baseball Bill" alone signals American bleacher-bum pretensions unprecedented in a Brit, even if the song, apparently, is about a murderer. And speaking of America and murder, McCulloch calls the next song "Altamont," a not-so-veiled threat to release a song called "The Who's Cincinnati Concert" in 2007. So if shadowiness, summer breezes, America, and murder--oh, and navel-gazing, mustn't forget the navel-gazing--aren't your cup of tea, you may want to pass on this. If, however, you can enjoy anything as long as it's sung by a brooder whose Bono-isms are in palpable decline and set to melancholy melodies as only the London Metropolitan Orchestra can play them, you'll find plenty here to enjoy. And Will Sergeant's guitar parts twinkle like stars.

Paul Weller: Heavy Soul (1997)

(As published in Real Groove ... )

Paul Weller
Heavy Soul
(Island)

The mistaken idea that only the young have fun does more harm than old rockers who don't know when to quit, but old rockers who don't know when to quit lend credence to the mistaken idea. At thirty-nine, Weller is hardly old, but with four aimless solo albums under his belt--each one more leaden than the last and Heavy Soul as aimless as any of them--he seems further from a rocking good time now than at any other point in his post-Jam-Style-Council career. Don't blame his socialism--most of these lyrics are too vague for politics (from "Brushed": "[T]he tune in your head ... illuminates life / and makes you see / all the love within / is still yet to come out"). Even the titillatingly titled "Up in Suzes' Room" gets no more specific than "she licks my face and the feeling spreads," raising the possibility that Suzes might, in fact, be a dog. Still, the lyrics of the title cut and the melodies of both "I Should Have Been There to Inspire You" and "Mermaids" are worthy of Moondance-era Van Morrison. Notice, however, that this album's best lyrics and best melodies occur in separate songs, a structural defect that points up Weller's inability to focus at least as much as his disconcerting tendency to sing like that most unfocused of old rockers, Joe Cocker.

Eddi Reader: Candyfloss and Medicine (1997)

(As published in New Zealand's Real Groove ... )

Eddi Reader
Candyfloss and Medicine
(Reprise/Blanco y Negro)

On her third album since emerging solo from Fairground Attraction, Eddi Reader continues to defy categorization the only way worth doing so: unselfconsciously. There's a winsome obliviousness to all things trendy at the heart of her pop-folk blend that establishes her as a free spirit rather than a "rebel angel"--the title, incidentally, of the best song here. Part classic pop and part lullaby, "Rebel Angel" derives its tension from Reader's wide-awake phrasing of its dreamy lyrics and her dreamy phrasing of its wide-awake ones. "Sugar on the Pill" (available on the U.S. but not the U.K. version of the album), "Medicine," and "Glascow Star" follow suit, with two or three others close behind. No one on the Lilith Fair bandwagon comes anywhere near such a balance, a balance that's more Petula Ronstadt or Joni Newton-John than it is Fiona McLachlan or Jewel Osborne. Among men, only Van Morrison seems like a kindred spirit, but he's a blowhard by comparison. Reader illuminates her reveries with a lightness of touch just heavy enough to keep her candyfloss melodies from floating away.

David Byrne: Feelings (1997)

(As published in Real Groove ... )

David Byrne
Feelings
(Luaka Bop/Warner Bros.)

Coming from anyone else, an album called Feelings would create expectations of a Morris Albert tribute. Coming from David Byrne, it's just a reminder that he's usually gained access to his warmer half by mocking himself for not having one. It isn't that he thinks too much either. It's just that sometimes he sings as if he thinks he does. Sometimes his band plays that way too, conscientiously incorporating the rhythms of Communist countries and fledgling democracies when they should be rocking. That's why the hypnotic vibe of "Amnesia" and the Cuban cha-cha of "Miss America," although they percolate with el ritmo de vida, feel overwrought. Still, Byrne can sound warm. On the rockers "Dance on Vaseline" and "The Civil War," the former Talking Head comes alive from the neck down, and on the loopy "You Don't Know Me," he waxes beguilingly yin-yangish: "I'm the part of you that sings those goofy love songs," he sings, paraphrasing Paul McCartney. "I'm the part of you you can't control." Then, paraphrasing Gary Wright, he sings, "If love is alive, why can't I touch it? There's nothing else like you on my plate." Translation: He simply wants to have his love and eat it too. Why call the next song "Daddy Go Down" otherwise?

Fleetwood Mac: The Dance (1997)

(As published in Real Groove ... )

Fleetwood Mac
The Dance
(Reprise)

If, as Robert Christgau once wrote, the problem with Fleetwood Mac's Greatest Hits is that "the radio-ready format makes [the hits] seem blander than they actually are," the selling point of this live reunion should be not only that the hits are separated by new songs (four) and old album tracks (four) but also that the entire set is played a little rough around the edges by a middle-aged supergroup with both chops and something to prove. Longtime Mac fans--is there any other kind?--may fear that twentieth-anniversary renditions of "Dreams," "You Make Loving Fun," "Go You Own Way," etc. will fall short of the versions they so fondly remember. But with the exception of the unplugged "Big Love," the re-dos hold up, with "Rhiannon" improved by a loose Stevie Nicks vocal and "Tusk" by a tight University of Southern California Trojan Marching Band. Better yet, "The Chain," "Landslide," and "Silver Springs"--non-singles all and thus less susceptible to pointless iconoclasm or fawning veneration--sound so there you'd think Nicks meant every word. And if Buckingham's new "My Little Demon" has that old Mac magic, Christine McVie's new "Temporary One" has enough new Mac magic to neutralize nostalgia altogether.

Ric Ocasek: Troublizing (1997)

(As published in Real Groove ... )

Ric Ocasek
Troublizing
(Columbia)

What hasn't changed: Ocasek still buttresses his new-wave hooks with jittery guitars and high-strung singing, Greg Hawkes still shoots new-wave synthesizer lines into the mix with all the detachment of an anesthesiologist, and the songs still have as many chords as the titles have words. "Fix on You," "People We Know," and "Here We Go" could sneak onto any Cars album undetected, and the breathtakingly sleek "Hang On Tight" could improve the Cars' Greatest Hits. For that matter, so could "Crashland Consequence" and "The Next Right Moment," with the punky "Not Shocked" vying for a wild-card berth. What has changed: Billy Corgan contributes production skills and a song (the negligible "Asia Minor"), and Hole's Melissa Auf der Maur contributes background vocals without which "Hang On Tight" would be neither breathtaking nor sleek. That leaves "Situation," "Society Trance," and the title song in Ocasek-filler limbo. Suitable for heavy rotation nor pondering in the wee hours, they suggest that Corgan is too much in awe of his idol to tell him when enough's enough. And credit to Ocasek anyway for hiring someone with sense enough to crank up the guitars. Alternate title: Smashing Cars.

Music for TV Dinners (1997)

(As published in Real Groove ... )

Music for TV Dinners
(Scamp)

What hath Esquivel wrought? Scamp Records for one thing, the label devoted to releasing both the zippiest (John Barry) and the blandest (Martin Denny) of that hi-fi-testing, pre-rock instrumental genre currently known as "Space Age bachelor-pad music." Now, still eager to prove that every good niche deserves a scratch, they offer this sixteen-track collection of "production music"--that "[b]right, snappy, highly motivational and usually anonymous" music (to quote the liner notes) that "permeated television, films, and commercials" in the '50s and '60s. In other words, music to shop by. Surprisingly, instead of functioning as merely ironic commentaries on the soullessness of post-WW II consumerism or some such, these pizzazzy little ditties actually make buying stuff in the pre-mall era sound like more fun than buying stuff now. Granted, the canned, socially utilitarian nature of this aural wallpaper doesn't always make for compelling listening, but "Shopping Spree" evokes North by Northwest, "Toys for Boys" and "Curley Shirley" kick (or at least kiss) Herb Alpert's brass, and "Sleepy Shores" beats "Nadia's Theme" at its own daydreams-of-the-ordinary-soap-opera-watching-housewife game hands down.

Tiny Tim with Brave Combo: Girl (1996)

(As published in Real Groove ... )

Tiny Tim with Brave Combo
Girl (Rounder)

Here we have fourteen songs that represent not only the first significant recording in years by that paragon of peculiarity, Tiny Tim, but also Mr. Tim's genius for never having met a song he didn't like. The liner notes call him "a living treasury of romance and music," and the eclectic tracklist supports the description. Beatle tunes ("Girl," "Hey Jude"), pop standards ("New York, New York," "Over the Rainbow," "Bye Bye Blackbird"), and flat-out corn ("Sly Cigarette," "I Believe in Tomorrow") follow one upon the other, linked by Mr. Tim's vibrato-heavy baritone--at sixty-something, he seldom summons his famous falsetto--and Brave Combo, the Grammy-nominated sextet known for its ability to master everything from polka to Oriental folk. The tight, lively playing keeps Girl from sheer novelty, providing the often campy songs with a solid musical grounding and tempering Mr. Tim's more unnerving vocal eccentricities. Not that a tempered Tiny Tim isn't plenty eccentric already, but with Brave Combo he seems less like a sideshow attraction and more like a well-preserved escapee from a time capsule sealed in the days of minstrel shows (if minstrels had done "Stairway to Heaven").

The Artist Formerly Known as Prince: Live

The coolest post-Creem rock magazine in the world was New Zealand's Real Groove. This review appeared in its November 1997 issue--before Prince started calling himself Prince again.

....................

Cajundome, Lafayette, La., August 13

Several days before playing the 14,000-plus-seating Cajundome in Lafayette, La., the former Prince Rogers Nelson granted a television interview during which he was asked the following question: Since his "name" is nothing more than an unpronounceable design, what do his employees call him when they want his attention? "Sir," he answered. Fair enough.

The pre-show signs were ominous. What sort of egomaniac plays his own music (in this case, the entire three-disc Emancipation album) over the sound system before he comes on-stage? Weirder yet, who but a televangelist subjects his faithful to endless repetitions of a pre-recorded message comprising nothing but directions for how to order his relics? Simply by calling 1-800-NEWFUNK, everything from necklaces (silver and gold), T-shirts, hockey jerseys, CDs (Crystal Ball, The Truth, Kama Sutra), "beanie hats," and--my favorite--"Mr. Happy and Emancipation Underwear" could be ours.

Call it the price of freedom. Having ended his relationship with Warner Brothers, the Artist Formerly Known As Prince now bears sole responsibility for whether or not his name--whatever it is--remains synonymous with profit. In other words, having driven the moneychangers from his temple, he now has to set up shop there himself, lest the cash flow trickle to a halt.

Sir has long appropriated religious imagery. In Lafayette he followed "The Cross," his hard-rocking orthodox gospel tune from Sign o' the Times, with "One of Us," the only hit Joan Osborne will ever have and the most provocative piece of theological inquiry to hit the pop charts since Murray Head asked Jesus Christ, Superstar, who in the world He thought He was twenty-six years ago. "Do U believe in love?" Sir asked the crowd between the songs. The sound of many thousands of voices shouting affirmatively in unison assured him that they did. Who's gonna pay sixty-five dollars per ticket not to believe in love?

Beginning promptly at 9:15 and ending promptly two hours later, Sir's "Jam of the Year Tour" lived up to its name. A bit of history puts the event in its proper context. Prince released his first album, For You, in 1978 at the age of nineteen. Bob Dylan released his first album in 1962 at twenty-one. Bruce Springsteen released his in 1973 at twenty-two. By 1982 Prince was king of the hill. All of twenty-three, he released 1999, which yielded the hits "Little Red Corvette" (song number four in Lafayette), "Delirious" (truncated as part of a piano-only medley), and its millernarian title cut (appropriately saved for an encore) and joined Dylan's Blonde on Blonde (1966) and Springsteen's The River (1980) in the great-double-album pantheon.

Dylan, however, waited nine years before delivering his next great album, Blood on the Tracks, and Springsteen waited four before delivering Born in the U.S.A. Prince delivered Purple Rain immediately, then kept on delivering. (Only 1985's Around the World in a Day has acquired a reputation as a dud). And according to a recent story in the New York Times, Sir has "one thousand or so unreleased songs" in his vaults. That's a hundred albums' worth, give or take a box set, a total that Dylan and Springsteen combined--heck, throw in Neil Young--can't touch.

And although Dylan and Springsteen were, in fact, still touring successfully in the nineteenth years of their careers, they were not filling their shows with non-stop Michael-and-Janet dancing, piano humping, costume changes (three), heavy-metal guitar solos (many), or invitations to crowd members to dance on-stage (four). And even if they had been, do you think either Dylan or Springsteen could've ever moved every man in a Louisiana sports facility to sing along both loudly and proudly to "If I Was Your Girlfriend"?

"I'd love to stay, but I ain't got no more hits," the diminutive genius joked at one point, apparently oblivious to his omission of "U Got the Look" and "The Holy River," to name just two. Then he launched into his tributes to classic rock bands, "Cream" and "Kiss," and the near sell-out crowd responded to Sir with love once more.