Grateful Dead

Terapin Station

Terrapin Station is similar to Blues for Allah, but it is more straightforward rock and less exotic. Terrapin Station also sees the group employing the services of a producer for the first time since the first album. The explanation that the group gives is that they each had so many ideas to contribute that they decided to let someone else be the judge of which were the best to use.

Lyrically it manifests the same carefree idealism as American Beauty. For example,

"Estimated Prophet" :

"My time coming any day
Don't worry about me no
Been so long felt this way
Aint in no hurry no
Rainbow's end down that highway
Where ocean breezes blow".

"Passenger" is a full blooded rock number and is very similar to Fleetwood Mac with the combined male/female lead vocal. This track is preceeded and followed with respectively the Dead's version of disco and an arrangement of the old Samson and Delilah song —

"If I don't have my way

I would tear this old building down.

Side One ends with a rather pretty acoustic number written by Donna Goschaux entitled Sunrise and is beautifully arranged and orchestrated.

However the best comes with the title track which occupies the whole of side two and is in my view as good as anything they've yet done. Beginning with a Garcial Hunter composition it moves through heavy rock and orchestration detracts from the basic ideas in this instance it effectively highlights and accentuates the music due to the skillful arranging and excellent production Lyrically it sees Robert Hunter in one of his most poetic moments dealing with the chivalry of days gone by and the obscurities of fable telling.

—Geoffrey Churchman.

The Stranglers

IV Rattus Norvegicus

As the man from "Sounds" said - "when was the last time you heard an angry psychedelic band?

Unfortunately there exists a situation in which New York acts are classified as 'New Wave' at the expense of English acts being reduced to 'Punks'. If any one English band currently 'making noise' should be placed alongside the company of Television, it's the Stranglers.

At the risk of falling into the I've-hear-this-all- before syndrome, I personally rate "IV Rattus Norvegicus" as one of the best English Rock album releases so far this year (Rock doesn't include Rod Stewart or Fleetwood Mac).

Whereas the Pistols play loud, brash uncontrolled rock'n roll ("No Fun"), the Stranglers combine their particular rock'n roll with a nostalgic glance back to the mid-late sixties, but with an eye optimistic of the future. The Stranglers are just your average four-piece outfit (Hugh Cornwall [unclear: auitars]/vocals ; Jean Jacques Bumel — Bass /vocals Dave Greenfield — keyboards ; Jet Black — drums/ percussion) that play miles above average rock'n roll — and that, these days, is unusual if not phenomenal.

The album opens with "Sometimes", which immediately sets the pace for the remainder of the record : great pulsating, aggressive music, medoicre chauvanistic lyrics :

"Someday I'm gonna smack your face . . . Beat you, honey, till you drop".

Granted, these guys are no brilliant musicial technicians, but what has rock'n roll got to do with being a brilliant musical technician? Just listen to the early Beatles or Stones.

The keyboard work of Greenfield also sounds suspiciously similar to that of Ray Manzarek, so it's obvious which group is conjured up. If only the stranglers had the lyrical quality of Morrison. "Sometimes" could have equalled "Twentieth Century Fox" or even "Strange Days" itself.

"Goodbye Toulouse" is short, punchy, played in ¾ and like most of the other cuts has no noticeable lyrical Quality.

"London Lady" (the B-side to their English Single "Grip") appears on the surface overtly sexist:

"Little-lady / with Dingwalls bullshit / You're so stupid / Fetid brainwaves" . . . . . and with further investigation remains as such.

Are they taking up where the Stones left off with "Under My Thumb "? Sounds like it. It only lasts 2.25 minutes, but its length does not belittle its impact, and the insane Syd Barret inspired spasmotic guitar only serves to reinforce its anger.

Feature cut of side one is "Princess of the Street". The lyrics don't appear to improve, but retain its predecessors' animalistic attitude to women : "She's the queen of the street / What a piece of meat".

What makes "Princess" so memorable is Burnel's pulsating bass and Cornwall's beautifully delicate solo. Taste is the word.

Side closer is "Hanging Around" and, as with previous tracks, is dominated by the bass. Interspersed in between, Greenfield lays down some very strange sounds, reminiscent of "96 Tears, and the general impression is favourable.

Side two opens with the Stranglers' current English single (about three months ago that is) "Peaches" not quite funk, not quite psychedelic, but very mean, "Peaches" boasts one of the most homicidal riffs since . . . damn it, since the days of "Jumpin' Jack Flash" itself. The Stranglers continue and magnify their anti-women stance. :

"Walking on the beaches looking at the peaches".

Other lines are best left to the individual to hear. It's not the words that score points though, it's the overall sound — grim menace oozing as on "Gimme Shelter" just about suffocates the listener.

"(Get A) Grip (On Yourself)" you most likely have already heard, so I'll pass no comment other than it's the obvious single. "Ugly" attacks white middle-class society ; that is, the female white middle-class society - trendy hair styles, baggy jeans etc. Burrel's vocals don't exactly inspire one to listen too closely to the lyrics though, much rather have a Lou Reed - drawl than a' Burnel - belch.

The story-line has vague association with acne, and descends into a ridiculous finale involving such verbal attrocities as :

"Only the children of the fucking wealthy can afford to be good looking". Iggy Pop may scream "Piss on you", but Burnel's"Music Power I" is nothing less that thugable. Definitely this cut is the closest that the Stranglers come to the mentality of "Pretty Vacant", A total grass- out.

The album's closer is "Down in the Sewer" and is composed of four segments, though damned if I can recognise them individually. In any case, the 7.30 minutes worth of "Sewer" is worth the price of the album alone. Cliche I know, but fact.

A killer riff, psychedelic guitar licks, swirling "When the Music's Over" — type organ and Burnel's bass all combine to make an album closer equal to "The Soft Parade", "Won't Get Fooled again" or even "When the Music's over" itself. To call this cut a classic may be bordering on over, but nothing less begits it. The actual story-line is weird, strange and totally crazy, worthy of the madcap himself.

If you want to hear the real 'new Wave' of rock, then add "IV Rattus Norvegicus" to your collection. If you're 'only' into the fringes of current rock'n roll, take the chance.

Still ... if you want to buy "Rumours" you'd been best not to have read this review.

- Greg Cotmore.

cons & pros

Radio New Zealand's sledghammer has come down with a thump on the latest wave of rock music — punk rock.

The radio network's banning of the Sex Pistol's single God Save the Queen follows a series of moralistic judgements on the outward appearances of punk music by journalists, rock magazines and record company executives.

"The lack of any morals in these people leaves me sickened", was the comment from the general manager of A & M Records (UK) and a letter to the editor of the rock magazine Melody Maker condemned punk rock as the "degrading ramblings of cretinous slobs".

But young New Zealanders are probably wondering what is so wrong with punk music, because the bourgeois press has not stopped to describe, let alone explain, the reasons for the re-emergence of punk rock.

Punk rock, as a form of music, was first used to describe white rock bands in the 1965 - 68 period, who were all characterised by a conscious attempt to play both simply and with a rawness of sound in the true traditions of rock and roll music.

A member of the English group The Troggs summarised the "guts" of this type pf music : "It was easy music to understand, easy music to comprehend. It didn't matter if it wasn't skilfull, it was more important that it was ours ! "

And these descriptions are heard today as punk rockers criticise the way in which popular music has become commercialised and sophisticated. People like Rod Stewart and the Rolling Stones, who purported to represent them in some way, have become rich tax exiles with whom they have nothing in common.

"You get these people up on stage — people who are speaking in a posh voice. It is a bit crazy. Rock comes from a dirty old playground, in the slums," was the comment from one punk rocker.

Punk rock sets out to deliberately offend. The names of punk heroes (Dee Generate, Slimey [unclear: ad,] Paul Grotesque and New Zealander Max Lesbian) reflect their stage performances, which try to encourage fans to acts of violence and destruction.

Punk vocabulary is confined to a few words of slang and constant use of swear words, punk dress includes razor blades through the nose and ears and ragged clothes held together with safety pins, while punk philosophy rejects notions of romantic love and acclaims indiscriminate fucking around and suggests the shooting of anyone over 30 years of age.

The words in punk songs also express a rejection of all authority and an anger against the upper classes. Understandably many of the songs tend towards anarchism

This rejection spills over into the lifestyles of the punk rock followers, who in Britain have been mainly the unemployed youth.

In their music and attitudes to life punk rockers go out of their way to offend the existing bourgeois morals. This outright rejection is a realisation of their own rejection by capitalism (their unemployment). Because, like the bikies of the past, they realise they have been defined "outside" society's norms, they feel they need not make any attempt to go along with those views.

However, by combining together in rejecting existing bourgeois values, they form an identifiable group, and thus set themselves up as a potential market whose sharply defined tastes can be exploited by "hip" capitalists. In this way they can be submerged back into the very society they have revolted against.

Rock music under capitalism is not so much an art form, but something which is bought and sold (commodity). To the record bosses the fact that a record will appeal to the widest possible cross-section of people is more important than its "artisticness" (e.g. the marketing of Abba). Today pop music has an international market.

Most ideas that arise today have both a progressive and a reactionary aspect to them because they are a response to the contradiction in capitalism between the advances in technical development (i.e. new forms of machinery and equipment which produce more efficiently) and the way in which society is organised (the division into classes with the tiny capitalist class controlling production). The former is progressive while the latter is reactionary. Rock music cannot be labelled as one or the other, because it includes both aspects.

Clearly, it is progressive in some way, as technical advances in the field of musical electronics, even the simple application of electricity to instruments, had increased the range of sounds, and projects this sound through amplification to thousands, rather than small band of music : lovers. It is now possible for everyone to be able to participate in a music that has an appealing, simple beat.

And yet, at the same time it also has a reactionary effect in the increasingly formularised music which is imposed on an international market, churned out in a studio through the combination of many sets of sounds from highly complex equipment.

Musically, punk rock is a reaction against this increasing sophistication Their sound is raw, their lyrics are simple, and they are close to the day to day experiences of their audiences.

Rock music has been part of our history for the last 25 years and so it would be false to attempt to dismiss it because of the bourgeois ideas it contains. Rather, any future music of the people must be built on the base (e.g. rock music) which exists now, and further revolts within this bese must be understood, not morally condemned as they normally are.

You say you're aware of the overall shape of the group's output so far?

I'd say we were not only aware of it, we control it. It's an intentional design.

You think this makes the Mothers better than some other groups?

It makes the Mothers different, certainly. We do not claim that control of conceptual continuity automatically ensures superiority on any level. The reason for explaining this process is to simply let you know it exists and to give you .... some criteria by which to rationally judge what we do. It is not fair to our group .... to review detailed aspects of our work without considering the placement of detail in a larger structure.

Listen, nobody put together a pop group, simultaneously planning years of absurdly complicated events, lives out those events, then writes about it in a press kit and expects somebody to believe it

The basic blueprints were executed in 1962-63. Preliminary experientation in early and mid 1964. Construction of project/object began in late 1964. Work is still in progress.

No wonder you guys never had a hit single.

I'm sure you realise that total control is neither possible nor desirable. (It takes the fun out of it). The project/object contains plans and non-plans, also precisely calculated event structures, designed to accomodate the mechanics of fate and all bonus statistical improbabilities attendant thereto .... What we sound like is more than what we sound like. We are part of the project/object. The project/object incorporates any available visual medium, consciousness of all participants (including audience), all perceptual deficiencies, God (as energy,) The Big Note (as universal basic building material) and other things. We make a special art in an environment hostile to dreamers.

I still don't get it. Art? What art? 'Rolling Stone' and all other groovy important publications have convinced me that you guys are nothing but a bunch of tone-deaf preverts, faking it on the fringe of the real rock & roll world All you guys do is play comedy music So should I believe all this crap about a conceptual program spanning decades?

Yes.

Why don't you guys just play rock & roll like everybody else?

Sometimes we do play rock & roll like everybody else (sort of). Our basic stylistic determinant is Rock, only sometimes it gets extrapolated into curious realms.

You probably get into that 'classical rock' Real intellectual with ugly chords and the beat's no good.

Any association we might have about 'serious music' has to be considered from a rock viewpoint because most of us are strictly Rock music. There is also the element of humour to consider.

I would also like to bring to your attention at this time to one of the tenets of our group philosophy: it is, in spite of all evidence to the contrary, theoretically possible to be heavy' and still have a sense of humour .... And another precept which guides our work: Somebody in that audience out there knows what we're doing and that person is getting off on it beyond her/his wildest comprehensions';

— The Bizarre Public Relations Dept.