Under the needle

AUGUST 1981 HIGH GEAR page 13

Recent releases you might have missed

By Steve DelNero

In Greater Cleveland we can pick up about half a dozen college stations that not only play the most intriguing and innovative rock music imaginable, but also give large blocks of time to the best jazz, classical, and folk... music. (At any given time on WRUW-FM 91.1, for example, you will hear music that you don't recognize, but quite possibly you will like.)

Some new releases have achieved little popular success having been very little programmed. You can program them yourself, however, if you pick them up and bring them home. A few of them might make all your guests leave the room, but then you can enjoy them yourself. How open-minded are your guests?

If you can get a hold of Living Ornaments 1979 & 1980, it may be the high point of your summer! This is Gary Numan's new double-live boxed set. (It's in a limited edition British release, but some stores still have some in stock.) Do you remember last summer's smash hit, "Cars?" That's here, plus all the other Numan classics, "Are 'Friends' Electric?" "I Die, You Die," "Down in the Park", and fifteen others! The albums are taken from the two major British tours that Numan performed. Some of the songs have never been performed in the States notably those from his first Tubeway Army LP. Also Ultravox keyboard/violinist Billie Currie plays on the 1979 LP.

If you are a fan of Mr. Billy Numan, you'll be pleased to hear that some of the best versions of his songs are here.

Numan has announced his retirement from the stage, so this will be the only live set to be issued. If you are unfamiliar with Mr. Numan, he writes robotic and perverse lyrics, uses a synthesizer as main instrument for his songs, and dresses lately right out of the Space Patrol. He has opened the door for more popular electronic rock music.

Robert Fripp is not out to win any Grammy awards with his hypnotic guitar and nonconventional views of the music industry, but his work has always been one of the more interesting side roads of rock. After leading the legendary jazz/rock band King Crimson from 1969 to 1974, he became pretty much a recluse until 1979, when he recommenced his music career.

Last year at the Cleveland Agora he performed with his band, the League of Gentlemen. The after-the-fact LP. The League of Gentlemen, is his most danceable release yet, but as in all Fripp's work, his struggle for the innovative, yet accessible, is obvious. The album is not as odd as his last release, God Save the Queen/Under Heavy Manners, and is certainly more listenable than his first solo LP, Exposure. Fripp's excellent guitar work is little showcased on this album, but he does remain one of the most important guitarists of our time. I'm sure you'll like something on this album if you give it a chance.

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Is punk dead? Ask John Lydon, formerly Johnny Rotter of the Sex Pistols (the absolute best punk band of all time). Lydon has been with his new band, Public Image, Ltd, the Pistols' demise. PIL's newest release, The Flowers of Romance, is definitely not punk! It's an arty percussion-oriented excursion into a very bleak state of affairs. Adding only vocals, synthesizers, and very little guitar (next to no bass or other keyboards), the primitive noise that results might have you climbing the walls, but you'll soon get used to the drone and the monotonal whining of Mr. Lydon, who sounds like a different man from the defiant punk he was in 1976.

He is still sinister, ugly, and mad -his cynicism permeates the whole record.

This record may not put you in a good mood, but it will change your present perceptions. Not really avant-garde, but certainly challenging.

Another rather bizarre album is Yoko Ono's latest release, Season of Glass. If you like Ono's contribution to last year's Lennon/Ono LP Double Fantasy, you will probably like this. If you are used to her only through her early 1970's work such as Fly, you will be disappointed. In fact, it took me quite a few listens to appreciate it! Although this is easily the most commercial Ono solo LP, it has enough weirdness to satisfy anyone with "No, No, No," "Dogtown", and the Sean Ono Lennon strange tale, "A Little Story."

Also on the album are pop songs, shmaltz/Broadway ditties, and some personal, poignant love songs. Phil Spector (who produced Let it Be and was a longtime friend of the Lennons) produced this album very delicately at times it sounds like a big production, but Ono generally seems quite comfortable -doing it "her way."

It's hard to not feel bad for Yoko Ono. She has one of the worst reputations of any living woman, but nearly all of it is forgiven when one considers that she loved John Lennon more than any of us could have loved him. You can feel the tension in this record, and appreciate and love Yoko for all the good that she has done in this world, albeit undercover. An extremely courageous album! SINGLES

There has also been a little activity in the singles' market. David Byrne and Brian Eno's My Life in the Bush of Ghosts LP was certainly a monster seller, considering that Mr. Eno has had little success getting high on the chart. A British 12" single containing remixes of "The Jezebel Spirit" and "Regiment" has just been released. It also has a new song, "Very, Very Hungry." It's a bit more electronic than most of the album, but would have been right thematically. It's an extremely rhythmic track, yet completely undanceable. There's a lot of drums, and lots of spacy echo -yet no real melody or rhythm at all. (The vocals, as usual, are completely nonsensi

caι but necessary in "that elfort was.") Single of the

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Local band of the .. 30s to the Monitors, whose first single "Trouble"/ Rip Your Dress", shows us that Clevelanc can still put out the energy. In a

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way they seem locked in a Sex Pistols vs. Deve struggle, but they do play rather well, and their ws, is City talented W I saw them live recently. vocit Nelcon Yandu.d was we...ng an Iggy Pop T-shirt, suspenders

over black leather shorts (!), and boots Do you remember the British punk band Chelsea ("Right to Work)? Really, the single sounds about five years old, and these days, that's a compliment. Congratulations to the Monitors for a good show, as well.

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