0 0 M us ic for the worldly Meat I5 Murder The Smiths (Sire/Warner) Slave Girl Lime Spiders Big Time Records The Axeman's Jazz The Beasts of Bourbon Big Time Records Tabula Rasa Avro Part ECM Drop Everything Lady Paul MCA Real Nighttime Game Theory Rational/Enigma By Dennis Harvey F ROM SEATTLE to Sarajevo, the hits (to paraphrase Michael Nesmith) just keep comin', and this week they're streaming in from as far as Estonia and as wide as Australia. From Warsaw to Peking, with compromisingly normal pitstops in Manchester, England and Davis, California, this article's mostly accidental theme is happy inter- nationalism. You know, that Coke- commercial arms-linked-'round-the- world sort of brotherhood-via-tunes stuff, give peas a chance and all that. This is not to be taken lightly: there is little doubt that if world government was left to musicians, we might all starve to death but surely there would be no further nuke-war paranoia. So here we go. I take it all back. O K , I was prejudiced in favor from the start. Still, with their eponymously-named debut LP last year, England's The Smiths painted themselves into a exquisite corner, one rather too well defined by Morrissey's gorgeous/grating (take your pick) croon and glamourously difficult junior-poet (of tremulous omigawd-i'm- gay ilk) sensibility. Coupled with Johnny Marr's seductive but very limited riff-oriented songwriting, The Smiths were undoubtedly striking, and a clear love-or-heat prospect. The danger was that they might not progress. That fear was underlined by the im- port LP Hatfull of Hollow, which of - fered a lot of brilliant-to-mediocre stuff all too solidly within the limits of the band had already set for itself. That album was roughly half 'n' half new and old material, 'live' (in the studio) and studio material; it was indispensable for affectionadoes, but probably dispensable for everyone else. I'm a professed Smiths fanatic, but ex- pressed reasonable disappointment on the behalf of the indifferent masses, who had unfortunate justification this time in saying "So what?" But so much for that. Meat is Murder is here, an entirely new Smiths LP, and beyond the determinedly ugh- provoking title, it all offers all the per- suasion any holdout could ask for. It shot to the #album, slot upon its release in Britain, and no wonder-no band could seem so essential to keep up with, whether they disarm or aggravate the hell out of you. This isn't a consistently great album, but only because The Smiths are still expanding their own limits, pushing them and occasionally stumbling on the borderline. But it's vibrant with effort and not infrequent greatness. There's a far greater breadth emotion here-Morrissy has somehow gotten past full-time obsessiveness with his eventually tiresome sexual melan- choly, and as a result his lyrics are beginning to reach the longed-for peak balance of poetry and precision. Most of Meat is Murder 's lyrics are remarkable for their unrumpled in- telligence (one generally expects horrible lumps of gaseousness from most issue-oriented pop prosework) and for their musical flow; as in all the best pop writing, you can hear this album and be only subliminally aware of all but the key sung phrases, which are powerful enough to convey nearly all necessary meaning. The rather pat poetic disillusionment The Smiths have offered up so far is at least explained here; it no longer seems an instrument of creating sexual glamour. Morrissey still dominates, but his personality no longer seems to use the music as a vehicle for sympathy-courting monologue. He's integrated. For every time in which he makes an in- dulgent vocal mistake-like the perilously on-key falsetto (always a problem) on the otherwise delightful "Rusholme Ruffians"-there are several compensatory passages of per- fect light phrasing and romantic but not pathetic crooning. The adjustment-demanding stop- start guitar cacophony at the beginning of the opening "Headmaster Ritual' speaks of the Smiths' new and im- proved willingness to push our expec- tations outward, as does Morrissey's wordless, near-yodelling chorus. This band has clearly discovered the studio as collaborator. Meat is Murder (god, I still can't stand the educational blun- tless of that title) connects and fills out its songs via aural theatre, like the whirring-razor sounds buzzing out morbid thoughts during the title song, and the crowd noises framing the car- nival giddiness of "Rusholme Ruf- fians." This album makes The Smiths sound terribly simple (which was precisely its charm at the time). Johnny Marr's compositional abilities are progressing far beyond the connect-the-riffs limitations of his earlier work. He's a remarkable guitarist, and on Meat is Murder he begins to seem a remarkable songwriter as well. The in- teraction between instrumentation and singer is fairly unusual for a rock band; the song would certainly sound com- pletely repetitious without the vocals, and by themselves the vocals would be sparse to the point of tunelessness-a feel of melody occurs only through the interweaving of both. The blend is near-perfected here, in the sense that Marr's work has gotten more complex and Morrissey's has gotten less atten- Game Theory: Theirs is the year's first truly great pop album tion-grabbing. Certainly "How Soon is Now?," with its enormous psychedelic reverb effects, comes as close as any Smiths song to rendering Morrissey (despite some agreeably plaintive lyrics about the futility of looking for partners in bars nearly irrelevant, a well-used pawn in the midst of a big pool of sound).; Morrissey's obsession with unrequited love-usually less with the object than with himself as receptable of frustrated desire-seems unexpec- tedly jaunty, even self-mocking on "I Want the One I Can't Have," even if the instrumentally beautiful but rather in- dulgently sung "Well I Wonder" leans backward toward the self-pitying side of romantic croonery. The thumping "Barbarism Begins at Home" seems the likeliest dance single, and here the big beat has an effectively bitter under- tone, because "a crack on the head is what you get for asking... and for not asking." The song suffers a bit from its . dance-mix length on the LP, but it's certainly the rare song that moves feet within the context of a powerful message, in this case subtly protesting child beating. Cheerfully vaudevilian in sound, "Nowhere Fast" cues its ruefully funny view of so-this-is- adulthood angst from "I'd like to drop my trousers to the Queen/every sen- sible child will know what this means," while the driving melancholy of "The Headmaster Ritual" rewrites the English boarding school horros of Another Country in terms both wistful and loathing. The album ends with "Meat is Mur- der," which is, perversely, its least in- teresting piece of music; yet the monotony of the tune and relentless repetition of the words "death" and "murder" realize exactly the propagandistic intent-the song does leave you genuninely chilled, however briefly, at the idea of omniverism. As guilt-inducing pop music, this is cer- tainly a thousand times more potent than "Do They Know It's Christmas?" and its sugar-coated pals. But the album's real climax is at the end of side one. "That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore" starts out with the bittersweet strum- ming of a lone acoustic guitar and ex- pands to an epic ballad texture amid some of Morrissey's most touching lyrics, a litany of creeping personal isolation that fades out with the terrified repetition, "I've seen this happen in other people's lives/and now it's happening in mine... . " one can easily object to Morrissey's seeming stance as bruised conscience for us all, but here his tortured sensitivity has an edge of real panic that's devestating. Meat is Murder doesn't really sound depressing, but it still spends the vast majority of its time in the exquisite ar- ticulation of protests and failed dreams. Unusually complex and serious by any standard, it may not be a flawless album, but it comes close enough to give one pause. Marooned on that figurative desert island with only an album or two to keep my company, I wouldn't begrudge the company of The Smiths, even if they might tend to make me dismiss rather than miss the civilization left behind. T he brief scare over an Australian music scene may have turned out to be much ado about very little-and if the so-what backlash rids us of Men At Work, so much the better-but it did spark enough curiousity to unveil a few minor suprises from Down Under. Un- der a rock, and crawly, in the case of the clients'of Big Time Records, who appear to be basement grunge-rock specialists and are now starting to release records stateside on their own L.A.-based label. Big Time was responsible for the Hoodoo Gurus, who kicked up some college station play, an A & M contract and plenty of dust last year in their A Rick's American Cafe concert with cheerfully morbid spookrock from their for rent or utility bills. Residence staff and counselors urge students who know someone who they suspect may be alcoholic to question not only drinking patterns, but also reasons behind drinking. It is better to confront an alcoholic or leave him or her alone than to be an "enabler," they say. Tulin-Silver of counseling services says that catching students early on and pointing out the progression of the disease has proven "marvelously effec- tive." For most, recovery means never touching a drop of alcohol and breaking friendships with people who were heavy users themselves. That's not an easy message to give any student. But recovered alcoholics say it is possible for someone who wishes to return to a college environment. "Sometimes the thought comes," says Jim, an' LSA senior who is finishing school after a bout with alcoholism. Staring out a window in the Union into the afternoon sunshine, Jim relates how earlier in the day he fought the tem- ptation for a drink. "I was just staring ouside my door," he says. "I live near a playing field and I was watching these guys playing frisbee. It was quarter to 12 in the morning and they were drinking. "I can easily think "Wow, it looks great!" That's really glamorizing alcohol. That is the good part of alcohol, going out on a sunny spring day and throwing a frisbee and drinking. "I can see all the way through that glamorization of alcohol. Yeah, I can see me playing frisbee and drinking beer on the field. But I can also see me lying in the field the next day, lying in the mud or wishing I was dead." ONCE a year, workshops on alcohol and drug use are held in the residence halls. But attendance is scar- ce. If they're lucky, the staff of a 1,700- resident dormitory will draw a crowd of 30. Most can tell you of occasions when fewer than 10 showed up. Leonard Scott, a counselor with University Counseling Services, says advisers of the Alice Lloyd Pilot Program were amazed that 17 students registered for his pilot course "Alcohol and Human Behavior" each term this year. And he remarks that at coun- seling services, more students come in wondering if there is something wrong with a roommate who routinely vomits after dinner, than a roommate who has a bottle of whiskey rather than lunch. Similarly, a campus chapter of Alcoholics Anonymous formed two years ago rarely attracts more than four to six students at weekly meetings. An Alanon support group for students who know someone who is an alcoholic was launched this winter as well, but attendence is just as sparse. And at AA and Alanon meetings at the YMCA, there are several high school students, but a college student is a rare sight. Together, the Washtenaw Council on Alcoholism and Ann Arbor Consultation Services, the two primary treatment .facilities to which students are referred, see about 150 students a year. Does that suggest students don't take advantage of available facilities? Scott and others say no. They contend that students simply fail to see the symptoms of alcoholism in themse es or their friends because the use of alcohol is the most socially-accepted drug today. Even if a student thought someone he or she knew had a problem, ........ - - -------- For help call AANON-AVATEEN 995-4949 A LCOIJOLICS A NNYNOS 663-622-5 ANN ARBOR COSULTATIN SERVCES 996-91 11 VEE UOSPITAL ALOBOE THERAPY PROGRAM BR IGTONIVO.PITAIL 1-22142 1 CHELSEA COMMUNITY UOSPITAI 4744311 Cl ID AND FAMILY SERVICESF WASHTENA w CO. 971-5420 S-ING0ENTER 7644 .. CPUNSELING SERVWCEb 764-Sf12t ZIAWN YAaMSJNC. 4d54725 .A ... . ... .. a casual look around campus would provide plenty of evidence against the notion that anything was unusual. At the Greek Week Beer Chug, for in- stance, students clapped and cheered their friends who gulped glasses of beer, rewarding the team that could chug the fastest. The contest par- ticipants, for the most part, didn't ap- pear to feel very well afterward, but the message was clear: Chugging alcohol is fun, accepted. The Greek system plans to hold a campus-wide "Alcohol Awareness Week" next October and sponsor a variety of activities to raise money for charities such as Alcoholics Anonymous. Ironically, one of those activities will not be a "dry" party. According to Al Zimmerman, social chairman of the In- trafraternity Council, the event's plan- ners turned down the idea for fear it would be unenforceable. He wouldn't speculate as to whether anyone would show up. SHOULD the University come down harder on alcohol abuse? What "We can say students should be responsible drinkers. But what if they aren't? What should the University do then? And I don't think we've decided yet." Before the University changes its current position there must be some evidence that current education efforts are failing, Johnson says, sitting in his, third floor office in the southeast corner of the Union. Directly outside Johnson's window, men and women are partying, beers in hand, on the roof of Sigma Chi frater- nity. Thomas Greenfield, author of the 1974 University freshman class study on alcohol use and now a member of the Alcohol Research Group at Berkeley, says the University lost interest in sponsoring research on alcohol after the decline of the "drug menace" which pervaded college campuses in the late 1960s and early 1970s. "I don't think anybody was really ready to hear the alcohol replaced drug problems," he says in a telephone in- terview. "I think it speaks to society's profound ambivalence toward drinking among young people. 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