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INOW
New music and more ...
BY DON WALLER
: As we embark on our Quix-
otic quest to establish this new music column, a
mission made all the more ambitious due to this
being a quarterly publication, it's only fitting that
we begin on the proverbial cutting edge with the
smokin' new single titled-not coincidentally-
"Into the Groovy" (New Alliance) by Ciccone
Youth, a nom-de-rock that's merely a pseudo-
nymous excuse for Zoo York noisemongers and
devout Madonna worshippers, Sonic Youth,
to perform a must-be-heard-to-be-believed total
deconstruction job on Mrs. Penn's dance club
classic that's more fun than chasin' Jamie Lee
Curtis with a chainsaw.
vThat Rocki'
: The best thing about listening to college
radio stations is that there are no commercials.
The second best thing is that college radio pro-
vides listeners with a chance to hear a wide vari-
ety of records, be they available as imports or on
domestic independent labels, that otherwise
would be left to twist slowly in the wind of an
increasingly monolithic commercial radio mar-
ketplace . . . The worst thing about listening to
college radio is its tendency to get on a hip trip
and actually stop playing records by artists who
were once the exclusive property of student-run
stations, if and when these same artists begin to
so much as make a dent in the commercial mar-
ket! (As if all-of-a-sudden R.E.M. or the Talking
Heads were no longer relevant-or making
worthwhile records.) The second worst thing is
the lack of what folks in the "biz" like to call
rotation patterns. Sure, everybody on the col-
lege radio playlist gets equal time, but, without
repeated exposure, it's virtually impossible for
any one act to sell a significant number of re-
cords, a situation that does neither the record
companies nor the artists themselves much
good. Think about it ...
d Even in
these enlightened '80s, most books on popular
music are the literary equivalent of Beatles lunch
boxes. But not so with Peter Guralnick's Sweet
Soul Music (Harper and Row, $14.95), a whop-
ping 450-page paperback that took five years,
200 interviews and $25,000 of the author's
21-
a r
rA
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own money to complete. Featuring more than
100 eyeball-popping photos and a heart-stop-
ping discography, Guralnick's .357 magnum
opus examines the black/white '60s soul syn-
thesis of the 3 Ms (Macon, Memphis and Mus-
cle Shoals) in unprecedented detail. If you
wanna know the facts behind such stacks of
classic fatback wax as "Soul Man," "When a
Man Loves a Woman'' or "Papa's Got a Brand
New Bag," this book will set you straight down in
the alley, just around the corner from the Pente-
costal Church and two steps from the blues. Oh!
Hit me!
Ortal P- : From N'Awlins, Land 0' the
Blackened Redfish, comes the Dirty Dozen
Brass Band, playing traditional jazz in a manner
that's best described as futuristic. With a reper-
toire that stretches from bebop and blues to Dix-
ieland standards and their own compositions,
the young, black, eight-man outfit's ensemble
Has Madonna come up with yet anoth-
er way to corrupt today's youth?
playing is, ahem, breathtaking (and the soloists
ain't misbehavin' either). Percolating with poly-
rhythmic power, the DDBB's latest effort, Live:
Mardi Gras in Montreux (Rounder), is an emi-
nently danceable disc that goes straight to the
gut like a home-cooked crawfish etouffee.
Urbase Cowboys: Winning the back-to-
back-barroom-basics battle for the hearts 'n'
minds of country music fans where it counts-
on the charts-with Guitars, Cad//lacs (Reprise)
and Guitar Town (MCA), respectively, young git-
tarslingers Dwight Yoakum and Steve Earle
are two of the best things to happen to country
music since the invention of the mechanical bull.
Poise Sounds of Buccess: According to the
record industry's very own figures, cassettes are
outselling long-playing record albums by a mar-
gin of six to four these days. Which is good news
for the lawyers and accountants that are running
Ampersand
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