- The Michigan Daily - Thursday, September 21, 1989

.The Beat Farmers
Poor and Famous
Curb Records/MCA
Howdy Duck Butts! The Beat
4Farmers are back, weighing in with
ktheir fourth LP. Poor and Famous
-and what a fine down-in-the-groove,
roadhouse mayhem, stool pigeon,
wretkless bop 'n' stomp it is! Just
when you were wondering what the
* hell happened to these lazy-assed
slop jockeys of rock 'n' roll (since
the release of Pursuit of Happiness)
look what turns up: a new album.
So what. It's in their contract. This
is not just another wax job, how-
ever; it may well be their finest al-
bum to date. Any band with cover
art like this has my full-tilt support
- the fab four (Jerry Raney, Joey
Harris, Rolle Love, Country Dick
Montana) perched in the back seat of
,a trashed out Buick convertible, su-
perimposed on some Pasadena parade
scene, plenty of open alcohol in
hand, not to mention littering the
:dash board. Not one byte of techno-
fashion wholesomeness here. Just
plenty of wide open, guitar-slash-ac-
Lordion hayseed boogie woogie with
guest appearances by Benmont
*rench (keyboards), Lee Allen (sax),
a nd veteran rock heavyweight Jim
iKeltner sitting in on drums for a
.ouple of numbers. The
Rhumboogie Horns fill it all out
;ike corn meal in a leaf lard stew.
'articular gems: "What I Mean To
Say" (a melodic mid-tempo plea for
love and reacceptance) and "King of
Sleaze", one of the two subhuman
frog voice romps from Country Dick
Montana(who co-wrote the the tune
with Mojo Nixon). Dig:
"Ya say yer man's dried up and
lookin' fer kicks
Well I can suck on you honey
like a bucket of ticks
Hoy, hoy back off boy
Cause the women around here
want the real McCoy
I eat anything I please
Don't need no monkey to pick
my fleas....
'Cause I'm the King of Sleaze
Need I say more? There's not a
bad cut on the album. So, skip The
Cure and pick up the Beat Farmers.
Fuck fashion and keep real music
alive!
-Dave Wolf
S Leslie West
Alligator
IRS
This record provides an answer to
the question, "Name one thing worse
than dry-heaving for 45 minutes?"
Leslie West, founder of the schlock-
blues/rock band Mountain, has tran-
scended all previous levels of bad-
ness on his latest release and created
a quintessentially horrible record.
West comes from the school of
musicians who started to listen to

the blues because of Cream, and as a
result sees it only as a vehicle for
pompous virtuosity, not emotional
sincerity. The thing about West,
though, is that he has no proficiency
to speak of; his licks are incredibly
clich6d and he has less speed than
Jerry Garcia. On "Waiting for the F
Change," he takes a trite blues se-
quence, adds a synthesized pipe organ
reminiscent of Handel, and comes up
with a piece of music that rivals
anything Yes has done for sheer
bombast. But just when you think
that he has reached the depths of pre-
tension he comes up with his ver-
sion of Edvard Grieg's "Hall of the
Mountain King." It sounds like
West is playing with a MIDI guitar,
and as a result his attempt at com-
bining rock with classical is less
successful than Walter Murphy's "A
Fifth of Beethoven" from the
Saturday Night Fever soundtrack or
Van Halen's "Eruption."
If Alligator were reprehensible
only for its arrogance, then it would
only be as awful as the new Prince
or Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman, and
Howe records. But to make things
worse, West adds offensiveness to
his stilted guitar work and abrasive
singing. On his atrocious cover of
Screamin' Jay Hawkins' "I Put a
Spell on You," West quotes freely
from Andrew Dice Clay's sexist
repertoire. Out of nowhere, West
blurts out, "Whatcha got in the bag
bitch?" after finishing the first cho-
rus of the song. The logic behind
that? There is none, which, I sup-
pose, fits in perfectly with the rest
of the album.
The completely uncohesive
Alligator is a record of monumen-
tally poor quality. It has no rhyme,
reason, skill, or passion; the album
sleeve is even badly designed. I've
heard better Osmonds records than
this.
-Peter Shapiro
The Stone Roses
The Stone Roses
Silvertone/RCA
The first couple of times I listened
to The Stone Roses I thought this
was yet another '60s-obsessed British
moptop group with shiny guitars and
bad eating habits, but then after
dropping a tab of acid I started to die
a little and then there was this
extraordinary sense of revelation!
Plangent Rickenbackers sur-
rounded me. Roger McGuinn and
Johnny Marr compared plectrum
sizes. Phil Spector sat in the booth
FOR THE BEST:
Crew Cuts-Flat Tops
PrinCetons-Military
THE DASCOLA
STYLISTS
Liberty off State 668-9329
-50years of service-

with Ronnie next to him. She had a
dog collar and leash around her neck.
From time to time he'd slap her
across the face. I bumped my head
into the wall of sound. The Stone
Roses opened with "I wanna be
adored." Just like Morrissey, Mark E.
Smith, Pete Shelley, and all those
other Manchester lads, I thought:
chip-on-the-shoulder Northerners -
all they want to do is break out of
that parochial straitjacket even
though their creativity springs from
that distinctly northern sensibility. It
was Albert Finney in Saturday
Night, Sunday Morning who said,
"Don't let the bastards grind you
down."
"Don't need to sell my soul/ He's
already in me," sang the lovesucking
Stone Roses in "I wanna be adored."
The image of Jean Shrimpton swam
before me. She was whipping
Twiggy playfully. Or was it
Catherine Deneuve? Then Sly walked
in with some of his Family and wah-
wahed all over "Elephant Stone." It
was too much and too funky; Spector
left the controls and New Order's
Peter Hook began to toy with the
levels. There was almost a riot goin'
on.
Jean Shrimpton came over to me
and we started snogging. Her tongue
slid down my throat and did snaky
things, while the Stone Roses
chimed through "Waterfall." Then
"Don't Stop" arrived and I closed my
eyes, relaxed, and floated down-
stream. It was those backward tapes,
you see. Her Majesty talked to
Simon and Garfunkel, who were both
well pissed off; The Stone Roses
were playing "Scarborough Fair" to
the Queen but it had become
"Elizabeth my Dear." They'd changed
the words - "Tear me apart and boil
my balls/ I'll not rest till she's lost
her throne." It was so sweet.
It was getting cloudy but The
Stone Roses became a Jackson
Pollock, a series of beautifully
amorphous blobs and curved lines
through space. I could hear traces of
riffs, traces of traces, and familiar
fragments of noise which were sprin-
kled and splintered throughout the
songs. Just like The Jesus And Mary
Chain. I ground my teeth with plea-
sure as the noises got harder and the
words nastier. Then I reached the
summit, the pinnacle, the zenith!
The Stone Roses were playing the
last of their songs, "I am the

Victims of the late Jackson Pollock's artistic exuberance, The Stone Roses conjure visions of that
decade. (This photo will glow in black light.)

Resurrection." Lou, John, Sterling
and Mo came in to see this. "Don't
waste your words, I don't need any-
thing from you," sang John Squire;
"I couldn't stand another moment of
your company," he went on. I loved

it. John and I both become God. I bit
into his thigh lovingly. Jean nuzzled
my neck, Lennon kneed McCartney
in the balls, and then looking up, I
suddenly realized we were on the
stage in Shea Stadium and the girls

were screaming and screaming and
Pete Townshend's arm was going
round and round, and then the disc on
the turntable was going round and
round... and round.
-Nabeel Zuberi



Read Jim Poniewozik Every

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