ARTS Friday, July 27, 1984 Page 13 The Michigan Daily The Cars cruise 'The Knob' By Larry Dean T HE CARS at Pine Knob this week- end won't be just in the lot. For, true to the principle of tourism, the Cars are playing Saturday and Sunday night in the area's most behyped am- phitheaters. Their new album, Heartbeat City, is selling up a storm, with "You Might Think," "Magic," and "Drive" the radiofare so far released. All but the formerest are pretty limp tunes, hook- laden, but mutations from the same mold. In another light, you could say that they grew on the same side of the tree. I had my one and only Cars concert experience at "the Knob," for Panorama. They played dual nights then, too, although both drew only three-quarter capacity crowds. Elliott Easton mingled with early arrivals (like me), wearing a purple silk jacket, purple shades, snakeskin boots, black jeans, and balanced blonde bombshells, each to a squared- shoulder. Elliot, that eve, was ever the axe victim, wheeling off slick boots with left-handed deftness. The stage was taken to the minimalist drone of "Shoo-Be-Doo," from Candy-O, audience booing in unin- tentional tune with Greg Hawkes' syn- theiszer. He and Ric Ocasek, batonist for the band, braved the stage alone, before other members added them- selves-first Easton, then bassist Ben Orr, and finally, drummer David Robinson-successfully careening into "Touch and Go," that last September's radio wonder. Much cheering, despite "Touch's" deviant time signature changes. But the cars are like that! Or can be. Little touches of bizarreness in the Top 40 locally. Remember Robinson's off- beat, on-beat drumming in the one that began it all, "Just What I Needed?" It was that type of tiny, skewed, detail that made my grin tenfold wider. And yours? It should've. As their name implies, the Cars sometimes break down. Shake It Up, Ric Ocasek, surrounded by other makes and models of Cars, will tantalize the motley mob at Pine Knobthis Saturday and Sunday. the fourth Cars LP, was the finest since their first; but Heartbeat City is a trip back to the garage, and up on the blocks. Recorded in merry olde England with Robert John "Mutt" Lange producing (who's motto, "I only record bands that sell," makes me wanna retch!), the new record is chock full of Cars trademarks, but sans the emotion to make 'em stick. Really, six years is a little too long to just cruise in musical neutral. There are a few gems on Heartbeat City, but alas, they're not likely to be the ones you hear over your own celestion speakers. The title track, f'r instance, is a lush, romantic ballad with. some outstanding lyrics and musician- ship, albeit subdued-like as per-usual. It ends the album, so at least you go away thinking, "hey, there's hope." The big prob with Heartbeat City is the non-presence of any "real" per- cussion. Our friend, Mr. Lange, decided that, in order to get the tightest, most t perfect music ever ever ever, Dave would have to learn how to program the annoyingly-accurate CMI synthesizer, a relative of Big Brother that perfectly reproduces any sound in the spectrum. So Dave and Greg spent a month toiling with the thing, until it could drum in place of the "real" things. The result? Well now that I know the story behind the conspiracy (as recently spilled in a Cars interview elsewhere), I listen to the record and say, "You know, they sound like drums, but there's no depth, or ring like wooden percussion. No ... soul." Hey, you've heard the hits-I bet you were fooled into believing it was the "real" thing, and not Candid Syn- thesizer. News is that Dave's pissed, and I don't blame him. How would you like your job taken away - even for a teensy-beensy while-by a computer? Otherwise, the show goes on. Pine Knob is not exactly acoustically per- fect, but it's swell for guzzling beer and getting hassled by the muscle-bound security. I don't mean the nice folks who peek at your tickets and offer to direct you, but rather, the halfmoon of welterweights that stand, cross-armed, at the front of the stage, to protect the stars. So no shenanigans, you Knob- bers! Enjoy the show, and come back intact, inebriated, and driven from tears. Records- Violent Femmes-'Hallowed Ground' (Slash Records) The Violent Femmes' second album, Hallowed Ground, is a surprisingly risky departure for a band who has managed that rare thing - actually selling records on their first short, despite independent label distribution and no more prior visibility than a strong regional following. Their self-titled first LP on Slash was last year's least likely party smash, with its joyously spare in- strumentation (man, those trashcan drums- slaphappy bass! a real teen combo!) and Gordon Gano's quintessentially fun-sad-adenoidal whining about Mom, God, love, and wanting to get laid so bad. Hallowed Ground is at first disappointing, because it confounds expectations-whatever you initially liked about the first LP just isn't here, probably. Oh, Gordon Gano still sounds deliciously stuck in the midst of adolescent vocal change, and the playing of the band (Gano on guitar, Brian Ritchie on bass, Vic- tor de Lorenzo on drums, with lots of doubling on ad- ditional instruments) is more warm and imaginative than ever. Still, you may ask, can I dance to it? Well, no, not exactly. "I Hear the Rain," which hops about over a marimba melody line, would serve-only it's an in- convenient minute and a half long. The charmingly bluegrassy "Jesus Walking on the Water" is also conducive to some feet action, but it's perfectly sin- cere despite the beat and Gano's wino-gets-religion warbling, and how easily can you imagine your frien- ds with the cool haircuts jumping up to, er, Praise the Lord? No, these songs will not lend themselves to the dorm party or the first records' did. But, allowing a play or two for adjustment of ex- pectations, Hallowed Ground wields rich rewards of its own. "Country Death Song," a sardonic joke- curiosity in concert, gets the full fiddle-and-all treatment here, and emerges a surprisingly distur- bing tale of obsession and violence. "I Know It's True But I'm Sorry to Say" has the feel of a traditional ballad or lullaby, while "Sweet Misery Blues" sounds like a comedy-relief show tune. The Femmes have an admirable sense of freedom in their writing and arranging of songs-'Add It Up" was the most striking example of this on the debut record, and here the seven-minute "Never Tell" similarly .though without the dance pace) strays wherever it pleases in terms of musical/lyrical tone with remarkable fluidity, never growing indulgent or padded. "It's Gonna Rain" is pure revival-tent gospel, and the not- easily-described "Black Girls" is roughly six minutes of Spike Jones meets end-of-the-set jazz/rock rave-ups. The big news about the album, of course, is that girls/Mom/cars/etc. have been replaced by Mr. Jesus Christ as the primary concern for songwriter Gano. Don't worry, the Violent Femmes show no signs of turning into Up With People yet. Besides, though Gordon says in interviews that his faith is quite simple and sincere, the lyrics of, say, "Country Death Song" and "Black Girls" offer far from un- complicated yay-God rhetoric. The words aren't as "funny" as they frequently were on Violent Femhses, but their new ambiguity is almost equally appealing. In any case (excepting the unavoidably straightfor- ward "Jesus Walking on the Water," and perhaps "It's Gonna Rain"), one may interpret as one will. Hallowed Ground isn't likely to get the Femmes on- to any more sales charts or into any lifelong cor- porate contracts, but it's an album of unusual range and imagination that gets better with each listening.