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Rip It Up, Issue 36, 1 July 1980, Page 22

Sleep”, which builds up to a climactic guitar solo from John rvTMBWHfiBBBBWPffBn The Only Ones are sounding more confident as a band, and Baby's Got A Gun could be their breakthrough. I just wish Perrett could be a 1 littie less jaundiced in his outlook]HHj|l|lßrf Duncan Campbell BUZZCOCKS DIFFERENT KIND OF TENSION tUNiTEDjARTiSTst^mmfm^KM Way back in the dark. days of -1977, when everyone was singing about hate and violence, Pete Shelley was writing love songs. True the Buzzcocks played the tunes at breakneck speed but that didn’t hide the , fact they were still love songs. < Different Kind Of Tension is, excluding.the Singles Album, the Buzzcocks third LP release. It shows a certain sense of maturity ‘in the songwriting that many 'name bands’ never manage to achieve. From the intenselycomplex title track to the ingenuously harmonious "You Say You Don’t Love Me", Shelley displays a range of ; capabilities that seemingly know no bounds. Not to be outdone,, lead ■ guitarist ■ Steve Diggle contributes three capable compositions, best of which is the frantic “Mad Mad Judy”. Excellent cover design, and a brilliant splash of colour make this album stick out like a sore thumb.-What’s your excuse for not buying it?

Mark Phillips RECORDS CRASHES VIRGIN The Records, unashamedly worshipping the spirit of Big Star and Dwight Twilley, took their excellent debut Shades In Bed into the American Top 40 last year, an achievement their models dearly deserved but never even hinted at managing. Perhaps it was that tiny sniff of Cheap Trick at the start of side one that got the Americans going? Huw Gower has been replaced by former Moon Martin guitarist Jude Cole since album one, but the band remains firmly the vision of drummer and exKursaal Flyer Will Birch, who writes it all with rhythm guitarist John Wicks. And production this time is done by Craig Leon, whom readers need only be reminded did the first Ramones. Musically there really hasn’t been any noticeable shifts since Shades In Bed. This is largely American music, but with British writing and British voices a recipe that's hard to fault. And the Records also have a tougher and more energetic rock base than earlier America-admiring prototypes like Stealers Wheel and Starry Eyed And Laughing, which must partly explain why the latter are no longer with us. “Hearts In Her Eyes" was chosen as the single off this one, but “The Same Mistakes” (the chorus is like hearing a great Hollies song at 15) and "Girl In Golden Disc" sound even better possibilities. And “Guitars In The Sky” is up there in the inspiration-for-songs category with Andry Pratt’s flawless "Give It All

To Music”. Well, almost. None of these guys come on like musician-magazine-poll virtuosi, but they are a pop-rock band in the very best sense of pop, rock and band. Roy Colbert INTERVIEW SNAKES AND LOVERS VIRGIN Interview, a five-piece Bath-based Gabrielencouraged outfit, were on the receiving end last year of one or two barbed reviews of their first album, Big Oceans. OK it didn’t break new ground but as a debut it had a subtlety and consistency that ranked it as the most mature album from a bunch of outsiders in a long while. On Big Oceans they were accused of shaping their ambitions to suit the American market, an accusation which has more foundation on Snakes but as it happens this is not necessarily a dig on the negative side. The album is slicker, more direct (try the armoured pop of "Hide and Seek” or ”1 Hope It’s Me”) but it still displays the band's adroit instrumental flickerings, particularly Peter Allerhand's guitar skills on the tasteful balladeering of “The Conqueror” and “Style on Seaview" and his Santana notesustaining exercises on “Until I Hold Her". Interview warrant better than they’ve currently been; receiving and it's possible that because their brand of music strides the old world and the new that they’ll end up with very few friends. The middlemen get nothing and that’s sad. But I’ll certainly vouch for them. George Kay JOAN ARMATRADING ME, MYSELF, I A&M Joan Armatrading manages to escape categorisation better than almost any of her contemporaries, and it isn’t easy to adequately

describe her ; latest record. It doesn’t sound like a record with two of the E Street Band on it?but] | it is. It doesn't sound ] like a record with Chris Spedding on it, but it is. It doesn’t sound like it was produced by old Blondie producer Richard Gottherer, but it iwas?BQ4H4HBHPPVR : One thing it definitely does sound like, though, is a dancing record. You might have tried a slow swoon around the kitchen to "Love and Affection’’, but most of Me, Myself, I is the real thing. The opening cut, the .title track, is, as straightforward and infectious as the best of .Motown, and “Ma-Me-0 Beach’’ positively boogies. These combine with a couple of other tracks with a more obvious reggae influence than ever before, and her usual funk numbers to make the whole.album'easily her most upMjnpMIPHPBH . ; Armatrading’s melodic and lyrical gifts are, if anything, enhanced by the overall feeling of bouyancy and drive, and it all adds up to another very good album. Perhaps her best yet. Aimed at the feet, the ears, and also what’s between them. Steven McDonald FEELIES CRAZY RHYTHMS [S77ss■■■Ml If there’s any truth in the story that Jonathon Richman spent his teens locked in the bathroom -listening to the Velvet Underground, then I’m sure the Feelies repeated the exercise with. the Modern Lovers' first album. ‘ As the title indicates, the Feelies are into rhythms dynamic, punchy little melt-in-the-mouth melodies, that sound invitingly fresh yet comfortably familiar. The lyrics touch on some : intriguing topics, none ' more so ■ than “The Boy With Perpetual Nervousness", and a 1 look. at the cover makes one wonder if they aren't speaking from first-hand experience. The boys from New Jersey have produced an almost ; frighteni good debut album. i Every Idea works better than even the most op-

timtSTte'Peelle : could~hope for. The" re-working of the Beatles' “Everybody’s Got Something To Hide", gives the impression it was written for Ithem.^gMHßHMWi Would the Whizz Kids sound like this if they lived in New York?£3H|BM Mark Phillips lAN HUNTER WELCOME TO THE CLUB icHR YSALismmiMpMuBRHBm Hunter has always . been just 'on . the other side of success. Whether with Mott the Hoppled solo or in collusion with T Mick Ronson| he’s always near-missed in terms of commercial imIpact.'^VVVVfIVMVVNBVIMBMI This double live album (well one side is mostly recorded "live” at Media Sound,"New York) with Ronson in tow, probably won’t rectify Hunter’s, position as rock’s most talented and most permanent underdog, but it is one of the few justifiable double live undertakings released in the last few years. As you’d expect the album is a fair overview of his career with the emphasis falling on his gone-but-not-forgotten days with Mott ; and on his last solo album You're Never Alone With A IScmzopftren/ciMBMMBWBMBWMBBHWI Of the Mott standards “Dudes” and "All the Way From Memphis" steal the honours but the album’s climax is a ,beautifully controlled version of “Bastard” from Schizophrenic. I Other favourites, “Once Bitten Twice Shy”, “Angeline” and Ronson’s interpretation of Richard Rogers’ “Slaughter on Tenth Avenue” (the title of Ronson’s first solo) are all given a suitable airing?|9lß^P§fltißPßflnßßH . So 'Welcome to The Club is proof. that one of last decades revered rockers is still capable of producing the ; required 'punch]but j Hunter] has | definitely. lost any hope of being that household I name that he threatened [to be years ago with the Moff;album?QgflßHHßHlHHflflH Still he’ll go down in the annals as the man who virtually invented shades. ".c:-u 2' Q«org« Kay -

paul McCartney McCartney ii PARLOPHONE All right, new wavers, we’re going to look at the new Paul McCartney album ... hello, hello, anyone still out there? McCartney is an easy target for a slagging. But that would be too easy. He is very rich, probably need never work again. That he does keep working suggests his work is his play. Writing of the Beatles, Nik Cohn said of McCartney, “He’s melodic, pleasant, inventive but he's too much syrup.” Cohn also noted McCartney’s "knack of knocking out instantly attractive melody Ifnes” and “a certain saving humour.” In a nutshell. Ten years ago, at a time when studio technology had become almost an obsession (largely due to the work of the Beatles), McCartney rather bravely put out a home-made album, McCartney, on which he played all the instruments. It had an unfinished quality, as if the listener was at home with Paul as he tried out ideas, some worked out, some just fragments. Generally misunderstood, it was a lot of fun, silly in the best sense. McCartney II is along similar lines, although rather more polished than its predecessor. It also has more songs the catchy chant of “Coming Up”, already a hit, the bluesy “On The Way”, and the Beatle-ish sound wash of “Waterfall” being among the better ones. For a supposed dinosaur McCartney is still light on his feet. Planned originally as a do-it-yourself cassette for McCartney’s car, the album was recorded at home in Sussex and Scotland. It is melodic, pleasant, inventive and occasionally syrupy. Above all, McCartney sounds as if it was fun doing it and that, surely, is his point. Ken Williams VARIOUS ARTISTS HICKS FROM THE STICKS ROCKBURGH This is a compilation album with an axe to grind. Compiled by Nigel Burnham, aka Des Moines, the North of England’s leading rock reviewer, Hicks From the Sticks contains sixteen songs from different Northern bands who, according to Burnham, are just some of the talent presently being ignored by London based record companies. Like the Cherry R?d compilations, but probably even more so, Hicks contains a number of songs that are astonishing in their diversity and richness of ideas. The Cherry Red albums tended to focus on those bands with garage leanings whereas the Rockburgh morsel, whether by accident or design, emphasises newcomers with a greater degree of sophisitication and expertise. Picking the best is difficult because they all have something to offer. Airkraft are new generation XTC on "Move in Rhythm", Music For Pleasure take their cue from the Human League, Ada Wilson and Keeping Dark are 80’s

Merseyside and Medium Medium, Modern Eon, Clock DVA, the Distributors and Nightmares in Wax all deal enticingly with their personalised contemporary viewpoints with debts to the' Gang of Four. The next three deserve special mention. Radio s’s "True Colours" is quirky and catchy and They Must Be Russians’ "Where Have I Seen You" is unusual in its blend of monotone and almost Celtic folk guitar flourishes. Wah’ Heat provide the album’s classic in "Hey Disco Joe", a song that combines tension, tune and Liverpool accents before breaking into a guitar bracket of sharp intensity. And not one ska band in sight. Hicks From the Sticks this lot may be but as a showcase for real grass roots talent this album and these Northerners would take some beating. Gaorga Kay