Records

Rip It Up, Issue 94, 1 May 1985, Page 22

Records

Dance Exponents Expectations Mushroom Try this: a sunny Sunday afternoon party at Rodney's flat in Timaru. The sheet-anchors of traditionalism half-gallon jars, Cortina in the driveway, boys, girls, two-day growths, beer drinking tshirts, a U2 album, smiles, laughter sit so comfortably that it’s some time before you realise that something else is happening. Running alongside the tall glasses and sweet DB is another party with funny lights ... House band is called Dance Exponents; rustic, romantic, rural“ Gordon Love" croons/croaks his libidinous strangebrain words to charming melodies everyone he has ever met is at the party. The band around him have empathy, and a leading edge in thin white Chris Sheehan's thin white guitar.

It's a really weird normal party. Perhaps the only one left out is the drummer, a session player called Ely (used to be in the Psych Furs), but that’s understandable. The soundman is called lan Taylor, the sound is called "contemporary”. Big and bouncy, the riddum way up there, it suits perfectly some of the songs in the band’s set, like the boisterous theme tune ‘Greater Hopes, Greater Ex-

pectations’. But on others, like 'Ashened, Ashened, Autumn Leaves’, it works against the song, seems forced. The sound seems to make it all easier for everyone at the party to "get into”. You might be disappointed at the way the band (or perhaps the production) seems to hold back on 'Only I Could Die’ when they should be storming through it, or that they haven't managed to do

justice to a sublime melody on ‘Skies Of Sunset’, but hell, everyone’s having a good time. And there is something for everyone, from the smooth mystery pop motorvation of 'These Oceans Wave and Tide Us In', to the guitarolinic ballad 'Weeping Soul’ and the insistent cosmic lovestruckness of ’Losing the Sun, the Moon and You’ even the whimsical but eminently disposable My

Love For You’. In the event the set is a qualified victory; not all it might have been but a lot more than the party would have demanded. As they put down their instruments and disappear to the wing of the party in which each feels most comfortable, the Dance Exponents have taken a few people places they don’t usually go, and gone places themselves. I don’t think anyone should have felt compromised by having a great time here. I’m certainly going to the next rave-up you meet all kinds of people. And they say these parties are getting wilder. Russell Brown Los Lobos How Will the Wolf Survive? Big Tim Los Lobos, the wolves, are a Chicano (Americans of Mexican origin) five-piece who have been hustling around LA since the middle of last decade. That’s a lot of years to spend playing before deciding to make a record, but on How Will the Wolf Survive? their empathy and downright adroitness at tapping American and Mexican rock ’n’ roll culture couldn’t be absorbed overnight. The opener, the R&B guitar bitch ’Don’t Worry Baby) recently starred on Radio With Pictures, but it only represents one of the album’s neat strokes of style. ’Corrida’ and 'Serenata Nortena’ are dominated by David Hidalgo’s accordion, a south-of-the-border hoedown. ’I Got Loaded’ and Evangeline’ mean more R&B, but this time courtesy of Steve Berlin’s sax. But the best available has to be ’A Matter Of Time’, in which the Wolves recall the understatement of the Band, Will the Wolf Survive?’, where the classic riff and snare drum whack seem to echo the spirit of American rock ‘n’ roll. How Will the Wolf Survive collects and reflects past traditions. As an album, it feels right, it feels real and it’s fun. What more do you want. George Kay Billy Bragg Brewing Up With Bill Bragg Chrysalis You don’t have to step outside London to trace Billy Bragg's musical heritage; Ray Davies, Paul Weller, lan Dury and Difford and Tilbrook have all represented a working class reality that Bragg is trying to portray and defend in the 80s. The facts that Bragg’s music is rooted in working class influences and in left wing sympathies aren’t as important as the fact that is main aim is to get across a sense of reality. Surrounded by a record scene currently soft-focusing hu man blemishes and dressing them up for mass pop consumption, Bragg, like the Smiths, is aiming to get back to the honesty and basic instrumentation that makes rock ’n’ roll vital. With last year’s seven-track ER

Life's A Riot With Spy Us Spy, he delved into folk/R&B/R&R riffs to carry his one-man one-guitar crusade against bullshit. As a writer, his songs sounded the most potent when distilled through a social/political anger (To have and To Have Not’ and 'A Busy Girl Buys Beauty) or through love songs sifted through folk traditions (’New England', 'The Man In the Iron Mask).

The same applies to Brewing Up, where Bragg's at his best when he flares up over the Torycontrolled press on ‘lt says Here’ and the Falklands fiasco on 'lsland Of No Return! Talking love songs and the best available has to be the quietly shattering 'Myth Of Trust’ and the relfective pain of 'St Swithins Day! When his songs aren’t up to it (’From A Vauxhall Velox’ and 'This Guitar Says Sorry), his derivative guitar licks and nasal cockney are left to carry the can; there’s no eight-piece band trip here man, only Dave Whithead’s mellow trumpet on ‘The Saturday Boy’ and Kenny Craddock’s shimmering organ on 'A Lover Sings'. Brewing Up has weak moments, but its strengths prove that Bragg’s minimalist froth is needed more than ever. George Kay

The Velvet Underground VU Verve It’s a little more than we've a right to expect, a new record by the Velvet Underground in 1985. The fact that it’s a really good and satisfying record must use up all the good breaks for the next few years ... VU is a collection of 10 songs "accidentally discovered” last year in the vaults at MGM. Most of these were apparently intended for the fourth album that MGM/Verve didn't want to release, but two date back to early 1968 and feature John Cale. Most of the songs themselves have been available either as rough mixes on the semi-legal Etc. and And So On albums, or as different versions on Lou Reed solo albums, but the great thing about VU is that they’re here as much better mixes and/or (yes!) better versions. The band jumps in in awesome style with 'I Can't Stand It! an insistent, buoyant 60s pop song. And indeed, VU depicts a most likeable Velvets, with the likes of the nimble 'Foggy Notion’ and the exuberantly melodic version of 'She's My Best Friend!

Lou seems to be fond of having women say things and we've got 'Stephanie Says' and the nicely laconic ‘Lisa Says’, which features some great Mo Tucker drumming (something that was often obscured in Velvets productions of the time). The former has a lovely viola from Cale winding in and out of it, as whimsical-sad as the song. The other Cale song is the jammy 'Temptation Inside Of Your Heart! which strays away from the usual Velvets pulsebeat —it's even got congas! Good ol’ Velvets geetars get their turn on ‘Foggy Notion’ and 'One Of These Days’. They’re both really good too. 'Andy’s Chest’ and 'Ocean' are both available in other versions and, while a youthful Lou sounds just fine on the former, I think I still prefer the way they do ‘Ocean’ on 69 Live. In a class of its own is the Lou/Mo duet ‘l’m Sticking With You! What kind of band could record something as willfully ingenuous as that and also a song as bitter as, say, 'European Son? Answer: a great band. No small part of the pleasure of VU is that it means the scrappy Loaded wasn't the last Velvets studio album to be released. A lesser band might have sounded dated turning up this way but VU is as fresh as could be. Apparently if you all rush out and buy this album, the others might get rereleased. You certainly couldn’t pick a better place to start.

Russell Brown