26 ~ Wednesday, October 14, 1992 - North Shore News

Trademark Ramones

New York rockers remain true to their school

Michael Becker
RECORD REVIEW

AMONES ROCK
mondo loudo;
Gabrie! gives us Us:

Sinead sings girl stuff.

_Ramones — Mondo Bizarro,
Radioactive Records 1992

Mondo Bizarro rips open with
Joey Ramone furiously wacking
censorship sticker-lady Tipper
Gore over her noisome noggin
with a walloping wall of trademark
Ramones radiophonics.

' Long-lived, self-aware rock
cretins they are. And this is now
their key to continued black-
leather abundance: minimal mel-
ody, maximum sonic fury, an
unswervingly narrow reading of

-Pop pared to wry teeny-angst
essentials.

It has been the same song since
1976, but there will always be a
place for such controlled explo-

--stons as insta-classics Heidi Is A
Headcase, Censorshit and The fab
That Ate My Brain.

Fresh Ramones blood, bassist
C.}. Ramone replacing founding
Ramones bassist Dee Dee
Ramone, and guests Vernon Reid
{Living Colour), former Turtles Flo

. and’ Eddie and Psychedelic Furs -

- keyboard man Joe McGinty, are

_ gritty grist for the Ramones rock

** "grinder.

Ever true to their school,
Ramones skip out for a respectful
cover version: this time it’sthe
Doors mucha-cool Take ft As ft
Comes. *. -

PETER GASAIEL continues his
interest in Afzican musics on
Us.

Peter Gabriei —- Us, The David
Geffen: Co. 1992

Inexorably we close in on
Christmas and so the big record
labels jet loose the big talent guns.

The new Gabriel album is big
with names and big with sound.

Since 1984, with release of the
score for the Alan Parker movie
Birdy, Gabriel has alternately re-
corded soundtracks and stand-
alone projects.

Us finds the detailed sound-
scapes Gabriel is admired for
refined further by the experience
absorbed in scoring insisumentals
for film.

Us gains momentum slowly with
a gradual quiet strength fully real-.
ized by track three’s elegiac Blood
of Eden.

The funky monkey-shocking
Gabriel reveals himself with Steam

rr rere sen

and Kiss That Frog.

Throughout Us Gabriel con-
tinues his fertile love affair with
undulating African rhythms.

Us is about relationships. {t is a
place of profound personal
reckoning, a fresh move for a
lyrical focus more often than not
concerned with political and social
issues.

Daniel Lanois produces and
contributing musicians are all over
the map, Sinead O’Connor, Brian
Eno, Manu Katche and Shankar
inclusive. .
Sinead O’Connor — Am t Not
Your Girl?, Ensign Records
1992

The righteously bald banshee
we've come to love and admire
made a strange move with this
one, and it doesn’t quite fit right.

The gob-in-yer-eyeball outrage
that energizes the best of the past
work surfaces once here: it’s in the
God-is-truth preamble text to the
singer's dedication of the disc to
the street people of New York Ci-
ty.
And it’s not even anger that's
needed to push this project
beyond the status of collectible
oddity.

Sinead: you thrive on tension,
it’s not here — it’s all icky soft.

tvQN

We invite you to As

Cae

Saturday, October 17

4 to & p.m.
Compiimentary

BAVARIAN BUFFET -

926-3811

SQUARERIGGER PUB

14th & Marine Dr., West Vancouver *.

ORG

_ Behind every ship that moves through our port is a sophisticated network —
that makes each voyage possible. Tug and barge companies, rail, truck and
bus lines, terminal operators, longshore workers and freight forwarders -
working in unison to keep goods moving to and from the port.

The Port of Vancouver is proud to be a part of this modern, efficient and
cost effective transportation system - keeping Canadian trade competitive

throughout the world.

"Canada's Front Door On The Pacific”.

A message from the Vancouver Port Corporation