14 - Wednesuay, December 30, 1992 —- North Shore News

Choice cuits from the year that was

CRAPE OUT the ear wax. Strap on an attitude. Here
is some of the best now-generation music of the

year that was:
Clam Chowder and Ice Versus
Big Macs and Bombers, Nard-
wuar Records 1992

West Vancouver phencmenon
Nardwuar The Human Serviette’s
second vinyl compilation agitates

"with the compelling force of a
festering international incident.

Various caustic pop entities ex-
change grooves in Pop No Man's
Land. The Canadian Team in-

* cludes Nomeansno, Shadowy Men
Cn A Shadowy Planet and The
Smugglers to square off against the
imperialistic barking pig-dog
lackey forces of Fortress America
— a faction bolstered by the likes
of The Squirrels, The Mummies,
Devil Dogs and Mudhoney.

Qdd and abrasive fun abounds..
Tom Waits — Bone Machine,
island Records 1992

Waits feeds the spirit by
harvesting hackneyed utterances
and reworking them to communi-
cate more than the short-form
function they have been reduced
to. He presses them into the
greasy pan of his baking brain and
gives them back to us in the form
of leavened sustenance.

The 50-50 colfaboration with his

Michael Becker
RECORD REVIEW

wife Kathleen Brennan results in
16 raw-textured tales.

The Bone Machine rasps, grates
and clangs. The intelligence work-
ing the levers is sentimental and
twisted.

The Tragically Hip — Fully
Completely, MCA Records 1992

Producer Chris Tsangarides cat-
ches the supercharged live dy-
namics of this band to further nail
down in the studio the full and
complete Hip sound.

Fans will gorge on a complete
menu of seamy lyrical observation
and compelling rhythm.

Fully Completely shows this
band to be an explosive original,
and heck fellow buddies, they're

Collaboration works
well for Clarke/Banks

From page 12

have responded favorably: the
book shot to the No. 12 spot on
the J.B. Dalion Bestseller List in its
first week on the market.

While Cutthroat — the first
Slade novel to focus on the lega!
profession — is nat based on ac-
tual cases or peopie (thank
goodness), Clarke and Banks have
plenty of reai-life crime to draw
from with over 100 murder trials
under their belts.

(Clarke articled at lawyer and
writer Bill Deverell’s firm. Now
best friends, the two enjoy a
healthy rivalry and often edit each
other’s work: ‘‘Our wives say it’s
an unhealthy relationship but we
have fun,’’ he laughs.)

The decision to pena
“lawyer's book” was the result of
an irresistibie challenge from a
B.C. Court of Appeal judge.

“L was at work one day and ran
into this Appeal Court judge
‘known as ‘Big Daddy.’ He said,
‘Well Clarke, we haven't had
your butt to kick around here for
a while, { hear you're writing a

ook.’

“Then he said, ‘You can’t
scare the legal profession because
we've seen it all before.’ “’

It’s too early to tell how Clarke’s
legal peers will react to the baok,
but Clarke clearly isn’t losing any

sleep worrying about it.

“The jury is still out on
whether or not the legal profes-
sion, which can be as uptight as it
wants, will respond with the same
good humor as the RCMP. |
thought the RCMP would be up in
arms over Headhunter but they
responded terrifically.”

Clarke is often asked why he
doesn’t pen a book alone and col-
lect afl the royalties for himself.

“To me it’s a non-question
because the fun is doing it with
someone else,”’ he says. (He likes
to compare his writing team to a
rock band: “We all play different
instruments.”*)

The next thing people will be
wondering is, with the success of
his writing career — there are
curently over iwo million Michael
Slade books in print in Canada,
the U.S. and Britain, and Clarke
and Banks are already working on
a fourth called Skull & Crossbones
— how much longer Clarke will
don his black robes.

Judging from the time it took
him to respond to the question it’s
clear he isn‘t planning on bailing
out anytime soon.

“The adrenalin rush you get
from addressing a jury in a murder
case rivais a sexual climax. Why, if
you can practise law and write,
have just one when you can have
both?”

Canadian tco, eh?
Jules Shear — The Great Puz-
zle, PolyGram 1992

Once the leader of Jules and The
Polar Bears, Shear is best known
for his songs as recorded by others
— Cyndi Lauper squeaking her
way through Alf Through The
Night, for example.

Ye sounds like a cross between
Tom Petty and Bob Dylan; he is
sharp with the pop hocks; and he
knows how to make words work
to make emotions stick.

The Beautiful South — 0898,
Go! Discs Ltd., 1992

The Brits get us humming, snag
us with snappy refrains and then
reel us in after stunning us with an
emotional depth charge or two.

The music is sweet, seamless
and sophisticated pop and the
lyrics cut to the quick with
perverse irony. The combination is
disarming and deliciously subver-

sive.
Sue Foley —- Young Girl Biues,
Antone’s Records & Tapes 1992

The release gives us brash blues
from a young gal who squeezes’

raggedy chops from the strings of
her Fender like nobody’s business.

The debut combines originals
with better-known blues workouts
like Queen Bee and But | Forgive
You.

The unusual juxtaposition of a
small voice with a big guitar
presence seals the success.

Archie Roach — Charcoal
Lane, Hightone Records 1992

Australian aboriginal singer-
songwriter Roach knows of what
he speaks as he chronicles the
disintegration of his people, yet he
does not wallop us about the head
with righteousness.

The cumulative effect of Roach’s
basic country-blues approach, his
smoky voice and the telling truths
told about racism and ecologicai
calamity is curiously uplifting.

Spiritual strength is drawn from
suffering.

Fellow Aussies Paul Kelly and
Neil Finn contribute.

The Stairs — Mexican R’N’B,
Go! Discs Ltd./PolyGram 1992

Play this persistently and with

volume.

Nets

¢

Three young upstarts from
Liverpool hark back to the heady
days of nascent Who-Stones
raucousness,

The CD is recorded monaurally.

The mono-choice grants the
music a curious vigor by virtue of
the sonic compression wrought.

Cardhoard drums, squat, beefy
bass lines and sputtered vocals
trigger a catharsis of the better
kind.

Barenaked Ladies — Gordon,
Sire Records/Warner Music
1992 :

The cheeky Canadian fellows
caused much thin-skinned har-
rumphing in certain puritanical
quarters.

The tempest is laughable given
the essentially innocent
playfulness of the music itself.

The sound is a contemporary
twist on the hootenanny folk
stream of the late 1950s and early
1960s.

Barenaked Ladies simply make
you feel good. . :

Po Te =

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New guide helps with |
party planning process |

FOR ANYONE who has hosted a
party and jailed, help is on the
way. Four West Vancouver sisters
have just published a new book
on how to create the perfect bash.

The Party Wizard ($29.99),
“conjured up’’ by ‘‘The
Wizards Four,’ Jackie Knazan,
Renee Kaufman, Leah Pickman
and Terri Rosen, provides a step-
“by-step guide to hosting parties for
all occasions and how to avoid
party bloopers.

The humorous book covers
everything from a cab driver's par-

ty, a chauvinist pig party to a
divorcee’s depression party.

Publicist Ingrid Fischer said that
whiie most people know how to
throw a party some require just a
“little push’ to get inspired.

“Planning is the biggest single
problem and not having a theme,”
said Knazan. ‘People get so
bored just standing around at
cocktail parties, it’s the same old
thing. It only takes a little effort to
make it more exciting.”

The Party Wizard is available at
most local bookstores.

PARK ROYAL, North Mali
BURNABY, 4247 Lougheed Hwy. 294-9822 &

SURREY
761 5 King George
391-7884

VANCOUVER
1470 W. Broadway
At Granville
733-1174

np

20560 Langley By-Pass

LANGLEY

Near 200th St.
534-6550

RICHMOND
12595 Sridgeport
270-0304

922-9305

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