18 — Wednesday, July 26, 1989 - North Shore News

Neneh Cherry’s
‘got righteous
spunk

CHERRY SERVES up a Sushi
platter; Led Zep covers fly;
Maniacs make message the
master; jazz-guitar great flirts
with chaos.

xk k

*** Neneh Cherry — Raw Like
Sushi, Virgin Records 1989

Yo! The gal’s got righteous
spunk, hip-hop street smarts and
pleniy 3° dance grooves.

MICHAEL
BECKER

record review

.. For the most part, Sushi jumps
with irrepressible energy. A bit of
ballad sop slows the party. But
fresh tunes like ‘Jeart and a clever
rap paean to sex and its procre-
ative consequences, Next Genera-
tion, keep the hop happening.

eet

** Eleven struggling young bands
interpret some of Led Zep’s most
bitchin’ tunes — The Song Re-

my

unknowns. And so one finds a
chillin’ rap cover of Black Dog, by
The Royal Mixers with KGIG and

tains The Name, Mad Rover Re-
cords/1.L.A. 1988

Kingdom Come this is not. Zep
clones rumble along, revelling in
reflective glory.

But where Dopplegangers cop
studied riffs and attitude, this
motley collection of fringe players
brings rash and ruddy grit to in-
terpretations of 11 metal classics.
This compitation is a brazen milk-
ing of the Led cash cow. And it
works because it’s sloppy, brash
and irreverent, just like the rea!
thing once was. .

Mad Rover, a Sacramento,
California-based indi label cobbled
together the disc to showcase

we .

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Konan Kelley. There's a fab
tockabilly version of Living Loving
Maid (She’s A Woman) by Rich
Hardesty & The Del Reys. For the
purists in the house, Headface —
a Napa, California, funk ‘n’ punk
power unit — pops off a rip snor-
tin’ facsimile of Immigrant Song,
complete with the unforgettably
singular song-opening “‘aaa-
AAA-aaa-AAA!”’

Fun music for Now People.

anew

*** 10,000 Maniacs — Blind
Man/’s Zoo, Elektra/Asylum Re-
cords 1989

While a step below last year’s In
My Tribe, the Maniacs’ latest re-
mains miles above the mundane
common ground shared by most
makers of popular music.

Musically the release is neutral.
Consequently, if Natalie Mer-

chants brooding lyrical vignettes

fail to draw you into a song,
there’s no instrumental flourish to
hook the ear.

Words-wise, Merchant is bang
on, turning her Catholic sensibility
to ocean-death-by-oil-spill on

Poison in The Well and naked
greed on The Lion's Share.

Anticipate rewardingly sensitive
lyrics ~ the message is the master
here. Absorb it tive, August 8 at
the Commodore.

*ee

*e** Bill Frisell — Before We .
Were Born, Elektra/Asyluni.1989
The guitar-wielding iconoclast

was one of the highlights at the
recent jazz festival. The Bill Frisell
Band, a moody melange of sax,
cello, bass and drums, gathers up
a pastiche of blue, jazz, rock and
country notes and plays it out with
a melodic order always teeterin,
just a bar away from chaotic col-
lapse.

The disc’s 13-minute-plus Hard
Plains Drifter moves easily from
hee-down to free-form break
down. With his trusty volume
pedal at his side, Frisell’s cherds
and notes slide in, hover, and slip
away, while themes just barely es-
tablished, flash and disintegrate.

Most simply said: An evocative
earful.

“Our Dinner For

Two Turned Into

Dinner For Two
THOUSAND!”