What could be better in the known
universe than alumni from the great
Frank Zappa band forming a new wave
group? I can barely think of a single thing.
Dale Bozzio was sexy and weird and proved
she could really sing, albeit eccentrically,
her then husband Terry was about the
greatest drummer in all of rock music, and
Patrick O’Hearn and Warren Curccurullo
rounded out the band on bass and guitar,
respectively; all four of these good looking
young people were alumni of Zappa’s late 70’s
band of crack musicians. The only exception
was the keyboardist, Chuck Wild, who,
while never a member of Zappa’s band,
did however do a stint as a studio cat
on piano for the Thing-Fish album.
It was a bold experiment, to find
out if players of the most sophisticated
rock music in the world could play pop
and play it with a straight face. Indeed,
they could. And they even wore the
make-up. Going into to this listening
today I could remember well the hits,
“Walking in L.A.,” “Destination Unknown,”
and “Words” indelibly etched in memory.
How would the album cuts fare by
comparison? Pretty damn well, it seems.
This is a crisp, punchy, tight recording
that fits into the 80’s aesthetic nicely
but avoids some of the audio cliches
of the moment–like the giant reverb-
laden snare drum. Nope, that’s been
supplanted by Terry Bozzio’s tight
and snappy tuning, and he busted out
those Remo roto-toms earlier than
anyone else did. And speaking of
drumming, Terry’s playing on this album
is almost by itself worth the price of
admission. Check out those drum fills before
the outro of “Windows,” and groove
if you can with the odd time signature
of “U.S. Drag” and the crazy breaks in
“Rock and Roll Suspension.” Dale’s singing
is wild, mousey, but powerful–a powerful
mouse–punctuated now and then with
those high-pitched yelps, either endearing
or annoying, depending on the listener.
But her words were pretty smart, and the
tunes were crafty, hooky, memorable,
performed by likely the most virtuosic
rock musicians in the entire new wave
scene. It is a tremendously successful
debut. The band only made three albums,
and if my memory serves, each of them
did successively less well commercially.
As a teen, I know I had the second and
third album, but I lost them and have
not recovered them. I remember not a
single song. I’m curious though, after
today’s reintroduction to the band,
how it would feel to revisit them.
I have a hunch, though, that rather than
continue to carve out their own eclectic
space, they may have bought into some
of the production excesses of the era
and as a result, they did not finish strong.
Notes on the vinyl edition: Spring Session M, Capital Records, used copy in great condition, black vinyl.
In case you don’t already know: I’m listening to almost everything in my vinyl collection, A to Z, and writing at least one, sometimes two or three long skinny poem-like-things in response for each artist, and on a few occasions, writing a long skinny poem-like-thing in response to more than one artist. As a poet and a student of poetry, I understand that these things look like poems, but they don’t really sound much like poetry, hence, I call them “poem-like-things.” I’ll admit that they’re just long, skinny essays that veer every now and then into the poetic or lyric.
michael jarmer 