Real Life Rock (43 page)

7
Lara Stapleton, “Butthole Surfers,” in
BigFire-ProofBox
#2
Stapleton goes to hear the band and sees a naked woman onstage as part of the act, finally as the whole show: “She squirms, heroin stupor smile. ‘Fuck the bitch!' this guy behind me yells. I turn around, look him in his barren skinhead eyes. He towers over me, and I'm a big girl. I'm a big girl.” It gets worse, and she runs: “We'll smash bottles and hold them against throats and take money and we'll be gone.” It's punk a hundred steps over the line it erases.

8
McKenzie Wark, “Elvis: Listen to the Loss,” in
Art & Text
#31 (City Art Institute, Paddington, Australia)
An argument that Elvis destroyed his career with his '68 comeback TV special, because he could never match it.

9
Jon Savage, interview with Tom Vague, in
Vague
#21 (London)
The British critic on rage as an essential part of criticism.

10
Moonglows, “I Was Wrong” (Lost-Nite reissue, 1953)
Misidentified in May as “Come Back Baby,” provided by Donn Fileti of Relic Records, and taken so slowly it sounds like the turntable's jamming. But twice the group breaks out in shouts and moans and stomps, leaving behind a doo-wop aesthetic that makes no sense whatsoever.

AUGUST
15, 1989

1
Don Henley,
The End of the Innocence
(Geffen)
THIS ALBUM
I really do wish Don Henley would stop addressing all his songs to the same hapless frail Cat Stevens so gently sneered at in “Wild World.” If you listen to the title tune more than once (and if you listen to the radio for more than 10 minutes you will), you might catch just a hint of rape
IS SO GOOD
or anyway a theft of virginity, in “Offer up your best defense,” even though the line is likely meant to sound, not mean
IT'S RIDICULOUS
.

2
Priscilla Harris, in
Great Balls of Fire!
,
dir. Jim McBride (Orion)
I think she's the one who does the shimmy when Dennis Quaid plays “Whole Lotta Shakin'” behind the chicken wire—whoever it is, she burns a hole in the screen. On the other hand, the short fat fanny who kicks off the bop, on-camera for about a second, isn't exactly waiting in line at the bank.

3
Diamonds, “Think About It,” on Lee “Scratch” Perry and friends,
Open the Gate
(Trojan 3-LP box reissue, mid-'70s)
Trojan's current 30-album-plus reissue series forces you to buy nearly blind, so you keep the records playing until they give up their many ghosts. With a feeling close to any cut on
the Melodians' unsurpassed
pre-meditation
, this is one, a very quiet heartbreaker stepping up to the ineffable on a melody that's a surprise every time it lifts.

4
Don Henley, “I Will Not Go Quietly,” on
The End of the Innocence
(Geffen)
The title phrase promises a track as clunky as “Dirty Laundry.” How's he going to make those stiff words swing? Pump up the volume, rock the house.

5
Gina Arnold, “Fools Rush In”
(
East Bay Express
,
Berkeley, CA)
No more appalled or less snotty work on the Who's $2000-a-seat
Tommy
revivals has appeared than in Arnold's weekly column: a few phone calls produced the interesting fact that the shows were anounced as “benefits” well before anyone had troubled to figure out who'd get the money. Polling her readers on what concert might be worth such a tab, she got a more or less final answer from Martin Buonochristiani: “the Clash, circa 1977, the Rolling Stones (‘before they got bored, say around '68, '69), and Bob Dylan (‘before he got born, say 1966 . . .') all on the same bill and all opening for Robert Johnson.”

6
Gentlemen, “Don't Leave Me, Baby,” on
The Golden Groups, Vol
48 (Relic reissue, 1954)
What sets this otherwise merely fine piece of black vocal music apart is the graceful, deepening blues guitar bridge. Why wasn't there more of this in doo-wop? It's too late to know.