1475 FRANKLIN
ON THE MILLRACE
SPRING IS A TIME TO RELAX . . .
AND WE CAN HELP. RELAX WITH
YOUR FAVORITE BEVERAGE ON OUR
NEW DECK OVER THE MILLRACE.
WEXL BE LOOKING FOR YOU.
TALL TIMBER STRING BAND
& DIME ADAMS
FRIDAY, APRIL 6
Friday, April 6
8 p.m. EMU Ballroom
Tickets: $1:00
50' for children
Sponsored by The Cultural Forum
Auditioning for Young Adult Singers
When: 8:00p.m. April 16,17,and 18th
Where: Rosewood Room, Eugene Hotel
Who: All young adults are welcome - no specific age limit
You will be asked to sing one solo number any type of song, need not be
memorized. Accompanist furnished, but please bring sheet music.
For more information call: 747-0976
r
records
Little Feat
Dixie Chicken
Warner Bros.
BS 2686
Copyright
Is-are Little Peat the best group in
America today?
Little Feat broke with Warner Brothers in
late 1971 releasing an incredible first album
entitled — you guessed it — Little Feat. As I
sit here scribbling I can still feel the energy
plugged into the first side of that initial effort.
The slide going crazy, “Snakes on
Everything,” the opening cut, truck-driving
funk with “Willin,” “Strawberry Flats” just
twisting-tearing your head right off. Jesus!
What an album! Lyrics that actually com
plemented the tunes and music to break your
speakers by.
The personnel responsible for Little Feat
— being Lowell George and Roy Estrada,
both ex-Mothers, Richard Hayward, former
drummer with Fraternity of Man, and Bill
Payne, Texas piano wizard — then gave us
Sailin’ Shoes and a let-down. Not that Sailin’
Shoes was a bad album; it just lacked the
juice that jolted you the first time around. Son
of “Hamburger Midnight” through both
sides, and wasn’t “Willin’ ” included here
once again?
Ah ha! But we now come to Dixie Chicken
— hanging on the wall of our friendly close-to
campus record shop. Should I? With thoughts
of chronic financial destitution gnawing at my
guilty conscience the $4.00 changes hands.
“Your change, sir.” 0.01. What if it’s another
let-down? Can’t be — just one sweet taste.
Puh-leeze be good. Rip off the plastic, center
the record over the spindle, switch on the
power, and YES! The percussion cranes
pouring out of the speakers, followed by
Payne’s excellent honk tonk piano, and
George’s strong sandpaper vocals. And
what’s this — female background vocalists
coming through pure and easy. Relax, sit
back, it’s okay — the music’s there and the
spark is back.
Personnel time again. With Dixie Chicken
Little Feat has lost one, Roy Estrada, going to
Capt. Beefheart, and gained three: Paul
Barrere on guitar, Sam Clayton on congas,
and Kenny Gradney on bass. Hayward is still
here laying down the bade beat, Payne’s
keyboard work fills holes brilliantly, oc
casionally carrying George’s melodies, and
then there’s George himself — vocals,
guitars, writing, and producing.
There are so many fine songs on Dixie
Chicken it might be easier to enumerate the
tunes that don’t cut it. But then there would be
nothing to relate at all. Suffice it to say there
are some excellent songs here interspersed
between some good ones. You can find them
all for $4.00 give or take a few cents up there
rat somebody’s wall.
Delano Sanders
“Sold For the Prevention
of Disease Only”
Wilderness Road
Warner Bros. MS2125
Copyright 1972
The title of this album gives the first hint
that what is immortalized on vinyl within is
not for family audiences. The titles of the
tunes reinforce the first impression. The
pictures spread all over the jacket don’t
presage any paean of praise for anyone’s idea
of what is good, pure, or nice.' In short, if you
enjoyed pulling the wings off flies during
puberty, and grew to watch Billy James
Hargis and the All American Kids for laughs,
this is a record for you. ,,
This malicious attdck on Western
Civilization as we know it is set to some tasty
rock and roll. I may be old fashioned, but I do
find it interesting to listen to a band that can
play more than three chords, avoids drum
solos, and says more lyrically than “Booga
Booga I love you, Booga Booga I need you,
Booga Booga let’s ball” without pretensions
to ART.
Starting with the most blatant and
tasteless examples of the really nasty stuff
Wilderness Road does, both placed last on
either side of the disc, we see “The authentic
British Blues” which gently gives the shaft to
such luminaries as Eric Clapton, Jimmie.
Page, And (gasp) John Mayall, and “The
Gospel” appropriately divided into four
V.
parts. “The Gospel” chides all those
evangelical shucks broadcast brom Tijuana to
avoid problems with the FCC. The kind of
show run by a religious type who justifies his
$350,000 house with this quote, “In my
Father’s house, there are many mansions.”
The cut ends with a song I feel should become
a minor classic, “Heavily into Jesus”, a truck
driving tune that deserves a place with
“Eight Days on the Road.”
So much for the blatant stuff, the rest of
the songs sound like they’re more normal
than not. At least that’s what I thought until I
listened to them a little more carefully. Sure
enough, under the facade of legitimate rock
and roll the assault on your cultural values
continues unbated. Hie gall, the unmitigated
gall, titling a song “Bored” and then writing
about it. Is ennui the proper study of serious
artists? Is itnice to make fun of Joni Mitchell
and Crosby, Stills and Nash, to say nothing of
THE WOODSTOCK NATION? IS nothing
sacred?
Don’t be fooled by the music. The bar
barians are at the gates. Caveat Emptor
RoHHage
West, Bruce & Laing
Why Don’tcha?
On the whole I am impressed with the
debut album of this British rock trio. The
triumvirate consists of Leslie West,
gargantuan guitarist from Mountain; Jack
.Bruce, “basso prof undo” and occasional
piano—ex of Cream and two fine, underrated
solo albums; and Corky Laing, drummer
from Mountain.
It is an album strictly for rockers,
featuring loud, tight numbers on both sides.
Each performer is completely competent on
his instrument, sometimes to the point of
duplicity of sound in various cuts. Never
theless, it is an album that grows on you, and
the more one hears it, the easier it is to pick
out the subtle, rather clever musical shades
of nuance. In the group’s sound I can hear a
blend of Mountain and Cream styles which is
really a cool compound.
The title cut opens the first side, and it is a
steady blaster, not sophisticated, but then not
boring either. Things improve for me with the
second cut, a spacy choral-backed thing
called “Out Into the Fields.” I admit to
favoritism for Jack Bruce vocals over the
polished roughness of Leslie West. “Fields” is
a Bruce vocal, the weird words courtesy of his
longtime association with perverse poet Pete
Brown.
“Fields can be described as a slow,
melodic spacey-choir cut. It is followed in
contrast by “The Doctor,” a harsh rocker
featuring West’s guitar and vocal. It is solid,
if not great, fitting those of us “who don’t need
no doctor” or a “Humble” song either.
“Turn Me Over,” a Corky Lain vocal,
follows. It is funky, but a bit tiresome. The
tune that finishes the first side admirably is
“Third Degree,” an old Eddie Boyd blues
number. It is the only piece not written by W,
B & L. Bruce’s vocal and closing bass section
make it a rendition remindful of the worthier
bluesy stuff which Cream used to transform
into a rock feeling.
The second side is probably better as a
whole. The first two numbers, “Shake Ma
Thing (Rollin Jack)” and “While You Sleep”
are fair, though not memorable. The third
cut, “Pleasure,” is a rollicking, funny cut
with Bruce on piano and singing. Pete
Brown’s lyrics are-suggestive and wary both:
“Keep off of that mother, marriage—
Even in the middle where the
Chances are the pleasure still
Awaits!” _
The final tune, “Pollution Woman,” is the
crowning conclusion of the group’s first ef
fort. The guitars, both electric and acoustic,
build powerfully to an extended instrumental
finale where the group’s tightness is most
evident, replete with a haunting back-up
chorus.
There have been better deubt albums by
so-called “supergroups” which merge in
dividual stars. But all in all, the distinct sound
of W, B & L is a dynamic one, so if you’re an
avid acid-rocker, “Why Don’tcha” pick up
this rather insane blue album, whose cover
features the trio superimposed knee-deep in a
cosmic ocean, apparently “making waves.”
J
Tom Mascott