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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (April 5, 1985)
A ticket to success: Dennis Smith’s “Excursion Fare.” See Page 4B Oregon daily emerald art3 & entertainment april 5, 1985 T <111111 Ui liII I 1*1I I 1 Our picks for new music Friday morning: You stretch and yawn when the alarm clock blares, trying hard to convince yourself that chemistry is important enough to get out of bed for. You rub your eyes and notice the sky, which is not gray as it has been for the past month, but is instead a clear, pale blue. You smile in spite of yourself. Springtime is ex hilarating. Spring, you think, is the best of all seasons. You dig through your trunk in search of last year’s hiking shorts. You put away your sweaters and boots. Spring, with its characteristic newness, is a good time for you to take up a new sport, wash your old car, have a fling. And listen to new music. We music-lovers at The Fri day Edition had time over spr ing break to listen to a few new albums and are offering our impressions. The rest is up to you. Richard Thompson “Across A Crowded Room” PolyGram Records Review by Kim Carlson Solo guitarist and vocalist Richard Thompson, who began performing in the late ’60s, is hailed as a musician's musi cian. Although he has a devoted cult following (Rolling Stone’s Kurt Loder calls him “one of the great buried treasures of British rock”), the mass public has not yet become attached to him. Perhaps the anonymity strengthens Thompson’s music, a blend of modern folk and rock’n’roll with Celtic roots — definitely not trendy or compromising. However, if everyone who listens to it likes his new album as much as I do, Thompson may soon be heard on AM. Most of the cuts on “Across a Crowded Room” are ex cellent; many reflect a love gone bad. Loneliness, jealousy and despair reign, yet we never feel abandoned by hope. Thompson, we know, has suf fered through a recent divorce, and yet he’s come out with his humor intact, as evident in “Little Blue Number.” The upbeat “She Twists the Knife Again” contrasts with the moody “Ghost in the Wind,” a slow song complete with far-off bagpipes. And in all the songs, Thompson’s vocals are earnest and strong. 1 sense a very together human being behind his music — a rare talent in modern rock’n’roll. Animotion “Animotion” PolyGram Records Review by Mike Duncan A Syn-Pop, new wave influenced band from New York, Animotion has been get ting airwave exposure with “Obsession,” a song written by lead vocalist and guitarist Bill Wadhams. In the new music genre, Animotion’s sound is heavy guitar backed with punchy keyboards and an equally complementary vocal track by lead vocalist Astrid Plane. The rest of the music on the album becomes very slick and commercial, not consistent with the innovative hit receiv ing much airplay on both pop radio and special new music programs. Overall, the effort is a bit on the weak side. The rest of the album acts as filler for the ex pected hit ‘Obsession.” The Vels “Velocity” PolyGram Records Review by Mike Duncan Clean, bright and contem porary are just a few of the ad jectives that come to mind while listening to The Vels, a three-member band whose members perform vocals. Continued on Page 2B
