The Courier-Journal from Louisville, Kentucky • Page 20

I I I I II 1 1 I I I I I 1 1 I I I mr wm MUSIC WEEK 7 i twmtimtr-'' Wheel: Glenn Taylor, left, Mike Braden, Peter Searcy, Tom Tompkins. By JEFFREY LEE PUCKETT Pop Music Critic "HOLIDAY MANOR" Big Wheel (Mammoth) Formats: LP, cassette, CD Big Wheel has always had the power, but now the band has discovered the glory found when an effective pop hook is welded to full-bore rock. When the Louisville band manages this neat trick, and it does more often than not, "Holiday Manor" is a real treat, an album that hammers yet leaves you humming. But when Big Wheel misses the mark, the result is energy without focus, more craft than inspiration. The good stuff shows off a confidence and a subtlety that make for a far more dynamic album than "East End," the band's 1989 debut.

"Blood Brothers," "Simple Pleasures," "Sleep," "Circus" and, to a lesser extent, "Thoughts, Arms and Legs" and "High and Mighty" are Big Wheel at its best. Glenn Taylor's guitars crunch, the rhythm section of bassist Mike Braden and drummer Tom Tompkins pounds, and Peter Searcy delivers passionate vocals. The best songs strike a fine balance between power chords and power pop (excepting "Sleep," a mostly acoustic, highly evocative picture of a hot summer night). All are examples of Searcy's intricate way with a lyric. He doesn't write in a traditional way; his line breaks owe more to poetry than rock 'n' roll, and his rhymes are often internal rather than at the end of a line.

Not only is this more interesting, but it also allows Searcy to stretch vocally, holding the melodies together with his phrasing. Many songs also have an appealing humanity. "Simple Pleasures" is a plea to a friend to look for peace in small doses; "Circus" is about frustration and escape; "Sleep" is REVIEWS OF THE WEEK'S POP-MUSIC CONCERTS Jiggs Whigham in concert, Monday night By BOB BAHR Contributing Critic Trombone as lead instrument is a configuration a bit out of jazz mainstream. Monday night at Luckett's, Downstairs at Actors, Jiggs Whigham showed that there is no reason for this prejudice, proving the versatility and eloquence of which a trombonist is capable. Whigham has played with some of the best in jazz Count Basie, Dizzy Gillespie, Dexter Gordon, Freddie Hubbard and Stan Kenton.

But Monday he surrounded himself with Cincinnati's finest, pianist Phil DeGreg and drummer Charlie Craig, and Louisville's pride and joy, bassist Tyrone Wheeler. While it was sometimes evident that the combo was brought together just for this gig, sponsored by the Louisville Jazz Society, the musicians forged a sparkling, easy intensity. The communication reached a pinnacle with Whigham and local saxophonist Jamcy Aebersold, a special guest, engaging in an unaccompanied duet to close out "All the Things You Are." Whigham is a teacher in Cologne, Germany, and his ease before a crowd hints at his profession. Several times during his two long sets, he stressed the importance of jazz and the need for support for the art form. After every "sermon" came a persuasive hymn.

"There Is No Greater Love," "Blue Bossa," "Pound Cake," and Tadd Dameron's beautiful "If You Could See Me Now" were evidence of jazz's unique spirit. As if responding to a challenge, Whigham repeatedly tore into fast runs with every note crisply delivered rather than impressionistically smudged. He would often play a bar-length dissonant line without resolving it. In the rhythm section, Wheeler characteristically covered the entire neck of the upright bass and once again proved that he is capable of making a walking bass line as interesting as a solo, and drummer Craig swung with the eagerness of an 18-year-old and then, on a ballad, handled the brushes with the finesse of a 50-year-old. DeGreg suffered from too much amplification of his piano, which made his comping often distracting and tyrannical.

But his Bill Evans-meets-Cannonball Adder-ley solos brought roars from the crowd. from Nymphs is supposed to sound like that awash with distorted guitar and creaking vocals. The Los Angeles-based band plays a loud and grungy brand of thrash, heavy on the fuzz effects and featuring quirky, Sinead-esque vocals from singer Inger Lorre. This is the kind of stuff that, if you play it loud enough, will have your neighbors on the phone to the police and, if you play it long enough, could leave your pet deaf. Although the band's debut doesn't boast enough good tunes to merit a strong recommendation, the good tunes it can claim are very, very good.

Numbers of note include "Just One Happy Day," a terrific, snarling head-banger; and the more melodic but still toothy "Imitating Angels" and "Sad and Damned." The band needs more songs like the latter two, to build contrast with its cranium-rattling rockers. It could also shed its ponderous fixation with death and afterlife. about just that, and features some of Taylor's most delicate playing and some of Searcy's best lyrics "the clock ticks minutes into hours knows the time like the back of its hands sits in watch on the night-stand the fan's shaking in the window, sings an electric lullaby." The songs that don't work "Rock Opus" and "She Remembers," for example) lean toward dull. There's no spark, no sense of a Big Wheel sound. While that's a bummer, it also points out what is best about "Holiday Manor" that Big Wheel has identified and is defining a signature sound.

And that's better than half the battle. By MARK CLARK Staff Critic "NYMPHS" Nymphs (Geffen) Formats: cassette, CD Do not attempt to adjust your audio system. The debut album TRACKS BULLETINS, BLASTS AND NEWS BITS New releasesnews bites Cowboy Junkies come out with "Black Eyed Man," which includes semicomatose singer Margo Tlmmins in "If You Were the Woman and I Was the Man," a duet with John Prlne. Townes Van Zandt contributed two songs. Also out are "Volo Volo" by Pol Dog Pondering and "Mbaqanga" by Mahlathlnl and the Mahotella Queens.

Tomorrow at 1:30 p.m. on cable TV's VH-1 Robbie Robertson will be on the station's "VH-1 to One" program. The former guitarist and main songwriter for the Band just released "Storyville." In local miscellaneous notes, David La Duke, Louisville purveyor of barroom blues and Southern rock, has announced that his label, SB, has secured a national and international distribution deal with Caprice International Records. It'll carry La Duke's "Have Rock Will Travel." And country band Uncle Pecos has released a single, "Buy American." On Door Knob Records, the 45 is now available only at Shively Records. Kristin Faurest, contributing critic the music so powerful before it fell prey to delusions of artistic respectability.

"What we're interested in is things that are trying to free people," Interior said. "It's basically the idea that everybody should see themselves as king of the world. When rock 'n' roll happened, it was a breaking down of all kinds of barriers racial barriers, sexual barriers to just go wild and have fun." Is nothing sacred? For the same reason cats lick themselves (because they can), the editors of Musician magazine sat down and composed a follow-up to Don McLean's epic "American Pie," and, for lack of better judgment, published the thing in the January issue. Get a life, y'all. Here's a bit of it: "And in the halls reunion tours were organized by Schlitz and Coors No rebel leaders ranted The long hair was transplanted And the three on whom I most depend Enrwistle, Daltry and Townshend Did commercials in the end The day the music whined.

"We write songs to play live, and the record reflects that, I think." Iggy and the Cramps The Cramps began with a chance encounter in the early '70s, when a man from Cleveland who called himself Lux Interior picked up a California hitchhiker who would soon rechristen herself Poison Ivy Rorschach. The two shared a mutual passion for rockabilly, B-mov-ies, horror comics and (soon enough) each other, writes Don McLeese of Cox News Service. The Cramps' new piece of rock 'n roll bacchanalia, "Look Mom No Head!" features a guest appearance by Iggy Pop. "It was a great new thing he did with the Stooges, and I'm sure that's influenced us," said Interior. "We're always interested in stripping down, getting to the core of what rock 'n' roll is all about, and I think he is too." There are those who write off the band's product as part of "trash culture," but, McLeese writes, the Cramps are actually rock 'n' roll purists, committed to preserving and extending what made Bass desires Those who believe that there is a place in hell where the damned do nothing but listen to bass guitar solos for all eternity might not like the English band Ned's Atomic Dustbin.

Through an odd twist of fate, the band has two bass players. The double bass approach, writes Scott Martelle of the Detroit News, makes for an infectious rhythm section behind guitars as dense and fuzzy as Gene Shalit's hair and emotionally urgent lyrics (the single "Kill Your Television" describes television as "soap for sore "We were sort of bored," said singer-lyricist Jonn Penney. "We got together because we wanted to be in bands. It was just a hobby thing. We worked hard, played a lot of gigs.

We kept plugging at it and got a following together, people who wanted to see us live. Only then it occurred to us to release a record." Despite a successful debut album, what the band lives for is playing live. "People have a very warped view of us if they haven't seen us live," said Penney. Saturday, Feb 15. 1992 SCENE Page 11.