The Guardian from London, Greater London, England • 13

RECORDS GUARDIAN THE GUARDIAN Friday June 6 1986 13 gaflfldDIps ft tilm E(BS5tlllB Murray Perahia magnetism the Newark Food Bank to appear in the video for thes song. Springsteen apparently; felt he was being used, and, that local, Stone Pony artists should be getting the credit-so didn't show up (though: Clemons and Lofgren did: appear). When it came to live shows; last week, again it wasJhe lesser-known Jersey who packed the stage at New York's Saint Club: at a TreiS concert in Trenton after the-curious Hands Across America spectacle, or back at the Pony itself (though there' were appearances Southside's keyboard player! or the much-publicised Jersey rocker described as the next Springsteen, John; Eddie). Celebrity-hunters may haye been disappointed, but the result was one of the best and sweatiest, pub-rock jam sessions I can remember, and proof that the Stone Pony' crowd are still very much alive and kicking, with or without the Boss. The 25 musicians on stage included Ed Testa and the Cruisers, specialising in soul and Creedence Clearwater, more soul from the brilliant JT Bowen, who sings with Clemons when the Big Man gets time off from E-Street, and white rock from George Theiss, who has already earned a footnote in rock history as former leader of the Castiles, Springsteen's first band.

Also on stage was Carolyne Mas, a Jersey star of a few years back, a local rocker called Lance Larson, and even a black harmony group, 14 Karat SouL At two in the morning, when the show was over, they '-set off across Asbury Park to invade the stage and perform free at another club that was open until dawn. "This bunch are always doing benefit shows," said Lee, "they do' them for each other whenever a musician is ill." On the Jersey Shore, at least, charity is rather more than a fad. ASBURY PARK, New Jersey, doesn't look like a town where legends could be made. A run-down seaside resort just a couple of hours drive south of New York City, it boasts, a Ferris wheel, a deserted-looking casino and convention centre 'by tne beach, and a long wooden board-walk along the ocean front, that was almost empty even on a stiflingly hot day lsst week. At first sight, it's about as exciting as Bognor, but this dreary Tittle stretch of amusement arcades has become a rock 'n' roll mecca.

For there, next to the mini-golf game, is the booth of the fortune teller Madam Marie, made famous in an early Bruce Springsteen song, and there across the road is a single-storey, white-painted music bar, The btone rony, wnere Bruce ana the E-Street Band started out, and where still (just occasionally) they can be found having a drink, checking out the local bands, or even playing, as they did in January for a "Hometowns Against Shutdowns" benefit for workers in the local 3M factory that's threatened with closure. What's remarkable about the Stone Pony is that it's still a "centre for the Jersey music scene that produced Springsteen, Southside Johnny and literally dozens of other good local bands. Almost all of them play a strong, gutsy blend of no-nonsense rock and soul (Asbury Park has a sizeable black population), and though few of the Jersey Shore musicians are known outside the state, many of them echo the style' of the man whose pictures cover one of the Pony's walls. The club's DJ for the past 10 years Lee Mrowicki, considers that "for most people nowdavs Springsteen is almost God." This week, a sone nartlv inspired by Lee. Dartlv recorded at the Stone Pony, and featuring a quick burst of God (on a guitar solo), shows The boss may have been absent but his spirit was behind a record designed to help America's needy, Robin Penselow reports on the Springsteen bandsmen's charity anthem Clarence Clemens, left, and Nils Lofgren time off from the Street band off the Pony's more famous old-boys, as well as the musicians that Bruce left behind.

We Got The Love by the grandly-titled Jersey Artists For Mankind is a charity record and an anthem that promises to be this year's We Are The World (it's certainly far superior to the Hands Across America theme). It's a great showcase for the Stone Pony set, but has also proved an interesting exercise in the dangers of good works in what's seen as an overcrowded market Springsteen, as ever, was the inspiration for the song. As well as promoting the cause of the 3M workers he has campaigned, and donated large sums of money, for the Food Banks across America. According to Lee, he told Springsteen "you'll cause political unrest" "Yeah," the Boss allegedly replied, "that's the point And that, says Lee, is why the song has the line "we got the power." The Bruce connection con- own truck, that takes in and re-distributes food from major manufacturers that would otherwise simply be thrown away. There are shelves of macaroni, baby food, crackers and salad dressing, and freezers filled with fish or ice-cream.

Some of it has damaged packaging, some has packaging that the manufacturers have simply decided to change, and some is simply a result of over production. It's an extraordinary display of big-corporation waste, and Kathleen DiChiara who runs the Bank says that the involvement of Springsteen, and now the JAM artists, have brought her support from "an audience that wasn't listening in traditional places, like the church or school." She agrees, though, that pop charity like this has its dangers. Just days before joining the Hands Across America anti-hunger line. President Reagan had announced "there's no need ITacminsDn ddq gfldleim fldlnes ns for people to go hungry they just don't know where the resources are," a comment which DiChiara described as "ostrich-like." She's also worried that the massive success of the Food Banks, and all the publicity they are getting, could have another effect. "There's a danger that hunger could just become a fad." Certainly there's a feeling in the American music industry that charity records were a gimmick that could go out of style.

Lee found it difficult getting a deal for the Stone Pony set, even though it's a strong song and involves a bunch of very famous names, and there has been considerable tension between Arista, the record company, and some of the musicians. Arista, understandably, wanted to make the most of the fact that Springsteen was appearing, on their label (even if just for a guitar solo), and made much, of the fact that he would be going out to Contains many previously Including: HIPSWAY ZERRA ONE WET WET WET TOPPER HEADON Beat CLASSICAL Edward Greenfield BEETHOVEN: Quintet Opus 16, Mozart: Quintet K.4S2, Perahia ECO Wind Soloists CBS IM 42099 (LP). PrevinVlenna Wind Soloists Telarc, CO 80114. DVORAK: Piano Quintets In Opus 5 and Opus 81, Rlchter Borodin Quartet Philips 412 429-2 (CD). 412 429-1 (LP).

JUST IN TIME for the Alde-burgh Festival, starting today, comes a record that perfectly captures the new post-Britten flavour of what remains one of our most distinctive festivals. If any individual puts his imprint on the event these days, it is Murray Perahia, a pianist with the sort of magnetism and magic that marked out Britten himself in all his roles. Last year at the Maltings the CBS engineers recorded Perahia in live performance of two parallel chamber works, the masterly Quintet for piano and wind, K452, that Mozart wrote at the period of his great piano concertos, and Beethoven's work for the same forces that he modelled on that masterpiece with surprising exactness in structure but with his own strongly characteristic flavour. Perahia is joined by the four wind principals of the ECO. His winning way of pointing rhythm and phrase, making even simple passage work sound individual, sparks off the others to play with com- arable imagination oboist eil Black, clarinetist Thea King, horn-player Tony Hal-stead, and bassoonist Graham Sheen.

Perahia's magic makes me prefer the Mozart performance even to Andre Pre-vin's issued only six months ago by Telarc, rather plainer and set in a more intimate acoustic. Where the rivalry is more even is in the Beethoven on the reverse, where, perhaps surprisingly, it is Previn who leads the lighter, more sparkling performance and Perahia the rather weightier, less urgent one. The Telarc is on CD, whereas the CBS is not Comparable interplay between a master pianist and fine instrumentalists comes in Sviatoslav Richter's recording with the Borodin Quartet of the two piano quintets of Dvorak. Like the Perahia record it was made live and rather more snags crop up, not so much in audience noises as in occasional flawed intonation surprising from the Borodins. It remains a valuable and revealing coupling to have not only the ripely characterful and richly melodic Quintet that Dvorak wrote at the BRIEFING CONCERTS PJBE (Elizabeth Hall, Sunday, 7.15) Last public performance by Philip Jones with his Ensemble, before he retires from trumpet-playing.

Programme includes Elgar Howarth's amazing arrangement of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, Bach's Brandenburg No. 3 and a new work by Rautavaara. Sinopoli, Philharmonia, Giur-anna (Festival Hall, Tuesday, 7.30). The Italian viola-player, Bruno Giuranna, is soloist in Berlioz's Harold in Italy. Also, Schubert's Unfinished Symphony and Debussy's La mer.

Solti, Perahia, ECO (Barbi- BRAHMS: Piano Trios Onus 8. Opus 87 and Opus 101, Schu mann: nano mo no. i opus 63, Israel Piano Trio, CRD 3422 3 (two COS). SCHUBERT: Piano Trios in flat and flat, Nocture, "Sona seaux Arts Trio, Philips 412 ozo-z (two CDS). SCHUMANN: Krelsleriana and pieced by Scarlatti, Liszt, Scrla- Din and scnubert, Horowitz, dg 419 217-Z.

peak of his career, his Onus 81. but also the other A major he wrote at the beginning of his career, when ne was still influenced bv Wagner. The catalogue of chamber music on vu is expanding Dy tne montn, ana ine secona complete CD set of the Brahms Piano Trios readily outrivals tne earner one, from the Borodin Trio on Chandos. The new one from the Isiael Piano Trio on CRD is not only lighter and more rhythmic ft has a substantial half-hour bonus in including not only tne tnree uranms works but the' Schumann minor Trio, No. 1, all in excellent sound.

The two Schubert piano trios, in a nat ana js nat, have been re-recorded digitally for CD by the most cele- oratea ot tne world's piano trios, the Beaux Arts Trio, along with the two separate movements that Schubert also wrote for the genre, the Notturno in flat and the so-called Sonata in flat As with the Beaux Arts re-recording of Beethoven's Archduke Trio the group's manners have grown more relaxed, but where in the Beethoven that undermines necessary energy, the geniality of these Schubert performances is very winning, fully matching the spacious inspiration of the, two' big masterpieces. Issued to coincide with Vladimir Horowitz's visit to London this week comes a second record from DG. Unlike the first made in the studio the new one has rather better-balanced sound, but some of the joyous abandon of the earlier disc is missing, sparkily brilliant as the playing is. The mixture of items many of them from his London concert programme is typical of Horowitz, with this time a major work included, Schumann's Kreisleriana. As so often the most individual performances are of two Scarlatti sonatas, the slow minor K87 and the brilliant major K135.

Liszt's Impromptu in sharp and the Valse oubliee No. 1 as well as a Scriabin Etude have fine romantic bravura. Schubert's flat Impromptu finds Horowitz characteristically wilful, before a dashing account of Schubert's Marcne Militaire in Tausig's improbable virtuoso arrangement. can. Wednesday.

7.45). An all- Mozart concerto programme for this Royal Gala in aid of the Royal College of Music Development Fund. Solti joins Perahia at the keyboard in the Double Concerto. Nash Ensemble (Wigmore, Wednesday, 7.30). An adventurous programme of American music (Barber, Copland, Crumb, Ives) plus a new work by Simon Holt.

Edward Greenfield THEATRE A UAVID MAMET double-Dill of Prairie Du Chien (directed by Max Stafford-Clark) and The Shawl (directed by Richard Eyre) opens at the Royal Court's Theatre Upstairs. Meanwhile Jim Cart-wright's Road transfers down- 1 Compilations needn't be exercises in asset-stripping, and the LP of JB is a bunch of James Brown tracks from the fifties to the seventies, crushing in their ruthless clarity. The take of It's A Man's World hasn't been released previously, and there are subtly different versions of Sex Machine and Papa's Got A Brand New Bag. For their Beat Runs Wild collection, on the other hand, Mercury have had a rummage through their current catalogue, which enables you to sample the likes of Swing Out Sister, Wet, Wet, Wet and Curiosity Killed The Cat and discover that you can easily live without them. The first side of Sister Sledge's Greatest Hits is like wading through pond-weed, but side two offers the Chic-produced dance epics Lost In Music, He's The Greatest Dancer and We Are Family.

Chic's Nile Rodgers crops up again as producer of Philip Bailey's Inside Out, an often incisive set of soulful songs which mercifully sounds nothing like Bailey's '84 duet with Phil Collins, Easy Lover. Gavin Christopher attempts the same sort of thing, but while his songs sound efficiently sharp, they're completely interchangeable. In fact, he might even be Willie Collins on his day off damned if I can tell the difference. Why does soulfunk music so often amount to little more than sharply-dressed MOR? have new records out, and to celebrate each is appearing upstairs at Ronnie Scotts on Sunday night American trumpeter Bill Berry arrives at the Bull Head Barnes (next Wednesday) for a short season; Bobby Wellins and Jim Mullen conclude their tour in Southport (tonight), Leeds (tomorrow), and Birmingham (Sunday). Pete Martin A new low priced compilation L.P.

Cassette. un released tracks, tinued when his keyboard player Garry Tallent was persuaded to produce the record. "I did it reluctantly," he said, because I've been oh the road for two years and I was tired. There are so many charity songs coming out it's hard for them to be nits, but when I heard this I thought it had potential." By now the local musicians like Joel Krauss and Bob Bandiera (who actually wrote the song) were joined by Southside Johnny, and such E-Street dignitaries as Clarence demons, Max Weinberg and Nils Lofgren. As for the money that's being collected, it's going to that Springsteen-promoted cause, the Food Banks.

Up the road in Newark, in the industrial wasteland of the "ironbound" area, surrounded by rail tracks, the Food Bank has a picture of Springsteen on the wall. This is not a soup kitchen, or a place for the nungry to come, but rather a Targe warehouse, complete with its Gavin Christopher interchangeable recognise a pop tune if it Soured a drink over them, aven't the vaguest idea why anybody ever became addicted to rock music in the first place, and still play fatuous pseudo-classical drivel, though not quite as well as Dire Straits. There are better lyrics in the Gents at Tottenham Court Road tube. I'll pause briefly to mention Momus and "Nicky," a tribute to Jacques Brel, not only because Mike Alway from Momus' label is fighting a lonely rearguard action but because it's a mysterious, eccentric record. ture-book staging is notable for John Graham-Hall's performance, well conducted by Jane Glover.

Tom Sutcliffe DANCE SOME RETURNS have come in for the Bolshoi at Covent Garden. Limited availability. The Royal Ballet at Covent Garden dances an all Ashton programme tonight, made up of Les Patineurs, Scenes de Ballet and The Dream, and next Monday and Thursday-Tomorrow evening Fiona Chadwick is scheduled to dance Giselle. Ballet Rambert's sixtieth birthday performance is at Sadler's wells next Wednesday, in aid of the Ballet Ram-bert Appeal and to launch their Wells season which runs until June 28. Mary Clarke ROCK FOR clenched, declamatory rock and roll, see the Screaming Blue Messiahs (Manchester International tonight) and The Godfathers, (London Marquee1, tomorrow).

For tuneful, witty country music played fast and brash, Los Angeles' Blood On The Saddle visits Harlesden's Mean Fiddler (Wednesday). Half Man Half Biscuit play Liverpool's Transworld Festival Hall and Southampton's Mayfair (Tuesday). Jugoslavian parodists Laibach play Manchester's Boardwalk (tomorrow), Newcastle's Tiffany's (Monday). Mat Snow JAZZ BETTY CARTER begins a fortnight at Ronnie Scott's (next Monday) while Lee Kon-itz is on the road: Colchester (tonight) Oxford Hull Leicester Newcastle on Tyne and Nottingham next Thursday. The groups led by Stan Tra-cey and his son Clark both ACCORDING to Steve Wynn ot LA Dream Syndicate, everyone's learning how to play better and write better and produce better.

As a result there are more thines that are okay and less things that are great" At a time when record comnanies are going into summer hibernation and releasing mostly compilations or comeback albums from ageing nonentities, his words ring uncomfortably true. Dream Syndicate's third album, Out Of The Grey, is a triumph of the will after personnel and record company problems kept them off the map for nearly two years. Its predecessor. Medicine Show, was a tour de force of torrid instrumental playing applied to huge, sprawling songs. mis ume ine group sounas angrier and more focused.

Wynn's metaphorical sone- writing continues to shape the Syndicate's hurricane momentum, while new guitarst and producer Paul B. Cutler has brought a concentrated ferocity to sones like the title track or Boston, Wynn's memoir of Van Morrison in his Astral Weeks days. The band arrives in England on June 19 for some dates. I find it unlikely that any body ever really liked The Ramones. who have alwavs seemed to me to be relentlessly repetitive and thick.

For Animal Boy, their tenth album, they've found a better-than-usual studio engineer, and the resulting stairs to the main house in a promenade production directed by Simon Curtis featuring Lesley Sharp and Susan Brown. Vanessa Redgrave and Timothy Dalton star in The Taming Of The Shrew at the Theatre Royal, Haymar-ket The National's production of Ayckbourn's A Chorus Of Disapproval moves into the Lyric, Shaftesbury Avenue, with Colin Blakely, Jim Norton and Polly Hemingway heading the cast. Zia Mohyed-din stars in Film, Film, Film, a multi-media stage show by Farrukh Dhondy at the Shaw. Recommended The Nest (Bush): Sarah Pia Anderson's production of the gripping Kroetz play has the vividness of a dream. Michael Billington OPERA Don Giovanni (Leeds Wednesday, tomorrow week).

Not the revival of Pountney's old Scottish Opera production, as planned, but a new production, from Tim Albery, with the SO Bjornson sets adapted PETE SHELLEY SWING OUT SISTER LOVE AND MONEY R0CKP0P Adam Sweeting DREAM SYNDICATE: Out Of The Grey (Chrysalis). THE RAMONES: Animal Boy (Beggars Banquet). EMERSON LAKE POWELL: Emerson Lake Powell Nicky" (el 12 Inch sli BROWN: The LP Of JB (Pol VARIOUS: Beat Runs Wild (Mercury). SISTER SLEDGE: Greatest Hits (WEA). PHILIP BAILEY: Inside Out (CBS).

SAVIN CHRISTOPHER: One Step Closer (Manhattan). WILLIE COLLINS: Where You Gonna Be Tonight? (Capitol). audio quality reveals that while their songs are exactly the same, their musical skills are even less adequate than their earlier sonic murk suggested. Although new artists seem to have given up in disgust, perhaps preferring to help Richard Branson sweep the inner cities than to sign their lives away to his record company, it's still incredible that Emerson, Lake Powell (is Palmer dead?) should have made it onto anybody's release schedule in 1986. Like the original ELP of yesteryear, ELP Mk2 wouldn't by Antony McDonald.

Peter Savidge is the Don, Nicholas Folwell is Leporello, and Kathryn Harries and Christine Teare are Elvira and Anna. Lloyd-Jones conducts. Also in the Opera North rep: Rake's Progress (tonight, Thursday) with William Shi-mell a good Nick Shadow, and Faust (Tuesday, next Friday) with Jerome Pruett as the Doctor. Albert Herring (Aldeburgh tonight, tomorrow). The festival starts with student production (Britten-Pears School) of the provincial comedy, conducted by Steuart Bedford (tonight) and Stephen Westrop (tomorrow), and produced by Basil Coleman.

Also at Aldeburgh: Parsifal Act III (Sunday) conducted by Reginald Goodall in concert performance, with the ENO cast Curlew River (Wells tomorrow). Ronald Eyre's staging for Nexus Opera of the Britten church opera, conducted by Lionel Friend, closes the Bath Festival. Albert Herring (Glynde-bourne tomorrow, Monday, next Friday). The Hall pic- tLEKTRA BRANDON COOKE CURIOSITY KILLED THE CAT dduploonlnotnpiotoplirclW WILD I L.P.) TEN MORE Miles of Music TOM VERLAINE WILOCKCASS.) i ocaon r-l if ii I GREAT ARTISTS AND QUALITY RECORDINGS EXCEPTIONAL VALUE ON HMV DOUBLE PLAY CASSETTES i ANITA BAKER COMPLETE 1986 CLASSICAL CATALOGUE Now available from your record dealer VS, NOW AVAILABLE! Jr Mi TITI PS NOW AVAILABLE! OVER 80 MINUTES MUSIC ON EACH CASSETTE HOMnersmith Odeon yfAUnin jSw 2627 July 7-30 pm Tickets available from Box (jflioc 01-748 4081 or by Credit Card 01-741 8989 or 01-7M 8932 (subject to booking ftt) The Album Cauette: RAPTURE Forthcoming single: SWEET LOVE on ELEKTRA RECORDS AT AROUND x3A9 EACH-' GREATEST CLASSICAL CATALOGUE EMtntccnli MtnchMlw Squi.LcndonWIAIES.ATHbmEWeoiiipiiiy DeccaGassics 52-54 Maddox Street London W1A2JH:.