The Morning Call from Allentown, Pennsylvania • 81

VARIOUS ARTISTS: The Griffith Park Collection (MusicianElektra) for Cash, who sounds suitable for embalming. His solo performances are awful poetry in slow motion, and he manages to drag the sing-alongs to a crawl. Perkins sounds pretty sluggish himself, but he catches fire in a memorable performance of his own "Matchbox." Luckily. Lewis is his usual wild self, providing a frenzied version of "Whole Lotta Shakin' Coin' On" and igniting the threesome in "I'll Fly Away." But like a solo pallbearer, he just can't carry his partners far enough to make this LP work. J.J.

CALE: Grasshopper (Mercury) structural and anti-musical. While the message of this now defunct experiment is appreciated, the music is inaccessible and mostly un-listenable. A tongue-in-cheek compilation from British releases subtitled "Entertainment Through Pain," Gristle makes good the boast with songs like the noxious "Hamburger Lady" and "Sub-human," a biting scream of disgust. Not nice music, but it's not intended to be. This doesn't make for a bad album, just a bad album to listen to.

Two songs actually are quite good when you consider TG was one of the forerunners of synthesized music: "United," where love is the law. and "AB7A," a frolicking piece of synthesized fun. If you've ever said to life. "What? You have no more pleasure for me? Well, then bring me your pain," life's answer just might be this album of torture on vinyl. held belief that Blitz bands are the maddening product of a robot factory.

With its funky intro, silky sax and near-human vocal, "Night Train" deserves to be a rock-disco smash. Both "The Damned Don't Cry" and "Whispers" are well-crafted tunes designed as much for listening as dancing, and the demanding percussive workout on proves there's actual flesh and blood behind the drum kit. Visage chic-monger Stephen Strange gets adequate support from Billy Curie and Midge Ure, both of Ultravox, the British synth band that helped launch the New Romantic craze. Despite this LP's merits. Visage and the growing number of Blitz kids who worship them are no less dehumanizing in their support of exclusive dressup-or-else nightspots.

But what the heck. Somebody pass me a tunic and point me toward the dance floor. BUGGLES: Adventures In Modern Recording (Carrere) Spontaneity. Always the Juice of genuine jazz, it is strongly in evidence on this followup LP featuring drummer Lenny White (who also produces), pianist-composer Chick Corea. tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson, bassist Stanley Clarke and flugelhorn-trumpet stylist Freddie Hubbard.

Followup? Their first joint effort, "Echoes Of An Era," with vocalist Chaka Kahn, was a vibrany revitalization and free-spirited interpretation of mostly jazz standards. On this disc, the offerings are new, purely instrumental compositions by White, Corea, Hubbard, Clarke and Steve Swallow. Where's Henderson? The "old man" of wit and substance prefers simply to blow and it is his throaty, imaginative runs and arpeggios that give this LP its jazz-beat heart. It was jazz, after all, that provided lifeblood for today's funk, rock and to which Clarke -and White generally limit themselves. It is their return to the heart with gratitude and friends that makes this LP an invaluable exponent of musical liquidity.

THROBBING GRISTLE: Throbbing Gristle's Greatest Hits (Rough Trade) In much the same fashion that early 20th century Dada literature was anti-rational, anti-structural and anti-literature, and Dada art was anti-rational, anti-structural and anti-art, so too is Gristle's music anti-rational, anti- JOOLS HOLLAND AND HIS MILLIONAIRES (IRS.) Britisher Holland was pop-rock band Squeeze's original ivory tickler (he left after the "Argybargy" LP) and was best known for his trademark sunglasses, a witty manner, and a proclivity for boogie woogie. Holland's first solo LP. done with a cat-rate bunch of musicians incongruously tagged the Millionaires, is as unfocused as American foreign policy. Producer Glyn Johns must have been sound asleep in the control booth while this LP was being recorded. Holland's dexterous keyboard playing often is lost among the sax, drums, bass and harmonica.

As a songwriter, Holland is a good piano player, though his humorous side peeks through briefly in "Goodbye World," a bouncy tune about a chronically suicide-prone person, the rhythmic "Driven to Drink" and "Pineapple Chunk." a dicey bit of sexual innuendo cowritten with Chris Difford. his buddy from Squeeze. Holland will find out soon enough that it takes more than charm to make a good album. Cripes. even Ringo Starr knows that.

DAVE EDMUNDS: D.E.7th (Columbia) Like a caged animal that has struggled successfully to escape confinement, British rock 'n' roller Edmunds, with new band in tow, comes bounding out with new life and vitality on his seventh solo LP. His last band. Rock-pile (which included Nick Lowe, Billy Bremner and Terry Williams), was a formidable ensemble as long as it expertly backed Edmunds and Lowe on their solo LPs. But when the band began recording under its own name, things fell apart. Last year's competent though routine Edmunds LP, "Twangin'," signaled the need for a change, and so, betting on himself, he made the break with Rockpile.

The outcome: Edmunds' best LP since 1 979's mini-classic "Tracks on Wax 4." Rarely has Edmunds sounded as frisky and so ready to rock 'n' roil. Bruce Springsteen wrote the leadoff track, the Chuck Berry-like rocker "From Small Things (Big Things One Day Come)," especially for Edmunds, and Dave makes it sizzle. (Thanks, Bruce Edmunds then proceeds to blow Bonnie Raitt out of the water with his version of BQ's Terry Adams' "Me and the Boys" (better luck next time, Bonnie), and one-ups Nick Lowe with the coolly ironic pop song "Other Guys' Girls." On side two. Edmunds shows his affinity for country stylings with a trio of tunes: "Warmed Over Kisses (Left Over Love)." with lightning-fast banjo picking (Dave Peacock) and guitar (Albert Lee); "Deep in the Heart of Texas." about a would-be cowpoke who has "seen it all on my color TV," and Doug Kershaw's "Louisiana Man," complete with squeeze box. Not a bad track on this disc: a lucky seven for Edmunds and rock fans.

VISAGE: The Anvil (Polydor) This shockingly listenable LP almost dispels my long- 156 Tilghman St. 12 to 7 433-0333 JOHNNY CASH, JERRY LEE LEWIS. CARL PERKINS: The Survivor (Columbia) vHSI If not for the contributions of Jerry Lee Lewis, this LP ght better have been titled "The Night Of The Living Dead." The Survivors are Lewis, Cash and Perkins, three-fourths of what was dubbed the Million-Dollar Quartet in a long-ago photograph with Elvis Presley. All three were touring Germany separately last spring, and Lewis and Perkins joined Cash for the second half of his show in Stuttgart. The result of that unrehearsed jam is this LP.

As you might expect, their performances together mostly on gospel numbers like "I Saw the Light" and "There Will Be Peace in the Valley for Me" are a bit raw. with lots of ad libbed harmonizing that offers the feel of a drunken piano bar. Still, that might be fun if not 603 RAM1LT01 MAIL ALLENT6WR, PA. illSlltfiltl If J.J. Cale really believed in truth in advertising, he wouldn't have named this LP "Grasshopper." Although the title track is a quick-footed instrumental with sprightly steel drums, the other cuts are more characteristic of Cale's previous work they're as laid-back as Jackson Browne on 'ludes.

But this is not a bad album. Quite the contrary. Cale's rumbling, unhurried tenor and fluid guitar work are smooth but not slick. His songs, which sound understated because of Cale's seemingly effortless approach, are neat and listen-able. Of particular note are "One Step Ahead Of the Blues," "City Girls." and "Drifter's Wife," a folk tune reminiscent of Arlo Guthrie.

More than likely, some of these tunes will be turning up on other artists' albums (Eric Clapton, who has covered Cale's "Cocaine" and "After Midnight." is probably picking one right now). And that's a tribute to Cale's ingenuity and style. These qualities are what make this LP worthwhile, despite a nagging feeling that Cale could have exerted at least a little more intensity in his performances here. POINT BLANK: On A Roll (MCA) tfc, At best this sextet's music is a collage of '70s FM rock, featuring Styx, Foreigner, Johnny Van Zant and Journey sound-alikes. There are a couple of lively moments on this eight-cut disc (the title track.

"I Just Want to but even then. Michael Hamilton's keyboard lines will remind many of recent J. Geils material. If Point Blank is indeed on a roll, it's time for thrifty consumers to get out of the way fasti WE WILL NOT BE You must I present coupon Valid thru 514 I Beast" only I Special $9. 99 There's little doubt that before they briefly hooked up with pomp-art rock band Yes late in 1 980, Trevor Horn and Geoff Downes.

the synth poppers at the core of the Buggies, had a tonic effect on a moribund British music scene. But the jury's still out on whether the duo's ill-fated fling with Chris Squire and his Yes-men has had a tonic effect on Horn and Downes. On the latest Buggies outing. guitarist Horn and keyboardist ownes recapture some of the melancholic frenzy that made "Video Killed The Radio Star" a good buy. But they've also fallen into the Yes trap of writing pretentious, meaningless lyrics to fit the soaring, grandiose harmonics.

The title track, an indictment of the "If it sells, it's great" school of music, is in the best Buggies tradition (Squire, who now performs with Downes in the inexplicably popular band Asia, provides sound effects). "I Am a Camera" is top-level, too. and probably is getting airplay because it first was done by Yes. But tracks like "Beatnik" show a regrettable willingness to follow in the dinosaur tracks of Yes. Not a bad LP.

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