The Malibooz
A Malibu Kind of Christmas/Malibooz Yule
(iloki)

"Santa Drives a Super Stock Dodge," and "Rudy" (the red-neck surf dude) are the kind of songs that will ensure this album's place in the permanent collection of Dr. Demento before you can say, wipe out! Walter (You are the Magnet, I am Steel) Egan and John Zambetti front this band whose holiday tunes sound like Dennis Wilson took one final bad acid trip with Jan and Dean on Christmas break. The bad taste of lyrics like "may your tan never peel, and may a Great White never turn you to stew," will stay in your mouth long after the holiday turkey has been forgotten. This album could have been amusing if the band hadn't taken themselves so seriously.

Appeared in "SF Weekly" December 16, 1992 © Suzanne Rush 2001

Indigo Girls
Rites of Passage
Epic

It would have been an incongruity for the Indigo Girls' brand of relentless introspection to have become popular during the 1980s. Then most of the nation was investing in junk bonds, worshiping the lifestyles of the rich and famous and listening to music which was the aural equivalent of Chicken Mc Nuggets. It wasn't until the end of the decade when the stock market had endured a larger crash than the one in 1929 and Yuppies discovered recycling, that music was again pared down to guitars and vocals in a neo-folk resurgence.

The Indigo Girls rose to the top of this reborn folk scene on the heels of Tracy Chapman and Suzanne Vega with a Grammy award-winning mostly-acoustic album. When they sang "secure yourself to heaven," and "I will not be a pawn for the Prince of Darkness any longer," it struck a chord as the nation finally sent Ronald Reagan packing to 666 St. Cloud Drive.

In their latest offering, "Rites of Passage" Amy Ray and Emily Saliers have moved away from the spare guitars and vocals of their early records. Unlikely producer Peter Collins (of Queensryche and Rush fame) has helped create a more lush and varied sound for the duo. For Ray, whose passionate songs have always been rougher around the edges, this meant adding distortion to the electric guitars and the textural rhythms of Siouxie and the Banshee's drummer, Budgie. For Saliers, the classically trained lead guitarist, it meant adding layers of vocals - all three Roches, David Crosby and Jackson Browne sing back-up - and a string section to her sweeter, more whimsical songs.

Though these native Georgian's both have a penchant for heavy-handed Biblical references, "Rites of Passage" more than ever demonstrates their distinct voices as artists both stylistically and lyrically. Both women sing of love lost, but Ray prefers to cajole and demand attention from her imaginary partner in "Romeo and Juliet," while Saliers, in "Ghost," laments (in shades of Janis Ian), "there's not enough room in the world for my pain."

Politically, Ray's concern with the plight of Native Americans is evidenced by the tribal-sounding "Jonas and Ezekiel." In "Let It Be Me," Saliers puts in a plea for her own version of 100 points of light - "I've seen kingdoms blow like ashes in the winds of change, but the power of the truth is the fuel for the flame."

With "Rites of Passage," the Indigo Girls have taken a necessary musical step forward and managed to do it neither abandoning their folk roots nor the integrity of their self-reflective anti-establishment poetry.

Appeared in "SF Weekly" July 1, 1992 © Suzanne Rush 2001

The Manson Family
John Moran
(Point Music)

Sharon Tate might still be alive if Charles Manson had been able to record an album. Aspiring musician Manson had been trying to use his Hollywood connections with Beach Boy Dennis Wilson and Doris Day's son Terry Melcher to get him a record deal. Though Wilson enjoyed partying with Charlie and his traveling orgy of acquiescent family women, neither he nor Melcher was interested in backing Manson's musical dreams. When Manson began Helter Skelter at Terry's Melcher's former house that August night he didn't know Sharon Tate and her friends would be there. Ironically, the events of that evening would bring Charles Manson more fame than most rock stars ever receive.

If Charlie had recorded his album I wonder how much it would have sounded like John Moran's opera, The Manson Family? The recording is prodigy Moran's fourth opera and his first record. Released by mentor Philip's Glass' Point music label, The Manson Family with its cacophony of voices, sirens, screams and shrill vocals woven into an underlayer of psychedelic Beatles music, seems like it could easily have been the family's nightmarish soundtrack.

This is no easy listenin' album. Songs like "Night Highway #1, #2 and #3" realistically evoke the feeling of being awake on methedrine for a week and developing a violent paranoia. With "Tate House", "Rape Music", "Susan Atkins on the Staircase of Justice" and the final deeply delusional diatribe, "Charles," Moran has made this a relentless journey into a twisted consciousness. Listen for solos by Iggy Pop and Terre Roche (as Squeaky Fromme).

The Manson Family, presented at New York's Lincoln Center in 1990 is probably not going to tour through town like Cats. This record may be your only chance to listen to this frightening aural chronicle of the dark side of the '60s.

Appeared in "SF Weekly" April 22, 1992 © Suzanne Rush 2001

Lunachicks
Binge and Purge
(Safe House)

The set is almost over and the fans jammed into the pit are overheated. Their hair sticks wetly to their faces. Suddenly over the opening bars of their ode to bulimia, Binge and Purge, the Lunachicks announce a special guest. Out onto the stage walks Karen Carpenter.
In her deep, melodious voice she rips into the lyrics:

"Cant' have an inch of fat on my bod
Gotta get on the cheerleading squad
Play try-outs are next week
There's a foxy guy I gotta meet"

Karen rocks like we've never seen her before. In her leather jacket she spits and snarls and screams at the roaring audience. The band pushes the song to its final crescendo and then the stage goes black.

Listening to the Lunachick's new record, I kept fantasizing about all the women who are dead or have irreversible physical damage from eating disorders, who needed to hear songs like Binge and Purge in the '70s and '80s. And though these '90s Riot Grrrls are finally screaming about real female troubles, I can't help but wish that they could actually write a pop hook or carry a tune.

In their abrasive post-punk style, reminiscent of stupid teenage boys (or L7), the 'Chicks at least have stories to tell that are relevant, particularly to young women. Their songs imbued with raucous teen spirit but unfortunately indistinguishable from one another musically, are humorous rants about acne, the hellishness of high school, existential pain, and relationships.

They're at their best in "Plugg," a hard-rocking, sing-along anthem about the pain of getting your period. I couldn't stop singing along to "What a drag, (what a fucking drag), to be on the rag."
Long ago, and oh so far away, there were female singers who sang beautiful pop songs while starving themselves for love. The Lunachicks have too much self-respect to starve, but a few music lessons wouldn't hurt.

Appeared in "SF Weekly" February 16, 1992 © Suzanne Rush 2001

Joan Jett
Notorious

In 1979, after the Runaways broke up, a tired 20-year-old Joan Jett moved into an apartment across the street from the Whiskey A-Go-Go. After four years of touring the world fronting one of the first all-girl rock bands, Joan had nothing much to show for it but a gritty disposition and a lot of experience. So, what was a broke rocker to do, but start a new band?

It was from this Sunset Strip vantage point that she put together the Blackhearts. That Autumn Joan played two sets every Thursday night at the Whiskey. I saw-and will never forget-most of those shows.

Though she was obviously strung out most of the time, Joan had the spirit of a seasoned trouper. One night, while she was singing "Wooly Bully", Joan's knees started to buckle. Just as she was about to go down for the count, the guitarist and bass player stepped up behind her, grabbed her under the elbows and pulled her back up so she could finish the song--which she did.

Joan Jett survived her adolescence, and has just released her seventh Blackheart recording, "Notorious." But don't let the Louise Brooks coif and slinky chain mail outfit on the cover fool you; this is the same gritty Joan you're used to. The only thing different about Notorious is the art direction. But that's okay. There is something comforting about hearing an album for the first time and feeling like you've already heard it.

Co-Produced by Phil Ramone, Notorious supplies all the standard Joan Jett album formula songs. In the spirit of "I Love Rock and Roll, There is the call-and-response ("Yeah," "Oh yeah!") song, "I Want You." There is the anthem, "The Only Good Thing You Ever Said Was Goodbye." There is the remake of a Runaways song--this time "Wait for Me," originally on the "Waitin' for the Night" album. And there is the I-might-be-tough-on-the-outside-but-I'm-really-sensitive-on-the-inside ballad, "Ashes in the Wind."

The record's single, "Backlash", co-written with Paul Westerberg, is a stand out only in its distinctive Replacement's guitar sound. But interspersed with Joan's characteristic growls and moans, this song becomes hard to distinguish from the rest.

All-in-all, with Notorious, Joan Jett has remade the same album she's been making since she was sixteen. She hasn't changed a thing--except her hair. But her brand of rock and roll seems to never go out of style. I have a feeling that one day, like Elvis, a middle-aged Joan Jett is going to be playing lounges in Vegas. I'd go.

Appeared in "SF Weekly" September 4, 1991 © Suzanne Rush 2001

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