====================================================[November 23, 1994]= __ | __ _ _ ___ | || ___ | __ __ (__ | | | \/ | ____) |___ || |___) |__ (__) | | ___) |___| | | | |___| |___) || |____ The Electronic Fanzine for Cool Folks Like You Editor: Scott F. Williams Internet: Scotty.Williams@launchpad.unc.edu Managing Editor: Bob Gajarsky Internet: gajarsky@pilot.njin.net Other Contributors: Jeremy Ashcroft, Martin Bate, Al Crawford, Dan Enright, Tim Kennedy, Reto Koradi, David Landgren, Tim Mohr, P. Nina Ramos, Michelle Richmond, Joe Silva Address all comments, subscription requests, etc. to gajarsky@pilot.njin.net ======================================================================= All articles in Consumable remain (C) copyright their author(s). Permission for re-publication in any form other than within this document must be sought from the managing editor. ======================================================================= .------------. | Contents |-. `------------' | `------------' --- REVIEW: Stone Roses, "Love Spreads" (import single) by Tim Kennedy REVIEW: Soundtrack, _Natural Born Killers_ by Martin Bate REVIEW: _The Coolest Christmas_ by Bob Gajarsky INTERVIEW: Julian Cope by Joe Silva REVIEW: _Stolen Moments: Red Hot and Cool_ by Scott Williams REVIEW: Yello, _Zebra_ by Reto Koradi REVIEW: Spearhead, _Home_ by Martin Bate REVIEW: Dodgy, _The Dodgy Album_ by Tim Kennedy REVIEW: Disco Inferno, _D.I. Go Pop_ by David Landgren ERRATA in 11/15 issue (Mary Ann Farley, Dillon Fence) TOUR DATES: Soup Dragons The Readers Write Back! --- REVIEW: Stone Roses, "Love Spreads" single (Import) "Love Spreads" starts with an utterly evil delta blues guitar which develops into a groove, despite being pretty much based on 12 bar blues. The writing credit is John Squire on his own and the lyrics are, as you'd expect, a bit obscure. The only standout line is something about the messiah being his sister. It's first class, however. I have been listening to tons of blues in the intervening period since the Stone Roses dropped out of sight and it seems the boys share my tastes. The _Physical Graffiti_ / Led Zeppelin rumour is given definite substance. "Your Star Will Shine", the B-side, is a semi-acoustic track, with psychedelic keyboard sounds in the background giving an early Free feel to the track. This partly takes its inspiration from Led Zeppelin in their mellow acoustic moments, such as "That's The Way". This is not to belittle this fine song - it is a slow measured bliss-out with folky romantic lyrics and tape loops in a way which recalls the later Beatles druggier material. The bridge is absolute sublime with Brian Wilson-esque harmonies and is as good as anything the Roses have written. Track three of the CD, "Breakout" is a group-composed instrumental which is fairly laid back. This time, the guitar stays somewhat in the background. This is the kind of thing Primal Scream were attempting on _Give Out, But Don't Give Up_ with "Funky Jam". Someone in the background is hammering out a nice jazzy piano part. It is pleasant and in particular the Hendrixoid guitar noodlings stand out for me. Reni holds it all together with some truly accomplished drumming. In conclusion: like Primal Scream, the Roses have rewritten their dance manifesto to a much heavier remit (not metal). However, the Roses are about ten light years ahead of their indie guitar contemporaries in terms of lyrics, composition and the art of combining unlikely influences. It will be difficult for any band to emulate them this time round, given the excellence of musicianship on display here. They seem to be keeping one eye on the dance floor with "Breakout", but it is nearer jazz than techno. Can't wait for the album. --- REVIEW: Soundtrack _Natural Born Killers_ Natural Born Killers is one of *the* films of recent years. Oliver Stone's direction is breathtaking - piling image upon image (at times literally!) and mixing the violent and the beautiful until the lines become blurred. Given this, you would imagine that Trent Reznor (Mr NIN) is a good choice to handle the music.....but Reznor has been sloppy. The sheer scope of the selections is hard to fault - from 90's 'alternative' and rap through older country, folk, rock and various styles which are now conveniently grouped under the term 'world music', to more traditional soundtrack fare and a few of Reznor's own compositions (the only new one being "Burn", where Reznor appears to be quickly turning into a predictable parody of himself). This is a *very* varied album - which is both one of its strengths - the juxtaposition of styles - and its weaknesses. Most people will find *something* to hate here - for me it is Bob Dylan's nasal balladry. One of the main selling points for the soundtrack is the fact that it samples dialogue extensively from the film to add atmosphere. Thus several tracks, notably L7's "Shitlist" and Reznor's own "Something I Can Never Have" are transformed into something *very* special - in the latter's case, into one of the most tragic and beautiful things I have heard this year. But overall, Reznor fails to capitalize properly on the dialogue. He misses some golden pieces (including almost *all* the best bits from the second half) and mars the atmosphere by using excerpts out of chronological order and including way too much of Robert Downey Jr's supposed satire - the film's one weak link. In addition, one of the films best musical moments - the point where Rage Against the Machine's "Bombtrack" kicks in (you'll know if you've seen it) is omitted. This was a piece just crying out to be included with its surrounding dialogue! To top it all off, over the final few songs all connections to the film seem to peter out totally - ending with Snoop's mates The Dogg Pound, with a slight twist to the g-funk sound, but zero relevance to the film. Although maybe this is just as well given the way Dre's "The Day the Niggaz Took Over" was used. It smacked as being both racist and tokenist given its use in the film (again, if you've seen it. you'll know what I mean) by a white director and musical compiler - and I'm not the most P.C. sensitive of people! Essentially the content is interesting at worst, and breath-taking at best, but there's just far too many niggles to detract from what could and should have been an entity as remarkable as the film itself. --- REVIEW: Various Artists, _The Coolest Christmas (Oglio) With the holiday season fast approaching, many labels are rushing to release Christmas albums. Oglio Records has given music lovers an especially palatable treat for the winter of 1994 with their compilation collection, _The Coolest Christmas_. _Coolest_ covers a wide range of Christmas songs from the 50s to the 90s on the 14 song collection. The standout track is the David Bowie/Bing Crosby duet, "Little Drummer Boy / Peace On Earth", which first appeared in the 1977 special "Bing Crosby's Merrie Olde Christmas" and most recently only appeared with special copies of Bowie's singles collection as a 3" CD single. The artists that are represented cover the musical gamut, from ye olde Irish sound of "Jingle Bells" as sung by the Clancy Brothers, the classics your grandparents grew up with such as "Let It Snow" by Dean Martin and "Auld Lang Syne" by Guy Lombardo, artists of the 1960s (Beach Boys, Roy Orbison, Temptations) through some of today's alternative acts (The Alarm, Cocteau Twins) Even the best selling holiday hit by Elmo and Patsy, "Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer", is included here. This reviewer has no tolerance for the song - but for most people, this song is a must around the holiday time. All in all, Oglio has done another outstanding job with _The Coolest Christmas_ compilation. If it is unavailable at your local store, you may purchase it at the toll free number, 1-800-COOL-CDS. Track listing: David Bowie/Bing Crosby - Little Drummer Boy/Peace On Earth; The Alarm - Happy Christmas (War Is Over); Roy Orbison - Pretty Paper; Clancy Brothers - Jingle Bells (Buala Bas); The Ventures - Sleigh Ride; George Thorogood & The Destroyers - Rock & Roll Christmas; Eartha Kitt - Santa Baby; Brenda Lee - Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree; Beach Boys - Little Saint Nick; Cocteau Twins - Frosty The Snowman; Temptations - Christmas Everyday; Dean Martin - Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!; Elmo & Patsy - Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer; Guy Lombardo - Auld Lang Syne --- Road Tripping: Interview With Julian Cope If there ever was a pop star seemingly earmarked to end up trampling down rock's road to ruin, it was Julian Cope. He did Britain's Top of The Pops bent on acid, his band (The Teardrop Explodes) fell into ruins despite their enormous success in the early eighties largely because he became a "grand asshole," and for a time trifled with the likes of Kurt Cobain's widow, Courtney Love. But somewhere in the midst of one of Britain's psychedelic revivals (there have been at least...oh, somewhere near 42 by now if you've kept pace with the UK music press..), Julian constructed _Peggy Suicide_, a double long player heavily laden with apocalyptic musings and trippy soundscapes that lifted Julian from the pop slag heap. The next thing he knew, he was nabbing four star reviews from Rolling Stone and having rock gods like Zepplin frontman Robert Plant pointing to him when journalists would ask what he thought was "happening" today in music. But in true Cope fashion, Julian diffused his second coming by giving his record company another pricey double lp (_Jehovahkill_) to push that seemed much "weirder" to the suits than _Peggy_ was, and by mid-tour he was dropped. But consequently, _Jehovahkill_ did do well and Julian went along his way unconcerned about where his future in recording lay. "I'm going to be doing these things in twenty years, if there's still a world here, this is what I'll be doing so it doesn't really worry me." he says camped out in the Long Island home of his American mother-in-law. And even if he never does make put another track to tape, Julian is still neck-up in other projects. He's just finished a personal memoir of his early history entitled "Head On" and about a year off from completing a comprehensive traveler's guide of sorts to the hundreds of Stone monuments strewn across the British Isles. Beyond that there's a collection of prose due compiled from his extensive journals and foremost these days is his family. In May of this year Julian's wife Dorian gave birth to their second baby girl, which they've named Avalon. After Dorian had their first child (Albany) by way of modern medicines, the couple decided to put a more natural slant on this delivery. "This time Dorian was very cool about it. We went to a cottage in England where she didn't have the choice of those heavy drugs. So we listened to Tangerine Dream, ate hash cookies, and had gas and air. Which was pretty far out." With his his speech pock marked with dated hippy terminology and his album covers smeared with his neo-pagan attitudes, Julian only narrowly avoids the tag "cheap new age cavalier" which he uses to refer to himself on his latest release, _Autogeddon_. _Autogeddon_ is the third socio-cosmic release from Cope in the last three years. It's the near manic and sonically fragmented saga of Julian behind the wheel "pissed off on the motorways of Britain." The tracks careen between the extremes of brisk toe-tappers and long rambling semi-instumental passages. With Julian's travelling around gathering material for his tour guide, he's witnessed and felt the impact of having ancient territories violated in the name of having a snappier route to the city or the seashore. "You see the differences between a British Autogeddon and an American Autogeddon are very pronounced. With Britain, any large, four lane road that is built fucks up a community which is close to 1,500 years old. In America if you build a highway, it's going to go trash some Indian sacred ground which is fine for white people because the landscape doesn't mean anything to them within the last three or four hundred that they've been here. Which is still powerful, but it isn't the same." But while he rails against commuter culture he also reckons with the inevitability of travel in our times (as put forth in "There Ain't No Getting 'Round Getting 'Round) but insists, at length, that the journey has been spoiled for us. The current availability of fax service to the Wailing Wall, for those who can't get there by traditional means to put up their prayers, is a fitting example. "People have actually broken the link between the pilgramage to and the arrival at." he says. "They've said that isn't important. If you make the road straight, it means that you're no longer looking at the landscape while you're traveling because you're too busy concentrating about staying on the road. Once you do that, your journey deteriorates in importance to the point where the journey is only a means to get there. We spend a lot of time in the West, the North, and the far South of Britain because that's where the Romans didn't get to." The psychology of all this winds it's way on to the album. On "Drivin' On the Fast Side of Slow" Cope paints pictures of himself crawling through the windy back roads of places like Cornwall where the thoroughfares were originally cut out of the land in 2000 B.C. "You get a completely different way of thinking." he explains, illustrating the sensation. "You have to travel between 20 or 30 mph. Once that happens, your sense drops slowly. You go beyond been angry, because you realize you have forty miles of this and it's going to take you three or four hours to get there. If you took a train from New York to Boston you'd spend most of the time in the countryside, thinking in terms of 'This is great virtual reality, I can't wait to get to Boston.' But because there's not enough of it to interest you and there's too much of it to grab your attention, it becomes sort of general outdoorness." It must all seem like psychobabble to some, but to Julian these are the seeds of our cultural indifference and out eventual undoing where people spend so much time bustling through the now just to arrive at next, there is no sense of the future. While U2 spend time hanging with William Gibson and envisioning "virtual nightclubs," Cope's stance is the complete polar opposite. Last year he drummed up a good bit of flak slash cheap publicity for himself by posing for a photo with a t-shirt he made that had a not too flattering quote from Larry Mullen Jr. (U2's stick-man) printed on it. The Irish mega-cyber-band have often by a favorite target for Julian's verbal bashing, but his opinion of them has softened a touch. "I find them less insufferable now. Just because..[their work and image]... is so completely all over the place, they don't know anything. At least before, they were these horrible prigs, slugging for Jesus. But now they're just slugging for themselves so they've been beaten. You know Bono thinks it's great to be ironic and smoke sharoots. So it's like, if that's the point great. It doesn't matter how big he get's now, you know somebody is gonna shoot the bastard someday and that'll be great." he says ending with a chuckle. But U2 fans won't have an opportunity for rebuttal this year as Cope won't be able to tour the country behind _Autogeddon_ as he had hoped. Between the book work and children and setting down the next set of songs, Julian's schedule is completely booked for sometime to come. Next year there should be a companion piece (entitled "Propheteering") to his autobiography which will include 50 poems, all his lyrics and except from the 800 pages worth of journals he's recently had bound up. The next record will include songs that are "...really devotional..." in nature, breaking up the heavy doom factor of the past three albums. As we approach the millenium, which might be the worst psychological trauma a generation may have to endure, Cope sees his role as a touch more theraputic. "I think artists have got to be psychologists." he muses. "I don't think they always have to be and I don't think they always will have to be, but I think now they have to be. I think we are here to help see people through and all I see is a bunch of artists who don't have much of a clue about anything. " Oblivious to the depth of our discussion is Julian's daughter Albany, who can be heard happily playing and singing in the background. "I suppose that, looking back, all I'm trying to do now is prepare people for the twenty first century." --- REVIEW: Various Artists _Stolen Moments: Red Hot + Cool_ (GRP) **** (out of 4) To this date, the Red Hot Organization has sold over 2 million albums, raising over 5 million dollars to fight the AIDS epidemic. _Stolen Moments: Red Hot + Cool_ is the group's latest release and contains 14 songs from some thirty highly regarded artists from the fields of jazz, funk, soul and hip-hop. Responding to the need for increasing awareness among people of color, a segment of the population especially hard hit by the disease, the album's choice of musical styles is particularly appropriate. These art forms emanate from the same cultures to which the benefit album attends, while simultaneously transcending nationality, gender, and generations. At first glance, _Stolen Moments_ appears to be another hip-hop/jazz mix like those offered by Guru, with his landmark Jazzmatazz Vol.I, or by Blue Note superstars, Us3. However, the majority of selections emphasize jazz music's intellectual compositions, going beyond mere backing instrumentation to weave a sensuous blanket of hopeful and energetic themes -precisely the stuff required to fight a disease like HIV. Such is _Stolen Moments_ philosophy; the rapped lyrics telegraph hands-on messages of shared responsibility and the powers of positive thinking to raise awareness in a beleaguered community. _Stolen Moments: Red Hot + Cool_ more than showcases the talent within the vast circle of artists that compose its roster: Guru, Ron Carter, Herbie Hancock, Digable Planets, Us3, Branford Marsalis, and more. From the Pharcyde crew's intelligent humor on "The Rubbers Song" to the magnificently delivered rage/soul in "This is Madness" (The Last Poets with Pharoah Sanders), the album is conceptually right and ideologically sound. Artistically and philosophically, this is the standard for others to follow. --- REVIEW: Yello, _Zebra_ It's been 14 years since Yello released _Solid Pleasure_, and it might well be Switzerland's most important contribution to pop music so far. It was followed by some other excellent albums in their characteristic experimental/electronic sound. During the second half of the 80s, they seemed to lose their creative momentum somewhat, even though some of their weakest tracks like "Oh Yeah" can be heard in virtually every television commercial and movie soundtrack. The last album, _Baby_ from '91, spawned the great single "Rubberbandman", but was found in the sales bins quickly. It's been quiet about them since then, but now Dieter Meier and Boris Blank are back with their new album _Zebra_, with considerable media hype. The first track, "Suite 909", comes as a slight shock to the old-time fan. It's got that dance/techno-beat that we hear all too often in the current charts. Some cool sounds and Dieter Meier's voice lift it above average, but that's not what we expect from a band that used to define the trends a decade ago. There are some other tracks that follow this pattern ("Night Train", the first single "Do It", "Fat Cry"). They seem to target a new, younger audience with these, and they might very well succeed. Fortunately, that's not all they do. The second single "Do It" is a brilliant, short (2:30) song that should enter history as a classic Yello track. Boris Blank has worked hard on his samplers and computers, and opens his huge bag of tricks. There are some songs (especially "I.. I'm In Love" and "Tremendous Pain") that live up to past masterpieces like "Vicious Games", "I Love You" or my all-time favorites, "Lost Again". Great sounds and Dieter Meier's characteristic vocal style make up for experimental, yet catchy pop songs that can get the listener addicted. "S.A.X.", as indicated by the name, features nice saxophone samples and the closing track "Poom Shanka" works up oriental influences, another current trend. All in all this might not be the ultimate album for the desert island. But it's a far shot better than the last few Yello albums, it might get them new friends while making the old ones happy. They deserve another plus point for withstanding the excessive-length-syndrome, the album clocks in at 46 minutes. As usual, everybody has to answer the ultimate consumer question ("to buy or not to buy") for himself. You might be able to live without _Zebra_, but it's well worth the money, and could be one of the best albums you buy this year. --- REVIEW: Spearhead, _Home_ (Capitol) The return of Michael Franti - one half of the core of the Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy - sees a marked change in direction and one that will have many pondering over the term 'sell-out'. In reality though, this is where the Disposables were heading. Several of the songs here were performed by the Disposables for several months prior to the split, with an increasing use of live instruments and warmer grooves. The rub lies in that Franti's new partner, a singer called Mary Harris, provides these songs with what Rono Tse couldn't - a warm soulful female voice in place of a rapping foil and industrial percussion. "So tell me the definition of a sell-out/Cast the first stone but then get the hell out!" is Franti's answer to the accusations before they start. The point being that this is what he *wants* to do at this moment in time and to do anything else would be a compromise. And so, the music here is a glorious melting pot of rap, funk and soul with some jazz and blues for extra flavour - sort of Gil Scott Heron meets Sly and the Family Stone with a whole heap of Michael Franti. His voice is the focal point flowing easily between powerful rap and husky crooning and every point in between. And the lyrics? The lyrics are about *life*. That's *every* aspect of life (or Franti's in particular) from the important stuff like politics, people and love to all the other stuff like sport and food. Franti's comments on the world come through his own eyes rather than the colder third person lecturing of many. He doesn't set out to write a song on the police but gives them a mention when they break up the good time atmosphere at the party he's been telling you about. Things happen naturally and he makes points with more force than a hundred hardcore rappers screaming at the top of their voice do. The first side is absolutely faultless, with a groove and a vibe so warm and real that Spearhead become your friends after only a few listens. The music and lyrics are involved and have enough hooks to keep an individual riff or line going through your head all day. The second side is a little bit of a let-down. The loose live-instrument vibe is brought closer to a more traditional hip-hop backing and a song about basketball and one about food seem a little too throw-away. But then you lock into the groove, get lost in Franti and Harris's voices and realise that the songs aren't throw-away, they're just FUN! And anyway, there's a bit more going on in there than you first thought there was. This has been a great year for albums so far, and this is another one to live your life to. --- REVIEW: Dodgy, _The Dodgy Album_ (A & M, U.K.) Every now and then, a band emerges to bear comparison with the glory that was the Beatles. Inevitably they just don't match up. How can any group take inspiration from that great songwriting partnership and manage to emerge from their colossal shadow? Maybe Elvis Costello in the early stages of his career...but this review isn't about him. One such group is Dodgy. Their total lack of image and absurd approach to cover art have meant they are immediately at a disadvantage with many of the deadly-earnest music journals of the English scene. However, they garnered some grudging respect for their melodic guitar and strong tunes Ironically, their appetite for 'partying' has a higher profile than their product amongst the press. A recent piece on the Stone Roses progress in Britain's New Musical Express (NME) interviewed Dodgy members who had been working alongside them at a Monmouth, Wales recording studio and their relationship with the demon weed is much documented. This is a bit of diversion because they should be famed for being, in the opinion of this writer, the finest songsmiths of our times. With their new album _Homegrown_ just released I thought to introduce them to a wider audience and review their first mighty album. They have managed to gather a moderate, fanatical following by word of mouth. The first album, _The Dodgy Album_ (1992) is a classic which like many of the best groups around now draws its influence from the sixties and early seventies. The opening track "Water Under The Bridge" recalls the Who's "I Can See For Miles" especially in its chorus but certainly its headlong adrenalin rush. The sense of space in their songs is strong and none of their songs go on too long. Like The Jam on _All Mod Cons_ in tracks such as "In The Crowd", they are able to make an extended playout of a track interesting in itself. "I Need Another" is a slower number with trippy lyrics and like the opener it contains echoes of Beatles circa 1965-66, in songs like "Ticket To Ride". "Lovebirds" is a simply a superb slab of fast sixties guitar pop. I particularly love the guitar wig-out towards the end of this one. "Stand By Yourself" is another song in this vein. "Satisfied" recalls latter-day Squeeze with a soulful blast of horns and a strings flourish thrown in for good measure. It is followed by a coda which bears closer comparison to psychedelia such as Primal Scream's "Screamadelica". The hissing seas of synths convey a kind of claustrophobic mantra. "Grand Old Oak Tree" contains some excellent puns "You take the p out of my pride now I'm being taken for a ride". The melody reminds me of something Primal Scream might have written in their first album, medium paced, with a nice stately ending. The lyric seems to refer to betrayal by a lover. "As My Time Goes By" begins in Happy Mondays style but the chorus has trippy echoes of the Beatles' "Dear Prudence". The lyric is clearly referring to altered states of some kind. The middle-eight puts one in mind of the Seeds with the swirly guitar solo and hammond organ. There is another side to this band, and the latter part of the album contains some of the most atmospheric gloom heard on a record in recent years. "Never Again" conveys the deflated state and emotional vacuum of an ended relationship. A stark and echoing minor chord conveys the despair and the lyrics are equally comfortless: "everything new seems so outdated to me". The guitar soloing is stark in the production and brings the misery home. "Cold Tea" comes in the same vein although the more upbeat theme implies some coming to terms with the loss "there's nothing worse than cold tea". The tune is medium paced and reminds me of the Who's 1970 _Who's Next_ album. "We're Not Going To Take This Anymore" is the closing track and it is a triumphal medium-paced number which starts like Robert Plant's "In The Mood". The chorus is more like something Mott The Hoople might have written in their pomp heyday. The vocal, as throughout the album, recalls John Lennon at his drawling lazy best. A most impressive aspect of this group is their impeccable musicianship. The playing in all departments is first class. This group are supremely confident in their abilities and it shows. To bring this nearer to date the current single is "Melodies Haunt You" on A&M Records (in the UK). The title track is a folk-rock effort with horns, sounding very like the Kinks circa the Village Green Preservation Society, crossed with Small Faces circa Lazy Sunday. The involvement of Paul (Stone Roses album) Schroeder and Ian Broudie of the Lightning Seeds reinforces their northern guitar pop credentials. The other tracks are "The Snake" -fast, horns-embellished, an odd lyric which appears to have a sexual metaphor hidden in there, it reminds me of the Wonder Stuff's later material; "Don't Go" is a dancey melodic number but closer to their previous work, paced similar to, say, Happy Mondays; "Summer Fayre" is my favorite from the single, a psychedelic number featuring booming bass and swooping synth. It only remains to say that the sleeve and disk design is exceptionally silly. In these days of overproduced mediocrities and newcomers being raised far too early to critical acclaim, here is a group who have developed at their own pace and with pride in their craft and a smile on their faces they are emerging head and shoulders above the herd. Tight but loose. Next issue: A review of their new album, _Homegrown_ --- REVIEW: Disco Inferno, _D.I. Go Pop_, (Bar None / Rough Trade) The first question you ask yourself is "What does a Disco Inferno sound like?" And the second, "What does it sound like now that it has gone pop"? The short answer, to both, is, amazing. The sound is experimental and rough, consisting mainly of swooping bass, screeching samples held in tight loops and spoken word. The guitar and samplers fight to impose their ascendancy over the other, resulting in a corrosive and enthralling sound. It's difficult to find another band remotely like Disco Inferno, I would say that this band is the aural equivalent of a Nam June Paik video artwork. You know Paik - the man who stuck aquariums in TVs, built up wall-to-wall towers of TV and led the way in the use of computer-generated imagery, played back on monitors, as art. Anyhow, this is Disco Inferno's second album; their first, _Open Doors, Closed Windows_, was a low-key introspective piece which was well received by the critics. The first track,"In Sharky Water", is pushed along by a watery- sounding sample, a bassline that comes out of The Cure's _Faith_ era, and a driving, strummed guitar a la Joy Division with a really weird rhythmic drumbeat which is guaranteed to catch your attention. Interestingly enough, this is the only track that features any conventional percussion. The next three songs, "New Clothes For The New World", "Starbound" and "A Crash At Every Speed" continue the exploration of this post-drumkit world they live in. A rich, frenetic wall of samples provide the rhythm and melody, and the bass trails behind, which, rather than trying to play catch up, rumbles along on its own course. Proof that there is order in chaos. "Even The Sea Sides Against Us" is the pivot around which the album revolves. The frantic pace eases up, the tone become desolate and melancholic. On "Next Year", for the first time, it is the bass guitar that provides the framework and the samples fall naturally into place. It keeps getting better. "A Whole Wide World Ahead" is simply brilliant, a track that sums up effortlessly what the band are setting out to prove. The album closes, all too quickly, some 28 minutes later, with "Footprints In The Snow"; an ebbing, doleful piano. This is altogether a brilliantly executed album, a lonely outpost on the darker reaches of rock'n'roll. Once again, this shows just how innovative the English can be when in comes to rock music. This deserves to be in the collection of anyone who prides themself on owning a diverse and well-rounded range of music. I give it an eight out of ten. --- ERRATA: In the 11/15 issue of Consumable Online, the address to purchase Mary Ann Farley's cassette, _First Few Words_, was omitted. This address is: P.O. Box 6053, Hoboken, NJ 07030. Her version of "I Heard It Through The Grapevine" can be heard by dialing 212-802-8496. Dillon Fence's most recent album, on Mammoth/Atlantic Records, is titled _Living Room Scene_. The North Carolina based band is also on tour in support of the release. We apologize for any inconvenience. --- Here are upcoming tour dates for the Soup Dragons: Dec. 3, Detroit, Majestic Theater Dec. 4, Cleveland, Peabody's Dec. 6, Buffalo, The Marquee Dec. 7, Boston, The Paradise Dec. 8, Boston, The Paradise Dec. 9, Providence, Babyhead Dec. 10, New York City, Irving Plaza Dec. 14, Hartford, The Sting Dec. 15, Baltimore, U. of Maryland --- THE READERS WRITE BACK! (About the Carpenters) Everyone knows about the "authorized" TV-movie about Karen Carpenter, where her anorexia is treated as one of those bolts from a clear blue sky - "when bad things happen to good people" - basically, the whole issue is swept under the rug. Let me point out that there's another version of her story out, a low-budget indie film, whose name escapes me. Characters are portrayed using Barbie dolls, so it's imaginative and low-budget. The film argues that society generates enormous pressures on women to stay thin, and that Karen Carpenter was one of those who could not handle it. Amusing (?) aspect of the film: to show Karen losing weight, the Barbie doll representing her is progressively mutilated, as she progressively mutilated herself. - F.B., Finland --- How could Martin Bate POSSIBLY think, after writing that review of Nirvana Unplugged, that Kurt was at his best with the "noisy stuff?" Is Martin a schizophrenic? He spends the rest of his review lauding the more acoustic stuff "letting the Beatles influence shine through" and "sounding like a frustrated angel." Why do people feel like they HAVE to be hard-asses all the time and say they like the "tougher" music? Are they afraid of seeming wimpy? - S.C., San Francisco --- (In the Melvins interview), It's Stoner Witch! Stoner Witch! Not Stoner Rich! - Lori S. --- Back issues of Consumable Online are available via anonymous FTP from quartz.rutgers.edu in the directory /pub/journals/Consumable ===