June 29, 1979 Gusto record review: Making a move with Jethro T. Megahertz

 

Sometimes my imaginary friends pop up in real life. In the case, real life was moving me from my carefree bachelor pad, an attic apartment high above Auburn Avenue, into a well-grounded first-floor flat eight blocks away at Richmond.

June 29, 1979 

Jethro T. Megahertz lends a hand

“You know something, Anderson,” the mellifluous school-of-broadcasting voice intoned from the driveway. “I never thought I’d see the day when you abandoned this overcrowded garret you call home. I really can’t believe you’re moving. After 11 years stuck in one spot, I figured that chronic inertia would be your fate. You want a hand with some of those boxes?”

         It was Jethro T. Megahertz, the legendary media wizard, and for a change I was glad to set eyes on him – cowboy boots, black beard and all.

         “I could use a hand, all right,” I conceded. “When I moved in here in 1968, I had about 1,000 albums and that was bad enough. Now there’s so many I can’t even count them any more. I just measure them by the foot. How about helping me get rid of about 10 feet of these things?”

         “Only too happy to oblige,” Megahertz purred. “How about starting with the collected works of Barry Manilow? You don’t still need them, do you?”

         “Hold it, not Manilow,” I protested. “He’s one of the major symbols of the late ‘70s. What I had in mind was just disposing of all the rubbish that’s come out in the last six months. The first half of 1979 has been pretty wretched, so I figured the best thing to do is dump them all.”

         “Don’t be rash with the trash, my friend,” Megahertz cautioned. “I can see this upheaval is already going to your pointed head. Just sit back and let an expert separate the classics from the chaff, OK? Let’s face it, if it wasn’t for me, you’d be letting go of the new Cars album, ‘Candy-O’ on Elektra. You should keep it just for the Vargas girl on the cover, but the music is another good reason to have it around.”

         “Except for the Vargas girl on the cover, you’d think it was the first album all over again,” I retorted. “The only difference between this year’s Cars and last year's Cars is a little bit of frillwork. More Farfisa organ and stuff like that.”

         “Let’s not sell them short,” Megahertz contended. “This is a record that grows very slowly on you. The first song that struck me was ‘Double Life.’ You know the one – it goes: ‘It takes a fast car lady to lead a double life …” And then there’s ‘Lust for Kicks,’ which is a good a description of trendy, empty-headed romance as you’re going to hear all year.”

         “All right, let’s keep it,” I sighed. “I suppose the next thing you’re going to tell me to keep is Paul McCartney and Wings’ ‘Back to the Egg.’”

         “Why not?” Megahertz snorted. “It’s McCartney’s first effort for his new label – Columbia – and it’s a lot more sparkling than ‘London Town,’ that’s for sure. A lot less depressing, too. McCartney may well be the one Beatle who won’t become a middle-aged gentleman hobbyist. He’s concocted a nice batch of potent rockers and pretty ballads here and one of them’s sure to be a hit single. ‘Old Siam, Sir’ is lots of fun. And how about his Rockestra with Pete Townshend, John Bonham, John Paul Jones and Gary Brooker? All that’s missing on this record is ‘Goodnight, Tonight.’”

         “I’ve got that as a 12-inch disco single,” I put in.

         “Hold onto it,” Megahertz advised. “Speaking of singles, hold onto The Jumpers’ single too, ‘Sick Girls’ and ‘This Is It’ on Play It Again Sam’s PIAS label. For a local do-it-yourself item, it’s almost professional quality on the ‘Sick Girls’ side and it sounds surprisingly good on the radio. This isn’t quite the super single everyone was expecting – production’s muddy on the flip side – but it’s on the right track. I hear this might be the one that lands them a record contract.”

         “That would be great,” I concurred. “OK, keep that one too. But isn’t there something I can leave behind?”

         “Right here, good buddy,” Megahertz grinned. “Good old Carole King and her latest, ‘Touch the Sky’ on Capitol. This is essentially mellowed-out muzak for her middle-of-the-road constituency – one California platitude after another. She’s about as exciting as yesterday’s granola. She should take a hint from her daughter.”

         “Her daughter?”

         “You bet,” Megahertz continued. “Her name’s Louise Goffen and she’s old enough to write songs and make albums of her own now. Interesting that her first is not on mom’s record label. ‘Kid Blue,’ it’s called, and it’s on Asylum. Goffin’s a bit of a bad girl. I really dig on her rebelliousness. Check out ‘Jimmy and the Tough Kids,’ where she goes: ‘I’d rather be a misfit/ Than follow the rules.’ And then there’s great stuff like ‘Angel’s Ain’t for Keeping’ and her remake of ‘Remember (Walking in the Sand).’ You can’t let this one go.”

         “You win, Megahertz,” I groaned. “Pack her up.”

         “Great,” he chuckled. “Now here’s one you can live without. Carly Simon’s ‘Spy’ on Elektra. Once she gets past the ‘Vengeance’ single, she comes on like Rickie Lee Jones. Kind of looks like her too. And what do you make of that jazzy drum solo at the end? As far as I’m concerned, Simon wears jazz like some people wear designer scarves. What you should pick up on is Maria Muldaur’s comeback album, ‘Open Your Eyes’ on Warner Bros. She’s got a high-octane mixture of oldies like ‘Lover Man’ and recent soul hits like ‘Clean Up Woman.’

         “And speaking of comebacks, here’s a good one for you – singer-songwriter John Stewart’s ‘Bombs Away, Dream Babies’ on RSO. This old Kingston Trio veteran’s gotten a new lease on life from Fleetwood Mac’s Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks on ‘Gold.’ It’s probably the best album to tide you over till the next Fleetwood Mac. My only complaint is that they can’t seem to figure out a consistent style for Stewart. He shouldn’t come out sounding like so many different people.”

         “Here’s one I’ve got to keep because I can’t stop playing it,” I interrupted. “It’s Nick Lowe’s new one, ‘Labour of Lust’ on Columbia. It’s not as tongue-in-cheek as last year’s ‘Pure Pop for Now People,’ but Lowe’s come up with his greatest pop-tune hook here and he uses it for all it’s worth. Frankly, I don’t think I can live without hearing ‘Cruel to Be Kind’ at least once a day for the next month or so.”

         “Yeah, and sometimes you’ve just got to be cruel, period,” Megahertz mused. “I feel that way about the Night album on Planet. Sounds like a bad sequel to the ‘FM’ movie. If these turkeys get a hit of Walter Egan’s ‘Hot Summer Nights,’ they should spend the next year groveling in front of Egan’s sneakers to express their eternal thanks.”

         “In spite of that, they’re not as bad as Abba’s ‘Voulez-Vous’ on Atlantic,” I countered. “If there’s a disappointment of the year, this is it. First we got Abba The Album, then Abba The Film and Abba The Tour. Now we’ve got Abba The Flop. Nothing like a few divorces to leave a group cranky and strung out.”

         “And now,” Megahertz harrumphed, “a couple of chips off the old Rolling Stones. Mick Taylor’s solo outing on Columbia is quite the introspective item, isn’t it? Charming, curious, but not particularly earth-shaking. There’s much more fun to be had with Ron Wood’s ‘Gimme Some Neck,’ also on Columbia, despite the monotonous raunch of the vocals and the general feeling that they recorded all these rude, anti-female numbers in some men’s locker room.”

         “It’s no worse,” I asserted, “than the first disco record on Vanguard. I’m going to save Poussez for an honored spot in my Wretched Disco Excess Hall of Fame, even though I don’t dare play it for anybody but consenting adults. This steamy opus is the work of pop-jazzman Alphonse Mouzon and the most remarkable thing about it is Linda Le Desma’s moaning.”

         “You’re better off with instrumental music,” Megahertz suggested. “Vangelis’ ‘China’ on Polydor is background record of the month, an electronic trip to the Orient. Spacier yet is Yellow Magic Orchestra on A&M Horizon – electronic music by a Japanese ensemble, beginning with a piece based on a Pong game. This could be Tokyo’s revenge for Kraftwerk.        

         “And let’s face it,” Megahertz exhaled, “you don’t want to give away your chance of a lifetime to savor two of this summer’s hottest up-and-coming new bands, do you? Of course not. Britisher Bram Tchaikovsky’s ‘Strange Man, Changed Man’ on Radar-Polydor is that smooth kind of Walter Egan pop and side two is full of the stuff hits are made of, especially ‘Girl of My Dreams’ with Mike Oldfield backing him on tubular bells.

         “Meanwhile,” he added, “there’s The Knack. They’re a Hollywood pop band with punk overtones and they’re getting an incredible push from Capitol Records. Goes to show you what kind of credibility producer Mike Chapman has since he did Blondie’s ‘Heart of Glass.’ ‘My Sharona’ is The Knack’s single, but the single doesn’t give you enough of them. You need the album for the best stuff, namely ‘Good Girls Don’t’ and ‘Oh Tara.’ So there you are, Anderson. I’ve saved you from doing something I know you’d regret in later life. Just don’t look at me when you’re trying to move all this plastic down those three flights of stairs. I’ve got to go see my doctor. I’ve got this funny little pain in my back.”

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IN THE PHOTO: The Knack in a 1979 publicity photo.

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FOOTNOTE: Forty-five years and another house later, how many of these would I still keep? "Candy-O" and Nick Lowe, for sure. The Jumpers because they're so, so Buffalo and McCartney because he's McCartney. Except for "Getting Closer," you hardly ever hear songs from this album on Sirius XM's Beatles Channel. "Old Siam, Sir" sounds like a Knack knock-off. And sure, I'd keep The Knack, just to hear them do something that isn't "My Sharona."

Guess I'd also hang onto "Voulez-Vous" too. Five hit singles, among them "Chiquitita." It wasn't a flop, more like fluff, and I have more tolerance for Abba since the "Mamma Mia" movies. I'd want Vangelis also. Sold poorly, but actually ahead of its time. Yellow Magic Orchestra? Magic indeed. That computer game single was an R&B hit. Afrika Bambaataa sampled it for his debut album.

As everybody knows, I'm reluctant to let anything go, but it could be three whiffs and yer out for Carole King, Maria Muldaur and Carly Simon, but I'd keep Louise Goffin in the lineup. Same with John Stewart of Kingston Trio fame. Three hit singles. "Gold" got to No. 5.

OK then, I'd let Poussez go and the band called Night and probably Bram Tchaikovsky, although I liked him in The Motors. And the solo outings by the Stones sidemen? Wait a minute, those aren't tossers, they're classic curiosities. This is why all that stuff up in the attic isn't just a collection. It's an archive.