Capsule reviews of John McLaughlin, Tom Petty and David Johansen from 1978

 (Anyone familiar with the style of the well known rock critics of the 6os and 70s will without exception realize I was imitating the style of the Village Voice's Robert Christgau, who was and remains an argument-starter I admire. That said, forgive the obvious indebtedness).

Johnny McLaughlin, Electric Guitarist - John McLaughlin (Columbia)

After three interesting albums with all acoustic and raga-oriented Shakti, guitarist McLaughlin plugs in again and re-teams himself with several stellar musicians he used to share band duties with. Accordingly, there are a variety of jazz styles on this disc, and McLaughlin proves himself comfortable in all of them. The highlight track here is "Do You Hear the Voices You Left Behind", a post-bop chase in the mold of John Coltrane's classic "Giant Steps" composition. McLaughlin skillfully negotiates a complex chord progression and solos with a surprising spiritedness. Chick Corea (piano), Stanley Clarke (bass) and Jack DeJohnette (drums) live up to their reputations, each maintaining a pulsating rhythm and offering their own inspired sorties. "New York on My Mind" is an unexpected change of pace for McLaughlin, being a Gershwin-like melody with brilliant blues shadings. The solos, from McLaughlin, violinist Jerry Goodman, and keyboardist Stu Goldberg, are cleverly restrained and subtle, complementing the moodiness. Another departure is "Every Tear from Every Eye", a dreamy composition with an ethereal tinge in which McLaughlin offers an angular, introspective solo, and which features pop-jazz saxophonist David Sanborne playing in a more cerebral context than his fans are used to. Though not the best effort he's ever made, Johnny McLaughlin none the less shows that the guitarist is more than the Speed King Honcho of the frets. This disc is a refreshing change of pace from someone who many had dismissed as having fallen in an irrevocable rut. B plus.

You're Gonna Get It -Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

This time out, Petty, and crew sound a bit less journeyman-like in their mild manner brand of rock and roll. Petty's voice, a limited vehicle for self-expression, is more soul-oriented this time out (though not soulful), and the band, especially in the guitar work, is crunchier, dirtier, and a little more committed to mainstream rock and rollisms. In time. Petty and the Heartbreakers may become, as San Diego based writer Mikel Toombs alluded to in his concert critique, a sturdy Rolling Stones type band. They have sound and song writing talent. All they need is a little more hysteria and bad luck. B.

 

David Johanson - David Johanson.

Johanson, the former lead singer for the well-loved New York Dolls, has become another over-stylized non-entity who is salvaging what's left of his "punk" reputation into an a priori mélange of typical street posturing, none of it very interesting at this point. Johanson's voice, which sounded good with the Dolls because he was buried in the mix, is an uninteresting bellow, and having it upfront on this album, booming like cannon fire and not much else, only accentuates the problem. The band. as well, are contrived study in slick sloppiness, deliberating themselves through the material like over conscious artistes calculating the effect of some mechanical vulgarity. In general, David Johanson rolls plenty. but it hardly rocks worth a bean’s worth of flatulence.

DAVID JOHANSEN OF THE NEW YORK DOLLS, RIP

 
Gone is David Johansen, lead singer, AGE 75 for the groundbreaking New York Dolls and an odd musical chameleon when that band broke up. The Dolls interested me as a Detroiter who grew up with the MC5 and The Stooges playing local venues and getting songs played on area FM radio stations.

Those proto punk rockers, on whose shoulders I believe an entire generation of punk bands that follow stand, were rough, splintery, ill-mannered, simplistic, fast, purposefully sloppy, the dumb side of real life that the Velvet Underground never explored (to paraphrase R. Christgau). The New York Dolls, to my ears, were the first to pick up on what the MC5 were doing and made teenage outrage-your-parents music that was similarly chaotic and crashing, hoarsely bellowed vocals over careening guitars and a rhythm section that couldn't decide how fast to play or when to start or end a measure.

I saw the band at the now defunct JJ's on Pacific Highway and found myself enjoying their speed freak-junkie jitters show, and especially liked Johansen, who threw himself all over the venue's cramped stage, sometimes looking like a rag doll caught in the jaws of a crazed hound. I did, though, name the band as one of the worst shows I'd seen in a Reader year-end round up, a hurried listing I still regret. But they were great, a perfect demonstration of everything prudes, priests, and parents thought was wrong with American youth. And it's not the lyrics were in any sense reflective or revealing why teens were angry, confused, mixed up, inflamed by competing emotions and impulses; their music and their appearance shocked scribes, moralists, and meatheads all around, and the New York Dolls gave them no solace , no relief. Comprehension, coherence, manners or maturity as one got older were not the virtues the Dolls sought. Instead, they wallowed in their addled comprehension of world, they were in your face, they didn't give a flat f-bomb what you thought. You dug them or you walked away from them, grumbling under their breath. They were a high-ocatane wallow , in the moment, finding joy in the sensations that adrenaline provided.

Maybe they were Kerouacian in their own way, searching for new experiences, new kicks? Night likely, though one might look forward to someone writing a long treatise on Johansen and the New York Dolls. But be warned if such a squib appears in a bookstore window claiming to explain it all to you. For their Dolls, there was no transcendence. it was all RIGHT NOW, forever, until gravity and human fraility decided otherwise. They were gleeful in their general fucked-upedness and flaunted it merrily. They understood the founding principle of what became punk rock no less than the MC5 or the Stooges or the Who before them, to not have a good time flouncing about to a horrible racket and enjoying the old world as it squirmed in a pool of its own nervous sweat. RIP