eBay

Excellent condition or better.

Miami Steve's Solo Gem

Jimmy Page, Pretenders, ABC

Joan Jett, Blasters

----------- 3 -----------

December 1982

The Who:

A Last

Stand

By Jonathan Gross

LARGO, Md.-The right hand

windmills ferociously. Blood runs

between his middle and index fin-

ger. Each successive leap grows

wilder, rising towards a personal

best. Suddenly, the song is over as

quickly as it had begun.

"We know how to finish," quips

a wounded but clearly purged Pete

Townshend. "It's starting we have

difficulty with."

Rousing applause ushers Town-

shend and the rest of the Who off

stage at the Capital Centre. Though

just a soundcheck, mostly to benefit

cameras shooting for corporate

sponsor Schlitz (about $1 million

worth of sponsorship), the boys had

grabbed a little preliminary gusto.

No substitutes this time, the Who

served warning they were going to

be the real thing on "The Long

Good-Bye," as they've dubbed their

farewell tour of North America.

As it stood on opening night Sep-

tember 22, the final campaign

would include about 40 dates, basi-

cally tracing the steps, less ten or

Continued on page 12

Pretenders

Regrouping?

LOS ANGELES-If all goes well,

the re-constituted Pretenders will

begin recording a new album with

producer Chris Thomas in Decem-

ber. Between now and then,

though, Chrissie Hynde and drum-

mer Martin Chambers must find

permanent replacements for the late

guitarist James Honeyman-Scott

----------- 2 -----------

By David Gans

OAKLAND, Ca.-Australians are

different from Americans. For one

thing, they drink beer-mass quan-

tities of beer-out of motor oil-

sized cans. For another, the water

in their toilets swirls counterclock-

wise when flushed, as opposed to

the charming clockwise swirl we're

so fond of in the northern hemi-

sphere.

Australians do share Americans'

fondness for rock music, but the

bands in Oz (as the Aussies call

their country) by and large have a

different mind set when it comes to

competing for listeners. Seems they

like to be original and unique. "The

thing that Australian bands have

got is a fair helping of character,"

notes Greg Ham of the Oz-based

Men At Work. "In America you

get a sense of faceless bands, tour-

ing megaliths like Journey and

Toto. I have trouble telling their

music apart."

That's the closest thing to a nasty

remark Ham has to make in the

course of a 90-minute interview,

and he immediately mitigates it by

adding, "Part of that is because I

just don't listen to their music very

much." Ham doesn't have to pound

merits of Men

----------- 4 -----------

Contents

The Return of Jimmy Page

By Chris Welch..

IN THIS MONTH'S London Calling, correspondent Chris Welch reveals that

Jimmy Page is making plans to tour the U.S. and Japan in the coming New Year.

This information came to light during Page's arraignment in a London court on

charges of cocaine possession.

Jefferson Starship: Aloft Again

By David Gans. .

THE BAND HAS more lives than a cat, you might say, as the Jefferson Starship gets ready for

another new era. In this month's RECORD interview, Paul Kantner and Grace Slick ponder

the whys and wherefores of one of rock's longest-running sagas.

O: KATE SIMON

On Stage: James Brown/Wilson Pickett

By Vince Aletti

WORRIED THAT "THE very definition of soul himself and the wicked one had become

artifacts, our writer witnesses instead "a celebration of endurance and endless, stubborn hope."

18 American Grandstand

London Calling.

Sound Signatures.

Classifieds

Records

E STREET BAND guitarist Miami Steve Van Zandt comes up with a small

gem of a solo album. Luther Vandross, on the other hand, appears to be tread-

ing water (though gracefully) on his second outing, while Sweet Pea Atkinson's

debut effectively unleashes his astounding voice. Also reviewed: Billy Joel, Pe-

ter Gabriel, Dire Straits, the Chess reissue series, R.E.M., Ricky Skaggs and others.

14-17

----------- 5 -----------

NEW YORK-Like many people

who take life very seriously, Martin

Fry has a good sense of humor. Sit-

ting at a round table in the confer-

ence room outside the office of

Polygram Records president

Guenter Hensler, the ABC lead

singer (who records for Polygram

subsidiary Mercury) chuckles, low-

ers his voice and refers to himself as

an "agent provocateur."

Whatever plot Fry and ABC

have to conquer the universe-or at

least the music business-is defi-

nitely of interest to Mr. Hensler.

Without so much as singing a note

in America, Fry and company have

made themselves quite a reputation.

Rising from the ashes of a little-

known Sheffield, England funk-

rock group called Vice Versa, the

group which also includes Mark

White (guitar and keyboards), Ste-

phen Singleton (alto and tenor sax),

and David Palmer (drums)-scored

three top ten U.K. singles during

the past year: "Tears Are Not

Enough," "Poison Arrow," and

"The Look of Love" are the stan-

dard-bearers of the funk trend

which has ruled British pop in

1982. Fry, an ironic, mischievous

oleam in his eye, has been peering

British

----------- 7 -----------

Steel Breeze:

No Plans For

Alumni Meet

NEW YORK-You can imagine

the saga of Steel Breeze as the sixth

book of Moses. It would read,

"And soft rock begat choral music

gat heavy metal begat blues begat

the Pat Benatar' sound begat disco

begat mainstream pop." Drummers

begat drummers, lead vocalists be-

gat lead vocalists, until the coming

of a debut album entitled Steel

Breeze in late 1982.

Keyboardist Rod Toner and

songwriter/guitarist Ken Goora-

bian, the founding fathers of Steel

Breeze, note that since the band's

birth seven years ago, 31 different

musicians have passed through its

ranks-seven drummers, a half-

dozen singers, bassists and guitar-

ists. Add four full-time crew

members, a few jugglers and clowns

and you've got the rock 'n' roll ver-

sion of the seed of Abraham.

Toner notes that before the band

began its first LP, it had already

survived at least seven musical

"eras," playing four sets a night, six

nights a week in Sacramento, Cali-

----------- 7 -----------

By Wayne King

NEW YORK-Onstage or off, Phil

Alvin usually has his mouth wide

open. When working, he's belting

out raw rock 'n' roll as the lead

singer for the Blasters; right now,

he's munching on a sandwich and,

at the same time, offering a weighty

discourse on the true nature of his

profession. "There's musicians, and

there's producers," he asserts.

"Musicians, by our definition, con-

trol the way the air moves with an

instrument. They control that

thing: the drummer's head is two

feet away from his drum and he

hears the air move . . ."

There's more, lots more, but the

man's relentless theorizing about

sound and space-all centered on

something called the "complex

wave"-is baffling. Such convolut-

ed analysis is the last thing one ex-

pects to hear from a band noted for

its simple, basic, roots rock 'n' roll.

But on second thought, it all makes

perfect sense. The Blasters, you see,

play American Music (as their only

studio disc is dubbed), and take

their work as seriously as that title

and Phil Alvin's lecture suggest.

What the Blasters (Phil Alvin on

vocals and guitar, Dave Alvin on

D:11

----------- 9 -----------

NEW YORK-Stiv Bators is on the

stage of New York's Peppermint

Lounge, stretching a piece of bub-

blegum from the mike stand back to

the drum kit and looking much the

same as he did in 1977, when

CBGB's was the home of his Dead

Boys, and such buffoonery was de

rigeur. There's one crucial, disturb-

ing difference in the pioneering

Cleveland punk's appearance this

time, however: the presence of a

cast on his right arm. That wrap-

ping hides an injury which hurts his

new band, The Lords of the New

Church, as much as it hurts him.

Explains bassist Dave Tregunna:

"Stiv banged his arm at a gig in

Poughkeepsie. He had knocked it

around onstage with the Dead

Boys, and it used to swell up, but

this time it turned almost black.

He's got to have it worked on or

they said he might lose the use of

it." This disability has cut short the

Lords's first US tour by two weeks,

effectively killing some of the mo-

mentum of their debut LP.

Such a setback is disheartening to

a band that took so long to unite in

the first place. Bators and guitarist

Brian James formed a mutual admi-

ration society during the latter's

first Stateside visit five years ago

----------- 9 -----------

NEW YORK-Out of the euphoric

haze that was their last tour, The

Time's Morris Day recalls one par-

ticular party-a New Year's Eve

post-concert extravaganza in Ma-

con, Georgia.

"We were sitting around singing

'Auld Lang Syne' and forgetting

most of the words," says the 20-

year-old freckle-faced lead vocalist

and conceptualizer. "Suddenly I

looked up and there were just mobs

of people streaming through the

door. There were people and potato

chips all over the floor. It was the

most amazing event of my life."

Hosts for the evening were The

Time, a group of musicians living

on the razor's edge between gaiety

and statutory rape (fitting enough,

it seems, for a Prince discovery). It

was not a good night for Macon

fathers.

Nearly a year later, The Time

have captured the true spirit of

New Year's Eve in Macon on their

second LP, What Time Is It? "Wild

and Loose," for example, features

an extended rap on the subject of

divving un grounies. Day says it

----------- 10 -----------

Bus Boys

LOS ANGELES-The

believe in rock 'n' roll, and they've

also learned a great lesson of his-

tory: that to rock without a sense of

humor is impossible. Yet on their

second album, American Worker,

the quintet's retreated a bit from

the novelty act pose they assumed

on their debut in favor of a more

straightforward, purely musical ap-

----------- 11 -----------

NEW YORK-So what can you say

about a band from San Francisco

that creates music brimming with

idealism and eclecticism and whose

principal songwriter wants their

record to escort listeners "on a little

trip"? That maybe they're about fif-

teen years too late? Well, that's not

the case with Translator, a quartet

aspiring to universal appeal with a

thoroughly modern approach.

Tran