'Flash Gordon Was There In Silver Underwear'

In Rolling Stone's History of R&R--top of my list to Santa this year--there's a story about the preacher who went out and burnt $2000 worth of records aided by obnoxious little troglodytes from his youth group. Those vinyl grooves promoted lasciviousness and good stuff like that--and so he saw to it that they died, melting together in passionate flames only cooler than the brimstone their seducees have in store for them. But if you're one who prepared to risk a perpetual sauna with no snow to roll sinfully and Scandinavianly in afterwards, you'll want to know what new flavor discs you can buy for the person's who sampled just about every other edible popcorn plate on the market.

Have you ever felt the cobwebs of your soul tingle the way Hunter Thompson's Samoan attorney's did when that great rocking electric buzz flew near, louder, but never quite loud enough? Well, I have just the right Black and Blue buzz for you--it flew in the other day and squashed my roommates flat. The Rolling Stones' latest album. Hot Stuff is the finest example around of blues-finger disco--turn it up and watch the room shudder the way the highway does when its 100 in the shade. Hot Rocks had nothing on this--only burnt your feet like those Pacific s-m islanders' who walk on red hot terraces. Memory Motel replaces the no-tell in this chivalric age. Just listen to the electric-heart-blending story of the pick-up truck girl if you doubt me. And if you've been crispy-ried black by the rest of this album run out to the hardware store for a $1.20 blue lightbulb, to Brattle Sq. florist for six peacock feathers--39 cents each--and find your latest Hawaiian Gold dispensing amigo. Settle down together and listen to Melody. Say. "I'm gonna fix my face, don't you worry I'll be back." Blue, blue--I believe there's a philosophical inquiry into the nature and the consummated state of bluedness (Check it out at the Grolier bookshop). Anyway, watch spiky disaster-drawing peacock tendrils as the light bulb burns cool-blue bare and listen to "oh daddy, I'm a fool to cry" and ooh daddy you're a fool if the smoke gets in your eyes.

Maybe "the dog days were tortures, Southern Scorchers. But it's 13 degrees outside and you're superfluously walking under a ladder on you way home with a copy of Atlanta Rhythm Section's Dog Days. Southern scorchers, yes, but trust to dear Harvard to warm the parts "Boogie Smoogie" "Dog Days" and "Silent Treatment" can't reach.

But where was I? For sure--we were discussing British rock. And Mick Jagger? Well...How about some Alex Harvey for those of you enamoured of rock stars who sing Tom Jo nes' "Delilah" looking like a decadently deranged schoolboy in holey rugby shirt? Or the same fellow in flasher's raincoat and Richard Helm's hat, singing "Vambo to the Rescue" on Don Kirshner's Rock Concert. But I diverge. Listen to his best album "Next: The Sensational Alex Harvey Band". Title include "The Last of the Teenage Idols," "Gang Bang" and "The Faith Healer." My sister took A.H.'s word and, in penurious days, would pass around Indian cigaretts that smelled much more interesting than they really were. Faith Healer completed the process suggestion had begun.

Bryan Ferry is another of these gilded colebrators of the bizarre and the banal in a uniquely British fashion. He palms off the best image of the '50s spy I know--there are whole dance halls in London filled with his knitted-tied and bobby-soxed followers. His music epitomises his adopted era: scholocky lyrics about love and a family and monagamy delivered with a nasty curl of the lip and an ugly anger beneath it all. Bryan Ferry sings love songs about hate undiscriminately directed. I await his version of "Drink To Me Only With Thine Eyes" with interest. If that sounds like it might fit the bill, but "Viva! Roxy Music!" or Bryan Ferry's "Let's Stick Together," for your young cousin hypnotized by snakes and snails and puppy-dog's tails. Again, good head music, if nothing else.

For that sugared, spiced and of-so-maddeningly nice friend I recommend "The Rocky Horror Show" to caramalize the sugar. Even if you can't catch the movie or missed the live show buy the record. It's even topical:

"Then something went wrong for Fay Ray and King Kong. They got caught in a celluloid jam..."

"Like a science fiction, double feature" hybridized with every rock and roll conceit known to auditory massage-lovers this show is so tasteless as to approach classicism. Brad and Janet recall their romance: "Here's a ring to prove that I'm no joker (Brad)

There's three ways that love can grow,

That's good, bad or mediocre...

Oh it's nicer than Betty Monroe had, (Janet)

(Oh Brad)"

Brad and Janet get stranded by the Frankenstein Place and their host Frank N. Furter is just a little too effusive for the bespectacled Brad and (we discover later) lace-slipped Janet:

"Why doncha stay for the night Or maybe a bite...

I could show you my favorite obsession:

I've been make a man

With blond hair and a tan and he's good for relieving my tension...

I see you shiver with anticipation But maybe the rain is really to blame So I'll remove the cause but not the symptom"

This transvestite from transexual Transylvania proceeds to seduce both the fiances, and involve them in his weird menage of people who sing "Now the only thing that gives me hope/is my love of a certain dope,/Rose tints my world...Swim the warm waters of sins of the flesh" And the mush Janet who'd "only ever kissed before" seems to have forgotten her proper lines as the horror-story heroine; just as Frank's sonic transducer warps time, the visitors' old values distort: "Thrill me, chill me, fulfill me/Creature of the night" Janet sings when the traditional script would demand her to call "Stop!" Listen to this record with your aged aunt who bemoans the fact that "You young people don't appreciate musicals any more." Maybe she'll sing along with "Time Warp": "It's so dreamy, of fantasy free me..." Whatever. More lyrics:

"Okay, it's star time. Riff-raff, set the sonic transducer on program eight. prg And secure all levels at zero...relax... you won't find Earth people quite the easy mark you imagine...this sonic transducer is, I suppose, some kind of audio, vibratory physio-molecular transport device?!"

And as Frank replies: "You'd better believe it baby...