Goldilocks Rock

GOLDILOCKS HAD THE RIGHT IDEA, but the wrong method. Instead of considering which bed, chair, or bowl of porridge would fit best, and then trying it, she tried them all blindly and stopped when she got it right.

Similarly, each of these three bands has the right idea, but the methodology is sometimes a little weak. That is to say, each of these bands seems to devote too much time experimenting with how they want to sound, and too little time actually developing that sound.

Not that there is nothing good to be said about these records. Given the typical boring synth-pop drivel that pours forth from both radio and television these days, at least these bands try to deviate a little from the norm.

The Adventures

Tired of working at odd jobs around London, songwriter/guitarist Pat Gribben, once of the Starjets, founded the Adventures in 1982. With the addition of Terry Sharpe on vocals, Spud Murphy, former Starjets producer and then road manager for Stiff Little Finger and The Boomtown Rats, on percussion, Pat's wife Eileen on backing vocals, tambourines, etc., and Tony Ayre on bass, the band began writing, rehearsing and touring.

Following 1984 singles "Another Silent Day" and "Send My Heart," The Adventures is their album debut. Avoiding the politics that often pervade the music of bands with similar roots (Gribben, Gribben, and Sharpe hail from Belfast) the band instead opts for stock song themes like love, sex, and relationships. Though lyrics are easily accessible, they at times become slightly monotonous, if not boring.

MUSICALLY, THE ADVENTURES are rather ordinary, deviating little from the standard pop fare. They do, however, manage to set themselves apart slightly from the mainstream with a pervading chimey guitar and vocal harmony throughout. The problem is that a distinctive style fails to carry through the entire album with much force, and their limited experimentation fails to stumble randomly upon Goldilocks' golden mean.

Note: Though probably not intentionally, the Adventures have two links to the Akron, Ohio band Devo: the drummer's name is Spud, and the hats worn on the cover look remarkably like those on the cover of Freedom of Choice.

Simon F

Simon F, a London native, has been interested in music since he was young. His debut LP, Gun, is the fruit of his 1984-85 songwriting done in collaboration with semi-namesake and London doppelgang Simon G. His material is claimed to represent an attempt to describe his past by relating what he considers to be both "the two biggest concerns in pop music" and "two of the key things in life": sex and violence.

The songs themselves carry through fairly faithfully with Simon's claimed themes. "Baby Doll Love" depicts the sexual charms of young girls, and "A Million Miles from Happiness" discusses love, faith, disappointment, and heroin. In addition to the nine original cuts on the album, the opening track, "I Want You Back," is a cover of a song originally written by Dave Faulkner, of the Australian band Hoodoo Gurus. Simon provides an interesting synth-pop adaptation of this wild tune, but the more driving and sincere Gurus version remains vastly superior.

The album supposedly draws its name from the title of a Sex Pistols bootleg; however, there is little evidence of punk influence on this record. Vocals are strongly imitative of circa-1977 David Bowie, though occasionally a glint of Billy Idol's solo work also comes through. In general, the sound suffers from blatant overuse of drum machines and synthesizers.

Divinyls

What a Life! is the second album from the Australian band Divinyls. Their music is claimed to form a synthesis of punk and pop. Singer Christina Amphlett manages to prove marginally successful in this endeavor, though the sound is generally much closer to pop than to punk.

DIVINYLS HAVE TOURED fairly extensively in the United States, including an opening slot at Steve Wozniak's financially disastrous US Festival. Their first album, Desperate, was critically fairly well received. What a Life!, their follow-up effort, has been in the works since 1983; producer Mike Chapman helped the band with extensive remixing and reworking.

The disk itself is a typical example of pseudo-punk synth-pop. "Motion" moves nicely, and the apocalyptyic "Guillotine Day," among other tracks, finds Amphlett attempting to mimic ex-Sex Pistol John Lydon. The result, however, is far closer to a Pat Benatar rehash than something new. Lyrics again center on love and relationships, and are generally rather mundane.

Along with their common record label, these bands also share a common attempt to launch a video career, presumably in search of the publicity offered by MTV and other video-music sources. Their attitudes about video, however, seem to differ widely: Pat Gribben of the Adventures claims that he feels music is far more important than video, but Divinyl Christina Amphlett and Simon F both project a definite image to accompany their music. The music, as Gribben predicts, may well suffer because of these efforts to do two things at once.

None of these three bands represents a particularly major departure from the styles available over commercial music and video airwaves. Though they may break little new artistic ground, however, these bands might provide great appeal for pop fans looking for something a little different. They may have the potential to do something really new and interesting.

Even Goldilocks eventually got it right.