POPULAR MUSIC NILS LOFGREN and jazz with Creole and Caribbean influ- Crooked Line ences. In live performance, they can create Itl Kt) I%(l)II). such a spell that you suspect they're using Performance: Still hanging in voodoo. That level of magic is hard to capture Recordings Good on disc, but there are moments when it shines I nfortunately 101 Nils Lofgren, everything through in "Family Groove," their latest al- ihr he's recorded since 1975 has been mea- bum. It opens with a blistering new version of sured against his magnificent first solo album Steve Miller's Fly Like an Eagle, one of the ("Nils Lofgren"), which set an almost impossi- best items on the disc. Hunger and homeless- bly high standard. His subsequent releases ness are addressed in One More Day, which have been hit or miss, and he hasn't turned out features a brief rap by two of Aaron Neville's to be the major artist his early boosters proph- sons. Aaron's shimmering falsetto tenor is esied (though his prominent role in Bruce featured in True Love, and there's a touch of Springsteen's and Neil Young's bands is noth- calypso in On the Other Side of Paradise. ATHENS AND OVER ing to sneeze at). "Crooked Line" is, alas, Much more effective are the stomping, blues - another album full of guitar doodling and good flavored Day to Day Thing, It Takes More, and THE Troggs are a lovable, paradoxical relic intentions but never quite hitting the mark the ominously stalking Let My People Go. of the British Invasion. One minute they're with the sort of sharp, power -pop material The best songs here were written by others, neck -deep in a steamy. heavy -breathing fren- Lofgren turned out with such accomplished which means that the Nevilles' compositional zy. growling and playing lasciviously. The ease way back when. juices might not have been at their peak when next. singer Reg Presley is crooning his undy- On the positive side, it's a pleasure to hear they put the set together. Fortunately, their ing love for someone to a musical accompani- him pick up an acoustic guitar and lose the performance skills were just fine. It adds up to gruff, macho edge in his voice in You, a a very satisfying recording. P.G. ment that's delicate, even pretty. There's not simple, pretty pop song. Blue Skies bears much difference between the Troggs of 1966 another positive message, via some of Lof- MICHAEL PENN and 1992. Age hasn't mellowed the rockers in gren's best lyrics, as he looks for the silver Free for All them. nor has it allowed cynicism to intrude lining in the world's dark cloud: "What about K( A II,i8 min) on their dreamier side. The big news about the people that ain't been swallowed up? / The Porforosonsin Ismostrls their new album. "Athens Andover." is their children born to two people in love? / The Recording: Good accomplices. R.E.M.'s Peter Buck. Bill Berry. hurting who choose to fight instead of die? / f Michael Penn is angling for cult status, as Mike Mills. and Peter Holsapple (but no Mi- Won't you look up and see blue skies?" On his opposed to the top of the charts and high chael Stipe), who contribute all manner of third pass at that chorus, he hits a high note rotation on MTV, he's pretty much written his and holds it in an impressive display of vocal own ticket with his iconoclastic second album, stringed instruments and percussion. (Curi- agility. Then there's Someday, a well -con- "Free for All." From the sound of it he's been ously. the name R.E.M. appears nowhere in structed match of words and music with a blue, going through some weird, testy times. "Free the package, the performers are named and plaintive cast to it and some fine-and all too for All" is not so much an album as a fever cryptically referred to as "certain musicians rare-Lofgren piano playing. chart, a freewheeling documentary of delirium from Athens. Georgia.") Those two cuts aside, "Crooked Line" of- in which the titles tell the tale: Drained, Slip- The five Reg Presley originals are delightful, fers fairly ordinary scenery: clotted, draggy ping My Mind, Strange Season, Seen the Doc- from the heavenly pop ofTogether-the rock (Walk on Me, Misery), enervated neo- tor, Long Way Down. Get the idea? The lyrics "aaahs"s will make your knees weak-to the rockabilly (I'll Fight for You), a ponderous are cryptic and incomprehensible, and the jaunty skittle beat of Suspicious. wherein he Beau Brummels cover (Just a Little), and so music shifts between sunny coherence and forth. (Note to Neil Young fans: Your man pronounces the tag line. "It worries me." the cloudy confusion as fast as the weather on an pops up here and there on guitar, harmonica, unsettled day. Free Time, for example, zigzags way Elmer Fudd might. The long-time produc- and vocals.) If only Lofgren could loosen up, from tart, focused pop with bristling guitar er Larry Page co -wrote Tuned into Love. a lighten up, and make an entire album worthy hooks to dissonant oddness in the few seconds driving number based on a blues riff that has of his prodigious talent, the world would be a it takes to sing, "I was handed free time." just the right amount of tremolo and reverb better place. P.P. "Free for All" might be viewed as some- applied to the guitars and voices. Holsapple thing like Big Star's legendary third album, wrote I'm in Control in the mock swaggering except that Penn slid off the main road onto style of the Troggs' roustabout early days. the gravely shoulder of weirdness a lot faster Deja Vu. written by one Tony James Shevlin. and a lot more self-consciously than Alex Chilton did. Getting familiar with this album's manages to cram a batch of actual Troggs twists and turns is admittedly taxing, but those titles into its lyrics. and Presley's Don't You with the fortitude for adventurous, outer -lim- Know actually quotes the melody of Love Is All its pop may well find it worth the effort. P.P. Around. To topitalloff. Chip Taylor. who wrote the Troggs all-time classic Wild Thing. R A M ONES contributes Crazy Annie. another sex -mad Mondo Bizarre number that allows Presley to leer ("Hot legs. RADIOACTIVE/MCA 10615 (38 min) hot pants Crazy Annie and her devil dance"). Porlormansei Malaria, usfortimatoly Ihmording: Okay though to an acoustic backing this time. I don't know which is more depressing-that Retro a -go-go is what it's all about. and it O Joey Ramone turns forty this year or that sounds just fine to me. Just goes to prove that he's been a punk rocker for nearly twenty what goes around. comes around. P.P. THE NEVILLE BROTHERS years. "Mondo Bizarro" shows that Joey and Family Groove his fellow Ramones can still whip their guitars THE TROGGS AN.NI -502-15 irii (55 milli into a snarling merengue. But man-even Athens Andover Porformansot Vim and soul punks-cannot live by power chords alone. Crazy Annie; I ogether; Tuned into Love; Itimordlogp Very good Joey has to sing about something, and that's Déjà Vu; Nowhere Road; Dust Bowl; I'm in When it comes to eclecticism, few groups where this album gets a little cheesy. There's a Control; Don't You Know; What's Your can compare with the Neville Brothers, dreadful maturity at work here. Game; Suspicious; Hot Stuff who have drawn from the multicultural flavor Of course, it's unfair to expect these guys to RHINO R2 71064 (45 min) of their native New Orleans to forge a style sing about adolescent alienation all the time, that blends elements of the blues, r -&-b, soul, but the best moments here extrapolate from 86 STEFNEO REVIEW OCTOBER 1992.