July '95

2 cds
AYM

The Police rte
Live!

The Police broke up (snif!) ten years ago.
Well, okay, nine officially, but it’s still been awhile
since we could sample new efforts from the blonde
ones... Oh sure, Sting’s still putting out records,
but they’re not the angry, Jung-heavy lyrics of old.
And while Andy Summers’ acoustic guitar stuff
is great, it’s.a completely different genre. Let’s
not even approach how disappointed I am in
Stewart Copeland’s jaunt into soundtrack work...

The fact is, The Police brought us some of
the best popular music of the
80’s. Even without such over-
played ditties as Every Breath
You Take, Message In A Bot-
tle, and Roxanne, the catalog
of Police brilliance is unbe-
lievably deep. They only put
out five complete albums of
original work, and be damned
if four and a half aren’t abso-
lute wonders of the modern
pop world.

So, A&M decided they hadn’t been getting
enough movement out of the back catalog; Sting
has always insisted a Police reunion would never
transpire, so what was the only alternative? “Let’s
put out a live album!”

What we received is two complete concert
recordings. Disc one gives us a 1979 show at the
Orpheum in Boston just prior to the release of
Regatta De Blanc (that’s album #2, for the unini-
tiated). The backup vocals, courtesy of Stewart
and Andy, are occasionally, well, nightmarish, but
the energy easily makes up for it. The boys fiddle
with the songs a bit; they improvise, they joke
around, they sound like they actually might be
having fun!

All that’s gone by the time disc two rolls
around. Of course, the band’s much tighter in this

 

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fot Press

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1983 Synchronicity tour date. However, “tight”
doesn’t mean “good.” You can tell these guys just
wanted to sing the songs and get the hell out of
there. More songs, more hits, but it’s sterile, like
a production line. A few fabulous Police moments
make it worthwhile, though, like an extended
Walking in Your Footsteps (complete with
Floydesque introduction!!!)

It’s interesting to play “compare and contrast”
with songs that appear on both playlists. Cant
Stand Losing You goes from a naked arrangement,
obviously three guys with shitty lady luck, to a
full, eight-piece sound, complete with a trio of
female backup vocalists.

Police fans will find the politics interesting,
as well. If you know the band,
you know the personalities in-
volved. Disc one seems to point
to Stewart pushing the band; he’s
running the show from behind
those frantic skins of his. By the
time Synchronicity hit, tho’, it
was clearly Sting’s show. Most
of the songs are vocally based,
rather than instrumentally. Only
* four years separate these two

concerts, yet they seem to be re-
cordings of two completely separate bands.

Of course, the only people this disc will in-
terest are tried and true Police fans. (I suppose the
same could be said for this review...) If you’re not
a fan already, you may not be interested to hear
the previously unreleased version of Landlord on
disc one, nor the lacklustre Fa/l Out. If you are,
let me tell you; the former is just an early version
of Peanuts, and a better Fall Out appears on Mes-
sage In A Box.

All in all, a treat for fans; a bore for
laypersons. Don’t look for frills; there are a couple
of pictures, but the liner notes ain’t no hell. Just
pop ‘em in, close your eyes, and imagine a big,
sweaty mosh pit. Oh yeah, and three real talented
blonde guys. aat

Jason Kursle

. Real McCoy
Another Nicht
BMG

This album has its good points and its bad
points. The inside cover of the CD is much nicer
than the bland front cover. As for the album itself,
it is, for the most part, enjoyable (if you like club
music), with popular tracks such as Another Night,
Run Away, and Sleeping with an Angel.

Another Night and Run Away are well
written and upbeat, which marks them as club
music.

Sleeping with an Angel is one of their slow

 

Every once ina while, I’m genuinely excited
about a new band. Now, most people who know
me or read me know that doesn’t happen very of-
ten. Recently, I can only recall two: The Cranber-
ries and locals Mollies Revenge. Well, | am proud
to announce the introduction of a third band to
that list: Taste of Joy is a deserving addition.

Not only do they follow the current trend for
female-led bands, Taste also does something so
many acts lack: They actually have a personality!

dance-type songs with excellent lyrics for women,
but not so great lines for O-Jay, the male member
of Real McCoy.

This album caters to the night club scene
because of its heavy bass feel and repeating cords
causing total ad anuseum.

Ona scale of 1-10, this album gets 8 for those
night club fans and 6 for the rest of us.

Sens Sousa

I know it sounds kooky, even crazy, but it’s true.
The tracks range from just plain fun (Go) to
strangely haunting (So Long —like that nightmar-
ish image of a three year old diva talking about
things you 're too young to talk about,) from light
and fluffy (Gun Pointed —it takes a certain talent
to pull off a light tune with a lyric like, “what do
you think you’re doing with that gun pointed
straight at my head,”) to brooding pouts (Blood
Divine.) Taste seems to have a strange fascination
and obsession with guns; you probably won’t see
me at any of their gigs if one of the band mem-
bers quits or otherwise becomes estranged...

Overall, they’ve got a fabulous sound, well-
produced...

For those of you who like to have a compari-
son to make a review complete, Taste of Joy, for
the most part, defies this sort of English-class ex-
ercise. I suppose, if one had to, they could de-
scribe them as what the Bangles might have
sounded like if they had talent instead of hair...

Bottom line? Stop reading and go buy the

damn thing. ‘Sasen Kur rhe

 

Mercury! Polydor

I’m back on the
Sauce again and it looks
like this time there’s no
hope. I’ve tried everything
but I just can’t get this al-
bum out of my head. You
know how it is: You’re
walking down the street,
you glance over at a fire
hydrant and suddenly
you’re humming something totally obscure, like
the theme from Hawaii Five-0. No reason, it just
sort of pops into your head, helps itself to a beer,
puts its feet up on your coffee table and stays there
until you’re so crazy all you can see are big, roll-
ing waves and Jack Lord mouthing the words Book
‘em, Danno. Don’t get me wrong, though, unin-
vited sound bytes a /a Bootsauce are like old
friends: Even when they drop by totally unex-
pected, they’re welcome.

It’s been a steady, upward progression for the
‘Saucers. From The Brown Album (1990), to Bull
(1992), to Sleeping Bootie (1993), each album has
seen both songwriting and sound develop nicely
(or nastily, depending on whether we’re talking
about their radio-friendly pop/dance tunes or their
deliciously dark excursions into sex-fuelled
superfunk.)

This album is no exception. Simply titled
Bootsauce, its got state-of-the-art songwriting that

 

 

draws on diverse in-
fluences J dance,
metal, rap, disco,
funk, Let me put it
this way: Bootsauce
takes you for a ride in
a 1973 James Brown
convertible tricked
out with a NIN big
block engine and
Rick Derringer
whitewall tires and
driven mercilessly by
Stevie Wonder while
KC and the Sunshine
Band party it up in the back seat to the Psycho
shower scene strings blaring from the radio. They
swerve from the infectious sing-a-long pop of Hey
Baby to the dark funk-metal of Pass the Shotgun
(Please) to the Princefluenced Papa Funk.

Most people I talk to who aren’t converts to
the “Cult of the Sauce” cite disco and pop-radio
influences as the main deterrents. While Bootsauce
seems to have gotten most of the disco out of its
system on Sleeping Bootie, there is still a huge
pop element to their sound. This is unabashedly
“commercial-sounding” music and I DON’T
CARE!! If you can give me one solid, logical,
flawlessly argued reason why this disc can’t sit
next to, say, Pantera, Miles Davis, or Public En-
emy in my collection, | STILL WON’T CARE!
I’ll probably just sing a bit of the Hawaii Five-O
theme in an effort to fuck you up for the rest of

sat Kevin Sallons