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It's the shape of things to come. It's the world's most flexible label. And even with the late departure of Elvis Costello and Nick Lowe to Radar Records, Stiff Records has almost cornered the market from whence comes that fabulous stuff, shaking pop. In probably the most amazing three weeks of the late seventies, there appeared four releases on the American market guaranteed to satisfy unlike anything since Motown, the Who, the Stones, the Beatles, the Dixie Cups, Phil Spector and anything else worthwhile in pop music ever to be marketed in the form of a flat piece of black plastic with a hole in the middle. Those people at Stiff have captured back the banner of rock and roll for the poseurs and pretenders. This rock and roll from England can take over the airwaves and reign as British rock used to, before it got all glommed over with synthesizers and concepts and other instruments of destruction.
There is a certain amount of incest in most musical circles. Especially as rock grows older, the inbreeding takes an almost superhuman effort to be avoided. But it goes on relentlessly, more often than not producing the tired blood that is the biggest known killer of royalty. Witness the demise of the country rock empire here in America. Gram Parsons wasn't the only thing that died. Eventually with him went Poco (yeah, they're wimps and all but remember the second and third albums), the Flying Burrito Brothers, Crosby, Stills and Nash in a strange way, practically everyone from the foundations except maybe Neil Young. The music that is the current by-product of that era has a hard time matching the first round. So the dangers of the ties not being able to withstand the continuous crosstracking are evident.
But with these Stiff people the music is still relatively unexplored on this side of the Atlantic. And even though the stuff has been around, it feels that they have achieved the perfect compound of familial love and rock and roll talent without the dangerous symptoms.
The key can be found in "The Beat," from Elvis Costello's This Year's Model. With keyboard player Steve Naive doing his best to keep Question Mark and the Mysterians alive, Elvis sings "On the beat, on the UPbeat." The need for dancing music is fast flowing through these peoples veins, right through the old capillaries to the fingertips and out onto the instruments. So what if Ian Drury's got the drunken pub beat ("Billericay Dickie"), Nick Lowe the pop beat (but there is a great deal more to be said about that), Costello the bullet-but-sometimes-a-ballad beat and Stiffs Live any other general manie that may be uncovered. They've got those three minute classics on the wax and (as can be witnessed by attending the April 25 show at the Shea's) the people back out on the dance floor. Hell, man, if you can't get up by yourself Elvis will gladly give you a hand. He might even do that whether you want it or not.
The ideal way to approach the three studio releases is to treat yourself to the primer live album. The hilarity of the interchangeable credits is heightened by the humor of all the artists. Suffice to say that one of Lowe's numbers is entitled "Let's Eat" and one of Dury's is "Wake Up and Make Love With Me." Wreckless Eric appears as the kid who mewled his way out of elementary school chorus practice. Larry Wallis' Psychedelic Rowdies in "Police Car" takes Johnathan Richman's "I'm a Little Airplane" one step over the line. Imagine what a fuckin' pisser it must have been with all these rock and rollers on one stage at one time, singing "SEX and DRUGS and ROCK and ROLL and ..." Dury being the instigator, rounding up the troops. And so It goes. The album is really beyond any other live one. And probably better to dance to than any other live this year, too.
It is Dury's perverse delivery that most is identifiable with the rowdiness of Stiffs Live's feel, and it is not much diminished by the studio (indeed, the album jacket proudly proclaimed that this record was produced by nobody). Dury is definitely a man of the streets, as Kilburn (Kilburn and the Highroads, an earlier band of Dury's) is an Irish ghetto in England, and his ability to sound raucous and be highly canny in his observations catches you off guard. But he ain't no bleedin' thickie, and the raucousness can be successfully transmitted even in the touching "My Old Man." New Boots and Panites may scare some, but you can't help but be partial to Dury's abracadabra.
Elvis Costello doesn't fit in in quite the same way. In fact, where he does fit here (and speaking in larger terms, in the scene in general) is one of the toughest questions to answer. To just say he is New Wave is often immediately alienating and doesn't explain for all the Bruce Spreinsteen freaks that find him so appealing. People are still digesting My Aim Is True, and there is already This Year's Model. It's the same enigma, Elvis crooning "Little sniggers on your lips / Little triggers in your grips / Little triggers, my hand on your hip..." The anger and sarcasm and incredible balled interpretation all contained in one song is explosive.
"No Action" explodes also, in a song so full of an understanding of what 60's Who were all about that it wouldn't even be an insult if that band picked up on it. "I keep thinking about your mother / Well I don't want to lick them / I don't want to be your lover / I just want to be your victim." He don't like her hangin' out. with physical jerks, but it's no less threatening than if he were some kind of bruiser himself. There isn't much known about Costello's past, but at least there is a very obvious amount of songwriting practice in his lyrics. And with Nick Lowe's production, Costello is again immediately as compelling as with the first record. There has to be something more at work than just the novelty of Costello (and that is complimentary — unique is probably a better adjective, but a misused one).
Which leaves us with Lowe. And this many lines of writing already on the page, it's to his disadvantage. I could write a whole article on Nick Lowe being the last pop genius, the second coming of Phil Spector, let alone marvelous and amazing and astounding and all the other boring words like that. Nick Lowe has taken his time with this album, the follow up to a string of singles and an LP entitled Bowi (a take off on that man's Low). His occasional appearances at Costello shows this spring introduced "Heart of the City" and "Breaking Glass" (and talk about being able to write paragraphs about something! Jesus! "Grass" is right up there with "Good Vibrations" and "I Wanna Hold Your Hand"), two of the three singles on the American release (the British one doesn't have "Rollers Show," but that single is available at Play It Again Sam or through Bomp Records). These are two of the most perfect examples of Lowe's appreciation of the pop 45. It may not be long and complicated, but it's fun and besides, most of us at this age and reading this paper now are about at the age where we could hardly remember much besides those great Motown and Spector singles we used to waste our sixty-nine cents on so religiously. While it would be impossible to disclaim all his heavy native influences, Lowe is reverent of the Americans. There's Beach Boys and Motown and pure Dixie Cups in "Rollers Show." It's all of pop music at once, proving one more undeniable time that the weight of heavyness (not to be confused with Heavy Metal) had to be shed now and then. Let them castrate Castro, let Marie Provost get chewed up by her dog, who gives a shit about politics? On the back of the American release, you can see Lowe dressed as the Riddler of Batman days. Who is he, nobody knows, but where pop is is where he goes.
And there you have it. Even if you can wear out an album a week, that means there's a month of music for you in these four records. And don't forget the show (Costello and Lowe with Mink Deville at Shea's on the 25th, Dury opening for Lou Reed at Buff State on the 28th). Everyone, now, on the beat, on the UPbeat.
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