Tuesday, July 29, 1986
Daily Nebraskan
Page 7
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Poe, Melville, Hammett, Bradbury, Hernandez
'Love and Rockets' competes with the classics
By Chris McCubbin
Staff Reporter
Since the pop art fad of the 0()s even
i Ik- serious critical types have been
forced to admit that comic books occa
sionally manage to attain the level of
art. Even the most high-brow elitist
finds it difficult to deny the sophistica
tion and energy in the drawings of
artists like win Lisner v ineapiru j.
Jack Kirby ("Fantastic Four"), or Bill interrelated series, "Mechanics" and
Sienkiewicz ("New Mutants"). But "Lucas," take up a large slice of the
comics are not just art portfolios, t hey book. The "Mechanics" stories are far
also tell a story. Is it possible for a cical, high-speed adventure stories eel
comic to be both art and literature? ebrating science fiction movies, super
It would be silly to say that "Love heroes, pro wrestling, and similar icons
and Rockets" is fit to claim a place of American cultures,
alongside Poe and Melville, but it's "Locas" on the other hand is a series
definitely a giant step up from the that humorously, but realistically looks
literary ghetto comics have inhabited at the California punk and Hispanic
for the last 50 years. Someday Los cultures. Although the two series are
Brothers Hernandez will be remem- dissimilar, both use the same charac
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BoDeans latest is Ws influenced American pop
By Charles Lieurance
Senior Editor
BoDeans, "Love & Hope & Sex
& Dreams" Slash
Time for another Byrds comparison. I
knew you're tired of hearing it. I know
every new guitar band either sounds
like the Byrds or the Stones circa
"Exile on Main Street" these days, but
bear with. It's all here: the ethereal
layer upon layer of guitar, guitars with
6 strings, guitars with 12 strings, gui
tars with 116 strings, hypnotic, endless
finger-picking exercises and vocals that
i mesmerize without boring. Happy and
j melodic pop with a slightly menacing
j edge that tells you you're going just a
j little too far into the stratosphere.
In this way the BoDeans are like
'. REM and Lets Active, but their sound is
clearer and their hooks stronger than
either of these bands. The two vocal
; ists, one who sings like he's got cotton
j balls stuffed in his cheeks (I kept try
i ing to adjust the speed on the stereo to
j keep it from sounding like the Chip
! munks) and another who sings like
Michael Stipe after speech therapy,
j harmonize their way through an entirely
. accessible batch of '60s influenced
; American pop.
! I wonder if the Byrds get together on
; Saturday afternoons and go through
platter after platter of this stuff hoping
j to find a rip-off so blatant that they can
i call their lawyers.
"Listen to that, didn't we do that on
'Mr. Spaceman'?" says Jim McGuinn.
bered as being as important to the
development of comics as Ray Bradbury
is to science fiction, or as Dashiell
Hammett is to the hard-boiled detec
tive story.
L&R, Book one is a reprint of the first
two issues of the ongoing comic book
"Love and Rockets." Los Brothers Her
nandez are three brothers from Cali
fornia Jaime, Gilbert and Mario.
The star of Book One is Jaime. His
r a
Art Courtesy of Fantagraphics
"No, that's from 'I'll Feel a Whole Lot
Better'" says Chris Hillman.
David Crosby unloads his military
issue .45 automatic into the stereo.
Sure, the band is derivative, but
everything seems derived from places
so good and right, that it all works.
Thank God for Slash Records who've
given us X, The Germs, Dream Syndi
cate and The Blasters. It's nice to know
that all American bands don't sound
like Bruce Springsteen.
Meat Puppets, "Out My Way"
SST
The Puppets create the musical
equivalent of Pointillism, managing to
form whole intricate landscapes note
by note. If the Pupps had two or three
guitarists this would simply be a style,
a genre. As it is, the meat Puppets have
one guitarist, Curt Kirkwood, and the
sound is a miracle. This album and last
year's "Up on the Sun" could easily
pass a music lover by on the first listen.
It's one of those albums you might play
once and sell to a friend.
The Pupps don't slug you over the
eardrum with their sound, they slowly
tease you into a web of just plain pecul
iar riffs and counter-riffs until you're
theirs for life.
Taking all of the worst influences on
earth the self-indulgent guitar love
of the Grateful Dead, the tunelessness
of Neil Young, the monster chording of
early heavy metal and acid rock, and
even the Eagles (the opening of "Moun
tainline" is a rough replica of "Already
Gone) the Meat Puppets transcend
ters in a tight ly related continuity. The
success of this technique can only be
explained by Jaime's off beat genius.
Gilbert's main contributions to the
books are "BEM," a long, surrealistic
parody of adventure comics, and "Radio
Zero," a story which is simply a mas
terpiece. "Radio Zero" is a nihilistic science
fiction story set in a near-future total
itarian society where rioting and ter
rorism are the daily norm. What sets
the story above the host of others that
meet this description is its non-hero,
Errata Stigmata. Errata is a disillusi
oned materialist who, from childhood,
has periodically bled from the hands
and feet in imitation of the wounds of
It seems wrong to call
Maggie and Hopey 'her
oines.' A heroine is
someone who screams
well, gets rescued and
goes to bed with the
hero at the end.
Christ. Errata's doll-like fragility is set
against the urban nightmare of her
society to create a contemporary meta
phor that would stand out in any
medium, even more so in a comic book.
Mario's work, "Somewhere in Cali
fornia," is a good story with fair art
which, unfortunately, is completely over
shadowed by the other two brother's
prolific brilliance. It's easy to see why
Mario felt he couldn't stay with "Love
And Rockets." Hopefully he'll find some
other outlet where his work can be
appreciated on its own level.
Los Brother's protagonists are vulner
able without being neurotic, strong
without being melodramatic, funny,
them with grace, wit and intelligence.
It's no wonder that Kirkwood, and
the band, who often seems at a loss
when faced with their manic guitarist's
brilliant meanderings, close this LP
with the raving screamer "Good Golly
Miss Molly." This song hasn't sounded
so demonic and uncontrolled since Lit
tle Richard cleaned his awesome pipes
with it back in the '50s. It's like putting
together one of those 5,000 piece jigsaw
puzzles with lots of sky in it and then
giving a primal scream and smashing
the whole thing with demented glee.
Kirkwood shoves Led Zeppelin, Neil
Young, The Germs, Blue Cheer and
Jerry Lee Lewis into a box of feral wea
sels and lets them battle it out. It's a
good reason not to die.
The Puppets are doing their Drum
stick carnage again this Thursday night.
Kirkwood, who broke his finger in a van
door a few months ago, had to cancel
the last Lincoln show. Now he's fret
ready again. This should get you depressd
types to the end of the week.
Euiythmics, "Revenge" RCA
Every so often a song comes along
that sems to pull the spirit of rock 'n'
roll into rack focus, combining what
has been learned since 1954 with what
has always worked, to create a single
that vividly illustrates the timeless
ness of the music even for those whose
view of time goes back only a decade or
so.
A few years ago, the Pretender's
"Middle of the Road" set the radio on
fire with a riff at once archetypal and
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likeable, believeable, and most of the
time, female. Particularly outstanding
are Jaime's heroines Maggie and Hopey,
two of the most charming charcters in
contemporary literature.
It seems wrong to call Maggie and
Hopey 'heroines'. A heroine is someone
who screams well, gets rescued and
goes to bed with the hero at the end.
Los Brothers female heroes are not
adventure heroes in the hyper-competent
tradition of say, Tarzan, or Batman,
but they do manage to do a pretty good
job of staying ahead in tough situa
tions, and when they lose control of the
situation it takes more than male
intervention to get them out of it.
While completely avoiding preachi
ness and feminist cliches, Los Brothers
have managed to produce the best fem
inist comic ever simply by showing
women as strong, likeable, human,
important characters.
L&R is a black and white comic. The
simple lines and solid blacks that both
Jaime and Gilbert favor should by all
rights appear stark, but somehow the
artists manage to summon a full spec
trum of mood and emotion from their
unique. It had the vague impending
evil of old country blues, a snarling
defiant vocal reminiscent of everything
from Howlin' Wolf and Big Mama
Thornton to Nancy Sinatra and Patti
Smith, and the "hellhounds and high
water" adrenalin of vintage rock Y
roll.
"Missionary Man," the opening cut
on the new Eurythmics LP, is another
case in point. Annie Lennox and Dave
Stewart are an unlikely duo for setting
the rock 'n' roll record straight. Their
synth heavy orchestral art rock has,
over the years, been technically perfect
but yielded as much spirit as roadkill
on a busy freeway.
On this track Lennox and Stewart
sound so mature and gritty it's shock
ing. Where did this song come from?
Obviously they've been hanging out
with the right people. A more cynical
soul might accuse them of having
accepted an outtake from "Highway 61
Revisited" as a pay-off for Dave Ste
wart's help on Dylan's last album. The
naive are simply left speechless.
"Missionary Man" manages to put a
synthesizer in the same room with a
guitar, a Little Walter impersonator on
harmonica and a wailing gospel back
up singer without the universe self
destructing. The riff echoes through
the halls of rock and blues in search of
a source. Of course, one can never pin
this sort of thing down, it just is. It's got
one of those lyrics that seems to have
existed as a primitive chant to dark
pagan gods:
Art Courtesy of Fantagraphics
work. Los Brothers produce art which is
minimal without ever falling into mini
malism. Backgrounds are stylized, or hinted
at, or eliminated altogether, the focus
is always on the figures. Los Brothers
are consummate masters of human
expression. It would not be an exag
geration, I think, to say that never
before has any artist managed to create
such individual visual personalities, or
as many natural human mannerisms,
using as few lines as Los Brothers Her
nandez. If you consider yourself knowledge
able in late 20th century literature,
read Love And Rockets. If you're inter
ested in MexicanMexican American
culture, read Love And Rockets. If your
guilty pleasures include pro wrestling,
sci-fi movies, or punk rock, read Love
And Rockets. If you used to love com
ics, but you think you've outgrown
them, read Love And Rockets. If you
still love comics, but your idea of a
great book is two giant robots bashing
each other for 20 pages, what the heck,
read Love And Rockets. If you like it,
maybe there's still hope.
"There was a woman in the
jungle
and a monkey on a tree
The missionary man he was
followin ' me
He said stop what you 're doin '
get down upon your knees
Vve got a message for you that
you 'd better believe. "
This is the sort of sexual entendre
you'd expect from a cagey old blues
man like Robert Johnson or Howlin'
Wolf, but hardly from the pair that
brought you "Sweet Dreams are Made
of This." .
Or from the pair that brings you the
rest of this album.
Except for an acceptable piece of
Blondie-esque pop called "Thorn in My
Side," this LP is a complete dog.
Lyric sample: "If you open your
heart you can make a new start when
your crumbling world falls apart.." Hey,
Annie, could you get out the rhyming
dictionary for me?
Unpardonable sin of the month: The
use of the fine Solomon Burke bass line
to "Everybody Needs Somebody to Love"
to buoy up an empty ditty like "Take
Your Pain Away."
The only thing keeping this band
away from the same white soul junk
heap Culture Club and Naked Eyes feel
into is "Missionary Man." Person
ally, I'm with the cynics on this one.
As for the remainder, stick with Fine
Young Cannibals and Everything But
the Girl.