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New Haven Register (CT)
February 3, 1989
The Toll's paid in full; Pierce Turner returns
Author: Phil Gallo
Article Text:

NO matter where the Toll goes, lead singer Brad Circone knows he'll be asked about Jim Morrison and the Doors.

The Toll's debut, "The Price of Progression" on Geffen Records, features three lengthy monologues improvised in the studio over the band's forceful and moody rock. While certainly nothing the Toll does sounds like the Doors, the quartet's mixture of booming and passive passages, cryptic and straightforward lyrics, recalls the atmosphere the Doors created.

"The lyrics are made up on the spot," Circone said over the phone from Philadelphia. "The songs are filled with characters that bounce around in my head. Some are facets of me, some are facets of me that I'm not aware of or characters I've left behind.

"We expected the comparison with the Doors ... but we're not afraid of it. ... Morrison's lyrics were often poems and much more rambling. ... He wasn't any kind of influence. We're a hard-rock band with a punk attitude. I like literature and tell stories. He was gothic, I'm renaissance."

The Toll will perform at an all-ages show Sunday at Toad's. The opening act is RCA recording artist Pierce Turner.

Formed 3 years ago in Columbus, Ohio, the Toll members - guitarist Rick Silk, drummer Brett Mayo and bassist Greg Bartram - still share a house there. As far as the band's sound goes, U2 seems a much greater influence than the Doors. This is made-for-arena rock.

The band's been on tour for a month, performing for audiences as small as 50 , and hope to keep touring through the summer.

"No one's letting us open for anyone now," Circone said about the band's decision to tour clubs and small halls rather than play larger halls as an opening act.

"There's no time limit for our shows because of the length of the songs - which might cause a problem. But it doesn't matter if we're playing a dive or a stadium . I have to admit we play for ourselves first."

PUTTING an arena sound across in a club can be difficult as Pierce Turner, who will open for the Toll, found out opening for the Smithereen's at Toad's last March.

"I always felt the more room the better," Turner says from London, recalling his first club tour. "Since I played New Haven, I have learned to deal with a small stage better, in a more musical sense."

Since Turner's last visit, he's also released "The Sky and the Ground," his second recording on Beggar's Banquet. It has been favorably reviewed in Musician, Rolling Stone and the Los Angeles Times.

Rather than make a second call on the talents of composer Philip Glass, who produced his debut, Turner handled the production with film-score composer Simon Boswell.

Instead of the craftmanship of the debut, Turner opted for a greater "spur-of-the-moment feel." Wisely, he retained a trombonist to give his music a flavor rarely heard, and he's geared his songwriting to reflect his fascination with language.

"I'm more interested in the emotional possibilities of language, the unconventional side. I'm not a Broadway singer, making sure every word is clear and understandable. I'm very interested in the emotion of sound."

It has been 11 years since Turner moved to New York from his native Ireland, hoping to make it big in the record industry. In 1980 he formed the Major Thinkers and developed a following in the East Village. That band had one hit, "Avenue B," before calling it quits after five years.

Conventional wisdom has turned around considerably since Turner came to these shores. With the popularity of U2, American record companies have looked to Ireland for rock 'n' roll talent and come up with Sinead O'Connor, Cry Before Dawn (coincidentally from Turner's hometown, Wexford) and the Pogues.

"I've never been lumped into that bracket," he says, "but U2 has been good for the Irish music scene. ... I would say (the Irish connection) hasn't hurt me any."

IS there anything not to like about the triple bill of folk-styled artists at the Palace on Saturday night?

Richard Thompson, whose haunting "Shoot out the Lights" is to '80s folk-related music what Dylan's "Blood on the Tracks" was to the 1970s, recently released his 20th album, "Amnesia" on Capitol.

Thompson, 38, founded the Fairport Convention in 1967, recording five albums with the band before going solo with "Henry the Human Fly" in 1972. He teamed up with his wife, Linda, for seven albums over eight years. Their marriage and partnership ended in divorce.

His solo albums since, "Across a Crowded Room" and "Daring Adventures," have been praised for their stark emotional realism.

Taj Mahal is going through another period of rediscovery in which audiences are realizing Mahal's comprehensive blues and folk tales are American treasures.

He's been around for nearly 25 years, evolving into a true musicologist, one of the few living links to Mississippi Delta blues-men, jazz and Africa.

On last year's re-release of "Conjure," Mahal's voice spoke volumes in each of the forementioned contexts, and "A Vision Shared," his version of Leadbelly's " Bourgeois Town," packed the power of the original.

David Bromberg is a more studied, musicological tourist strolling through bluegrass, big-band, Delta blues, and Phil Spector rock 'n' roll. In the late '70s, Bromberg retired from active performing and attended violin-making school in Chicago for four years.

Since then he's rarely appeared with his electric band, preferring instead acoustic settings, usually with fewer than three musicians. His nervous voice, monologues and fiery solos on guitar, mandolin and violin have become mainstays of his shows. It will be intresting to see if he still throws a Spector tune.

Bromberg does the 15th annual anniversary version of his always eclectic show at the Bottom Line in New York, Feb. 10-12.

Notes: Jane's Addiction will be at Toad's on Feb. 28. ...

The 15 years of Kiss will be celebrated Feb. 23 with Paul Stanley and Friends at the West Hartford Arena. DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince come to the West Hartford Arena on Feb. 25. with MC Lyte, Tone Loc and Positive K.

Also at the arena are Anvil, Danzig and Murphy's Law on Saturday; Molly Hatchet on Thursday; John Cafferty and Beaver Brown on Feb. 10; Concrete Jungle and Most Wanted on Feb. 17; and Max Creek, Feb. 18.

Barrence Whitfield and the Savages are among the 12 groups enlisted for the Miller Genuine Draft Band Network. Other exceptional bands joining the network are Anson Funderburgh and Rockets, Evan Johns and the H-Bombs, Identity and the Wagoneers.

While corporate sponsorship has its problems, the Miller network has allowed relatively unknown bands to tour different regions of the country. Whitfield says the band was in need of new equipment and the beer tie-in supplied the goods.

New Haven Register (CT)
February 24, 1989
Laine misses Beatles fest; Jane's shock rock
Author: Phil Gallo

WHERE was Denny? More than 7,000 people packed into the Trumbull Marriott last weekend for the eighth annual New York-New England Beatles Convention, but special guest performer Denny Laine wasn't one of them.

It's not like him. Laine's management, as well as convention promoter Charles Rosenay!!! (those exclamation points are legally part of his name), didn't try their hardest.

According to Rosenay!!! the problem started a week before the convention, Feb. 10 at JFK Airport in New York.

Laine, a British citizen, arrived with guitar and show brochures in hand but immigration officials wouldn't allow him in the United States without an H-waiver visa needed to perform here. When they checked the computer to see if he had such a visa, they found a drug-possession charge instead.

Laine was immediately sent back to England, but Rosenay!!! didn't learn about it until Sunday. Monday was Lincoln's Birthday which prevented him from speaking to any government officials until Tuesday. After calling the the American Embassy in London Rosenayy!!! learned he needed to fill out a form to get permission to ask for an H-waiver Visa, which would take four to six weeks for an OK.

Calls to government officials in the United States proved fruitless and Rosenay!!! felt Laine's management should start working on the problem in England. On Wednesday, they devised a plan to fly Laine to Toronto and drive him to Trumbull, but decided the risk of an arrest was too great.

The next day, Laine and his management appeared at the American Embassy in London and, after what Rosenay!!! described as "begging," they were given a four-step process to be done in person at various agencies.

They did the four steps. Rosenay!!! got a call saying things looked good. The embassy told Laine he could have the visa. On Friday, they issued the visa. Rosenay!!! was told Laine would be there Saturday morning.

The British government mailed the visa. Laine stayed home. His ex-wife and Laine's band from Scotland performed at the convention. Rosenay!!! only had to issue three refunds.

"JoJo Laine promised the audience that Denny would get into the country within a month," Rosenay!!! said the Tuesday after the convention. "And he'll do three concerts - one in New York, one in Connecticut and one in Boston, and anyone who attended the convention can go for free."

The biggest surprise for Rosenay!!! came at 11 a.m. Friday when he was informed he had to pay for all security - police and fire officials - in parking lots, directing traffic and checking capacity. He figures he was paying for 16 officials at any given time - about $9,000 - which cut seriously into his profits. The good news is the ninth convention will probably be back in New Haven.

THE reconstructive ideal of punk rock continues to make the old new again in popular music. The punks - most notably the Sex Pistols, Damned and the early Clash - tore away rock's veneers, going to the core of rock 'n' roll and generating a loud, angry sound filled with vitality and vengeance.

Since then, that punk ethic has been applied to a variety of genres: rockabilly, reggae and disco, to name a few. Hard rock and metal musicians have generally been ambivalent toward addressing their music through this ethic.

Metal and punk run in opposite directions. Metal is flash, long guitar solos, a veiled blues base and, most importantly, image. True punk is attitude, not image. The only meeting point is volume and the handful of bands doing anything interesting with the genre are mixing fast, hardcore punk with melodic and harmonic ideas and heavy metal.

Metallica, which appears at the Hartford Civic Center on March 17, and Anthrax, which headlines MTV Headbangers' Ball May 11 at the Springfield Civic Center, are at the top of the class with their variations on the speed metal theme. Neither band is heard much on the radio and only recently was Metallica's "One" placed into rotation on MTV.

Those bands are selling in the millions. Bands approaching hard rock with a punk mentality aren't selling as well, although one, Jane's Addiction, has garnered its share of media attention.

Some attention was for the two nude sculptures on the cover of the album "Nothing's Shocking" on Warners (it was banned by eight record chains); some for the attention heaped on the Los Angeles metal/glam/hard rock scene that first spawned Eddie Van Halen and hundreds of sound-alikes.

Jane's Addiction, which appears Tuesday at Toad's Place, has emerged from L.A. without ripping off Van Halen's trademark guitar riffs or a frontman with David Lee Roth-sized ego. Instead, the band praises L.A.'s early punk bands, the Minutemen and X, and the funk-punk of Fishbone and the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

However different, Jane's Addiction does come from the same club scene as the now mega-famous Guns 'n' Roses. Guns, however, has subscribed to the Aerosmith book of fame; Jane's Addiction wants to sound like Led Zeppelin, the New York Dolls, Tom Verlaine and Arthur Janov locked in an after-hours barroom.

The band's nomination for a Grammy in the heavy metal/hard rock category has raised a few eyebrows, many noting Guns 'n' Roses deserves a nomination - and the award - and Jane's Addiction doesn't belong in the category.

Jane's Addiction harks back to Led Zeppelin. Like Zeppelin, Jane's Addiction has successfully defied classification, filling its music with rage and passion, psychedelia and buzzing guitars, screams and chants.

Unlike Led Zep, Jane's Addiction is, contrary to the album title, about shock. The focus is Penny Farrell, who sports dreadlocks and pounds of jewelry, and presents a character based on Iggy Stooge, Ziggy Stardust, Alice Cooper and "Rocky Horror." Farrell's songs are straight from the heart of disaffected youth, rebellion and confusion - it wouldn't be odd for Farrell to cover the late Dogmatics' cover, "Why Must I be a Teen-ager on Drugs?"

That Zeppelin base can be a starting place and used convincingly as the Zulus proved a week ago at the Nightshift. Larry Bangor's manic vocals screamed of anguish and heartbreak from twisted love affairs. The quartet's lone guitar swirled through the relentless, three-minute-plus songs.

Bangor, like Farrell, is on the edge and in your face. While his voice pierces the soul - as it has since he led Human Sexual Response through "What Does Sex Mean to Me" - his every twitch and mannerism pulls the listener closer to his edge.

Eventually we have to decide what is illusion and what is reality. How far can we go with Bangor - at what point does a listener get repelled and refuse to go any further? With Farrell, it's a question of when doesn't he matter anymore. Does Morrissey? Does Bowie? Someday, we'll ask, does Penny?

Bands like Jane's Addiction are presenting work under the pretense of it being life-affecting and not just an hourlong show that the audience forgets in a week. There will be fans and critics who believe in Farrell's vision and others who will call this stuff garbage. Trust what you read about the Zulus. In Jane's case, judge for yourself.

THE Grammy Awards provided no big surprises but because of the awards NARAS choses to televise, it looked like Bobby McFerrin's big night. He took four awards, Tracy Chapman took three.

Early comments from writers generally focused on the broader range of music included in the nominations. But that's where it stayed. When the awards were handed out, they went to the folks who made the least-challenging music and sold the most records. As McFerrin wisely noted, these awards are not a sign of artistic achievement.

Winners in the rhythm and blues and rap categories were immensely appealing to white audiences; the country and gospel winners, however deserving, have established crossover audiences that provide them with a larger audience base.

The only true embarrassment came in the awarding Jethro Tull's "Crest of a Knave" the hard rock/metal Grammy. The record is not one of the band's better efforts and of the five records nominated, it was the worst. But what the academy has termed its "progressive wing" probably grew up with "Aqualung" and "Thick as a Brick." Like Academy Awards voters, it was their way of saying thank you for years of service.

While I batted an even .500 in predictions - seven right, seven wrong - I did figure correctly Sting would walk away empty handed.

Live action: The Fixx will appear at the Palace in New Haven on March 31. Tickets go on sale Monday. Legal Reins, a new act on Arista Records, will open the show.

The Bangles will appear at the Paramount Theater in Springfield, Mass., on March 19. Tickets go on sale Tuesday. House of Freaks will be the opening act.

Reggae crossover stars Third World will appear with the Wailers at the Palace on April 16. The two bands will be in Springfield on April 23. Tickets for both shows go on sale March 6.

Tickets go on sale today for the Replacements at the Bushnell in Hartford on March 25.

Expect Christmas, which recenty released its first disc for I.R.S., at the Nightshift in Naugatuck in April. Guitarist Lonnie Mack will be there March 15 and Bluesman Willies and the South Street Runners is there March 10.

Notes: T-shirts for Robert Cray and John Hiatt were among the best available in some time and offered for $16 which, sadly, is a good price considering. ... The "censored name" on the cover of the Dirty Strangers' new album is none other than Keith Richards who appears on six of the 12 tracks. Fellow Rolling Stone guitarist Ron Wood also appears on the record. ... The new television show "Almost Grown," which features James Brown on the title tune, featured a character walking into the radio station office of his best friend. The song on the radio blows this guy's mind - he's never heard anything like it and has to have the tape. The song? The 1973 acoustic version of "Road Runner" by Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers.