TOM CRUISE

Cocktail

Prince Edward Cinema

Starring: Tom Cruise, Bryan Brown

Well, everyone in town obvi- ously saw the preview and came to see, or just came to drool, as it took me three tries to get into this one!

I did both and was not disap- pointed. Tom Criuse is his usual sexy self and one finds it diffi- cult to concentrate on the plot. Plot, yes, there is one. Typical,

age 8

Uv

Mu OFF THE WALL Jan Sykora

boy meets girl, boy chases girl, boy gets girl. In the middle of all this, Bryan Brown teaches Cruise some fancy bartending that I’m sure some of our local establish- ments will try to emulate for their customers.

If you want blind worship en- tertainment this is it: for the men - the bar scene, for the women - Tom. One doesn’t need a lot of mental capabilities for this one. I give it a B-.

Contrary to popular belief, it was not a dove that prompted Nosh to believe that the flood was over

mous.

New Revolutions

‘What’s in a Name?’

Although it’s easy to make a good record — let’s face it, all one needs are some good songs, sev- eral fine musicians and a dandy singer or two — it’s not so easy to title a good record. In fact, as I look back on the thousand-year history of rock ‘n’ roll, it seems that it’s darned hard to gome up with a good album title.

The thought struck me SNe Pontes hea)

I was looking over one of the best-titles albums of this decade, Metallica’s Kill "Em All. Now there’s an album title — three simple syllables, yet it says ... uh, so much. Plus, it kind of flows off

your tongue. Say it a few times and see if you don’t agree.

In any case, it go me won- dering about album titles in gen- eral, so I chose to look into the matter. Surprisingly, or per- haps not, I can find no corre- lation between neat titles and great music therein: The Doors’ Alive, She Cried is a fine title for a live album, but surely not their finest work. Conversely, the dreadfully—titled Plastic Ono Band is a very respectable John Lennon album.

I have guidelines, and they’re admit- tedly subjective, but they’re not unreasonable. The way I figure it, eponymous titles are bad if for not other reason than to stop rock writers from using word epony- Pretentious titles, which seem to be in vogue, are also bad. Thus it is fair to condemn Amer- ica’s History and R.E.M.’s Docu- ment to the same bad-title hell, where they join all the Police and Rush titles, but not Uriah Heep’s wonderfully named Very Umble, Very ’Eavy. It’s safe to assume that the title of almost any live album is a bad title. It’s also safe to assume that any Yoko Ono ti- tle is every bit as good as the mu-

sic it contains.

I’ve got a bunch of other rules, but they mostly boil down to this: if I don’t like it, it’s a lousy title. Like I said, not unreasonable at all.

So what are some of the great and not-so great album titles? The Beatles had some good ones, with Revolver, Rubber Soul, and

to show you the perversity of al- bum i was ments, mostly for the same rea-

sons it was so bad for the Beat- les. Ie’s all rather mystical. OF

course, the Replacements have never had a really bad title yet, even avoiding the live curse with their puckish The Shit Hits The Fans. And Tim was sheer inspira- tion for an album that it, as far as I can discern, devoid of Timness, while Tommy, and Arthur were> terrible titles for The Who and Kinks, respectively. Both albums were filled with songs about peo- ple named Tommy and Arthur. Tragic, in its way.

To be fair to The Who, The Who Sell Out was a splendid ti- tle, easily their best. To be fair to the Kinks, their album titles don’t get much worst after Lola Vs. Powerman And The Money- Go-Round, Part 1. Didn’t get much longer either.

But on to some really great ti- tles. 1969 was a great year — if neither the Grateful Dead’s Aox- omoxoa not Pink Floyd’s Um- magumma surpassed the Everly Brothers’ incredible Songs Our Daddy Taught Us, it wasn’t for lack of vowels. Slade’s back-to-back Slayed and Slay- dest could’ve only been improved by issuing Slayder in between. Speaking of back-to-back titles, can we ignore Lightin’ Hopkins’s Dirty Blues, which was followed

Thursday, September 1

by Jerry Morrell — Record Reviewer

by the presumably niftier Low- down Drity Blues? And if you want a statement, what could be bolder than There But Four Small Faces? And, as much as I like Joe Walsh’s You Bought It...You Name It, i must say it was topped by the Pink Fairies’ immortal What A Bunch Of Sweeties. Poison could spend a good chunk of eternity simply thinking about that one.

Great titles, it seems, come nowhere, and many ex- | artists have fumbled

the ball when it comes to nam-

ing the product. Were I Bob

“Diamant YJavec” Dsrlan Wd rer.

tainly be humbled by AC/DC’s

Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap,

one of the most Swaggering al-

literations in rock history. Were

I Mick Jagger, I’d feel the

same way about Cream’s Disraeli

Gears, the Jesus and the Mary

Chain’s Psychocandy or War’s

The World Is A Ghetto. And

were I Elvis Presley, I’d be dead.

But speaking of Elvis leads us

to the all-time champion of al-

bum titles, Bo Diddley. In ad- dition to his seminal sound, Mr. Diddley churned out titles that can only be described as colos- sal, from Hey Bo Diddley to Go Bo Diddley to Bo Diddley Rides Again. For years, I believed there simply couldn’t be a better title than Bo Diddley’s A Gunslinger, until I discovered the existence of Surfin’ With Bo Diddley. Face it, when you think of surf music, who do you see in your mind’s eye but Bo Diddley?

Which is where I might’ve ended this until I discovered — to my astonishment and chagrin — that Pye Records in England re- leased an EP back in 1964 called ... now savor this ... Bo Diddley’s A Lumberjack. :

Jesus Christ, Bo Diddley. Kill ’em all. ee

Sth, 1988==