MEMOIRS OF A TEENAGE TYPESETTER ON THE NIGHT SHIFT:
The Saturday Harvard Square Heijira and The Selector, review #2

I was a sophomore at BU in 1980, and had declared my major (geology) the second week of freshman year. I was still fulfilling non-science required courses and working around 20 hours a week at the paper. Milo and I lived together at 137 Pearl Street, Cambridge, which meant I could walk down to the BU Bridge and be at the school relatively easily, and we both could walk the five blocks up to Central Square to catch the Mass. Ave. bus to 100 Mass. Avenue.

After publishing my first review, on March18, 1980, I was eager to write again, but I was also taking more challenging classes, and making frequent trips "into the field" on the weekends (Maine, Vermont, New Brunswick -- the BU Geology Department was a restless crowd). What I was learning in school was fascinating -- how the earth really works. The language, the images, the vocabulary was ornate and specialized. Meanwhile, the soundtrack back at the apartment was getting more and more stripped down. Milo's taste in music was, and is, unique. He had an appetite for discordance, shouting, and weird rhythms, and whatever was new. At this point, he was writing for the Phoenix, and had started writing for Subway News (Doug Simmons' paper), but not often enough to start calling record labels to send over recent releases. Besides, most of the stuff Milo wanted to hear was available as import-only, and who the hell knew how to get in touch with those people?

We had settled into a routine whereby Saturday morning we'd walk down Mass. Ave. to Harvard Square, shopping at record stores, and any boutique that took our fancy. Milo would have cashed his paycheck, and the purpose of the Saturday walk was to get every new single or album that had arrived at Cheapo Records, Discount Records and the Coop (in that order), as well as to stop at Harvard Book, to see what gigantic essential book had arrived. Million Year Picnic had the latest underground comics, and we'd also stop at Oona's for used clothing.

Once we arrived at the Square, we'd start the shopping marathon with getting coffee at Coffee Connection, a fragrant and intimate restaurant/retail establishment in the Harvard Square garage. Our usual order was a half-pound of Kenya AA and a half-pound of Sumatra, "just-the-beans-please," as Milo had a filter and carafe. I only started drinking coffee after living with Milo, and Coffee Connection (which preceded Starbucks and was, IMO, so much better) could fuel one for hours of caffeinated record-sifting.

Milo was starting to be known at some of the record stores because he'd be looking for items that Christgau had reviewed in the Voice, or that he'd read about in NME. If Discount Records didn't have it, the Coop surely would, and Milo spent many happy hours going through the bins. He had a unique method of shopping for records, muttering and commenting as he looked at covers. Every now and then, he'd yank a record out and look over his glasses to peruse the fine type. He usually spoke with a drawl, but record-shopping would speed up his natural speech rhythms to that of a cartoon character at time -- all intentional on Milo's part, as he conversed with the record. Every now and then, he'd come across something he hadn't known about, or an artist on one of the obscure labels that intrigued him. Kit's music section was designed to be varied and encyclopaedic, with Bob Blumenthal covering jazz, Lloyd Schwartz covering Classical, and the rest of the music writers duking it out over the increasingly vast field of pop music. Punk, New Wave, Disco, Top 40, Arena rock, pub rock, and then the variants of reggae, ska, dub and so on.

One of our regular weekend soundtrack was Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols, and when the news came out that Johnny Rotten's subsequent band, the sardonically, and accurately titled "Public Image Ltd" (or PiL) was releasing a unique item: the Metal Box, Milo's gleeful anticipation knew no bounds. We headed straight for the Coop, where Milo handed over (I recall) the obscene price of $30 for the gigantic silver film cannister of 45s. Even better was that PiL was coming to Boston, and Milo was set to review the show and interview Johnny Rotten (now Lydon again) for Subway News.

I remember him grumbling about carrying the big silver disc -- one of the rare times he complained about our increasingly hefty burden of packages. Milo is over six feet, with large hands, and he usually happily schlepped our pile of records, books and goods back, although usually we would get a cab, if things had gotten ridiculous (like the time I insisted we purchase a case of Saratoga water). We would also stock up on various foods. We both liked Cardullo's, where the chocolate came in adorable packages -- elves, cottages, and so on. Milo preferred the deli counter and would get some exotic sliced cheese, and usually a pound of head cheese (having grown up in cattle/sheep country, Livingston Montana, Milo had a great fondness for any kind of weird preserved meat).

In the spring of sophomore year, I believe I took some archaeology classes along with a fascinating, and mind-bending class in mineralogy, which required an understanding of geometry and chemistry along with comprehending the idea of mineral classes (silicates, carbonates, etc). Still, I couldn't resist the music section, and as soon as the semester was over, I was after Kit to see what I could review next. I knew I didn't have the momentum of any of the other writers, with my first review appearing on March 18, and here it was nearly two months later!

Kit assigned me a new album by a ska band, The Selector who were -- thank god -- not American. I was aching to review "something authentic" after what I perceived as the phoniness of Pearl Harbor and the Explosions. You may remember their big hit, "Too Much Pressure," or the newest single off the record, "On The Radio." Milo thought they were commercial, but in a sincere way, and Pauline Black, lead singer had more in common with Ari Up than with Pearl E. Gates, which suited my taste. But even as I enjoyed the record, and wrote the review, I had a disquieting feeling of possibly being pigeon-holed. Two reggae-inflected bands with chick singers in a row?? Something needed to give for the third review I wrote.

So here is my review of The Selector (May 27, 1980), for which I was paid $35. I have annotated it with reflections on the editing process, which included Milo having a couple of passes over this before I brought it to Kit.

The Selecter
TOO MUCH PRESSURE
(Chrysalis)

Unlike the Specials, their 2-Tone labelmates, the Selecter may prove that ska really is the limit. [This definitely was Milo's lead -- he liked the Specials more than I did] Too Much Pressure replaces reverence with infectious energy -- rock 'n' roll's return to reggae [at some point at the Phoenix, the powers that be later decided that that kind of music would be "rock AND roll" instead of the abbreviation]. The Selecter's music keeps the Jamaican phrasing but pins it to a pop-busy backbeat. You can still do the rude-boy walk (you know, the one Mick Jones does) to this album, but the Selecter's moves don't end there. [As I was learning to review, I focused on exactly how dance-friendly all this stuff was, and what kind of moves one would do]. "On My Radio," their new single, is kicky [total Milo word!] with sharp drum busts complementing vocalist Pauline Black's sweeping declaration that "it's just the same old show/On my radio." With wry roller-rink keyboard from Desmond Brown, the repetition of the verse spoofs the mulish banality of Black's late-night listening. At the same time, the Selecter recognize the potential hazards of being a rude boy in songs like "Out on the Streets" and "Danger." The latter begins with a keyboard "oo-ee" that mimics a British paddy wagon and shimmies into Black's punch retelling of her racially motivated arrest, which only strengthened her avowal to "live beside the rules." Though this theme of false arrest is common and British and Jamaican reggae, it's a neat twist to have a woman deliver it. The authorities might have won this round, but Black isn't quelled; the band surges on, alerting us to the "danger because there's going to be a terrible fight."

Pauline Black's position as lead vocalist and front-woman was better demonstrated at the band's recent Paradise show. A slight, wiry woman with a riveting stare, she catalyzed band and audience with her infectious animation. [I remember how intense a performer she was -- her confidence had nothing to do with wanting to make people like her -- very different from other girl-fronted bands I'd seen up to that point.] Arthur "Gaps" Hendrickson is an able partner to her husky but tone-true voice, which ranged from the full-bodied cheerleader's whooping on "Three Minute Hero" to the falsetto squeal of "On My Radio." Black should be a punk's ideal: a tough girl who is aware but not self-absorbed. She prefaced the Paradise version of "Missing words" by jocularly asking the crowd, "Does anyone here like love songs? That's good, 'cause we don't do none." [Part of the point of reviewing a band live, as you review the record is to get that depth of being there -- much easier when the band actually has depth.]  Amusing, because "Missing Words" is about painfully permanently lost love. It's a mournful song, though the rhythm section hustles along -- the sooner to forget -- but when her voice catches in a sob on the "missing words," her soulfulness equals her loss.

There are no clunkers [Another classic Milo word!] hidden on Too Much Pressure -- each song is fast, tight, and ferociously attacked. Even the received ska touches -- the brass on "Carry Go Bring Come" and "Black and Blue" -- are refreshing without being nostalgic. Too Much Pressure is actually rooted in rock 'n' roll; not coincidentally, the sole white member of the band, lead guitarist Neol Davies, has written the more rock 'n' roll-influenced songs on the album. Though there are two guitarists in the band, they solo less than the keyboards and percussion do. Even the bass is nearly superseded by the drums; in "Time Hard," the percussion and keyboard carry the peppy melody and the rhythm guitars spice it with contrapuntal slashes.[Given that my brother Hal is a bass player, I was always very sensitive to making sure rhythms sections got some credit.] The beat is pervasive enough to make the "Every day/Things are getting worse" lyric ambiguous. This song is the sort of light anthem for dancing, not marching, down the street away from it all -- and Too Much Pressure is the rock 'n' soul revue that should keep moving long after ska camp wears out.

And so it was published, and I walked on a cloud from the night I saw it on the boards for the next week. It was an epic to write, but having the live performance meant I had a deadline that was going to be met no matter what. I definitely sense some desperation on my part writing this -- sentences got longer and longer as the piece continues, and that Kit clearly was trying to rein it in -- thus interspersing colons and semi-colons in place of the frequent dashes. But the best part of writing this was that I actually felt like listening to the record again after writing about it. I was so new at this that my "process" was basically to listen to the record so much I basically had it memorized, and then to re-listen to certain parts to see how lyrics connected between songs, as well as similarities in instrumental stuff.

I was still a geology student -- I was getting trained to look at rocks as collections of minerals, as collections of chemical combinations (ruled by formative processes), created out of elements. At the same time, I was aware -- due to Milo's frequent editorializing -- that record production at major labels was designed to grind the creativity and roughness out of a band -- even a straightforward pop-ska group like The Selecter.

I went back and listened to the album online (ah, the Alexandrian Library of the internet) and found it sounded current more than quaint, and still pretty darn charming. However, not as charming as the next artist I was to review: George Thorogood. More TKTKTKTK.