From: vze3vvj2@verizon.net   
      
   "Kyle"  wrote in message   
   news:1181762026.621332.129890@q19g2000prn.googlegroups.com...   
   > On Jun 13, 1:49 pm, "Professor"  wrote:   
   >> "Kyle"  wrote in message   
   >> news:1181760250.728946.161010@a26g2000pre.googlegroups.com...   
   >> > On Jun 13, 1:17 pm, "D-unit"  wrote:   
   >> >> "Kyle"  wrote in message   
   >> >>news:1181757804.424386.257620@q19g2000prn.googlegroups.com...   
   >>   
   >> >> > Okay, I've been starved for ages now for an update on Walter   
   >> >> > Becker's   
   >> >> > new solo record.  I can't remember when WB's site was last updated.   
   >> >> > But I read last week in one of the guitar magazines that the new   
   >> >> > album   
   >> >> > is finished -- and that it was produced by Larry Klein, who also   
   >> >> > cowrote all of the songs.   
   >> >> > I'm thankful for the info, and glad to hear the record's done.   
   >> >> > Larry   
   >> >> > Klein?  I don't know; he's a bass player/producer who was married to   
   >> >> > Joni Mitchell in the 80s, and who worked on some of her 80s stuff   
   >> >> > (which I thought was terrible and hideously dumbed-down) and on   
   >> >> > other   
   >> >> > projects, like Cars' bassist/vocalist Ben Orr's late-80s album "The   
   >> >> > Lace" -- which, I have to be honest, I thought was bland commercial   
   >> >> > dreck (and I love the first three or four Cars albums).  Watch; some   
   >> >> > Larry Klein fan's going to jump on me.   
   >> >> > Obviously, the LK aspect of the news doesn't thrill me.  But WB has   
   >> >> > enough of an edge that I'm sure he can cut through whatever hack   
   >> >> > blandness they attempt to smother him in.   
   >> >> > Anyone heard anything else?  Does anyone have *any idea* when, if   
   >> >> > ever, the record is expected to be released?   
   >>   
   >> >> Hey,   
   >> >> If he's good enough for Joni....   
   >> >>    
   >>   
   >> > But I think even JM would admit today that her 80s records sucked.   
   >>   
   >> I doubt that.  Maybe only you think they sucked?   
   >   
   > Um, no.  I've talked to hardcore JM worshippers who thought her 80s   
   > albums -- of which there were only three, Wild Things Run Fast, Dog   
   > Eat Dog, and Chalk Mark in a Rainstorm -- were weak or bad.  I also   
   > remember that these albums weren't too favorably reviewed, and that JM   
   > didn't like at least one of them (DED) in retrospect.   
      
   Here is a review of Wild Things Run Fast from Rolling Stone.  He gave it a   
   4.2 out of 5   
   Down at the Chinese Cafe, we'd be dreaming on our dimes/We'd be playing 'Oh   
   my love, my darling' one more time," sings Joni Mitchell of the old times.   
   The way Mitchell threads lyrics from the Righteous Brothers' "Unchained   
   Melody" through her own "Chinese Cafe" signifies the passing of time that is   
   central to Wild Things Run Fast. "Caught in the middle, Carol, we're   
   middle-class," she sings in that opening cut. "We're middle-aged/We were   
   wild in the old days."   
      
   Joni Mitchell's music has taken dramatic turns over the past fourteen years,   
   and she has produced a classic in each of three styles: folk (Blue),   
   pop-rock (Court and Spark) and pop-jazz (Hejira). Lyrically, love has been   
   Mitchell's main concern-the word gets fifty-seven mentions on this LP-and   
   her shifts have been more subtle: from the arched but intimate innocent to   
   the Hollywood high-lifer and, finally, to the romantic on the run from   
   experience.   
      
   Wild Things Run Fast might have been called Court and Hejira. It is almost a   
   great record, on a par with For the Roses and Clouds. It alternates   
   rhythmically scratchy rock with cocktail jazz keynoted by Larry Klein's   
   elastic bass and Wayne Shorter's soprano sax. Similarly, it splits lyrical   
   concerns between what happens at people's parties and what goes on in   
   Mitchell's solitary salon.   
      
   Thoughts on love dart through these songs like foxes in the underbrush,   
   seeming at once to build toward answers, then tripping over contradictions.   
   "Nobody's harder on me than me," sings the marooned lover in "Moon at the   
   Window," bitter that people taste love and toss it but grateful that   
   emotional thieves can't steal the sky. The images are rich and the jazzy   
   vocal is warm, with harmonies cresting to imply a negative response to the   
   question "Is it possible to learn How to care and yet not care?" By   
   contrast, the singer's counsel in "Be Cool" is to "Smile-keep it light Be   
   your own best friend tonight." "Be Cool" is a lightweight social study   
   compared to an emotional imbroglio like "Moon at the Window." The lyrical   
   slightness of "Be Cool," as well as the title cut and "Ladies' Man," is   
   reflected in their flat musical settings.   
      
   More ambitious is "You Dream Flat Tires," the album's best uptempo   
   pop-rocker. "Woman she bounce back easy But a man could break both his   
   legs," sings Lionel Richie in a vocal cameo. In the next song. "Man to Man,"   
   Mitchell ponders the price of failures and flat tires. "I don't like to   
   lie," she admits, her voice caressing the shuffling melody, "but I sure can   
   be phony when I get scared." Wild, wary and most assuredly scared, she looks   
   at her new lover and wonders if he or she can still care.   
      
   But those kinds of romantic ruminations are reduced to so much rhubarb in   
   "Solid Love" and Leiber and Stoller's "(You're So Square) Baby, I Don't   
   Care," the album's two standout rockers. Who needs to be cool when your baby   
   just wants to kiss you "sweet and strong"? And when you've got a "solid   
   love," why not damn the doubts with a simple, "Hot dog, darling"?   
      
   It's appropriate that an album so immersed in love should end with the   
   gospel. "Where, as a child, I saw it face to face Now I only know in part,   
   fractions in me, of faith and hope and love," Mitchell sings in "Love,"   
   whose lyrics are beautifully adapted from First Corinthians 13:11-13. Albums   
   like Blue and Court and Spark were bolder, younger steps; but now the older   
   woman, wiser to the ways of the world, is satisfied to stake out smaller   
   victories. By closing Wild Things Run Fast with a simple quote like "Love's   
   the greatest beauty," Jo?? Mitchell is not saying anything that she hasn't   
   said before, but she's changing the context. Finding love's spark in old pop   
   tunes and older scriptures, she cops to the clichés of romance and, more   
   than ever before, positions the struggle as a spiritual imperative. Dreaming   
   on a dime, she listens to the past with hope for the future. (RS 383)   
      
      
   JOHN MILWARD   
      
   (Posted: Nov 25, 1982)   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)