Adrian Belew: Dust

ADRIAN BELEW: DUST (2014)

1) Intro To Something; 2) What Do You Know; 3) Happy Guy; 4) One Time (demo); 5) Hawaiian Cowboys; 6) Big Blue Sun (remix); 7) Pygmies; 8) Neptune Pool; 9) Shoe Salesman; 10) Superboy; 11) Collage For "Girl With Clouds"; 12) Still Life With Dobro (reduction); 13) Neurotica; 14) Duck Funk Symphony; 15) Antarctica; 16) P-Type; 17) Postcard From Holland (demo); 18) Peas.

Since this album was only released on Adrian's home label (you can order it from his own web­site, and the good man only charges you an extra five for an autograph!), and since it consists of nothing but outtakes, demos, and musical jokes from his entire solo career and was never special­ly promoted or advertised in any way, nobody except for the most hardcore followers seems to even have heard about this collection. But it does exist, and apparently, it is just a sampler of various goodies accumulated over the years that the man is gradually making available and, sometimes, heartily discussing and nostalgizing over in his «Elephant Blog».

As we all know, Adrian is a fun guy, and this is a fun collection. As its title suggests, it is rather messy and trashy, and it is almost inevitable that some of the stuff here is really rubbish — for instance, ʽCollage For ʽGirl With Cloudsʼʼ is precisely that, a sonic collage that had been used as the psychedelic background for ʽGirl With Cloudsʼ off The Bears' Rise And Shine album, where it merely constitutes a randomized layer for an upbeat pop song. On its own, it makes no sense whatsoever; worse, it does not even make nonsense. But perhaps you spent twenty-five years of your life wondering what exactly was buried under those guitars and vocals? There, your prayers have been answered.

A few other tracks are demos and raw versions of classic oldies that one might be interested in hearing just once: the piano-and-strings-only version of ʽBig Blue Sunʼ (which does show how much Belew must have been influenced by George Martin's chamber orchestrations), the guitar-and-background-vocals-only version of ʽPostcard From Hollandʼ, the shorter alternate take on King Crimson's ʽOne Timeʼ, etc. But these are not the tracks for which you'd want to own this «dusty» little package, no sir.

The real meat is in the previously unheard compositions — all of which work as a cool testament to the diversity, professionalism, and good humor of the guy. ʽHappy Guyʼ is a wonderful little ska instrumental that reads like a musically sophisticated variation on the theme of ʽOb-La-Di Ob-La-Daʼ. ʽHawaiian Cowboysʼ is an electronic percussion-heavy hula with soft, pacifying gui­tar work nicely contrasting with the frenetic beats (though I did not notice anything particularly cowboyish about it). ʽPygmiesʼ uses deep bass lines and a whole load of atonal brass overdubs and various sound effects to recreate that hot jungle atmosphere. ʽStill Life With Dobroʼ is just Adrian dicking around with said instrument for five minutes, but doing it in a whole variety of styles, from boogie to folk to classical. And the title ʽDuck Funk Symphonyʼ should probably speak for itself: unlike so many avantgarde musicians, Belew likes his titles to correlate to a cer­tain degree with the musical content, so be prepared for (crazy) funky rhythmics and treated guitar tones that do sound very much like ducks. Ducks straight outta hell, that is!

There are some decent vocal numbers here as well, though not many: ʽShoe Salesmanʼ is a cle­ver­ly worded two-minute tragic love song ("My baby's in love with a shoe salesman / No, I don't fit her anymore", har har); ʽSuperboyʼ is a rambunctious power-pop number that would have fit in well on any of Adrian's classic pop albums; and ʽPeasʼ is, apparently, a very early track from the dawn of Adrian's career — a culinary vaudeville spoof with the man professing his love for Pisum sativum ("I love you so much, I could eat you all day") in several different voices. Sounds more like proto-Ween, really, than genuine Adrian Belew, but the man's got many faces, and this is why we love him so much.

Anyway, as far as odds-and-ends collections go, Dust is a keeper and deserves its thumbs up, even if I strongly suspect that it could have been even better — there's enough musical and lyrical ideas here to suggest that Adrian might have enough in his vaults to make for a «great lost... some­thing», if only he hadn't been busy eating peas all day. And while it might not be a perfect compensation for the odd lack of new artistic activity from Belew over most of the 2010s, it is at least satisfactory to know that the man is taking good care of his own legacy.

The Bears: Eureka!

THE BEARS: EUREKA! (2007)

1) Zelda Fitzgerald; 2) Veneer; 3) On; 4) Troubled Beauty; 5) Normal; 6) We Never Close; 7) Think; 8) Keep Your Own Counsel; 9) Idiot In The Sky; 10) Doodle; 11) Comin' Round The Mountain.

This must be some sort of tradition for The Bears now — alternate the release of one really fun pop album with the subsequent release of a really lacklustre one. You'd think that in between the six years that separate Eureka! from Car Caught Fire, the band members would have had the strength to come up with another fine batch of tunes — instead, what you get is about thirty minutes worth of something seriously undercooked, unmemorable, and just plain boring.

I have no idea what happened, but these ten songs (eleven, if you count the pretty, but fully dispensable cover of ʽComin' Round The Mountainʼ) do not move me in the least. The band is still there in its proper incarnation, with all four members dutifully supplying more or less equal shares of songs as they did on Car Caught Fire, but they are really boring, and I do mean really. This time, it all sounds like one of those yawn-inducing moralistic records by the Barenaked Ladies — every single song. Even Belew's three songs are generally subpar: ʽDoodleʼ has some funny falsetto harmonies, but is melodically repetitive, just a lazy vamp on a single jumpy-jerky distorted riff, and the other two sound like outtakes from some uninspired King Crimson session.

Most importantly, it's as if the fun factor was never there in the first place. This is serious-faced «intellectual pop» with a social / environmental message, mostly, but if it's intellectual, then where is the intellectual wish to come up with something new? For each of these songs, there are two or three Bears songs alone that say the same thing, let alone the output of other artists, and say it with more verve and energy. Eureka!? Really? As far as I understand, the exclamation that adequately conveys the atmosphere of the record is Oh, Shhhiiii...

It's not too tasteless or anything — it's vintage Bears, featuring all their trademarks, just none of their spontaneous wit and charm. In such situations, it is very hard to even begin to explain why one record is good and another one is bad, and I am not sure it is worth my time to really strain myself over the issue, so you'll have to just take my word on this. If you like The Bears for their overall style, you will probably want to disagree with me — if you are relatively indifferent to­wards their style, but care about their hooks, you probably won't. It is objectively telling, though, that (a) this record is so very short (so, obviously, they did not have too many ideas when they got together in 2007) and (b) the Bears have not reconvened ever since, even after Belew had finally been fired from King Crimson and gained as much free time on his hands as possible. After all, funny friendly lightning did strike twice on their behalf already, but now it seems like the game is finally over. No hard feelings whatsoever, but a thumbs down all the same.

The Bears: Live

THE BEARS: LIVE (2002)

1) Honey Bee; 2) What's The Good Of Knowing; 3) Dave; 4) Robobo's Beef; 5) Mr. Bonaparte; 6) Under The Volcano; 7) Success; 8) Little Blue River; 9) As You Are; 10) Trust; 11) Complicated Potatoes; 12) Figure It Out; 13) Caveman; 14) Man Behind The Curtain.

This album, recorded live at some small club in some irrelevant location on the underbelly of the universe, makes me happy with its tracklist — the three studio Bears albums are given the exact same priorities that I have defined for myself: 7 songs from the best one, Car Caught Fire, 4 songs from the second best (The Bears), and only 3 from the worst (Rise And Shine). Of course, 4 against 3 may not seem like much, statistically speaking, but remember the proportions, too: Rise And Shine was about ten minutes longer than The Bears, so the figures are valid. Also, one might object that the band was simply promoting Car Caught Fire at the time, but, you know, that'd be just guesswork, while here we have a strong factual correlation and all.

Anyway, it is not very significant. What is significant is to understand that the difference between a Bears studio album and a Bears live album is in no way similar to the difference between, say, a King Crimson studio vs. live album. The Bears have pledged to be a pop band — not an experi­mental avantgarde one or even a rock'n'roll one — and they do not see themselves obliged to «rip it up» on stage the way King Crimson could, when they showed the world how this strange, otherworldly, New Wave-influenced music on their early 1980s records could be brought to a boiling point (and bring your brains to the same point in the process). The Bears take things much lighter, and simply give their little fan club a good time.

It is not uninteresting, though, to hear these songs without the heavy «studio tinkering» they had been given, particularly to compare the real old ones with the new arrangements — ʽHoney Beeʼ without all the «twang» effects on the guitars and vocals, for instance; or ʽTrustʼ, which is strip­ped clean of its feedback blasts and given a largely acoustic setting; or ʽFigure It Outʼ, which, due to the band's limited budget, is deprived of its brass section, but Belew and Fetters compensate for this with some wild guitar sparring (with respect for each other's styles — I mean, Belew can probably slaughter anyone in a sparring match, but they make it work instead).

On the whole, there are few major departures from the original structures or moods: other than the acoustic takes on ʽTrustʼ and ʽAs You Areʼ, I have noticed an extended psycho-coda to ʽSuccessʼ — the only place on the album where Belew engages in some serious guitar pyrotechnics, probably to ap­pease those people who only came to the show in hopes to catch a glimpse of the famous mad guitarist — and that's about it. I am also not completely satisfied with the setlist: instead of the sulky ʽDaveʼ, I'd rather have ʽOld Fat Cadillacʼ or any other spritelier number, but they probably had to support the delicate balance between all the songwriters and singers. Still, good songs, good vibe, the audience goes wild (enough to roar in ecstasy, as if this were a stadium show, before the encore, and chant "Bears! Bears! Bears!" after the encore), and the songs are let free to roam outside of their tight studio shells — reason enough to give it a try. "Pop music is not dead!" one of the band members declares as they slip out of ʽMr. Bonaparteʼ, and even though, on a global scale, this is a debatable statement, at least The Bears offer here much more than just empty words in its defense. Thumbs up. 

The Bears: Car Caught Fire

THE BEARS: CAR CAUGHT FIRE (2001)

1) Life In A Nutshell; 2) Under The Volcano; 3) When She Moves; 4) Mr. Bonaparte; 5) What's The Good Of Knowing; 6) Dave; 7) Caveman; 8) Waiting Room; 9) 117 Valley Drive; 10) Safe In Hell; 11) Success; 12) Sooner Or Later; 13) As You Are.

As Adrian's solo career finally took off and he found himself enjoying moderate success on his own, The Bears were put on hold while he was too busy dividing most of his time between his solo status and King Crimson. However, the split was not inimical, and throughout the 1990s, members of The Bears would frequently back him on his records and solo tours, while at the same time pursuing their own lines of work (for instance, dubbing themselves «the psychodots», with lowercase p, and even releasing an album with the same title).

By the time the 2000s rolled about, though, Adrian either got bored playing on his own, or he decided that, after all, «pure pop» was something that could be better created and enjoyed in the company of friends, whereas his solo ventures should be more experimental and «whacko». This hypothesis is indirectly supported by the fact that his Side One, etc. projects of 2004-05 would all be seriously avantgarde — whereas the resuscitated Bears' third album, Car Caught Fire, is every bit as pop-based as the first two. More interestingly, it is also better than the first two: in fact, it is easily the one Bears album to own if you want to quickly learn everything that this band is capable of.

Car Caught Fire does not sound very much like the Bears' first two albums with their «New Wave pop» sheen, «King-Crimson-made-accessible-to-the-masses» approach. Nor does it sound much like Belew's solo pop career from Mr. Music Head to Here, which was seriously retro-oriented. Instead, it sounds a little timeless (as, indeed, do quite a few, if not most, albums from the last decade and a half), borrowing a little from every decade and every style as long as it allows to write and record a decent, catchy, pretty pop song.

ʽLife In A Nutshellʼ, for instance, opens the album with a typically Belew-style twangy guitar riff, only to have it backed, within a few seconds, by an out-of-nowhere «swampy» harmonica part, and then sweetened up with an old-fashioned pop vocal melody. ʽUnder The Volcanoʼ, with Fet­ters (I think) on lead vocals, sounds like something Phil Collins could have done if he were into steady, rhythmic, guitar-based pop instead of drum machines and synthesizers, and, in addition, Belew wrings out a screechy, scratchy guitar solo that sounds more like John Cale's viola experi­ments on the Velvet Underground's first album than anything more human in nature. ʽWhen She Movesʼ sounds like... Tom Petty? All except the song's main seven-note riff, which seems taken from some quirky New Wave-era keyboard rock hit or something. And so on.

In other words, eclecticism is the norm — Car Caught Fire is as diverse as Rise And Shine was monotonous, and a detailed analysis of these songs would have me listing their possible influen­ces from dawn till dusk. At the same time, it is all expertly and contemporarily produced, so that the album sounds no less modern than at least your Strokes or your Ash or whatever was popular in those days. Even if you want yourself some basic rock'n'roll with just a small touch of weird­ness, you have your ʽCavemanʼ — a song about how we all really behave like cavemen (Belew's favorite subject) appropriately set to a grumbly, distorted hard rock riff, and with a specially designed chorus so we could all gleefully join the band singing "I'm a caveman, I'm a caveman!" without realising that the joke is on us.

It should probably be noted that Belew is by no means the primary songwriter: ʽCavemanʼ, for instance, is credited to Nyswonger, and on the whole, songwriting is more or less equally split between all of the band's members — and almost all of the songs have something to offer. It is hard to speak about individual styles: ʽLife In A Nutshellʼ, ʽMr. Bonaparteʼ, and ʽ117 Valley Driveʼ are probably identifiable as Belew songs by being based on unorthodox riffs, but the rest trade their various influences and quotations quite freely between different songwriters, which is absolutely no problem at all. Well, maybe a little bit of a problem, when acoustically based songs such as ʽDaveʼ bring their sound too perilously close to the sentimental side of the Barenaked Ladies — then again, this is almost inevitable with «nerdy» music like this when the authors decide that it is time for a little sentimentality.

That said, it is not much easier to write up a meaningful assessment of Car Caught Fire than it was the case for the previous albums — even while raising the stakes so high in terms of intel­ligence and pure entertainment, it still feels a little «empty». You cannot blame the lyrics, which are consistently decent and deal with real problems (internal and external), and you cannot blame the players, who seem genuinely driven by a desire to say something, and, formally speaking, they do. Still, something seems to be missing, and I cannot for the life of me determine what it is. Maybe it's some sort of «willingness to go all the way» or something: with all their variety and creativity, the songs seem to be holding themselves back, as if there were some kind of conflict here between the will to entertain and the will to do it in a cliché-avoiding manner. This may also be responsible for the fact that I have no idea what would be the «highlights» on here — not able to pinpoint even one absolute «favorite». Maybe ʽCavemanʼ, but that would be just because its hard rock riff separates it from the rest.

Anyway, it doesn't really matter, because the same kind of complaint could be addressed at just about anybody (hell, some people accuse The White Album of being a soulless mish-mash, too). As a pop album, it is at least better than any single Barenaked Ladies record, so that alone guaran­tees a thumbs up rating already (and I do like the Ladies when they are being fun and quirky, rather than trying to pump up seriousness).

The Bears: Rise And Shine

THE BEARS: RISE AND SHINE (1988)

1) Aches And Pains; 2) Save Me; 3) Robobo's Beef; 4) Not Worlds Apart; 5) Nobody's Fool; 6) Highway 2; 7) Little Blue River; 8) Rabbit Manor; 9) Holy Mack; 10) Complicated Potatoes; 11) You Can Buy Friends; 12) Best Laid Plans; 13) Old Fat Cadillac; 14) Girl With Clouds.

Although this album is a little longer than the first one, it gives the impression of being even more formulaic. No attempts at walls of sound, no brass section anywhere, just a very basic, very tight pop-rock sound. Two guitars, one bass, and a drumset. Of course, with Adrian Belew con­stantly honing his skills as a «guitar-orchestra person», this means that there will be numerous overdubs where his six-string will sound like a one-string, a two-string, a no-string, or a little bird twirping away high up in a tree, but eventually, you get used to the predictability of it, too.

The first five songs here really just go past through me like a knife through warm butter — mood-wise, there is nothing to tell them apart, and when all of your hooks look like they've been passed out from the assembly line, there is no reason to call them «hooks» as such. Pleasant, same-sounding midtempo pop with buzzing or meaouwing guitars (sometimes buzzing and meaouwing at the same time, courtesy of Adrian's never-ending tone variation effects) and friendly choruses. The album does not even try to begin to steer a different course until ʽLittle Blue Riverʼ, which slows down the tempo, adds a pinch of tender folksy harmonies, and tops it off with a psychede­lic coloring for the lead guitar part.

Further on, things become more interesting with ʽRabbit Manorʼ, a quirky avantgarde-funk work­out with a feel of not-too-dangerous suspense and a touch of classic Belew paranoia; ʽComplica­ted Potatoesʼ, with Belew (or is that Fetters?) adding some distortion to his sound; and ʽBest Laid Plansʼ, with a mystical-hypnotic guitar line dominating the verse (for the chorus with its ques­tionable pun — "the best laid plans never get laid" — they shift to the usual power-pop mood). But arguably the best song, and the only one that made it over to Adrian's solo career (you can find a live version on 1993's The Acoustic Adrian Belew) is ʽOld Fat Cadillacʼ, for which he came up with a more «New Wave»-y guitar pattern and a memorable riff.

The overall arrange­ment and performance of ʽCadillacʼ does suggest that this is more of an «intimate Adrian Belew moment» than a collective Bears tune, and this, in turn, suggests that there was a certain reason why The Bears were put on hold after Rise And Shine, like its pre­decessor, failed to interest the public: namely, because the most interesting songs on here are the ones where «the band» is not intentionally striving to sound like «a band», but more like «a back­ing band» for the chief personality. When it's de-personalized rhythm guitar and group harmonies, they are neither the epitome of heavenly beauty nor a wallop of unstoppable energy — but on ʽOld Fat Cadillacʼ, Belew's individual emotionalism comes shining through.

Besides, the original novelty and excitement of it all had worn off, and now they sound a bit too much like a relatively mindless pop factory (good taste and all) where songs like ʽMeet Me In The Darkʼ and ʽNone Of The Aboveʼ were honestly more fun. Style-wise, I have no problem with the record, but it just feels too much like one of those «let us get together and make a guitar-based pop-rock album with no purpose other than showing how much we like guitar-based pop-rock» ventures, and we've probably all had our fair share of these already. And what's up with that big old hinomaru on the album cover? Was that a surreptitious attempt at sucking up to the Japanese market? Bizarre, but I'm not even sure the album got a Japanese release in the first place (much as the Japanese love to release and re-release everything, especially if it got bonus tracks).

The Bears: The Bears

THE BEARS: THE BEARS (1987)

1) None Of The Above; 2) Fear Is Never Boring; 3) Honey Bee; 4) Man Behind The Curtain; 5) Wavelength; 6) Trust; 7) Raining; 8) Superboy; 9) Meet Me In The Dark; 10) Figure It Out.

Stuck somewhere in the cracks between Adrian Belew's tenure in King Crimson and his mildly successful solo career is that particular part of his life which was spent as a member of The Bears — not a very small part, either, considering that they managed to put out four studio albums, one live record, and dedicate quite a bit of their lives to touring. Unfortunately, they generated next to no publicity: apparently, people were more prone to perking up at the words «Adrian Belew» than willing to listen to a band called «The Bears».

Too bad, because there is some delightful pop music to be found on these records. As it turns out, The Bears were the first proper polygon upon which Adrian dared to test out his pop instincts. Originally, they were not The Bears, but «The Raisins», a Cincinnati-based pop group that in­cluded Rob Fetters on guitar, Bob Nyswonger on bass, and a couple other guys who didn't make it further: Adrian, who was at the time still an active part of the KC lineup and also fiddled around with the first, half-pop, half-avantgarde stage of his solo career, befriended them and produced their first and last LP in 1983. After it flopped, the band fell apart, and out of the ashes of The Raisins, with the addition of drummer Chris Arduser, rose The Bears — a band in which Adrian Belew, the famous inventive-progressive guitar-wiz kid, would feel right at home going «all-out pop» without the fans snickering or spewing behind his back.

Now there is nothing all that special about this particular brand of guitar-based pop that The Bears profess — but let me tell you that these songs, all ten of them, are every bit as solid as any random lost-genius «power pop» band from the Eighties, mussed and sused over by the retro-hipster crowds. In fact, it might even be better than most, considering how consistently strong the hooks are: the vocal melodies, provided by Adrian and Rob Fetters, always latch on to some emotional center or other, and although they are rarely supported by equally strong instrumental hooks, the overall guitar sound, produced by the regular Adrian Belew Sound Factory, is always tasteful and creative.

More than that, The Bears pride themselves on writing mildly intelligent, easily understandable, decidedly «un-artsy» lyrics, usually with a social message, and delivering them in an easy, down-to-earth manner that should be quite seductive for all those who fidget at the sight of pretentious­ness or «intentional inaccessibility». The very first song, ʽNone Of The Aboveʼ, is a manifesto of sorts: "Top ten well dressed men... epitome of taste... always willing, always hot, all these things I am not". Fetters' thin-voiced "none of the above, none of the above...", wimpy and sarcastic at the same time, echoed by Belew's equally thin and evilly cackling guitar line, reminds me of some of Pete Townshend's solo material, except The Bears, by definition, are unable to convey the same heartfelt pessimism and bitterness as Pete does — they're too cheery by nature to do that, and even their anger always comes with a smile.

Instrumentally, they are gifted enough to set up a friendly funky groove, as on ʽFear Is Never Boringʼ (a re-recording of a mini-minor hit they had in 1983 as The Raisins), and sometimes add a brass section to fatten up the sound (ʽHoney Beeʼ, ʽFigure It Outʼ), perhaps as a tribute to the long-gone glam-rock era or because somebody just wanted to play some sax, I dunno. If Adrian wants to, he can provide plenty of guitar overdubs for an «epic» sound (as he does in the intro­duction to ʽTrustʼ), but ultimately, the idea is to depart from «pop» as rarely as possible — and when they do it, it is usually in order to indulge in Ade's psychedelic soloing (said ʽTrustʼ inclu­des a lengthy and quite melodic passage constructed out of backward-recorded notes).

Ultimately, the one thing that separates The Bears from Adrian's solo career is that most of the choruses, and even many of the verses are sung by Belew and Fetters in unison, and sometimes they are also joined by the drummer (and sometimes there may only be one of them, but he's double-tracked anyway). This seems to be intentionally done in order to give the album a more «group» feeling, à la early Beatles and all, but the two gentlemen are not as expertly synchro­nized in tone and mood as Lennon and McCartney, and the combination of their overtones does not result in anything noticeably better than their individual tones. Had they worked more crea­tively on their vocals, this might have given the record a kick in the diversity area — as it is, its economic 34 minutes paradoxically feel much longer, a problem not atypical of the usual retro-pop approach, in the Eighties or at any later date, but one which a guy of Belew's level of intellect and giftedness might have easily avoided. Then again, he probably did not want to avoid it: The Bears were set up as a bona fide «niche band», and The Bears is appropriately a «niche album», and you have to take it or leave it, and under these circumstances I most certainly take it, and gratefully award it a friendly thumbs up.

Adrian Belew: E

ADRIAN BELEW: E (2009)

1) A; 2) A2; 3) A3; 4) B; 5) B2; 6) B3; 7) C; 8) D; 9) D2; 10) E; 11) E2.

The contents of the first official studio release by the Adrian Belew Power Trio — Adrian & The Slicks — are easily guessed by anyone who has combined an acquaintance with the general Crim­sonian attitude with a quick glance at the «songs»' titles, or at the modern geometrical design of the album cover.

Namely, it is a rigid exercise in math-rock: complex, angular riffs played over complex, angular bass runs, leaning on complex, angular drum patterns. Technically, this is a very impressive show, particularly for the Slicks, who have it far more rough and demanding here than they had on the live album, where, after all, the emphasis was on Adrian's more accessible side. Of course, as official «disciples» of a new generation, they lack the freshness and inventiveness of such former rhythm section giants as Bruford and Levin, but it seems they do not only match the dexterity, but also understand the spirit. Basically, Adrian puts them to the test, and they pass it with flying colors — delight!

On the other hand, it is hard to get rid of the feeling that this is exactly what it is: a test for Be­lew's fresh rhythm section. The music itself has been radiating weirdness for so long — thirty years now — that the novelty has worn off; and how could it not have been, when most of these riffs and themes keep reminding me of Adrian's previous exploits? Making matters worse, E is frustratingly non-diverse (in fact, it helps if you just think about it as one continuous suite rather than a set of different compositions — which, to be honest, is more or less the way Belew adver­tised it): most of the parts are centered around looping arpeggios and meticulous scale runs, with my best impression of it summarized as «continuously climbing the many sides of a rotating polygon» — with no end in sight.

In E's defense, I will say that it could have made a great soundtrack to some pretentious art-house movie (preferably, with a crazy, but visionary mathematical genius as the protagonist, and The Pink Panther as an indirect influence); also, I will say that it is far more listenable than some of King Crimson's exercises in terraforming dissonance. But there is also something very sad and dis­ap­pointing about the whole concept of «predictable weirdness». In the end, I can only recom­mend it for Belew diehards — or for old fogeys who think of the newer generations as a well-trained, strictly disciplined army of lazy good-for-nothings. In the latter respect, E is pleasantly instructive.

Adrian Belew: Side Four

ADRIAN BELEW: SIDE FOUR (2007)

1) Writing On The Wall; 2) Dinosaur; 3) Ampersand; 4) Young Lions; 5) Beat Box Guitar; 6) Matchless Man; 7) A Little Madness; 8) Drive; 9) Of Bow And Drum; 10) Big Electric Cat; 11) (Thanks); 12) Three Of A Perfect Pair; 13) Thela Hun Ginjeet.

Like every true Crimsonian, Adrian Belew prefers working in the Power Trio format — that is, whenever his social instincts call for a change of the Power Solo format — and by 2006, he has finally procured himself a more or less permanent backup, consisting of brother Eric Slick on drums and sister Julie Slick on bass. Both siblings had been picked up on Adrian's inspection of «Paul Green's School of Rock», a place where one actually pays money to be taught how to play Bon Jovi guitar solos; but the teachers definitely know their trade, because the Slicks are, indeed, at a level of competence where they can at least stand up to Belew's level.

Stand up, but never pose a threat, that is: Adrian has been smart enough to pick a team with which he need not be ashamed to mount the stage, but also one that will never be able to blow him off it. There are no signs of battling it out: when they play live, Belew is the star throughout — and the Slicks are a nice pair of youngsters, blessed by Fortune with the ability to bask in the glory rays of the beautiful (if balding), super-dexterous (if predictable) Guitar God.

Not that there's anything wrong with that. Side Four is the unexpected «even» conclusion to Ad­rian's outburst of creativity, topping it off with the recording of a live performance (at Canal Street Tavern in Dayton, Ohio, no less) — Belew's first «proper» solo live album, discounting the live acoustic parts of the 1993 and 1998 records. The setlist mixes new stuff, oldies, and a few King Crimson hits, and focuses on songs rather than improvisation, possibly because the Adrian Belew Power Trio did not improvise all that much on the tour. Where there is improvisation, it is all centered on Adrian: for 'Drive', he lets the siblings take a break and indulges in seven minutes of pure guitar fun, even incorporating a razor-sharp psychedelic solo that faithfully reproduces the melody of 'Within You Without You' (!). The only other lengthy, semi-improvisational suite is 'Beat Box Guitar', extended, partially de­constructed and incorporating bits of 'Discipline' and some other stuff I do not recognize.

Belew is, as usual, in great form — has there been one single instance when he was not? — and the whole experience is a lot of fun, including seeing him refresh and rejuvenate real old classics like 'Big Electric Cat' and 'Young Lions', or dragging out some obscurities like 'Of Bow And Drum' off the pretty much forgotten Op Zop Too Wah album. Note, also, that I was perfectly right about Side One representing the «proper» Belew and Two and Three representing a frust­rated Belew, struggling to keep his promise: 'Drive' is the only track from either of these two sides, whereas Side One is represented by no less than five different performances.

The only drawback here is the usual stale sense of predictability — and even that is softened with all the reinventions, as well as the curiosity of seeing the «Adrian Belew School of Rock» in ac­tion. May it be hoped, eventually, for an official video with professional camerawork, because that Julie Slick is kinda h... uh, is a great master of the fretboard.

Adrian Belew: Side Three

ADRIAN BELEW: SIDE THREE (2006)

1) Troubles; 2) Incompetence Indifference; 3) Water Turns To Wine; 4) Crunk; 5) Drive; 6) Cinemusic; 7) Whatever; 8) Men In Helicopters V4.0; 9) Beat Box Car; 10) Truth Is; 11) The Red Bull Rides A Boomerang Across The Blue Constellation; 12) &.

I fully understand the desire to end Side Three with a reworked version of 'Ampersand' (here, given its far more laconic symbolic equivalent '&'); it adds a last-minute touch of coherence and conceptuality to Adrian's three-headed dragon. Less understandable is a set of new variations on 'Beat Box Guitar' ('Beat Box Car'), and completely less understandable is yet another version of 'Men In Helicopters', practically the same as on Belewprints but with the addition of a martial per­cussion overdub. That's three songs that we already know well — on an album with a running time of 38:40?

Unlike the poppier Side One and the weirder Side Two, this one brings on an Op Zop Too Wah style synthesis of the two sides, and the pop element of it, once again, succeeds a bit better than the odd element — for reasons already explained in the previous review. But even the pop songs seem outtakish; the funky 'Troubles' and 'Incompetence Indifference' are the best of the lot, yet neither produces any fresh impressions. And too much of this, once again, is in the guise of «links» or raw demos, enceinte with musical glory but aborting it after one minute of pregnancy (e. g. 'Truth Is', which could have been a beautiful ballad in the vein of some of Adrian's late pe­riod King Crimson songs, but ends almost before we realize it).

Overall, it just looks to me like Adrian wanted to get over with this as soon as possible, so as to resume touring with his hands free of studio matters, and certainly Side Three does not deserve its own lengthy review. As a coda, it works well; but my final opinion is that releasing all of these songs as three separate albums has been the worst art-structure decision ever since, at the very least, the dissection of Kill Bill. On its own, Side Three is decidedly a thumbs down; but there is simply no reason to judge it on its own.

Adrian Belew: Side Two

ADRIAN BELEW: SIDE TWO (2005)

1) Dead Dog On Asphalt; 2) I Wish I Knew; 3) Face To Face; 4) Asleep; 5) Sex Nerve; 6) Then What; 7) Quicksand; 8) I Know Now; 9) Happiness; 10) Sunlight.

This is Adrian's experimental facet. There is no way to surgically separate it from his pop side, so Side One occasionally featured avantgarde bits where Side Two occasionally lets in pretty vocal melodies, but the general difference is quite clear. The power trio never shows up; Belew handles all the instrumentation himself, and, in a way, this is his starkest and least accessible offering since Desire Caught By The Tail (it would be hard to call Guitar As Orchestra an «offering» in the first place).

On the other hand, perhaps the word «experimental» no longer fits this kind of music. Belew has been surprising the world for so long that he has pretty much run out of surprises. So we still get non-trivial time signatures, non-trivial sonic effects, superb playing technique, and even a decent smorgasbord of tones and atmospheres... but most of this just about barely passes the grade of «Contemporary Ambient Sonics for the Seasoned Elitist».

There is a certified dreamy aura to the entire record; even when it rocks, the rocking sound seems to be beamed down to you from some faraway fantasy world, but there is no delight in understan­ding that — it is more like, "oh no, not another fantasy world, for God's sake". The connections of the fantasy world with the real one are not clear, either. For instance, the lead-in track, 'Dead Dog On Asphalt', is really supposed to be about a dead dog on asphalt — reflecting a recent ac­cident that happened to Belew — but the track, recycling the riff from 'Beat Box Guitar', could just as well be called 'Shooting Ducks In Outer Space'.

The whole experience is unsatisfying. Lazy and a bit tossed-off, almost as if Adrian ran out of fresh ideas by the time of Side One's release, yet became trapped in his own project, forced to come up with two more records despite being landlocked. So the record is just as short — in fact, it could have easily fit on the same CD with Side One — and, although the guitar solos are im­peccable (getting Belew to play badly would require professional virus software), the arrange­ments are openly crappy. Crappy beatbox percussion, crappy synthesized bass, crappy effects.

Maybe I am way off here, but I think a guy like Belew, with all that enormous experience behind him, can toss off a record like Side Two in just about the same half hour that it takes to sit through it. Incredible: to have fans waiting at his doorstep for a decade only to placate them with thirty minutes of first-rate music — and then follow it up with thirty minutes of boring, unimagi­native ramblings. My brain would like to challenge this man to a duel for this insult, but, seeing as how it would probably get its ass kicked in seconds (do brains have asses?), it will, instead, just cowardly slip him a thumbs down rating — and be done with it.

Adrian Belew: Side One

ADRIAN BELEW: SIDE ONE (2005)

1) Ampersand; 2) Writing On The Wall; 3) Matchless Man; 4) Madness; 5) Walk Around The World; 6) Beat Box Guitar; 7) Under The Radar; 8) Elephants; 9) Pause.

In 2000, Belew released a futuristic compilation seducingly called Coming Attractions — a set of «sneak previews» of tracks from records to come. Then, in an almost insulting manner, he de­layed the release of the real records for a smashing five years. Granted, he had a serious excuse: in the early 2000s, King Crimson was again on the move, and in between recording The Con­stru­Kction Of Light and The Power To Believe and touring in support of both, there was not much chance of resuscitating the solo career.

By 2005, however, Belewstuff was on the market again, in the form of three consecutive records, all three so short that, with a little insignificant loss, they could easily fit onto one CD — but that would leave us with no gimmick, a very boring result considering how long fans had been wai­ting for something extraordinary. So the gimmick splits Adrian's personality into three «sides» and gradually acquaints us with each over a year-long period.

Side One, for the most part, gives us the «futuristic pop» Belew, and for that reason is my favou­rite. Except for a few brief ambient interludes, the songs rock — in weird time signatures, as be­fits a true Crimsonian, but with honesty and passion. Particularly notable are the first three num­bers, where Adrian forms a power trio with bassist Les Claypool of Primus and drummer Danny Carey of Tool — they are not necessarily the best songs, but they are certainly covered with the juiciest flesh and the prettiest skin.

'Ampersand' puts a psychedelic Beatlesque vocal on top of music that is, very much indeed, equal parts King Crimson, Primus, and Tool, and, with a stron­ger dose of PR, could have been judged one of art rock's top creations of the decade. 'Writing On The Wall', although mostly vocalless, is only a tiny notch below in quality, and then the trio cools it down a bit with bongos, backward guitars, and opium den atmosphere of 'Matchless Man'. A very modernistic mix of beauty and weird­ness, catchiness and experimentation — if the world were a better place in the first quarter of 2005, this would be the perfect Top 40 material, while Mario's 'Let Me Love You' and 50 Cent's 'Candy Shop' would be justly relegated to the status of semi-legal biological weapons, inflicting permanent brain damage on alien invaders.

The «solo» material that follows predictably sounds a little tossed-off in comparison, and we've heard it before — 'Madness' is an apt title, but this type of paranoid, pressure-pumping, guitar thunderstorm (or, rather, a cross between a thunderstorm and a deranged beehive) was already ex­plored to the limit on Crimson's early 1980s instrumentals, and the rest of the tracks — with the exception of the intentionally trendy lo-fi sound of 'Beat Box Guitar' — are also firmly grounded in the values of Discipline and Beat. Not that it's a bad thing — these have always been exciting values — but it is a little strange to see that, after an eight-year pause, Belew is unable to offer us anything seriously fresh, unless he gets professional outside support.

On the other hand, one cannot invent a new fashion of the wheel with each new decade, and even a guy as permanently whacko as Adrian Belew must get old, eventually. Whatever be the case, if you do not expect a musical revolution, Side One shows that the man still has plenty of ideas, and that his sensitive soul has not entirely burned out yet, either. And it is nice to know he is still a fan of the whole wildlife shenanigan — not above giving us some more cooky elephant noises as a trifling postscriptum to the record. Thumbs up, by all means.

Adrian Belew: Belewprints

ADRIAN BELEW: BELEWPRINTS (1998)

1) Men In Helicopters; 2) Cage; 3) I Remember How To Forget; 4) Young Lions; 5) Never Enough; 6) Things You Hit With A Stick; 7) Everything; 8) Big Blue Sun; 9) Bad Days; 10) One Of Those Days; 11) Return Of The Chicken; 12) Dinosaur; 13) 1967; 14) Free As A Bird (Live At Longacre Theater); 15) Nude Wrestling With A Christmas Tree.

Subtitled The Acoustic Adrian Belew Volume 2, this is exactly what it is, and, from a general standpoint, a big improvement over Volume 1. The basic message is the same as before: this is not a technically-minded, virtuoso-bestowed experiment, but just a modest bunch of Adrian's pop numbers sung, played, and arranged minimalistically, friendly, and with feeling. But there are a few pleasant additional touches that are worth mentioning.

First, the arrangements are a bit more complex and diverse; many of the numbers have Belew ad­ding bass and drums, or switching from guitar to piano, bringing on a true "Unplugged" feeling rather than deconstructing every­thing in favour of his singing. As such, some of the songs, like 'Young Lions' and 'Never Enough', still manage to rock out even in this setting. The album also opens with a big surprise: 'Men In Helicopters' accompanied by a string quartet (the only non-Belew musical presence on the album), a very joyous touch.

Second, the song selection is perfect — apart from three pieces of musique concrète (which are actually short and fun), Adrian runs through his catchiest, pleasantest pop creations from 1989 to 1994, even reproducing the entire mini-suite '1967' which I am adoring more and more with each passing day: in this setting, with all its unpredictable, but memorable sections laid out even more transparently than in the original, it threatens to convince me of being his one true masterpiece in the psychedelic pop genre.

One last surprise is the live recording of Lennon's 'Free As A Bird', taken from Adrian's acoustic solo interlude during King Crimson's Broadway show. Ever the hip purist, Belew covers Len­non's original demo rather than the McCartney-enhanced version on Anthology, refusing to re­produce Macca's 'Whatever happened to...' section and sticking instead to the mumbled la-la-la's of John's old recording, and even the audience seems to be getting the point and digging it. May­be it symbolizes a sincere belief in purity and authenticity; maybe it is snubby and pretentious; but, in any case, it is one more small non-trivial move from a small non-trivial artist. A most heartfelt thumbs up, even for such a trifle.

Adrian Belew: Op Zop Too Wah

ADRIAN BELEW: OP ZOP TOO WAH (1996)

1) Of Bow And Drum; 2) Word Play Drum Beat; 3) Six String; 4) Conversation Piece; 5) All Her Love Is Mine; 6) I Remember How To Forget; 7) What Do You Know? (Part 1); 8) Op Zop Too Wah; 9) A Plate Of Words; 10) Time Waits; 11) What Do You Know? (Part 2); 12) Modern Man Hurricane Blues; 13) In My Backyard; 14) A Plate Of Guitar; 15) Live In A Tree; 16) Something To Do; 17) Beautiful; 18) High Wire Guitar; 19) Sky Blue Red Bird Green House; 20) The Ruin After The Rain; 21) On.

To look back at the fate of this record is a little funny and a little sad. From a purely theoretical standpoint, it should be remembered as Belew's magnum opus — a long, diverse, ambitious al­bum that pursues the goal of capturing all of his sides: Belew the sci-fi freak rocker, Belew the guitar-driven, Beatlish style pop lover, Belew the avantgarde whacko explorer, Belew the incu­rable romantic loner. On practice, Op Zop Too Wah has not yielded even one 'classic' Belew track, and is usually left aside in any serious discussion of the man's music.

Why? The obvious answer would be that there is just so much of everything that, in the end, there is too much of nothing. But then the same argument could be flung at The White Album; if the songs are good enough, their cumulative effect would override any confusion. So maybe it's just that the songs are not good enough? But I really would not say that. Look all over the place and you will find plenty of inspirational bits in all styles. Obviously, if you jam twenty-one tracks onto one CD, some are bound to come out as (relative) failures, but what's a few one minute-long failed bits to a generally solid recording?

Quite a lot, as it turns out. The album oozes ugly discoherence, maybe because the connecting bits are as loud and in-yer-face as the main songs, and although the desire to transform a simple rectangle into a Möbius strip is understandable, it sacrifices the pure value of the songs to the ove­rall bizarre atmosphere that is not even totally new or particularly interesting. As a result, I find many of the individual tracks lovable once I tune in to them individually, but the album as a whole impresses me about as much as its cover: green, wobbly, and yucky.

My advice is to try and filter out all the short links, rearrange the remaining thirteen songs in an order that you find personally comfortable, and this will leave you with about fourty-five minutes of good music. Then it becomes possible to sort out the dreamy psychedelic ballads ('All Her Love Is Mine'), the Zappa-style guitar heroics ('High Wire Guitar' — a parody, actually, on use­less guitar wanking, replete with silly "crowd cheering" as the fans admire their "idol"), the po­wer pop exercises with a little Roy Orbison flavour ('Six String', a love ode to Adrian's favourite fetish; 'I Remember How To Forget'), the sentimental acoustic idillies ('Time Waits'), the obliga­tory Beatlisms ('On', a tribute to Lennon circa Revolver; 'Something To Do', a tribute to McCart­ney circa... uh, Red Rose Speedway?) and something else I apparently forgot.

On the average, these songs may be slightly weaker than the average estimate of his 1989-1994 records. At least, there is nothing to make me relive the weighty stimulus of 'Young Lions' or the catchy heart-on-sleeve atmosphere of 'Burned By The Fire We Make'. But this is something that can be lived with; many of the tunes are growers. What really disrupts the continuum are all the silly links. It is as if, looking at his past efforts and also "rejuvenated" by the latest phase of King Crimson's career, Adrian, having made a fifth solid pop album, decided, at the very last minute, to spice it up for the sophisticated fan. But then the sophisticated fan, being perfectly happy with the Fripp-dominated KC, would not buy Belew's "pop stuff" in the first place.

So, in the long run, I doubt that Op Zop will fully and completely satisfy anyone. But brain-wise, I still give it a thumbs up because it gives me enough savory ingredients to make up my own con­coction. It is a failure only inasmuch as it aspires to be more of a success than the previous records — and ends up less. Which is not to say that 'Six String' does not rock, or that 'Time Waits' does not comfort, or that Adrian Belew is any less of a damn fine chap than usual.

Adrian Belew: The Guitar As Orchestra

ADRIAN BELEW: THE GUITAR AS ORCHESTRA (1995)

1) Score Without Film; 2) Portrait Of The Guitarist As Your Drum; 3) Piano Recital; 4) Laurence Harvey's Despair; 5) Piano Ballet; 6) Rings Around The Moon; 7) Seven E Flat Elephants Eating Acacia Of A C# Minor Forest; 8) If Only; 9) Alfred Hitchcock's "Strangers On A Train" Starring Robert Walker; 10) Finale; 11*) Stage Fright.

We cannot say that we have not been warned. The album cover glows with the extended title: "Experimental Guitar Series, Vol. 1: The Guitar As Orchestra". Considering that Belew's guitar playing had always been experimental, even on his pop albums, a title like that should inevitably lead one to the question: «If this is 'Experimental Guitar Vol. 1', then do we presume that every­thing before it, in the guy's eye, was 'Non-Experimental'?»

Presumably. For many people, 'experimental' in music is nearly synonymous with 'unusual' or 'weird', i. e. 'a way of playing music that strays away from conventional approaches'. Which is, of course, hardly the basic meaning of the term: 'having the characteristics of experiment', i. e. 'an operation or procedure carried out under controlled conditions in order to discover an unknown effect or law' (Webster). The Guitar As Orchestra fully confirms to this definition and is, as a result, utterly and intentionally unlistenable as "music".

But it is fairly intriguing as "experiment". Using a wide range of pedals, guitar synthesizers and processors, Belew makes his guitar sound like violins, cellos, harps, or­gans, chimes, and, above all, pianos, playing either in the "modern classical" or the "mini­malist am­bient" styles. I would say that the title is somewhat misleading: the guitar is actually very rarely used as an "orchestra" — most of the pieces are played with just one or two leading "fake instruments", so the word should rather be understood here as signifying "a whole heck of different stuff".

I do not suppose that any of these tracks have any serious musical vision behind them. Of course, just how good Adrian is at "modern classical" is something you will have to decide on your own; my organism produces no emotional response whatsoever to that kind of music, be it Varèse, Schoenberg, Zappa, or Belew. But something tells me — for instance, the near-total lack of ad­miration expressed for the record on the part of «super-cool» music aficionados — that history will probably not be placing him on the same level with the other three.

His ambient panoramas work somewhat better, but even here he presents no threat to great masters of the style. There is nothing on the level of his own 'Guernica' from Desire Caught By The Tail — these images, no matter how complex and twisted their titles may be, lack a language of their own. The titles are, in fact, the most telling element on here: 'Portrait Of The Guitarist As A Young Drum' is a pretty good mirror image of the guitarist, who does indeed behave as a young drum on most of the tracks.

As a pure experiment, though, the album achieves its goals admirably — to the point that you can always capitalize on its surprise value as long as you still have an uninitiated friend or two. Then you can invite him to your house, play him 'Alfred Hitchcock's 'Strangers On A Train'', and, once he is properly worked up to the point of shouting 'Cut it out, this Nazi guy should be shot for fuckin' butche­ring that piano!', triumphantly object 'What piano? That's no piano — that's a guitar! Don't tell me you can't tell the difference between guitar and piano!' That will certainly be one great way to assert your musical authority, and you can thank Adrian Belew for guidance. I actu­ally tried it out once. What do you know, it worked.

Adrian Belew: Here

ADRIAN BELEW: HERE (1994)

1) May 1, 1990; 2) I See You; 3) Survival In The Wild; 4) Fly; 5) Never Enough; 6) Peace On Earth; 7) Burned By The Fire We Make; 8) Dream Life; 9) Here; 10) Brave New World; 11) Futurevision; 12) Postcard From Holland.

Here concludes Belew's quadrilogy of pop artefacts on a pretty high note — still fairly distant from the semi-experimental rocking mode of Young Lions, but equally restrained in the matter of direct Beatles imitations. In fact, I only count one, even if it is the most Beatlish of them all: 'I See You', as Merseybeaty as it gets, straightahead McCartney on the verses and Lennon on the middle-eights and Harrison on the reversed guitar solos. As usual, it is fun, catchy, and a wee bit awkward and phony. I love it.

Lyrically, Here is quite straightforward. All the songs are (a) about Adrian; (b) about ecology; (c) about Adrian and ecology. And if something does not fit into one of these three categories right away, it will eventually. The messages are also quite clear: (a) Adrian is in love and feeling hap­py; (b) the ecology is in a mess and getting worse; (c) Adrian's knowledge of the ecology being in a mess and getting worse will not prevent him from being in love and feeling happy. (Say, my feel­ngs exactly. Maybe I ought to record a Beatles ripoff album, too.)

'May 1, 1990' is Belew at his prettiest — a little research shows that this was the day he met his wife Martha — and at his sincerest, a great slab of angelic idealism painted as power pop. But highlights are around every corner: 'Burned By The Fire We Make' could win Greenpeace quite a few new converts were they to adopt it as their anthem, 'Never Enough' uses a simple droning gui­tar riff to convey the mood of 'addiction to love' to great effect, 'Dream Life' is a charming acoustic serenade that is all but impossible to dislike or ignore, and 'Fly' features far more comp­lex guitar picking techniques than all of The Acoustic Adrian Belew put together behind a small wall of psychedelic effects — funny enough, the song, despite all of its psychedelic trimmings, is essentially about fear of flying.

In fact, cut for cut, Here may be even stronger than Young Lions, except the highs are not nearly as high (nothing really reaches the heights of ecstasy provided by 'Pretty Pink Rose'; perhaps Be­lew should consider dragging Mr. Ziggy into the studio a bit more often). That the record, just like the previous three, went down unnoticed by the public at large and scorned by professional King Crimson fans, only goes to show what kind of an unprofessional opinion I hold on both. It is high time history butted in and carried out the proper justice; in the meantime, I can only hold my thumbs up one more time and pray that, some day before getting pie in the sky, Adrian gives himself another chance at recording something like this.

Adrian Belew: The Acoustic Adrian Belew

ADRIAN BELEW: THE ACOUSTIC ADRIAN BELEW (1993)

1) The Lone Rhinoceros; 2) Peace On Earth; 3) The Man In The Moon; 4) The Rail Song; 5) If I Fell; 6) Burned By The Fire We Make; 7) Matte Kudasai; 8) Dream Life; 9) Old Fat Cadillac; 10) Crying; 11) Martha Adored.

The A Cappella Adrian Belew would be more like it. Normally, electric guitar wizards record "unplugged"-style albums as sort of an "experience in refined taste" — to let the fans know that they can create sonic wizardry without any technical gadgets just as easy as with them, that they sim­ply prefer the electric sound most of the time because it rips, but every once in a while it kind of rules to stress that everything begins with nylon, wood, and finger technique.

Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But with The Acoustic A. B. it doesn't even begin to work, because the purpose of the album is anything but demonstrate to the listener that A. B. is an acoustic virtuoso. For the most part, he plays the simplest of chords, the most standard of rhythm accompaniments — at least, that is the way it sounds to my ears; I may not be getting the deep-hidden complexity of what and how he picks, but I am pretty sure that The Acoustic Robert Fripp would have sounded nothing like that.

So what's the point? Maybe he can do better than that on acoustic, but there is no sign of that here; why release the album at all? My answer is — it has little, if anything, to do with Belew the gui­tarist; it has much more to do with Belew the vocalist, Belew the lyricist, and Belew the gentle, sentimental artist. With the minimalistic, hushed playing (not only is everything indeed complete­ly acoustic, but Belew is the only player on it), the emphasis is clearly on the impression convey­ed by his singing — which is why he includes not only some of his poppiest, catchiest numbers, but also Beatles ('If I Fell') and Roy Orbison ('Crying') covers.

Once you come to terms with that, The Acoustic Adrian Belew ceases to be a disappointment and becomes a nice, soothing, unspectacular, record to relax to. I would never call Adrian's voice "great": it is a bit too even and devoid of personality for my tastes, but he does have a nice range and an excellent ability to creep into other people's styles — he certainly "gets" the essence of 'If I Fell' and 'Crying', even if nature has not allowed him to reproduce it vibe-for-vibe. His own songs pass off even better — they are, after all, his songs — and for some fans it will be a nice distraction to hear the intimate takes on 'The Lone Rhinoceros', 'Matte Kudasai', and 'Burned By The Fire We Make' (a preview of the upcoming material from Here) without concentrating on the guitar trickery of the "full" versions.

Under this light, the disappointments are minor — some of the original 'rockers', like 'Young Lions', take a lot of strain to be properly transferred into an acoustic settings; and the closing nu­m­­ber ('Martha Adored') is played backwards in its entirety, probably goading the listener into fin­ding a means to reverse it, but count me uninterested (not that it is a hard thing to do in these days of music-editing software). As a bonus, the listener gets to hear 'Old Fat Cadillac' from the cata­log of The Bears — pretty damn fine song if you ask me. Thumbs up — moderately, as this is, after all, a trifle by Adrian's standards.

Adrian Belew: Inner Revolution

INNER REVOLUTION (1992)

1) Inner Revolution; 2) This Is What I Believe In; 3) Standing In The Shadow; 4) Big Blue Sun; 5) Only A Dream; 6) Birds; 7) I'd Rather Be Right Here; 8) The War In The Gulf Between Us; 9) I Walk Alone; 10) Everything; 11) Heaven's Bed; 12) Member Of The Tribe.

Inner Revolution is certainly the purest pop album Belew ever gave his increasingly befuddled fans, but not necessarily the "truest" to his inner self. This time, he does not simply include a tri­bute or two to the Beatles; he seems to have asked himself the question, "What would the Beatles sound like today if they were frozen solid around mid-1966 and, upon defrosting in 1992, put to­gether in a modern type studio?" Then he spends the rest of the time trying to answer it.

To be fair, only about half of the songs try to ape the Beatles, chief culprits among them being 'Everything', 'Birds', and 'Big Blue Sun'. And there is hardly any danger of one's mistaking even these for the real thing (as could be the case with, say, 'Lies' by the Knickerbockers), because Be­lew is much too idiosyncratic, and his guitar playing style is so much his know-how that he pro­bably could never play his instrument Lennon-wise or Harrison-wise even if he wanted to — de­spite the fact that, technically, he obviously trumps both at the same time. But be it as it may, he does attempt to crawl into somebody else's hide, and the results are questionable.

I guess I might as well say right here what it is that bugs me about Belew's pop style. He under­stands fairly well that one of the Beatles' main points of attraction was the inexhaustible cheer­fulness and optimism (at least, until drugs, mutual hatred, and Sgt. Pepper kicked in) on their early records, and on songs like the ones just mentioned above he literally jumps over his head trying to recreate that youthful, naïve, unbridled optimism. But I cannot buy it — even though I have little reason to think of Adrian Belew as, deep down inside, a depressed, sardonic, misanth­ropic sad creep, I still cannot buy it. The arrangements are shiny-happy major key ones, the sin­ging is loud and welcoming, but the word to describe it all is "overwrought".

Maybe he needed a big band to do this; maybe this kind of sound just does not tie in well with a man-orchestra. Maybe the songs themselves are exceptionally well written and contain all the proper hooks. But as much as I admire the craft that went into them, neither 'Big Blue Sun' nor 'Birds' bawl me over and make me feel all happy inside the way 'Good Day Sunshine' or 'I'm Happy Just To Dance With You' made me feel. I like all of them, but they contain no magic, just professionalism and good taste.

It clicks once: 'I Walk Alone', driven by piano instead of guitars, is a Roy Orbison impersonation that works almost as well as the real thing — Belew certainly does not have Roy's range or con­trol, but he has his feeling, and if on the previous album he has shown us that he can do honor to a great Orbison-led song ('Not Alone Anymore'), then here he can actually write and record a song well worthy of an Orbison. This one has solitaire romance in it, as well as restraint and ten­derness, and it's lovely and stately at the same time.

On the other hand, when Belew does have to scream his head off, it always comes off better on his own style numbers, such as the 'Three Of A Perfect Pair'-look-alike 'This Is What I Believe In' or the funky guitar blizzard of 'Member Of The Tribe', or even the rather simple title track. Here, he nails 'em every time he hits 'em.

Still, it is impossible for me to give this anything other than a big thumbs up. The heart may be aglow only about a third of the time, but the blessed reason points out quite correctly that all of these songs are expertly written, feature original and meaningful melodies, and serve the gene­rous purpose of keeping Sixties-style power pop alive and updated for the next decades, regard­less of how many people have actually heard this album. As for "sincerity", nobody authorised me to represent Adrian Belew's subconscious, so I'll have to pass on that one.