![]() ![]() Americanizing the Jam's music might be a smart commercial move, but it would be an artistic mistake, and it's a mistake Mr. American rock fans will probably warm to the Jam sooner or later, but one suspects the group will have to win them with its intrinsic merits. But since the Jam's early days he has gone his own way, avoiding youth movements and other trends, questioning both authority and anti-authoritarianism, and detailing the conflicts of late adolescence in bold, unsentimental strokes. He began writing and playing rock when the punk revolution was brewing, and at one time he was attracted to the Mod revival, with its emphasis on snappy clothes, basic Who-style rock and roll and in-group solidarity. Paul Weller, who writes the group's material and who is its lead vocalist and guitarist as well, is still in his early 20's. The Jam's songs are also explicitly generational. Its straightforward, guitar-dominated classicism recalls the heyday of the Who and the Kinks (the mid-60's Beatles as well), and so do the songs, many of which are class conscious to a degree that American rockers have never approached. ''Sound Affects'' is the best of the lot. Many Kinks and Who fans believe that these groups made their finest records before they caught on in the United States, and the Jam's recent albums have been consistently first-rate. ![]() The comparison is appropriate for several other reasons. Like the Kinks in the late 60's and the Who before they made their commercial breakthrough with ''Tommy,'' the Jam are very, very British. The Jam's latest album, ''Sound Affects,'' was released this week by Polydor along with a bonus single, ''Going Underground.'' The album and single have been at or near the top of the British bestseller charts since their release last year, but the Jam have never enjoyed a huge following in the United States and while ''Sound Affects'' is a fine album, it isn't likely to penetrate the American top 10. Zevon's work has more than enough strength and originality to overcome his occasional excesses and inconsistencies. But songs like ''Jeannie Needs a Shooter,'' ''Mohammed's Radio,'' and the new ''The Sin'' are compelling both as allusive poetry and as visceral rock and roll, and on the whole Mr. Zevon plays them to the hilt, just as he overplayed last year's Palladium show, suggests that he isn't the most impartial judge of his own weaknesses and strengths. Zevon's hard-boiled lyrics and tough-guy stance endear him to fans of Raymond Chandler and Ross Macdonald, but his songs ''Excitable Boy'' and ''Werewolves of London'' seem considerably more mean-spirited, and less stylish, than the writing of these mystery masters. The title tune and ''The Sin'' are new songs, and the closing medley of Bo Diddley numbers is new for Mr. ![]() The music is energetic, raw and committed, and the material isn't all familiar. But while the original studio versions of these songs drew on the talents of the seasoned Los Angeles musicians who back Miss Ronstadt and Jackson Browne, ''Stand in the Fire'' features a rough, energetic touring band without a single big name. Zevon's best-known songs, several of which (''Mohammed's Radio,'' ''Poor Poor Pitiful Me'') are so well-known because Linda Ronstadt recorded them. Most live albums are more or less inspired rehashes of the artist's hits, and ''Stand in the Fire'' does include performances of Mr. In fact, it's probably his most consistently powerful LP. Zevon's new live album, and it isn't bad at all. ''Maybe it wouldn't have been so bad,'' another suggested, ''if we'd just listened to it and hadn't had to watch it, too.''īut you don't have to watch ''Stand in the Fire'' (Elektra/Asylum), Mr. ''I sure am glad I didn't have to review that,'' said one of them as he sighed after downing a stiff drink. Several critics gathered in a neighborhood bar after the show. Frankly, he made an embarrassing spectacle of himself. He crouched and jumped and shouted and raised a clenched fist and finally ripped off his shirt. He spent half his Palladium show running around the stage as though he was practicing for the marathon. ![]() Hadn't they always loved Warren Zevon? Hadn't they singled him out as early as 1976, when his first album was released, as the most talented singer-songwriter to have emerged from the neon sprawl of Los Angeles in a decade? And hadn't they all respectfully suggested, when he gave his first New York performances and hid behind his piano, that he should try being a little more, well, outgoing? Yes, and apparently he'd listened to them. AFTER Warren Zevon's show at the Palladium last spring, a number of the rock critics who have been among his staunchest admirers skulked away down 14th Street with their heads half-buried in their upturned coat collars, muttering to themselves. ![]()
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