Consumer Guide Album

The Lounge Lizards: Live From the Drunken Boat [Europa, 1983]
Divested not only of fifth columnist Arto Lindsay but of all the guitar's vulgar "rock"-tinged associations, the Lizards get beau ideal Teo Macero to produce a studio album in live drag. They sound like an arty jazz combo who've landed a month at a pretentious cocktail lounge in Minneapolis, or Brussels. Sometimes they gear their originals to what they deem the declasse ambience of the place, other times they say fuck it and lay down the simplified Cecil Taylor dearest to their hearts. They're better when they lower themselves. And they don't make it past Saturday night. B