Free Educating Peter by Tom Cox

Wotsits.’
    â€˜Cheap Trick. Who are they?’
    â€˜People called them the metal Beatles. They’re probably not heavy metal as you know it, but they do rock. Don’t worry – they don’t use lutes. The guitarist has a twelve-neck guitar or something . . . This song’s ace; it’s what they used to start their concerts with. There’s another really good song a couple of tracks on that you might know because Shakin’ Stevens covered it.’
    â€˜Who’s Shakin’ Stevens?’
    â€˜Don’t worry. Forget I said it.’
    â€˜Oh. I like this.’

CHEAP TRICK –
IN COLOR
( CBS , 1977)
    TOM : ‘ CHEAP TRICK’S second album is their best because its drums are like sofas for your ears, because Robin Zander’s voice is the spirit of rock encapsulated, and because it features none of the sentimental goof boy indulgences or overproduction of the band’s later work. It’s a slicker record than the group’s eponymous debut, but with just as much energy, and an example of guitars sounding as smooth as they should ever sound, but not a hair smoother. Here, the Trick, Chicago’s finest, offer the perfect bridge between the best kind of hard rock chest-beating and new wave’s burning immediacy. The record’s sleeve, with the pretty boy half of the band pictured on the front, and the geek half pictured on the rear, sums up music which is just as playful and dangerous on the inside as it is sweet and shiny on the outside.
    â€˜If the songs on
In Color
were potential suitors for your daughter, they’d be somewhere between The Fonz and Matt Dillon, and would be certain to wink salaciously at you before they peeled out from the kerb outside your house. “IWant You To Want Me”, “Oh Caroline”, “Downed”, “Southern Girls” – the majority of classic Trick is here, in its pouting, yearning pomp. None of it lasts more than three minutes, none of it leaves you less than dizzy, none of it takes the blindest bit of notice that, somewhere to its east, punk is in its heyday. Zander, Tom Petersson, Rick Nielsen and Bun E. Carlos don’t care about revolution; they care about motorbikes, skinny ties, your sixteen-year-old daughter and amp specifications. They also leave you in no doubt that these things are the essence of high-adrenalin music, and that you’d be greedy to want anything more.’
    Peter: ‘I like this. It’s a bit cheesy, but sort of cool, too. The bit where the bloke groans in the middle eight on that song “Southern Girls” – that’s good. I just wish it would get a bit heavier sometimes, y’know. They look a bit wankerish on the cover. I mean, all that big hair and cowboy boots stuff. Weeeeird. I dunno. They probably really regret it, now they’re so old. When was this made? 1967 or something. That’s probably before The Beatles, isn’t it? It’s probably quite heavy for when it was made. I might have quite liked it if I’d been young then. It’s hard to say, really, y’know? I think my dad would like it. You can tell they’re dead good on guitar, though – probably at least as good as Sam. Raf would probably say they were boring fogies, though. I just wish they’d shout a bit sometimes. But at least it rocks. Not like some of that wimpy folk stuff we listened to on the way down to Hastings. All that stuff about dragons and peddlers and letting people steal your thyme. Not so sure about that, really.’

HERO PUNISHMENT
    THE UNASSUMINGLY STYLISH, angular car – a Mustang? a Dodge? – rolled up the side of the valley and drew softly to a halt. Two men, their shirts blaring, their sideburns painstakingly cultivated, emerged. They’d left the bad guys a couple of canyons behind, eating their dust.
    â€˜Yep,’ said Lightfoot. ‘Transmission’s gone. Cadillac’s my car,