HOME BREW

Gahar shows a populist distaste for yuppie ethics in "I Can See Your Aura," in which he lambastes both the unidentified antagonist and new-age creeds from reincarnation to vegetarianism. But the best jabs are saved for pop music. It's hard to argue with Gahar when, on "AM Radio," he sings "Everybody sounds alike there in between the call-in shows/Osterized, homogenized musicians sinking low/Nothing's worse than AM radio."

The lyrics of "Do You Photograph Well?" drive the knife even deeper, every line adding to the portrayal of how corporate rock poisons and prostrates what we hear on the dial.

Gahar and band stir the ashes of the too-brief folkie scene that surfaced between the milquetoast music of Bobby Vinton and Pat Boone and the beginnings of that soggy, pop-rock bone of contention we've come to gnaw today. FireLine is a brave move, Mr. Gahar. These days, if you're going to turn out grassroots music with aggressive lyrics, you're going to have to be a Trooper.

SONS & LOVERS Sons & Lovers
(Loft Studios Music)

What do you make of a local trio that uses breathy, big-breasted female singers to sing-speak-whisper-moan songs titled "I Swallow You" and "Sweet Sticky Thang"?

How do you figure a collection of cock-tease tunes glorifying the taste, touch and smell of sex-but played with all the energy of a funeral march through a topless bar?

Don't ask. Don't even wonder why.
Instead, check your logic at the door and experience the special charms of Sons & Lovers, a decidedly lusty techno trio that bumps and grinds against the syncopated sounds of industrial-dance music.

Sons & Lovers is led by some guy who calls himself Sir David V and lists himself as the producer. But, really, who cares?

Concentrate instead on singers Tess and Kaki (rhymes with "tacky"), a couple of full-figured Eurasian sisters who pose as lead singers. It quickly becomes apparent, though, that Tess and Kaki pose better than they sing. It's also somewhat obvious that such concepts as subtlety, imagination, romance, love and companionship are completely lost on these wacky, boy-crazy girls.

Subtlety, for example, is nixed as soon as you see the photograph of one of the sisters (I'm guessing it's Tess) falling out of her bikini on the cassette's front cover. As for imagination, it's limited to the orgasmic testimonial doubling as lyrics for "Making Love to Myself." And any chance of stumbling on the notion of higher love literally chokes on the epic "I Swallow You," which climaxes with such poetry as, "I swallow you/You like me to." There have been a lot of local cassettes released over the years... and this most definitely is one of 'em.

BILLY TAYLOR TRIO AND THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA STUDIO JAZZ ENSEMBLE Fiesta in Tucson

(Celestial Harmonies/University of Arizona)

Pianist Billy Taylor, long the ambassador of jazz education, has come up with the Ultimate Final Exam: students back teacher on a CD for all the world to hear. The class is UofA's Studio Jazz Ensemble, and the pass-or-fail essay question is a trilogy of Taylor-penned tunes called Fiesta in Tucson.

This professor goes easy on his pupils. Taylor subjects the ensemble's skills to rather short, simplistic melodies-sometimes repeated endlessly-while students bare their chops. Everybody gets a good grade, but it's obvious when Taylor enters on piano just who stands behind the desk. His fluid and confident feel for the music shows the difference between what school can teach about jazz and what has to be felt in the gut in order to swing.

The "Dreamwalker" movement of Fiesta in Tucson offers the best interplay between Taylor and the ensemble. The experienced piano man plays pensively with his gorgeous bit of melody while the UofAers wisely support him with subtlety.

Taylor bows out for the rest of the album, leaving the kids to their own jazz devices. Too often, they weave a suit of chintzy jazz-pop in need of Taylor's good taste. "Tasha" is aural cotton candy that's so vapid you wonder what the students define as jazz. Most of the other cuts are also sophomore-level stabs at jazz-if, as is the case with the cut-and-dried "In Memory of a Dream," it can be called jazz at all. The playing and production are uniformly perfect, but, hey, anything can be gilded.

Remember how we would forget test material as soon as we handed those exam books to the front of the class? Same goes here. The ins and outs of improvisation take a lifetime to learn, and a class in jazz is hardly a guarantee of classy jazz. But professor Taylor has shown that the group can succeed if it will drop the eraser-throwing bravado of material that they will outgrow. Keep at it, ensemblers, time will show that swing's the thing.

SPINNING JENNY 17th Street
(local tape)

The latest in what seems like a quarterly issue of Spinning Jenny tapes finds the Tempe guitar band stretching its scope with added edge.

Indeed, 17th Street continues the Jenny's push from the comfortable charm of old Beatlemania bits toward a more strident sound, best reflected in the ragged efforts of new lead guitarist Freddy Gildersleeve.