Bringing Power to the People

By -- Jay Cocks

Quick hits of euphoria from the top of the Rockpile

Power pop. You've likely heard about it. You may even have danced to it. Sure bet you'll go for it. The well-groomed stepbrother of punk rock, power pop aims to please, tease and amuse. If punk is rock spoiling for a fight, power pop just means to set loose the good times.

The wittiest, most accomplished purveyors of power pop are Britons Nick Lowe, 29, and Dave Edmunds, 35, both of whom have albums currently in circulation (Lowe's Pure Pop for Now People, Edmunds' Get It) and have just barnstormed the U.S. together as Nick Lowe and Rockpile. They were the opening act cross-country for the reigning past master of the rock-'n'-roll fever dream, Elvis Costello, and set him a tough mark to match. Minutes after bounding onstage at Hollywood High in Los Angeles, Lowe and Edmunds had the crowd dancing and cheering. "Bitchin'!" gushed one high school lad. Said Linda Ronstadt, who crashed the high school party: "That was the best rock 'n' roll I've heard in years. I loved the sense of humor in his music."

Power pop does not mean pap, even though the songs are short, catchy, cunningly melodic, modeled after--and sometimes gently mocking--prime Top 40 material. The lyrics can really sap you with a sudden, gleeful surprise. One of Lowe's best tunes, Marie Provost, sounds like an innocuous remembrance of a faded silent-screen star until the first chorus comes up. Then the sweet little ditty becomes a carbolic valentine to an actress who died destitute in a cheap hotel and whose pet dachshund dined on her undiscovered remains. "She was a winner," Lowe sings, "then she became the doggie's dinner." Lowe has also turned out a jumpy, ironic paean to the Bay City Rollers, and one of Edmunds' best numbers, written with Lowe, is an unabashed celebration of healthy hedonism, called Here Comes the Weekend.

Lowe has contempt for most of rock's superacts, running from Elton John, Rod Stewart and Grace Slick of Jefferson Starship ("She's like somebody's mom who's had a few too many drinks at a cocktail party") to megagroups like Kansas, Emerson, Lake and Palmer, and Yes ("Impotent music. They've got about as much to do with rock 'n' roll as Walter Cronkite"). He is impatient with the power-pop designation. "They say I'm the whiz kid of the three-minute single, but I'm not," he insists. "I've done all that cult-hero stuff. It's just a lot of bearded liberals examining every lick that you do." Adds Edmunds: "Before the New Wave, everybody was taking the music much too seriously. There was no chance for the little guy who buys a guitar and starts a band. What we're doing is kids' music, really, just four-four time and good songs."

Tunes like Lowe's Music for Money, I Love the Sound of Breaking Glass and the Lowe-Edmunds Little Hitler have a jagged cutting edge, but the melodies slip them straight into the mainstream, where they are anchored by Edmunds' fire-wheel lead guitar, Lowe's bemused vocals and fast-breaking bass ("I'm never gonna win any awards for my playing"). The sound--straight, uncomplicated, meant to give you a quick hit of euphoria--has its roots in the defunct British group Brinsley Schwarz. Lowe put in a five-year stint with the Brinsleys, while Edmunds produced some of their songs.

Now Lowe and Edmunds are a little like an informal consortium, switching roles and swapping talents. Lowe produced the most recent Elvis Costello album, and has worked with the galvanic Graham Parker and the Rumour (a group made up of some Brinsley Schwarz refugees). Edmunds temporarily forsook his own production chores to back up Lowe on his tour of the colonies. "I would never go onstage with another lineup," Edmunds says. "I've got the best, and we're just starting out."

While Edmunds divides his time between London and his native Wales, Lowe, a self-described "big drug fan," lives in a two-bedroom London flat that he shares with Manager Jake Riviera, working up new and better versions of elaborate put-ons like originating and recording a "snuff rock" group called Alberto y los Trios Paranoias. "My vision," Lowe says, "is to tease people. I never make a stand, you know, never put my feet down. If I write a love song I'll al ways make fun of it to my friends. As a matter of fact, I'm sickeningly smug. It keeps me out of trouble."

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