THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, July 23, 1994 TAG: 9407230021
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E2 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Music Review
LENGTH: Medium: 57 lines
Harry Connick Jr., ``She'' (Columbia) - Harry Connick Jr. keeps topping himself.
As if building a reputation as a Sinatra successor with a watery mix of Mel Torme and Bobby Darin weren't enough, now the pompadoured heartthrob has gone for the funk.
Connick's new ``She'' finds the singer/pianist fronting a band of players from his hometown of New Orleans, including legendary Meters bass player George Porter Jr. Connick sings lyrics by writing partner Ramsey McLean that pack in every Crescent City cliche. The star comes off like a soulless Donald Fagen or Billy Joel on a Hurricane bender.
Connick has long been beyond embarrassment - remember his own lyrics on the album ``We Are in Love''?
But hearing the man who once dissed rappers appropriate hip-hop on ``Follow the Music,'' a two-part spoken paean to ``the groove,'' is the worst yet.
His attempts at blue-eyed soul (``Trouble'') and jump blues (``To Love the Language'') are so clumsy that they might someday end up anti-classics on the order of William Shatner's ``Mr. Tambourine Man.'' For now, they're simply bad. Not bad in the James Brown ``super bad'' sense. Bad in the oughta-be-a-law sense.
And of course there's his playing, which offers nothing you won't hear done more adeptly on any '70s Professor Longhair record. Connick takes the filigree of Longhair's but leaves behind the substance. Native son or not, he just can't get down with it.
- Rickey Wright
Dead on arrival
Dead Eye Dick, ``A Different Story'' (Ichiban) - New Orleans' alternative-rock scene has kicked up Dead Eye Dick, who have a solid airplay hit with ``New Age Girl'' a few weeks after the release of this debut album.
``New Age Girl'' may be the most irritating new song on modern-rock radio, outdistancing even Offspring's ``Come Out to Play (Keep 'Em Separated).'' Over a riff that sounds like a New Wave ``Munsters'' theme, singer/guitarist Caleb V. Guillotte lampoons a granola-set babe who ``don't eat meat, but she sure likes the bone.'' Ick. Unfunny.
That level of subtlety holds through most of the disc, though one or two numbers offer a bit more substance. ``Sentimental Crap'' comes closest to overcoming the band's sophomoric streak, limning the irresistibility of a bad relationship. But the record's smarminess makes numbers like ``Perfect Family'' and ``Molly'' insufferable.
- Rickey Wright MEMO: Dead Eye Dick with Nothingface, progressive. 9 p.m. Wednesday at the
Nsect Club, 1916 Armistead Ave., Hampton. Tickets: $1.96 and $4.96.
838-5463. by CNB