Diary Of A Rock Critic

Sunday—The best guitarist in the world is my brother, Fred Frith, who plays in the group Henry Cow. Henry Cow, as someone wrote a letter a few issues ago complaining, don't get much coverage in CREEM, not even from me. My reason for not writing about them has nothing to do with ethics; it's a matter of taste. Henry Cow are not a Rock Critic's group. They're cleverer and more articulate than we are and their fans are too, so we're redundant. For five years or so they've been playing complex, committed music without much recourse to the usual procedures of the music business and without any concern at all for the Rock Critic's obsession with pop phenomena and the ultimate expression of rock reality, whatever that might be. Last time I saw them, three years ago, the music was too hard for me to make the effort to respond and I didn't. Today they're playing a benefit for the Communist Party in the Battersea Town Hall and the place is packed with fervent, happy fans. The music is marvelous, passionate and witty, and afterwards my brother was surrounded by people wanting a chat and I still felt irrelevant. Went home.

Monday—Went to see Abba at the Albert Hall. Tickets are exorbitantly expensive and the audience is elderly show-biz, overdressed and loud. In the press seats I sit next to two cynical girls from one of the weeklies, who look about fifteen years old. I feel elderly too, but not very show-biz. Abba turn out to be amazingly successful at reproducing their records, mostly thanks to their elaborate line up—two. drummers, two synthesizers, three back-up singers to get those harmonies spot on . Abba sing a silly ditty about themselves, and put on a mini-opera, in which the girls slowly change down to their leotards. They come across, as ever, kids acting sexy rather than women being sexy, and it's hard to imagine that such a super group can be^so nervous. The crowd is respectful rather than enthusiastic. They were here, anyway, to admire money rather than music and are clearly disappointed that Abba don't come across like millionaires, but as folk-singers, doing their bit for Oxfam.