AUGUST PARNELL GETS EVEN WITH EVERYBODY

On a hot Wednesday evening I'm playing flick-yer-bic with the dial on my television, you know: flick-Three's Company-flick-Masterpiece Theatre-flick-Merv Griffin-flick-Hill Street...back-up a minute. What's Merv saying? "One of the hottest new rock 'n' roll bands in the world today." Who could that be? Styx? Quarterflash? "Performing their latest hit single 'I'm A Wonderful Thing, Baby.'" KID CREOLE AND THE COCONUTS!! And there is August Darnell, barely a week after I spoke with him for this very magazine, looking sexy and sharp and dapper and, as part and parcel of his Kid Creole personality, thoroughly arrogant and, ahem, cocksure (like he knows what girls like). And there is his wife Adriana with the two other Coconuts, doing knee-bends and leg twirls like Joan Of Arc dancing as they fasten her to the stake. And Andy Hernandez, good vibes impersonating an energetic jumping bean. And the sounds of new r&b, body talk as subtle funk fun, classy, sassy, and filled with biting wit.

There are three morals to this introduction: l)If you've got a gold single/album in Britain it's easier to get on the Merv Griffin Show then if you haven't. 2)If you are forced—as August Darnell was— to make race music (his term not mine), make it this good and the compromise might be worthwhile. 3)Kid Creole and the Coconuts are better aural/visual entertainment than nine-tenths of the clutter considered prime time.