American prayer

There will always be a poem
I will climb on top of it and come
In and out of time,
Cocking my head to the side slightly,
As I finish shaking, melting then
Into its body, its soft skin

--Jim Carroll, "Poem"
Jim Carroll is such an interesting cultural figure that it''s not easy to think about his work without being lured to distraction by the legendary biography behind it. Such was the case when The Jim Carroll Band burst onto the scene in 1980 with its debut LP Catholic Boy, and the unlikely hit "People Who Died." Reporters swarmed like flies after the lanky New York poet, hoping to get the deep dish on a story ripe with the smell of rock mythology.
Other intriguing 1980s translations include "Hold Back the Dream" by The Subverts, "Black Romance" by Rockula, and "Voices" by The 440s. The Subverts'' maniacally paced cover of "Hold Back the Dream" conjures Wall of Voodoo''s Stan Ridgeway on a meth binge, and exposes the paranoid chaos lurking behind the dirge of the original. Meanwhile, three covers dutifully take us into the X Zone.

Rockula''s "Black Romance" recreates the historic rock marriage of X and The Doors: Geeta Dalal and Wayne Hamilton righteously and riotously intone John Doe and Exene''sExene�s discordant harmonies over Manzarek-inflected farfisa fingerings. The Wild Gift sound emerges again on The 440''s "Voices," taking full advantage of the lyrics'' portrayal of a series of borderline psychos to play on X�s own borderline psychopathology. Here the West Coast reference is especially apt, as the original version of "Voices" appeared in the LA-set movie Turf Turf and received airplay there as the single from the JCB�s last record, 1983�s I Write Your Name. It''s one of PYTttR''s small miracles that the 440�s manage to translate the original, which is so dated, so utterly Big-Pop-80s, and so strangled in skinny ties, into the present.