The Lounge Lizards

On this breathless debut, the Lounge Lizards demonstrated that jazz was as wild and exciting as anything then exploding out of NYC's punk scene. This news may have come as a shock to the band's young boho fanbase, but that doesn't negate the quality of music on this platter.

John Lurie has a real gift for night-crawling high-kitsch themes, but to hear him improvise alongside Arto Lindsay is to learn how hard it is to make music out of noise. After all, it's the precisely timed cut-'em-up verve with which Arto skronks and gweezes into the themes that gives the Lizards their edge. But for some reason--weak takes? rushed mix? Lurie's sense of posterity? vanity, perhaps?--he's all but inaudible on many cuts here. Result: Slaughter on Tenth Avenue Goes to the Mudd Club--fun, but not the real fake. (Grade - B+)