Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen

Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen

Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen, "Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen, " Warner Bros. BS2487

This new album is just perfect, and is probably great news for the local recording scene here in southeastern Michigan. Commander Cody, or George Frayne if you want to be technical, is really part of a conglomerate band that includes members of vintage Ann Arbor/Detroit groups like Billy C and the Sunshine and the Seventh Seal. So it really is some local boys made good, since the release of the album on their new label, Warner Bros., already guarantees it's a hot item.

There's a single out already doing well, entitled "Don't Let Go," and it's just right for these trying times. It's nice to know that just about the entire album is as good as that, and some parts are even better. No clunkers, just a lot of good American rockabilly.

And the LP is a great deal, too. It contains eleven songs instead of ten, very little jive and lots of boogie in various basements around the country, including Hawaii, Calafolkie, US 23, and Telegraph on the corner of 1-94. So stay awake at the wheel, lay down your devils and dance to rockers like Boogie Man Boogie, the album's definitive big production number, backed by Tower of Power horns and miles and miles of keyboard experience.

The Airmen now include drummer Lance Dickerson, bassist Buffalo Bruce Barlow, and, of course, Commander Frayne on the eighty-eights. This steady state rhythm section never sounded better than now, and it is still swinging behind the likes of fiddler saxophonist Andy Stein. He and guitarist John Tichy flit capriciously from West Coast, solid soul to Jumaican boogie, then over to Hawaii and back again for a jump and boogie arrangement of the aforementioned "Don't Let Go," a semi-obscured hit from the fifties. The style these guys are stilt hammering out is as fresh as anything on the new country market and beyond. That market, thankfully, is a whole lot of people, and the band is a mature one.

There are great tunes, both new and old, just a few gimmicks, and it all works beautifully. Especially the sound . . . probably Nashville's most important criterion for releasing so-called "new product." A special hats off to Mike Richards for his continued song-writing ... we really are all black holes in space, Mike . . . don't stop now and don't let go.

So buy a record player, already ; or at least this record; and try TV once in awhile too. It will use up a little more energy and help keep prices somewhere. Hooray for big production numbers, East Bay Grease, Jamaican Jamaicans, Flash Cordon, and the Lost Planet Airmen. 1 just want to know when you're all gonna fly over Huron High School and land next door again. They got a good bar downstairs, l hear. And don't forget to keep the dirt off your laser lenses, man. Those dragons on the cover look pissed off. Do you think we can cut it down to stun power now? All I can say is, keep rollin' with it. We all still love you.

-Jim Dulzo

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