Recorded Music Reviews of new releases from Tom Waits, Robbie Williams and Kissing Book.   Lines & Color Kissing Book (Magic Marker Records) Of related interest: The Housemartins, Belle and Sebastian, Galaxie 500 Kissing Book, Dressy Bessy, The All Girl Summer Fun Band, The Mosquitoes 17 Nautical Miles 4609 SE Woodstock Blvd., 771-2411 8:30 pm Wednesday, May 12 Cover Music fans who grew up thinking of Gershwin, Glenn Miller and Cole Porter as pop stars found the Beatles too noisy. Imagine how they felt when the Led Zeps and Bad Companys of the world occupied radio dials in the '70s, signaling a loud, distorted trend in popular music that continued through the first half of this decade with groups like Nirvana and Soundgarden. Big-band listeners can take comfort now, though, as more and more new pop players turn down their amps, loosing horns and strings. From Oscar nominee Elliot Smith to up-and-comers like New York's Ladybug Transistor, young musicians appear increasingly concerned with harmonies, arrangements and sounding pretty. Call it alt-contemporary. With the first plaintive plucks of the guitar on its CD opener "On the Third Time," Portland's Kissing Book throws its hat into this inchoate ring. Putting clarinet, saxophone, organ and upright bass to good effect, this group pulls off lines that would be too cute in the wrong hands. Whistling and hand claps enhance the frolicking good time of "Sad City." Some of the lyrics melt cold hearts: "Hold your head up little girl, don't be scared off by the world/and all its bitterness because, everyone's just like you and/everyone needs friends." If this effort is any indication, Kissing Book intends to "hey, hey, hey" the world into a better place. In some small way, it already has. Mac Montandon   The Ego Has Landed Robbie Williams (Capitol) Of related interest: Tom Jones, The Spice Girls, James Bond soundtracks When Willamette Week sound mogul John Graham mocked me for liking this record, he asked whether I'd be after the coveted Bros reunion story next. Just because Robbie Williams' manly mug has attained Stalinesque ubiquity in the U.K., it doesn't mean he's as vacuous as those all-blond Thatcher-era bubble gummers. In fact, I advise anyone who's enough of a geek to have heard of Bros (this means you, John) to chase down this stateside break-out effort. Yeah, much of this brand of pop is manufactured, more the creation of heavy-handed producers than of the attractive faces on the album covers. But Williams is a genuinely charismatic entertainer with joyously catchy tunes. The Ego Has Landed, a combination of his two European records, is sugary divinity. Amongst sweeping hooks and sing-a-long choruses, it's got sarcasm, weepy sentiment, good times and righteous bravado--all the elements of timeless pop. The Ego is a summer afternoon with iced mochas and pixie sticks, cotton-candy clouds and warm rain. If I play it for John, I guarantee you his feet will be dancing under his desk. Jamie S. Rich   Mule Variations Tom Waits (Epitaph) Of related interest: Kurt Weill, Latin Playboys, Captain Beefheart Propelled by a sound that's equal parts gravelly lounge singer, deranged Beat hobo poet and Kurt Weill-like impresario, Tom Waits' vision of drifters, sad lovers and down-on-their-luck barflies is one of the most distinct in American music. Mule Variations, his Epitaph Records debut and first album in six years, is another generous helping of the signature Waits sound. The riotous junkyard fanfare returns on songs like "Black Market Baby," in which he sings, "She's whiskey in a teacup/She gives blondes a lousy name/She's a bonzai Aphrodite/And a ticket back to Spain." There are also countrified ballads, meant to be moaned at four in the morning from the porch of a decaying Southern shanty. But when Waits sings, "I've seen it all boys/been everywhere in the whole wide world/I hope my pony/knows the way back home," one can't help but wonder if his long hiatus has cooled the fire. Mule Variations is the work of a still-brilliant musician, but to loyal Waits fans who cut their teeth on classics like Rain Dogs and Swordfishtrombones, the album will feel like a second visit to a great museum: the impact is dulled by familiarity. Brian Libby - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Willamette Week | originally published May 12, 1999