Real Life Top Ten

(The Village Voice, June 2, 1987)

1. The Mad Peck: Mad Peck Studios—A Twenty-Year Retrospective (Doubleday).* The adventures of a band of comic-strip rock critics whose watchword is “It doesn't mean a thing if it ain't headed straight to cut-out heaven” (typical subjects include Donny Iris, the Idolmaker soundtrack, and the second Human Sexual Response LP), this picks up where Richard Meltzer's The Aesthetics of Rock left off. Best concept: the “Inflatable Meat Loaf Love Doll.” Best plot: faced with skyrocketing doo-wop prices, a former member of the Five Royal-Keys hijacks a plane to come up with the money to buy a copy of his own 45.

* Mad Peck Studios—A Twenty-Year Retrospective, by The Mad Peck with additional dialogue by Robert A. Hull and Mike Macrone, Doubleday, 1987.