Thurs. Oct. 27

Once a Strangler, always a Strangler? Not exactly. The Stranglers lead singer-guitarist Hugh Cornwell has carved out a sharp, interesting career after the sut finally set on the English punk band. (There were numerous incarnations, spats, addictions, fights, etc. Also, some of the best music of the late-'70s/early-'80s. They were of course knocked in their native Britain because these guys were a it older than the young punks thumbing their noses at the music world. I'd put their songs "Tank," "Golden Brown" and "No More Heroes" up against anything from the era.) But that's then. Cornwell survives and recently released a solo album "Hooverdam," which you can download free at www.hughcornwell.com. But he's doing what more than a few other acts from the day are doing these days: He's revisiting that early period of his notoriety, and for Cornwell that's album No. 1 and "Rattus Novegicas IV," which was Doors-y seductive, but vicious and, perhaps, misogynist. I asked Cornwell about this in 1977 when they came to America and I, writing for a long defucnt Maine music magazine called Sweet Potato, interviewed them in the Boylston Street offices of A&M.  (The record company was both excited and nervous about its first punk signing.) The four Strangers were great interviews. I remember asking Cornwell about the charges of misogyny and he answered, "Misogynists? We're misanthropes." (Great answer!) OK, I pressed on, what role do women play in your life? "We feel there are empty spaces in their lives that we can fill up," he said. Um ...
   Years later, when I was talking to a much more mellow Cornwell, I reminded him of that line. He groaned. "Did I say that?" Essentially, he issued a mea culpa.
   But the music, it stands and although Cornwell has released eight solo albums, he is revisiting that first Stranglers catalog as well as playing "Hooverdam" during a fall tour that stops at Church Thursday Oct. 27. In December Cornwell goes to Chicago to record a new disc with Steve Albini.

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