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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (March 15, 1978)
daily nebraskan Wednesday, march 15, 1978 Oorts and fTD ITm: Sk D ITD lfiIlllfllS Ad campaigns, not talent, create The Godz success page 12 A By Jeff Taebel Oh, to go back to the good old days! Back in the late '60s the rock music market still was wide open and a lot of fun to keep up with. Many record companies that focused mostly was on the classics or easy listening, turned 'their attention to rock, in hopes of getting a piece of the lucrative action. However, they didn't album always know quite how to go about it. There were stories of talent scouts hitting the bars, clubs and communes of San Francisco, L.A., New York, London and elsewhere, looking for a band with a distinctive, million-seller sound. Since they couldn't always predict what that sound would be, they did the next best thing by signing on bands en masse, reasoning that the law of averages would give them at least one hit group for their troubles. In those exciting times, the best way for a band to capture the attention of the record companies was to be innovative, exciting and outrageous. Although the wide-open atmosphere of this period pro duced a lot o'f bad music, it also allowed for many new and diverse styles to develop, such as psychedelia, heavy metal, British blues and other sounds that changed the course of rock. - However, the most important ingredient of those days is the one that seems to be missing today. Back then, the bands decid ed musical trends. Now, it seems as though that power is in the hands of the record companies. Rock n' roll is a big business and adver tisers manipulate the market with sci entific precision. Except in the case of a phenomenally talented artist (which is rare these days) the handling and promotion of a band seems to be much more important than how they play. As a matter of fact, being able to play at all doesn't seem to be a prerequisite for stardom. Consider the case of The Godz. Only a short time ago, they were one of the hottest bands in Columbus, Ohio, which is where they should have stayed. Now, their story sounds like something out of a promoter's dream. In their advertising pamphlet, A Parable of The Godz, the ad men ask the eternal question: "Is the need to rock n' roll imbedded deep within our subconscious mind? Just waiting for the right chord to awaken it? Have the Godz come to play that chord?" Judging from their debut album, The Godz, they are here to play that very chord, because it's the only one they know. The music on this album must be described as early garage band, the lyrics are mindless drivel and no individual song rises out of the mire long enough to deserve mention. Guitarist Mark Chat field uses every cliche in the book, three or four times for good measure, and drummer Glen Cata line plays in a childish fashion, varying his patterns' about as much as a grandfather clock. Guitarist Robert Hill and bassist Eric Moore play about as well as could be expected, considering the skills they have to work with. - The tunes on this album are all straight 0 ahead rock n' roll, just like the ad men tell you. You may have trouble distinguishing one song from the next, but if this doesn't bother you, the The Godz could be your kind of band. Another example of effective packaging is a group called Angel, currently touring the country with the Godz. Their fourth album, White Hot, has just been released to coincide with their tour. While The Godz are billed as hardrockin' bad boys, Angel is a "wholesome" band, presumably intended for a younger, but not necessarily less mature audience. They dress up in matching angel suits and they are SO cute! Guitarist Punky Meadows will certainly make you forget all about Davy Jones and exotic drummer Barry Brandt will surely have his picture pinned on the walls of many a teen. Ph, and for the listener who has every thing: the nice people who brought you Angel have also included a handy catalog and order form with the album. With the form and your personal check, you can Photo Courtesy of Casablanca Records join the rapidly growing Angel fan club, buy one or both available styles of Angel T-shirts or pick up a pin-up poster of your favorite member of the band. Presumably the strategy behind this hard rock hard-sell is that you 11 spend so much time with the album photos and paraphenernalia, that you won't get a chance to listen to the music. Annoying high-pitched vocals over droning guitars and synthesizers, pulsating to the omnipresent 44 beat set the tone for the album. The lyrics, when they can be deciphered, deal with the same banal love themes that dominate the AM air waves. To be fair, Angel's music is much more sophisticated than that of The Godz, but when you're dealing with bands of this caliber to choose between the lesser of two evils is pointless. Both of these releases represent brilliant merchandising efforts on the part of the record companies. They only forgot one thing: the music. 'Act io n Ne ws'ste ps as ide for Uncle Wa Iter a nd dog By Pete Mason Entertainment editor In television's infancy, the news was a very simple affair. In the late '40s and early '50s, the news consisted of a 15-minute na tional segment and a 15-minute local seg ment. There was one newscaster for each television segment and the camera never moved. For 15 minutes you just saw Douglas Edwards or John Cameron Swayze or Lowell Thomas-from the shoulders up. There was no fancy camera work, no visuals, and the newscaster did the voice over on filmed reports. There rarely was any on-the-spot coverage and when there was, there was no accompanying film. Early television news was handled as radio news had been for nearly 40 years. Then newsmen began to realize the im pact television news could have on the viewer. In short, they learned how to use the new medium. We have seen how television news has grown since those inauspicious beginnings. National coverage has been expanded to 30 minutes and so has local coverage. Techni cal advances like communication satellites and portable mini-cameras have afforded more immediate coverage. Immediacy always has been the major advantage of television news. And time limitations always have been the major disadvantages. It is the limitation of time which probably has guaranteed a future for newspapers. Resigned to the fact that television news never will be able to compete with news papers in the area of in-depth coverage, TV newsmen have had to compensate by inno vating -highlighting TV coverage's uniqueness. In the last few years Show Business has reared its, some would say, ugly head. Newscasting lost its business-like formality. Friendly banter began to be exchanged be tween newscasters. Sometimes it got out of hand. It wasn't difficult to see it coming. All you needed was a particularly funny line from a "co-anchorperson"and the rest of the newscast was in jeopardy. After a good laugh, the next story could go something like this: "Well, ha ha, thanks Fred, ha ha. . .In Philadelphia, grief stricken relatives. . Jia ha. . .waited for hours in freezing rain. . . while rescuers searched the charred remains . . .ha ha. . .of that 707 which crashed on take-off, carrying an entire troop of Brownies. . Jia ha ha. . . This isn't an exaggeration. Things like this really happened before producers took a jaundiced view of carrying casual ness too far. Specialization has become the new TV news byword. A single local newscast now boasts an anchorman (usually the senior newscaster), a co-anchor man (or person if female), a sportscaster, a weatherperson, and a roving reporter. One foresees the day when there will be a minority affairs ex pert, a business expert, a women's reporter, a light feature reporter, a consumer affairs reporter, an in-housc pollster, and on and on ad infinitum. It could become rather crowded. The news sets have changed consider ably since those early days. Douglas lid wards sat at a desk and read the news from a stack t papers. In the background could be heard the incessant chatter of the tele type machines. The sound probably was recorded and played for effect. Today the sets are elaborate. The long desks decorated with the station's logo, the colorful backgrounds, the huge screens on which are flashed the stills and films of the accompanying stories, the gimmicky weather maps, all create an aura of crisp authority and expertise. It isn't just "the news" anymore. It's Newswatch, Actum News, Eyewitness News. The shows open with a symphony of sound and visuals of heroic proportions. Production usually is tight and brisk. The viewer is treated to a company of fresh, cleanly scrubbed, leisure-and-jumpsuitcd players who, no matter what else, look good in living color. The news is one of the flashiest daily television shows going. It is interesting to imagine what tele vision news's next innovation will be. In the face of criticism of the show biz side of television reporting, producers, in order to win more credibility, may tone down the flashy aspects of the news. Perhaps a fireside chat type of format is in the offing. A newscaster would sit in his own, homey and cheery living room, his favorite dog at his fecc. The fire would crackle and in the background a cuckoo dock would be heard singing out the time. The camera would dolly in and Walter Cronkite, sitting in his favorite chair, would take a puff from his pipe, blow a lazy smoke ring, prop his feet up and in his most down-home voice intone, "Good evening, America. Welcome to the Fireside Report. ' It certainly would be a change from the driving, gimmick-filled news reports we're subject to today. After all, how can you doubt a man who likes dogs? Personally I'd like to sec Uncle Walter (or David or Harry) sitting in his slightly worn armchair, casually dressed, the wallpaper above the fireplace faded, perhaps peeling a bit. Now that's credibility!
