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daily nebraskan
Wednesday, april 30,1980
Mm
siemn strives for indimduulity of hundwriting
By Bob Crisler
'What I'm going for is an American
music. I'm trying to sound like handwrit
ing," Charlie Burton said .
Burton, a native Lincolnite who has, in
recent years, made his mark in the music
press, has had music in his blood since
birth.
The Burton family moved to Lincoln in
the early 50s from the East Coast, where
his father had cultivated an interest in
classical music and his sister took up piano.
"Rock and roll was forbidden in the
house," Burton said. "My father first had a
classical show on KLMS and KFOR, but he
wasn't satisfied with the AM sound, so in
1957 he founded the first FM station in
the area-KFMQ," Burton said.
In 1963, at the grand opening of
Lincoln's TV Service Company, Burton
won a transistor radio.
"By that time, the local stations had
obliterated all memory of real rock 'n'
roll from the airwaves, so I got into finding
the real far-away stations. One night I was
listening to a station in Boston, and the DJ
said, "Here's a new record from England,
by a band called the Beatles," Burton said.
"It was cosmic. It got me hooked on rock
V roll." Burton's father sold KFMQ in the
early 60s and bought a harpsichord
factory, which Charlie inherited after his
father's death a few years later.
"At the time, there were people waiting
in line to get these things (harpsichords)
and there were musicians in Lincoln I
wanted to perform with, so I left Ann
Arbor and came back here," he said.
Sound influences diverse
Burton's distinctive sound developed
during the 1970s out of such diverse in
fluences as Gene Vincent, Otis Redding,
Chuck Berry, Skeets McDonald, Iggy Pop
and George Jones.
In 1977, Charlie Burton and Rock
Therapy was formed, and the first single,
Rock and Roll Behavior, was recorded.
A thousand 45s of the song were press
ed and Burton began sending copies to
critics nationwide.
The record showed up in print in New
York at No. 3 in the Village Voice Critic's
Poll.
"There it was, right under Elvis Costello
and Neil Young. God, it was a thrill," said
Burton.
That victory for the band led to a
January 1978 booking at CBGB's, then the
hottest rock club in New York. They drove
a 1966 Cadillac with a trailerful of equip
ment through three blizzards to make the
trip, and were rewarded with "one of the
most memorable nights we could have
picked," Burtons said.
There was an Italian film crew at
CBGB's, making a movie about the New
York New Wave. "All the stars were
there," Burton said, "Johnny Rotten,
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Photo by. Tom Gessner
"Without merica, there would be no Rock 'n' roll," says Lincoln rock musician
Charlie Bun in as he strikes up a Mansonesque pose.
Slimy being is core of 'Eraserhead'
By Jennifer Bauman
Henry and Mary are the parents of a
premature baby. Well, the hospital isn't
quite sure it's a baby. Henry's discovery
that Mary has given birth to this being, and
their attempts to care for it once it has
arrived, make up the narrative core of
Eraserhead.
mm reuEsrj
David Lynch wrote and directed Eraser
head in 1978 as his college thesis, in co
operation with the American Film Institute
Center for Advanced Film Studies. He also
did the special effects that make the film
the bizarre specimen that it is.
' The people in Eraserhead are all either
dull, weak and nondescript or they -are
scarred and infirm in some way. Henry is
the epitome of passiveness; he is so slow to
speak and act that it is unclear whether he
has his wits about him. Mary is much like
Henry, Furthermore, she shares with her
mother a strange motor coordination prob
lem in wliich she has to be occasionally
soothed out of spasms. Mary's father, with
a moronic grin, tells about the self-induced
paralysis in his arm.
Mary's and Henry's baby looks a little
like a premature Tyrannosaurus Rex, or
perhaps a turtle embryo.. It constantly
bleats like a baby goat. When Mary tries to
feed the creature, it forcefully spits the
food back at her. Its body is bound up in
bandages, which is probably just as well;
what we can see of it is all covered in slimy
mucous. This vulgar being is the ultimate
prospective parents' nightmare. Neverthe
less it is somehow pathetic in its apparent
helplessness.
Eraserhead is full of images of animal
and vegetable, matter. Some are wet and
fertile and others are dry and barren. Slimy
substances and mucous objects are abun
dant throughout the film. In some ways
they seem to function as symbols of fe
cundity, therefore contrasting directly with
opposing visions of decaying organic
matter and of deteriorating human life.
As Lynch creates his picture of life pro
cesses on earth, he tries to put it into the
context of the greater cosmic scheme. At
the beginning and end of Eraserhead, we
see a scaly demon in an abandoned ware
house pulling levers. Surrounding him is
the vagueness of cosmic infinity. Is this the
one in control? Neither Henry nor Mary
seems to be endowed with any destiny
shaping powers.
Eraserhead deals with the grotesque side
of fantasy and dreams, and with the night
marish aspects of consciously-experienced
events. It shows a vision of monstrosity in
everyday life and examines how the mun
dane can become grotesque. Or are the
mundane and the grotesque really the same
thing?
Asparagus, an animated short by Suzan
Pitt, is showing with Eraserhead. It is a
colorful, stream-of-consciousness fantasy
about asparagus in every aspect of the pro
tagonist's life: as food, as excrement, as
furniture, as phallic symbols, like Lynch's
film, it is highly imaginative and well-made.
The two films are interesting to compare in
terms of theme and handling.
- Eraserhead and Asparagus are showing
at the Sheldon Film Theater Friday
through Monday.
Cheetah Chrome, all of the big names.'
The band came back to Lincoln and
later that year recorded Guitar Case, which
was wildly successful critics' circles. By
that time, Mercury Records new-wave
subsidiary, Blank Records, had offered to
sign Burton and his band to its roster, next
to the likes of Pere Ubu and the Suicide
Commandos, but during negotiations,
Mercury cut off additional funds to Blank.
The band continued playing local
haunts like the Zoo Bar and the Howard
Street Tavern with occasional opening-act
engagements with bands such as the Talk
ing Heads and the Ramones.
In 1979, the band continued its annual
tradition and released its third 45, Mobile,
Alabama, and the flip, Dead Giveaway, on
their independent label, Wild Records. The
May, 1980 Trouser Press reacted to the
record in unseemly fashion. The critique
reads:
"If they rock like this in Nebraska,
imagine what must go on in South Dakota!
Instead of nostalgic vibes offered by lot
of modem-day rockabilly, both sides here
are timeless roofblowers. The Buzzcocks
should sound this hot."
It is this kind of criticism that makes
Burton's 45s sell. 'The best kind of
publicity is free publicity," Burton said.
Remote control fame
Burton sells his records by mail order
from a Lincoln post office box.
"For trying to become famous by
remote control, I've been moderately
successful," he said. Burton's harpsichord
business requires that he stay in Lincoln.
Stressing that he has not jumped on the
trendy New Wave bandwagon, Burton said,
"11m no Johnny -come -lately. In all
modesty, I've always had a New Wave
attitude. I've always liked Iggy and MC-5."
"I read somewhere "What's a New Wave
band? It's the only band in town that
doesn't know how to play 'Stairway to
Heaven.' "
Burton hasn't performed publicly since
the old band brought in the New Year at
Lohmeier's Drumstick. Butch Berman,
Rock Therapy's lead guitarist, informed
Burton the day after Christmas that New
Year's would be his last show with the
band. Nevertheless, Burton plans to put
out another 45 with an as-yet-unnamed
backup band before the year is out.
"I don't think I've got any laurels to
rest on. I'm off to a good start, but if I
don't do something soon, I'm going to let
myself down. I don't want to end up being
a footnote."
Student's play
opens tonight
at Studio 12
By Debra L. Miller
Shower Me With Blessings, an original
one-act play by UNL theater graduate stu
dent R. Scott Lank, will open tonight at
8 pjn. in the Studio 12 facility at Kozer
Hall.
The production, sponsored by the Ne
braska Masquers organization, is directed
by theater graduate student Don Renaud,
director of La Turista earlier this semester.
The play explores "the destruction of a
family unit by shifting devotions and relig
ious ideas," Lank said.
The plot concerns a crisis in the lives of
three women. A tragic car accident 16
years in the past which unhinged tjie mind
of the mother and deeply affected her two
daughters has ultimately led to a crisis of
relationships over the four-day period
covered in the play.
Lank stresses that the play is a "work in
progress." The script began over a year ago,
growing out of an Advanced Playwriting
course, has been rewritten several times,
and has continued to evolve throughout
the rehearsal process.
Director Renaud said the emphasis of
the production is on the actresses and the
rehearsal process that has been used.
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