friday, October 24, 1980
page 12
daily nebraskan
Music, humor float from Harper Hall window
By Bob Crisler
The desire for fame has caught up with two UNL
undergraduates and prompted them to form the Alter
native Broadcasting Society.
Headquartered in Room 428 Harper Hall, the Society's
two partners in crime, Jay Gatz III and Dr. Caligari
Joness, "Broadcast" via soundwaves out of a neighbor's
window (The studio faces away from the courtyard).
"We got started one day when someone cranked up
their stereo and played REO Speedwagon's live album
continuously for three hours," Gatz said. Their broadcasts
include "our music the way you want it" (the ABS
slogan), banter between Joness and Gatz and pre-production
parodies of commercials.
Their commercials range from a "long distance is the
next best thing to being there" parody (a vacationer re
ceives a call and finds out that his business has gone bank
rupt, his wife has left him, he has been disowned and
aliens have stolen his dog) to a marvelously precise satire
on the Slim Whitman advertising genre. And this is the
innocuous stutt.
Material that could raise a Husker fan's ire is also un
flinchingly sent through their system. One commercial
cone erns the crime of the century, when a sidekick and
"spiritual advisor" named Allister Truffaut steals Memor
ial Stadium and demands 30,000 shoes and Tom Osborne
as ransom. Another publicizes Igor's Head Shop in the
East Stadium (Big Red bongs, pipes and a free screen just
for stopping by). Dr. Joness realizes that these ideas might
not be too popular with elder Nebraskans, but "Nebraska
football is taken way too seriously," he said.
Musically, the pair is oriented toward "fairly broad and
enjoyable" music in their shows, consisting of late sixties
and early seventies rock plus a sampling of Dcvo and the
Talking Heads. Joness confesses to once having a desire to
play a Sex Pistols record, but backed down at the last
minutes.
"We've got to be careful with that because we're kind
of force-feeding them. They can't turn it off," he said.
To get the sound out of the window, the ABS studio is
equipped with two microphones, reel to reel and cassette
tape equipment and a good-size mixing board, plus a key
board synthesizer that Joness (a music major) plays for
sound effects. The pair cites The Marx Brothers, Kurt
Vonnegut and Buster Keaton as their chief comedic influences.
Dr. Joness, who claims his major is demented
psychosis, started his performing career as a member of
the Fifth Avenue Comedy Workshop, doing their show
weekJy on Comedy Night at Oliver's Back Alley in
Omaha.
"I got down here and my creative outlet was just cut
off. Out of total luck Jay and I were assigned to the same
room, and this just sort of evolved," Joness said.
The two recently came up with an idea (yet to be test
ed) for a regular weekly skit. A play on the Starsky and
Hutch theme of machopolice, Belchski and Bruce con
cerns itself with a pair of partners in law that are kicked
off of the New York City police force and eventually find
their way into the open arms of a large midwestern uni
versity's force.
Joness sees more in his humor than meets the eye.
"Even with the Marx Brothers, there was something else
there-on a more cerebral level than its slapstick surface,
between the lines," Joness said.
Even if Dr. Galigari Joness and Jay Gatz never make
stardom, they consider themselves famous as soon as this
article is published. "This is just a small stepping stone to
greater things," said Joness
Photo by Kent Morgan Olsen
Fame -hungry undergraduates Dr. Caligari Joness, Jay Gantz III and sidekick, Dim pump parody and their brand of
music from a fourth floor Harper Hall window.
Laughtrack stays heavy on columnist's mind
A laughtrack. Of all of the sounds that stay in my
head; the sound of my mother saying, "No, not as long as
you live in my house," Gershwin songs on the piano, the
lyrics to "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch," my favorite
noise remains the laughtrack.
I don't mean the sounds of laughter from the modern
"videotaped before a live audience" sitcom with the in
evitable lone baritone voice thundering out its har-dee-hars
during the poignant (poignant? maybe less sopho
moric) part of One Day at a Time. I mean the true laugh
track, the canned giggles; not just canned, but hermetical
ly sealed, homogenized for your safety, no voice off cue
or too loud or even off key.
o
dark
A laughtrack has its advantages, and I should like to
lure, say, twenty or twenty-five people to walk around
town with me and laugh. I mean, if Lucille Ball can be
made to seem funny simply by dint of the sound of
laughter, imagine what it could do for the rest of us? The
humor does not create the laughter in sitcoms, rather, the
laughter creates and pinpoints what was intended to be
the joke. I can see a use for it, as those times when I am
not at my best, and have absolutely nothing funny to say.
I wouldn't have to; as long as my laughters did their bit, it
wouldn't matter what I said.
Maybe an example. Let's say that I have been to the
doctor, and he says that I have to have over $10,000
worth of surgery next month to remove each of the 25
tumors have acquired over the years. This news doesn't
put me in the best mood. But when I go home, everyone
is in high spirits, and I don't want to tell them my tale of
woe and bring down the mood. With the laughtrack,
there's no problem:
"Hi Pat, how's it going?"
"I have to spend a month in the hospital." (Light
chuckles come up from the background.)
"Hey that's great!" my roommate sayd. He's seen his
share of sitcoms before, and has learned that when you
hear the lightrack, all is well, no matter what message is
spoken.
"It's going to cost me $10,000." (The light chuckles
grow a little louder and prolonged.)
"Let's go have a beer and celebrate!" my roommate
says.
"My doctor says if I drink beer it will only aggravate
the problem and I run the risk of death." (The laughter
grows into a crescendo, with 15 of my 25 chuckling
champions rolling on the living room floor, scarcely able
to catch their breath.)
"Pat, you crack me up," my roommate says.
My hired voices could serve other functions, too. For
example, if a laughtrack, why not a crytrack? Too many
times I have come bounding into a room only to find it
full of donweast faces and funeral quiet. At such times, I
hate to ask what happened, because it starts everybody
crying again. With the crytrack. I could seem like part of
the group without having to know the problem.
Or maybe an applausctrack. Television sitcoms use the
applause track to signify the first appearance of a major
character, or the walkon of a recognied star in a cameo
role.
With my applausctrack, life would always seem like
stepping out from behind the curtain to talk to Johnny
Carson about my new movie. With the laughtrack, the cry
track, the applausctrack, my inherent dullness can be
glossed over, and 1, like those television stars from whom I
steal the idea, can be made to seem almost li.elikc.
KUCV to feature Beethoven
Radio station KUCV is having a "Beethoven Bash" Oct.
7.5 through Oct. 30. Beginning Saturday night.
Beethoven's works will be featured throughout each
broadcast day. A Beethoven piece will be heard hourly
nearly every hour of the day.
Running cunently with the Beethoven features arc
nightly "Bernstein-Beethoven Specials." Leonard Bern
stein conducts the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra in Bee
thoven's nine symphonies. These specials arc already
underway, with a different symphony broadcast each
night at 10, concluding with the Ninth (Choral) Symph
ony Oct. 31.
Hie Bernstein recordings were made in love concert
and released by Deutsche Grammaphon earlier this ear.
Bernstein's unique quality is in generating intensity in live
performance. This intensity is captured in the perfor
mances rising on KUCV during each special.
In addition to feature recorded works. KUCV will
broadcast a number of live mini-concerts during the week.
These will take place during the early evening hours.
On Wednesday at 5:30 pjn. KUCV will broadcast a
recording of the Nebraska Chamber Orchestra concert at
Union College duung the inauguration of its new presi
dent earlier this year. It features the world premiere of a
work by Lincoln resident Robert Walters, commissioned
especially for the occasion. The concert closes with Bee
thoyen's Fantasy in C Minor for Piano. Chorus and
Orchestra, Op. 80.
Though it does not include any works by Beethoven,
another special event takes place during the week. Hie
local broadcast of "Ceremonial Music for Royal
Occasions will be at 8.00 p.m. on Tuesday. This concert
recording was made ai the conclusion of ast season's
m April'"11" ' SriCS al HrSl ,lm,,ut, t'1'"
During the Beethoven Bash. KUCV u.ll be conducting
a new membership drive tor luuncal support f Lincoln
fine Arts Radio