page 8 daily nebraskan thursday, december 4, 1980 flDflnn)ln)ti 'Dick Tracy' debut is impressive , entertaining TW1 i , 'l I " , . . ' . v 1' ; :.'. - --- !' mi ' . ; - in i'i", - 1 ? J "T iTV -.". x I By Pat Higgins Jaded rockers with a lust for kicks would be well advised to investigate "Dick Tracy," a hot new band that made its de but last weekend, opening for the Eyes in an impressively tight and entertaining per formance. "Dick Tracy" included former members of the Specs and Omaha's Rebates who were highly successful among the underage crowd. A key advantage for "Dick Tracy" profile .- s 1. r-tj' Photo by Mark Billingstey 'Dick Tracy's" lead singer, Sara Krovanda. is the group members' average age of 20, which seems to add a bit more youthful spirit to their show. "All the other bands around Lincoln have existed for centuries." said lead singer Sara Kovanda. "We're trying to do some thing fresh." "Dick Tracy performs tunes by the Pre tenders. X and Gang of Four, among others, who are the musicalpolitical avant garde of rock circa 1980. "1 lived in Los Angeles for a while and seeing bands like X and the Reillos really knocked me out," Kovanda explained. She is 20 and has been performing professional ly for the last three years. She initially was singing with an FM Top 40 outfit that toured the Midwest ball room circuit at venues similar to the Royal Grove. "Then I started listening to Llvis Costello and David Bowie and it totally changed my attitude towards music," Kovanda said. Star quality Kovanda has star quality onstage as she prances around like a young Mick Jagger while belting out effective vocals. The band members share the spotlight fairly well due to their instrumental competence and their unusual hairstyles. Nonetheless, Kovanda is the center of attention. "I'm definitely into visuals and I really enjoy acting crazy onstage. I used to play keyboards but I enjoy the freedom of mov ing around while I sing." Kovanda said. She is visual, too, sporting a spiky red hairstyle and Carnaby Street miniskirt onstage. "I'm really interested in clothes and fashion as part of music. They're a very important part of it," Kovanda said. "I think that miniskirts are going to be the next trend." In the last couple of years women have been more prominent in rock, particularly among Fnglish New Wave bands. "Women in rock is a big thing now. Both men and women seem to enjoy the change. I'd like to play guitar sometimes but it seems like every girl in the world is playing guitar now." Kovanda said. Assertive woman Kovanda makes the creative decisions and the band agreed that she runs the show. "These guys all play their instruments so well that it's amazing." Kovanda said. "We all get along very well personally and musically. My previous band got rather weird for a while. I think they were threat ened by an assertive woman. Besides that, they like to play a lot of gross music that I hated. "I get along a lot better with the men in bands when I wear pants instead of a dress. But I am trying to do something new and unique. Women are usually either sex sym bols like Debbie Harry or Fat Benatar or else they are one of the boys like Chrissie Hynde. I'm trying to do something differ ent," Kovanda said. "Dick Tracy" plans to take a break from performing for the next month while working up more original material. "We wanted to see what kind of a re ception we would get and we're quite pleased. We think we can attract a lot of people," Kovanda said, adding, "I'll try anything once as long as it's tasteful." Steely Ban 's 'Gaucho 5 continues their svelte style By Casey McCabe Steely DanGaucjoMCA (iaucho is musically precise, lyrically up to Steely Dan's high standards, and flaw lessly produced by Gary Katz. While all this adds up to be another sub stantial notch in the belt of these faceless superstars, listening to the album some times produces a feeling similar to what would happen if you went to a Woody Allen movie and found out he was well- , o uu reuien adjusted. You're happy that the artist is growing old more gracefully, but you kind of miss indulging in their foibles. Gaucho continues to hone the svelte jazz-influenced standards Walter Becker and Donald Fagen pursued on their sixth (and ironically their "breakthrough") album, Aa. Steely Dan was one of the few truly innovative bands of the 70s, incorporating a bit of jazz into their curious blend of dissonant musical lines and odd rhythms. Cynical both musically and lyrically, Becker and Fagen often proved they could rock, as well as confuse the critics. When Aja hit the stands in 1977, the more mature version of Steely Dan was wildly successful, causing a new apprecia tion that took their previous five albums off the discount racks and turned them gold. With the release of Gaucho more than three years later. Steely Dan was a guaran teed profit-maker for the first time in their career. The Dan has done nothing to jeopardize such status, though they have never been a band to mold themselves around the quali ties of popular accessibility. The public has come to them, and that is one of Steely Dan's most admirable feats. Still, through the course of Aja. and now Gaucho, it's apparent they've out grown the type of rock'n'roll that surfaced on such past works as "Black Friday." "Bodhisatva" and "Night by Night." Nor is there anything with the grandiose strength of "Rose Darling," or "The Royal Scam." They also don't play anything quite as weird as "Charlie Freak" or "Throw Back the Little Ones" from Pretzel Logic and Katv Lied respectively. This is too bad, for despite the fact that Gaucho is a particularly fine album, it sets up a paradox for Steely Dan. If one was to let the smooth flowing arrangements and silky female backing vocalists cloud over the words that Donald Fagen is singing (which isn't hard to do), one would be under the mistaken impression that Becker and Fagen had made their peace with the world . In past work, their penchant for cynically-bizarre lyrical circumstances was glaring ly punctuated by the music, to make one neat state-of-the-art package of alienation. The same package could change in form and function several times over the course of an album. Gaucho is composed by the same two guys who gave us such cheery, optimistic tunes as "Any World (That I'm Welcome To)" and "Don't Take Me Alive" and though the package is more comfortable to swallow, they still retain an air of tongue-in-cheek cynicism. Now the listen er doesn't have to feel as unhealthy for en joying it. The lyrics are enjoyable too, much like abstract art. You may not know what something means, but you still know what you like. Two of the best on Gaucho are "Babylon Sisters" and "My Rival," finely crafted tunes about tentative love affairs and misplaced machismo. At times they take on the tone of a cheap detective novel: '7 struck a match against the door Of A nthony 's Bar and Grill I was the whining stranger A fool in love With time to kill" From "My Rival" Continued on Page 9 - i71 sleety dan f - 3 t 0: n: f 1.. i i ; - - -4 1