daily nebraskan
Wednesday, September 2, 1981
Guitar gun should go back to what he does best
page 8
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By Pat Higgins
Sad to say but Dave Davies of the Kinks has released a
solo Lp called Glamour that is almost completely worth
less. Davies can be considered to hold the same role with
the Kinks as Brian Jones did with the Stones, in that it
wasn't totally obvious what exactly their contributions
were. But they had a certain aura of coolness that made
them cult favorites. Davies' chief claim to fame were those
fabulous guitar solos on the old Kinks hit singles like"You
Really Got Me" (not Eddie Van Halen, you young pups).
Also the Kinks have undergone a popular and critical re
surgence since they signed with Arista back in 1976, and
they have made some fine records since then.
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Glamour thus theoretically should be at least listen
able, but it is so bland that it is completely forgettable.
Glamour isn't even in the so bad that it's good category.
Unfortunately it is on the same level of hack professional
ism as Journey, Styx ad nauseum.
Dave Davies played all the instruments, wrote all the
songs and produced the record, so it is his exclusive re
sponsibility. He can't sing, the lyrics are completely vapid,
and even worse there isn't even any hot guitar.
Davies should return to brother Ray and Kinks and just
remain as a hired guitar gun and let someone else do the
thinking.
Dave Davies should have had a certain amount of cred
ibility but Glamour is just another piece of self indulge
ment corporate product on the level of the Top 10.
England's Top 10 however is a completely different
ballgame. Over there, a single called "We Don't Need This
Fascist Groove Thang" can rise to the top of the charts,
and presumably, the average kid sings along with the anti
fascist and anti-racist lyrics.
The riots that took place in England this summer may
be a harbinger of the future for that country, as they con
tinue their current monetarist economic policies whose
end result is very high levels of unemployment particular
ly among young people. "No future" sang the Sex Pis
tols once. Actually the various commentators and pundits
who were so surprised by the angry rumbles in the streets
need only have listened to songs like "London's Burning,"
by the Clash and the current No. 1 "Ghost Town" by the
Specials. Also, all those Rastamen weren't kidding around
when they were singing about uprising. This may be the
first revolution whose rhetoric comes from rock and roll.
"We Don't Need This Fascist Groove Thang" would
sound great in a disco. It's a dance song with a message.
The beat is strong enough to feel it physically hit the lis
tener. The singer sounds like Jim Morrison from beyond
the grave moaning out a call to arms.
Heaven 17 evolved out of the Human League, one of
the many post-punk bands in England that are virtually
impossible to keep up with in the United States. In Eng
land a band can come from nowhere and hit the top in a
matter of months whereas here the dinosaurs linger on
forever, becoming increasingly irrelevant.
Buy Heaven 17 or the Specials and get some revolution
that you can dance to.
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Photo courtesy of Nebraska State Fair
The Nebraska State Fair opens Friday, Sept. 4.
Highlighting opening day will be the Eddie Rabbitt
and Alabama concert at 8 p.m. at the Bob Devaney
Sports Center.
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Dave Davies
Photo courtesy of RCA records
High school situations sound familiar
to those who read Crowe's new book
By Casey McCabe
began to fascinate be, the idea of The Kids.
They were everywhere, standing on street comers in
their Lynyrd Skynyrd t-shirts, in cars, in the 7-Eleven.
Somehow this grand constituency controlled almost
every adult 's fate, yet no adult really knew what it was
nowadays - to be a kid.
It began to fascinate me, the idea of The Kids.
Cameron Crowe in the Preface.
Fast Times At Ridgemont jgiCameron Crowe 252 pgs.
The idea of returning to high school and observing all
its intricacies with the newfound perceptions gained by
graduation is a tempting journalistic practice.
ter will sound familiar: loss of virginity, failure to lose vir
ginity, fear of rejection, vanity, social ladders, gossip net
works, the strain of relationships and the curious transi
tion into the real world.
Book could read like fiction
Because Crowe chooses to disassociate himself with the
body of his findings, the book could easily read as fiction.
Like a very hip version of a Scholastic Book Service novel.
Actually any high school veteran could pick their brain
and find equally interesting anecdotes and personalities
from their experience.
Continued on Page 9
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But when thrown together by newspapers as a cute
human interest story, such attempts invariably fall into
cliches and preconceived notions. Fast Times At Ridge
mont High is an attempt to give credence to the art of
undercover adolescence.
Author Cameron Crowe had the tools for the project.
When he was the age of his California High School com
rades in the book, he was already an established writer
with the nation's most prestigious youth culture maga
zine, Rolling Stone.
Passes for high school student
In the fall of 1979, at the age of 22, Crowe still looked
youthful enough to pass unsuspected as a new student at
Ridgemont High School (Ridgemont, like all other names,
is a pseudonym to protect the innocent.)
Crowe's task might be likened to a form of journalistic
martyrdom. He attended Ridgemont as a full-fledged stu
dent both socially and scholastically. He took classes, ate
cafeteria lunch, went to dances and hung aroung with his
newfound friends at shopping malls, beach parties and fast
food restaurants. Once enveloped in his escape back to
adolescence, Crowe reports he had trouble growing up
upon return to adulthood.
But after revealing the background to the story, Cam
eron Crowe disappears for the entire length of Fast Times
... He becomes an omniscient force that chronicles the
growing pains of some of Ridgemont's most visible char
acters. For anyone who went to high school, the subject mat-
FAST
TIMES AT
RIDGEMONT
him
ATrueStory
by Cameron Crowe
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Book cover courtesy of Simon and Schuster
Cameron Gowe went back to high school to find the
source of Fast Times at Ridgemont High,