friday, October 2, 1981
page 12
daily nebraskan
Snakefinger lauches tour in search of America
By Pat Higgins
Phillip "Snakefinger" Latham is best known as an asso
ciate of the mysterious Residents, a strange, artistic band
that exists on the fringes of pop music. Snakefinger (the
band) played at the Drumstick Wednesday night on the
beginning of their U.S. tour.
i'm searching for America," said Latham. "I like this
place. This is the real America, not like New York or
LA."
Snakefinger has two albums out on Ralph Records that
have gained considerable critical acclaim and the band is
surprisingly accessible live, as the jammed dance floor and
enthusiastic crowd could attest.
"New music is to rock and roll as rock and roll was to
jazz in the early '50s. You take the best elements of rock
and roll and build on it," Latham said.
Snakefinger's style has frequently been compared to
Captain Beefheart and other esoteric favorites. But he be
gan his career with Chilli Willi and the Red Hot Peppers in
England in the early "70s. That band also included Nick
Lowe, and future members of Elvis Costello's and Graham
Parker's bands.
"That band was more fun than it was musically impor
tant," Latham said. -
"Although a lot of people think it was the daddy of
punk because of the attitude involved, which was a kick in
the face to the music biz attitude. Dinosaur rock ruled
then and we rejected it."
He moved from London the San Francisco several
years ago to pursue his association with The Residents,
which consisted of guitar contributions on several records.
"Everything dead is very popular in San Francisco. It's
a small town for me after London, which is partially why
I like living there," Latham said. "The Residents are as
good as medicine for me, although it's not good tor my
career. They're the gift of life and the kiss of death at the
same time."
"The Residents are very clever. I would put them in
the genius category although they aren't pretentious.
They don't go around quoting Nietzsiche. I write some of
my material with them. I think that our records have
changed things somewhat, but it is frustrating that they
don't sell more," Latham siad.
Snakefinger just finished a tour of Europe with Tuxe
domoon, another Ralph Records band.
"Europe was fantastic. I'm generally on the left side of
society and it was interesting to see how political kids are
in Italy, Germany and Holland. There is a political bite to
my lyrics, but there is no slogans and lectures included,"
he said.
Despite the summer of riots in England, Latham said
English kids weren't politically motivated.
"The riots happened because everything is very miser
able in England. There just isn't enough money to go
around. It's a desperate situation," Latham said.
England has been the trendsetter for the world musical
ly since The Beatles, but Latham said there had been some
misconceptions.
"There are a lot of Anglophiles in the UJS. who think
that English music is always superior, which is not true.
The English are fed up with having things stuffed down
their throats. The music press there is so fashionably
fascistic," he said.
Latham said new music's future is unclear. "If any
thing, music is moving to the right. In New York, people
would rather go to a rockabilly discos than listen to new
music. However, I'm not dependent on security for my
sanity.
"I just try to do my job well just like your farmers
out here enjoy doing their jobs well." he said. "I just want
to be getting through to more people whoU hopefully en
courage me to go even more beserk."
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Photo by Mark Billingsley
Phillip "Snakefinger" Latham
The Unreasoning Mask' rehashes space theme
By David Wood
Like most good heroes piloting Earth's proud starships,
Captain Ramstan carries on his enigmatic shoulders the
fate of humanity - if not the universe and more. He must
boldly go where no man has gone before.
It's a dull, typical plot Philip Jose Farmer picked for
his latest so-called thriller, The Unreasoning Mask.X self
less brute barnstorms across terrified worlds and gets him
self in a David vs. Goliath fix. The book ends saying Ram
stan has a 75 percent chance for success.
just check to see if it's explosive. Not only that, they can
smell things outside the ship as if they're cruising space
with the top down.
Another time, the ship makes a 360-degree backward
turn. Sure it's science fiction, but why not 180 degrees
and save a little credence?
The Unreasoning Mask is a perfect description for the
slipshod contrivances by which Farmer moves his plot.
Farmer has good ideas, but he's a hack. His writing at"
times reads like a first draft. The beginning and end of the
book seem to have never met.
Logical integrity seems to stand for no more than
maintaining interchangeability with a Star Mrs-like sus
pension of disbelief. That Farmer is repected in his genre
doesn't speak so well of the author as it speaks ill of sci
ence fiction.
0 0 0
Change, romance found at Mini Mat
The variation on the old theme is that space is short of
the final frontier. Space is only the body of God and it is
to the mind of God that Ramstan's rescue mission takes
him.
The mystical license this gives the author is surely in
tentional. Farmer treasures his flights into the unreal.
In the early '70s when he was an up-and-coming au
thor, Farmer was notorious for injecting drugs into his
stories. Since then, he has drifted out of that theme and
into a vague belief in mystical determinism.
In The Unreasoning Mask, psychedelia is reduced to
asides - titillating glimpses and false leads no more rele
vant to the plot than, say, the sex teased into Star Trek.
The godhead Ramstan seeks is no illusion.
Farmer supposes God is the inventory of all things, an
almighty born of the Big Bang. It is awakening, dimly
aware as a whole, but ignorant of the goings-on of Its
parts.
Farmer has God at odds with the intelligence that
sometimes springs up on Its planets. Humans mature fas
ter than a solitary God and invent fancy stardrives to poke
shortcuts through space. They are the divine cancer, kill
ing God in Its prime.
Even though the idea is good or maybe because it is
good - the story falters. Farmer fails to pull off the cos
mjc epic he attempted to write in 293. pages.
His characters are blurry his focus off-center. Leads
are false, scenes misproportioned and justifications
skewed. Inconsistences are cleaned up after they're
spilled. Premises are hopelessly gerrymandered to fit his
needs.
When Farmer should be turning words to address reason
able doubts he instead writes about the roots of alien
words, quantifying trivial dimensions or bringing up some
thing else only to drop it later.
Anachronisms don't slow him down either. He sticks
keyholes in the doors Ramstan needs to spy through. He
even puts the ether back in space. Ancient science is oddly
rnixed up with the hi-tech.'
" For instance, rather than analyzing a foreign gas to find
out if it's toxic isotopic or infectious, Ramstan and crew
Thursday night - laundry night. My clothes from the
bathroom and some scattered about my apartment floor
are pulling themselves across the carpet towards the clo
set; the closet where the laundry bag awaits with open
strings.
A few severe casualties cross the floor and head in the
opposite direction. They make their way to the kitchen
and lie whimpering and whining at the foot of the garbage
can, "Please . . . let us iiin . . ."
Go wM us
I gather up my laundry bag, grab an apple, one text
book - get in some studying - and head for the Mini Mat.
They call it a Mini Mat because there are about eight
washing machines along one wall, four dryers along ano
ther and two chairs by the front door.
As I arrive, a medium framed, gray-haired figure with a ,
"day's growth" pulls his head out of an empty dryer. He
smiles. It's Gene.
"Hi Marru . , . you got change for a dollar?"
I reach into my pocket full of quarters and dimes.
"Sure do."
"Can I have it?"
I smile, "Here you are Gene."
He smiles, bigger this time, and makes his way out into
the night.
I look into several machines and check for cleanliness.
Someone forgot their car mat. I decide to use the three at
the south end.
I put my clothes in the machines, (crazy I know) sit
down and open my text book. Several minutes pass. A
couple comes in; they too put their clothes in the washing
machines and then the girl sits on the washing machine
and they start to make out. I mean they're all of 4 feet
from me, I look up and this girl is consuming this guy's
ear ... I feel stupid. What am I supposed to do? Act like
they're not there?
I think maybe 1 should go ahead and ask 'em for some
dimes. Maybe put their clothes in the dryer. I sit there. I
can't concentrate on my studies, so, I read my detergent
box - for twenty minutes I read the detergent box - All
is putting out an all new low -suds formula. I read the back
of this guy's shirt. It said "Rod." My clothes finally spun
out.
Well this girl is sitting on my machine. I put the quar
ters in it and she's sitting on it. Sooooo I go up and tap
Rod on the shoulder and say, "Excuse my Rod, if you
take Honey off my machine I could put my clothes in the
dryer."
I mean I could understand it; washers and dryers have
always brought the animal out in me. Sometimes I do my
laundry three times a week; sometimes I offer to do my
sister's laundry, or the people who live up-stairs.
Rod and Honey move to the last washing machine on
the north side and continue to exhaust each other.
I sit down to study. The glass door slowly opens . . .
"HiMarni."
"Vera."
Vera is an older woman with a lot of spirit and just a
pinch on caution. She is always at the laundry mat . . . lint
between her fingers, fuzz on the tip of her blue curls and
pieces of Bounce and Cling-free stuck to her clothes.
"Gene been in?"
"Yea, you just missed him. He went that way."
"You have change for a dollar?"
"No, but Gene does."
"He went that way?"
"Yea."
"Is that your apple?"
"Yea."
aS"eS r big 1 8ivc her my aPPfe- She too disap
pears into the night. The dryer buzzer goes off, I fold my
to study PU m my knaPsack and head home
