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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 28, 1986)
Tuesday, October 28, 1986 Daily Nebraskan Page 7 iris j i i.3. v W Si.,' .. fe u. W i : i it -M 11 1 1 45 "n T 9 J if f ' : r f ? aX JLLJL. U. LI i'J' iJ A Glass Eye Glass Eye returns Preview by Chris McCubbin Senior Reporter Austin's Glass Eye is one of the nicest bands you'll ever see. It com bines bar-band friendliness and ac cessibility with exacting musical Band Preview professionalism and an unwavering forward-looking musical aesthetic. The band will be at The Drumstick Wednesday. This is a band that really knows how-to play off its own contradic tions. Last June, after its last Drum , stick appearance, the band alter nated between almost post-punk aloofness and gonzo rock-show goof ing. They put out like crazy for a tiny crowd and they deserve a chance to see what a big Drumstick crowd can do. Their album "Huge" is as wond Semi-softened hardcore for the masses Can Angst save Music? Preview by Charles Lieurance Diversions Editor Progressive hardcore, huh? I guess that means it has a readily identifiable (accessible?) melody line, words that someone besides an anthro pologist can understand and, savior forbid, pop potential (that is, after the stigma wears off). You can sing along to it. If you're excited enough about it, Band Preview your parents might even admit it's not so bad. Angst, Husker Du's "Candy Apple Grey" LP and "Love is All Around" single (Mom peeks her head into your room: "Isn't that the theme from the "Mary Tyler Moore Show?'") are proto types. Hardcore so nice it's about a year away from MTV heavy rotation, the crystal clear airwaves of Z-92 and, nail me to a utilityhed, KFMQ Home of the Hits. What is it really, though? Well, it's a sellout. A pleasant sellout but a sellout nonetheless. It's music and musicians honest enough to grow a little older, a little more talented, a little more production-wise, a little more aware of their potential significance in the scheme of things and honest enought to shed the ephemeral "punk ethos" for the pure joy of being in a rock 'n' roll band. Bands like the Germs, Circle Jerks and Fear either tailspin into heavy metal or start sounding like pathetic jokes. Hardcore punk was about burnout, about one-upsmanship, about going faster and playing lousier V " V-; will play at the Drumstick Wednesday night. erfully contradictory as their live show. Sometimes their jagged, fun kish interplay between bass and guitar sounds like Gang of Four, sometimes it sounds like other stuff. Keyboards are like crabgrass let one into a band and pretty soon it's taken over everything, but somehow Glass Eye has learned to tame the keyboards. They're there on every song, providing sweeping background effects or a jangly, semi-tuned elect ric piano line, but they never take over the mix or slow the band's energy. But the best argument for Glass Eye's unconventionality is the band's songs. The best stuff is poetry. In songs like "Lake of The Moon," and the gorgeous, spooky "Maggie," ima ges shimmer for a moment with unearthly clarity and then vanish in the band's moody, evocative accom paniment. Then there's a song like "Mean," about the trials of working in the meat department of a super and more violently than the last band on stage. It was the American way. The Sex Pistols certainly had no monopoly on rebellion. That hardcore is pro duced with such a cowboyredneck mentality is its saving grace and its downfall. Because first and foremost, hardcore is stupid. It's unsalable. It's transient and undeniably brilliant within its very limited time frame. Hardcore has blown its wad. Atavistic hardcore? Now, there's progressive hardcore. A little like soft rock (which in radio lingo is what VH-1 and KHAT cater to, i.e. Whimps). The idea is that hardcore is atavistic, which it is, and that in order for it to be valid it has to calm down, soften its core, as it were. The bands who aspire to this term, who bucked off the term hardcore in favor of nomenclature more befitting their art-school backgrounds, are gen erally quite good. We see a lot of them at The Drumstick. Angst, who play at The Drumstick tonight, and bands like Angst (Husker Du for one) are no longer concerned with punk or punk politics or the "punk movement" whether it be hard core or old school, but with reinventing rock 'n' roll. By toning things down a few decibels, adding elements of folk music and pacing themselves temp wise, Angst and their peers manage to drag rock Y roll back to its origins as obnoxious junk with too much beat and soul and not enough control and, once again, open rock 'n' roll up to people who may not even know where the import rack is in their local record store. They confuse the issues. They ! I Courtesy of Stella Weir market. "I Don't Need Drugs (to be F Up)" is simultaneously the world's funniest AC-DC parody and a dead earnest statement about urban alien ation. This is not a band that's big on covers, but it does do the Cab Cal loway classic "Minnie The Moocher." Alternative meets Tin Pan Alley it should have happened a long time ago. And, no promises, but at their last Drumstick show the drum mer took center stage for the last song, showed us his boxer shorts and belted out "You Shook Me All Night Long." But the band only does that for special audiences. This is a good week to be rich and idle with all the great concerts in town and all the weekend parties. But if you're short on time and shor ter on cash, why not treat yourself to seomthing you've never heard before, Glass Eye. confuse alternative music, punk, Chuck Berry, James Brown, Pete Seeger and Dylan. They take them by the throat with gall and spirit. So critics can do little else but make silly suggestive comparisons. Hell, Angst's "Glad I'm not in Russia" is a folk song, fun and purposefully simple. It's also a parody, and that's its punk side. The sentiment is sincere, insincere, nonsensical and perfectly reasonable. Angst's "Never Going to Apologize" is a '60s garage band tune written and played in a way no '60s garage band could have played it. "This Gun's for You" is punk. But it's only punk in its tempo, attitude and its sloppiness. It is also pop verse, cho rus, verse, chorus a melody straight from Tin Pan Alley. Angst the Savior In the New World these New Bands will stir things around enough that there won't need to be college charts and import racks anymore. It will seem silly to have to wait five months for Rolling Stone magazine to review the new Meat Puppets, Angst, Saccharine Trust or Leaving, Trains LPs. It will seem odd to the pointed toward one rack to get your Fetchin' Bones album and another to get your X album. In the end rock 'n' roll will defy its categories as it always does at its best. You'll call some thing punk and your friends won't know if you're talking about a greaser, a skinhead, a light for your firecracker, a gay person or a juvenile delinquent. The bands like Angst will have done their job and saved the music from its apparent limitations. You'll thank them then. Angst will be at The Drumstick Thursday. i 3 ? By Kim E. Karloff Staff Reporter ' Zoe Caldwell has j ?J Kefca and Surah rrnkir-J.!,, (";..; !. , ; : Colette. Tonight it-c actrcrsfl.iyscc! " . 'k. ;.-.r','t r Li"; v,Y. ' : : If f?-xi worv:s cri r 7 i - .thtiSp.'aFrrc.rr-.r.:';'!!:.:- ,4 I memorable and tony, c-tertnir; and teaching The one-woman Acrz ty Wi'lum Luce is based on Hc!!oi; aii r,;.--:u !:s in "An UnHnbhcJ V-." V "I n Uncnto" end "Scorju'ri 1 Tine." ( The cficn-ccr.trcVvT'jLI :'-alaU VWir-u? 5Uwt pldjaad vi- rcn's Ileur," "The Unh Foxr.'.," "V-V.tch on the Chir-j" ard "Tcva in tSi-3 Attli" Shs die! h If. I. HUlhn miTzzn rr::ri ccr.'r.:' v.:.5vcr!:ed d:r:t!.- 'x, V.r - f ? 1 . '. . Cu.t Ci 01 1 she waits, she talks al I "D:," : recallirj their stcnr.y, tt;;Lr .v. together. She reminisces about h:r childhood in New Orleans anl of her friends, former fm-rtds ar.d a f,,v r.ollywood people. - v ' , , ' n. r '- " ' i'- ' appearance before the Kcu o l..- cr;:.cru:::i-i iir: -n u - . CiA ' v Spy ""-JjC X. in;i the McCarthy era. IteUman ap- peared before the coramitteti end : to;k the Fifth Amendment against f? c 1 fi r.cri m i n at i on, fr-ayiii-j the r.c.v f '.;ous line, "I car.net and will net cut my conscience to fit this year's Ildhtan was not a politico per--. r:z, iut &t& ha;l tlmnz bulkti, a i i:cr::.r.a!ltv. L'rvf r, Ca! Jr.cll has said, MUI- .V..:: was tee&L!y fentiniac. Ilsr faal was a very femir.ine soul z?d r.::.:.rcML,'.':.ioncj. . . . ZUs .:3a ' r: :--asi::v.:s v.xrr.r.n z::3 gooJ vilh r.;;,r.:tSii Jv,:ihvvor;:cn. . . she 3 'as very much a TM.1' : Ar. J so it was, in part, IIcllmEn's "J ;pp fernir.irity," a trait not cftca a::;sociated with the feisty, outspoken author, that attracted 52-year-old C. V.veil to the fby. ; . Caldwell's husband, Broadway rrcdiscer and director Robert White lzt dircct$",LiS'ian.Mi." :;: ; Iho husband anj wife tea:ti have . t,. :!:;ad tUThcA:-- - ' vJtlv-htr:hf"7iiy.v:':l :f . 1 -; . - ' t -, .- ; '-n5 ' . ' - : '' ' ' ' ' . , .- ' t , ... , ;...--v, v: 4 ' i - - ! - - - a t.ti: '': i!ii:I.ic'3fi;li.mfealIH aa T. ttr ; v tsf between 1 1 a.m. z: A 5 p.m. Tickets ?re $15 and $11 for the pallic and half-price for UNL stu- I :i j ly Kit Voorhces, will tei.i .; p.3.). i-i Wfsitn-.'k 1 V c -:.i c:.r;i "u;;.a