Monday, May 4,1987
Wendy O. Williams
Queen of sleaze returns
Wendy 's back in town
to saw at Royal Grove
From Staff Reports
She's back. Yes, Wendy O. Williams,
rock's reigning queen of sleaze, returns
to Lincoln Tuesday night at the Royal
Grove. Tickets are $6 and are
available at Dirt Cheap and Pickles.
Tickets are $8 the day of the show.
Don't miss this dominatrix of the
decibels. Get out and see the Evel
Knievel of rock strut her heavy-metal
mama stuff.
If you don't know much about this
goddess of the gutter, here's a listing of
all the things she's done in chronologi
cal order:
1) Won local talent contest and made
performing debut on the "Howdy Doody
Show" at age 6.
2) Age 14 Won a scholarship to
Eastman School of Music.
3) Ran away from home at age 16.
4) During the next few years:
a) worked as a macrobiotic cook in
London and Amsterdam.
b) danced with gypsy dance troupe
throughout Europe.
c) worked as a lifeguard in Florida.
d) lived in a tent in Boulder, Colo.
e) worked as a dominatrix in live sex
show in New York.
f) studied with a mystic guru in
Himalayas.
5) 1978 created legendary shock
rock group Plasmatics with systems
designer and conceptual artist (Yale
MFA holder) Rod Swenson.
6) Concert banned in London by Greater
London Council.
7) 1979 drove a car loaded with
explosives into exploding stage at end
of show on Pier 62 NYC in front of
15,000 people (live coverage by all
networks).
8) World Domination Tour.
9) 1980-81 On TV shows: "SCTV,"
"Fridays," "Solid Gold," "Entertain
ment Tonight" and many others.
10) Arrested in Milwaukee on obscen
ity charges. Two days later, arrested on
same charges in Cleveland. Refusing to
plea bargain, both went to trial and
Wendy won.
11) 1982 blew up car on "Tom
Snyder Show," New York, and blew up
Mercedes on "Musikladen" TV show,
Germany.
12) Made People Magazine's "Best
Dressed List."
13) Recorded' speed-metal cover of
(9
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Courtesy of Agency For The Performing Arts
Tammy Wynette's "Stand By Your Man"
with Lemmy Kilmister from UK's notor
ious Motorhead.
14) Drove school bus through two walls
of 100 televisions for video premiered
on MTV.
15) Released first Wendy O. Williams
album without the Plasmatics name. It
was produced by Gene Simmons of
Kiss.
16) Transferred from moving car to
rope" ladder hanging from airplane
(without a safety harness) before car,
went over cliff for video of "It's My
Life." On cover "Vegetarian Times."
17) Opened in live stage version of
"Rocky Horror Show" starring Wendy
O. Williams in St. Louis, Mo. The show
became the longest-running show in St.
Louis in 25 years.
18) Malcolm Dome of Kerrang! picked
Williams' album as best album of the
year.
19) 1985 nominated for Grammy
Award as Best Female Rock Vocal Per
formance of The Year.
20) February 1986 release of second
album under Wendy O. name, "Kom
mander of Kaos," On cover Whole Life
Times.
21) Chainsawed her way onto Joan Riv
er's Show. Performed two songs and
showed off new tattoo.
22) Prepared for release of most devas
tating album of all time, "Maggots: The
Record," the ninth anniversary Wendy
O. WilliamsPlasmatics album squirm
ing its way into the living rooms of the
world.
More Wendy O. Williams information:
The Plasmatics were put together as
the back-up band for WENDY O. in 1978
as the vehicle to rattle the cage of no
sweat, formularized corporate rock Y
roll. Wendy and the band made their
rock and roll debut at New York's
CBGB's in 1978 and soon were doing
four-night stands, two shows per night,
at the historic club to pack in the cult
of dedicated fans that quickly deve
loped. The first recorded single, "Butch
er Baby," featured the sound of a
chainsaw cutting through a guitar. This
has become one of Wendy O.'s most
famous trademarks. During the course
of the three albums and three EPs
released under the Plasmatics name,
more than 16 musicians alternately
played on the records and toured with
the band.
Daily Nebraskan
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Signal, listening area increase
KRNU, KZUM boost power
By Geoff McMurtry
Staff Reporter
Getting away from commercial radio
in Lincoln soon will be easier.
KZUM, Lincoln's public access sta
tion, and KRNU, the UNL station, both
have FCC permission to increase their
output. KRNU made the switch from 10
watts to 100 in January. KZUM will
increase from 10 watts to 1,500 in mid
May. KZUM was expected to raise its
power on April 24, but delays in equip
ment deliveries pushed the date back.
What this means to the listener is
that both stations will now be heard
clearly throughout Lincoln and in nearby
New York DJ Howard Stern earns acclaim for bigotry
I T ZUM radio DJ and Lincoln's one
1 and only celebrity socialist Ron
Kurtenbach has been syn
onymous with the word controversy in
the past two weeks all because he
used the "F" word after 10 p.m. and
affronted some liberals. (Abbie Hof
fman would never use such lan
guage!) But way up in the Big Apple, the
jaded ears of Manhattan have been lis
tening to a DJ who would probably
sound more at home in rural Nebraska
and makes Kurtenbach's case seem
tame.
Howard Stern. ,
Stern has been called the fascist
answer to Lenny Bruce, and eve
ryone from the new Fox-TV network to
"Grandpa Munster" Al Lewis has
been standing behind his infamous
gibes aimed at degrading blacks, Jews,
homosexuals and women.
With gems like "would you trust a
black surgeon to operate on your brain?"
he has been deified by a predominantly
straight, white, male adolescent aud
ience. The FCC has warned Stern and told
him to lay off the remarks, but his fans
are right behind him and concur with
his belief that it's his First Amendment
right to say whatever the f- he wants.
At Fox-TV, according to the Village
Voice, Stern is planning to do a pilot for
a weekly talk show. Last week, MTV
aired coverage of a Stern rally in New
York, where teen-age headbanger boys
and Grandpa Munster stood and intoned
"F-- the FCC" for America to see on the
airwaves. MTV DJ Mark Goodman
smiled with amusement as he read cue
cards about Saint Stern, the bad-boy
broadcaster of working-class cult sta
tus. Suddenly hatred had become hip.
T
he Voice reported that the FCC
enlarged its scope of taboo to
include "patently offensive ref
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irjury. The attach :s c:.v "l t Lr
fractured his eIx!! er.i tin a
cut abiive Lis cyz.
Lcn-n v.a aJ.r.itttd to Lir.rcln
areas. Rick Alloway, KRNU station
manager and faculty adviser, said 10
watts could be picked up, in theory, all
over Lincoln, but some areas didn't
receive the signal or got weak recep
tion. The power increase eliminates
those problems and stretches the lis
tening radius 20 to 30 miles out of
town.
Increasing KZUM's wattage from 10
to 1,500 watts will give it a strong, clear
signal that is expected to cover Lan
caster County, said P.T. Martin, KZUM
program director. Geography makes it
difficult to tell how far the signal will
reach, but, she said, KZUM hopes to be
heard as far as Crete.
erences to sex or excretory organs."
Voice columnist Richard Goldstein
wrote, "The complaints that inspired
this policy shift came not from civil
rights groups, whose entreaties on
behalf of the Fairness Doctrine have
gone unheeded by the FCC, but from
fundamentalist ministers."
Part of the controversy lies in the
fact that Stern was only warned by the
FCC, but it told the Justice Depart
ment to pursue criminal charges against
KPFK, the Pacifica station that aired a
segment from "Jerker," an explicit off
off Broadway play about safe sex.
Harrah's
Hollywood
i by icott
Harrah
it's easy to understand Stern's apo
theosis. The white teen-age male is an
appalling breed and a grotesquely
paradoxical one. Fueled by suburban
values about machismo, males reach
the age of 16, cruise O Street looking
for nookie, and whenever they can't
find any, go on a quest looking to kick
some "nigger or faggot" ass. Perhaps
they've found an outlet in Stern, a rebel
who says all the things they would get
detention slips for if they decided to
mutter them in study hall.
We have to remember that when
we're talking about the teen
age male, we have to overlook
all sense of logic. After all, these are
the people who pride themselves on all
the virtues they learned from Boy Scouts
and Little League. When they see Eon
Jovi's "Wanted Dead or Alive" video
on MTV, they shout cries of "kick ass"
when Jon brushes back his tresses,
I. .
Page 15
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raided ty articles in the I.ir,c In
ftar, the Lincoln Journal and the
Daily Ncbrc!cr.n.
Drady Wicheck, nanr.:-r cf Ches
terfield's, could net be reached Lr
Along with the increases, both sta
tions will broadcast in stereo. KRNU
switched in January.
These increases in power will expand
the stations' listening area, but not by
as much as it would seem. Increasing
KRNU's output from 10 watts to 100, for
example, will not increase the area by
10 times.
It will give a stronger signal, and will
make the signal easier to pick up. Even
with the power increases, KZUM and
KRNU still won't have as strong a signal
as commercial stations, such as Z-92
which has a 100,000-watt output, Mar
tin said.
race
squints his heavily lined, mascara
caked eyes, strokes his Spandex crotch
and croons, "I'm a cowboy" like a
fashion model on a testosterone binge.
Now that's what I call a real American
man.
But the real question is: Is Stern
truly a rebel or merely a mouthpiece for
ignorance and white male supremacy?
And why is he getting offers for talk
shows and rallies endorsed by celebri
ties? (If you can call Grandpa Munster
a star.) Or perhaps he's just an insin
cere right-wing poseur like the Weekly
World News' Ed Anger, dripping with
shock value all in the name of sick
humor.
Stern has the constitutional right to
say what he wants as long as he uses
nicer words, and he'll probably gain an
even larger cult following than he
already has if he goes prime time,
nationwide, simply because he's offen
sive enough to get attention. Coopera
tion and time will tell.
"The game is always to see how close
he comes to a line that can never be
seen," Goldstein wrote. "(A)nd if that
means he has to use the word homo
sexual instead of fag on Letterman, the
bad boy is infinitely cooperative."
We should not censor Stern's
views idiocy needs to be
exposed even when it is blat
antly put on for press. If we follow the
old Jean Genet creed that says crime
is beauty and the Warholesque belief
that publicity is virtuous, we can dis
miss Stern as a picayune tool of media
hype. What's more unsettling is the
fact that Stern merely reinforces and
romanticizes attitudes that existed
long before he came into the limelight.
As Stern makes his brand cf fascism
fashionable, perhaps the public will be
forced to take an inventory of these
values and see them for the social mal
adies they are.