Arts & Entertainment
Courtesy of Forced Exposure
Flaming Lips
Doctors’ Mob, Flaming Lips fire up stage
By Brian Wood
Staff Reporter
If the psychedelic revolution is
* coming back to life, the Flaming
Lips arc leading the way to the new
era of strange. The Lips may not
have been the headline band, but
their style, delivery and overall
• stage presence left the listeners’
minds baking in their skulls. The
headline band, Doctors’ Mob, had it
all together, but after the Lips left
the stage, the crowd lost all interest.
The Lips look the stage in their
mid-’60s flowcr-child clothes,
cranked up their light show and
blared out a screaming version of
the tail end of Led Zeppelin’s
“Whole Lotta Love,” which in
stantly submerged the crowd into
the sub-levels of their own minds.
“We went right to it,” said the
band’s bassist, Mike Ivins, “and we
did the best part (of the song), too.”
Trying to explain the exact style
of their music is difficult. It had a
ragged ’60s tone, the ’70s style of
hard-hitting Deep Purple hard rock,
’80s hard-core skatc-thrash sound.
There is no way to actually pin a
classification on them, but much
can be interpreted from the name
“Flaming Lips.”
“It sounds weird, and it’s time
less,” said Ivins, which is probably
the best way to describe this Mid
western phenomenon.
The headline band Doctors’ Mob
based most of its show on the total
effort and energy of the perform
ance. Their music was not as enter
taining as the Lips’, but the band
displayed the feeling of the music
with great intensity. The Mob pul
110 percent into their show, and the
audience put in zero. The Omaha
crowds have never been good, but
this crowd insulted both bands with
total lack of appreciation. Doctors’
Mob, however, played at a constant
level of intensity despite the lack of
interest shown by the alleged fans.
“We like Omaha. The people
here have been some of the nicest
people to us,’’ said Glenn Benav
ides, the Mob’s drummer. 1 cer
tainly hope the rudeness of the audi
ence has not changed their opinion.
At the end of the show, about 15
people were left in the audience, but
Doctors’ Mob came off the stage
looking semi-satisfied. If either
band comes to this area again, it is
much worth the effort to sec the
show, the whole show.
‘Spoke song’ to
open at Playhouse
The Lincoln Community Play
house, w ith the support of the Ne
braska Arts Council, announces the
opening of “Spokcsong” by Stewart
Parker, with music by Jimmy Ken
nedy and ly rics by Stewart Parker at
8 p.m. Thursday. Performances will
continue at 8 p.m. Friday and Satur
day, Wednesday through Sunday
Feb. 10 -14, and Wednesday through
Saturday, Feb. 17 - 20. The Playhouse
w ill stage a 2:30 p.m. matinees on
performance Sundays.
Aulhorand lyricist Stewart Parker
was born in Belfast, Northern Ire
land, which is also the setting lor
“Spokcsong.” The play premiered at
the 1975 Dublin Theatre Festival and
opened in London the follow ing y ear
where it earned an “Evening Stan
dard” award, the equivalent of the
American Tony Award. Musician
Jimmy Kennedy, also a native ol
Ireland, has been a songw ritcr since
before World War I, and found suc
cess with such songs as “We’re
Gonna Hang Out The Washing on the
Siegfried Line” and “The Hokey
Pokey.”
“Spokesong” is directed by artis
tic director E. Mike Dobbins with
Jancnc Sheldon as music director and
Su/anne Schrcibcr acting as stage
manager. Sccnographer is C. M.
Zuby, with lighting design and tech
nical direction by Playhouse techni
cal director Tom Curtright.
Ticket prices for “Spokesong”
performances on Wednesday, Thurs
day and Sunday are SIO for adults and
S3 for youth 18 and under; for Friday
and Saturday performances, ticket
prices arc S12 for adults and S6 for
youth.
For opening weekend perform
antes only, students over 18 with a
valid, current student identification
card may purchase half-price tickets
at the door 30 minutes before the
performance.
To make reservations, please
contact the Lincoln Community
Playhouse box office at 489-9608,10
a.m. through 4 p.m. Monday through
Friday.
New ‘Creem’ rises to the top of music mags
$ ■ 1 ■■■■
Courtesy of Creem Magazine
By Geoff McMurtry
Senior Fdilor
Creem magazine is back.
After a mid-’80s hiatus amidst an
embarrassing period of mindless
chart-follow ing,complete with vacu
ous interviews of inane “stars” who
were usually on People’s cover the
same week (or the week before),
Creem is indeed back.
Before this little aberration, which
began circa late 1983, and was due in
no small part to the death of original
publisher Barry Kramer, Creem actu
ally may have deserved its billing as
“America’s Only Rock ‘N’ Roll
Magazine.” After a three month
lapse, Creem began publishing again.
It was at about this time that they
gradually changed into what can best
be described as a leather-and-chain
bound Tiger Beat.
Within months, cover subjects,
interviews, reviews, and editorial
outlook changed from “Johnny Rot
ten is God ” and “Who’s Really the
Clash: Strummer or Jones?” to “Ozzy
Osbourne Grows Up”and “Who’s the
Greatest Rock and Roll Band of All
Time: Motley Cruc or Rail?”
About a year and a half ago: after
Kramer’s wife sold the magazine to
Arnold Levitt, Creem moved its of
fices to Los Angeles, installed former
staffer John Kordosh as editor, and
began assembling most of the best
rock writers in the nation, including
many of the original and early Creem
writers.
Although Kordosh says some of
their former staff has “priced them
selves out of our range,” many of
them arc hack, and w rite for Creem,
usually reviews, as a sideline to other
jobs.
“A lot of the writers do feel a
certain loyalty to the magazine,” said
Kordosh. “As far as writing for other
magazines, if they can get rich doing
it, I’m all for it.” Creem Magazine
started out in Detroit in the late ’60s as
a vehicle for several young writers to
cover their local music scene. Well
known rock critics like “Nuggets”
author/compiler and Patti Smith
Group guitarist Lenny Kaye; “Blon
dic” biography author Lester Bangs;
former Rolling Stone contributing
editor, Creem co-founder, and per
sonal biographer to Bruce Spring
steen Dave Marsh; as well as Kor
dosh. All lived in Detroit at the time
and wrote about then-local bands like
Iggy Pop and the Stooges, Mitch
Ryder and the Detroit Wheels, and the
gloriously infamous and still-unde
scrvedly underground MC5. The
magazine was irreverent, exciting,
and, in the words of Kordosh, “radi
cally leftist.”
“It was much more political then,
in every sense of the word.” said
Kordosh.
When compared to what he secs
currently around him, Kordosh said,
“These U2 type of politics...I person
ally think...suck. To me that’s not the
same.” Comparatively, or perhaps,
consequently, Creem is “pretty apo
litical at this point.”
They gradually expanded their
coverage nationwide and beyond,
moved to New York, and became the
premiere rock magazine of the ’70s.
Among Cieem’s writers at that time
was local music godfather Charlie
Burton.
There are several rock magazines
currently on the horizon, (Rolling;
Stone, Spin, Musician, etc,) and
though all of the above have their
moments, the only one (other than
fanzines) with any real sense of what
they’re doing, or claim to be doing, is
Crccm. In fairness to everyone else,
Crccm could, just once, let go and
admit they don’t hate something even
if it’s liked by someone else, but even
that makes for much more interesting
reading than most of the offer ings ol
the competition.
Rolling Slone can get Carly Simon
and Paul Shaffer to sell subscriptions
in their commercials while they brag
about being on the culling edge ol
new music, even as they’re trying
their best to ensure everything they
review, feature, or profile is already
already in the Easy Listening Top40.
Spin, while being much closer to
reality than Stone, and having a
semblance of humor, still has trouble
deciding what the difference is be
tween unknown artists, deserved
obscurity and plain general incompe
tence.
Musician, of course, lists all the
latest in breakthrough fret design,
along with reams of paper filled with
analytical interviews of music store
employees who’vc played them all.
Rock ‘N’ Roll, man.
The most noticeable feature about
Crccm has always been its caldron
of-boiling-acid sense of humor. The
writers and editors obviously love,
live, and breathe rock music, but
would never lor a moment take it
See ’CREEM’ on 7