Page Two THE MICHIGAN DAILY Thursday, September 19, 1968 Page Two THE MICHIGAN DAILY music Procol Harum and a few words about rock Homecoming '68: Dionne and Cosby By LITTLE SHERRI FUNN Kids Expert I used to like going with some friends to one of the small places where there would be a light show of sorts, some relaxed people not too con- cerned with their image, and, most important, a loud band." A good, loud band. We would sit on the carpeted steps and sing/scream/jump to the music, letting the band know if we dug them and ex- pecting in return the best they had to offer. We respond- ed as honest people to what we knew to be honest music, and we -demanded that the band do the same. Result: creative, joyous music and the community cigarette. Audience and band getting to- gether and creating something new between them, which, after all, should be the ultimate goal of live rock performances. Point of Information: A band is as good as its audi- ence. But now, although the small places are still here and pay- ing rent, the old spirit is gone, and with it I fear, some of the momentum that has caused the last two years to be so in- credibly productive rockwise Point of Information Two: Monday night SRC and Procol Harum played at the Fifth Di- mension. Let's wait a minute' before we talk about the groups and spend some time on the audience. Overweight junior .high girls in Nehru blouses and ill-fitting mini-skirts. Sophomore boys shocking the hell out of the old man .with sideburns. Cali- fornia girls with creases in their striped pants. And zero, none, No reaction whatsoever to any- thing that went on onstage. Now I don't hate obnoxious kids, God knows, but I do ob- Dionne Warwick and Bill Cos- by will provide the big Homecom- ing, concert this year. But not together. For the first time, Homecoming will present two major concerts, adding a And after the football game a reception will be held in honor of Dr. Hazel Losh, recently re- tired astronomy professor and tra- ditional football supporter. * Thursday night performance to Universities Activities Center the traditional Saturday night af- workers add that "the increased fair. . seating capacity of the new Events Miss Warwick will be in concert Bldg., reaching upwards of 13,000 Thursday, Oct. 24, t h e opening seats, has m a d e it possible to day of Homecoming. Cosby will draw the big name entertainers appear Saturday, Oct. 26. Both who are scheduled to appear on concerts will be held in the new campus this fall." University Events Bldg.{ Uniersty vens Bdg.Entries for the Homecoming Homecoming will also offer a ' Enrest re doecoming Friday night budget special in the 1Queen contest are due Oct. 4 at good old Intramural Bldg. Two UAS headquarters in the League. local groups, The Fox and The Any housing unit, sorority or Byzantine Empire, will play for fraternity may enter a candidate the price of $.50 a head. The first round of judging will The weekend will of course in- be held Oct. 9. Semi-finals will lude the traditional parade, a be held Oct. 15. The queen and Homecoming Queen contest, Sat- her court will be chosen at final urday morning contests a n d selection Oct. 23. games, and the football game be- Tne queen will be crowned on tween t h e Michigan Wolverines Tnursday, Oct. 23 at the Events and the Minnesota Gophers for Bldg. concert. the much-coveted Little Brown Jug. Homecoming '68 will also fea- ture an expanded Alumni Rela- tions program. Fraternities a n d sororities will hold open housesA Saturday morning f o r returningDIAL8-6416 alumni. - "A SIZZLER -I FROM FRANCE-- -Daily-Eric PergeauxI Brooker, Fisher, and Trower 1, Audience 0 ject to what they're doing, to rock. They sit on the floor like cattle, looking impassively at the band. An occasional lass' enamored with her torso sways softly back and forth and a shaggy kid might nod his head but that's all the Image allows these days. No dancing. No re- sponse. No. reply., They clap a little after every song whether they liked it or not, whether it moved them or not, whether it meant anything to them or not. Stupid zombies. Result: the band gets by on quite a bit less than creative, joyous music and nobody cares. There is no rapport between audience and band, almost as if both are in a vacuum. Every- body smokes his own ciga- rette. The last time kids got out- ide of the music like that was n the pre-Beatle '60s and we were rewarded with pound for pound, disc for disc; some of the worst tripe ever put on, wax. And if the present trend of sitting and detachment con- tinues, (and I trust it shall), bad rock will happen again. (We've always had bad rock and always will. It's just when it sells so many millions of albums that I get angry.) Good rock is music that gets into you, music that cuts across records 338 golden Clapton seconds the lines of some of the things that you've been bothered with lately, and makes you happy, sad and want to move. It is movement. No movement, no rock. Movement, rock. To the groups now.kSRC usedJ to be called the Scot Richard Case and they're a local group with a recently released Capitol album under their collective belts. SRC is a prime example of a young, immature group searching desperately for a sound they can call their own. Aside from their shoddy vocal work and an occasional choppy lead guitar, their sound isn't that bad, it's just that they make you say, "So what?" They need a dominant per- sonality, a guiding light of some sort, a raison d'etre if they are to succeed musically. At present they sound like they're going off in half a dozen directions, none of them rela ted. But they are young, and ta- lented in an unpolished sort of manner, and they might make it yet. They did one really nice song called "Exile" which is also on their album, although there it was mixed atrociously. Procol Harum was the feat- ured act, of course and I can- not say enoughs about this grossly underrated, extremely talented group. First if all, they reproduce their sound very well on stage, making it all fit in as well as it does on their two superb al- bums. Their repertoire con- sisted of some album cuts, the best of which was "Shine on Brightly," title tune of their new A & M album, and an amazing version of the classic "Goin' Down Slow." The stupid audience greeted "Shine on Brightly" with as much enthusiasm as they ex- pended on SRC's worst effort. As musicians, Procol Harum is so competent and at ease with its material that I was re- minded of a group of old re- laxed session men recording a time-worn rock song in the con fines of a studio. But they're too deep for that. Gary Brooker of the murky voice and keyboard provides a focal point for the group. Only once before (Grace on "White Rabbit") have I ever heard a more perfect union between words and voice quality. Sitting quietly at the Ham- mond is Matthew Fisher, weav- ing the basic textures of sound for the group. Everybody else peeks out behind the organ work occasionally, but Matthew is always there. Robin Trower is on lead and he's, one of the top three rock guitarists I've ever heard live, along with Robbie Krieger and Jerry Gar- cia. Trower brings the drama to Procol Harum by' cutting across the keyboards' sweetness with his raging guitar. The Amboy Duakes might scream out their lead, but Trower's is pure rage. B. J. Wilson on drums is a very "right's musician and com- plements the group well. The bass player is adequate, but I don't know who he was. As a whole, Procol Iarum leaves no tipges around the ed- ges of theit sound. They make everything they do count heav- ily for them. In spite of the emotions and subjects their' music deals with, they remain tasteful, a rarity these days. I must mention Keith Reid, Procol Harum's lyricist and the only composer who learned Bob Dylan's lesson of Highway 61 and Blonde on Blonde. They are a murky, half-light group. Murky, half-light. Listen to their stuff at 3:00 in the morning. Sonny Bono has been known to cook his famous spaghetti dinner for guys who drop in at his and Cher's lovely sub- urban home outside L.A. Save some for us, eh, Sonny? The thing that bugs Don and the Goodtimes the most is being compared to Paul Revere and the Raiders. Not good enough for you, Don? Ralph of the fab Happen- ings, hopes to play Hamlet someday. Forget it Ralph-you stink. NATIONAL GENERAL CORPORATION , FOX EASTERN THEATRES FOX8 V0LL 56E 375 No. MAPLE RD.-"769-1300 HELD OVER Mon.-Fri.-7:00, 9:00 Sat.-Sun.-1 :45, 3:30, 5:15, 7:00, 9:00 2 Centuryfx presents DEBORAH KERR0 DAI I YEN A KAN-HARPER PRODUCTION -Color by Be Luxe STARTS WEDNESDAY "PETULIA" Something To Swap? Try Daily Classifieds 3020 Washtenaw, Ph. 434+.1782 Between Ypsilanti & Ann Arbor SHOW TIMES Wed., Sat., Sun, 1:15, 4:00, 6:45, 9:15 Mon., Tues., Thurs., Fri., 7:00, 9:15I Also--Ride The Surf on Our Special Surfing Thriller WET & WILD Paramount Pictures Presen. A William Castle PRODU Roseary. Technicolor A Paramount Picture itI /s pRADLEY 7.MG POR WILL BETHE MOST TALKED-ABOUT MOVIE AROUND!" WINS By W. REXFORD BENOIT Really, if you've got any bread to spend for music you should walk up to the MC5 and put it in their hands, because they're pretty good and work- ed hard to get that way. Even though they often bru- talize the ears. Or if that idea doesn't do anything to you, you could go to the record store instead and buy "An Anthology of British Blues." Of you could study or go to the movies, or go to sleep. Or embrace life. But if you bought "Antholo- gy" you would probably enjoy 338 golden seconds of Eric Clapton playing the way he played before the Free Press immortalized him as the "cre- ative genius" of the Cream. Mick Jagger plays harp be- hind Claptoh and that rates an historical footnote. And it's edifying to know that Jagger was playing music before Baby Jane Holzer, Tom Wolfe's woman of the year about 30 years ago in the early '60's, said his fat lips really turned her on. You would probably also en- joy John Mayall's Bluesbreak- ers playing two Mayall origin- als, particularly if you're tired of heavy music and you think the Vanilla Fudge sounds like a funeral band. The other people on "An- thology" are just other people. They play solidly; but aren't very inventive. Mayall's piano player really knows how to do it, and the bassist behind Clapton's three solos plays like he listened to Chuck Berry a lot. You all re- member Chuck Berry, don't you? Ask for his new record next time you go to the store. It's timely and beautiful. So, if 40 violins and a brass section in rock make you want to baroque, return to the simple days whon, blues were blues with John ayall, Eric Clapton and a kid named Jagger on "Anthology" produced 'by the Immediate recording company. * * * Part of reviewing records for The Daily is that you get to keep what you write about. So with that in mind,. I volun- teered to listen to singer Gor- don Alexander's "Gordon's Buster." Gordon's gimmick is that he sings each syllable of all the lyrics one syllable to a beat. The result is dope-rock for cocktail lounges, or dope-rock for people who like to march, take your choice. Where else but on Columbia records could you hear songs like "Thinking in Indian Again" (catch the internal rhythme?), and lyrics like "That is Miss Mary from the library/She's go my mind circling/I look at 'her my heart turns inward/ Gossamer crystal bell rings."? A huge paragraph in the notes titled "Credit where credit is due" tells us who "helped bring a Gordon Alexander from St. Louis, Mo., to a wide audience." There are "show biz helpers" like Tiny Tim,' and "down- homers" like "Jo, Mary Lynn, Tish, Chris, Ron, Desiree, How- ard, and Rick . . ."-49 names in all.' Gordon's autobiography is also in the notes. It says cryp- tically that he was born "Dec. 10, 1941, St. Louis, Mo.; Died: Dec. 15, 1962, St. Louis, Mo.; Born: Dec. 16, 1962, St. Louis, Mo." IVant tot ethoSandpopers!. They 're coming with The' Bob Hope, Shw SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 21 8:30 P.M. University Events Building Ticket price $3.00 Ticket Sales in the lobby of the SA.. pnd at the door on performance night Presented by Michigan Fraternities and Sororities I T- -iw -I F-1 SHOWS AT 1:30 & 7:30 TICKETS AVAILABLE AT In new seen spIendor..The most magntkent ief are ever! N :x- DAVID B 8E12NICKSp,,oo rnsnzr, Mirf Icrrts A1(i ~lWinner o0"0" '.1MU&LUL~jLL.cademyAwards VIVIEN~tIfl{II I v 4LESLIERIOWWABDOLIVIAdeV MIN IN PERSON BELAFONTE BLOCK SALES September 18 and 19 GENERAL SALES September 20-25 Lobby SAB THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 26 ..-8:30 P.M... . University Special Events Building my ,: I The -hanging was the best shoW in town. But they made two mistakes. They hung the wrong man and they didn't finish the job. U Phone 434-0130 Friday and Saturday Eves. and All Day Sunday $250 2 miles south of Washtenow on Carpenter Rd. All Other Performances. $200 '' I I r sCARPENTER RD BOX OFFICE OPEN 7:00 WALTER MATTHAU THE SECRET LIFE OF AN AMERICAN WIFE -. color by DeLuxe SMAi. I I I . 20th CEiIURY-fpX ... IPAULNEWMAN I "HOMBRI ,,,,CEuRx I ..e S. THE MICHIGAN BANDS Take Great Pride in Presenting JOHNNY CARSON, IN PERSON with Doc Severinson and Orchestra Marilyn Maye Bud and Cece Dance Team in 2 Shows at 7:00 and 10:00 P.M. A LEONARD FREEMAN PRODUCTION coa, ng E:EaE INGER STEVENS-PAT MINGLE as Judge Fenton 2nd WEEK! frogram Information Dial jTAE SHOWS AT 1:00-3:00 5:05-7:10 0 .0n A k- L~ - '~7 , - uT~-7v - - 'ill1 I I